Everybody to our analyst and investor earnings call for the first quarter of 2023. Today, we will have our CEO, Oliver Kaltner, and our new CFO, Mathias Dähn, presenting. As in previous sessions, all board members, including our COO, Udo Streller, will be available for any questions you may have during the Q&A session following this presentation. The presentation supporting this call was also uploaded to the investor relations section of our website, as well as the consolidated financial statements, which are included in our interim report. If you are not online or have access to the files at this time, you should still be able to follow the call. Ladies and gentlemen, today's presentation contains forward-looking statements regarding future developments, which are based on the information currently available to the company.
As a result of risks and uncertainties, actual outcomes may differ from the forward-looking statements made in this presentation. Cherry does not intend to update these forward-looking statements. Financial figures in this presentation may not add up due to rounding. Please take notice that this call will be recorded and a replay will be made available in the investor relations section of our website shortly. I hand over to our CEO, Oliver Kaltner. Oliver, please go ahead.
Thank you, Guy. Thank you, Kai. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. As you know, this is my first quarter as CFO as CEO of Cherry SE. Despite internal challenges and the ongoing tough market conditions, which will definitely continue to pose particular challenges for all companies in 2023, I remain fully convinced of the substance and the potential of the company. At Cherry SE, we want to be even more focused and better at our planning and workflow processes to convert the few from the market into growth into the market. As you know, this requires accurate work in detail and some time, as we have already managed in the first quarter. Operational excellence will be even more important than ever to return Cherry to a profitable growth path. Let me address some of the market challenges that we're currently facing.
As anticipated, the business environment continued to remain challenging in the first quarter, with higher interest rates dampening demand for consumer electronics and the impact of discounting as companies looked to reduce their inventory. It is important to note that against this backdrop, the Cherry performance in the first quarter was ahead of our internal budgets. While it is fundamentally disappointing to announce a loss for the period, it was expected, and we were ahead of internal projections, which include quarter-over-quarter growth versus the prior quarter. Accordingly, we are confident of achieving our targets for the entire fiscal year. I was always talking about management actions, so let me address some of these.
We have also initiated a range of operational excellence programs to improve our sales management, our forecasting and financial planning, and our cost structure, which already had a positive impact on our results in the quarter, and Cherry already gained market share in key segments. One aspect of this is the establishment of new strategic partnerships in the Switch business in the form of direct agreements with the so-called OEM manufacturers, as well as the use of new automatic assembly machines in Switch production from early summer. As stated before, we look at 2023 as being a transition year. We clearly see the current fiscal year as a year of transition. Against this background, we are confident of returning to profitability as early as the current second quarter. Over the medium term, we believe Cherry can deliver EBITDA margins of more than 20%.
During the first quarter, we have successfully implemented a range of operational excellence programs to improve our organizational processes, sales management, as I stated before, forecasting and financial planning, and the cost reduction and inventory. We are very pleased to report that during the first quarter of 2023, we have made substantial progress in laying the foundations for the successful transformation of Cherry, which we believe will deliver strong financial results in the future. Overall, the growth trends in esports and gaming, hybrid office workstations, and the digitization of the German healthcare sector represent strong growth opportunities for our business in the future. Looking at the different product segments. In the peripherals business unit, which represents our office products, we are 13.7% above the prior year quarter.
With the successful launch of our premium USB microphones, UM 3.0, UM 6.0 ADVANCED, and UM 9.0 PRO RGB, we have added a completely new category of products to our portfolio. With its attractive looks and sturdy metal three-legged stand design, the UM series has a broad range of uses in any gaming or office setup and provides professional sound quality in every situation. This product line receives 5 out of 5 rating stars on Amazon platforms in the vast majority of cases. In the gaming devices business unit, we were even 20%, 20%+6% compared to Q1 2022. In the context of the reports from other market participants, we are the company with growth results. As expected, first quarter sales figures for our eHealth terminals were down on the strong performance seen 1 year earlier.
We continue to assume that the health policy framework will provide better guidance for users in the course of the second half of the year regarding the use of the various TI applications. By the way, in April, we received approval from Gematik GmbH for our new Cherry PinPad, which, as a supplement to the ST-1506 eHealth card terminal, is aimed in particular at TI applications such as the electronic medication plan, emergency data management, and the electronic patient record. Internationalization is one of the key factors for our growth. In line with our growth strategy, we have begun to build inventory in preparation for our further internationalization of the business with finished goods, both gaming and peripherals, now in 30 markets in support of our Gaming Goes Global initiative, which is officially launched in the second quarter.
In addition to Germany and France, the most important strategic target markets for this are, in particular, the U.K. and the United States. In the peripherals business unit, we are also working rigorously on the further international expansion of our business and intend to open up additional European sales markets in the course of the current year, as well as systematically expanding our e-commerce business in Europe and the United States, where we are targeting growth of around 60% year-on-year. To achieve these objectives, a fast 24/7 delivery capability is just as essential as maintaining appropriate inventory levels in our own warehouses and throughout the relevant distribution channels. With regard to M&A, the integration of Xtrfy is progressing well, with joint product roadmap development and synchronization of marketing and sales plans.
We're also delighted about the fact at how easily the Xtrfy team has become part of our global Cherry family. In M&A, we have adapted our strategic focus with the aim of further developing our digital health and solutions business model as a cloud-based software as a service solution. With a highly scalable software business, we intend to benefit from annually recurring revenue with integrated hardware components in the medium term. People and culture. Ladies and gentlemen, we are absolutely convinced that the success of a company depends on our employees, and especially with the transformation towards B2B plus end consumer business and customer business as well as software, additional and different skills will be required. We have already started to create an agile culture for quick decisions.
Cherry is a very strong brand, but we will also need to be even more attractive as an employer in the future to attract the best talent in a very competitive market. This will be an very important driver for our transformation and revenue growth. Promising talent is already available internally at Cherry. Appropriate development programs will be introduced in the near future to promote and further develop these talents. In this case, we can build on our very strong brand. We are represented in 30 markets worldwide and have a very loyal customer base with a close relationship to the brand, our product, and also our team. To leverage the growth potential, we need to position ourselves better, organize ourselves better, and implement reliable plans professionally, and definitely build up more speed.
I would like to point out that according to our view, confidence in this investment is the sum of confidence in the management, the confidence in the business plan, and of course, its implementation. The market and econo-economic environment in the first quarter. Well, the first quarter, 2023 continued to be characterized by unfavorable geopolitical and macroeconomic conditions. The ongoing war in Ukraine and the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic generated a high level of econo-economic uncertainty worldwide. The high inflation rates in the United States and the European economy, area, as well as the resulting rise in interest rates, in particular, had a negative impact on business activities across all markets and sectors. Main Cherry highlights in the first quarter in comparison to that.
These economic conditions were already fully anticipated in our management forecast, which also formed the basis for our outlook for the 2023 fiscal year. This still included high general inventory levels with discounted sales campaigns by some of our competitors. Therefore, our overall business performance in the 1st quarter, with group revenue of EUR 28.7 million and an adjusted EBITDA margin of -4.6%, turned out to be above our own expectations, with strong year-on-year growth in peripheral business of 13.7% and 20.6% year-on-year growth in the gaming devices business unit.
The ongoing optimization efforts with regard to inventory, cost structure, and product portfolio included the implementation of international sales steering, our Gaming Goes Global project, the alignment of the gaming devices and office peripherals portfolio, as well as the finalization of a dedicated OEM strategy in the component business unit. Finally, the controlled reduction of excess inventories of switches in the component business progressed very nicely. Let's address some of the aspects with regard to the acquisition of Xtrfy Gaming AB. As you know, in January, we completed the acquisition of the Swedish esports specialist, Xtrfy, which offers us a substantial opportunity for further strategic growth in the gaming business, specifically esports. Thus, Xtrfy was initially consolidated in the first quarter and contributed EUR 1.2 million to the revenue line and EUR 0.3 million to the EBITDA line.
This puts Xtrfy on par with our internal planning and underpins the fact that the integration went very well. During the second quarter, we intend to additionally introduce the latest Xtrfy products to the Cherry sales channels. Create a joint product roadmap for gaming devices as the year progresses. In more detail, Cherry and Xtrfy are combining their expertise in the gaming device business unit with immediate effect. Effect clearly underlined by the new joint brand presence under the name Cherry Xtrfy. The merging of the two brands has created the perfect symbiosis of Swedish design and German engineering. The freshly created brand is intended to provide professionals, enthusiasts, and hobby gamers alike with professional gaming equipment. Cherry Xtrfy has been named as official equipment partner of the Team Vitality, which is a French professional esports organization.
Partnership with Team Vitality, which is one of the best, not only in Europe but worldwide, has been initially agreed until the end of 2024. With the Gaming Goes Global project, which was still in the implementation phase in the first quarter of the current fiscal year, the gaming device unit is to be successfully expanded across the other sales regions of the Cherry group as one of the second quarter 2023. This means that the business which was previously heavily focused on the Asian economic region, will now be rolled out to some of 30 markets and of course, the United States. The move to a new distributor in China, which was completed in the first quarter 2023, has now additionally set the course for an improved level of market penetration in China across gaming and peripherals business.
In a nutshell, Cherry generated group revenue totaling EUR 28.7 million and negative adjusted EBITDA amounting to minus EUR 0.3 million in the first quarter 2023. The number of employees was further reduced to 440 during the first quarter due to changes in our operational setup, and the operating cash flow was a negative EUR 17.8, and the net cash defined as liabilities to banks left cash and cash equivalents amounted to EUR 20.4 million at the balance sheet date with EUR 65.9 million cash and cash equivalents. Our negotiations with potential M&A targets were ongoing in the period under report, pursuing our updated M&A strategy with the aim of further developing our digital health and solutions business model as a cloud-based Software as a Service solution.
Having said this, I now hand over to our new CFO, Matthias, for the financial key figures of the first quarter. Dear Matthias, please go ahead.
Thank you, Oliver. Let's look at the key financial indicators for Q1. You see that revenue came down to EUR 28.7 after EUR 33 million in the first quarter of last year, minus 13%. Where does that come from? We had lower sales in digital health and components as compared to the first quarter of last year. As Oliver has pointed out before, this is what we have expected. Gross profit margin was also negative, negatively affected by this reduction in revenue. The overachievement of internal sales expectations in Q1, however, was a strong performance in peripherals with a 13% growth. Oliver has already given you the details about that before. The gross profit margin was impacted by lower group sales, obviously, product mix effect and higher material costs.
We still had short work in the production in Auerbach, so demand related underutilization of switch production in the first quarter. The EBITDA margin, the adjusted EBITDA margin, I have to say, was driven by the expenses for marketing development costs for the entering of the e-commerce sales channels as well as the expansion, I should say internationalization of the gaming device business, which we coin Gaming Goes Global. You see that we have made some adjustments here in the way down to the EBITDA, and those were for the changes in the CEO and the CFO position. Couple of words around the inventories. You see that inventories went up from EUR 65 million to EUR 75 million, so 50% up. There's a huge but to that attached.
The but is the important area of components came down in the first quarter. We successfully reduced the components inventory by 10%. The second but is that second very important issue is that the inventories now support the targeted revenue growth in Q2 and also in H2. We in essence, built up inventories as a precondition for further internationalization for the e-commerce business and for the gaming business, which we have spoken before about. The overall inventory structure is very healthy, so we don't have any aging inventories here. Today, only 15% of the inventories are attributable to the components business, and the switch inventory was reduced by 10% in the first quarter. We have EUR 3 million, which also comes into the inventories through the acquisition of Xtrfy.
The net effect is only EUR 7 million of the buildup that we have seen. Next slide, please. Super. Brief word around the cash flow. The cash flow was obviously primarily impacted by the revenue, by the inventory built up for e-commerce and gaming. The operating cash flow obviously was negatively impacted by the Q1 net results with -EUR 5.3 million. With the inventory build up for e-commerce, the increase in finished goods obviously is targeting the revenue growth that we are seeing, going to see in the Q2 and the H2. Other than that we paid bills that were pertaining to goods and services delivered already in Q4 last year. That was the EUR 8 million figure that you're looking at in this left column here.
Investing cash flow, the majority is coming from the purchase price for Xtrfy Gaming with EUR 5.7 million. The financing cash flow was the EUR 1.2 million tranche of the share buyback program that we continued to execute in the first quarter. As to the outlook for the full year, you've heard that from Oliver before. We expected the Q1 to be as it was. We are absolutely sticking with our outlook for the full year, with the group revenue in a broad range of EUR 135 million-EUR 165 million, and an adjusted EBITDA margin of between 10%-14%. I'm not going to read and go through all the little details here.
I just want to rephrase, since we achieved what we had wanted to achieve in the first quarter and even a little bit more, we feel very confident about the outlook. It's not going to be a walk in the park. It's going to be hard work, but we are very confident. That was my part. I would like to turn back to the operator for the upcoming questions. Many thanks.
The first question comes from Marie-Thérèse Grübner from HAIB. The floor is yours.
Good afternoon. Thank you for taking my questions. If you don't mind, I would like to ask them one by one. You know, I ask the first one. If you give me the answer, I will ask the second one, et cetera. My first question has to do with the gross margin in H1 23%, which is roughly seven points down year-over-year. I was surprised to see that logistics and input cost inflation being given as a reason for that, given that a lot of the companies in our coverage are reporting significant easing of these kind of issues. Why are we seeing this, and what should we expect for the rest of the year?
I mean, in other words, where would the gross margin be if you were to reach the midpoint of your EBITDA guidance?
Actually, I didn't really understand the first part of the question. The chief reason for the gross profit margin to go down was lower sales in digital health and components. As I've said before, we expected that. It's more or less a mixed effect.
Thank you.
To come back to the second part of your question, with more e-health and components business kicking in our expectation in the second half of the end in Q2, the gross profit margin will change positively.
Okay. Okay. Thank you very much for that. That makes it a lot clearer. I was wondering if you could give us an update on how Q2 is going. What are you seeing in terms of the first effects of your Gaming Goes Global campaign?
Currently our forecast for Q2 is that we seem to be online with regard to the different product lines compared to our Q2 expectations. The gaming and peripherals business obviously is in line with the expectations, so is digital healthcare, so is obviously also component. It looks very promising that we're going to also close Q2 on expectational level.
Okay.
Gaming Goes Global, interestingly, obviously, it's not only kind of pulling more gaming product into the different international channels, but also peripherals business as we're going to look exactly the same type of distribution here. We see a positive side effect for our peripherals business.
Okay. You did mention as an introductory remark that Q2 adjusted EBITDA would be in positive territory already.
For the time being, we give figures for the full year, but we are very confident that we make up the losses that we have booked in the first quarter.
My last question has to do with your cash flow statement. Is there any disbursements to be expected for Xtrfy after the money you paid in the first quarter?
Actually, this is my 31st day or so. I think, here, I can't give you a clear-cut answer. If any, not much.
Okay. All right.
So far the integration is exactly on the level expected with regard to the delivery on revenue, but also in terms of the cash/the cost situation. No surprises yet.
Okay. All right. Last but not least, share buyback. You disbursed roughly EUR 1.2 million in the first quarter. The share buyback program is finishing at the end of June. Two questions. Are you gonna renew it? What can you expect in the second quarter? Are you gonna be spending all the rest of the money or not? I guess not. What should we budget for the cash use coming from that?
Basically, we have a program in place that got approval based on the timing and obviously, the number of shares and the investment that we're going to make. Currently looks like that we are going into the time measure right now, and it means, like, we keep going with the program, but there is no decision yet if we're going to expand. Basically, we have approval for this program, and that means like, the tune time frame is the kind of a, key milestone for the first program.
Okay. All right. Thank you.
If I might add, I think our key focus right now is not so much on spending cash, but rather on making cash.
Okay. All right. Thank you very much for these answers.
Thank you.
Pleasure.
If you would like to ask a question, please press 9 and star on your telephone keypad. The next question comes from Julian Brovarsky. Okay. The next question comes from Tom Dietrich. The floor is yours.
Yes. Hi, can you hear me?
All right. Yes.
Perfectly.
Perfect. Yeah. Thanks for taking my questions. Would also like to take them one by one. My first question would be on Xtrfy. I think you already mentioned the numbers, but, can you please tell us again what Xtrfy contributed in terms of sales and earnings in the first quarter. I think it was EUR 1 million in sales and EUR 300,000 EBITDA. Was it, or yeah, maybe just repeat it again for my, for my records.
EUR 1.2 million in revenue, EUR 0.3 million in profit. Maybe to underpin that one here, you know that obviously the M&A acquisition got closed on the 18th of January, and obviously it's underpinning the fact how we are focusing on operational excellence, that we achieved our budgeted plan with the team of Xtrfy not losing any momentum here like we have seen in many other M&As before. It's kind of a good signal how the integration went despite the fact, obviously this was not only kind of a product integration process, but also kind of a systematic in terms of also financial reporting. It's a great achievement on operational excellence, I would say.
Okay. Perfect. Thanks a lot. It, it's fully booked in the gaming devices business unit. The gaming devices was basically flat year-on-year, excluding Xtrfy to just confirm, yeah?
This is correct. While the focus on Gaming Goes Global obviously starts with Q2.
Okay, thanks. My second question would be on your guidance. I mean, taking into account the first quarter. Your guidance applies on quite a broad range of growth in the remainder of the year. Between 7% and 37% for the remainder of the year. First of all, what gives you confidence that momentum will clearly improve in the remainder of the year? I think, what are you targeting in terms of your guidance? Is it more towards the lower end or the midpoint of the guidance? Because, I mean, 37%, I'm looking at the upper end of the guidance, looks way too ambitious right now. Any comments on that would be really helpful.
With regard to the guidance, obviously based on the Q1 figures, we are keeping the guidance both in terms of the revenue guidance as well as the EBITDA margin guidance. We have a good confidence level that we're going to really land within the guidance. At this stage, obviously, it's not the right kind of time talking about if it's on the lower end, the midpoint or it's at the higher end. The Q1 obviously, results give us confidence. As we all know, obviously we still have to keep working every single day to really achieve Q2, Q3 and Q4. We have a good kind of starting point into the year, but basically the hard work is remaining, becoming number one and 10 on our daily agenda.
Thank you. The final question also on your cash generation. Q1 was heavily impacted by your inventory buildup related to e-commerce initiative, Gaming Goes Global, and so on. What can we also expect going forward also in terms of working capital? Working capital for instance in Q2, will we see further inventory builds up in the second quarter? And what can we expect in terms of cash generation in the remainder of the year or for the full year? Some comments on that, some ballpark figures would also be helpful
Yeah. Well, I made that remark before. I mean, we're sitting on high inventories. They're all very healthy inventories, we have a steep revenue curve ahead of us. You can expect us to make cash out of simply converting the inventories into sales and collecting the money, right? By and large, I would say we will in the course of this year, give ourselves some inventory targets, some working capital targets. This is too early for me and for us as a team to do this right now. We have the expansion going on. We have the internationalization going on. We have Gaming Goes Global going on, and e-commerce that is simply demanding for inventories to be built.
In an equilibrium, figures must look differently, I give you that. Starting with the second quarter, we will sharply improve our cash generation, and that is, as Oliver said before, clearly on the top of our desks.
Maybe to add one thing here. Obviously, we see improvement in the worldwide sourcing and also logistics, which is fine. We see that obviously the container prices going down, they're even on a lower level than prior to COVID, which is all good. Still, having said that, obviously the key in the finished good business is that you have to balance out a time window of around three to four months from product planning through production and product availability.
With this, obviously, the current, obviously, level of inventory and finished goods is as planned. Having said that, obviously there's one thing that I'm very pleased to have Matthias on board right now, because what we also need to work on in the future is to see what is the kind of standard inventory level also in terms of value for the specific e-commerce business, and what is obviously the kind of standard value and inventory for the rest of the finished good. We're going to work on that as well, so that we have a bit of a kind of a reference point where we are. Then obviously all the rest should come from seasonality factors.
That would be my final question. If you think that, the current inventory levels.
I was giving you the answer before receiving the question.
Yeah, I see that. Yeah. Okay, understood. Thanks a lot. I really appreciate it.
Pleasure.
Thank you. The next question comes from Julian Dobrovolschi. The floor is yours.
Hi, good afternoon, gentlemen, and thanks for your time. I have a couple of questions. Sorry to come back on the inventory side of things, but this has been a pain point for the business over, I think, a couple of quarters now. Just wondering how much of this switch inventory do you actually plan to sell during 2023? I think you just said that most of it is pretty much ahead of you, which is kinda build up into sales and therefore guidance. I'm just wondering if you kind of, let's say, convert the portion of, let's say, euros sitting there with the inventories on the balance sheet into kind of units. That would be really helpful.
Besides that, also, if you could just kind of say something about, you know, are you basically selling now predominantly from the inventory, which has been produced last year? Or are you also kind of still running the machines to produce new switches that you're commercializing on the market?
Okay, let me try to give you an answer. What's very, very difficult to listen to your first question. I'll try to give you an answer and just correct me if you would like to have something else on top of that one here. With regard to the component business, let's provide you with the following type of direction that we're going to take right now. Number one is obviously we have identified that we have very, very relevant, market relevant product in our inventory, which is good. You have seen that we have started to come up with some kind of extra deals, and I'm not talking about major discounted deals.
It's really kind of going after more business out there in the market, that's why obviously Component was kind of closing the first quarter exactly in the level of expectation, and it will be the same with Q2, which is good. The most important thing is obviously that we have enough kind of inventory for the MX2 generation and also ULP. By previous decision, obviously the launches got a little bit more postponed and we just decided to really go now out into the market to show the market that we have this high innovations product both in MX and also in the ULP line. This is already kind of, the ULP already got incorporated into CORSAIR product, we also announced and launched our own keyboard last week.
Based on this, obviously, it's a clear indicating indicator that we have also placed internally that we're going right after managing down our current inventory. By the way, all the products that we still have in inventory are going to be market relevant for the upcoming year. There's nothing that goes end of lifetime. With this, obviously, we have a kind of a proper basis to really increase the production of specifically ULP and also MX2. Again, the most important thing in the component business that we need to go direct. That means like being on the supplier list of an ODR partner couldn't be our business model anymore. We already started to reach out to some of the OEM partners directly.
I'm not going to go into detail right now because it's very much kind of confidential information, as you can imagine, as we just started the outreach. It looks like that the interest and the willingness to talk to Cherry directly is obviously given, and we would be very happy to obviously give you an update on that specific type of strategic change in the upcoming quarterly call, because we are really working on that one here. Does this answer your first question?
Yeah. It's kind of, let's say, a good crossover, over many things. I understand probably it's kind of hard to put the exact figure on it, which is something that you know, we as analysts is pretty much kind of, you know, what we live and breathe with. I think I can, let's say, live with that kind of answer. You also mentioned.
Maybe one comment on that one here. The thing is that obviously having a kind of a decline of 10% in value and 14% in units, obviously it's kind of a good approach. Our direction for the outcome for the current quarters, obviously it's almost in the same type of corridor to really go that path. The most important thing with regard to what is our basic production capacity in the future and all of this, and we receive these questions all the time, quite frankly, it depends on... I would rather go and say lower capacity on higher unit price. That's our strategy.
We had some product in the portfolio called VIOLA, which was at the very, very, very kind of, let me say, down end of the MP price model, where you can obviously go on high volume, but obviously with no margin. For us, obviously, it's important that we need to understand and we make to understand our component business is based on a higher mid-price range and the upper price range. In this, obviously, to ensure that we are keeping our prices assumptions, that we really make that happen in the market, is also allowing us, obviously, to give a better kind of a safetiness for our kind of margin model in that space. We are from an operational perspective.
Yeah, this I can shortly add and only confirm. I mean, very high flexible there. Also the machinery, the new machinery mentioned for the quarter two are in place. I mean, the ULP machine is already running, so even ahead of time. It's really successful. We can really provide the volumes needed by mobilizing the personnel. I mean, this is all good.
Yeah, we're really flexible.
Just quickly another one to follow up on the ULP platform. I remember from previous management, the discussion was that for 2023, you're looking to sell about 40 million-50 million ULP switches. Is that kind of figure something that you recognize? Are you still sticking to it, or is it gonna be a bit less than this figure?
I'm not commenting on that figure quite frankly, because we need to really work on a new business plan, what we already did for this year. The most important thing is that ULP and MX2A now land broadly in the OEM community, because then they will definitely recognize and look at Cherry as being a highly innovative company. This means also like, if we have these type of direct agreements, obviously we always have a kind of a common production plan and a product plan 18 months plus. This is exactly the way we need to look at the business, and it means like it's a kind of a flip from the current business and the previous business setup.
Please allow us to really come up with figures when we have kind of a very reliable plan and a fully baked plan on that one here. This is really based on the fact we need to go direct with our businesses and component.
Got it. Got it. Okay, maybe another one on the digital healthcare, obviously quite disappointing. Just wondering if you could comment a bit on the visibility and strength of this business actually, and maybe also a bit about the outlook. Is this something that you think it's under jeopardy now for whatever reason, or you should really think that Q1 sales, it was a bit of an outlier data point. You know, this came in at about, I think, EUR 2.3 million, if I, if I recall correctly the figure, whilst I think as of IPO, let's say beginning of 2021, the digital healthcare business posted revenues at about, let's say, EUR 7 million, EUR 6 million, even EUR 8 million in revenue per quarter. This is a clear outlier, and I was just wondering what's kind of the reason there?
Is it a structural change, or how can we try to basically put this into perspective, versus all the previous quarters?
This business in digital obviously is depending on two factors. Number one, we're still waiting for some kind of political decisions to be made by the German government. The second thing is obviously we're looking into project business. The good thing about our position in the market is that we have a very strong/very dominant position in the market. That means like it's generating us a very, very fundamental installed basis. Now, having said that, the way to really enter the market, obviously it's kind of a difficult situation here because you need to really go through a lot of kind of certifications and regulations. Most probably we're going to talk about short-term only with the two players that we currently see in the market. Having said that, this is not a hardware game anymore.
We need to really add more software to the, to our installed base of hardware so that we are kind of relevant and technically obviously qualified to run all the upcoming type of cloud-based services that we see. This obviously also underpins the fact that we need to move fast right now with M&A because we see a lot of relevant assets in the market, established startup companies that might run into being short in terms of cash flow, that they're asking for some kind of collaboration models. We say like collaboration can also be takeover. Most probably they're going with us than with other kind of big corporate clients, as they would like to really have a kind of fundamental next step for their company.
Having said that, we look at digital healthcare as one of our major type of growth platforms in the future. It's very clear that it's not a hardware game only anymore. It needs to be enriched by intelligent agnostic software in which we're obviously allowing hospitals, for instance, to play all the kind of, cloud-based services, from appointment management, from obviously messenger systems, from all of this, what we need to see in the environment, and it will be always very ring-fenced. Okay. That's the way we look at.
Mm-hmm.
We look at the healthcare business. What we have done this year in the original plan that never got published, obviously, we have seen a kind of a pretty heavy hockey stick effect in Q4 in digital healthcare, obviously we polished that out because we are in a certain way depending on some political decisions. They will come. It's very clear they will come. That will put the German medical sector from analog into full size digitization. We put that on a lower risk model because it will come, but most probably some of the business that were planned in originally for 2023 will come in 2024. We don't want to have that correction effect obviously in this year's plan. That's why we already carved that hockey stick effect a bit out.
Got it. Maybe a follow-up on that one. I think a lot of buzz was about the new PIN pad device. I remember even since the get go of the IPO, the idea was to roll it out in 2022, and I think because of some regulatory hurdles, I think it's still stuck with the regulator, and correct me if I'm wrong. I expect this was gonna be commercialized as of 2023. Is my expectation correct, or this is still in the process of being approved?
This is correct. As we also stated, obviously, we just received approval from gematik GmbH for our new GerE PIN pad. That's a supplement obviously to the eHealth Terminal ST-1506, and it's aimed to be particularly obviously pushing that entire forward. We already seen that from a political perspective, obviously, we get the type of support that we required. What we have done in eHealth, obviously, you can see that also in the inventory, we still have a bit of an upside in inventory on eHealth terminals. Due to the fact that we are very kind of that we have a fast reaction mode in our production, we decided to stop new production for time being because we have enough kind of product volume in our warehouse so that we can really fulfill demand.
If we see that the demand is now really increasing from the market, we have the speed and the flexibility to increase our kind of production volume within the first four weeks, which is also allowing us obviously to react on the market as soon as possible. Basically what we can see is that around anything with regard to the patient's data, the medical data, obviously, we see now that the ID system is going to really get digitized, and that's exactly one of the starting points that we're waiting for.
In the end, this PinPay device is not really a substitute of the previous healthcare device that you've been selling for a couple of years now, but it's literally kind of an add-on.
It will be, but still the devices will remain. Obviously, the relevance in terms of updating comes from the software in the future.
Got it. All right. Thank you so much, Wolf, for the time and yeah, good luck with the rest of the quarters.
Thank you for your questions. Appreciate it. Thank you.
The next question is from Miguel Lago Mascato. The floor is yours.
Good afternoon, everybody. Can you hear me?
Yes, perfectly.
Great. Okay, perfect. First one I would like to come back to the eHealth topic we just touched upon. Some sections were hard to grasp, so maybe I repeat this, but just to make clear, I mean, you expect a huge pickup in the next quarters from this business. Can you maybe elaborate a little bit on when and which triggers you expect for the following quarters that would put you into the situation to bring in the revenue you missed in Q1, let's say?
Basically, major part of our digital healthcare is planned in for Q3 and mainly obviously Q4. This is what we call the kind of hockey stick effect, which is a very natural one. It's a kind of seasonality factor. Again, the most important part is right now that we have digital healthcare right now in on our list to increase our installed base qualification. That means, like, adding more software and more cloud services to our installed base and the future installed base. That's the key, because again, this won't remain being a hardware game only.
This will be a completely digitized sub-segment of our businesses, including obviously, that the moment that we have that we have cloud services to offer with our software, we are going also to launch our first annual recurring or even monthly recurring business subscription models. It's a completely different strategic way we're going to approach with digital healthcare. Again, it's really all about, like, we have the right level of I would say, the right level of product in our warehouse to fulfill any demand that is coming from the market. We're going to wait to see that we're going to approach this market ideally, obviously, with a fully incorporated software and cloud solution. That's why we're moving fast with regard to our with regard to our approach in M&A.
What we have already kind of shown in the last year's projection was that obviously 2024 will become a very, very strong growth path for this one here. Obviously it's an ongoing topic even in 2025 and ongoing. The key to success here is that, like, we also should expand our customer base at this time. That means, like, any type of additional service around the medical sector is not getting integrated into that business at all, but they're all attractive and they're all kind of relevant for all these types of business solutions that we're going to launch into the market.
Thanks. Then on Xtrfy, to what I understand, the sales are going as planned. What are your expectations for full year? Is it basically in line with gaming segment, which is double-digit revenue growth? Is it a bit more? I do not mean three digit, but is it higher than what you expect from your original business
Yeah. January was already spot on in our, in level of our expectation, which is fine. Also here, I can say that we have internally a range of a kind of a revenue window created for Xtrfy to ensure that we are not going to underestimate the typical challenges you're facing with regard to integration. Again, as I stated before, so far it went very smoothly. Basically what is really core is that with Xtrfy product, and they have the kind of really esports competence, which is kind of adding extra to the Cherry portfolio, as you can imagine. With this, obviously, we expect a lot from the United States. Having said that, there's one thing, and I'm very, very open with regard to America. Obviously, America needs to get a certain kind of a reset in terms of the organization.
We see that some people are going into retirement mode. We're going to see that the company need to move to different places. The most important part is that, based on the fact they now have full access to the entire product portfolio, they already identified the Xtrfy product as being kind of key drivers for their growth. So far, obviously the performance is better than last year, which is also kind of underpinning that also the Cherry Americas business is very much all about operational excellence. It's not so much about adding more product to the market. It's really just like get it into the market the way that is kind of based on our condition model and ensure that we have the right level of relationship to the decision makers on retail and e-tail.
Okay, thanks. Little bit of housekeeping. In terms of adjustments, we stand at EUR 1.5 million. What's a reasonable ballpark number we can expect, I mean, let's say for the midpoint of your-
Right.
of your adjusted EBITDA guidance?
The fun about adjustments is that you really never know in advance what they are. We gave a very detailed description on what those adjustments might look like on an abstract basis in the IPO prospectus. But for the time being. If you're interested, you can read this up there, but for the time being, we don't see any adjustments upcoming right now.
All right. Was worth a try. Thank you. Then-
Yeah, I saw that.
Next one on inventories. Maybe I got it wrong, but you said the current level of inventories is what you need for Q2 and H2 sales levels. we would see inventories on, yeah, flat for the remainder of the year?
No, this should go down. The total number should go down. This was really kind of an inventory ramp up for both the Gaming Goes Global campaign, which just started last week or the week before, and obviously, which is kind of an international strategy. The second thing is e-commerce. E-commerce is a different type of situation here because quite frankly, we see a very, very solid increase in our e-commerce business. In a multi-channel organization such as Cherry, obviously e-commerce will play a fundamentally larger and bigger role in the future. With this, obviously, we need to identify what is the right kind of standard metric in terms of what is the inventory that we need to keep in our warehouses. This is a kind of a task we have on the agenda.
Basically now we need to see that the inventory level in terms of finished goods needs to decline given the fact that we are now going to really sell the product and put that into the different distribution channels. Digital health should remain stable/fulfilling the demand, and the market should decline as well. Obviously, you know the story around components, and here we're really progressing in the right direction. Basically, the total number in inventory needs to go down.
All right. Thank you. Last one, on administrative expenses, that were driven by these, let's say, one-off effects in personnel, is it EUR 4.5 million, let's say, a good number to expect for the following quarters? Or is it also hard to forecast?
No, that's what I said. you know, you shouldn't expect a big figure to come in there for the remaining quarter.
We should or should not?
Should not.
Should not. All right. All right. All right. All right. Yeah. Thanks. That's it from my side. Thank you.
Welcome. Thank you so much for the questions. Appreciate it.
At the moment, there are no further questions.
If I then may obviously close the session. First of all, we have a very dedicated team to work on all the basic principles that are required in the organization. Second, obviously, you have seen that we are absolutely committed to ESG and ensuring that we have the right level of female talent in leadership roles. We just decided to take someone on board like Anna, take over the responsibility for general counsel. Obviously, we also have promoted, a local manager in the Chinese organization. She's just spot on, really delivering, and it was absolutely required to really put her on the management board. People and culture will remain a major topic to, I would say, close some of the gaps that we already have in some of the kind of workflows. We have identified internal talents.
We're going to really be more aggressively, obviously, supporting this. This is so important because whatever the business we would like to achieve, it's not possible without human beings, and that's why we really put that on top. Second statement I would like to make, I'm personally very, very glad about the setup we have now on the executive board. We already have a very type of fruitful level of cooperation and interaction. I'm very much looking forward, obviously, to also close the gap in some parts of the financial reporting and this financial communication now having Mathias on board. I also see that the overall organization obviously has the right level of talent and the right level of expertise to go after our market opportunities.
Having said that, the major game changer in that organization is that we now think about the market, we look at the market, from there, we take business decisions. It's quite a change, this is something that is already kind of providing us with some kind of upside. Having said that, macroeconomic aspects, we have known them now for quite a while, we're going to avoid addressing those given aspects as becoming a kind of a reason why we have achieved, underachieved or overachieved. The thing that we would like to ensure that we have now a kind of a very solid base to work against, this is all operational excellence, this is what we have to really say, rate us on our operational excellence. This is something that we are absolutely willing to do so.
Thank you very much for your ongoing support. Thank you very much for your ongoing belief, even in these very challenging times, if I look in the company the last 2 years. Again, with hard work, there is a promising future, but it's not possible without hard work. The best solid work must be underpinned by hard work, and we are absolutely dedicated, committed to do so. Thank you so much.