Good morning, and a warm welcome to Harvia's Capital Markets Day. My name is Jukka Kurki, and I'm Head of Business Development here at Harvia. Before we start with the actual presentations, I will go through some practicalities and the course of the day. We have set three targets for today. Firstly, we want to share our view of the market, its key trends, and opportunities. Secondly, we want to present our updated strategy and long-term financial targets. And thirdly, we want to provide a deeper view on selected key business topics. The overall goal is, of course, to help you investors in your assessment of Harvia as an investment case. And based on these three targets, we have created the following, I think, rather exciting agenda. The day is divided into two sections.
In the first section, our CEO, Matias Järnefelt, will go through Harvia's strategy update, and he will be followed by Ari Vesterinen, who will give you a financial overview, and then discuss the updated financial targets in more depth. We have a Q&A session after this. For those of you who are following this via video stream, you can ask questions already during the presentations, but we are taking them only during the Q&A session. After the first section, we have a short break, and when we come back, we kickstart with the four so-called deeper dive presentations by Jennifer Thayer, Markus Wörmanseder, Päivi Juolahti, and Mika Suoja. Then we have the second Q&A session after these presentations, and there you can ask questions also from Matias Järnefelt and Ari Vesterinen.
We will conclude the day with closing remarks by Matias Järnefelt, and then for those of you who are here in Muurame physically today, there will be a lunch and factory tour after the event. We have many management team members speaking here today, but in addition, we have some other management team members and key personnel here in Muurame. So for those of you who are actually here today, you can obviously... and the management team is very happy to discuss with you during the breaks and, for example, lunch.
Before we get started with the, let's say, more exciting content, a short legal disclaimer. I won't be reading it through all, no worries, but in brief, we are making a number of forward-looking statements today. They are, by nature, uncertain because they are about the future, and even though we want to support your, you investors, we are making or we are giving absolutely no investment advice on Harvia or any other security or investment. But now to more exciting content. I invite Matias Järnefelt to the stage. Matias?
Thank you, Jukka. Warm welcome to Muurame, and warm welcome to those following us online. This is a big day for Harvia. This is the first ever Capital Markets Day that we're organizing. It's also the first time since our IPO in 2018 that we've been giving a more detailed strategy update on our plans. I have now been the CEO of Harvia for one year, and it's also personally a great moment since there's been a lot of work behind the scenes in planning for the future, sharpening our strategy, clarifying our priorities, and to be able to be here with the team to share our thinking and plans with you feels great. In my presentation, I will be covering essentially three key things. I will be talking about Harvia as a company today.
I will then talk about the market, the key trends that we see, and the key opportunities that are ahead of us. And then, finally, I will talk about our updated strategy and financial targets before handing over to Ari, who will be then covering the financial targets more in detail. So let's talk about Harvia a bit. Harvia is the leading supplier of products and solutions to the global sauna market, and by leading, I mean many things. With EUR 150 million in revenue, we are the largest player, and it's very exciting, but still at the moment, quite fragmented market. We are also the most international, most global. Our products are sold in over 90 countries. We deliver substantial revenues from many continents: North America, Europe, Middle East, Asia, Australia. We also have a very international manufacturing and supply chain.
We have manufacturing, our own manufacturing in U.S., in several places in Europe, and the largest being here in Muurame, where you are today, and we have also a factory in China. We are also industry leader in terms of profitability. I will be talking about that shortly, but we have a very healthy levels of profit for a number of years already, and the ambition for the future, of course, is to remain. We have some very strong brands, the, I would say, the mother brand of the group, Harvia, but we have also another, what we call the master brand, a brand called EOS, and Päivi Juolahti, our Head of Brand and Marketing, will be talking about our brands more during the latter part of today. We also have some really exciting regional brands.
One to mention is Almost Heaven Saunas, which are really a great and well-known brand in the United States. We also have decades of experience, and we have over 600 professionals that are dedicated to saunas and dedicated to the company. We have a strong culture to build on. So what is it that we offer or do? We have started as an equipment maker. So the origins was the wood-burning heaters for the Finnish or traditional sauna, as we call it. Over the years, we've expanded our portfolio of equipment to cover, naturally, the electric heaters for the traditional sauna, but also many other equipment, including the control panels or control units, steam generators, and infrared panels.
Over the past years, we've moved increasingly from a product or equipment maker to a provider of full solutions, and that's the sauna room business. You could think of it that we can provide everything a private customer or commercial customer needs to have a sauna. One example is on the picture, a barrel sauna for homeowners' backyards. Very easy product to buy. Few days later, you get a delivery in a flat pack. It's very easy to assemble, and in no time at all, you have a full-blown sauna. Another example is on the bottom left-hand corner. That's Harvia Nova, an easy-to-install steam sauna, steam shower cabin. This is very important part of our strategy and portfolio for two reasons.
One is that customers want solutions, and answers to their needs, and if we just sell the heating equipment, they still don't have the sauna. Especially in many markets where there's less of a history and maybe less professionals who would be able to build you a sauna, the fact that you can have a well-designed, great product by the world-leading sauna manufacturer, Harvia, that includes it all, is a great value proposition in terms of ease of buying and confidence of owning a sauna. For Harvia, also, the opportunity is clear. Solutions provides even more opportunities for differentiation, and very importantly, we can tap into more spending potential in this global sauna market.
If you think about that we would be selling just a heater to a sauna, maybe we talk about revenue potential of EUR 500 - EUR 1,000 for Harvia. But we'll—when we sell the sauna cabin, we talk about EUR 5,000 - EUR 20,000. So we talk about 10x, even 20x earnings potential more. When we talk about sauna and sauna market, we are addressing what we would call the full sauna experience or extended sauna experience, and in many places, it also includes some form of bathing. For example, in Finland, for decades, people have been dipping in the icy water, so kind of sauna, hot, and icy water, cold, go hand in hand.
Internationally, cryotherapy and cold plunges are a big thing, and they are a very natural part of Harvia's product offering. We also provide accessories and services so that we can make money and also be relevant for customers, not only at the time when they are building a sauna or renovating a sauna, but also during the use of the sauna. Harvia has strong roots. Harvia was established by Tapani Harvia in the 1950s, some 20 km away from here in the city of Jyväskylä. And for over six decades, the company was led by Harvia family and fully owned by the Harvia family. And during this time, Harvia had already started its internationalization path.
In 2014, the Harvia family sold 80% of the shares to a Nordic private equity company called CapMan that became the family's partner for developing Harvia further. Although this was just a kind of short period of four years, it still is an important milestone in Harvia's history, because during these years, a lot of work was done to prepare Harvia for becoming a publicly listed company. There was a lot of professionalization of processes, you know, working on the accounting and reporting, et cetera, to make sure that once the time is right, Harvia would be fit to be a publicly listed company.
Since 2018, we have been listed in Nasdaq Helsinki, and we are proud to be public listed, and a leader in this very interesting specialty market. We cherish our history, and essentially, what we try to do, we try to combine the best of both worlds, of having a family-owned company history, but now being an ambitious stock-listed company. From the family history or entrepreneurial history, we cherish entrepreneurship. We want to have agile, agile culture, low hierarchy, kind of work with what you've got mentality, and also warm, culture, people-oriented culture in this business. And as a stock-listed company, we have global mindset, we have global ambitions. We want to be best at what we do, want to be very professional.
Also, being a publicly listed company allows us more flexible access to the global capital markets to fuel our growth for the future. Let's have a look at our journey as a publicly listed company. The columns here show our annual revenue from 2018 to last year, 2023. When we started our public listed company journey, we delivered a bit over EUR 60 million revenues in 2018. I would say the first few years were the normal years, until the pandemic hit the world and also impacted our industry and our business quite significantly, since the beginning of 2020.
For 2020 and 2021, we saw significant demand boost because people were staying home, they were investing in in-home living, and we saw a lot of growth momentum across many home improvement-related sectors. However, beginning of 2022, when Russia attacked Ukraine, this solid tailwind turned into pretty cold headwind. This situation affected especially European markets, which still today are majority of our business. So first quarter this year, roughly 60% of our revenue was derived from Europe. Plummeting consumer confidence, increasing prices, energy consumption restrictions were of course having an impact on our market.
And we have also a very direct impact from the war in Ukraine, because as a company, we decided already in March 2022 to stop doing business in Russia. And the year before, so 2021, we had actually EUR 11.5 million in revenue from Russia. So that's also visible when you look at these charts. In terms of last year, so 2023, I'd like to just make a comment that there clearly was a change of momentum during that year. Still, during the first half of last year, we were declining quite significantly. During the third quarter last year, the decline started to slow down, and quarter four last year, we turned back to growth.
Now, if you put this in a bigger picture and look at the kind of the longer span of us being a publicly listed company, from EUR 60 million - EUR 150 million, we more than doubled the size of the business. In terms of compounded annual growth rate, it's 19%. Not too bad. Out of that 19%, 10 percentage points is due to organic growth, and we've been very successful also driving inorganic growth, and that contributes 9 percentage points to that 19%. We're also very pleased that we have shown that we can drive this business in a very healthy way, whether times are good or whether times are tough. So, for example, when we faced this significant demand boom, we were able to scale up our business in a very profitable manner, and it's not always given.
Some companies might face, bottlenecks in supply chain, et cetera, but we were managing this growth spurt very well. And, also, it's visible that we have a business model that provides operational leverage. We have high gross margin, so when we can drive top line, it also supports our profit development, as we had over 26% adjusted EBITDA in 2021. We've also shown that when times get tougher, our business model is flexible, and we have the people and management that can handle any situation. So we've been also able to deliver that over 20% profitability during the past few years, when the market has not been as easy. What has served us well is the strategy that we outlined when the company was IPO'd in 2018, and these strategic priorities have actually remained unchanged since then.
Increasing the average purchase value, it's about innovating, providing more reasons to buy, kind of higher-end equipment, instead of just buying the, buying the kind of the lower cost alternative. It's about, you know, system selling, providing not just the wood-burning heater, but all that kind of equipment needed to really install it properly, including, for example, a chimney connection kits, et cetera. It's about the solution strategy that I explained. Geographical expansion has served us well. We were originally a very Finnish company, then we became a European company, and now it's fair to say that we are truly a, a global, global business. Productivity improvement, ability to provide great products, and at the same time, great value for money for our customers, has been a key cornerstone of our success.
And when we work on our strategy, it's clear that it's not gonna be a revolution. It's more about an evolution. Thinking about now the next five years and the next growth phase that we are aiming for, what kind of strategic priorities would serve us best? And there has been discussions such as geographical expansion is not so much anymore about finding the 91st or 92nd country, because we are already sold in many, many countries. It's more about winning in the markets that really matter. And also, it includes things that we really wanna increase the share of, not just the Finnish or traditional sauna as part of our sales. To be real global leader, we need to also strengthen, for example, our position in infrared saunas and steam saunas.
But I'll get back to this in a short while. First, we'll talk about the market. So this is a very interesting, interesting global market, and actually, it's a specialty market. So, if you are looking for global market research or data on sauna market, it's actually not so easy to find. And it's also quite a lot of work for Harvia to stay on top of kind of the market potential, market trends, value trends. And we work on this on our own, but we also regularly use external, reputable, advisory partners to validate our view on the market. And essentially, our best estimate is that the global sauna market at the moment is EUR 3.5 billion in value.
When I talk about the global sauna market, in this context, it's the market that's relevant for building or renovating a sauna. It includes the equipment, it includes the materials, and it also includes the associated work. But what's not included, it's the service side. Running commercial saunas or spas, this is not part of our definition. This is essentially addressable market from the point of view of Harvia. At the moment, we estimate that there's around 18 million saunas in the world, and they are split in three main sauna types: traditional or Nordic or Finnish sauna. There's many, many names to kind of the product of our origin. But there's also important kind of markets for infrared sauna and steam market.
But still, the traditional sauna market represents globally over half of the market value, but it does change across the regions, and I'll get back to that shortly. We assess that the historical average growth for this market has been 5% per annum, but we actually estimate that the growth rate will be higher than that for the next five years, and there are many reasons to it. One is that we see that the growth continues fast outside Europe, so for example, in places like the United States and key markets in Asia. We also see that the kind of the traditional market of Europe that has been going through a quite tough time for the past few years is turning back to growth, supporting the global market value.
There are many reasons the markets are growing, and the market is supported by very interesting, what I would call, growth drivers, and also differentiation and innovation drivers. The first three on this page are what I would call the growth drivers, and one of the growth drivers is wellness and health. People are willing to invest in living longer and living better, and sauna has many scientifically proven wellness and health benefits. It improves your heart health, it improves your skin condition, it improves your respiratory health. It also improves the mental health, reduces the stress hormones, helps to get better sleep, et cetera, et cetera. We also talk about experience economy. So many of us have shelves full of stuff at home, and instead of buying more stuff, people are increasingly willing to invest in living good in experiences that enrich their lives.
It's about traveling. It might be about seeing the world. It's about spending time with the friends that matter, and sauna is very much about an experience. It's an experience maybe if you're on their own there, and oftentimes, it's also a very social experience with the family, people that matter, maybe your colleagues. And in many places, it's also quite exotic, even a little bit mystical experience. So this is certainly supporting our category. And because we have such an engaging and interesting category, people are talking about sauna, and it just not us in the sauna business. But if you go on Google, you know, can pretty much take a celebrity, put their name... let's take Cristiano Ronaldo, CR7, sauna, Instagram. You'll see many posts, and there's so many of these. It is an exciting category.
When people get a sauna, you know, they like to talk about it. When they are in the sauna, many celebrities, you know, want to share that as well, and this is certainly driving awareness of a great product that we have. And if we think about sauna, what could be better than a product that does good for you? And it feels great, and people knowing more about this does help. And it's also actually very media, I would say a great, great topic also for the media, so we see a lot of articles and a lot of posts, both digital and traditional media, about sauna, so growing awareness. These three are the growth drivers. Then the differentiation drivers are technology and sustainability.
Although we talk about sauna, and we talk about essentially an ancient business, there's been saunas already during the Stone Age, it's interesting how technology also provides opportunities for further innovation differentiation. So more and more of our products are connected with rich control units, you know, having full-blown operating system, downloadable applications. Increasingly, you can watch Netflix or listen to your Spotify favorite tracks, control the lights, the sound environment, et cetera, in your, in your sauna, and they are connected. Also, this is wellness and health product, so increasingly we see a world where there are sensors and where we can make the sauna's health benefits even more concrete and traceable, and even have wellness and health programs for sauna users. So technology certainly provides a lot of innovation opportunities. And of course, sustainability, the climate change.
Now, by the laws of physics, if you heat up a room, it takes up energy, but we wanna, we wanna be leaders in energy efficiency. We wanna be leaders in cleanest burning technologies, for example, for wood-burning saunas, et cetera, et cetera. Then there's the market consolidation, which is a kind of fact of life at the moment, but it's also a trend that we see. It's a, you know, still very fragmented market. If you think about EUR 150 million top line Harvia, and we are the biggest in a market of several billion , it's a lot of fragmentation. And we intend to play an active role in consolidating the market, and we feel that we are greatly positioned to do that because, because of our vision, because our financial strength and our competencies.
But at the same time, of course, we see that some big players are also seeing the opportunity, like, Masco and Kohler buying some of our biggest competitors, during last year. We think it's great. It's testament that this is a very interesting market with great growth profile. We also feel that competition is great, and we are very confident that we have what it takes to be the leader also in the future. In terms of kind of regional flavor, when we talk about the global sauna market, there are some quite specific characteristics in different parts of the world. So we start with Northern Europe, which is kind of where, you know, which is our home region and where we are from.
It's around 4 million saunas and represents roughly 15% of the value of the global sauna market. And it has the country with the highest sauna penetration. Out of that 4 million, actually 3 million saunas are in Finland. In this market, the traditional sauna type, or the Finnish sauna type, dominates the market. It's also more, I would say, equipment or component-based, as opposed to buying full solutions. There's a lot of competencies of building saunas. This is also for all income classes, not only just for the wealthy, but for every family. There's a lot of DIY, Do-I t-Y ourself, also in sauna. And it's also, in terms of equipment, the main market for our wood-burning heating equipment. Everywhere else, the electric heater is the dominant choice.
Continental Europe represents roughly a third of the global market value at the moment, with around 5-6 million saunas. Out of that, roughly half is in one country, Germany. Continental Europe, for the past few years, has certainly faced some difficult market conditions, as discussed, but we see it's turning back the growth. Compared to Northern Europe, we can see that it's not only just the traditional sauna. We see more steam saunas, we see more infrared saunas. We also see that, while the Northern European market potential is really dominated by the residential use, in Continental Europe, professional use or commercial facilities also play a more important role. Also, we see higher price points, so people are kind of really investing in great experiences, in Continental Europe.
We also see that there are some really interesting countries where there's really interesting growth trends, like the United Kingdom, as an example. It's a country with 95 million people, and the weather is not great. I know. I've been living for five years there. And you know, we can see that there's great sauna momentum building there. Actually in places even like Southern Europe, we see really good momentum building up, so it's not only for the cold climate or poor climate. When we talk about the U.S., actually, the biggest three states for us are Florida, Texas, and California, and it's pretty much summer all the time. So let's move to North America then.
At the moment, around 20%-25% of the global market value, a bit over 1 million saunas, and representing a massive growth opportunity for us. Now, we talk about a country with 340 million people with a lot of spending power. I was just checking some reports lately from wealth management industry, and they state that there's 25 million-dollar millionaires in the U.S. By the way, just in comparison, you know, 5.5 million in Finland, so it's four times more millionaires in the U.S. than there's people living in this country. Well, Florida, as a state, has 22 million people, so there's more millionaires in the U.S. than there's residents in Florida. So it's a massive opportunity with low market penetration.
It's also a very much wellness-oriented market, and also for our sauna kits, there's also a strong Do-I t-Y ourself, DIY, culture. So many of the products that we have really fit extremely well the market opportunity. We see that all different sauna types are present and there is very significant role in infrared saunas in North America. Also, we see that it's more online, and it's more direct to customer. Then let's move to Asia, APAC, and Middle East, and Africa. Roughly 15% of the global market potential and between 1-2 million saunas, and we see it as kind of the next North America for us.
So there's really significant sized countries, like Japan, 125 million people, high income levels, strong, kind of spa, spa culture of onsen for hundreds of years, and sauna fits perfectly, that market. There are many others as well. Of course, China, just due to their sheer size, provides an opportunity, not just a place of manufacturing and sourcing, but also some market for our products. In a place like Australia, that actually closely follows trends, in, in the U.S., is also actually a very, very good market for us, especially with this, private customer, a residential, residential products. I have also included Russia, Russia here because Russia is a, a real relevant part of the global market, but it's on gray.
So roughly 6 million saunas in Russia, and around 15% of the global market, but it's on gray for the reason that I explained. We don't do business in Russia. So let's move to our strategy. We have a very strong purpose: the product we do does great, feels great, so we are healing with heat, and that's a great purpose for a company like us and for people at Harvia. And this is what we have had, and this is what we are keeping, because we feel it resonates really well, and it's timeless and provides the North Star for the reason of our existence. Then we've been working really on the strategy and starting with the question of: what kind of role do we want to play in this market?
The role we wanna play in this market is here. We wanna be shaping the global sauna market so that everyone has a reason to experience sauna. Let me take you through this step- by- step. There. So word "shaping," it's really about our attitude and approach. It's about, you know, leader of the market being an active market maker. It's also a leader who wants to shape the market, influence the course of its development. It's about inspiring people about sauna. It's about leading with innovation... taking the category forward, and it's also about shaping the market through partnerships and through M&A to influence the competitive landscape. We also talk about global sauna market here, because we have global viewpoint, we have global ambitions.
We are the global leader, and we intend to stay that way, and we hope to just extend our lead compared to the others. So we focus on countries that matter the most. We have the most international portfolio, we have the approvals that are needed to operate in the most interesting markets, and we offer the most complete portfolio. Everyone, sauna is a great product, and as part of our purpose, healing with heat, we feel it's our responsibility to drive the market forward in a way that more and more people have the possibility and means to enjoy sauna and enjoy its wellness benefits. So we want to embrace the diversity in the markets, embrace the diversity in drivers for using sauna.
We wanna have a portfolio that caters through different price points, so for every family and every business, they can find the right price point that that is right for them. We wanna make our products broadly available in the right channels. And reason to experience. Sauna, there's many great reasons to experience sauna, and not just to experience, but to really have sauna almost like a lifestyle, part of your every week routine. Maybe even several times a week. It's about the wellness benefits, it's about the social benefits. It's about just, it feels great. It's about maybe escape from your daily, daily life. Maybe it's about, you know, meeting people. But we wanna make sure the sauna market keeps evolving, that there's more and more, and stronger and stronger reasons to experience sauna. It's about scientific research and collaboration with universities.
It's about innovation, it's about sharing science-backed evidence. It's about inspiring the market, and it's working with, for example, with influencers. And when we talk about sauna, we talk about not just the traditional sauna, not just the infrared sauna, not just the steam sauna, but the broader sauna experience, including, for example, the bathing elements, cold plunges, hot tubs, wellness technology, et cetera, that can be connected to, to sauna. And we feel that it's our responsibility, possibility, and privilege as a market leader to shape the direction, and that's what we intend to do. So how we do it? We have updated our strategic focus areas to be as follows. On the upper level, we have three, what I would call, strategic commercial priorities, and they are delivering the full sauna experience, winning in strategically important markets, and leading in key channels. And on the...
Kind of below them, we have what I would call the foundation element, being best-in-class operations and having great people that take this business forward. Delivering the full sauna experience. You could almost think about, like, delivering the full sauna experience, the product dimension. Winning in strategically important markets, the geographical dimension, and leading in key channels is the channel and customer dimension of our strategy. But let's talk about the delivering the full sauna experience. It's about moving more and more from an equipment and product business to a full solutions business. As said, you know, providing everything, a person needs to have a great sauna experience, not just the equipment, but everything they need, in an easy-to-buy, easy-to-assemble, easy-to-own, and enjoyable-to-own way. It's also about delivering full sauna experience in a way that we cater to the different cultures and different sauna types.
It's about making steam and infrared saunas a more sizable part of Harvia sauna, sauna business. Full sauna experience could also include, for example, multi-mode saunas, that you have traditional sauna heater and infrared panels in the same unit. It's also about full sauna experience in terms of innovation. It's about, you know, exciting products with winning designs, it's best user experience, and also, we are very much emphasizing the role of digital and technology as source of differentiation, and making sauna experience even better for the future. Winning a strategically important market, so that's a geographical dimension of our strategy. In North America, we've been very successful for many years, and we intend to keep being successful. We see plenty of growth opportunities. It's a penetration game. 1 million saunas in a country with 340 million customers, so there's plenty of opportunity to go after.
In our stronghold traditional sauna market business, we also know that we are just addressing part of the market. So, for example, Almost Heaven Sauna cabin business is actually more like a volume and a lower price point in a sauna solution market, and there's plenty of potential in the higher price points as well. And of course, steam and infrared are important parts of the North American sauna market, and we also see opportunities to be even more present in the channels that matter. Europe, our home continent, here our position is strong, and we are well positioned to capture growth opportunity as the market is now starting to return back to growth. But we also see that we're also here addressing just a part of the potential.
So, for example, the solutions business, where we are so successful in North America, we feel that we can have even a stronger play in Europe. We also see that, you know, in terms of commercial part of the market, there's definitely many pockets which provide growth, and we have under-penetrated so far. Asia, Middle East, and Africa, it's about active market making. It's about activities like Harvia Japan Limited, our joint venture with a local partner, to really fuel the market, be active, and making sure that when things are happening and making things happen, we are the ones who are winning. And it's also about taking an active consolidator role in the industry through M&A, leading in the key channels, so this is channel and customer dimension.
To make sure that our products are available in the right places, in the right countries, we have to master this so-called right product through the right channel approach. Some of our products are more standard, more like a volume, and then we need to be winning in the volume channel. Some of our products are more like high-end, and then we need to be winning in the high service oriented channels. We need to be able to play our portfolio right, so that our partners have also the opportunity to earn right margin for the work they do. We want to be the best long-term partner for our B2B customers or channel partners, and help them to succeed, so that we can succeed together with them. It's about helping them sell more, get more attention, get more traffic, et cetera.
It's also about strengthening the role of direct-to-consumer channel. We see this extremely important for the future. It's already a big part of our business in North America, and we see it increasingly important practically across the world. Not just as a sales channel, but as these products get more and more connected, it allows us to form a connection with the sauna users, that allows us to deliver a better experience, and also over time, opens interesting business opportunities. And then, to be able to be successful in these three strategic commercial priorities, we have to have best-in-class operations and great people. And this, of course, has been a stronghold in terms of operational efficiency and productivity.
It's about automating our production, it's about lean, it's about streamlining, it's about simplification, it's about scaling up as the demand grows. It's also about delivering more synergies. In the past, Harvia has been rather kind of, the companies that we've acquired have been rather loosely connected, and now they are connected more in the right places. We still want to maintain that agility, entrepreneurial spirit, ability to serve the customer, but we also at the same time want to deliver synergies. An example, investment in digital. It wouldn't make sense for us that in different units we have separate and disjointed investment in digital. It's much better for us to, you know, focus together and make sure that as Harvia Group, we have the world's best digital platform for sauna.
It's also about the people, because actually, without people, it would be just empty walls and, you know, kind of, papers in some lawyer's documents drawer somewhere. People make this business alive, and people make this business live and go forward. We wanna be a great place to work. We wanna keep people, we wanna develop people, we wanna acquire more talent. And as an example, when we go to infrared or enter new markets far away from our home markets, or when we talk about digital, it is clear that we need to increase our strategic capabilities in the coming years. And we are committed to sustainability, so we are continuing investing in this area, so we are also leader in the sustainability dimension.
Now, as a part of strategy, it's very important to talk about what is it that you plan to do, but it's also very important to talk about what is it that you plan not to do. And here is the, kind of, the bottom line: We focus on international or global scalable business opportunities, which have the right profit opportunity, and has the right fit with what we are good at. And the core is, of course, we started as an equipment manufacturer. We are now providing full solutions, and increasingly moving to scalable digital services. So as long as something can be made within the walls of a factory, we're interested in, or whether a service can be delivered through an application and data center, we're interested. They are scalable, high-margin opportunities, et cetera. That's the playground for Harvia.
But what's not our core is, for example, construction business. It's like going to people's homes or different places to build saunas. Why? It's not industrial, it's construction. We are not a construction company. It's hard to scale internationally. Typically, we see a less attractive profit portfolio in these industries, and higher risk portfolio or profile. So we're not a construction business, and we don't intend to become a construction business. Nor we are a service or hospitality business. It's a, again, complete different set of competence. Maybe this is great for, you know, spa chain or hotel chain, et cetera, but we are an industrial player that is becoming solutions business and increasingly digital, but we are not a kind of hospitality business.
Now, if we are successful in implementing our strategy in the coming years, it's actually interesting to think that while our focus is clearly in the sauna, that's the core, and that's where we need and will succeed. When we're successful, we can actually start to carve out value or tap into value potential in actually very interesting and large, I'll say, adjacent markets. So for example, wellness and health. Yeah, we are, I guess, partly a wellness and health business, but there's increasing opportunities in the coming years that we see, and this is a multi-trillion market. So even a tiny fraction of that would be very interesting for Harvia, for sure. Now, the physical environment around sauna also provides opportunities. And in the picture, in the bathroom market, you can see Harvia Nova.
You can actually see it also, those who are here in the showroom. It's a very easy-to-install steam shower, steam sauna cabin that actually can replace sauna shower. Much more value, more exciting product. So let's see. Interesting thoughts. Digital services. I said saunas will get more connected, bigger screens, et cetera, entertainment, content during sauna, for example, sauna-related wellness programs, et cetera. Very interesting opportunity. And then lifestyle brand. If we're successful in building Harvia, EOS, our strong brands more widely as consumer brands, not just brands that are known within the industry, I think it also provides really interesting opportunities, for example, in accessories and maybe even clothing. So just to inspire some thinking. So we have updated our long-term financial targets to reflect our ambition to lead.
The elements: growth, profitability, leverage, are the same as in the past. One of them has remained the same, and two have changed. Growth has changed. It used to be more than 5%, but at the same time, you know, we are seeing that the market is growing 5% and even more in the coming years. We want to be leading, and by definition, if we want to keep, keep leading, we need to grow faster than the market. So the ambition level needs to reflect that. But it's not only kind of the ambition level would need to reflect that, but we actually see so many opportunities. It's very natural that we should be hiking the growth ambition here.
For a company with Harvia's financials, i.e., high profitability, we also know the best way for us to grow company value is to grow profitably. So growth is a key priority for us, and we've decided that the new growth-related financial target for the long term for us is 10% average annual revenue growth. In terms of profitability, it's the same as in the past, so over 20% adjusted operating profit margin. Now, you might comment that, "Hey, you've been delivering more than that for now a number of years." And we are very happy, and this is, of course, not the kind of... we're not stopping. So when we have an opportunity to deliver more, we deliver more.
But at the same time, we feel that there is going to be really decisive years for the sauna market in the coming years that require also innovation, investments, and for example, M&A. And because we are a company that is leading in terms of profitability, most likely our acquisitions would be companies that, you know, at the time of acquisition, would have a lower EBITDA levels or EBIT levels. And it might take then a few years for us to then get them to the group level and hopefully beyond. We have, by the way, a great track record, so we've been buying companies with a very challenging financial situation and low profitability, and we have a great track record of turning them around and delivering great profit results.
We feel like, you know, for this competitive strategic situation, the best way for us is really to keep this high profitability while being even more aggressive on the growth dimension. In terms of leverage, that has also changed somewhat. It used to be 1.5x-2.5 x leverage, as in net debt divided by adjusted EBITDA. We have kept the upper limit because we always want to make sure that Harvia is a solid business with strong balance sheet. But for the consolidation game, it's clear that we need to be, you know, building fitness for acquisitions. We already have, you know, quite low leverage, and it's for a reason, because in this market environment, we do need war chest.
And then we make an acquisition, leverage goes up, and then we build fitness again and strengthen the balance sheet, and then we are ready for the next one. That's kind of the idea. We have implemented a new organization at the beginning of this year to support our strategic ambition and implementation. We have essentially four sales regions: Northern Europe, Continental Europe, North America, APAC, so Asia and Pacific, and Middle East, and Africa. And the role for the regions is to maximize our business opportunity in the region that they operate. So they are responsible for all customers, they are responsible for marketing, they are responsible for developing the market, and driving growth in a profitable manner. And their role is also to represent strong regional voice of the customer or the market towards, for example, product development.
We have then five group functions: marketing brands, products and solutions, innovation technology, operations, and support functions that includes finance, human resources, and IT. And here, the idea is we want to drive synergies in the right places of the company. I mentioned this example of investments in digital technology. There's also, for example, operations. We want to run a globally optimized production and supply chain network. It's about, you know, marketing brands. We want to have, you know, consistent, high impact, you know, campaigns and brand positionings. And we want to optimize our product portfolio, you know, from global perspective, listening to and seeing the regional opportunities and their needs. And we feel that, you know, with this structure, we are also building kind of readiness and efficiency for future M&A.
We have a clear kind of company platform to which we can then, in appropriate degrees, integrate the acquired companies. You'll also see one, I would say, special box here, which is EOS. That's our highest-end brand, kind of for the superior and premium plus market. The reason why it's in the management team and kind of they highlight separately is that we have two master brands, Harvia and EOS, and we want them to be separate enough. They cannot be overlapping. We need to push them even further away and to make sure that EOS has the freedom of action to really build a high-end brand, operate in the right channels. We feel it's right that it's more what I would call semi-integrated or semi-independent, depending on the viewpoint.
We are also committed to sustainability, and the business, as said, is very sustainable in nature. We help people live better and longer. We will actively participate in scientific research. We will actively participate in kind of sharing the kind of making the world know about the benefits and excitement around sauna so that more and more people can get the benefits. We also want to make sure that while they're in a sauna, where there's Harvia equipment or maybe even a full Harvia sauna, people can enjoy the sauna with good consciousness. So the products have been built in a sustainable manner. We use sustainable sourced materials, we have high energy efficiency, and we invest in technologies like, you know, cleaner burning, as an example.
So the goal is that, you know, 100% of our components are sustainably sourced from responsible partners in the channel. We also want to make sure that our own operations is very sustainable and environmentally friendly. It's, for example, minimizing waste, it's about recycling, and for CO2, our commitment is that our own operations will be carbon neutral by 2030. We also want to provide a great place to work, a safe and warm community for our people, a place where they can really thrive, you know, reach their full potential, feel that, you know, they are being invested in, they have development opportunities, and this is a safe place for them. At the same time, we also want to care for the people around us, the local communities, as an example.
For example, here in Muurame, we are an important local stakeholder and, and are very much willing to support, kind of the local communities. And, we also believe in long-term partnerships with our channel partners. So this is also where we want to, act in a very responsible, win-win, and respectful, manner. And in terms of our goal here, it's zero accidents in, in our operations. So that's my presentation. The key - the key takeaways are that the global sauna market is really attractive market, with plenty of, opportunities and strong growth drivers. We are the leader, and we intend to be the leader. We have a strong - track record, and we think we're really well positioned for the future.
With our newly stated strategic role, we plan to take a really ambitious, bold role in shaping the global sauna market and giving everyone a reason to experience sauna. Accordingly, we have updated our long-term financial targets so that they are well aligned. With that, thank you, and then I would be handing over to our Chief Financial Officer, Ari Vesterinen. Ari, please.
Thank you. Thank you, Matias. Yeah, my name is Ari Vesterinen. I'm a CFO of Harvia. I've been working now here, this summer, 10 years, so I joined the Harvia in 2014. We will discuss a little about the past financial performance, the financial position of Harvia first, and then we will move to the financial long-term targets and go a little more deeper into details there. Here we see the development of the time when Harvia went public, 2018, how we have been growing. The times have changed, as Matias already explained.
We have had, anyhow, very, very nice growth rate during those times, compound average growth rate 19%, and 10% of that is internal organic growth. Rest comes from the, from the acquisitions. We have acquired Almost Heaven Saunas business, end of 2018 in the U.S. In 2020, the German EOS majority, almost 80%, and the rest, 20%, was acquired in 2022. In 2021, we acquired Kirami, the Scandinavian still water hot tub company, also active in sauna business, and then Sauna-Eurox, company making the world-best sauna heater stones. And recently in 2023, we acquired timer manufacturer in Italy.
So, we like M&A, we like to grow, and what is important for us is the profitability. The high profitability is actually really in the DNA of the company. We want to be on a decent level. Here we see how we have grown or developed in different areas. We actually changed the area reporting based on the regions in Q1 this year. And now we have calculated backwards based on that new region division, how we have been developing in the past in these regions. The Continental Europe is now the biggest area, but North America is growing fast and might get bigger than the Continental Europe quite soon.
But still, as you see, over the half of the sales still come from Europe, Northern Europe and Central Europe. The APAC EMEA area looks like having a decline, but in fact, the decline comes from the exit from Russia. In 2021, we had about EUR 11 million net sales there. In 2022, still, EUR 7.5 million. So now this part of the sales is lacking from the upper part of the column... We changed also a year ago the division of the product groups in our reporting. Now, we have calculated backwards also this from the time when we went public in 2018. The biggest change there was that we have now more equipment in the heating equipment part of the business.
As you see, we have almost doubled the heating equipment business from the IPO time, and that's really still the bulk of Harvia's source of income and revenues. But the total sauna solutions, complete sauna solutions, they have been also growing quite fast, especially thanks to the business in North America, and also Kirami. And so we have been growing in sauna area also. The free cash flow has been always strong for Harvia.
Harvia is known for its cash generation capabilities, and as you can see from the picture on the left side, it has been actually the cash flow has been increasing quite steadily, with only the exception of in the year of 2021, when we actually invested almost EUR 12 million in increasing the production capacity, and increased also the working capital in order to serve the customers with higher inventory levels, and so forth. But after that, we have been reducing the working capital levels again, and the free cash flow has increased quite rapidly again. And the cash conversion has been also, due to the reduction of the working capital, quite strong.
On the right side, you see how the net debt has developed and the leverage over time. We had the peak of the net debt actually after the second acquisition of the EOS shares in 2021, but we've been going down quite rapidly again in the net debt. Actually, in Q1, we had slightly over half of the net debt what we had in Q1 year ago. The leverage has been a long time already under our long-term targets, which were 1.5x-2.5x. So, we don't see that there is any good reason to keep the lower limit of the leverage at 1.5x. We could even be getting temporarily debt-free or whatever as a company.
We like to be in a strong financial position in order to maneuver, for instance, on the M&A market, and so with lower debt burden or interest-bearing debt. Here we see the development of the investments during the time from 2018. The investment needs for Harvia, they have been quite moderate, from typically EUR 1.5 million-EUR 3.5 million a year, with really the exception of 2021, where we invested quite much for the production capacity in multiple places. In the beginning of this year, we acquired quite big plot of land around our West Virginia factory in the U.S.
That means, in practice, that we are expecting for the next couple of years, the investments levels in the U.S. to increase, in order to increase the capacity there, and so to support the growth. So when we go to the updated or think of the updated financial targets, we have to also look around, and what is now the environment in the business? We feel and think that the business environment actually supports now higher growth rates in the long term as what we have had in our targets a few years. That's why we are increasing that level of ambition there.
Since we are also a market consolidator, we want to be active in the M&A. We include the M&A part of the inorganic growth part in the sales growth targets. So... why we want to grow that much faster than the market? Well, we have noticed, and everybody can see it from our numbers, that the higher sales we have, the higher relative profitability we have also. We have a quite strong so-called operative leverage, that when we... we have pretty high gross margins, currently over 60% of the material costs.
If we can increase the sales and keep somewhat the organization on decent level and the other fixed costs, the operative EBIT increases quite rapidly. And on the other hand, we want to grow on the long run and invest in R&D, supply chain network, operations, marketing, and that is also easier when we are earning good money there. Then I have got questions sometimes that: "Okay, how much can you then actually finance? How big acquisitions would be possible?" And in this picture, you can see that we had end of Q1, EUR 26 million interest-bearing net debt.
If we look at our financial targets and the leverage there, 2.5x, we could take to reach the 2.5x, EUR 76 million more interest-bearing debt. But this target is not the upper limit. Of course, we can temporarily go over the limits as we have gone also temporarily under the limits in the past. And we have made debt capacity analyses internally and with our financiers, and the answer is that we could easily carry about EUR 150 million more interest-bearing debt, at least for some years. And that's why I feel that the financing capacity doesn't limit our M&A activities. But we want to be careful what we buy, at which price, with which multiples, and we are selective also there in terms of the strategic fit.
There are two kind of different kind of acquisitions: the strategic acquisitions, which somehow enlarge, enlarge our business opportunities and skills and so forth, and then more tactical acquisitions, which support, for instance, the capacity of the current business or similar things supporting the current business. So, typically, the multiples, for instance, in the strategic area, they might be a slightly higher than in tactical area. But, what are we then aiming, and what are we actually looking in the acquisitions? We want to strengthen really our position, especially outside Europe. As you have seen, we have been growing quite fast in North America. We see a lot of opportunities in Asia.
And there are also product groups where we are not especially strong, or we are selling them, but we could sell more if we could have, for instance, distribution or wider product range or deeper knowledge of these products and so forth. So these kind of product groups are infrared saunas and steam rooms. And of course, we want to also build strategic capabilities, like in the digital area. And when we are considering some acquisitions, we don't really bet the company. We don't want to buy too big companies, which might risk, for instance, the high profitability level of the current Harvia. So that's also important to notice. So here are once more the updated long-term financial targets, and these are really long term.
They are not guidance, for instance, for this year or next year. We aim to be on that level, at least on average, over longer time, and longer time might be something like five to six years or something similar. So we increased our ambition level in the growth rate from more than 5% to 10% on average, and that's supported also with M&A. And the profitability, okay, we have had traditionally quite good and high profitability. We want to keep it that way, but we don't increase the lower level of the profitability target. We, we...
The profitability varies, depending on the situation, and there might be times that, through bigger M&A and lower relative profitability of the target, we might get some time temporarily under this limit, but we really avoid it, and we are actually very active in fine-tuning the profitability when needed. In the growth phases, it's not necessary, but if sales in some areas decline also, we also adapt the costs correspondingly. The leverage, as mentioned earlier, we are really a strongly cash generating company, so we don't think that we have to have the lower limit as we had 1.5x, so no lower limit, and we try to have the upper limit at 2.5x, but temporarily, with the bigger acquisition, we might also go over that.
The dividend policy. As you see from the picture, we have been paying continuously growing dividends. This year, it will be in total EUR 0.68. The dividends will be paid twice a year, and actually, we don't change anything in this dividend policy. The dividend payout ratio for last year's result was 54%. Dividend policy twice a year and continuously increasing dividends. So key takeaways of this financial part: we have become more global, and we have had our growth opportunities, and we see them outside of Finland, outside of Northern Europe. We invest really in that growth.
We are getting less and less sauna heater centric, but we are still really a strong producer, the strongest in the world, actually, for the sauna heater equipment. But the part of the complete sauna solutions is increasing, and that's good for the profitability, and that's good for the sales numbers. We want to keep the strong financial position in order to be able to make M&As to support really the inorganic growth and also to invest when needed in production capacity, and so forth. But you have noticed we don't need actually so much new investments. This business model, what we have, is not so much capacity-intensive as some other industries.
And we want to be more ambitious in the growth targets, and that's reflected in the financial targets also in the long term, and the dividend policy stays the same as we have had. So thank you for listening so far. Now it's time for questions. Matias, if you will join me, we can answer together. Matias's part, my part.
Yes, thank you. Thank you, Matias and Ari. We are taking first some questions from the audience. My colleague will hand you a mic, so first here, please.
Yes, thank you, Matias and Ari, for an interesting presentation. I have a few questions. I think many times you mentioned the M&A opportunity, and especially in the, the steam and infrared. And, there hasn't been that many acquisitions over the last one and a half years, if I recall. But, what kind of target list do you currently, currently have, and what do you think about the, the target valuations at the moment? And do you think, I mean, we should expect more M&A sooner or, or later?
Well, it's as discussed, a you know core part of our strategy, and we have the ambition to utilize M&A as a means to grow and strengthen our position. Now, we actually have a very systematic approach, so it's partly what Ari mentioned. It's being clear what's a strategic acquisition and kind of what are the strategic goals we want to support with M&A, and also the tactical, or sometimes I might call them like opportunistic, when the price is right, there's a good deal, we are of course interested in also kind of appropriate transactions as well. Now, we have long lists in line with the strategic goals that we have. We have short list.
We have several evaluation criteria, including essentially strength of the portfolio in terms of product competitiveness. It's about kind of maturity of the operations. Is it ready to be integrated? Some of the entrepreneur-owned companies don't have the same, for example, reporting scrutiny as in a public listed company like Harvia. What kind of value creation opportunity we see so that, you know, we can find a good win-win deal that, you know, the seller is happy, and we are happy because seller feels they get a right price, and we still, you know, see the right opportunity for increasing value through, for example, synergies, cross-selling, et cetera. And one big part is actually the culture fit.
Do we feel that there's the right people and kind of the right culture that we feel would be right for Harvia? Now, it's not so easy to find targets with such a long list of criteria, but we are definitely working on it. One thing that I think is starting to ease the situation is that the market turbulence did impact the kind of valuation expectations.
So some of the transactions that, you know, happened during in the market during, for example, 2021, were pretty, you know, I would say, highly, highly valued. And, you know, it has taken some time for the, you know, for the sellers and buyers then to start to find the common ground. But I do believe that we are much closer to that now than we were, for example, a year ago. Hopefully, we can have news sooner or later, but cannot comment that, you know, too much in detail.
Yes. Thank you. Then, the other question is, as you raise the sales growth target from five to 10, what kind of investments you need if we now just talk about the organic growth?
Mm-hmm. Yeah. So would you like to take that?
Yeah. Yeah. Well, actually, we see the market is growing faster than the 5%, and it. The biggest investment for us currently is to do the things right. We have organized our sales, and we are supporting the regions better, and the investments there are actually, money-wise, quite low, but to get closer to the customer and do things as we are used to, but slightly better, and especially better than the competitors. And we are very confident that we can continue that path and improve our growth rate based on the experience we have had.
We do have also in our production facilities, mostly actually pretty good, you know, still, you know, opportunity to scale up and get more out of the production. For example, in Muurame, although we are busy here, we know that we can do still significantly more without significant investments. The only exception is that, you know, due to the rapid growth over many years now already in the U.S., we do see that there is, you know, even in the kind of rather near term, some investment needs, but they are not, I would say, not huge, but I would say meaningful sized. I think we can grasp the shorter term growth opportunity with quite limited investments.
But then again, when we want to have strategic long-term growth, it of course requires some investments in, you know, further innovation and digital, as I mentioned. We need to have a stronger infrared and steam portfolio, et cetera. So there are investments like this, but again, not like a, you know, one big jump that we need to do, but it's more like a business as usual that we see in front of us.
Hi, Mika Karppinen from Danske. You are talking about the infra and steam segment growth opportunity. If I have, if I have understood correctly, you have been looking at those segments already in the, in the past. What's the difference that the sort of these measures will really start bearing fruit now?
Well, we've been looking at them, I think that's definitely fair to say. But still, during the course of the, I would say, Harvia's very natural kind of steps of development, we still have been, you know, the competency and the focus and the focus the sales teams and kind of in terms, I would say the kind of strength of selling and having the USPs, et cetera, it has still been pretty much on the, on the traditional sauna side. Now, I feel that, you know, the investments and the change we're making in the organization, being also more clear, what's the, what's the role of region? Let's take the role of North America.
Now, we know that there's significant steam market, we know that there's a strong infrared market, and the region knows crystal clear what's the expectation. It's not just to win the traditional sauna space. We need to have the commercial. We have to have the right channels. So this, for example, channel landscape is a bit different. So, for example, steam goes through much more like a professional channel and more like close to the plumbing channels, whereas infrared is very much directly online, direct to customers, digital. So we need to be present in the right channels. And of course, it's about the right USPs that we are definitely working on. Personally, I'm confident that we have really what it takes and the plans are getting sharper.
Well, well, I remember the market has been really expecting some acquisitions already long time, and you know that we like acquisitions and we have had quite good track record there. But on the other hand, there is also one other thing that when we, for instance, study the market, let's take an example, Northern America. We have also recognized that there is plenty of, still plenty of opportunity to growth also in the traditional sauna segment. So it doesn't necessarily need new acquisitions to grow fast.
Then I take one question from the chat before we move to a break. And so I believe this is on technology, and I believe for Matias. You mentioned technology and digital. Do your system use AI in any way to optimize the customer's experience and sort of tailor it according to their preferences? And if not, do you plan to implement it?
Well, of course, we are, you know, keenly following the developments on the kind of broader technology space, including the AI. I think, you know, as a company, we would have two approaches to it. One is kind of the bottom-up and more like opportunistic and try out and learn, and that's something that you could actually see, for example, when we would go to the office or using ChatGPT, et cetera, generative AI opportunities is becoming more and more like every day as part of our, part of our work. But very importantly, it's also about being strategic and thinking about kind of what really fundamentally could change. And we do see that AI, of course, will play an increasing role, no matter what industry we're talking about, and also in our case.
Especially as we, you know, keep developing, for example, digital platforms for the future, data is going to be a key source of value, so making sure that our house is in order, data strategy, data protection, cloud-based infrastructure, and working with the world's leading technology partners that open opportunities for the future. So we are keenly following some action. It's not very visible yet, but in the long term, definitely I see it playing a part in our offering.
Thank you, Matias. Now it's time for a short break, so we continue at noon, so in 10 minutes. Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Welcome back to Harvia Capital Markets Day. Now we continue with the second section, and we start by Jennifer Thayer discussing how we fuel growth in North America. Jennifer.
Thanks, Jukka. Hello, and welcome. It's great to be here with everyone today. Let me get to my place. My name is Jennifer Thayer. I'm the new Head of Region for North America. I am about to celebrate my fourth month in position in the management group with the team here at Harvia, and I'm here today to discuss how we're going to fuel growth in North America, in the market, and continue to take share. So as you heard Matias discuss, we've seen very strong performance and growth in the North American market. In 2023, Harvia U.S. did EUR 43.4 million, which is about 29% of the total group revenue. We operate two locations currently in North America. We have our Holland, Michigan location, which is our main facility for our sales and service organization.
We also have, as you heard discussed earlier, our West Virginia location, which is the largest sauna factory in North America, where we make over 10,000 saunas per year. We have three key brands in North America: obviously, Harvia, where it's our brand for heaters, our components, and our full cabin solutions. We have Almost Heaven Saunas, which is our main brand for Harvia's sauna rooms in volume in North America. So you see full sauna room solutions in indoor and outdoor solutions. You also have our barrel saunas. And then obviously, we've heard about EOS, the high-end component brand in North America, which is made more for the high-end and professional application. You've heard us talk about our channel strategies today and our key customer groups.
A large part of our groups in North America is our B2C, which is often served via our online channel with big box partners. We also have our distributor network, our DIY source, our sauna builders, our commercial end users, and our direct-to-consumer customer as well. Harvia has seen, Harvia U.S. has seen strong growth since acquiring Almost Heaven Saunas in 2018. We've seen a significant scale in the business since that acquisition, where it was EUR 3 million versus ending last year at EUR 43.4 million. A lot of that, in the beginning, was our traditional sauna heater platform business, whereas now, Almost Heaven Saunas gave us the platform for full sauna solutions in the U.S. market. Our compound annual growth rate is 38%, with the market being at 15%.
As many companies saw in 2020 to 2021, we saw a spike, a large spike in the business with COVID, with growth continuing once COVID restrictions were lifted. So we've seen a large awareness in sauna in the U.S. and assortment growth driving that performance. So as Matias stated, we still have significant room for growth in North America. Currently, 65% of our business comes from the residential consumer, and 35% of our business comes from the commercial consumer. Currently, our strength is in traditional sauna, which is almost half of our business, but you also heard Ari mention we still have considerable opportunity to continue to grow that area of our business. While infrared and steam are somewhat small and under-penetrated, this also allows a large opportunity for our growth.
The market size is estimated to be about $800 million in the U.S., which allows Harvia the opportunity to take a large share of the market as you think about growing that EUR 43.4 million. Only about 1% of U.S. households have a sauna currently. So if you think about 340 million people in the US market, it gives us a substantial runway for us to continue to grow that business. Compared to more mature sauna markets, share of replacement demand's currently lower for us. New builds are really important, but if you think about that market, replacement saunas and heaters will continue to grow as we continue to penetrate the market. But currently, full sauna solutions are really what's driving our business, adding to a higher ticket price than just saunas or components.
We've really seen a strong demand and awareness of sauna health benefits in the U.S. market over the course of the last few years, and there's many characteristics that drive those benefits for Harvia as a whole. On the left-hand side of the screen, I'm going to take you kind of what those characteristics look like for us. On the right-hand side of the screen, I'm going to walk you through how that translates to opportunity for Harvia, if you think about how we move forward. Our market growth is obviously in the U.S. above global average, especially in the residential saunas, so increasing awareness and interest has really been booming for us in the U.S. market. It gives Harvia a great growth potential and really a focus market for us to drive the company's overall growth and excitement around the category.
There's also a very low sauna penetration, but vast base of consumers that have a nice purchasing power. And so it allows us as an organization to leverage our great assortment, that we have across our, our organization as a whole, and really kind of grow and leverage that business. We have momentum, supported by visibility in social media. I think Matias mentioned earlier the influencer network that's really driven consumer demand in the U.S. That is, that is, we're seeing a high penetration of impact there, in that market, which gives us exciting content for social media, and it allows us to collaborate with consumers who really can help us drive the brand, the awareness of the health benefits, and also, the excitement around the industry. There's a demand, a high demand for turnkey solutions in the U.S.
I think it was mentioned earlier that there's not a large amount of people that have the knowledge of how to build a full sauna, start to finish. Harvia offers exciting full solutions that are sleek and innovative, not only what we can build from a U.S. market perspective, but also what we offer from a global perspective. The direct-to-consumer and online channel is prevalent in many businesses in the U.S. We saw with the pandemic drove a lot of incremental demand on the dot-com site. That has not stopped, and so it allows us as a company, versus fully using our distribution network or our dealer network, although it's incredibly important to us, the Almost Heaven platform gives us the ability to really focus on direct-to-consumer directly through our line online channels as well.
Sauna is a specialty category with generally higher price points. It allows us as an organization to be able to deliver and drive the value message to our customers as well, not only with the benefits, but also the value it you can get a full solution for c ertain markets, specific technical requirements. So you think about product approvals and certifications that are important. Harvia has had and been known for having a great process to bring product to market that is able to be sold in the U.S. market. And very early on in my tenure, we've had a lot of discussion about what that looks like as we continue to add new product into the U.S. market. And then ongoing market consolidation. Obviously, you've heard a lot about that going on.
It gives us the opportunity to take a consolidator role in this market, yet the attractiveness, which is also very attractive to our competitors. So, I know Matias shared a lot of conversation and Ari around that. So there's kind of three, you know, three key areas that we can take immediate impact, and really, our goal is to be the leader in the North America market. So we want to be seen as the leading sauna experience provider and the go-to for quality replacement products. So we want to grow in infrared and steam, considering both organic and inorganic growth. Large opportunity for us there. We want to strengthen our position in the mid- to higher-price-point products that are fitted to relevant channels, while leveraging import products from other Harvia groups.
So although we're very proud of our U.S.-made products and how we present those in the market, we offer a very sleek and innovative product through our other groups and our other, parts of our organization, that we can really bring in to hit a more mid to higher tiered price point that we currently don't penetrate the market in as heavy right now. And then obviously, we want to launch new products that excite the market and focus on the full solutions. Secondly, if you think about, we need to continue to grow and win in the consumer marketplace. We want to sharpen our channel strategy and our market position on the direct-to-consumer and the B2B channels. We have very good, performance in our B2C channels and our online markets there.
So really being able to develop a strategy, which we've been working on, to ensure we are the go-to for the direct-to-consumer market and the B2B market is going to be key for us as we move forward. We're going to continue to build awareness of sauna and our brands, and what are the opportunities for quick wins? You'll hear me talk about that in just a little bit. There's a lot of low-hanging fruit for us in the U.S. market that we can continue to capitalize on as we move forward. And then we want to strengthen the customer experience, both when using our products and in our customer service channels. So it really...
We want to be the leader in customer service, and we want to make it easy for the customer to not only do business with us, but have service with us post purchase. So that's going to continue to be a big focus for us in the U.S. And third, we want to leverage our strong operational and people capabilities. So you know, you think about further improving our operation efficiency and our logistics network and our warehousing. We currently do that out of our West Virginia location. So we'll continue to talk about what are the right things from a logistics network and warehousing solution that can help us get closer to the customer and can help us have better lead times, and really kind of lead the market versus follow the market in that space.
Then we want to invest in developing and acquire key competencies in selected areas in North America and to support our growth plans, whether that be people, right, whether that be processes, or whether that be product. So kind of the three key areas of our focus. So there's many things that we've been doing in the U.S. that's, you know, driven a continued awareness and growth of our brands that I wanted to share with everyone. We've introduced new products to drive additional product mix, like I mentioned before. We've leveraged a lot of our U.S.-made product to sell through our B2C channels. We've had the opportunity now to really understand what can we bring in and what does the market demand look like in that mid- to higher-tier price point.
We've brought that product in to sell through our dealer network in our online, our own online channel as well. We want to add to our organization structure that we can continue to grow with demand. So that, for us, is a marketing channel in the U.S., led by Päivi and her team here in Finland. And I think the best part of this, it allows us to tell our story. It allows us to get direct to the consumer much quicker. It also allows us to have a strong brand image and understand where we need to pivot as the market continues to change.
You heard us talk about us purchasing the 21 acres around our West Virginia facility, not only to add more warehousing space and capabilities, but also to expand our product line and also be able to have multiple different shifts that we can produce more product as the demand continues to rise. So keeping it efficient without us having to add another facility is kind of the key there. We've also created an influencer strategy to ensure our brand is marketed and grown with quality partners. As many of you know, they're very important to us, and they're very important in telling a story. So making sure we have the right partners in doing that as we go to market will be very important as we move forward and to help us tell our story.
And then we've attended many conferences and trade shows over the course of the year, with more planned, to ensure that we're directly in front of our partners, we're training our dealers, and we're creating this, an excitement in the marketplace, where we've seen a lot of success, and we'll continue to add to that as we move forward, especially when you think about the business-to-business customer, so in the architectural, and new construction space and the, and the kitchen and bath space as well. So with all that being said, we're positioning ourselves to win in North America. So we have a strong position in the marketplace currently with the, you know, Almost Heaven Saunas has been in North America since 1977.
It has a very strong brand reputation and great relationships with the dealer network, so being able to expand and tell that story past the dealer network is going to be really important to us. We have a made in U.S.A. advantage. So if you think about, we have great operations locally, we've made several investments in that, and we have the made in the U.S.A. product offering, which is a competitive advantage for us over a lot of our competitors who do a lot of importing from China. And then we've got operations and an entire business model really proven to be well scalable for us to be able to grow. We have low penetration with large amounts of room to grow this business.
If you think about it, you know, with our strong brand recognition in the dealer network for our heater products, we can expand into other categories and kind of focus on owning our own brand in North America, and being able to tell that story and distribute our product at a higher rate directly to the consumer and directly to some of our dealers, versus just fully leveraging our distributor network. Our resources are strong with leverage from our entire Harvia Group, as I've mentioned before, and we continue to focus on innovation and new product to drive the North American marketplace.
So, you know, since my time with onboarding with the company, it's been very clear that, you know, we don't operate in a silo, and we have a very strong support system at all of our locations to allow us to really continue to grow much more rapidly than if we were just trying to operate and do that on our own. So there's three key takeaways for you as I kinda wrap up this presentation. North America can really grow rapidly in all sauna types. Our dominance is in traditional. As I said, there's still a lot of growth opportunity, with less than 1% of the market having a sauna currently. But infrared and steam are still untapped potential for us, that we also have the opportunity to grow organically and inorganically.
We've created an infrastructure that's gonna allow us to grow. Everyone understands our plans in the U.S. market and how we will get there, so really one goal. I did present this to this week to Matias as well. Really, when you think about what's our go-to-market strategy in the U.S. after four months in, really making sure we're all aligned, and it aligns with the company's forward-thinking goals as well. Then we're gonna continue our relationship growth and expansion of our brand strategically.
So we're gonna leverage our marketing organization, along with our commercial channel strategies and our partners to execute and make our goals. So with that being said, thank you very much for your time. It's a very exciting time in North America, and I couldn't be happier to be a part of the team here at Harvia. With that, I'm gonna invite Markus up to talk about product and innovation.
Thank you, Jennifer. Hello, and welcome to the Product and Solutions presentation. My name is Markus Wörmanseder. I am enjoying working in the sauna business now for more than 16 years. I was happy to join Harvia and the team in 2016, and since January, I'm running the Product and Solutions team. Today, I would like to give you a short introduction into the sauna history, the different sauna categories and our branches. I will speak about the why and how people like to enjoy the sauna bathing. I will give you some insights about our key markets and how we differ them from each other, and what are the cornerstones in the product and solution strategy to generate organic growth.
As you can see here, the early saunas can be found in various cultures and countries in the Northern Hemisphere. Speaking about Scotland and North America, in ancient Rome, almost every city used to have a bath, and the bath was built around a steam room. Then, when Arabs and Turks overran the Eastern Roman Empire, they adopted the sauna to their culture. Then, in the Middle Age, Finland got the Savo sauna, the smoke sauna. But also, like in countries like Japan and Korean, they have been established the saunas already in the 15th century. The sun is the natural source of the infrared, and, the Greek doctor, Hippocrates, already recommended sun rays to treat, many diseases.
Radiant heat saunas have been widely invented in the U.S. and displayed for the first time in the 1893 Chicago World's Fair. Then also in 1965, a Japanese doctor received the first patent for a ceramic infrared sauna. After the Second World War, sauna became very popular in the German-speaking regions, since German soldiers have experienced saunas during the fight against the Soviet Russia. And the German sauna culture became very popular in many of the neighboring countries such as Switzerland, Belgium, Netherlands and Luxembourg. Today, sauna is a trend that is driven by the growing middle class and the increasing health awareness of the population, and biohacking is in the trends. And we speak then about from lifespan to healthspan.
So everybody wants to become old, but he wants also to become old, very healthy. We are differentiating three different sauna types. We have the traditional sauna, the infrared sauna, and the steam rooms for the commercial and the shower rooms for, or steam shower rooms for, for the domestic ones. And of course, we also have these plunges, the warm plunge and the cold plunge. And in the meanwhile, we see also that the trend is going that you can use your cold and warm plunge either as a warm and as a cold plunge, because the heat pumps are supporting both functions. The main difference between those different like types of saunas, we see in the temperature, the humidity, and the typical time you stay there.
When we speak about the sauna, we have typically temperatures between 60 and 110 degrees, and the humidity always depends a little bit on the sauna culture. While in Finland, you are pouring the water on the stones all the time, in Germany, you follow a strict rule. You wait until there is a light, and then when there is a light, one person has to stand up and do the sauna ceremony. And then of course, it's much hotter, and then also, like, the steam comes very, very straight to your face. And then there is one guy like me, waving the towel.
The funny thing about this, we have now a couple of 10,000 devices connected in our cloud, and we see also what is the worldwide average temperature in saunas. And it is surprisingly low. It's 67.5 degrees right now. Then, when we speak about the infrared sauna rooms, we have lower temperatures. People can stay longer in the sauna. They can, like, read a newspaper, watch some movies on the tablet or on a digital device, enjoy music, and they stay, like, double the time of the sauna. But still, the core purpose, why we are using infrared sauna or steam rooms is always the same.
So we want to increase our body core temperature, we want to increase our heart rate, and that is like some kind of exercise to the body, and it's helping really like the health, and it's really bringing pleasure to our lives. And then on the other hand side, we have the cold tub, and it is like really the perfect couple, the hot and the cold, because then if you enjoy afterwards the cold tub, it's -- sauna would be only like 50% of a sauna if there would put them, if there would not be the cold.
And also all of these biohackers, they have been educating us quite much about that, that you really benefit from the sauna most if you have the cold plunge afterwards as well. And when we speak about this body core temperature, I just want to tell you one small thing about that. In the body core, you have a stable and constant temperature, but the shell is more variable, and it's depending on the ambient temperature. And think about five degrees difference. So my fingers and my arms, they are for sure now 10 degrees lower than my body core. And only five degrees difference makes halving the metabolism.
So that means all this kind of regeneration processes, all these kind of things happening in your body based on the enzymes, is halving when the body temperature is only five degrees less. Well, that means heating up the body and getting the heat to all over the place is really very important for our health. So the next slide, we have the driver. Why we want to go to sauna and how we want to have it. And when we speak about the why, on the left-hand side, we see more the, like, the physical and personal motivation, that I want to be healthy, and I want to go to sauna, that I will keep my health condition.
And then at the other hand side, I have this kind of, I call it mental health, that I can spend time with my family, with my friends, and I can experience sauna together, like as a team or group. And when we speak about the how we want to enjoy it, there is, at the one hand side, there is this, like, very traditional way of enjoying sauna, pure and natural. Like, there is this cold plunge and the sauna, and you are moving from the sauna to the lake and back and forward. And then there is also, like, this very new technology driven sauna experience, where you have a color light, where you have digital screens. I've been in Japan in sauna. I have been watching sumo fighting there.
So, a perfect spot for sauna because, you know, you get... saunas are super hot, 120 degrees, and, these fights, they don't last very long. So... perfect couple. And then, when we speak about the technology advanced, of course, we want to, like, measure the whole sauna session, and we want to, like, visualize this, this, like I told you, what is the average temperature in the sauna? This kind of information we want then to bring to our customers as well in the future... And in between all this kind of motivation, the why and the how, we have a lot of intersections and, and in this way, all these kind of different sauna cultures have their own, like, like room.
As I said, classical sauna with the cold plunge, versus the multi-sensorial sauna, adding scent to the water, color lights and music, or like the sauna as an exercise to increasing your health, heart rate and monitoring it. Or taking then a part in a guided Aufguss ceremony together with 50 to 100 people in the same room. So we are building now saunas or like we are making heaters for saunas who can carry 200 people easily. So the biggest heater we do in the Harvia Group right now is 50 kW. And then sometimes these saunas have two of them. So that means you need a small power plant to run the sauna.
When we look now on, like our, our key, some of our key markets, we see that the sauna penetration is very different market per market. So we have, Finland, super high penetration. Germany, 80 years of heritage of sauna, good penetration, but still something for people who can, like, afford sauna, not for everybody. And then we have, like, the growing interest in the U.S. market, driven by the private users. And then we have Japan, where we have, very low penetration, but if you go to a Japanese sauna, you will see a lot of young people. And you know, these young people, they are growing up, and they, they will have money, and they will invest in sauna because they have been, experienced sauna when they have been younger.
I think it felt like that, before they go to party, they go to sauna, and then they go to the party at the next stage. And when we come back to the Finnish market, I just want to give you one food for thought to think about. Our revenue in the last year in Finland was something about EUR 30 million. We have 5.5 million Finns living in Finland. So if we do the math, we are selling to every Finn products worth EUR 5.5 . And we have 8 billion people all over the world. So if we could make the sauna penetration like we have it in Finland today, we would be in a multi-billion business.
Okay, so as we have learned from this, like, short trip through the history and the different drivers, we have more mature markets with existing wide base of installed saunas that are continuously generating replacement business to us. Like in Finland, we speak about 70%-80% replacement business. And then we have a lot of emerging markets. And those people, they have rather little knowledge about sauna, so there is our missions. We have to spread the word of sauna. We are missionaries. So we have really to grow first through the public and the hotel saunas, and then in the later stage, we can find the people who are, like, then ready to invest in the private own sauna as well.
So our ambition in those markets is to really create a very easy access to sauna, and then on a later stage, to motivate the people to make sauna to their daily routine. Because when it's the daily routine, then we have these sauna ambassadors, because they will speak good about sauna. And on the other hand side, of course, we get the replacement business later on.
So the key success, the key for the success is that, we have this one-stop offering for all the markets, meaning, that we have localized products with a good fit to the local, regulations and the power supplies, and that we have also, like, a product through all the sauna types, starting from the pail and the ladle, up to the full, sauna solution with infrared, steam or color light, music, the digital app, and inside the digital app, much more than just like remote started. So, when we look on how we can drive organic growth, so we know already today that we are in, like, more than 90 countries of the world, so having one more country doesn't make sense.
So we really have to utilize our great offering in Harvia and bring it to the world. So that means at the moment, in some countries, we have very selected portfolios. We have also not like the sales organizations are not ready to sell all the products, so it's also like transferring the knowledge of infrared, steam rooms, building the sales channels, and also having the products. Of course, we want to clean up our offering because through these acquisitions, we have a lot of overlaps in our offerings. So we have, for instance, in one heater category, we have three heaters, which is the average selling price EUR 140, so it makes no sense.
But on the other hand side, we have some blind spots in our offering, where we still want to bring new products. Actually, you will see it. So I think starting from end of this year, going on in the future, we will really come up with a couple of very nice things. And then also when we speak about the solution based offering, this is like or how we can also generate. So at the one hand side, of course, geographical expansion that we have checked already, we are everywhere. Then we can, of course, increase the share of wallet, and also, like, can expand our portfolio from traditional sauna to infrared, steam, digital. And then the third thing is, of course, the average purchase.
And, like, the ultimate upselling is, selling more solutions. And why? I show you on my next slide. So here you can see, one typical sauna for the Central European market. So the investment for the customer, was roughly about EUR 20,000 . It's a custom-made, tailor-made sauna. There is one of our most expensive heaters, so it's a Virta heater with a steamer inside, which is having, like, all bells and whistles already. But it just makes 15% of the total package, is just the heater. And then, of course, we have been developing over the years. Now we have, nice-looking railings for the heater. We have digital sauna control unit. We have been adding, two or three years ago, the Wi-Fi to our offering. We have an infrared therapy seat.
So I always educate people when they're buying a sauna, "Do you have already a bed pack, or are you planning to get one?" And that's, that's, like, the how I do the upsells, because then immediately I have sold the infrared package. So there is this therapy seat. We have the LED, the speakers, the sauna ventilation kit, accessories, and then on top, the stones for the heater. And still, 10%-15%, so the whole sauna makes still 70%, 75% of the whole package. So that means by. If we stick to just selling the components, we only get, like, the cherry, the cream with the high margin, but the sauna is the real thing, and the full package is the real thing.
And then on top of that, by upselling, we also ease the access to the sauna, because for in this, like, new emerging markets, buying a sauna should be easy. So easy to sell, easy to buy. And for this kind of, like, new markets, like the U.S. market or Japanese market, we have to have ready kits, easy, easy to buy, easy to sell. And then we are succeeding in our solution sales, and that's driving then our organic growth. So what are the key takeaways? So no matter what kind of sauna-related business you like to build, Harvia is your partner, trust me. Harvia's ambition is to have the most exciting offering, enabling organic growth with unique solutions, and we want to create our own USP.
So it doesn't make sense if we want to enter U.S. infrared business, that we are importing one more infrared cabin from China. So we have to add value to those cabins. We have to add brain, and that is something what we are going to do. And one of, like, the hottest things right now is digitalization. So the digitalization of the sauna is offering a wide spectrum of opportunities, and we want Harvia to become one of the leading companies in the business for the digital sauna. So thank you so much. That was about products and solutions. Next, we have Päivi with marketing and brands.
Hey. Thank you, Markus, and hello, all. Great to see you here with us here in Muurame, as well as online. So following Markus', very inspiring presentation about the products and solutions, so I'm excited to talk about our brand strategy and also that how, how we shape the global market with our brands. So my goals today is to walk you through the current state of our brand portfolio, outline the future direction of our brand development, and then to discuss the three priorities of marketing and brands that are taking us forward. So let's have a closer look at our brand portfolio. So at the heart of the brand portfolio, we have the global... two global master brands, Harvia and EOS. And Harvia is our biggest brand, and it is the most well-known brand in the sauna market globally.
I think Harvia is, yeah, it's known for its wide portfolio of products and, catering all the needs from the, from the entry level to the premium price segments, and serving all different sauna types, from the traditional sauna, infrared, and steam, and, from equipment components to full, full solutions and full sauna experiences. And then as the other, master brand, we have EOS, and, and that is the leading brand in the high-tech, in the, sorry, high-end, sauna equipment market, and, and it's synonymous to the best of the best in, in sauna technologies, and, also serving all, all these different sauna, sauna types.... having its stronghold in, in continental Europe and, continuing its, its expansion to, to the other continents.
So in addition to these two global master brands, we have three regional and tactical brands, and Almost Heaven Saunas is the biggest one out of these. And it is the top one brand in the traditional sauna segment in the U.S., so selling directly to consumers as well as via partners. Then we have Kirami. Kirami is our brand for the active backyard living, and that's tapping into this lifestyle and kind of outdoor wellness trend. And then finally, Sentiotec, which is our tactical brand in continental Europe and has an offering for the traditional saunas as well as for infrared. So all these brands are doing very well.
They have their different, roles and, purposes, and, but we think that we can make more out of these, brands and kind of leverage the brand strength that we have in the portfolio. And, and that's why we are in the process of, redefining our, our brand strategy. And today, I'm able to outline the direction and the key elements, and then starting from the beginning of Q4, then you are able to see and experience more concrete outcomes, of this refinement in our, in our brand strategy. There are two key, key elements in the, in the, in this refinement, and, and they are kind of centered around the overall, like, architecture of our brand portfolio and then on the positioning, positioning of the, of the brands.
As you could see, the five brands, so today they are operating all independently. We see that we can take better benefit out of the portfolio if we continue to build and strengthen the two global master brands, Harvia and EOS, and at the same time, also bring these tactical or regional brands closer to the Harvia brand and make that as the overarching brand also for these tactical and regional brands. That's kind of a win-win for all of these brands because it's kind of.
Harvia brings credibility and kind of global awareness for these smaller brands, and on the other hand, these smaller brands, which are strong in their own segments, bring them value to the Harvia brand. Another element in this brand strategy refinement is the positioning. So we are shifting from this kind of a product-driven positioning to more towards lifestyle branding, meaning that we emphasize more and more on the kind of the benefits, the enjoyment, the pleasure, the health benefits of sauna, and we want to do it in a very kind of exciting and inspiring way so that we engage with our target customers.
So what this means, we believe that we will have stronger and more engaging master brands, driving demand and brand preference, and this will bring also efficiency to our operations because we have better focus on the master brands. So if you then look at the priorities for marketing and brands to support our growth strategy, so we have defined three of them. And the first one is centered around this brand strategy and its implementation. It is about building the sauna awareness, building the awareness of the benefits of sauna, as well as the awareness of our brands.
The key here to address to reach and engage with our target audience is to create and share really exciting and inspiring content. The other priority for us is related to consumer marketing and supporting the sales and growth. There we have the objective to give everyone a reason to experience sauna. This is about the online and offline campaigning promotion, bringing these novelties and innovations that are coming from products and solutions successfully to the different sauna markets. It also is about improving the digital customer experience, but also offline. So having good kind of concepts, point-of-sale concept for our partners to their showrooms and physical locations.
To support this system and solution sales that we have been talking about, we need to generate demand and also leads to our partners and sales. The third priority is about channel marketing with the objective to be the best partner for our resellers. This is especially important in these new and emerging markets, where the knowledge of sauna and the spa and the products is not so high. So it's about educating the partners and giving training, providing them with all the information, tools that they need, and also provide them with digital services to support them in building their business.
So I still thought that I would share a couple of examples of what's already happening today, and also what we see as the direction that we are heading to, and what we want to amplify. I think both Matias and Jennifer already talked about these influencers and their role in kind of spreading the word about sauna. So these are true ambassadors of sauna and also in some cases, of the Harvia brand and also EOS.
So maybe just like two examples from here, so that you see the kind of the magnitude of this one is that, for example, the Brazilian soccer player, Neymar Jr., with 221 million followers, posted a picture of him having sauna, and there is a, in a very prominently in the picture, Harvia Cilindro heater, and the our logo even, even very well visible. Or then Kim Kardashian with 362 million followers sharing her sauna bathing experience with her friend. And this post has been commented, like, almost like 20,000 times, and it has already, like, close to half a million likes.
So it's amazing, amazing what's happening, and this is happening all over the world, and we expected this to continue, continue, and we are aiming to find ways how to utilize this better and amplify these influencers, for example, in this sports and wellness and beauty and these segments. Then another example comes from Japan. Like Markus, I found the market very, very inspiring, and the way how our Japan team is doing the Harvia brand building is amazing.
So they have kind of put a lot of effort in this influencer marketing, and they have made the influencers love the Harvia brand so much that the influencers want to post themselves in front of our logo and share those pictures with their followers. So that is, of course, something that... that's the direction where we want to take the Harvia brand and replicate also in other markets. Then a little bit different kind of example, and this comes from the EOS team, and kind of with their great work that they have done with this superior product line.
As you can see in the pictures, so this, sauna heaters, so the design, the shapes, the attention to detail, to the material, so it's, it's something really unique, something that we are, we are not used to see in saunas. And, and this is something that the EOS team is now kind of, redefining the sauna, sauna experience and design in the high-end, high-end segment. So really, really cool, cool things happening in the, in the sauna market. So I hope this give you a little bit an idea of, of the direction that we are heading to. So to wrap it up, I have, four key takeaways. So we continue to strengthen our global master brands, Harvia and EOS, and look for ways to leverage the combined brand value in the brand portfolio.
We are heading from product-driven brands to lifestyle-driven brands, promoting full sauna experiences. We develop both the consumer and partner experience, and here the key is to kind of, make it so easy, super easy for, for consumers to buy and for our partners, super easy to sell our brands and offerings. And as you can see, the enthusiasm and engagement around sauna is growing, and, we are at the front, front of that movement and utilizing that. So with these, plans and objectives, we are supporting the updated strategy in marketing and, and brands. And next, I would like to invite Mika Suoja to the stage to give his presentation. So thank you.
Thank you, Päivi. My name is Mika Suoja, Head of Operations, now eight years in the company, and enjoyed every single day. I wish to tell you in my presentation a little bit about operations, what it is, some elements behind the proven efficiency of our operations, and in the end, the key priorities in the area of operations. Harvia operations consist of four elements: production, sourcing, quality, and environment, and supply chain. Production sites are divided in three categories: heater production, sauna and spa production, and component manufacturing. 2/3s of Harvia Group personnel are working in these production sites, and what we are especially proud of is the strong expertise we have in production process and production technology development, where all the key capabilities and functions are in-house.
That's something that is deep in the Harvia DNA to have those in our own hands. Sourcing is a combination of group level strategic purchasing, completed with unit level operative purchasing. "Global reach, local touch," as we call it. We have direct contacts to manufacturers in all key material categories, and sustainability is a driving force in all purchasing development. Quality and environment is a new department supporting our new operating model that was introduced in the beginning of the year, continuously developing both quality and sustainability factors as part of our continuous improvement process. Supply chain makes the bridge between the markets and customers, and our production sites and supplier network. Supply chain manager is running the sales and operation planning process. More about that later.
The supply chain is completed with our transport network in both inbound and outbound logistics, supported by our own logistics centers across the group. Main sites are the sauna factory in the U.S., in Lewisburg; Driedorf factory in Germany, EOS, for EOS heaters; Muurame factory, where we are right now, the largest sauna heater manufacturing factory in the world; sauna factory in Romania; and sauna heater and component manufacturing factory in Guangzhou, China, which is also serving our group sourcing process. Our supply chain has been heavily challenged during recent years, starting from COVID, then ongoing war in Ukraine, most recently, Red Sea conflict, which had a direct impact to all lead times from Asia, which forced us to replan again our operations in multiple sites.
In addition, we have seen strong fluctuation during COVID and after COVID that again, force us to react quickly. We have also seen, as we learned in previous presentations, our business has developed more from equipment to full sauna solutions, which obviously also takes a lot more logistic planning along the supply chain. Despite the challenges, we have proved to be able to scale up and down to adapt the current situation, changing conditions, without forgetting the longer term development. And we have also proven to be able to maintain and support the company's strong profitability. Here is an example of steel price development as, one example of the fluctuations we have faced in this operating environment. First, beginning of 2021, we saw carbon steel prices go double in very short period of time. At the same time, there was extremely limited availability.
High prices, high fluctuation lasted all the way to last year, when prices started to normalize and stabilize, but still remaining on +20% level compared to pre-COVID. Price of electronics have remained on high level, although the availability is much better than during COVID times, but still a lot of uncertainties in that area, and still cost prices stay on a high level. However, Harvia is having long-term contracts for all key materials, reliable, good suppliers. And as we learned from Ari's presentation, our strong financial situation, of course, helps us in making speculative purchases and have a longer term perspective also to be efficient in purchasing of these key materials despite the fluctuation.
Some of the elements, key elements behind our efficient operations, starting from sales and operation planning, where we put together all key decision makers from sales to purchasing to production, share the view. It's completed with the data coming from our own system and external sources, such as consumer indexes. And outcome of the process is proactive inventory management, proactive purchases, proactive production planning, along the supply chain, and at the same time, resilience in case some of the dates or referring the Red Sea conflict doesn't match, the schedules are not kept there. We have a global sourcing strategy. We have global market knowledge in the area of sourcing, which we can utilize everywhere from global to local level, and, that's obviously helping and supporting our profitability as well. We have alternative suppliers for key components, and
Leverage the global market knowledge everywhere in all sourcing decisions. Another big thing, products are designed for manufacturing, referring to where I started from. All the key functions, key capabilities as far as production process development and technologies are concerned, they are in-house. Those teams are involved in all product development processes. So it's not only about developing a new product, it's at the same time developing the production and the production process for this new product, and this is supporting our high productivity, and also makes our operation and keeps our operations scalable. Key priorities for operations as of now: scaling up and automating operations. We are further increasing automation, especially in heater manufacturing. Capacity expansion in North America and in ongoing project.
We have a lot of focus also in logistics, as the volumes are grown to a new level now, and we need to upgrade also the logistics facilities. We have continuous training of personnel to utilize the robotics and the new technology. We still need the people. The machines will not make the products. We need the people, and skilled people, and those we have. Strengthening group integration, we are harmonizing ways of working, processes. We are sharing best practices, improving the efficiency, dynamics, and agility in general in operations. We are implementing all the time more and more tools from our sales and operations planning into our sites to give more accurate input to local operations and production planning.
And we are improving our quality management by utilizing group-level data, such as customer feedback, and to make sure the corrective actions are done and the follow-up is done as well. Third one, developing sustainability. First of all, it's not a separate function. It's not a separate project. It's integrated in everything we do. We are educating our suppliers. We are educating our own people. We are studying ourselves how we can be more sustainable. We are constantly looking for where to focus in the area of sustainability, such as we are having online monitoring in electricity consumption. We're studying new ways to buy or generate carbon-free energy to our operations, with the target having carbon-neutral operations by 2030, as Matias has mentioned as well. And we are constantly optimizing logistics and transportation distances.
As business is growing, clearly it is challenging logistics. That's a big part of sustainability. That's a big part of efficiency as well. Key takeaways from my presentation: customer user experience are present in all decision making. As mentioned, in the end, the people, people matter. We have very robust, highly functional unit in Lewisburg, in the U.S., the sauna factory, which we can scale up as needed, which we are scaling up actually. And in addition, the other group units are able to support.
So it's not just relying on this one single unit, but the other units can and are supporting the growth in North America. We are constantly optimizing our purchasing and supplier network, along with business growth. Group perspective and sustainability commitments are as well present in all investment and development planning. All of these decisions are supported by common KPIs and performance data from our operations across the group. That was my presentation, and next, we will see a short video from Muurame production. Thank you.
Welcome to the world's largest sauna heater factory, located at Harvia's headquarters in Muurame, central Finland. Sustainable development and responsibility guide our operations, and we use only emission-free energy at our factory. Our solar panel system provides about 10% of the energy needed at our unit. We work in two and three shifts in parts production, assembly, logistics, and maintenance at our heater factory. 210 people are working at the Muurame unit, of whom between 100 and 140 work at the factory, depending on the season. Harvia has more than 1,000 suppliers and partners, and we receive an average of 60 deliveries every day. Harvia Group only works with responsible suppliers. To ensure that quality, ethical, and environmental issues are taken into account, suppliers must commit to Harvia's values and sustainability objectives before cooperation is possible.
In logistics, we select supply routes that minimize the environmental impact of our deliveries. In our production, we use a variety of raw materials with thicknesses ranging from 0.5 mm to 10 mm. The raw materials are stored in a high steel plate tower with a capacity of 1.2 million kg. More than 3 million parts are produced from the raw materials each year on a self-sufficient basis. On average, 15 tons of steel in various forms are further processed every day at the Muurame sauna heater factory. 700 different products are produced at 30 different assembly points, and every year, we manufacture around 200,000 finished products in Muurame, 65% of which are sauna heaters. Production capacity can be significantly increased if necessary.
All steel sheets are used in production with 80%-90% efficiency, and all waste in the factory, including surplus metal, is sorted and recycled. Harvia's Cilindro electric sauna heater is estimated to have been delivered worldwide in over 250,000 units, making it the world's most popular pillar heater. Every sauna heater manufactured is tested to ensure that the product is safe to use and meets the necessary local and international requirements. Our products are continuously improved, and any quality deviations are recorded in the factory quality statistics at the production, and their root causes are identified and resolved in case of errors. Our products have unique serial numbers, which are recorded in our systems for product traceability. Harvia invests in occupational safety as part of our sustainability program.
All workplace deviations, near misses, and possible accidents are recorded in our safety statistics, and corrective actions are taken forward under the supervision of the Health and Safety Committee. Continuous improvement is in the DNA of our company. This is reflected in part production. For example, by increasing the degree of automation, we are constantly looking for and exploring new technologies and their potential for use in our operations. On average, 100 deliveries are made daily from Muurame. Each year, deliveries are made to around 1,200 different customers and around 90 different countries. Products are being delivered to our customers, where they continue their trip to end users, bringing the health benefits of sauna into everyday life.
Thank you for the presenters. Now, we have the second Q&A session, so I would invite actually all, all the today's presenters on stage with me. Luckily, we have a few minutes more for the second session, second session than we had for the first, but I still ask you to be rather concise in your questions and answers. I guess we will start here from the stage. There's at least one question on the front.
Yes, thank you. Maria Wikström from SEB. I have U.S.-specific questions, as it's probably the most difficult market to observe from here from Finland. So if you could describe more like what is a typical Harvia client in the U.S.? I mean, if we talk about, like, income brackets. And then I'm also quite curious, I mean, how the sales is split between different states, if there are some blank spots.
In different states, is that what you asked? So let me answer the first. So demographically, our customer base, we offer a wide range of price points for our customer. So we've seen it from an entry point price perspective that allows customers that are new to sauna, may not have as high demographics, to buy our product. We sell through different channels or direct to consumer. We also have a very high-end customer, where we've seen a nice lift in our custom cut saunas, as well. So depending on what you're looking for or space capacity, we can kind of fill those needs. You know, from a gap perspective, we have really nice penetration across the U.S. as a whole. As Matias mentioned, you know, interestingly, our key...
Three key states are our hottest states in the U.S., but we're seeing a definite growth in all markets, and we're following kind of trends of where the searches are coming from now. So we've got that data to understand if you're searching for a sauna, and we're not converting it to a sale, how do we go back and look at our marketing arm to how we can really course-correct that?
And then, because I think you talk a lot about, I mean, combining hot and cold elements, and at least so far, on the Almost Heaven Saunas, you recently added the infrared offering, but you don't have these options for a cold plunge or still hot, hot water tubs. So is that something that you are going to add in the Almost Heaven Saunas range?
Yes, and we've already ordered our first set of cold plunge tub, cold plunge tubs that are coming in, so as soon as we receive those, we will be launching that. We also have a lot of our dealers that we've gotten the displays to, for them to start selling the product as well.
Then if I ask one more on the U.S. market. So on the key drivers, I think during the COVID, we talked a lot about building a paradise on your backyard. And then, I think, I mean, there are some news articles that people start buying saunas in the apartments, so more this kind of cubicle type of the sauna. So where do you see currently the biggest demand coming from? Is it, like, from your backyard, or is it more, like, currently from the residential side on the apartment buildings?
You know, I think it's, I think it's kind of dual there. When you think about seasonality, right, it follows the seasonality trends of many other locations. So as you think about in the springtime and the summer, we see that shift kind of to the outdoor, people wanting to get back in their yard and refresh. As you head into the wintertime, you see that demand for indoor start to peak as well. So it, it, like any other seasonality shift with product, you see that lift. When people are getting their backyard and patios ready, that's when they're looking at an outdoor barrel sauna. Typically, we see that demand rise, and as you head into the winter months, we see that move more indoor as people are spending more time inside.
Maybe to build on that, we're not dependent on just outdoor sauna products. Actually, right now, roughly 50% of our sauna room volumes are for indoor use. We are really covering kind of both of these, outdoor and indoor market.
Thank you. I actually... Oh, there was a question on the back. Yes, let's take there.
Thank you. Andreas Knudsen from SEB. Just wondering about the market growth that you have raised the targets for today from around 5% to above 5%. Could you try to help us box that in a little bit more? I mean, so to understand what above 5% actually means.
I think the kind of hint is that we want to grow faster than the market, and our own long-term growth target that we set ourselves is 10% average growth per annum. So that gives you a kind of an anchor point that it's about 5%, but you know, we want to be still growing faster than the market.
That's including M&A, right, the 10%?
It's including, it's including M&A. And, the reason why we wanted not to kind of divide this into inorganic and organic parts is that we feel that M&A is such an integral part of our strategy, and there is a lot of good M&A opportunities. And essentially, for us, good growth through M&A or good growth through organic means they are both good, and that's why we wanted to kind of put them together under one goal.
Thank you. And if I just may add, I got the mic. I can't get it away from me. So on this sustainability journey, which is very interesting, you also mentioned in the presentation that you're looking to make more efficient use of your electricity with compressors in the factories, air conditioning, and so on. Could you talk a bit about, I mean, the paybacks for this, you know, the economical sense behind this focus?
It's, it's always, the economic point is also there as well. I, I would say it's, kind of common sense. In practice, for example, the factory compressors, we are optimizing the schedules for the running hours, as an example. Same goes for air conditioning. Same goes for solar panels. First, we study what is the profile of consumption before we are investing. So it's, it's all of that, to give some examples.
It's not that you need to go out and buy new air compressors, for instance, to buy more energy-efficient additions?
In some cases, it could mean that once we first study what are the actual consumption data and so on, but not necessarily.
Okay. Thank you.
It's been very clear that we see a strong correlation between sustainable operations, and actually it makes financial sense. It's really about streamlining processes. It's about minimizing waste. It's like Lean Six Sigma, they really go hand in hand. The more professional we are in our operations, we see that usually the more sustainable we are also.
Yes.
Yes. Hi, Harri Wallenius. Perhaps a question to Päivi regarding marketing. How much time are you spending in trying to kind of figuring out the current trends, how you could kind of use your products when you educate your sales forces, instead of just telling about the features and such, and how much... yeah, so how much time do you spend on understanding and investigating the market trends?
Yeah, that's a good, good question. So, and I think this renewal of our operating model is helping, helping with that because now we have these responsible marketing persons in different regions, and they can kind of oversee kind of what's happening in the local markets. But I think one good example is the thing that we are doing together with products and solutions, studying these kind of keyword searches globally, and especially in the key markets, that what are the things that consumers are actually using? What words do they use? And kind of we gain a lot of insights out of this data, that what is kind of hot. Is it the two-person sauna or four-person or what they are kind of looking for.
Then one question on the sourcing side. Obviously, it's a quite tumultuous time, and you have to think about where to source the materials from. How much have you changed or are going to change and source more locally or closer to the production facilities instead of taking stuff from Asia, for example?
That's something we are evaluating daily. There is no certain target or amount. Let's say, we are constantly following the possible risks. We have optional suppliers, as mentioned in the presentation, but I don't have a clear number or as a target, but something obviously we need to keep on monitoring and following how markets are developing and the situation.
To build on that, we already do actually a significant part of our sourcing locally. So let's take stainless steel and steel in general, which is a key material for our production. We do a lot of local sourcing, and while we know that the steel price, for example, close to Muurame are higher than the steel prices, you know, when we buy to our factory in China, to our Chinese production, it's still kind of just one part of the economic equation. We have a higher level of optimization and robotics here. We have higher volumes here. And there are many means that we can pull to maximize our efficiency.
We, of course, you know, also cost benchmark all of our production sites, and we see that despite the fact that we are buying materials sometimes a bit more, I would say, expensive here, but still many of the operational benefits actually yield such a good payback that oftentimes actually Muurame is the best place for us to produce.
Then one final question on the U.S. market. How is the competitive situation with your competitors there? Are you more in trying to be in the high-end? Are competitors pushing prices, or what's the competitive landscape like in the U.S.?
Yeah, that's a good question. So obviously, there's an energy around sauna in the U.S. Much of that is done through an import process, right? Through our competitors. A lot of... we're getting a high amount of demand for our heaters in the U.S. markets to also go into other cabins that people are trying to sell full solutions in. So, you know, when I think about traditional, I really feel like we have the strongest footprint and presence. If you think about infrared, where it's a lower price point, our competitors have come in strong with a lower price point, but that mid- to high- level price point, there's still a huge runway and large opportunity there. And then you think about the custom.
Nobody's really doing that on large scale in the U.S., which we've seen a nice share of influx into our business, into that custom-cut product. So I think, you know, us having quality components has driven a lot of people to come to us and want to sell our product. We're really trying to balance how much of the brand are we gonna own in the U.S., how much are we gonna allow to be sold through other channels in the U.S.
Perhaps one follow-up. How much of the competitors are producing locally? Can you leverage on the kind of made in the U.S.?
That's, that's a huge leverage for us. Very, very low and very small scale. It's more of that, competitor that has a very small site, and they're doing some very small custom cut, but not in product-mass production like we can. So it's very exciting, and it's a very, it's a very big, competitive advantage for us in the U.S.
Okay, thanks.
Rauli from Inderes. A question on the infrared and steam. How would you see your current capabilities there? So basically, how much money and time would you need to become a major player in those segments, just through organic means?
Well, we actually see that our, our position is very lucrative or attractive. You know, we, we see that we're really, you know, in a position of actually striking hard. And an example I'll, you know, build, sort of build on what Jennifer just said, that, you know, think about, for example, the infrared market, in the most important infrared market in the world, which is the U.S. That's kind of where infrared share is, you know, very sizable. The competition we're facing is companies that basically are kind of sales and marketing companies, but they do nothing themselves. Essentially, they procure from China. We have... basically, they make, sell, made in, made in China infrared products.
Then again, we have a very efficient, highly robotized, highly optimized, sauna production facility in the heartland of the United States, which, you know, for the most part, at the moment, we have a sauna cabin, and we put a traditional heater in. But we are definitely, you know, seeing an opportunity, to, you know, utilize the same factory. We have, you know, ability to scale it up for infrared saunas that are made by the world's best sauna maker, Harvia, made in America. We're also seeing that it's a very dynamic market, so it's very much like consumers are making choices every day, and purchasing happens through online. So we see that also from a channel dynamics perspective, you know, we have what it takes to really, you know, have even a pretty, pretty quick impact.
And as, as Markus pointed out, it's not about just selling, again, the same infrared sauna as everybody else. We also, as a leader, we also see plenty of differentiation opportunities. So in short, we see plenty of opportunities even without big investment. It's just, you know, kind of being a bit smarter and using more, kind of, what we already got. I would say steam is a little bit different. The reason being that it's not the product, it's more like the sales channel.
Whereas in infrared it's like dynamic, online, customers decide it every day, steam products are mostly a customer wants a steam product, then they call a professional, mainly in the kind of plumbing or, you know, steam and bathroom, kind of, specialty, and say that, "I'd like to have a steam." And then the professional is recommending equipment, and products, and systems. And there we see, you know, long-term relationships, actually quite high brand loyalty.
And then, you know, coming as a kind of new kid on the block, we see it at least as a more slow path. It's possible, but, you know, in just in terms of kind of timelines we see in steam for organic, it probably would be a slower. B ut again, not really from investment point of view, of having the product. It's more like building the channel and building the credibility as also a steam-leading steam provider.
Yeah, I think another note, if I can add-
Mm
... to that as well, to what Matias said, and to also what Markus was talking about earlier. We've seen a high demand in a hybrid model as well, which we can produce in the U.S.
Mm.
So, think about the best heater and having a hybrid model that allows us to upsell and upgrade a customer to have infrared panels in their traditional sauna, has been a large opportunity for us to continue to be able to continue to capitalize on in the U.S. market.
So again, if , for example, kind of these use cases, you know, we really, as Markus said, we want to make sauna a lifestyle, not just, you know, having a reason to experience it once, but really becoming an integral part of your every day. Let's take a, you know, a week. Like Monday, the, you know, it's the work-first working day, you go for an energizing 15 minutes, you know, quickly in the, in the infrared sauna, and then you go to work. Then you have your long run during Tuesday, and then you have your, kind of, sports, post-sports recovery program and stretching, actually in the traditional sauna. And then you have... the weekend is coming, you have more time, then it's, like, really the full connoisseur experience, including, including the plunges, and traditional, and, and infrared.
We can actually put it all together in this, what we would call actually multi-mode saunas. So plenty, plenty of opportunities. And this is an industry which is rich of, you know, innovation and differentiation opportunities. It's just about who executes and who, you know, who gets them best to the market.
Great. Very, very good. And then another question on North America. You mentioned the historic growth rates in the last few years of 15%, what kind of expectations do you have for the coming years?
Yeah. I mean, what I'll say on that is we're not seeing the North American market slow down, right? Obviously, we don't know kind of where we'll land over the course of time. I think with a lot of the things you heard from an innovation standpoint, from us really having untapped market potential in infrared and steam, we definitely don't see that market, you know, stopping, coming to a halt, or slowing down anytime too soon.
Clear. Thank you.
Yeah, thanks. I think we move now to the online questions. So there is actually... we have time to take a couple here from the chat. So first question relates to cold plunges, and essentially it's a lengthy question, but, I'll summarize it so that: what will be the role of cold plunges for Harvia? And the kind of person here states that so far you have mostly neglected that business, even though you have a product.
Well, maybe I'll have a first stab on that. As we discussed, Harvia, you know, when we talk about the sauna market, we also talk about the extended sauna market, where we really see that, you know, the sort of sauna, and kind of bathing, and the kind of water elements go hand in hand. And if we even think about, like, the long history, like in Finland, you know, swimming in the icy waters during the wintertime, or actually even the Roman times, in the central room was the steam room, but they actually already had cold plunges back in those days. So hot and cold go hand in hand, and we could think of, like, healing with heat, but it's also kind of... you could turn it to temperature-related therapy and wellness products.
So definitely we do see cold and hot both as key elements of our of our portfolio. I'd say we've been very busy in growing with what we got, and now we're, you know, even more ambitious. You know, personally, I feel confident that, you know, also the sort of, you know, cold side will have a more prominent role. Markus mentioned something that is actually quite interesting. I'd just like to point it out, that at the moment, hot and cold tubs are pretty much two different products, but with new technology and actually energy efficient, you can use water air heat pumps actually, in a pretty energy efficient way for adjusting the temperature of the water. So you can have the same tub for hot, and another day, the same tub is for cold.
So there's certainly a lot of innovation opportunity, and also really we see that these two things go hand in hand. While we of course see that, you know, the sauna products will, for the foreseeable future, clearly form the majority of our business, but we're increasing this sort of, you know, extended sauna experience part of our offering.
Yeah, thanks. Then let's say last question of today, or let's say part of the official day, it relates to a bit of operations and a bit of strategy. So how might Harvia's Chinese factory be affected by a potential conflict involving Taiwan? Do you have the production guarantee?
Yeah. Good question, I understand why it's asked. We do have a backup for that. Our factories are able to support each other, so we are not relying on that unit only. So if such tragedy would happen, we would have the tools and ways to react.
Just to complement, we are now a global business with a global mindset. We take notice of what's happening in the world, and our goal is not just to build a growth business and you know business that grows profitably, but also a robust, resilient company. And this is part of our core focus and kind of normal day-to-day life. An example, actually, the other way around was at the end of quarter one. We had a challenging labor market situation in Finland, where kind of political strikes were affecting the businesses. Actually, in the case of Harvia, it was not that much about our own production, but it did have an impact on inbound and outbound logistics due to the labor action in the harbors.
Actually, we were able to shift our production to China. We definitely see that we have a flexible global manufacturing supply chain network, where the sites do have their core roles, but they also have the role that they can back each other up. So we feel that we are well-prepared and also well aware of what's happening in the world.
Just to a rough number, the revenues what we generate with the products produced in China, they are far less than 10% of our total revenues. And as Mika said, we can replace that production also inside the group. So, I personally don't see the strategic risk, but it's good and important that we have our China factory. We can do good things there and replace, if there are disturbances, also the production in Europe.
Now is the time to move on for the closing remarks, so I ask, Matias, you to stay on the stage and others to remain where you're seated. Obviously, for those who are here in Muurame, there's time during the lunch, in fact, to continue the discussions.
So we're heading the close of the event, and, maybe to go back to the beginning of the day, the targets for the day: first, to share our view of the market, the key trends, and the opportunities; talk about our updated strategy and long-term financial targets; and also provide a deeper view on some high-priority topics, in aim to help you assess us, as an investment opportunity. I hope that you got, what you came here for. You know, we are, convinced, we're also passionate. We believe in these opportunities. I think it was also added benefit that, with this sort of broader agenda and involvement by the management team, you could also see more faces behind Harvia. Just to remind, this is just the tip of the iceberg.
You could hopefully see that we are actually, of course, different personalities with different backgrounds, but I feel we complement each other really well. And the kind of thinking that none of us is as strong as all of us together really holds true in the case of Harvia. And the people that you saw today is kind of part of the management team, but there's more than 600 of us. There's a lot of passion for sauna, a lot of passion for Harvia, within the walls of Harvia units here and worldwide. I'd like to recap a couple of key points.
We have a core purpose of healing with heat that stays, but we have updated our ambition in terms of what kind of role we want to play in this global sauna market, which is to shape the global sauna market so that everyone has a reason to experience sauna. Hopefully, you saw during today's presentation that, yes, we can back this ambition with real plans and action. In terms of updated strategy and focus areas, we have three commercial strategic focus areas: delivering the full sauna experience, that's the product dimension. Winning in strategically important markets, that's the geographic dimension. Leading in key channels, so that's the channel and customer dimension of our strategy. All backed up by the key success factors of being best in class in what we do and having the best people and investing in people development.
Accordingly, we have updated our long-term financial targets. As you can see here, 10% growth on average, profitability about 20% adjusted EBITDA, with strong balance sheet, and being fit for acquisitions as the market provides plenty of opportunities in the coming years, we believe. With that, I would like to thank you for your interest, participation, and I wish you the best of day. Thank you. Take care.