We are here today in Estonia in Incap's factory in Saaremaa. I have here today with me the President and CEO of the group, Otto Pukk, CFO Antti Pynnönen, and Director of Operations in Estonia, Greg Grace. Welcome. We will have a Q&A session right after the gentlemen here have presented their part of the Q3, so please send out your questions through the webpage chat, which will be below this video. Have a good webcast and, Otto, I will give the floor to you.
Thank you very much, Rosa, and welcome as well here to Estonia in this new role for you presenting in our webcast. It's always a pleasure with new, fresh faces. I will talk a little bit about our quarter result, but first, as you mentioned, we are currently in Estonia, and we are sitting in Estonia on a huge customer event where we have here in Estonia invited all the partners and all the customers and all the different suppliers of the Estonian factory and it's a great event to network and to talk business in that sense, and I hope that on the camera also it shows a little bit of the people. We have over 80 people watching this live as well.
If you look at the quarter, again, all-time high quarter for Incap. We keep on growing. We see a steady growth in electronics and we keep seeing our order book filling up and on very high levels. So far it looks very promising moving forward, and the result has been great in the last quarter. Also, the profitability was very good in the quarter and I think that this shows that our business model with our decentralized and lean organization is actually working. We are not eating up the money we are earning, but they fall down to the bottom row.
We see, though, that we have a strong inflation and we see costs also going up on the market, both when it comes to the energy cost, but also raw material cost. We work very closely with our customers, as you guys here know, to try always to optimize our production and efficiency and share both cost increases and decreases. This, of course, is work that we will continue with. So far when it comes to group profitability, we have managed to still do very good result. We keep on investing in our factories. Both here in Europe we have done investments and we continue our investment project in India.
I think also we start seeing some effects of those investments that we have seen in the quarter. Numbers, I think, speak for themselves. We have increased organically over almost 60%, 56.4%, and also the operating profit increased in the quarter with almost 50%. I think that the numbers are very positive and we're happy for the great team that we have and that is keeping delivering these numbers. Third factory project is going on time. We had a little bit challenges as you all saw perhaps in the news here.
In the summer there were heavy rains in India and in Pakistan and in the area, but our construction project is going on time. We still think that we will open as we planned and start ramp up in the beginning of Q1 or during Q1. Here on the slide, you can see some pictures, so we have in the top there, of course, what it will look like, but also what the state is now.
We are above ground and have put up the structural steel and now the sandwich panels will come and this will start looking like a building quite quickly now once the mushrooms have popped up from the ground in that sense, as they say in the construction business. Once more, I want to emphasize we have fantastic people in Incap, and it's them who are delivering this result, working closely with our customers and bringing value to them. I think you can't emphasize enough the importance of our people. If you go to any Incap site in the world, you will feel the same entrepreneurial and goal-oriented like team spirit.
I think I've said it before when we have talked that it's sometimes more a feeling of walking into a startup than an industrial company coming to Incap because people are different and we're very blessed and happy to have fantastic teams in all of our units all over the world. As I also said before, come and visit us. Seeing is believing and you guys that are here today in the audience, of course, have the possibility right now to do that. I think Antti. You, you're the number guy, so I'll hand this over to you, and you can start cracking them.
All right. Yes. Thank you very much, Otto. Let's start with focusing on the latest quarter three. We just disclosed the report in the morning. Of course, my pleasure to g o through the figures with all of you here. Top line revenue increased almost 50%, or actually exactly 50% up to EUR 70.6 million. Our profitability increased to EUR 10.9 million, that is 15.5% of the revenue, compared to previous year quarter three, it was up by 40.2%. Here we have collected quarterly results from the past since 2019. Obviously the trend is pretty self-explaining. Numbers are going up quite dramatically. All-time high quarter, like Otto already mentioned. Then on the right-hand side, we have illustrated also the profitability, same timeframe, and there's a bit ups and downs.
Maybe just in a big picture, for example, quarter one, 2020, when we have a bit dip, there was an acquisition. We had some PPA elements that we had to amortize, plus then we started to have also the lockdown effects in India impacting the profitability. Unfortunately, the same trend actually applies to 2021. Quarter two, there was also the lockdowns in India. Yeah, now the trend is again upwards. If we look at this table here, we have collected the main elements of our release. Just maybe adding on the profitability, there was one write-off provision on the material side that was EUR 400K. That impacted obviously the EBIT percentage and EBIT in euros.
Without this, it would have been 16% profitability. Of course, on the high profitability, the main thing is that we are working very efficient and lean in all the units, actually starting from the headquarters level. For example, here in Estonia, we have the whole headquarters visible. Four people, and that is quite lean for this size of a stock-listed company. A couple graphs we have mentioned and illustrated here on the bottom of the page. Inventory value based on the graph, of course, the numbers show increase. We disclosed also the quarter three inventory value about EUR 90 million. Of course, the numbers are very high. Inventory values are one of the key KPIs that our managing directors in all the units are following.
Obviously, we must understand in our industry, scaling up the business means that the inventory values are going up. The inventory values we have today are the revenue streams for tomorrow. Cash position is in the middle in the pie chart, EUR 4.3 million in a group level. We have still unutilized bank facility and credit line, roughly EUR 7 million. That is still very on a solid level, and then eventually we have illustrated the headcount graph here in the right-hand side, almost 2,600 persons on average in quarter three. All right. Here we have a graph illustrating since 2016 annual figures. Maybe the interesting part here is that already at this time of the year, in January-September time, we have basically beaten the full year numbers of the last year.
Obviously the growth is quite rapid this year. Right-hand side, we have the annualized profitability figures and in terms of euros plus the percentage. It's still in the very strong levels as mentioned, due to the efficiencies we have here working in Incap. Based on the figures and the transparency for the figures for the full year, we updated Incap's outlook statement. We commented earlier in October that our figures for 2022 will be significantly higher than in 2021. We specified the range in the morning's report and disclosed that we estimate that the revenue will be between EUR 262 million and EUR 270 million, and then profitability EBIT between EUR 38 million and EUR 42 million. That's the key figures in a nutshell. I'll hand over to Mr. Grace.
Yes.
Yeah.
Perhaps mention before that as we started off with the last meeting that we are focusing every webinar on one factor. Of course, as we already are here in Estonia is in focus. We are very happy to be here and to have you here live as well. Last time Jamie was calling in and we were not in the factory, but super.
Yeah. Welcome to Saaremaa, Estonia's largest island, and I'm glad to have the audience here, including the mayor of Saaremaa vald representing here today. Saaremaa vald, I got it that time. I would like to start with a video. I think that's the best way to explain a little bit about us. Cue the video.
Incap Estonia is a member of Incap Corporation, which is active worldwide. We are located on Saaremaa Island and logistically well-situated to enable fast deliveries to Scandinavia and Europe. Incap Estonia is a full-service provider in electronics manufacturing services. We offer state-of-the-art technology backed up by entrepreneurial culture and highly qualified personnel. Incap's factory in Estonia has experience in electronics manufacturing since 2000. The factory has 7,300 square meters of total floor space and customers from global companies with operations from Europe, Asia, and the USA. We aim to build strategic partnerships with our customers and long-term relationships with our employees. Our factory in Kuressaare offers versatile, technologically advanced, and yet very cost-efficient production capacity close to the European markets. Incap Estonia brings together a high level of technical capabilities and leading-edge production technologies with special attention to the efficient ramp-up of new products.
If you are looking for a strategic partner, do not hesitate to contact us. Let the electronics invasion be with you.
Yeah. I guess I have nothing else to add. No. Yeah, just to recap, these numbers from last year, we were a little bit over EUR 18 million, 100 employees, and today we have 120 employees, so that's contributing to the employees on the group that was shown, and the growth there, and also the growth is showing in the results. We've been here for 23 years in Saaremaa, and if you notice from the video, it was an L shape. The first wing on the left was built in 2006, and then nine years ago, we expanded and doubled the factory with the right wing, and there's still room to grow here on the footprint of the land that we're located in.
Today we have 7,300 square meters of production space, and we focus on the electronics, the PCB assembly, and the box build. If we take a look at the investments that we've made in production over the past five years, then we started in 2017 with a new SMT line, which was a high speed to improve our capabilities and offer services based on our customers' requests. In 2020, we took on a second new SMT line replacing older lines that we had so that we can continue to offer that high speed and the service that we needed. Those were the lines that we had until a few weeks ago.
In 2022, we have updated our two existing SMT lines, so we increased the robots, so that they can place instead of 60,000 components an hour, up to 90,000 components an hour. We have ordered a third new SMT line, which is being installed today as we speak. Those of you who are doing the factory tour will see that actually downstairs. Last year as well, we bought a second selective solder line, so we now have two, and we bought a new wave solder to replace our existing line. The age of our factory and the equipment that's inside of the factory is less than 2.5 years. We're very proud to say that we have the state-of-the-art to be able to offer the services and the flexibility.
We've been focusing our investments as well on production efficiency, on the work environment efficiency with LED lights, with lifters, with different tools, and that is the focus on speed and automation as we go forward. What do we do? I mean, we're not just a contract manufacturer. We're actually a strategic partner. We deal with the sourcing and the purchasing, as well as the design for manufacturability. We bring our partners together, and we help them with the design if they need that, the tester development, and all of the solutions that they need through the partner network that we have. We also, you know, focus on the PCB assembly, the testing, the box build. After that, we will do the logistics solutions for our customers, and after-sales if they so need that.
We offer a wide range of services to our customers, and that's what you know is helping us to grow and to continue to service the customers as their needs are changing. If we look at the quality, then quality is pretty standard, and everybody will have hopefully ISO 9001 and ISO 14001. But what we'd like to highlight is that we have the ISO 13485 medical, and 100% of our employees are covered by the Occupational Health and Safety ISO 45001. Corporate social responsibility and ESG, this is really important to us here in Estonia.
Today we have a seminar where we're talking about sustainability and green projects, and I would say that the majority of our products are green, and they are socially responsible. If we take a look, then I'm very pleased to say that Incap holds a silver medal from the Responsible Business Forum Estonia for corporate social responsibility in Estonia. We have a gold medal for family-friendly company. This is hard to achieve when you have a manufacturing because you can't send the moms home when their kids are sick together with the SMT lines. We are very pleased to be honored with a gold-level family-friendly company. We work together with great student projects. We work with universities on interns. We have here Estonia's first solar-powered car and Solaride, who's also here today.
We're very proud of the projects that we are working together with. Last year we won the award, or we were recognized for the best internship partner in the region. I would say that, despite COVID and the situation, the difficulties with that, we opened our doors to the interns. We see this as a future to guaranteeing us further employees or potential customers that can learn the industry and be really involved and excited about what's going on in electronics today. We support young talents within different community activities as well. For example, on the bottom picture you see that we did a Incap's Rocks guitar competition. I would say that, you know, definitely the future and the sustainable projects that we have.
At the top, you have a Corvus Energy rack that is actually empowering the ferries that are going back and forth between Saaremaa and the mainland to be a hybrid solution and transporting green. We're very proud of the activities that we're doing here in Saaremaa. If we talk about recent recognition, then these are what we have received in the past 15 months. I'll focus on this year that you saw the investments that we're making, and we've invested quite a lot in the past three years to improve the production. We have continued to invest despite the challenges with COVID, because we've seen there's a need to do that to keep the competitive edge and the technological advantage.
We work with a technology guarantee as well, where we have a rental set up that if we'd like to, we can stop and swap and we can offer our customers the need that they have. It's no longer a discussion about capacity and capabilities, but it's how quickly you can ramp up and the new technologies and those solutions. We've done a lot, and we were recognized. I will point at the awards from this year that we were acknowledged from Enterprise Estonia as Estonia's Foreign Investor of the Year this year, and that's a very prestigious award. We're very honored to be recognized for the activities.
10% of that is about investments, but the remainder is coming from the social responsibility, the green projects, how much you buy from your community, the jobs that you've created. As we mentioned, we've been growing and creating the new jobs. We're very honored to be recognized. We're also the Exporter of the Year for Saaremaa for the past two years. This year we were awarded the Employer of the Year, and so it's very, very proud to be acknowledged and recognized for those. That's basically Estonia's presentation. Now I think the question and answering is more for these guys, and I can also give some answers if you'd like.
Yes. Let's move on to the Q&A session. Thank you, Otto, Antti, and Greg. If you still have some questions, you can send them out now, but we have quite plenty of questions in here. Let me start by adding two questions in one because they are basically the same question. What makes Incap different to other companies from the same domain? You clearly do something differently since you perform so well. Have you had any effects from the COVID?
Of course, we had the effects from the COVID. We had the lockdowns, partial lockdown in U.K. factory. In the first year because we could continue to work with our medical and I would say critical things in U.K. India went total lockdown during almost 1.5 months.
Yes.
In both the COVID years. Of course, we also have had impacts. In the other factories we were keeping very high health regulations and so to be able to operate and following all advice and so on. It was very tough during COVID year for all employees and so number wise, I think we managed to catch up on the lockdowns quite nicely in the coming period. It was just yeah momentarily that we were impacted in the numbers. What I think is special with Incap is our operating model. I emphasize that a lot. We have a decentralized model.
That means that here in Estonia or wherever we come to, it's the teams here locally that create and drive the business. All functionalities that are needed to offer the services, the different services to the customers are done locally and are available here locally. On the headquarters level, we have, as Antti mentioned before, four persons. We're not top heavy at all. If you look at our sales margin or gross profit, we are not standing out there compared to our peer. I think pricing is a quite hygiene factor in our business. The prices that we offer are very similar to those of our peer, but we earn our money down in the P&L where you normally have big blocks of overhead costs and central functions. It's as simple as that. Our model gives us that advantage.
Okay. Thank you. Next question. Otto, could you describe me the ramp up of the third factory in India and what type of impact it will have on revenues and costs next year?
As I mentioned before, then of course the investment in the third factory is driven by demand. We expect we will start the ramp up in Q1, and we are currently on plan, so it looks positive. We will fill up the factory during next year. There will be an impact on, of course, the numbers next year. We expect that is a part of our growth strategy in that sense for next year. Let's see how well we succeed and we'll report the numbers as we can.
A question from Joachim Reimer. "Why don't you specify why EPS didn't increase even half as much as revenue? Would appreciate quarterly reports. I guess EPS is temporarily hampered by the factory investments."
Yeah, maybe I can comment. There is a couple of elements, if you compare the net profit growth percentage against, for example, the EBIT line percentage growth. There is one related to the parent company taxes. Incap headquarters, Incap Oyj is currently paying taxes and actually in the past that was not the case. Incap Oyj had historical losses that we are now fully utilized and therefore it means that also the parent company is paying 20% taxes, so that increased the taxes side. Then other important element of the elements impacting net profit is that there are certain loans from the parent company towards the subsidiaries as Incap Oyj is working as a treasury function. There is of course the currency fluctuations and those impacting the unrealized currency effects. That was the two elements impacting on the EPS as well eventually.
Yeah. There is maybe a follow-up question or maybe you answered already. Have your tax percent increased since last year?
Yeah. I think that was part of my answer, so.
Yeah. Okay. A question to Greg Grace. Can you elaborate on what types of customer segments you're being mostly exposed to? For example, industry, green tech, med tech or defense, and what types of what type of fields are you most enthusiastic about upcoming three-five years?
Oh, yeah. If we look, then it's mostly industrial electronics that we're working with, but we have a lot of IoT, you know, we see a growing trend in e-mobility, in different type of projects tied to that, and we've done some press releases recently on the projects that we're working with the rideshare scooter platforms, with the electric bicycle platforms. We talked also about Corvus Energy, and those are the companies that I can talk about that we have already shared press releases about. I would say that a lot of them are sustainable projects, where they have a future that is going to continue to grow.
You obviously see EV chargers, inverters, solar and wind power, and there's a lot of projects that Incap is tied to here in Estonia working together with those. We see that there's a sustainable growth for these industries, and they're supported by government, so it's not so much at a consumer product, thankfully. It's something that will continue to grow and as electric energy prices grow or as maybe signs of recessions come, then people will start to invest more in looking into the solutions that we're manufacturing. We see a positive outlook on that.
Okay. Thank you, Greg. Going a little bit back to India, you might have already answered some of these questions, but if you would like to elaborate. In the report you mentioned that the factory expansion in India is still on time. When are you planning to start the production, and could you open up a little bit the ramp process and the schedule for the ramp-up? When are we going to see the expansion in full use?
Yeah. I think expansion and full use that we will see over the year that will come. I mentioned before as well that we always plan with a little bit over capacity and so we try not to fill anything fully ever because then we can't sell anything extra. That said, we will start in Q1 and over the year we will add on more and more business. It will be ramped up during next year and let's see once we are all there on the numbers how fast we manage to do it.
Yes. Another question regarding India. How dependent Incap is on components from China? Any alternative source to get components if there's a problem with China?
I think it's not a question about Incap and India. Everybody in the electronics industry is dependent on China and even if we have seen clear trends of manufacturing moving out of China, the component manufacturing is still very much there. There is some political decisions on this in U.S. and EU and when it comes to some like semiconductors and so that they want to move production into Europe, but this is currently mostly talk and I would say plans and very little in practice. Everybody in the industries are very dependent on China when it comes to components.
Yes. Question about acquisition in Germany and the United States. Regarding profitability, is the share of personnel cost in the income statement higher in the acquisition target from Germany or the United States? Would the degree of automation in these countries be higher?
First of all, we are looking for possible acquisition. We don't have any live projects currently in the pipeline, so we haven't reported anything on that currently. Yes, we are interested in the German market. The German market is the largest EMS market in Europe, and we are working currently with German customers both from this Estonian unit and our Slovakian unit. We think that we could benefit from a presence there. The other market we are looking very heavily into is the North American market and USA. We have currently 25% of our business going to the USA.
We have several customers that have asked us when also our services will be available in America and that is driving the process in that sense and why we are looking at these markets. I think when it comes to profitability and our I would say efficiencies and automation, I think in general the industry is very similar. It is a highly automated industry already and there is semi-automated or automatic solutions available in all units. So in Asia to Europe or to U.S. It depends on what product mix it is and how much of, say, final assembly and box builds and so they all that then can drive up potentially the manual labor part of it. I don't think it's country specific. It's more product mix specific on how it looks like. If that answers the questions?
Yeah. Also adding here, we have mentioned earlier that the acquisition criteria, what we really appreciate is the cultural fit and Incap, as Otto mentioned earlier, we are quite decentralized organization. There are not that many similar companies at least, to our analysis available in the first place, so yeah, keeping the headquarters levels very low and then decision-making flexibility and agility in the units as we have in Incap. That would be, of course, good fit to Incap and that we value very high in the criteria. Of course, the track record, customer base, et cetera, are very important and profitability and so we are not looking any kind of turnaround cases as such, but we keep looking very actively.
Thank you. Question to Greg. Have you done some production line investments in Estonia during 2022? What are the impacts of these investments, especially on revenue and profitability?
I think Otto answered as well that we are building based on the demand of the customers. This year we have invested EUR 1.3 million in a new SMT line as well as in upgrading our two existing lines so that they can go faster, and I mentioned that in the presentation as well. What this does is it gives us an opportunity to produce the same amount in two shifts as three, so it frees up capacity and gives us the opportunity to grow. There was a reason why we invested, so it will reflect in the annual results when we close the year. We do see the increased demand and.
It's also about, you know, working more efficiently, doing what we can to contribute less towards energy consumptions if you're running three shifts versus two shifts, having the opportunity to produce more with the same amount of space. It's all about, again, speed and automation and how we can improve that.
Yeah. How much does Incap increase the sales of services since Incap will have significant factory capacity increased by Q1 2023?
I didn't understand.
Increase the sales of services.
Sales of services. I think in general, we see the trend in the industry that our customers, and correct me if I'm wrong here, guys, but demand more and more service offering from their EMS provider. Very few customers come in and say that, "Yeah, just put this together for me." Most want at least some services sourcing, some engineering services, some logistic solution, some part to it. I think that that is a general trend in the industry that the service offering is increasing. We see that as well, that the longer we have our partner relationships with the customers, the more and more they outsource towards us and the more services they take in.
What is interesting there as well is to see that the more services they outsource the bigger savings our customers do and the more money we are earning as well. It's a win-win situation when you remove the double structure, so you have similar capacities in both entities. Some of our customers today, they have a small part of their R&D in-house sales department, and then we are the rest in that sense, and I think that is a very successful setup.
Okay. Couple more questions. With the Q2 report, you mentioned that the order book is all-time high and still growing. Have you seen the order book still growing during H2 of the year?
Yes. As I mentioned now as well, that the order book have kept on growing and is now also all-time high in that sense. We keep on stacking these results on top of each other and continue to grow. The order book and the outlook currently looks very, very good and we're positive for the future.
Okay. The last question. Your factory investments have been around EUR 1-5 million a year during last years. How about 2023 and 2024? What are the plans with factory investments going forward?
I think we will continue to invest in a similar level that we have been doing to support the business. I think it's a key to secure that you have the latest technology and can offer that to your customers and keep developing in that sense. It's a normality that you're investing. I know that many companies, they do an investment and then they write it off and thinks that that is some kind of happy times.
I think then you have missed the window for when you should have done your next investment that you always have a machine cost. You always have something you need to develop and you can do better. Investment is what have brought us this growth that we have so far, and I'm quite sure that we will keep on investing in the future as well.
Yeah. As we are actually also now in the middle of the budgeting phase, we have already collected the investment like programs from the units and it will be of course, like Otto mentioned, following the past years' number levels. We have a good idea of the 2023, 2024 investments. Of course, the India third factory being the main investment in terms of the value and size, et cetera. We'll follow that topic in the next quarters and obviously all the material ones we'll disclose publicly as well.
Okay. Thank you for the questions. Thank you for the audience. I will still give the word to Otto to thank you all for watching our Q3 webcast.
Yes, from me as well, thank you. I want to make just one small reminder. Incap will have its first, at least first since we took the helm, Capital Markets Day in Helsinki in conjunction with Slush. It's a side event, so you don't need a Slush pass to attend the event, but of course you can visit Slush as well. We have a booth on our booth, a big area on Slush as well, meeting potential startup customers and others for that from there. It will be held the 17th of November, so please come and visit us at Slush. From me as well, thank you. Thank you guys very much, and I'm looking forward already for the next webcast and the quarter release.
Thank you.