So that was the number one. Then number two, looking at the AI. AI, as in the last call for the last year's results, I opened up quite a bit. AI is crucial for the customer service industry, as it is very much labor driven, and any efficiency gains done there are then greatly helping out our customers work and their profitability. With us, we've introduced a lot of new features. We also highlighted some of these, our AI Bot, our conversational AI, the AI Writer, both of which can then interact with customers either automatically or semi-automatically, either automatically answering questions or semi-automatically helping and suggesting the agent to give answers.
AI Dialer, helping out then, contacting when you need to contact your customers or prospects. AI Analyst, helping you run your contact center most efficiently. An AI Transcriber, which we see as a fundamental enabler going forward, where we've now increased the share of the calls being transcribed. And this is something we're gonna be offering to our customers, that they get all their calls transcribed, and then using that, they can do other automatic things and other AI functionality on top of that. So we're progressing well on AI. It's a big topic for us and a big investment, and I'm very happy with the progress we've seen so far.
Then lastly, on the acquisition side, so Telemagic, we acquired Telemagic in the beginning of June, and now, with two and a half months behind, we are, of course, still in progress of integrating Telemagic. We see that the integration will be pretty much finalized by the end of this quarter, at the start of next quarter. So we're progressing. We've got a playbook we're doing. This is not the first acquisition we've made. This is a string of acquisitions, and we've got a playbook that we run on, and by the end of this quarter, we should be done with the majority of the integration.
We already see that it's performing to expectations, performing to expectations, and we are able to proceed there. Here we see that there's clear synergies, especially with the Nordic business, but there are also certain verticals where we can leverage, especially leverage, their knowledge and know-how and the product, then addressing certain verticals in other markets as well, and then bringing some of those key functionality then to all our cloud customers as well. For example, things relating to data management and reporting. So that's the progress on the strategy. Organic growth progressing, especially Continental Europe. Then we've been able to execute on the efficiency, AI, and M&A. So can be quite happy with the half from that point of view. Then looking at the market outlook.
So the short-term outlook on the market is that, what we are seeing on the market is that, there's a lot of enterprise investment debt left from 2023 and earlier, when what we saw was the enterprise market was really frozen. Now it's opened up, and there's the normal string of procurements going on, RFPs and discussions with customers on the enterprise side. So we see that this is a very good and positive view on the market, that things are moving. Although, then economic uncertainties do hinder this a bit, and this is most evident, I would say, in Finland, where we see that the economics are the most problematic for our customers.
Then, big, big, Finnish companies, and especially big consumer companies, are not doing too well. Comparing those performances to Central Europe and other Nordic countries, we see that we need to focus on the Nordic countries and where on the continental, where the market is really in on going forward fast. Secondly, then there's a need for operational efficiency in the market, as said, and this is relating to the former. And here then customers are keeping costs at bay, but then again, we are mission-critical software, so we are able to maintain, maintain our level, and the costs are not cut from the mission-critical software such as us, but then others....
And then lastly, AI adoption, big topic, and especially the enterprise customers are looking at AI, and even the mid-size customers now are looking for efficiency case in AI. And this is something that, we are able to answer well, and, and I'm very happy that we, we are progressing on the AI tools. And the thing is that basically AI tools are being normalized now, and it's becoming a normal part of the, of the pro, product. Summarizing, before then going to the fireside, good progress in the first half. So Continental Europe grew, double digits and, and good progress on also in the Nordic. Of course, there was hunger left, hunger left on the table, for more growth, but still, in this, situation, we'll be happy, happy with, the progress, especially in Continental Europe
And then the potential in AI, that is a significant factor going forward, in the coming years, both expanding our share of wallet and expanding the opportunities where we can help our customers, as well as then competition towards other smaller players who can't compete and can't invest in AI. This is a big, big thing going forward as well. That's it for the more official part of the earnings call. I'd like to thank you for listening in so far, and next up we have a fireside chat together with Henri from Sijoittaja.fi.
Hey, and welcome to LeadDesk's Fireside Chat, also on my behalf. My name is Henri Palomäki, and I'm from Sijoittaja.fi, which is an information service for private investors. We had some technical problems previously. We are sorry for that, but the recording will be on YouTube after the Fireside Chat, so you can watch it from there. Now we should be on air. Next, we will go through some questions from the earnings report, freshly published earnings report with Olli and Kaisa. And if you have any questions, you can write them down in the chat, and we will go them through with Olli and Kaisa. So thanks for the presentation. I also went through the earnings report in the morning, and in my opinion, it was quite decent overall. Not so many surprises.
Olli, as a CEO, how satisfied you are with the overall performance of LeadDesk in the first half?
Thanks, Henri. Yes, so I think that you put it well. Wasn't much surprises, pretty as expected. On my behalf, of course, there's, as a growth company, there's always growth left on the table and hunger left. But then looking at where we succeeded, well, that is... I think the best thing is that we succeeded where strategically we want to succeed the most. And to that end, I'm happy. And also I'm happy for the Telemagic and the integration and presence in the Nordics that we've been able to really build up now, being a really big player here.
... Yeah. So it seems you are following the guidelines, you are on the path you have been going before also. So, let's, let's talk a bit about the growth and the revenue. So, your growth was 7.2% and in comparable currency basis, and your ARR grew even more and was slightly better, 9.7% growth. Also, you mentioned that large enterprise deals were signed in the first half, and they will show off more revenue in the second half. So knowing all this, can we expect accelerated growth in the second, second half?
Yeah. So, looking at the market, so where we are growing is, of course, the Nordic, and here in the Nordic, especially the enterprise segment, is our focus area. And, for the enterprise Nordic, we've been able to now onboard those customers. We are onboarding, and we've signed, and now we need to focus on signing again, to the next year. And here, so there is, of course, more revenue that is coming then, in the second half from this, than in the first.
But then again, of course, there's new sales to be done also for next year, and I think that is something to follow up on also that how can we close then at the end of the year on the enterprise side when those deals are typically done? On the other hand, then Continental Europe, we see that Continental Europe has a totally different macroeconomic situation than especially Finland where it's like. It's the markets are really like booming compared to us here which we see that we should then invest of course more there and get even more growth where then we have the possibilities. And that's, I think, something also to watch out for, is that how are we performing in Continental Europe going forward?
So it's a massive total addressable market, and of course, there we are addressing just a small part.
So there's a lot of room for growing, growing still. And then on the other hand, so there was an acquisition in this period. There was price increases, you said, but the organic growth may be a bit less though. How do you see it? Does the growth rely heavily on M&A and price revisions or... Yeah.
So then looking at the market yet again, like in the Nordic continental view, so we rely on the. If you look at the growth, organic growth in continental Europe, that is being the driver. So we are growing organically. Then again, in the Nordics, where we have a more market share already, we know the market well, we know the competitors well. We are a good player there, that we can consolidate the market. And we find that, when we approach the market, it's much more efficient to actually acquire competitors than to acquire customers directly. So it's just a good return on investment, then for our shareholders as well, that we rather acquire a competitor than go after their customers.
And that's the dynamic I think is working there well. To that end, I think we are going to be doing acquisitions also going forward, when we see the fit.
Yeah. Okay, then about the revenue share, you published that you had license revenue, 72% of the revenue, 24% was telecom operator revenue, and then 4%, service revenue. Is this like a normal shares for LeadDesk or, and how do you see the future with this? Is this the normal proportion?
Yeah. Looking historically, we've been growing on the license portion-
Mm
... which did come down after the Länsilinkki acquisition, because that was of course then an acquisition on the putting more effort on the CPaaS or telecoms infrastructure side.
Mm.
So through that, of course, that share climbed a bit, but historically, we see that it's been more, more on the license part that has been growing, so percentage-wise there. And also then, a part of our telecoms, telecoms revenue is actually also recurring, such as, for example, if you host a... Well, you probably if you use our telecom services, you have a phone number, so phone numbers are, of course, monthly billable items. It's not a, like, a big factor, but it's,
Mm
... it's also plays some role there on the recurring side.
Yeah.
But, for a growth company and a software company, recurring revenues-
Mm
... is, that's like the-
Yeah
... We have an infinite house where we can have as many many people on rent as possible, and then it's just about, like, getting those rental agreements. So that's the ARR.
Exactly, yeah. That's a valuable, valuable cash flow. Yeah, and then also you mentioned 65% of the revenue was from international operations. And I assume this number is also going to grow in the future, or?
Yes. So the recurring revenues, so of these, like that we bill annually, and that's basically, that's the number one factor, right? For a software company, you are all about those rental contracts. Like, and, and so 65% of our basically the rent comes from outside of Finland, which I think sets us apart from many of the other software companies that are being followed. It's only 35%, reversely, 35% is Finland.
Mm.
And we really are a European company first, and that's a fundamental factor in LeadDesk, that we are Europe-first company.
Okay, thanks. Then let's go to the profitability. Kaisa, so the EBITDA margin was 13.4%, which was improved from last year first half. Was there any major things affecting this? What was the key driver behind the EBITDA and, for example, the M&A? How did these integrations affect the profitability?
I will start with the M&A side. Last we acquired Länsilinkki roughly a year ago. We had some costs that we knew that we can get rid of. So we did those actions during the latter part of last year and early this year, and now we are benefiting from the fact that Länsilinkki is starting to be profitable. So of course, that has an impact on those numbers. Then while we grow, we are making sure that we utilize the scalable business model that we have, so taking care that our overhead costs are not increasing while we grow. That's very important.
And then, part of that, also making sure that, we're efficient, so, making recruitments in those regions that are actually growing, so making sure that, we get return on that investment as fast as possible. Nothing major I would say. Of course, there are some timing differences. If you just look at the Q2 for this year, it's better than last year, but there are... That's mainly timing differences, so I wouldn't concentrate on one quarter alone.
Yeah. Yeah, and, I don't see any questions here yet, so, if you wanna ask something, write them please down here in the chat, and, I will go them through. Just a reminder at this point. Okay, so let's talk a bit more about the M&A. So you stated that the, like, you have been seeing clearly visible positive effects of Länsilinkki acquisition, and, also that there's clear synergies, with Telemagic acquisition. Kaisa, first, is there like, are these profitability-wise remarkable or clear, or, do you have in, like, in profitability-wise, is there something?
For those individual companies, yes, we are able to make synergies, but if you look at the entire group, they are still quite a small part of the big picture. So I wouldn't expect huge, huge impact on our profitability numbers, for example.
Okay. How about otherwise, Olli?
Yes, so, looking at, for example, Länsilinkki, we are a significant telecoms operator now in Finland, for example, and we've got our international operations, we've got the deep knowledge now also how to run-
Mm
... run this kind of business. And, it's like, of course, the direct impact on profitability that we got, we acquired a loss-making business, and we turned it into a profit-making business, right?
Mm.
That's the first impact. But the bigger impact is through sales, that we can actually offer things that we haven't previously been able to offer. For example, in the toll number space or the premium numbers, so 0800s and 0600s and so on, 0900s nowadays. We've been able to extend our offering clearly here so that it's like we get more sales also on the license part and better margins. And then on the Telemagic side, that's all about market share and getting the market position in Norway and then like heightening our organic growth. Then again, of course, there are synergies, like direct synergies, so we integrate these companies. We have a playbook that we follow, and we integrate these companies into our organization.
The products we integrate, we get to the place where these businesses are both profitable, but they also support our growth, on top of that and our other products. So from that point of view, there are a lot of synergies.
Okay. Good, and now there's questions in the chat. If you can please write them in this, where you now have written them, because I can't, for some reason, access the Q&A chat here. So the first question from Jaakko also is about this Länsilinkki. So the gross margin improved significantly. Where does this come from? There was some answer for that already. And the other question is: Is it thanks to Länsilinkki integration, or is there some other measures?
... also, again, the scalability. So for example, we have the hosting costs in our gross margin, and those are not growing in proportionally to the revenue growth, so the gross margin will improve over time.
Okay. And then there's another one: What was the impact on Telemagic in your year-end Q2 ARR? So does Telemagic have similar recurring revenue share of total sales than LeadDesk?
It is very similar, so you can basically calculate it out of the estimated impact for this year's revenue.
Okay. Okay, and then Antti asks: "Can you walk us through any special effects in your second quarter margins and organic, organic revenue development compared to first quarter?
Compared to first quarter?
Mm-hmm.
So, on the EBITDA side, I guess there's not a-
Yeah, well, maybe I can start with that.
Mm-hmm.
Usually, the summer months are the best, most profitable months, as, as this year as well, when we can actually reverse the holiday pay accruals. Then, if you look at the personnel expenses, especially the social security costs, you may notice that they are now lower compared to, the, the salaries.
Mm
... so we have been more careful with the accruals related to those costs. So that creates a somewhat difference compared to last year. But yeah, compared to the first quarter, it's mainly timing differences, and the summer months are usually our most profitable months in terms of EBITDA.
On the other hand, we've been maintaining quite stable employee count-
Mm-hmm
... which then, of course, brings, much of the revenue that we generate, that part of that always, then goes to the bottom line as well, as we are not growing our costs. As, Kaisa said, we're not growing our costs directly proportional to the revenue, growth, which have an effect. On then growth factors on the second quarter, on the second quarter, I see that, it was quite a bit of the same story, that first quarter, not big changes there.
Some of the changes that happened were then the onboardings of these large customers, as those are, like, being put into revenue and those contracts as the rollouts progress, which is something that was not really that much seen in the first quarter, whereas then now, going to second quarter, they are more seen there. But those are the main factors.
Okay. Thank you. And then about Telemagic, synergies again. What are the plans for technological integration, and are you planning to acquire the customers of Telemagic to LeadDesk platform?
Yes. So, we see that there's a big merit to Telemagic's platform, especially in certain use cases, where we see they have a very strong, very strong offering there. So how the integration playbook work, works is that we first integrate the CPaaS platform, which is technically already implemented, but there's some, some things that we need to do on the invoicing integration still, then to really take use of that. But, firstly, we take the CPaaS platform into use, so all our products use the same CPaaS network, which allows then us, to handle and take control of each message and call that passes through the systems.
So the CPaaS network that then takes all together, and then we have these, in the LeadDesk platform, we have different use cases, such as, for example, the Omni for customer service, the outbound for more of the sales use case, Talk mobile, and then we have Telemagic here as well, helping out in certain use cases. And we are going to integrate certain parts then to all our customers to use. For example, on the data and reporting side, there's very good innovation there that we should utilize. But that's the second phase because it doesn't add as much value as the CPaaS network. So the CPaaS network is the number one thing we do in the first three months of the project.
And then going forward, after three months, we look at these others as, those are then, like, longer-term, value drivers. But the CPaaS network is the short term, and brings the most value.
Okay. Okay, let's go one more through now. Are you growing in each of the Nordic markets as well? And what levels of churn are you experiencing there?
I don't have the country level. We follow on the regional level more. So on the Nordic side, so we clearly see that the enterprise is growing better than SME. That is something that's we've already said quite many times, that the enterprise side we see. But the Nordic SME side, it's performing and it's growing, but I think there, there's a lot more hunger there, especially in Finland, where we both have a large market share and, at the same time, then, of course, the macro situation is harder. But I wouldn't say it's significant.
... Mm-hmm. Okay. Okay, let's talk about AI then. So, you mentioned a lot of different tools in the report, AI Transcriber tool, AI Bot, AI Writer, et cetera. And you also stated that your goal is to integrate all your customers to AI Transcriber tool by the end of the year. How is this project going on? And, what has been the feedback from the clients?
Yes, so, so AI Transcriber is one of the fundamentals we're bringing. So all these are, at the hands of our customers at the moment, but the AI Transcriber is the one that, is the, like, has the most impact, especially towards the small competition, who can't really invest in this and who can't-- who have a hard time, like, competing when we have such a, like, great offering here. And on the AI Transcriber, which is our target, is to transcribe, 100% of the meaningful calls by end of year. And, and here, we've now gone over somewhat, 50%, and now we've, trained the models.
We've invested in the software side, of course, some also the hardware, but now we've done the last investments on the hardware side, and waiting for the hardware then to be able to reach our target by the end of the year. As we all know, there's long waiting queues for GPUs nowadays, but we should have them by end of this month or early next month. So we are then on track for end of the year.
Okay. What about the competitors in this field? How closely you follow your competitors and how they exploit AI?
Yes, yes, we follow very closely. And we see that it's a topic that everybody somehow, some people, some companies speak about it, some actually do. And we do see that it's like a topic that also customers want to hear about. However, what we see now is that the AI talk is moving from AI to actually the like the value add and the functionality. So prospects and customers no longer want to hear AI.
Mm-hmm.
They want to hear the gain they are getting through AI. So the hype curve is a bit then turning, which is, of course, perfect for us because we can then frame that, okay, for example, the easiest to measure, for example, is the AI dialer, where we've got great metrics, and we've got great metrics towards, for example, competitors as well, and the U.S. competitors. So those kind of, like, things are then great for us because we can say, "Okay, we've got these features in the hands of our customers already, and here are the numbers." And then the transcription.
So getting that, all the speech or everything that's said on also to text, then is a great value add, which we can build new functionality on top, but it also directly impacts the work of the team leaders and managers, who really have to go through a lot of audio every day for quality assurance purposes. So in a contact center of 50 people, 50 agents, you might have from 3 to 5 people only listening to recordings-
Mm-hmm
... or live calls-
Yeah
... or looking at emails. Mostly it's like, it takes us so long time to listen to those calls that, it's like, that's already like nearly 10%-
Mm
... increase if you can somehow automate that work.
Yeah. That's one good example of that. What about the monetization of AI products? Is it like... Has it become clearer now? So is it gonna be price revisions or additional services, or how do you see?
Yes. So I think it's like this AI Transcriber is maybe the easiest example to explain as well. So all customers will get these transcriptions with certain quality.
Mm.
We have certain quality metrics. They get certain quality next day. Okay, you want to have a better quality, you want to get it earlier, you want diarization, so the speaker detection, who's speaking, what speaking, like, who's speaking and who's saying, or it's just one, and so on and so forth. So it's like, it's the upgrade paths then.
Mm-hmm.
I see that, like AI needs to be, like, built into all products, and you need to have AI there, from the get-go. But then, if you want to have, like, for example, AI Analyst, you get certain, you can build your reports. Okay, you want visualizations, you want more data, et cetera, et cetera, then there's the upgrade path again.
Mm-hmm.
That's kind of like, a PLG, product-led growth, approach we are taking to these AI, AI features.
Okay. Sounds reasonable. Then there's a question from Jaakko. So we have seen some big companies reporting significant efficiencies. For example, reduced need for contact center workers, thanks to new AI-powered solutions. So could you talk about the risk more? Have you seen LeadDesk clients reducing contact center workers, thanks to AI? And, are you able to position as the AI solution provider for your clients instead than trusting own solution development?
... Yeah. So, there's a few factors here, involved. So, firstly, so contact center work has been, like, at the contact center work, there's always been a competition, like, with digitalization. So do I build this feature into my online service, or does my contact center do it? So there's always been this competition, and now it's just a question, like, there's more tools for digitalization. But what digitalization has enabled and what is happening, and has been happening for years already before AI, is that the more, like, the more menial work in contact centers is coming down, but there's more work you can actually do in a service center or a contact center, like remote nursing, remote doctor work, even forestry. We see the forestry is being done in the service center nowadays.
And that is like them bringing more skilled workers into the contact center setup, or service center. They typically talk about them with different words, but, basically, that's where our software is used in a service center setup, contact center setup. And this is the, like, the another factor turning the other way. And then, this is, like, helping us. When we look at then AI efficiency, so those menial tasks-
Mm.
... typically the numbers are also that we see is that, for example, from web chats, you get, 80% of the web chats are handled by AI. And that, that was, with some customers already before the advent of, the large language models. But, so 80%. But okay, so how does that translate to the agent count? It typically, is reversed, so about 20% of the, agents, then you can reduce the staff by 20%. And here the thing is that, contact centers have always been very, very, people-centric, and they have a lot of costs related to, basically employment.
Mm.
And it's been the number one thing in contact centers always to bring that down, and those menial tasks have already been automated quite far. So it's not a big reduction. So what is the time—like, what takes time in the contact center is then the more things that need more like judgment calls and so on, and need the personal touch. So, from 80% of web chats that are handled by automation, that ends up reducing the need for with 20%.
Okay. Okay, then there's one more question from Jaakko. It's changing the topic a bit. So, you're seeing double-digit growth in the European market. Could you accelerate this even further by investing more in sales?
That is a good question that we are also now working a lot with the board as well on the efficiency metrics and the right efficiency metrics to do exactly this. So where should we... Like, where-
Mm
... do we get the best bang for the buck? So is it like, is it M&A? Is it organic growth in the Nordics? Should we focus on SME enterprise? What about Continental Europe? So now we've got a great framework, that Kaisa and the team has built around, like, us seeing very well like, where should we put the bets in. And, that is something that I see, like, supporting our growth going forward, that we really know now, where we can efficiently grow the most. And, I think this is gonna gonna impact also, like, how we can invest in Continental Europe, as we see that it's growing fast and the costs are on a good level. So it's a good equation going forward.
Okay. Can we hear the results already, or we have to wait a bit?
Let's wait for a bit.
Okay.
If we have a capital markets day or something going forward.
Okay, perfect. Okay, so what about the outlook then, for, for this year and beyond? What's your main targets for, for this year, when we meet, hopefully here in half a year again? Yeah, what do you want to achieve, or what do you want as LeadDesk, achieving?
Yeah. So it's all about those four, four factors. So of course, we need to show good organic growth, and, and we need to show that we, we perform organically. Then, of course, there's the efficiency, so that, we've got now good efficiency track for this year, so we continue on that for the rest of the year. Super important, we need to show progress on AI, and we need to show that we're delivering what we're promising. And, then lastly, then, we need to, look at the M&A market, and, that is something that, hopefully, it's of course, always, more, more fluctuant, but, that there's, also activity on the M&A side. At least we have a strong pipeline. I think those are-
Mm
... the things that I should be commenting on, then.
Yeah. And what about the M&A side? How do you see that market now?
... There's a lot of companies on the market.
Mm-hmm.
So one and a half years ago, the valuations were just too high.
Mm.
But, now the same companies are coming back, and now we just have to say, "Okay, but we can't even pay what we promised earlier-
Mm
... because, well, you know, it's a bankrupt credit company because we've run it to the ground.
Mm.
There's now the thing is that, like many companies are, many companies who haven't understood like a year ago, two years ago, that the market has changed.
Mm-hmm.
They are now like completely like, they are struggling. They, like, are going out of business. So then, like we have to pick those ones that we really see where there's good possibilities for further growth and for profitability. That's all. The market nowadays-
Mm
... you need to be, and you need to get the businesses growing and profitable. It's no longer good to just have profitable companies making a loss. That's-
Mm
... nobody's gonna fund that anymore.
Mm-hmm. Yeah, that's true. But so you are probably shopping, going, keeping your eyes open at least?
Yes.
Yeah.
Yes, we've got a nice long shopping list.
Perfect. Hey, I think now it's time to end the Fireside Chat. Again, apologies for the slight technical problems, but you will find this recording in YouTube and in the LeadDesk's investor website. Thank you, Olli and Kaisa. And, yeah, do you have anything else to add in the end?
Thanks. Thanks, Henri, and thanks, everybody, for listening in.
Thank you.
Yeah. Thank you.