My name is Hiva Flåskjer and I'm the Investor Relations Officer at AutoStore. Our CEO Mats Hovland Vikse and our CFO Paul Harrison are standing ready to talk to you about this quarter and subsequently answer any questions you have. I'll be moderating today's session as usual. We would like to remind you of the disclaimer in regards to forward-looking statements. It can be read here at your own convenience. Moving on to our agenda, Mats will begin with an overview of the operational performance and strategic progress. Paul will then follow up with presenting the financial results in more detail. We'll follow up with a live Q&A session and you can submit your written questions in the webcast player or raise your hand in Microsoft Teams to ask questions directly.
The link to the Microsoft Teams meeting is available on our website and in an invitation that we published a couple of weeks ago. After the Q&A, Mats will round off with some final remarks and as a reminder, all our figures are stated in U.S. dollars. Let's get started. Mats, over to you.
Thank you, Eva, and good morning. When I last spoke with you, we were at the peak of market uncertainty. Q1 had been volatile, and that uncertainty also continued into Q2. As the quarter progressed, we were able to identify and utilize some pockets of resilience. First, we doubled down on the opportunity that lies within our customer base, which accounted for around 60% of our revenues in the quarter. Secondly, Europe continued to be strong, representing 70% of revenue. Thirdly, we also see early positive signs with regards to demand in North America, reflected in order intake but not fully in revenue. As we've talked about before, we strive to be closer to deals and customers, and the development in the second quarter shows that this is producing positive results. Q2 revenue was $134 million, which is up 56% sequentially, marking a recovery from the unusually soft Q1.
However, compared to the same period last year, revenue was down 13%, and this shows that caution and hesitation still exist, which is fully understandable given the uncertain and volatile market backdrop. In this market and with the actions that we've taken, order intake was $150 million in the quarter. This represents a 6% increase both sequentially and year-over- year, and adjusting for the currency tailwinds, the development is roughly flat. What we're seeing so far in the third quarter are similar market dynamics in general, but I'm happy to see how we're able to stay even closer to our customers and the opportunities that are out there. Moving to profitability, our gross margin was 69%, and included in this number is the $8.5 million write-down tied to the B1 robot line. If we exclude that, the gross margin was 75%.
For adjusted EBITDA margin, we report 48%, which is back to our historical levels, and Paul will come back to this later. If we move on to key developments in our business, we'll see that during the quarter we signed another contract with our AutoStore as a Service model, and this time with the European 3PL provider. While still early days, this model is coming up in more and more conversations. As we've talked about before, it's a model that resonates particularly well in the 3PL market. So far in 2025, we've shipped products to secure $34 million future as a service revenue. Looking ahead, we're preparing for our fall product release, which will include both software and hardware updates, and it will be an exciting step forward, so stay tuned for more details soon.
Looking at it, these results reflect not only our operational execution, but also us making progress on our strategy, which I'll now walk you through, and our foundation is strong. We've built this platform with a large customer base across a wide variety of end markets and system types with a high degree of repeat purchases. Our technology is leading, and our solution is highly competitive with a strong ROI. With changing market dynamics, we have taken action, and we've realized $10 million of annualized cost savings and we've reallocated investment towards high growth initiatives. Looking further out, we're focused around three themes. Firstly, we have a product strategy that sees us continuing to optimize and expand our core, increasing our addressable market, adding new capabilities, and further developing the AutoStore software platform. Against this, we're making good progress.
In under 12 months, we've launched 10 new products and features, and we can now do thousands of robots in a site versus hundreds a few years ago. We're also seeing strong adoption of our Essentials software package, which offers the complete suite of software with smart routing, real-time analytics, and intelligent reporting. With another major release planned in October, we're continuing to improve our offering and increase our market opportunity. Secondly, under our new commercial strategy, we have sharpened our go-to-market focus and reallocated resources towards high potential areas, and this shift is already paying off. Since our Capital Markets Day in September 2024, we've added around 100 new logos, including several strategic accounts with long-term potential, fueling our land and expand strategy.
At the same time, deeper engagement across that installed base is supporting higher account penetration and reinforcing a customer-first approach, which is leading now to 60% of orders this quarter coming from existing customers. Enabled by these two growth engines, we're broadening our recurring revenue streams for both software as well as these new flexible solutions such as Pio and, more recently, AutoStore as a Service. We see these solutions appealing to customers we would otherwise not have planned, and they also create more visibility and stronger customer intimacy. Now let's take a step back, and this familiar slide is a good visualization of that strong foundation that I just talked about. It highlights our strong value proposition to customers, our long-term competitive strength, and our superior financial profile. It summarizes the strength of our platform and why we're so uniquely positioned to lead.
We have now delivered 1,750 systems with 79,500 robots in 60 countries. We have a total of 1,200 unique customers. Within the cubic storage space, we're the only player with such a significant install base, providing us with great advantages. Not only does this speak to the strength of our solutions, it also represents a substantial base for our land and expand strategy. This is a slide that you're also familiar with. Here we can see a small selection of our over 1,200 customers. As you can see, we have a broad customer portfolio across a diverse set of end markets. Around 1/2 of our revenues come from existing customers. This growing customer base represents a massive opportunity. It is also worth noting that Europe remains our largest region, representing over 2/3 of our business.
During the last few quarters, we've seen B2B segments like industrials and healthcare stay strong. We've also seen leading indicators improve across e-chem, e-com, and retail segments. I always like to give the last words to our customers. You've heard me talk about evolving how we work with strategic accounts and 3PL s. Today we're highlighting Rhenus, a global logistics service provider operating in over 70 countries with 1,330 sites. Rhenus runs a high throughput site with AutoStore in Germany. As you will hear, AutoStore is a key part of their future strategy thanks to the flexible and standardized approach we can offer. Before Paul takes us through the financials of this quarter, please have a look at this. Rhenus is a global logistics service provider and a family-owned company. We operate in more than 70 countries, 1,330 sites.
We have 41,000 employees and achieved last year $8.2 billion of turnover. Rhenus as a significant player in the logistics market is a long-lasting partner of Thalea. We operate more than 500 stores in these three markets and e-com business. We designed a wonderful warehouse that is scalable and evolves with the ambitious growth targets of our customer. We implemented an AutoStore system with 240,000 bin locations at a site of roundabout 8,000 square meter. This is really one of the AutoStore systems with the highest throughput worldwide.
As typical for an AutoStore system, it.
Operates with a very high availability, which is of course very important and crucial.
For AutoStore to fulfill their customer expectations.
We have quite some cost reductions due to the high density and storage as well in the throughput, and it is a very easy and robust solution which we can easily scale and really elevates our service levels. We doubled productivity, reduced our employee training times by 75%, enables us to ramp up and scale up faster for peak season, and regarding storage quality, we made.
A step forward, too.
The AutoStore system is a central component in our future warehouse approach. There we combine standardized technology in a customer-tailored solution, where we are able to fulfill customer needs not only for books.
For many other goods.
Thank you, Mats, for that and good morning. Okay, let's move on to the financial highlights on the next slide. As Mats shared earlier, this quarter reflects clear strategic progress. This slide summarizes our Q2 financial performance. Revenue came in at $134 million. Our gross margin was 69%, which, while still strong, reflects the write-down of inventory related to the B1 robot line. Excluding this, gross margin would be 75%. Our adjusted EBITDA margin came in at 48%. Order intake came in at $150 million, taking the order backlog to $529 million. On the next slide, I'll go into more detail on these key financials. As I just mentioned, order intake totaled $150 million, including favorable currency effects of $22 million quarter-on- quarter and $23 million year-over- year. When we adjust for the currency tailwind, the development is broadly flat quarter -over- quarter and year-over- year.
Over 60% of this quarter's order intake came from existing customers and over 50% came from Europe. We ended the quarter with a backlog of $529 million, up sequentially 3%. Although both orders and revenue remain lumpy due to the project-based nature of our business, we view the overall market as having stabilized somewhat following the peak tariff-related uncertainties we saw at the end of Q1 and the beginning of Q2. As I've mentioned, we delivered sequential revenue growth of 56% to $134 million in Q2, with this growth reflecting the unusually weak Q1. As you can see, growth came substantially from Europe, mainly within the standard segment. That's an example of those pockets of resilience that Mats referenced earlier.
In this quarter, we shipped another AutoStore as a Service deal and we're very happy to see customers and projects that we otherwise would not be able to access finding this offer interesting. This contract is not reflected in our revenue figures for the quarter. Neither are the ones from Q1. Revenues will start to be recognized when these sites go live and will continue over the length of the contracts with the potential to increase as customers increase the size of their installations. Okay, let's move on to margins. With the significant enhancements we've introduced at both the software and robot level, the B1 solution is no longer an optimal solution for customers. Therefore, in Q2 we decided to phase out the B1 robot line. This led to an $8.5 million write-down of inventory in the quarter.
As I mentioned, excluding the write-down, gross margin was 75% which reflects our strong operational discipline. Further down the P&L, adjusted EBITDA came in at 48%. This shows that the actions we have taken to restructure the business have started to have an impact in the second half of this quarter. These will generate annualized cost savings of approximately $10 million whilst we continue to invest in long-term growth. If I now move on to cash flow and net debt, I would note that $40 million of EBITDA on the slide and our final settlement payment leads to closing cash at the end of June of $300 million or net debt of $150 million. Furthermore, I'm pleased to report today that we have secured a fully underwritten $500 million five-year bank facilities. With that, I'll now pass back to Hiva who's going to open up for the Q&A.
Thank you, Paul . Do you want to join me? I'll welcome the questions from the team's audience first, and the first one who's raised his hand is Luke. Luke, if you could please go ahead and unmute yourself. Luke, can you hear us? Seems like we might have some technical issues. Bear with us. Luke, can you please try to unmute yourself again? While we are dealing with some tech, I can hear you now. [Eirik], can you hear us? Please do. [Eirik], please.
One by one, couple of ordering.
If you strip out the FX impact, they're still only down 10% sequentially. Are you positively surprised by the Q2?
Development given we braced by them and all done so yeah.
I was also wondering, are there one, two, or three big orders that really helped the order intake in the quarter? How should you kind of think about that?
You're right. As we were kind of reporting first quarter, we were at the peak of market uncertainty, and that's also what we were hearing from customers, that they were trying to maneuver an uncertain world. As the quarter progressed, we did identify these pockets of opportunities that I'm very glad to see we were able to go out and utilize. I'm very happy to see that our performance in this quarter is producing the results that we report here today. Personally, I've also spent that quarter traveling around speaking to customers across all regions, across a wide variety of end markets.
What has met me is yes, a set of customers that is trying to maneuver an uncertain world, but that's also a set of customers that has very high conviction in their investment plans around automation because the challenges that they're faced with and those challenges that we solve with automation is as prevalent as ever, I think.
If I can add, [Eirik], to your point about is it characterized by large deals in the quarter? Actually, one of those pockets of resilience was Europe. Our particular strength in Europe still lies in the standard segment actually. If anything, it's the volume of smaller deals in Europe that has really driven that performance.
That's great color. Thanks. Would you say that's more company specific in terms of your resilience, your end customer base, you being closer to the customers? Are you seeing kind of a general maybe of a step down from the very peak of uncertainty that we saw end Q1 early Q2 as a general note, like how much is market, how much is company specific?
I think it's a combination. What we have seen is that the markets have stabilized somewhat from that peak level of uncertainty. Of course, as we talked about these pockets that we've been able to utilize, we are selling a lot to our existing customers and our installed base, and our customer base is the strongest in this market. We are selling a lot in Europe, which is that stronghold that we've built. I think in reality it's a combination.
That's very clear. Thanks. A follow-up kind of on orders and also on revenue. If you look at kind of last quarter order book to this quarter revenue, the conversion took a big step up from Q1, but it's still below historical levels. Could you help us understand kind of how that's driven by as a service, how it's postponements, longer projects, time maybe for high throughput, and also how we should think about that order book to revenue conversion and how that should evolve in the second half of this year.
Maybe I'll start and you can add, Paul. Look, as we've talked about since the capital markets day, we've had a big focus on getting even closer to the deals, even closer to those customers, setting up a good deal room and being very, very focused on driving conversion. We've seen that create some results also as it comes to backlog conversion trends. I think we're seeing some positivity there. Of course, we have the AutoStore as a Service, etc.
Yeah. On that, [Eirik], we've now got the quarter one, quarter two, about $34 million of revenue. That is, if you like, gone into backlog as a result of AutoStore as a Service. These deals are typically ranging from sort of 3-8 years. You are right, they will sit and be relatively slowly released literally on a monthly basis into backlog. That is another effect. The fundamental point is the one Mats makes there.
That's very clear. Thanks. Since you mentioned it, just the final one for me, of the 34 in Q1 and Q2 for AutoStore as a Service, has any of this been recognized in Q2 already, or is that something for Q3 and beyond?
Indeed it is for Q3 and beyond. We start to recognize revenues under those deals when the installation goes live, and they have not gone live as of Q2. No revenue in Q2 for AutoStore as a Service. That will start in subsequent quarters.
Perfect.
Thank you. I'll jump back in line.
Thank you, [Eirik]. Shall we try Luke again? Can you please unmute yourself?
Yeah.
Morning, everyone. Hopefully this works. Can you hear me?
Yes.
Hopefully you can hear me. My question was, sorry I missed the last question, but hopefully I'm not repeating in changing my device. What we saw in Q2 was obviously a rebound in Europe, but North America and APAC still very weak. I'm just trying to understand what the trajectory for those two segments looks like into Q3 and when we can start to see more of a cyclical recovery there. The second question, you called out the AutoStore as a Service, which is clearly having some traction, but mainly centered on the 3PL base and I think on your customer slide you pointed that was about 14% of group revenue. I'm just trying to understand here what the overall customer target market is just to get a flavor of where that long-term mix could be.
The final question would just be on these kind of the big beautiful build in the U.S. on the R&D expense side, is there any impact for you at all as a result of that? Thank you very much.
North America, [audio distortion]...
Yeah, on North America and APAC, to start there, what we've seen in North America, which is one of the markets where we see the highest potential going forward, we haven't seen that materialize into revenue yet. If I look at order intake, other leading metrics, we're seeing good developments in North America, particularly after there's been more clarity on the tariff side. Going forward we're seeing improvements in those leading indicators. APAC has been kind of roughly flat for a while and we are focusing our resources in those key markets where we see that there is opportunity. Going forward we see North America being a large growth opportunity and Europe continues to be very, very strong.
Order source service. Your observation is a good one. You know, 14% of our revenue's been in the 3PL space. That model is resonating in terms of conversation in the 3PL space, given their particular business model. We don't think it's necessarily confined to that space, but we think over time it will be of particular interest there. As to the R&D aspects of the U.S. administration, I think it's really too early to point to an impact at this stage. Luke.
Understood. Just to be clear, you're saying that in Q3 it sounds like the revenue trajectory so far hasn't substantially recovered in North America to Q2, that that's the right way to read your comments.
I think for Q3 it's still too early to be specific on revenues. What we can say is that in Q2 we saw that order intake and other leading indicators tracked positively for North America.
Thank you very much.
Thank you, Luke. Moving on. [Tobre], please go ahead and unmute yourself.
My question. I hope you can hear me. All right, just one question on the AutoStore as a Service here. On the $6.9 million that you've booked, two questions on this. Is this now in absolute terms more than what it would have been if you sold it over your normal approach of selling solutions, or does this basically, the question, does this include over these recurring revenues and overall sum of all revenues over the lifespan of the contract that is just larger than your usual sales? Could you give us a bit more detail of which time horizon should we expect? Will it start in like two or three quarters and then is this expected to run over seven, eight years? Just more details here. Thank you.
Yeah, let me try. Mats may well add. Look, one thing to step back and talk about: the first half AutoStore as a Service deals, the economics for us are quite attractive. We're seeing those deals move into the black in sort of early to the mid stage of the contract term versus the equivalent CapEx sale of those same solutions. You know it's early days, but the economics, as I say, have been strong for that reason. Of course, that ignores the potential for customers to increase the size of their installation and or extend over time. I think your point is well made. You know we shipped the solution under these deals. Therefore, as you can imagine, a customer is looking at sort of two to three quarters before they go live. They wouldn't naturally want to receive the product any earlier than that.
The last part of your questions, the number sort of $7 million represents the revenues that is to be booked over that contract period. That contract period is ranging from everything from 3-8 years.
Okay, just to clarify, when you speak about, you think into the black numbers towards the middle of the overall contract span, should we understand this in the way of the profitability level is basically the break even, or should we understand this that the total revenue number that you would have received is already reached basically halfway?
Yeah, it's a revenue observation.
Okay, so basically with this AutoStore as a Service you're doubling your revenues over the contract span.
The point is compared to the profitability that we would normally make in an upfront sale, that was what the government was linked to.
Okay, understood. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. [Tobre], Tim, you're next. If you could please go ahead and unmute yourself.
Hi, can you hear me?
We can.
All right, great. Thanks for taking my questions. I have three questions. The first question is a bit more follow-up on your North America market. As Mats, you just mentioned, there's some indicator in terms of order intake or other indicators. Can you please also give us a little bit of sense about what was the mix of North America in the second quarter and what's the growth that you are mentioning, and what would be the end markets that you see to be having a good indication or momentum in the North America market? That would be the first question.
Yeah. What we're seeing is on a relative basis also growth, and hence also taking a larger share of the total order intake versus what it's been in the past. If I look at this from an end market perspective, I think it's two things to note. One is that some of those traditional, more or less cyclical segments such as industrials, healthcare, etc., continue to be strong also in that market. On top of that, we're also seeing some positive trends within the broader retail markets, including e-commerce. As I look at kind of the customer opportunity in North America, we're having good conversations across all those segments.
Thank you. The second question is about the order intake again. The FX impact in the second quarter is around $22 million. That is roughly a 16% year-on-year positive impact on the order intake. If we look at the U.S. dollar depreciation, I think it is the main part of the FX impact.
Right.
The depreciation of the U.S. dollar was roughly 10% on a year-on-year basis. It's mainly for our euro business, which is around 70% of the total business. It seems like the FX impact is a bit bigger than what we think from the U.S. dollar depreciations. What would be the missing parts that I may have in terms of my calculation?
It is primarily U.S. dollar, the weaker U.S. dollar base and obviously the functional currencies in which we invoice. I think I'd have to take offline that sort of reconciliation of your numbers to ours. We've tried to be very open about the favorable impact of currency on order intake. That's our point.
No worries. Thank you very much. My last question will be on the transformation projects that you have been taking. Any more activities that you will foresee going forward? For example, would there be any other product lines that you think probably are no longer optimal for your customers, and there may be another inventory provisions going forward that you can foresee?
No. We have no other plans for either further reorganization or discontinuation of product lines. There's particular significance to the B1 end of life, and that is a consequence of quite considerable improvements we've made recently in both our robot performance and software development. There are no other plans for reorganization or restructuring at this time.
Cool.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Thank you, Tim. Moving on to Håkon , if you could please go ahead and unmute yourself.
Hi, thank you for taking my question. Håkon here from Kepler Cheuvreux. I'm just quick about the quick question about the service again because in Q1 it was $27 million and compared to $6.9 million this quarter. I just can wonder, could you elaborate on what drove the difference between these numbers and how should we think about the more normalized run rate for that service system going forward?
Yeah, thanks for your question Håkon . Look, I'll start there. This, as you know, is a relatively new offering to our customers, and I don't think for some time we can expect a linearity, if you like, to progression. What is particularly encouraging actually about the AutoStore as a Service are the conversations it opens up with customers, and some of them may start with a particular interest in AutoStore as a Service, but actually with fuller consideration actually revert back to the traditional sort of CapEx model. It's opening up a broader dialogue with customers, leading to benefit for both models. I think it is early days, it's a relatively small number of deals, and we're some way away from any sort of linear progression or industrialization, if you like, of this solution.
Okay, thank you so much.
Thank you. Martin, you're next. If you could please go ahead and unmute yourself. [Q].
Yeah, good morning.
Thank you.
It's Martin from Citi. The first question I had was just on the mix of products and obviously you got a rebound in the gross margin excluding the inventory on the B1 robot line. Have you started selling or recognizing revenue on Carousel AI and some of the other new products, and if not, when those start getting recognized in revenue, should we expect a bit of mix effect to gross margin?
Yeah, so look, it's still relatively early days if you think about those products that we've launched over the last 12 months. I am very happy to say that across all of those products we have made sales, and we're seeing a good proportion of that being also in pitch stages and late stage opportunities. As you think about the profitability, those products that we've released are typically part of the overall system. From a profitability mix, you should expect similar as we have in our current numbers, but very happy to see that traction that we have across those products that we've released given that they're effectively improving the overall solution that we can offer to our customer.
The only add to that would be obviously with the growing install base we've got the software part of our business that grows in terms of its resonance in the mix, and that is obviously a very highly favorable gross margin.
Yes, that makes sense. Just continuing on the gross margin, obviously, in terms of pricing, is it right to think that any pricing that you've had to put through so far for tariffs or other effects are now fully effective, or is there still a bit of a lag effect in terms of when pricing might come through in the second half?
We've really thus far seen very limited impact of tariffs. Keep in mind as well, Martin, that it's actually, you know, our partners that are the importers and who principally therefore will bear that tariff cost. There's a slightly sort of calmer sort of attitude we're seeing at the moment on tariffs, and that perhaps comes as a result of some of these deals that have been secured, e.g., with the EU. We're not at least thus far seeing an impact on gross margin of tariffs.
Great, thank you very much.
Thank you, Martin. Christian, you're next. If you could go ahead and unmute yourself, thank you.
All right, can you hear me?
Yes, we can.
Okay, good. Thanks. Christian from Articare. Two questions from me if that's okay. The first one, some of your listed competitors have reported quite strong figures into Q1 and Q2 and showing an improvement in order intake from last year. If we strip out the currency effect you've had, you had some slowdown yourself. Your competitors have also been quite constructive on the market outlook for 2025. I am just wondering if you could help us understand this sort of inconsistency versus your competitors this year, while in previous years you more like outperformed them. Thank you.
Yes, good question. If you look at some of the related markets to where we operate, we are seeing some pockets of good performance. However, if you strip that down to the market that we operate in, we actually see ourselves gaining share in what has been and continues to be a quite challenging market. If you take a broader view on kind of warehouses, e-commerce in general, we were seeing good traction on the parcel side of the world. Some of the non-discretionary spend is driving some performance within the pallet market. We're seeing that some of those smaller ticket items where operators can slightly improve some of their existing warehouses have seen some good performance, etc. If you drill that down into our market, we're performing well relative to the market overall.
Okay, good, makes sense. Just final follow up here on AutoStore as a Service. We answered a couple of questions already, but given that you do not provide any KPIs on this still and it was quite a significant little over share in the second quarter, should we understand this as you do not expect any significant uptick in Q3 or in the short term going forward and that the Q1 share was sort of a one off in terms of the large share? It was.
Look, as Paul said, it is still early days. We're seeing it come up in more and more conversations. Because it is early days, you should expect some lumpiness in terms of how it actually comes out on a quarter -over- quarter basis. It has a focus within our organization because it's a good solution that we can offer to our customers and customers are asking for it. It's healthy for the profile of our business. We will continue to have a focus on it. Let's give it some time and see how it actually materializes on a quarter -by- quarter basis before we fully conclude on which KPIs to report and can be more specific in terms of what to expect.
Can I just add a comment back to Tim's earlier question? I think, Tim, we will come back to you on that FX rate point. I think the possible explanation lies in our use of average rates when we compare period on period versus closing rates, which I think you were quoting there. We will come back to you.
Thank you.
Okay, thanks.
Thank you. Christian . Tintin, you're next up. Please go ahead and unmute yourself.
Great. Can you hear me?
We can. Good morning.
Okay, great morning. Sort of three things for me again. AutoStore as a Service, very popular topic. More of a philosophical question really. Is it quite a passive sales approach? How much are you pushing it versus how much is pull in terms of the deals that are happening? If you look at your partners and the salespeople that are involved in the sale of that versus, say, your traditional CapEx model, what is the difference in the commission structure and how they're incentivized? That's one. Can I just dump it all in one go? Gross margin, without the exceptional, is kind of at that 75% level. Paul, are you happy for us to kind of run the models at that level now? If so, plus minus, sort of give us the reasons.
Then thirdly, in terms of quarterly seasonality in the business, Q1, Q3 typically lower, Q2, Q4 typically stronger. Obviously we've had so much impact on tariffs, relative confidence in terms of the next quarter's seasonality. Q3, should we kind of expect that even though, okay, a bit of stability and recovering, we should expect the normal seasonality we would see in Q3.
Why don't I start maybe on one and three? On number one, our focus isn't necessarily on exactly what solution we try to push, but our focus is to get close to those important customers that we have and that we're trying to get, understanding the needs that they have and translating that back to our offerings and saying, here is how we can help you solve those needs. In some pockets of the market, for instance, the 3PL market, we see that this model resonates very, very well because it matches the contract structures of those businesses. Yes, we often lead the conversation with such a model because we know it resonates very, very well. At the end of the day, it's the suite of offerings that we have that we're matching against the needs that our customer has.
If you look at how we incentivize our salespeople, we focus on value creation for the business. Yes, they will be incentivized to also push and sell the AutoStore as a Service offering when that is something that we see can help drive conversion with the customer, help that customer create even more value within their own business model. On the third one, and I think taking a step back here with our business model and with our operations, there will be lumpiness. We've said this since the start, right? We're exposed to a project-based nature because this is at the end of the day investments for our customers. In addition, the as a service model, there is a natural lumpiness within our business model.
Tin tin, thank you for your question. On gross margins, you are right. 75%, I think in certainly the quarters I've certainly reported is the highest underlying gross margin. Actually, what I would say stepping back is now for a number of successive quarters, our gross margin has been sort of in the early to mid-70%. I will always have an eye on the LME market and the commodities, the underlying commodities that go into the production of robots which we don't fully control as we saw, for example, with the Ukraine situation. I would encourage you to think about it as sort of early to mid-70% and not necessarily modeling forward as high as 75%.
Great, thanks guys.
Thank you. [Petter], you're next.
Thanks.
Actually, my gross margin question was just answered, so I can skip that one.
I have one more question.
Is it possible to share some insight on how activity level has developed during the quarter? I think you must mention that the peak of market uncertainty was around the start of Q2. Thank you.
Yes, you're right. As we reported Q1, we talked about how that level of uncertainty was very, very high. What we've seen over time is those markets stabling somewhat as our customers are getting more certainty, figuring out how to maneuver that world and can then focus on improving the business, which is what we help them do. As I said ahead of summer, during summer, I've traveled around, spent a lot of time with both existing customers and prospective customers. That's also what I'm sensing, that there is a continued strong conviction on their automation roadmaps, what they're trying to solve for within their business, and they're getting headroom to actually think about that as well. Thank you.
Thank you, [Petter]. Tintin, you have your hand up. Did you have a follow-up question?
No, I don't.
Thank you, Tintin. Thank you. Just checking. If not, Lasse, you're next. Please go ahead and unmute yourself.
Hi, good morning.
Just one follow-up. Just on again, AutoStore as a Service. Again, more of a conceptual question, but can you disclose how many of the partners that you have are now offering as a service? Or if not, just generally, I mean, what is the feedback you're getting from the partners? Because I guess for a few of them it probably adds maybe some unwanted complexity to their own business model, or maybe you could explain the mechanics of when you're onboarding a partner as a service partner as well, how that also then looks from their kind of economics and revenue generation perspective. If you could just help guide us a little bit there on what the feedback is and how that looks amongst the 21 partners, or is it 22 now that you have. Thank you.
We have designed an additional offering that our partners can decide to use to create more success in their business. We've had those conversations and onboarded those large partners that make up a big share of our overall business, and we're collectively with and through those partners going to market with this offering. Overall, I feel like we're in a very good place with the partners to actually drive adoption in those relevant end markets and segments with this as a service model. Of course, just again fundamentally taking that step back, we have designed it in a way so that this is also good business for our partners. Because if you think back, we have this important win, win, win strategy where we need to be in a good place, our partners need to be in a good place, and our customers need to win.
As long as we can have that model, we have learned that we get focus, and focus creates results.
Okay, maybe just a follow-up in terms of, because with the as a service, I guess you are taking credit risk on the customer to some extent. How has that changed the approach with dealing with different customers? I guess you know you don't want to be looking at customers defaulting on payments a few years down the road. How has that changed the approach?
Yeah, it's a good question, Nasser. I mean, we do take that credit risk ultimately through our partners. Keep in mind one important thing: we continue to earn the asset, and our products are highly standardized. In the event of a credit failure, we do have the ability to recover the assets and redeploy them elsewhere. It's an important point to bear in mind, this highly standardized nature of our product. Obviously, we undertake all the appropriate diligence when it comes to credit assessments.
Okay, thank you.
Thank you, Lasse. I don't see any more hands being raised. I'm just going to check the web player as well. I think we've asked or answered the questions here. I guess one question that we haven't answered, Paul, is for you. And that's if we can please confirm the use of proceeds from the new bank facility.
Sure. As I mentioned, I'm pleased with the structure in our new facilities. $350 million revolving credit facility and $150 million term loan A give us a lot more flexibility when it comes to applying the cash we generate to the core debt that we have. Specifically, in terms of source and use of the funds, we will use the new facilities to repay the term loan B. We will cancel the existing revolving credit facility, which we have actually never used. Therefore, you see a shift of debt initially to the revolving credit facility. As I say, think about the greater potential to optimize treasury as we demonstrate, as we generate cash and use that cash to offset the debt in an RCF without actually losing the headroom in so doing.
Thank you. I believe this concludes the Q and A session for today. With that, I'll hand over the word to Mats for his final remarks.
Thanks, Hiva. Let me summarize what we've presented to you today and also remind you of some key points. First, we operate in a large, underpenetrated market fueled by long-term megatrends. That growth opportunity is intact, and we have a winning, proven solution. As we've already discussed, we're responding to the current market conditions by taking decisive actions aimed at maintaining high profitability, strengthening our competitive position, and supporting long-term growth and resilience. We're not standing still. Innovation is embedded in our DNA, and we continue to push the boundaries of what's possible. At our last update, you heard us talk about the latest innovations and product launches, and the next one is in October this year. Stay tuned. We have several ways to win and a scalable solution that works across industries, system types, and geographies, all delivered through an efficient, partner-enabled model.
Taken together, these elements give us the confidence in our direction and our ability to create long-term value. I'd like to thank you for dialing in today and look forward to speaking to you again soon. Thanks.