Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the AutoStore Q3 earnings call. For the first part of this call, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Afterwards, there'll be a question- and- answer session. To ask a question, please press five star on your telephone. This call is being recorded. I will now hand the call over to the speakers. Please begin.
Thank you very much, and good afternoon from Oslo, Norway. My name is Hiva Ghiri, and I'm the Investor Relations Officer. I'm very pleased to have this earnings call together with members of our executive management team, including Karl Johan Lier, AutoStore President and CEO, Bent Skisaker, Chief Financial Officer, and Mats Hovland Vikse, Chief Revenue Officer. Before I hand over the word to Karl Johan, I would just like to remind you that we will be using the presentation deck from this morning, which you can find on our website. With that, I will hand over the word to Karl Johan.
Thank you, Hiva. If you have the slide deck, we can go to slide number 3. Thank you for joining us today for a review of our quarter three results. Let me begin by saying that I'm very proud of the performance delivered by the AutoStore team. We delivered another excellent quarter with revenue growth of 74%, even as we had a prior year quarter of 95% growth. If you also take currency effect into consideration, we have recorded a growth of 86% compared to quarter three, 2021. Despite the volatility and uncertainty of economic market conditions, we have been able to maintain a strong growth rate throughout the year, demonstrating the resilience of our business model and the value that our customers derive from our technology.
In this quarter, we reported an adjusted EBITDA margin of 37% with the year-over-year decrease primarily due to continued pricing pressure for Grid box and other key components. As a reminder, we have already implemented pricing actions to mitigate rising costs. A price increase was introduced in quarter four, 2021, and started to benefit margins in quarter four, 2022. A surcharge implemented at the end of quarter one, 2022 will be passed beginning in 2023. It takes some time to see the full benefit of these actions due to the time lag between order intake and project delivery, when costs and revenues are recognized in our P&L. We must first work through existing orders in our backlog that were input at the previous pricing and cost levels.
While we are not happy with our margins, we believe that the third quarter represents a floor and that we have a path to return to historical adjusted EBITDA margins. Bent will say more about that, later on. Moving on to order intake, we saw continuing strength with Q3 orders of $155 million, an increase of 11% compared to the same period last year. Considering that we are transitioning to shorter lead times and a negative FX impact, this is a solid figure. As we mentioned in our previous earnings presentation from the beginning of the year through the second quarter, our average lead time decreased from 35 weeks to 20 weeks.
Our focus on operational excellence, including managing our supply chain, helped us reduce lead times as we diversify our supplier base, optimize inventory, improve collaboration, and increase visibility with suppliers, including doubling our aluminum capacity the last 12 months. The significant work on supply chain also results in a more resilient AutoStore to support growth in 2022 and 2023. Our team is continuously focused on operational excellence, and we are very pleased with our improved ability to offer faster delivery times for customers by strengthening the resiliency of our sources. The significant drop in lead time now allows customers to place their orders closer to delivery, which is fantastic, but it had a temporary impact of delaying some orders as customers take advantage of shorter lead times. We are therefore very pleased with the strength of order intake during the quarter.
At the end of the quarter, our order backlog was $470 million, up 37% year-over-year. We are confident in our underlying growth, followed by solid demand across regions and markets and various categories. We are able to reaffirm our guidance range for full year 2022 and 2023. On operational highlights. As I just mentioned, price increases and surcharges have already been introduced. As the inflationary environment persists, we have announced an additional net price increase of 5%, which includes a general price increase partially offset by a reduction in surcharge, taking effect for new orders starting in January 2023. During the quarter and in November, we have launched several new commercial offerings, which include a pay-per-pick revenue model, which represents a recurring revenue model for us and a more flexible financing alternative for the customer.
We are in dialogue with many more potential customers. Mats will talk more about this later in the presentation. I'm also very excited about our pilot and first order for our new Multi-Temperature Solution that we have been developing at our innovation hub for some time. Our Multi-Temperature Solution also includes frozen capabilities, promising excellent growth opportunities in the grocery sector. Furthermore, we have released our PickUpPort, enabling pickup directly from the AutoStore system, and Unify Analytics, which is a cloud-based service and data platform that automates the connection and analysis of real-time AutoStore data. Mats will also talk more about this later in the presentation. To meet our growth targets, we are continuing to expand with our assembly facility in Thailand.
The facility is expected to be online in the second half of 2023 to enable access to new suppliers and ensure closer proximity to customers. In addition, it provides flexibility and reduces our dependency on European suppliers. Also, during the quarter, we reached an important achievement for AutoStore by passing the milestone of selling our 100th system globally. This is a remarkable achievement and firmly establishes our position as the market leader of cube storage automation. Finally, there are several other noteworthy developments to highlight. First, our distribution partners. StrongPoint has expanded its reach to include the U.K. and Ireland, in addition to its previous territories in the Nordic and Baltic countries. Additionally, Fives Group is going to expand beyond Southern Europe to now include Japan. Part of Smartlog is also going to cover Middle East in addition to Latin America.
Next, we continue to make great progress towards our strategic goals despite current uncertain market conditions. The revenue growth trend, order intake pace, and operational efficiency support our 2022 guidance and continue strong growth in 2023. With that, I hand it over to Mats.
Thanks, Karl Johan Lier. If you then go to page 4, let me start off today with an overview of AutoStore for those of you that may be new to our story. Let's take a step back and look at some of our unique attributes and accomplishments in numbers. We have now sold more than 1,000 installations and over 40,000 robots in over 40 countries. We have an efficient go-to-market model, where we sell through a network of currently 22 distribution partners with more than 2,000 certified sales representatives. We have a scaled global platform with a strong blue-chip customer base, and we have sold to more than 600 end customers. Our lean and efficient business model has resulted in a superior financial profile with high growth, approximately 50% CAGR since 2010, and 80% growth last year.
High margins with EBITDA margins of around 50% in recent years, and high cash conversion above 80%. On slide 5, you'll see that we are operating in what's a large and under-penetrated market for warehouse automation. The total addressable market is huge and still has a low penetration rate. We believe that currently only around 15%-20% of warehouses are automated globally. What's driving penetration here is mega trends that you all know very well. You have the shift to e-commerce, the fact that we, as consumers, are getting more and more demanding. On top of that, companies globally are looking more and more to solutions that reduce labor dependencies and improve the supply chain. When we look at our current customer portfolio, we see that we've only scratched the surface and that there is tremendous opportunity for us.
Looking at our current customer base, we have a lot of growth opportunities. If you take our top 10 customers alone, we estimate that we have less than 5% average penetration. We're also optimistic about the new opportunities unlocked by our strategic initiatives and product announcements, like frozen temperature capabilities and our new paper pick offering, which I will get back to later. Moving on to page number 6. As I mentioned on the previous slide, the long-term growth of the automation market is supported by global secular megatrends and will continue to drive automation adoption and AutoStore growth. Economic challenges such as labor constraints and inflation, coupled with consumer preferences for same-day delivery, reinforce the value of our technology. We can help our customers reduce costs, become more efficient, and deliver an ROI in 1-3 years.
While AutoStore is not immune to the capital cycle, we remain very optimistic about our long-term growth opportunity and our ability to help companies in all end markets drive efficiencies and meet today's challenges. On page 7, let us now discuss the value proposition to our customers, how we are addressing aspects customers value the most. Throughput is very important, as our customers needs to be able to meet consumer demand for fast delivery and to be able to handle big volumes. Today, we're able to achieve up to 650 picks per hour per port and more than 20,000 picks per hour per grid. You can have multiple grids within one distribution center. We reached this throughput level in 2020 when we introduced the Router software, and this is what really has enabled us to enter the high-throughput market.
Space efficiency is key when customers calculate their payback time, and we offer the densest solution available. Modularity is also important, especially if you want to utilize existing real estate. AutoStore is able to fit virtually any warehouse layout, and our customers can easily expand their solution as they grow, enabling them to right size from the start. Reliability. AutoStore has on average across all of our system a best-in-class uptime of 99.7% and no single point of failure. Being able to deliver performance consistently without downtime is critical for operators. All of these features together with the low payback time drive market share growth and higher ROI. Moving on to page 8.
Along with the reaching the milestone of 1,000 systems sold globally, we have achieved an average compounded annual revenue growth rate of more than 50% for more than 10 years, a variety of business cycles and periods of economic strength and weakness. The uncertainty facing today's global economy are widely acknowledged. However, we believe that in the medium term, we can grow revenue by approximately 2x-3 x the growth rate of the broader warehouse automation market. AutoStore continues to benefit from an underpenetrated cube storage market that is both massive and rapidly expanding. Given current market growth estimates, this implies a future CAGR for AutoStore of approximately 40%. Moving to page 9. Now looking at how we're navigating and progressing in respect to our own strategic ambitions, I'm pleased to say that we're on plan.
On the first one, we've seen strong growth in our key focus areas with year-to-date revenue growth of MFCs of 128% versus the prior year period. When it comes to our fulfillment platform with the WMS, we continue to grow our pipeline of large, high-quality customers that we expect to convert to revenues in 2023. We are also now introducing a new pay-per-pick revenue model, which will both enable us to increase our recurring revenue share and provide a more flexible financing solution for our customers as the upfront CapEx is significantly reduced. I'll provide more details on this shortly. As also previously mentioned, we have made a lot of progress on product innovation. We have now received our first order for our new multi-temperature zone Grid, which means the increasing demands of grocery retailers to automate their e-grocery fulfillment services.
Also, we have launched our new Unify Analytics cloud-based service and data platform. We've always collected data from our sites to help us improve our technology, but this platform now also gives real-time visibility and data that helps our customers to drive operational efficiency and better utilize our technology. A group of customers has already used the platform for a while. Now it's available for all existing and new customers. Furthermore, we're now also launching our PickUpPort, which is the first consumer-facing workstation offered by AutoStore. With this port, anyone can interact with our cube technology without any training. What this enables is new shopping experiences, where a consumer can pick up an order directly from the AutoStore system without any associates involved.
With this in place, maybe in the future, you can find products available in an AutoStore near you, and you can pick it up whenever you want. This can help form the future of retail. I've talked to you about our APAC and North American expansion before, and I'm pleased to say that we're tracking according to plan. We have been growing our sales organization, including BDMs and partner managers in U.S., Australia, Japan, and Singapore, to ensure that we're well-positioned for future growth. Year- to- date, we've seen sales growth of 115% in APAC and 82% in North America. Our current order backlog supports strong full-year growth. To support operations to meet our growth targets, we are continuing to expand with our assembly facility in Thailand, which is expected to be online in the second half of 2023.
On the M&A side, we continuously evaluate potential targets, look for technologies that can enhance our offering, but we remain disciplined and opportunistic as before. Moving then to page 10. As Karl Johan mentioned, we are now launching our new commercial model that provides recurring revenue with a pay-per-pick pricing structure. Under this alternative pricing model, the customer has a lower upfront investment cost, which only consists of the Grid and infrastructure rack. This will be then combined with a pay-per-pick presentation fee that will drive recurring revenue for AutoStore and partners over time. We have introduced this option based on increasing customer demand, and we believe it offers potential for true incremental opportunities in the market, especially considering the current macro situation.
In this model, the upfront CapEx will be reduced to roughly 20%-40% of today's level, making it very attractive for some customers. The remaining value of the project will be captured through a recurring component based on pay-per-pick mechanism to cover the cost of robots, ports, and software. We would also like to emphasize that we're implementing and deploying this pricing model in a controlled manner. In the near term, most of our revenues will still be with the current upfront CapEx pricing. Regarding split with partners, enabling strong margins for our partners has been and will continue to be a critical success factor for our commercial model. Because of this, it has been important for us to maintain the same split and attractiveness for our partners. There is no change to our distribution model strategy, which is key to drive strong growth.
We then move to page 11. As we've discussed each quarter since our IPO, product innovation is deeply ingrained in our culture. The grocery segment is one of our key focus areas, and our goal is to further expand within this retail space. Managing grocery retail supply chains come with unique challenges and demands requiring specialized knowledge. The multi-temperature grid is one of our latest innovations, and we are very excited to share this technology with our partners and customers. The new grocery offering enables retailers to automate frozen goods and achieve next level warehouse efficiency, creating also better work environment for employees by decreasing exposure to cold temperatures, as well as substantially decreasing energy costs. We have received our first order for a multi-temperature grid, which now also includes a frozen temperature zone, and it will be installed in the first quarter of 2023 at delivery.
We move to page 12. As you've heard, we've had a lot of initiatives going on that we expect will drive growth in the future, and our order intake and backlog in the third quarter is supportive. As Karl Johan mentioned earlier in the presentation, in third quarter, we have an order intake of $155 million, representing 11% growth compared to the third quarter of 2021. This is a solid number, especially considering that we're transitioning to shorter lead times and negative FX impact. We ended the quarter with an order book of NOK 470 million, which is an increase of 30% year-over-year, which provides good revenue visibility for the rest of this year and into next. With that, I'll hand it over to Bent, who will walk us through the numbers.
Thank you, Mats. Let's look at the financial highlights on page 14. As Karl Johan and Mats already have stated, we delivered another strong quarter with 74% revenue growth year-on-year. An adjusted EBITDA margin of 37%, 88% cash conversion, 11% growth in order intake year-on-year, and 37% growth in backlog. On slide 15, I will go into more detail. AutoStore reported revenues of $147 million in the third quarter of 2022, up by 74% from $85 million in the corresponding quarter last year. As Karl Johan said, if we apply 2021 foreign exchange rates, the revenue growth would have been 86% in Q3.
Year- to- date, 2022 revenues increased by 86% to $436 million from $234 million in the corresponding period last year. Year- to- date, 2022 revenues were supported by strong growth in all regions, healthy demand from end markets, including omni-channel, 3PL, and industrial, as well as a solid mix of high throughput micro-fulfillment centers and standard systems. Again, if we apply 2021 FX rates on year- to- date revenues, growth would have been 99%. Now, let's look into the trends in the geographies where we do business. Revenue in the EMEA region increased to $104 million in the third quarter, up by 75% year-on-year. While EMEA continues to represent majority of our revenue, we see that revenues in North America increased by 45% compared to a year ago.
Revenues in APAC region increased significantly, by 164%. Year- to- date, 2022 revenues in EMEA grew by 85% compared to the corresponding period in 2021, while the North America region increased by 82% year-over-year. The APAC region achieved revenue growth of 115%. This is a very satisfactory development. Moving to slide 16, we look at gross profit and adjusted EBITDA. In Q3, gross profit ended at $80 million, up from $56 million in the same quarter last year. This corresponds to a gross margin of 54% in Q3, a decrease compared to a gross margin of 66% in Q3 last year. Year- to- date, 2022 gross profit ended at $261 million, up from $158 million in the same period last year.
This corresponds to a gross margin of 58% year- to- date, 2022, down from 67% in the corresponding period last year. The decrease in gross margin was predominantly linked to continued high Grid costs in 2022 and limited impact yet from pricing actions implemented. Adjusted EBITDA was $55 million in Q3, representing an adjusted EBITDA margin of 37% compared to an adjusted EBITDA margin of 50% in Q3, 2021. Year- to- date, 2022 adjusted EBITDA was $179 million, corresponding to an adjusted EBITDA margin of 41% versus $117 million and the corresponding adjusted EBITDA margin of 50% in the same period last year. As we communicated in our Q2 presentation in August, we have continued to see additional pressure on margins in the second half.
Q3 was significantly impacted by increased cost inflation, particularly related to grid costs. We expect this trend of margin pressure to gradually reverse from next quarter onwards as our initiatives that we implemented are starting to come into effect. I will, on the next slide, go into a bit more detail on the margin development and our pathway back to historical margin levels. As shown on the left here on slide 17, based on the action already implemented and the grid cost level on orders currently placed, our pro forma gross margin for Q3 is 67%. We expect that Q3 gross margin represents the low point as we in the quarter are delivering on backlog with peak grid costs and old prices. In Q4, we will start to see the positive impact as pricing actions are phased in for roughly half of the orders delivered.
In Q1 2023, most projects will be with new prices, and hence we expect gross margin to start improving in Q4 and further into Q1 2023. In addition to the effects from the price increases, we will in Q1 2023, start to benefit from reduced grid costs already secured on projects in the backlog. Go to slide 18. Since last year we have had significant costs related to various items, such as the Ocado litigation, costs related to the IPO, and acquisition costs, we are providing a breakdown of the different costs that to a very large extent have a one-time character. Looking at Q3, there are two noteworthy adjustments. One relates to employee benefit expenses, which were reduced due to a reduction of the provision for Social Security tax on management options following the reduced share price of the company as per the thirtieth of September.
The other adjustment relates to litigation costs pertaining to the ongoing Ocado litigation. Adjusted EBITDA is an important supplemental measure to give our investors the overall picture of operating activity profit generation. For the full P&L balance sheet and cash flow statement, please see the Board of Directors report announced at 6:00 CET this morning, which provides an in-depth discussion of the consolidated IFRS accounts. You will find additional information on adjusted EBITDA and the IFRS financial statement as a part of the APM section in the financial report on pages 28, 29 and 30. With that, I'll hand over the word to Karl Johan Lier, who will walk us through the outlook.
Thank you, Bent. If you go to slide 20, as we have presented today, AutoStore operates in a fast-growing market. Even though more and more warehouses are automated, only about 15% of the market is automated today, leaving plenty of space for our company to continue growth. We are operating in a more uncertain market today compared to 12 months ago. Nevertheless, the underlying drivers of increased demand for automation remains intact. Solid demand across regions, end markets, and warehouse categories in the third quarter reinforces our overall optimism about AutoStore's continued strong growth and performance. If you go to the next slide 21, we also reiterate our 2023 revenue of $700 million-$800 million. This is underpinned by our solid backlog, strong pipeline, and historical pipeline conversion.
I would also like to point out that because our revenue is project-based by nature, large amounts of revenue can fall into one particular quarter or the next. This is why we focus on annual revenue guidance, and we must overly focus on the results from one particular quarter. We remain very confident in our growth trajectory over the long term. While the current market backdrop is uncertain, we believe we can grow revenue over the medium term by a factor of approximately 2x-3 x the growth rate of the broader warehouse automation market. Given current market growth estimates, this implies an average annual growth rate of 40%. We are confident in our ability to return to historical margin levels in 2023 through pricing and other mitigating actions and based on current Grid cost levels.
As we say in AutoStore, the best is yet to come. The journey has just begun. With that, I give the word to you, Hiva Ghiri.
Thank you, Karl Johan. Actually, we are ready now for questions from the callers.
Operator, if you could open up for questions. Thank you. If you do wish to ask a question, please press five star on your phone. To withdraw your question, please press five star again. We'll have a brief pause while questions are being registered. The first question will be from the line of Lukas Johansen from Jefferies. Please go ahead. Your line will now be unmuted.
Hello. Thank you for taking my questions. I'll have three, if we can take them maybe one at a time. The first one is on orders. Could you see a similar boom in orders in Q4 2022 as clients kind of rush to put in their order before the additional price increase happening in January? Is that something you have seen? Also on orders, is the impact of the reduced lead times roughly behind you now? If we look at the reduction in lead time, it's 15 weeks, so that's roughly three months, so we should be, you know, past the worst impact from that. Thank you.
To address the first one, I think we are in a different market now than one year ago. I know that it's definitely a conversation happening on whether customers should pull forward orders because of the price increase that's taking effect from first of January.
Regarding the lead times?
On the lead time question, yes, we are getting to an end of those impact because that is mainly a transitional impact and we are stabilized on roughly 20 weeks now.
Okay. Thank you. For the second one is on the additional price increase of 5%. Is that fair to say that you need that to come through the P&L in order to get back to historical margin levels? Given it, you know, it's starting in 2023 and the lead times you have is going to probably start to impact the P&L from H2, does that mean roughly you're back to your historical margin level in H2 2023 rather than, you know, the start of the year?
Some of the effect is included, Lukas, but that's a very small part of the path back to 67%.
The last one is just on some of the info you provided. Can you discuss a little bit more the business model for Unify Analytics and the PickUpPort? Unify, is that now a specific software solution that leads to additional software revenues or is it just part of the Router software and it does not lead necessarily to additional revenue? Same for the PickUpPort. Is it actually now some of the orders can come in with you know the hardware order for the PickUpPort of some existing clients and also order the PickUpPorts separately in you know grids that are already in existence?
To first address the Unify Analytics point, that will be a separate software product that goes on top of our older software that we already have. Yes, we are monetizing that through a recurring model that scales with number of robots operating at the site. This is an incremental software recurring revenue opportunity for us. When it comes to the PickUpPort, that can also be used by existing installations as well as new ones. We are pricing that similarly to how we are pricing other ports, which now also is available through a pay-per-pick mechanism with the new model that we launched today.
Perfect. Thank you.
As a reminder, please press five star on your telephone to ask a question. We will have a brief pause while questions are being registered. As there are no further questions at this moment, I will hand it back to the speakers for any closing remarks. Thank you. Karl Johan Lier.
Yeah.
Your final remark.
Hello. All right. We will end the remark today with four key takeaways. Our team remains focused on our production and sourcing strategy to reduce dependencies on individual suppliers. With inventory optimization, redundancy, improved collaboration, and increased visibility with suppliers as part of our toolbox. These steps have significantly reduced our lead time to 20 weeks. As mentioned several times already, we have taken the necessary actions to lift margins back to historical levels in 2023. In third quarter 2023, order intake of $155 million brought our backlog to $470 million, a 37% growth year-on-year. This highlights AutoStore's strong fundamentals, including solid demand across regions and markets and warehouse categories. With that, thank you for spending the time with us.
We look forward to providing you with the future updates.
Thank you and goodbye.
This now concludes the conference call. You may now disconnect your lines.