Okay. Welcome, everyone, to Itera's Interim Report Q1 2021. Let's go to Slide 2 and look at the agenda. We have the same agenda as in the previous quarters. I will start with the highlights of the quarter and deep dive into the business review section and then the CFO, Bentheimer, will look into the financial review and outlook, and then we have a question and answer session at the end.
There is a chat connected to And this yes, in this channel that you can also post some questions. There is a 1 minute delay, so please do it as soon as possible because then we'll look into the chat at the end look at are there any questions that we will have follow-up during this session. So let's go to the first Section highlights the Q1 2021, and we go to Slide 4 to look at so the Q1 in brief. I'm very happy to that we achieved 11% organic growth in the core digital business. As we have discussed for several quarters and actually for 2 years ago, we had the strategy saying that we will sunset the data center.
So this core digital business represent 32 92% of the total business of Itera, where the remaining 8% is relating to the data centers that are migrated into the cloud. So by the end of this year, our core deal business will be ITERA's full 100% business model. So but if Keep focus on the core deal business, this 92%. We achieved strong growth in terms of 11% top line, and we also managed to have EBIT margin, operating margin of 50% for this business. So that I think is a good start for this presentation.
And I think we will also bring you through. We have also being quite long journey this, I will say, during the COVID-nineteen because we see that the market due to COVID-nineteen, really has actuated in terms of utilization and sustainability. So we have a strong market in all location that we are operating for the time being. We have also, during the last 1, 2 years, worked quite focus on strategic partnership with international, some are quite global, players like DNV, Cognite and Microsoft and others. That also brings ETERA to other part of the world.
We are not only delivering to the Nordic region, but also delivering almost 20 countries around the world. We are also looking at geographic expansion in marketplaces that we have facilities. For example, especially in Norway, we, of course, go to other part of Norway. We have been in Bergen for a long time. We extend expand our position in the western part of Norway, but we're also going into Fredriksen, that's not far from Oslo, to also look at the region where around the capital of Norway, but also quite close to the Swedish borders.
This is also some kind of geographic expansion in the market that we are already in place. We are also building a delivery factor at scale with the hybrid cloud center. So most of the applications that we are building will also go into the cloud because that's a tremendous platform that we need to be on in order to make or create a digital and sustainable businesses. If I look at the book to bill for this quarter, it's 1.0. It also has a kind of seasonality.
So we had a very strong book to bill in the Q4 last year. But if I'm looking at the 12 last month, we have strong book to bill at 1.3. If I'm looking at the number of employees, we increased by 19% in the core business in the Q1 and about 60% in the last 12 months. The cash flow, the operation cash flow is still strong. It's the last 12 months is SEK 93,000,000 and also the Board proposed an order of net dividend of NOK0.25 per share.
So that is the highlights, I will say, in brief for the Q1. So if you go to the next slide, you see the figures here in terms of revenue for the core digital business that we present here. We had SEK 144,000,000 that represents an organic growth of 11%. If you go to the number of employees in the core digital business, it was 5.23, that's representing growth of 30%. And if you look at the EBIT operating Profit, we had SEK21.1 million.
That is a margin of 50%. So I think this is a good summary of the financial figures, and we will have a deep dive into these figures later in the presentation by Seforg and Van Tammer. So let's go to the Section 2, business review. And then on Slide 7, We will also as you have noted, we have also established a new brand of Itera. So we had a strong project, and we launched a new brand in March.
So we're really working on being becoming a very Edgy, I will say, international player that find human solution for complex challenges. So that's the position that Itera have. So we saw that it was important to also rebrand Itera to take this more international position. So if you go to next slide, we see that crisis actually actuating the digitization and sustainability. And this referred to 2 survey, I think it's quite important in to understand what's really in the market.
One is from the Gartner, the IT resource analyst globally, quite well known in this industry that has some service saying that 65% of the CEOs across the world in different sectors will accelerate the digital to business transformation. And also if you look certainly by McKinsey, they're saying that speed of adoption of digital Technology is increased by 7 years globally during the last 12 months during this COVID-nineteen. So we're really taking a huge step into the utilization across the world, and that is something that's really happening across every industry, every country in one very short time period. And what we see is actually that utilization and sustainability are really interconnected. So After the COVID-nineteen or as a consequence of COVID-nineteen, every industry is also more into is sustainability because sustainability is also a business driver.
It's not only some kind of left hand, it's really becoming a core focus of each business enabled by digitalization. So that is what we see is really happening in the market for the time being. So if you go on the next slide, this is showing the markets. We are splitting into 2 parts. It's actually The matured part, we will call business to consumer, where we as a consumer have been using technology for a long time in terms of buying something or in our insurance services or whatever on the net.
So that's a part of that we are operating as human beings. If you go to their business to business, there's a lot of what we call operation Technology, the technology around the machines and then you have the IT. So in the business to business is really to unlock the data in the operation technology around the assets and the machines and connected to IT. So it's an integration of operation technology and IT technology. So when you manage to do this, you can really have a huge value creation also in the business to business in more or less the same amount that we had seeing value creation in the business to consumer.
So the fastest speed in terms of in the business to business. And that's where Itera also put a lot of focus. The last 2, 3 years are really taking a strong position. So if you go on Slide 10, you will see that how this business to consumer and the business to business are really getting interconnected because it's really a value change that need to be along from the consumer into the production, the full total experience how you can actually industrialize or look at the value chain in a complete different way in a more sustainable way that we have been used in the past actually. And then we are talking about the 4th industrial revolution.
That's just some kind of maybe large word and a huge step, but then we really think that if we're looking at the speed of adoption after COVID-nineteen. We are really more closer. I will say we are part of the 4th Industrial Revolution already because of the daturation of the technology that we have seen in the last 12 months. So if you go to the Slide 11, so that is also where Terra have a strong position because we have end to end services. So we can also unlock the new opportunities with a full range of services and processes methodology, where we start with the vision and design, the journey, what build the solution and also take a full lifecycle approach on that using all kind of digital understanding in terms of the data and how the user should actually be a part of this to make sure that we build the human solution and also how we work with different partners that really add the part add sororities into the new system of players, for example.
And everything will be about the cloud and it will also be about the edge, which is more like the IoT. So a lot of the assets, the cars that we've already seen have actually a computer, but every physical asset will also have a computer. So that's why we're talking about how the cloud and the edge are working together, how we're really getting the AI as a part of the cloud because we need to have a lot of computing power to really look at the artificial intelligence. So that's the new ecosystem we will be a part of, and that's why we also needed to reshape Itera in order to address these needs coming in. So if you go on the next slide.
So TIERA have, during the last, I will say, 2 years, really built an industrial approach for delivering consulting services. We call it the delivery factor scale for data driven businesses. So the goal for this is actually that we assist our customer to actually increase innovation, the speed, agility, have control of the cost, efficient use of the costs of the leases that you put into the project, but also not at least the control in terms of security and predictable flexible service delivery and operation end to end. So these are some kind of targets that we deliver for our clients. And so what we needed to do is actually to reshape the Terra because we have a data center that was the classical data center for the classical business models, but the adoption to cloud is really actuating.
So that's why we have built the Cloud Center Excellence based on the best practices from the global vendors. So I invested a lot into the cloud center actions to really take the pole position to manage to build this new application or this new solution for human users with a very fast speed, and we do not have any kind of obstacle because we have the legacy from the past that we need to take care of. So that's why I said that we take this position, reshape the company and we work with partners like Microsoft and Red Hat and to make sure that these cloud subscriptions are also not only based on 1 cloud vendor, but it's a multi cloud vendor supported, what we call the hybrid cloud center. So this is actually what we have done in Natera. And if you go on Slide 13, this is just to show you one example for a private global company.
This is DNV based in with headquarter in Oslo, but have are represented in 20 about 100 countries around the world. So ETRA is working End to end in terms of digitalization services in combination with DNV, very deep knowledge, business domain knowledge in different sectors. D and V also have digital solutions. They also have software engineering skills. But with the partnership with Itera, they also have much faster scalability to really rate of digitalization and the sustainability for all their business sector around the world.
So this is really where we see the delivery factor scale and the cloud centric excellence really fit into this global company. And what I think also is very interesting in this Perspective is actually that we see there is a green transition. If you look at the oil and gas discussion in Norway, what should happening Going forward, I think there's a large push for the floating bin that will have a huge potential for Norway and not all the Norway, but all the connected global business they are a part of to really take a global floating wind position and also make sure that the energy the oil and gas companies are transformed into energy companies which are much more sustainable than the pure oil and gas companies. So really a huge demand for these kind of services in this sector and also in order to support or enable the sustainable transformation of the planet, I will say. So this is just an example of a very interesting partnership that we have with DNV, and we see other players like DNV that we are also working more very strategic to have access to different part of the world.
So if you go to the next one, I talked about the geographic expansion. It's important to Terra to also not only be represented in the capital city in the location we are present. So this is example in Norway. We have the Western part of Norway, where we have already been in this in Bergen for about 2 years. It is about 45 FTEs or consultants are delivering service to clients based in Bergen with a tripleco ratio with 1 person locally placed in Bergen, and the rest is actually from other location in the area we call it distributed.
Now we have we look at the next level and have established a new office facility that we move into in May to really continue to growing Western part of Norway. And there is also another quite interesting on next week, we will move into a new core location in Fredrikstad, close to Oslo, but also with very interesting market in Sweden. So then we also have More customer in this region, not far from Oslo, but also access the labor pools that a lot So people do not want to move into the capital city. So this is also very interesting, so they can stay, live where they live and also be a part of the delivery factor scale and also work for international clients, despite they are working or sitting or living in the neighborhood, not only in the capital cities. So this is also very interesting how we establish these new kind of offices to reach both customer but also the labor, the market.
So if you go on to the Slide '15. I think this is also something I just want to address because we have in Itera very strong position in banking and finance. And There is an in house analysis unit in Itera. We've branded as CECO Consulting that has done a very in-depth mobile banking report survey using Our best analysts and experts in on service design, user interface and UX, where they tested 60 mobile application and they identified that Sbanken was the best had the best mobile Banking Aptway in Norway, followed by Sberbanken and VNB. So we had a lot of webinar and media coverage because we orchestrated this competition.
So it's a very respected analysis and the feedback loop to the banks because they always would like to compete in terms of the mobile bank. Everything is about that one. And Itera's analysts and experts are really available for supporting or assisting all the clients in this in order to make sure that they will have improved application for their clients. So this is really how we are example of we are using very deep domain knowledge in this sector combined with the end to end delivery capability of Itera. So if you go on to the next slide, the order intake was quite normal, I will say.
In the first Quarter is 1.0. Seasonality, very high in Q4, but the last 12 months, we have 1.3. So that's very good. And here are some existing ones, but also some new ones. So it is always some kind of combination.
We are also have a focused strategy to also look at new logos because that's a part of the growth strategy of Itera. So if you go on the next slide, you will see that new business had was represented 88.5% of the revenue in the Q1, And new customer are actually the finest customer that won that we won since end of the corresponding quarter last year. So that's a new customer that wasn't a customer for Atera 12 months back in time. So if I look at the revenue, they represent 11.5% of new business or new customer in the Q1. So I think that's quite strong.
And if you look at the visibility of Itera, we have quite large engagements. So top 30 customers, 74% of total revenue. It's really a strong figure. So it's down by 3%. I think that's okay because we have some of the new commerce and new customers that really are stepping up quite fast.
So I think in when looking at the top 30 customers that it was a little too high. So now it's more going down 3%. For me, that's very good because I see that there are other customer coming in. So then we can go on to the 'eighteen. This, I was talking about the data center, say forward to tell you more about that.
But as I said, in the Q4, it was 81%, the core dealer business, And in the Q1, it's 92%. And by the end of 2021, it will go down to 0. And then we are talking about core digital business will be 100% of Itera. So and also the last one, if you look at Slide 19, in this section, We have as I said, we had in the core deal business, it was up by 62 people the last 12 months, while we have the reduction at the data center by 'twenty two. So also in terms of the nature ratio, it was now 50%.
That has been a part of the strategy that we should reach 50%. And I think also going forward, we will see some kind of ratio, 1 to 3rd. So it will also still continue to increase, but we will also have should focus on recruitment also in locations that we are represented close to the customer because that's a part of the business model itself it should be close to the customer. So I think that was everything in this section. So let's move on to Wendt.
Let's I think you take over from here.
Yes. Thank you, Arne, and good morning to you all. So if we can move on to Slide 21. As Arne mentioned, we will focus our Financial reporting from now on the core digital business as we think that provides you a bit better picture of Itera going forward. So I will, of course, also present the numbers for the data center operations, but the main focus will be on this core digital business, which as of now represents 92% of the business and increasing.
So next slide. The core digital business had a growth of Around 11% in this quarter, and this was driven primarily by some new customers. For example, we managed to get a new client called ACE, which is a part of the Aker system. And we developed that from nothing to being our 3rd largest customer in March over just a few weeks' time. So that goes to show how well we are able to scale up on new engagements really fast using our distributed delivery model.
We also used subcontractors in a larger extent than before, so that also provided some additional growth. Yes. On the cost side, we see that our personnel expenses were up by 11%, and that's slightly below the average headcounts year over year. Other operating expenses So we're down NOK 2,400,000. Some of that is related to the lockdown situation we are in.
So There's basically no travel at all in Q1. So that provides a bit of a saving. And there are Other activities as well that are naturally at a lower level than regular. We also had SEK1.5 million less in depreciation and amortization in this quarter. The main component of that was that we sublease around 40% of the office in Kyiv because we're not using the office at this point in time due to the lockdown.
And also, we see that On the short to medium term, even after the lockdown is over, we think that we will Our employees will continue to utilize home offices to some extent so that we can optimize the usage of our own office facilities. In addition, we had around NOK 600 of lower depreciation due to some past development costs that were now at the end of life in terms of depreciation. So that gave an EBITDA of NOK28.3 million And a margin of 19.6%, which was slightly below last year due to more subcontractor work, whereas the EBIT was up from NOK 18,700,000 to NOK 22,100,000 And the margin was also up by 1 percentage point to 15.3%. End of employees sorry, end of period employees counted 523, which was up by 62% compared to the same quarter of last year. So that's up by more than 13%.
So going on to Slide 23. We'll look at the quarterly development. So we as you can understand, we continued to recruit full fledged during this COVID period, even though there were Some pause in demand from customers, especially in the 1st phase of the COVID situation. We have We've been running at utilization rates, availability rates, which has been slightly below our normal standards during H2. And we but we see now that towards the end of Q1, we are coming back to normal levels.
And that gives an impact on the EBIT margins that we see now in Q1. In terms of quarterly, both the revenues and results, These are heavily dependent on the number of working days after vacations. So Q3 will always be the lowest quarter for us. And the other one will sort of we're somewhat impacted by the number of working days. So in Q1, we had 1 fewer working days than the corresponding quarter of last year.
Moving on to Slide 24. We'll look Into the subscription revenue that we have from the own data centers, we see that we had a very sharp drop from year end to Q1. So That's part of this transformation that we have been planning for the last couple of years really of the transforming the data center into cloud. So By this, we went into the next and I would say last phase of this transformation. Q1 saw the fallout of our biggest and most complex customer that we have on the data center operations.
So a sharp drop in revenues and corresponding drops in profitability as well. There will be some lag in the timing of when the revenue drops out and when we are able to also get rid of the associated costs. We are currently below sort of a critical maps to service the remaining portfolio in a profitable manner. So now it's a question of migrating the remaining portfolio and or terminating those customers that do not want to migrate as quickly as possible to also get rid of the associated cost base. A lot of the man Power that we use in this business segment will or are in the process of being reskilled to move into the cloud operations.
So there will be cost reductions in terms of the legacy equipment and data center cost that we have. So Going to Slide 25, we can see the in blue, we have the core digital business and then the data center operations And the total figures. So this quite drastic drop in revenues from the data centers of 59% was almost mitigated by the strong growth in core digital business. So we had a drop of 2.6% on the total business. In isolated, we had also then a loss of NOK3.7 million from the data center operations, which again was almost mitigated by the increase of the core digital business.
So the net impact was only NOK 800,000. Looking at the cash flow on next page. We have cash flow from operating activities of NOK1.2 million, which was down from SEK 7,500,000 of last year. The running last month shows Cash flow from operations of NOK99 sorry, NOK93 1,000,000, which was the same as the previous 12 month period. We invested SEK7.9 million in Q1 versus SEK3.8 million in last year.
So the difference being this investment in the card center of excellence. This will be even higher than in Q2 when we complete this SEK15 1,000,000 investments In the ground and central expense. From financing activities, we spent NOK6.4 million, which was approximately the same as last year. So we ended up with a cash balance of SEK41,200,000, Down from NOK 50,700,000 of last year. Slide 27.
As Arne mentioned and as we have already communicated as well, the Board will propose a dividend payment of NOK0.25 per share to be paid in early June. They will also again ask for an authorization to decide on supplemental dividends later in 2021. Ship rights End of the quarter of NOK14.6 per share was an increase of 73% compared to end of March last year, where we obviously had this massive COVID impact on the stock market. If we include a dividend as well, the shareholders' return have been 80% during this past 12 months. We have own shares of almost 1 point NOK3 million, which was valued at NOK18.7 million at the end of the quarter.
So next Page 28, the balance sheet. We have reduced the total balance by NOK 30 NOK2 million to NOK226 1,000,000. One significant Components of that was the sublease agreement of the office space in Kyiv, which reduced the so called right of use assets. In total, together with the other offices, this was down SEK 14,000,000 From SEK41 1,000,000 to SEK27 1,000,000. The equity ratio ended at 22% versus 26% of last year.
And adjusting for these IFRS 16 meeting standard equity would have been at 25%. So that was it. I was going to present about the Q1 figures. Just briefly on the outlook on Page 31. We still see a very attractive market for our core digital business.
And if anything, this market has accelerated with the COVID situation. So I think the restricting factors of the total market is the lack of competent resources in this tech space. We obviously have Access to one of the larger IT pools in the world through our nearshore centers. So we're in a good position in that regard. We also have a Strong position to our end to end deliveries and this distributed delivery model that we have has received a lot of accolades even internationally, I.
E, outside the Moricke region. That puts us in a good spot, we think. We have also, over the past year or so, developed several very Interesting and strong partnerships with the likes of DNV, Cognite, Microsoft, to name but a few. So this will also add another layer to our position that we will Pursue further. We're investing, as mentioned, heavily into this Cloud Center of Excellence, And we're ramping down and benefiting the owned data centers.
So that will have some short term impact on our revenue streams and also profitability for that line of business. But as mentioned, the core digital business is growing fast and profitably. So We'll mitigate that. Yes. I think we will leave it at that.
We are welcoming any one to one meetings that you might want to have to discuss further, Icera, as an investment case. So feel free to contact either Arne or myself to set up some meetings. You will find our contact information on both the report packages and also on our website, itara.com. So we're looking forward to hearing from you And or seeing you back for the Q2 presentation on August 19. So Until then, have a very nice day and stay safe.
Thank you very much.