Good morning, and welcome to the second quarter results presentation for LINK Mobility. I'm Tom Rogn, Head of Investor Relations. I'm joined by Thomas Berge, Interim CEO, and Morten Edvardsen, Interim CFO, who will present the results. Following the presentation, there will be a Q&A session. To ask questions directly, please see dial-in details in the stock exchange release. It is also possible to post questions online during the presentation and Q&A. Thomas.
Thank you, Tom, and welcome to LINK's second quarter presentation. I will start this presentation with some high-level comments on the Q2 numbers, as well as a short business review before handing the word over to Morten for a detailed presentation of the second quarter financials. LINK is the leading and largest CPaaS player in Europe, and has also established a presence in the U.S. through last year's acquisition of Message Broadcast. Our strategy is dedicated to providing digital communication products to the enterprise market, so they can interact with their end customers. We attack the enterprise market through a strategy of local approach and local touchpoints with clients. LINK's 48,000 clients, serviced by our 30 offices in 19 countries, are a result of successful implementation of this strategy over many years.
We want to build high-value solutions for our enterprise clients that results in long-lasting and sticky customer relationships, with value-added upselling opportunities for future years. LINK is continuously investing in its product portfolio to adapt and cater to future demand within our space. We have a well-positioned product portfolio ahead of current market adoption that matches or surpasses our competitors. Group revenue during the last twelve months was recorded at almost NOK 4.8 billion. Profitability has always been important for LINK, with a strategy to grow the business organically while generating profitability and net positive cash flow. Adjusted EBITDA on an LTM basis was NOK 603 million in the current quarter. Adjusted EBITDA for the current quarter was soft due to increased macro uncertainty, negatively impacting revenue on mobile marketing volumes and higher OPEX related to commercial investments.
LINK will now reduce costs to ensure that CAPEX is aligned with gross profit growth, and we are recalibrating commercial resources towards executing on near-term growth opportunities. We observe tougher market conditions for selected use cases and industries in a more difficult or uncertain macroeconomic environment. Mobile marketing is the use case in our portfolio that has the highest variation in volumes contingent on conditions in the macro economy. The other use cases are less impacted by a macro environment, as volumes are triggered by normal interactions between our clients and their end users. We see a sustained growth momentum for notification messages and new growth opportunities within customer care solutions. LINK is well positioned for continued growth in the current environment, albeit at a lower level due to our large, diversified customer base and competitive product offering.
LINK is securing future business by signing almost 600 new contracts in the current quarter. Revenue churn is stable at around 1%, both factors providing a promising foundation for future growth momentum. Counteracting the growth momentum is a softer development for mobile marketing volumes. In the second quarter, selected retail clients, mainly in Central and Western Europe, are scaling down their campaign activity level as a response to lower consumer confidence, resulting in lower revenue deriving from mobile marketing. This trend negatively impacts LINK's overall growth momentum, as a reduction in mobile marketing volumes partly offset the growth from other use cases. The exposure of mobile marketing volumes for LINK is mitigated by the fact that this use case constitute a smaller portion of LINK's revenue base compared to other use cases.
We do not observe any structural changes in the market explaining the soft development on mobile marketing volumes, except the macro environment and lower consumer confidence. A strong momentum on new contracts and low churn makes it reasonable to expect a rebound in growth levels when the retail sector recovers following an improvement in consumer confidence. There are several growth opportunities that LINK can capitalize on, improving the growth momentum in the medium term. The market demand for mature products and selected CPaaS solution continues, while advanced CPaaS products with low market adoption requires more efforts to sign and implement. During the recent quarters, an increasing number of new contracts have derived from more advanced and less mature CPaaS products, and we have experienced longer lead times for scaling revenue on these contracts.
The slower revenue contribution from the new CPaaS agreements have negatively impacted current growth rate, as the revenue has not hit our P&L with the same speed as expected. For mature products with a proven market demand, we observe normal lead times for implementing and generating revenue, resulting in 75% of expected revenue to be recorded in the P&L within 12 months of signing. Given these lead time variations, we have adjusted how we divert our commercial resources. We still see a lot of value creation from more advanced CPaaS products. However, we need to better balance our sales resources towards mature and selected CPaaS products with proven market demand to build stronger growth momentum also in the near term. LINK will align commercial investments with underlying market demand to ensure, to avoid over-investing too far ahead of market adoption.
LINK is now implementing OPEX and CAPEX savings at the same time as we are recalibrating commercial resources towards near-term growth opportunities. Product development is already well ahead of market penetration, enabling CAPEX savings, which will not reduce the potential for future growth. On the OPEX side, LINK has made significant go-to-market investments since H2 2020. The increased OPEX will be reduced and aligned with gross profit growth, resulting in higher profits next quarters. Pursuing commercial opportunities that exist in the market will be executed on with full force even if OPEX is reduced to avoid commercial over-investments. There's also a clear potential for improving cash generation through ongoing integration of the several acquisitions closed last year. Over to the main highlights for the second quarter reporting. Revenues reported at almost NOK 1.2 billion or 12% growth, including M&A.
Organic growth for the second quarter is 4%, reduced by higher comparables same quarter last year caused by the pandemic. Excluding the effect from higher comparables, the underlying organic revenue growth rate is 11%. In the quarter, revenue development has been hampered by a challenging macroeconomic environment, causing certain existing clients in the retail sector to stabilize or reduce their spend on mobile marketing messages. Gross margin is reported at NOK 317 million or 18% growth, including M&A. Organic gross profit growth follows the same trend as observed for revenue, with a smaller negative customer mix effect on gross profit margins. A higher portion of revenue growth comes from high-volume, lower-margin clients compared to the blended average. OPEX has increased by NOK 10 million compared to same period last year because of historical go-to-market investments.
On top of that, OpEx in the current quarter expanded due to a provision for a surtax claim, an uncommon telco tax originating in France, of NOK 4 million related to the fiscal year of 2019. LINK disputes the claim but have booked an accrual due to prudence. The additional OpEx in the current quarter contributed to an organic adjusted EBITA decrease and is reported at NOK 129 million or NOK 133 million, excluding the tax claim from 2019. As I have said previously, the company is implementing cost reductions, which will be visible in the P&L in coming quarters and will improve EBITA development. Strong cash generation in the second quarter, with a cash flow from operations of more than NOK 200 million, free cash flow at NOK 99 million after deducting CapEx and biannual interest payments of NOK 69 million.
LINK continues to generate significant excess cash. LINK has decided to revise the forward-looking statement to an organic revenue growth of between 8%-12% for the full year 2022 to facilitate for the increased macroeconomic uncertainty and lower than expected growth in the first half of the year. We are aligning the cost base towards expected gross profit growth by implementing material cost savings on both OPEX and CAPEX. The additional go-to-market costs, which have been built up the last 2 years, will be offset with the planned OPEX reductions. These cost savings are designed and executed to have as little impact as possible on the growth momentum while increasing profitability short term. On top of OPEX savings, actions are being implemented to bring down the current CAPEX level. We have a clear plan.
Further details on the execution and progress of cost reductions will be provided at our third quarter reporting in November. LINK is delivering on new agreements which will secure future growth. As you can see from the graph on the slide, in the current quarter, LINK delivered a 17% growth on the expected value of gross profit on signed agreements compared to the same quarter of last year. New contracts on more traditional A2P products are growing nicely with a 13% growth on estimated gross profit contribution year-over-year. Contracts will be implemented gradually, and historical data indicates 75% of gross profit will be recorded in the P&L after the first 12 months for market-ready products. New contracts for CPaaS products are displaying a 57% growth rate compared to same period last year on estimated gross profit contribution.
As mentioned previously, for these advanced products, we observe longer lead times to scale and generate the estimated gross profit. However, license revenue are being booked, so the potential from these contracts will partially be hitting the P&L as contracts are signed. In the quarter, LINK gained further traction on customer service related use cases. Axiom, the largest provider of healthcare solutions in the U.K., is using chatbots to streamline its application process and to facilitate for patient interactions with the National Health Service. In Finland, the mutual insurance company, Turva, is employing digital messaging through WhatsApp and SMS for proactive customer support. Across the Atlantic, LINK is working with a global logistics company to integrate 1,000 customer support workers with chatbot through WhatsApp communication. LINK's own chatbot, Xenioo, which was acquired in November last year, is increasingly popular with new and existing clients.
A European beauty retailer is combining WhatsApp with Xenioo and live agents for efficient chats to improve customer satisfaction and reduce costs. In Italy, a banking group has similarly combined chatbot and live agents for better support and in addition, uses Xenioo for marketing of essential banking services. The virtual reality sports entertainer, BatFast, applies Xenioo to respond to frequently asked questions and for quick technical support on site. LINK has 48,000 customer accounts and has attracted 3,000 new customer accounts over the last year. Net retention rate follows the same trend as organic revenue growth. As we can see from the bottom graph, net retention rate in Q2 of last year was unusually high at 123% due to different seasonality in Q1 and Q2 of last year, caused by the pandemic.
Net retention rate for the current quarter is impacted by the high comparables, but also dampened by some softness in the current quarter. Certain retail clients are lowering spend due to macro uncertainty and longer lead times to scale revenue on the more advanced CPaaS products sold to existing clients, are both lowering net retention rate for the current quarter. New clients are contributing to the growth momentum with 3-4 percentage points, which is equal to previous quarters. LINK has a versatile business model with a solid customer base and product mix, geographical diversification, and a huge library of use cases implemented on our close to 50,000 clients. Going into further detail on the use case distribution, we have summarized revenue contribution by our clients industry classification.
As you can see on the top right, 70% of LINK's revenue is generated from utility or notification use cases. Within this category, notification use cases, there are hundreds of different use cases that our clients are utilizing to extract value in their dialogue with end users. This ranges from simpler solutions like one-time passwords to very advanced two-way customer service dialogue. All of these use cases, however, share the same essential attribute. New communication is mission critical for our clients, as end users need this information to be able to consume their products or service. Mobile marketing use cases constitutes 22% of LINK's revenue base and are more campaign-oriented or volatile compared to notification use cases. Mobile marketing use cases fluctuates with consumer confidence and seasons. Customer service use cases is 8% of the revenue base and the use case with the fastest expected growth.
These use cases are very resilient and counter-cyclical as they provide both large cost savings and much higher end user satisfaction compared to legacy solutions like IVR. On this slide, we have split the revenue contribution from notification, customer service, and mobile marketing per segment to provide additional insight. The three enterprise regions, the Nordics, Central Europe, and Western Europe, all contribute approximately 20% of group revenue from notification use cases. The more resilient economies of the Nordics contribute 8% of group revenue from mobile marketing use cases, almost the same as Western Europe at 7%, while Central Europe is much lower with only 3% contribution from mobile marketing use cases. Increased macroeconomic uncertainty is likely to negatively impact mobile marketing use cases in Central and Western Europe, but not to the same extent in the Nordics, where the economies are stronger.
For notification use cases, we do not expect a material negative impact in the current macro environment. That was it for me. I'm handing the word over to Morten for a more detailed review of the second quarter figures.
Thank you, Thomas. A very brief introduction of myself. My name is Morten Edvardsen. I've been with LINK for close to 5 years as group finance director, heading group finance, including group accounting and controlling teams. In total, I've been working 15 years within the telco industry, both on the operator side and then recently with LINK. I will now go through the second quarter financials for the group. LINK reports quarterly revenue of almost NOK 1.2 billion, a 12% growth including M&A. Organic growth, excluding acquired entities, is reported at 4% in fixed currency or an underlying growth of 11% when adjusting for higher comparables in the same quarter last year. This is slightly lower than the run rate in previous quarters, reflecting softer market conditions with increased macroeconomic uncertainty.
The second quarter of last year was positively impacted by reopening of societies following government-imposed lockdowns, which resulted in pent-up demand in the retail sector. We also observed high volumes related to COVID testing and vaccination in certain markets. Both of these factors led to high comparable revenues in the second quarter of last year.
This reduced year-over-year growth in the second quarter of this year by 7 percentage points, resulting in an underlying growth rate of 11%. Messaging volumes grew 7% lower than the reported revenue growth of 12%, reflecting higher share of other revenue streams in acquired entities and a lower contribution from the global messaging segment compared to previous quarters. On the next slide, we are presenting pro forma revenue, including all acquired entities in fixed currency. The figures include revenues for acquired entities before closing for comparison. The upper graph shows the contribution to total pro forma revenue growth from the enterprise and global messaging segments. Total pro forma revenue growth for the second quarter was 3%, or an underlying growth of 10% when adjusting for high comparables in the same quarter last year, as previously mentioned.
We report a 4% year-over-year growth for the enterprise segment, while the global messaging segment remains stable year-over-year, resulting in a total 3% pro forma organic growth rate. During the second quarter of 2022, we have observed an impact from increased macroeconomic uncertainty, where businesses adapt to softer demand for products and services by reducing their communication and campaign activities. This is reflected in our revised outlook for the medium-term revenue growth, as presented by Thomas earlier. In the second quarter, we observed softer market conditions driven by the following factors. Central Europe is impacted by the geopolitics related to Ukraine and rising inflation levels, which impacts demand for products and services and reduce activity levels for our clients on commercial activities.
In countries like France, Italy and Spain, we observe that increased macroeconomic uncertainty with higher energy prices and both increase in inflation and interest rates negatively impacts consumer confidence. This drives lower activity and is reflected through increased focus on costs by our clients. In the quarter, we have a churn effect from a high volume, low margin client in the Nordics, also reported in the first quarter. This impacted group revenue growth negatively by around 1 percentage points for the quarter. The bottom graph displays the growth rates for first half of 2021 and 2022 respectively per segment and for the total group. The impact on growth rate from strong comparables is less visible when looking at growth for the first half of 2022, with total pro forma revenue growth reported at 9%.
The underlying growth rate is 12% when adjusting for high volumes related to COVID testing and vaccination, especially in Austria and Poland last year. The reduction in the underlying growth rate compared to previous quarters reflects the softer market conditions as discussed. Gross profit is reported at NOK 317 million, or a reported growth of 18% including acquisitions. Organic gross profit declined 1% in fixed currency, while the underlying gross profit growth was 5% when adjusting for high comparables. Reported gross margin improved from 25.4% to 26.9%, including effects from acquired entities. In the quarter, we observed a 1.4 percentage points dilution in enterprise gross margin. The reduction explains the 5 percentage points deviation between organic revenue growth and organic gross profit growth.
We have 48,000 clients across the world with different margin levels and normal variations in country and client mix will always influence the gross margin from period to period. I would like to highlight the main drivers of the change in organic enterprise gross margin of 1.4 percentage points. Northern Europe margin dilution explains half of the decline or 0.7 percentage points. We have COGS increases from operators impacting the quarter. These are fully passed on to clients retaining the same nominal gross profit in euro cents, but mathematically resulting in a lower margin percentage with a negative 0.3 percentage points impact. In the quarter, we saw a stronger growth for lower margin clients in especially Norway and Sweden, and this client mix effect impacted negatively by 0.4 percentage points in the quarter. For Central Europe, the margin dilution impacted 0.5 percentage points.
Volume growth with a large global IT company with lower margin traffic affected gross margin negatively by 0.3 percentage points. Decline in high margin COVID-related traffic in Austria had a dilutive effect on margin by 0.2 percentage points year-over-year. Moving on to adjusted EBITDA. Adjusted EBITDA is reported at NOK 129 million and a total growth of 8% when including the effect from acquired entities. In the quarter, organic adjusted EBITDA declined 10% due to the high comparable gross profit level in the same quarter last year as discussed, and increased OPEX. LINK has made investments in go-to-market initiatives to build market adoption for future CPaaS products, which have driven expansion in OPEX.
The increased run rate in OpEx related to go-to-market initiatives is about NOK 10 million, with a gradual build up since the second half of 2020. As Thomas mentioned previously, we are addressing current cost levels to align with the revised near term growth expectations. In addition to the go-to-market investments, we are reporting a one-time impact on OpEx related to a claim from French tax authorities for a 2019 telecom tax of NOK 4 million. The tax is a special tax on gross revenue, and we disagree with the tax authorities, as we believe the tax is intended for the mobile operators. For the sake of prudence, we have booked the presented claim for 2019 in the second quarter. We are, however, currently evaluating further legal actions as a response to the claim.
The estimated potential liability for periods after 2019 is NOK 13 million and has not been recognized in the second quarter financials as no claim has been presented by French tax authorities. The adjusted EBITA is lower than previous quarters due to a few factors. Compared to the first quarter this year, we have increased OPEX reflecting higher go-to-market investments and the additional NOK 4 million in costs related to the French telecom tax for 2019. The lower level of adjusted EBITA compared to the third and fourth quarter of 2021 is driven by the seasonality in the business, especially related to high season for high margin, weather-related critical messaging in the U.S., which also impacts positively adjusted EBITA margin. Moving on to the P&L overview. In the previous slides, we have already been through the P&L down to adjusted EBITA.
Non-recurring costs consist of restructuring costs mainly related to acquired entities, direct M&A costs, and share option costs. Costs which are not related to the underlying operations of the company. Reported M&A costs are mainly related to external advisory costs, and the reported share option costs are the accounting treatment of a future dilution effect from shares to be issued with a very limited cash outflow over time and none in the current quarter. For Q2, the share option costs are reported only NOK 7.4 million due to a correction of previous periods where we have recognized too high costs. The share option cost in the third quarter are expected to be closer to the NOK 40 million as reported in the first quarter before coming down in the fourth quarter as the second of three restricted stock unit tranches vest in October.
Cost of depreciation is reported at NOK 102 million, in line with previous quarters, whereof NOK 77 million related to the depreciation assets deriving from purchase price allocations of acquired companies with no cash effect and no future replacement CapEx. Net financial items are reported positive at NOK 65 million, impacted by a net currency gain of NOK 102 million and interest cost on the outstanding bond of NOK 41 million, including amortized fees. Other financial items consist of a positive residual recognized between an accrued holdback liability and final settlement amounting to close to NOK 5 million. The total balance sheet is close to NOK 11 billion, with a stable equity ratio of 49% compared to previous quarter. LINK has significant cash reserves of over NOK 900 million, around NOK 600 million above the level needed for operational purposes.
Receivables increased by NOK 122 million year- over- year, and payables increased by NOK 175 million. Both increases reflect organic development and normal fluctuations of working capital related to collection from clients and payments to operators. The net interest-bearing debt is reported at NOK 2.9 billion and related to LINK's one outstanding bond. The bond has a low fixed coupon of 3.375% with no maturities before December 2025, securing LINK attractive long-term funding. The net cash flow from operating activities, including non-recurring costs for M&A, is reported at NOK 484 million on an LTM basis or NOK 194 million in the current quarter, which was positively impacted by movements in working capital. Working capital will vary from quarter- to- quarter but is expected to continue to be stable over time.
Change in working capital over the last twelve months is reported at a positive NOK 26 million. Cash flow from operations excluding non-recurring costs, mainly related to M&A, was NOK 566 million on an LTM basis or a ratio of 94% compared to LTM adjusted EBITA. LINK generates excess cash also after CapEx and interest costs. Looking at the free cash flow after deducting CapEx of NOK 183 million and interest cost of NOK 143 million, LINK generated excess cash during the last twelve months, well above NOK 200 million. The full year effect of the acquisitions closed in 2021 will further increase cash generation in 2022 as a whole year of EBITA will be included in the P&L and by far outweigh the full year increases in CapEx and interest costs connected to the acquired entities.
The leverage remains at a higher level than LINK's financial policy. The financial policy unchanged and LINK has a top priority to reduce leverage below 3.5 times adjusted EBITA through cash generation, organic growth, and potential accretive M&A.
The measures to align cost with growth in near-term gross profit, as highlighted throughout the presentation, will support improved cash generation and a deleveraging of the company. That completes the financial section. Now over to Tom and Q&A.
Thank you, Morten. We are ready to start the Q&A. Please dial in to ask questions directly or post questions online. Operator, can you please help us with the Q&A?
For your question, please press five star again. We will have a brief pause while the questions are being registered. The first question is from the line of Predrag Savinovic from Carnegie. Your line is now unmuted.
Hi. Thank you, operator. Thanks for taking my questions. This is Predrag from Carnegie, so not Sandjack. Let's start with the free cash flow. For H1 it's been quite impressive, I think. With this figure in mind, we know H2 is generally stronger than H1 from an operating perspective. I was wondering if you can give any color on the cash flow profile for the remainder of the year and your best guess would be very helpful to hear.
Yeah. Hi, Predrag. Thank you for your question. I will hand it over to Morten for his answer.
Yeah. As usual, this is now stronger in the second half related to the adjusted EBITDA. That should be sort of improving the cash flow from the operations on the working capital perspective that usually over time is sort of stable. There shouldn't be a big uplift from that in the second half.
Okay. That means basically all else equal, the cash flow profile should be even stronger than H1.
Yeah. Sort of working capital, Predrag.
Mm-hmm
... varies from time to time. If you look at the LTM number, you will see that there's a strong correlation between EBITDA and the adjusted capital from operations. As you sort of pointed out too, sort of, working capital varies over quarters. We had the negative impact in Q1 and then the positive impact in Q2 neutralizing it. The H1 effect is more sort of in line with what we see in the LTM number also.
Okay, perfect. Looking at growth ahead. I mean, we are a few months into Q3 already. Would be nice if you could give us some color on the organic growth for the start of Q3, and if it's possible to refer it to your new organic growth target. Like, are we more in the top band or the bottom range of the guidance? How are we currently trending?
We of course cannot be explicit on the growth momentum that we see in the reported numbers as far as Q3 goes. Of course the forward-looking statement from 8%-12% is also based on sort of what we are seeing happening so far in the second half. We are in H1 at the high end of the interval if you exclude some of the high comparables that we had in the second quarter of last year. We have decided to give-
Okay.
8%-12%, just so I've pinpointed that, due to the uncertainty of the macroeconomic environment too.
Okay. Maybe you mentioned this, Thomas, but how large share of your total traffic is tied to marketing use cases? It would be helpful if you could break that down into marketing for economies that are not as stable in terms of usage as you referenced, for example, the Nordics, which is growing and is generally quite stable in usage.
Yeah. If you look at the total revenue contribution, we have that on Slide 12 also, just for your. We can look at it. You see that the regions are approximately 20% of total revenue contribution is deriving from notification use cases. The Nordics have 8% of total revenue, total group revenue, from mobile marketing. Here we see or we expect less exposure from the macroeconomic environment as the economies are stronger. We have 3% on mobile marketing revenue in Central Europe, and then 7% in Western Europe. Ten percent of total group revenue is deriving from mobile marketing use cases, which are more exposed to the volatility of the macroeconomic environment.
Okay. That's perfect. Finally, I read that your new guidance, it does include a lower contribution in terms of net retention rate. In this guidance, what is your assumption then in terms of new customer wins driving growth for the remainder of the year? In other words, to what degree does your new guidance relate to customer wins and to what degree is it the net retention, roughly speaking?
Yeah. New clients or new contracts are estimated to be in line with the historical performance that we have seen, which is between around 3 to 5% normally. Varies a little bit sort of when bigger clients are or bigger agreements are signed. Then when you deduct that from the forward-looking statement on revenue growth between 8% and 12%, you will basically get the net retention rate.
Okay, very helpful. Thank you, guys.
Yeah. Thank you, Predrag.
The next question is from the line of Alex Yin from Jefferies. Your line is now unmuted.
Good morning, guys. Thank you for taking my questions. Two from my side. I just want to go back on the organic commentary. If I just take the lower range of the guidance, which is 8%, it indicates that in the second half, you guys would have to deliver around 13%. If I take that into account and look at the two-year stack, I think the stack got harder incrementally in the second half. I guess my question would be how confident are you in terms of achieving the guidance, and how much visibility can you comment on? Then the second question would be on the initiative to reduce OpEx. What particular areas are you looking to improve or cut? Then how fast can this OpEx reduction get reflected into the P&L? Thank you.
Okay. Thank you. Regarding the forward-looking statement between 8% and 12% on revenue, this is based on how we see the world now. If things develop according to the current set of assumption, then we're pretty comfortable with reaching 8%-12%. But we are having some uncertainty and some difficulties in transparency due to the macroeconomic environment. I need to be forthcoming on that one, too. If that materially worsens, that can impact the growth momentum. Regarding your question on OPEX, we have said that the commercial investments in the go-to-market has increased revenue by approximately NOK 10 million per quarter, which is translating into an annual effect of NOK 40 million. Our ambition is to cut costs so that OPEX increase is mitigated.
Most of the OPEX reductions will be executed within Christmas. There will also be a small tail, most likely, into Q1.
Okay. As there are no further questions at this moment, I will hand it back to the speakers for any online questions.
Thank you. We will continue with post questions that has not already been answered. To follow up on the OpEx reduction, Mats Rosendal also is asking more specifically about CapEx reductions, timing and size of them.
Yeah, I think you can assume that the CAPEX reduction will follow a similar pattern compared to OPEX reduction, both when it comes to size and when it comes to timeline.
Mats Rosendal has a follow-up regarding the process of finding a new CEO.
That is in progress. The board is, of course, responsible for finding a new CEO. The board wants to be sure that we find a CEO with the right profile and the right candidate and are confident that the company is managed in the interim period in a good way. I don't have a specific timeline. It depends on yeah, sort of the candidates that we come across or that the board comes across over.
Next question is from Daniel Djurberg, and he wants to have some more color on the growth for Message Broadcast in the quarter.
Yeah. That's a question for Morten Edvardsen.
Year-on-year for Message Broadcast, it's a decline of 12% for the quarter performance-wise.
That is mainly due to delays in professional services revenue. Contracts are agreed upon with bigger clients on an annual or beginning of each calendar year. A couple of clients we have had a delay in contract signings. There is lower revenue momentum from professional services in H1, and that is going to spill over into H2. The contracts are signed and our revenue are recorded in the P&L.
Daniel has a follow-up question that has not already been answered regarding LINK's ability to pass through price increases from operators.
Yeah. As we've said before, we have a very high ability to pass cost increases from the operators towards the enterprise clients. That is something we have had the experience from time to time sort of doing, and we have never had the issue that this wasn't possible to do. The enterprise clients understand that we cannot absorb a cost increase from the mobile operators. The products that we are having, they are fairly sticky. There is a fairly large alternative cost for the clients if they want to choose another vendor. On the aggregator market, where the products are not as sticky, there we are seeing that it's more difficult to pass on costs, but it's still doable.
Next question is from Jesper Stugemo, and he is referring to LINK's focus on mature CPaaS solutions and what specific type of solutions LINK is referring to, and also a follow-up on that on what type of visibility you can see for marketing activity, especially in markets like France.
We see there are a lot of market demand for certain CPaaS products, especially in the customer support segment. There's a big demand for chatbots within the customer service chain. We have Xenioo, which is an excellent chatbot solution, and we're upselling that to existing clients and also to new clients. We see traction on both mobile marketing and notification on Viber and WhatsApp. We're struggling more with the RCS with the market demand. Viber and WhatsApp are in demand both on notification and the mobile marketing use cases, but they are coming from sort of a low level. The growth in percentage is high, but the impact still in NOK is of course lower.
We also see a demand for more complex mobile payment products in connection with a messaging use case. That's an answer to that. The insight into how the retail clients are behaving, it's lagging normally by two to three months before we see a clear pattern. After the initial sort of two to three months, we have a fairly good insight into how our biggest retail clients are thinking at least. It will be too manual to follow up all retail clients, but the biggest one we are in contact on a weekly basis.
Jesper has a follow-up on specifically the negative contribution to gross profit growth in the second quarter in the Nordic and the Central European segments.
Morten?
Yeah. I think for Central Europe, the main driver is related to the high-margin COVID traffic that we had last year, which came with a high margin. That's the main driver for the declines, is basically the revenue mix. Nordics is also driven by growth from lower-margin clients in the quarter. That's the main effects in those two regions.
Follow-up from Jesper is: Considering the new revenue guidance, how does that impact the LINK's financial policy or having a leverage below 3.5 times?
When we are having a slower growth on revenue momentum, that translates into a slightly slower growth on gross profit, which also trickles down to EBITDA. This is why we're doing the OPEX trimming, so we make sure that we de-lever as soon as or as fast as we possibly can. We're also doing CAPEX cuts, so we increase cash generation, which will also then reduce the leverage.
We have a question from Johan Tambur, and he is referring or LINK is referring to high comparables for the second quarter of this year comparing to 2021. What is the insight on the comparables for Q3 this year?
The impact there is much less. We had a very high second quarter, as we had the catch-up effect from a low first quarter of last year, on top of a very high vaccination traffic in two countries, or testing traffic related to COVID. We have some volumes on COVID also in the third quarter and to a much lesser extent in the fourth quarter, but we do not see that the comparables for those quarters should be as tough as we saw in the second quarter. More normalized. Yeah.
We have a question from Jacob Pattersson, who is referring to LINK's strong cash balance and strong cash flow, and if the company would consider buying back debt at a discount in the market.
This is something we are considering, but no decision has been made. As of now, we haven't executed on it, but we are aware that that is an alternative, of course. We are having a lot of excess cash. We want to use that on acquisitions, especially in the current environment, smaller bolt-on acquisitions with low EBITDA multiples. That is being assessed on a continuous basis, how to best utilize the excess liquidity.
We have a question from Mario Samaelis, and he's specifically referring to small and medium-sized enterprises and how you expect spending to develop for these type of businesses in the current macro environment.
We see the same trend as the bigger enterprise clients. We see that it's especially the retail clients in the weaker economies that are reducing their marketing spend as a response to lower consumer confidence. On the small and medium-sized clients, where they are notification use cases and customer support use cases, we see still a growth.
Currently, we have no further questions. Please post any additional questions.