Good morning and welcome to the presentation of NORBIT's Third Quarter Results. It's a privilege to be allowed to present the result of what our dedicated colleagues have achieved. As you will see, after the first nine months of the year, we're delivering revenues at par with what we did for the full year last year and with nearly a doubling of the result. For us, this is encouraging and helps us to go to work every day and ensure that we deliver on the expectations our customers have. Let's dive into the numbers. As you see, Q3, as always, is somewhat weaker than the other quarters. Still, Q3 2024 is the best Q3 ever for NORBIT. We came in with revenues on NOK 505 million, which is a 36% increase from last year, with a margin of 15%, giving NOK 75 million in EBIT.
As I already said, for the first nine months of the year, we are delivering at par of what we did for the full year last year, NOK 1.7 billion, up 43%. It is growth in all three business segments, with an EBIT of NOK 377 million, which is 92% higher than what we had for the same period last year. That represents a margin of 22%. Some other events, we have announced some new contracts in the PIR segment towards the defense and security sector. It is a NOK 120 million contract. In that announcement, we also said that we have had accumulated smaller orders, which also summed up to NOK 100 million. Yesterday, our eminent board of directors decided to resolve an extraordinary dividend of NOK 3 per share. Looking into the different segments, Oceans has some seasonality. It is vacation season in Q3.
Still, nearly NOK 200 million, so NOK 192 million in revenues. That represents an increase of 22% from last year. EBIT margin of 21% compared to 19%. For the first nine months, we've delivered NOK 665 million in revenues. That's an increase of 40% and an accumulated margin of 32%, which is a good increase from the 25% we had for the corresponding period the year before. As you can see, from Q3 2022, in NORBIT, quarterly fluctuation is expected. Some of what we deliver in the Oceans segment is high-priced, high-value products. Some units in or out of a quarter will affect the numbers, in addition to the underlying seasonality.
Diving into what's behind these numbers, this is year-to-date figures for the first nine months, 2023, first nine months, 2024, and 2025, showing that the WINGHEAD sales is somewhat higher this year than it was last year, NOK 120 million, and a very good growth in other sonars. This is very much driven by increased sales of the iWBMS X, which we launched this year. I could remind you what this is. That's a sonar which is fully equipped with all thinkable hardware features for such a sonar. You can buy software features to upgrade according to your need. It looks like our clients really appreciate this offering, that they could buy a sonar which enables them later to buy a software upgrade for additional functionality. That's been good. Sub-bottom profilers, NOK 66 million.
Yeah, and still on the security side, which we remain very positive for in the long run, it's lower than our ambitions, but ambition remains as high as it has been. The Connectivity segment, its revenues are at par with Q3 last year, NOK 108 million compared to NOK 111 million. The decline is due to some rescheduling of On-Board Units, and some of the revenues that we were aiming to have in Q3 have been slipping into Q4. For the first nine months, we have accumulated a 70% increase, so NOK 423 million. I'll show you the split afterwards. That's a margin of 27% for the accumulated year-to-date numbers. As you see on the revenue split, the On-Board Units, it's the toll tags for mainly passenger cars, it's somewhat lower than it was last year. It's good growth on the enforcement modules for tachographs.
The rest, also a little bit growth or stable. Some status on the product. We were awarded the contract in April last year for making a complete new satellite-based tolling unit for trucks, so-called 4G-based GNSS On-Board Units. It is a NOK 160 million contract. This contract is for supply of units to the European leader in this electronic toll collection system, so Toll4Europe. Volume production started in October. It is then 18 months from being awarded this contract, running through the R&D phase, industrialization, assembly of a full robotic line, and scaling up that. I think it is a good job done from our colleagues. Ambition was to do it even in a shorter period. It is satisfying to see that finally we are running a high-volume assembly line in our Røros factory.
This product is very much in line with our strategy to broaden both customer base and product offering. We are eager to see how this evolves as the existing fleet of GNSS On-Board Units in European trucks is very much based on 2G GSM. As we see European countries are planning to phase out the 2G GSM network, we see that there is a need for replacement of the existing fleet in addition to the underlying growth in the market. Segment, product innovation and realization. Also, I'd like to remind you, NORBIT is a very much vertically integrated company where we've believed in for many, many years that making the product, doing the production also in Europe and in Norway, in addition to designing the products, is a good thing to do. We've seen that some spare capacity in our factories.
We've decided to offer on contract manufacturing terms to other technology companies, industrial technology companies. For a selection of such clients, we're acting as a scaling industrial partner. It is very satisfying to see that we have really been able to scale. Some of the investments we've done have really helped us. We announced earlier this year that from April, we installed a new line for surface mounting of electronic components in our Røros factory. This is said to be Europe's fastest SMT line. That is good. It has been running. We have an increase from NOK 114 million in revenues in Q3 2024 up to NOK 224 million. It is a high increase and a good margin improvement showing the scalability in this business with operational leverage. A lot of the indirect resources needed to run this is very much shared between the different segments.
For the first nine months of 2025, we've accumulated revenues of nearly NOK 680 million, which is a 72% increase from the same period last year. It's an EBIT margin of 18%, which is double of the nine we had for the first nine months in 2024. As you can see from this split, the defense and security sector is really the reason why this is growing. As you can see also, some of the clients in the automotive industry and some industrial, we have sort of not fully phased out, but we have not been very active getting new. I think I've said it before also, that some clients we've been helping to move to other factories to free up capacity for these new scaling partners.
Capacity, I mentioned and reminded you of this investment of the new SMT line in our Røros factory. We are also increasing the floor space of our Serbia factory, very good cooperation with the local municipality. They are responsible for project execution and financing of this expansion, which is coupled to our existing plant. Completion, year-end. A new SMT line is ordered and will be installed in this facility in January. This is very good. We see that it helps us even increase capacity more. We have an option to acquire ownership of the facility if we decide to do so. With that, I'll leave the floor for Per Kristian to give you some more details of the financial figures.
Thank you, Per Jørgen. I will spend some minutes walking you through the highlights of the quarter.
Revenues came in at NOK 505.4 million, an increase of 36% from the corresponding quarter of 2024, with Oceans and PIR contributing to the growth. While Connectivity reported a 3% decline in revenues on a NOK 15 million post-movement of onboard units to the fourth quarter. EBITDA for the quarter was NOK 114.7 million, representing a margin of 23%. This compares to NOK 86.6 million and the same margin in the third quarter of 2024. Operating profit was NOK 75.4 million, translating into a margin of 15%. This compares to NOK 53.7 million and a margin of 14% in the third quarter of last year. Net finance expenses were negative NOK 6.5 million, largely explained by NOK 8 million in net interest expenses, partly offset by foreign exchange gains. Tax expenses, NOK 17.2 million, while net income for the period was NOK 51.8 million, translating into an earnings per share of NOK 0.81.
In the third quarter, Oceans delivered 22% revenue growth. Sonar sales were strong, particularly in the Americas region. We continue to see strong sales of the new WBMS X sonar platform that was launched earlier this year. On the negative side, sales in security and for sub-bottom profilers were slow in the third quarter. Oceans' gross margin declined 4 percentage points year- over- year due to lower sales of rental, training, and consultancy services, as well as obsolescence provisions. Payroll and operating expenses increased NOK 7.2 million on new hires, wage inflation, and use of external consultants. In total, the EBIT result came in at NOK 41.3 million, up from NOK 30.7 million in the same period of last year. Connectivity, as mentioned, delivered a 3% revenue decrease. Compared to the last year, revenues declined primarily due to lower volumes of On-Board Units sold.
Again, mention that deliveries worth NOK 15 million were postponed to the fourth quarter. The decline was partly offset by an increase in volume sold of enforcement modules for satellite-based tolling units. The gross margin fell 4 percentage points on product mix and scrapping costs. Operating expenses, including payroll, increased NOK 3 million year- over- year. The EBIT result for the quarter came in at NOK 16.6 million, down from NOK 28.1 million in the third quarter of 2024. PIR posted a significant improvement in revenues, close to a doubling from the third quarter of last year, primarily driven by increasing demand from the defense clients in the defense and security sector. Gross margin came down 1 percentage point, while payroll and operating expenses increased NOK 13.6 million on new hires, wage inflation, and activity-related costs.
The EBIT result for the quarter was NOK 40.5 million in the quarter, up from NOK 12.2 million in the same period of last year. Turning to the balance sheet. Property, plant, and equipment, including rights of use assets, increased NOK 36.5 million in the quarter. This is primarily due to investments in capacity expansion on surface mounting machinery. Intangible assets rose approximately NOK 9 million, explained by our R&D investments, while trade receivables were down NOK 16.5 million, explained by the sequential revenue decline from the second quarter. Inventories rose NOK 92.7 million. This is explained by sourcing of components to prepare for the significant activity increase we expect in fourth quarter, including delivery of the GNSS On-Board Unit and defense and security-related products within the PIR segment, hence referring to our outlook section, which we will come back to in a few minutes.
Net interest-bearing debt stood at NOK 320.5 million at the end of August, an increase from NOK 274 million at the end of the previous quarter. Our equity ratio was 50%, which is on par with what we reported the last quarter. We continued to strengthen our liquidity position in the quarter by increasing our multicurrency order facility by NOK 150 million, subsequent to 30.09, so that the pro forma liquidity stood at close to NOK 830 million. Our balance sheet continues to remain rock solid, with a net interest-bearing debt to EBITDA ratio of 0.7 x at the end of the third quarter. Due to our strong balance sheet, financial position, and the solid outlook, the board has resolved to distribute an extraordinary cash dividend of NOK 3 per share for the financial year 2024.
Considering we are currently below the long-term target range of the financial policy, the dividend distribution is also very much in line with the policy of returning excess cash to the shareholders. The dividend will be paid out from NORBIT in approximately two weeks from now. Lastly, cash flow for the quarter. Cash flow from operations was NOK 1.9 million negative, explained by an EBITDA of NOK 114.7 million, a net increase in working capital of NOK 95.8 million, taxes paid of NOK 14.4 million, and NOK 6.5 million in net finance expenses. We invested NOK 40.8 million in the quarter, explained by approximately NOK 30 million R&D investments and NOK 11 million in machinery and equipment. The R&D investment level for 2025 is still expected to be between NOK 130 million-NOK 140 million, and there are no changes to the machinery and equipment investment guidance of around NOK 120 million for the full year.
Cash inflow from financing activities was NOK 11.9 million in the quarter. With that, that summarizes the financial section, and I will give the floor back to Per Jørgen for the outlook part of the presentation.
Thank you, Per Kristian. Starting this year, we had a target of delivering NOK 2.2 billion-NOK 2.3 billion in revenues. When we presented the first half-year results, we raised that target to NOK 2.5 billion-NOK 2.6 billion. This remains our target for the full year. We expect revenues in that range. With that, we expect an EBIT margin between 24% and 25% for the full year. As you see, Q4, as always, is a hectical quarter, and this is expected also for 2025. In the different segments, the three last months is typically the strongest in Oceans. Some of this is related to what we would call, in quotes, "budget flushing."
That's not very easy to predict, but it really happens. So we're preparing for that. In Connectivity, revenues are expected to increase sharply quarter- over- quarter. And this is driven by delivery of the GNSS OBU, which started in October. We expect revenues in the range of NOK 200 million-NOK 240 million for this. In the PIR segment, we expect to generate new records. The aim is to deliver between NOK 390 million and NOK 420 million in the fourth quarter. This is driven by the same sector, as I've explained earlier, which is very strong also in our outlook. That concludes our presentation. If there are any questions, we're happy to answer them.
We have a few questions. One question from Olav at Per Jættu.
Could you give some color on Q4 Connectivity guidance and if this reflects some reshuffling of the GNSS On-Board Unit into first quarter 2026?
Yeah, let's take that question.
Yeah, so what we can say is that, as I mentioned, we started this project 18 months ago. And the design phase until reaching approval took a couple of months longer time than expected, meaning that start of ramp-up of production also was a little bit postponed. It's a good question. It's probably easiest to say that some of the revenues in this contract are reflected in the guidance to be expected in Q1 instead of fully in Q4. It's a little bit annoying, but this is what happens when you have some delays. Maybe also add to that, when NORBIT are looking for new projects, we'd like to find things which are very hard to design.
Our engineers should struggle. And so we did. We did struggle. But we made it. Why is this positive? It means it's complicated to make this, and it gives some threshold for others to come easily afterwards. Just want to add that.
Same question from, or a new question from Olav. The sonar sales look very strong this quarter. Could you give some color on which customer groups and use cases and what is driving this? When we are speaking about Oceans, lastly, sub-bottom profilers are tad softer this quarter. Can you give some color on this product for Q4?
I think we do not have any split for the different sub-segments in the guidance. I think what we have seen is that the product WBMS X has performed very well. As with other sonars, it has a wide range of different use cases.
I think this is what was in Q3 also, that it's a widespread sum for ordinary surveying purposes, seafloor mapping. We still see a very strong demand from different kinds of autonomous vessels, both surface and sub-surface vessels.
Good. Question from Jeppe at Arctic. What was the reason for the postponement of the NOK 15 million OBU order?
Yeah, this is partly late incoming material and partly some shuffling on capacity.
How much of the NOK 160 million GNSS On-Board Unit contract has been delivered as of now?
I don't think we've given any figures on that. I think we will keep that, f or commercial reasons, we'd like to keep that a little bit low.
What is the most important drivers of the GNSS On-Board Unit product? In the medium term, is the 2G switch the most important driver?
I think the underlying market need is good.
In the medium term, this phase-out of the 2G is expected really to generate a strong demand. I mean, Switzerland has already turned off their 2G GSM. The major German network providers have announced that in mid-2028, they will turn off. I think for the coming years, this is an important driver.
Creates a sort of a replacement need for the 2G units that are in the market. Yeah. Could you share any updates on sales lead for the GuardPoint product? Progress seems to have been slower than anticipated.
Yeah, I think it remains, as we've said in the past, that it's a lot of sales lead. The conclusions on the projects are not materializing as soon as expected. Our judgment is that this is the reason.
We cannot see that the projects we're aiming for are lost, that there are some competitors gaining them. We still think we are well positioned with relevant technology. Yeah, we remain safe under pressure and continue to work hard every day to get these orders.
Lastly, any comments regarding the development of Innomar in the quarter?
Yeah, the revenues are somewhat weaker in the quarter than we expected. Looking into this, we expect improvement of that again looking into next year. What we see is that the proactive activities in the market generate more interest. The NORBIT global sales and market platform now carries the sub-bottom profiler offering from our daughter company Innomar. We feel that this will increase and be a good addition to our continued growth also going forward.
Question on the dividend.
I will combine these, I think. Does the additional dividend suggest no M&A in focus? Did you consider any potential acquisitions before deciding on the payout, or was the dividend your first priority? I'd like to remind you that we have a financial policy of having a NIBD to EBITDA ratio between 1 and 2.5. As we reported in this quarter, we're at 0.7x , which means that we are below the policy. For us also going into a record fourth quarter as we see it currently, there is room for both. There is room to pay out the dividend, and there's also room to explore M&A. As always, each individual M&A case has to be assessed. The capital structure of that investment has to be decided solely on the investment size itself. It means that no M&A is not off the table.
It's actually a very high topic on the strategic agenda. To summarize again, our balance sheet allows us to do both. It is not either/or. A question regarding PIR. How is the visibility in PIR entering 2026?
Yeah, I think as we've spoken about in the past also, with several of our clients, we're working very closely. We're taking measures to secure material and secure scalability so we can act as orders materialize. I think if you look on the announcements we've done in the past and the lead time from we announce until we say we should deliver, which is quite narrow, that's an indicator of what you could say is the visibility if you look from an order backlog perspective. The visibility for us to make decisions and to be prepared, having sharing and working closely with these clients is for us satisfying.
It remains that we need to work together to prepare so that the time from announcing an order until we deliver is an agile way of running NORBIT.
What is the potential for onboarding new customers in the PIR segment, or are you expecting existing customers to demand all of the production capacity in the short term?
For us, we are working to onboard new customers, but very cherry-picking when looking at what kind of customers that fits into this. It needs to be some customers where they see the advantage of having NORBIT as a scaling partner rather than just an alternative for any other EMS. With the capacity build-up we have done and are doing, we plan to invite others also to join the party.
A question on our partnership with mechanicals, Aursund Maskinering and NOMEK.
What are your ambitions here and what's the driver that led you to invest in that partnership?
Yeah, so three years ago, NORBIT acquired a small mechanical factory in Trondheim running with five-axis milling machines, etc., doing components to our sonars. The founder of that company was about to retire and looking for some new owners. We were by far the largest customer. For NORBIT, this is important capacity to have. It's not very important for NORBIT to have mechanical factories as part of our full operation, but it's important capacity to have. When we saw how could we grow this and ensure that this grows with NORBIT. It should then also be in a position where it could grow on other clients so that NORBIT is not too large part of the full operation.
That is why we saw this other factory in Trondheim, NOMEK, doing very much the same. We saw that this is a good fit for some consolidation. NORBIT is not in a need of being a controlling owner. We would like to be a strategic owner to ensure that the necessary preparedness is in the strategy of this supplier. We teamed up with a local investor. They have 51% of the shares and NORBIT 49% of this merged operation between the factory we had and this NOMEK. We work together now on the owner level to have some ambitions for this factory to lift out from regional focus to a Nordic focus. I think that will be good for securing supply and scalability for NORBIT in the long term.
A question on valuation multiples for potential targets.
Does that make it more challenging to execute acquisitions? I mean, it's not the valuation multiples or the expectations on the valuation multiples that necessarily makes us, or sort of is the reason why we haven't announced an acquisition itself. I think it's more relating to the fact that we haven't found the right company to invest in. We have spent a lot of time trying to educate on what we are looking for and what are the criteria that need to be fulfilled in order for us to do an investment. It has to do with culture fit with the target. It has to do with accretion, of course. Multiples are, of course, one of the criteria. It also has to be relevant to the strategy that we are pursuing in which we are building a technology company.
It has to be related to advanced technology. Finding those companies is not easy. I mean, it's quite challenging. We'd rather spend time maturing those ideas. The list of ideas is quite long, but it's far from ideas to actually put your pen on the paper. That's why it's taking time. We will make sure to announce any investment when it comes. Not for today, maybe for tomorrow. Okay. When it comes to AI, is that something you use or can you start to use in your business? Yeah, that's the question.
AI is important in our business. It's important in our administrative operation of the business.
We have seen good advantage of using that technology, for instance, in the HR domain where we have built routines, which is much more effective and self-service solutions, reducing the need for increasing staffing in that part. In the products also, you can imagine working with image processing and target recognition. AI is very suitable for that. Yeah, that is very relevant for us.
Last question. Could you guide on consultancy fees related to M&A for this year? I think that is close to zero. I mean, we do not use necessarily consultants to map out our M&A ideas. We have an internal team for that, which is also driving the project through the execution phase and also is working in the integration phase if we decide to invest in a company.
We try to limit those costs to a bare minimum of what we need to drive those ideas forward.
Maybe to add to that, one of the advantages we see of having an in-house team working with M&A is that they can also be very relevant working on strategy for the business units. They are living the NORBIT life every day and understand the NORBIT DNA and becoming even more relevant in the M&A work as well.
Could you provide some guidance on the effects of tariffs? I suppose this is the U.S. tariffs on the results year- to- date. We have not seen any material impact of tariffs in the Oceans business. When it comes to our revenue composition, we have virtually no sales to the U.S. in Connectivity and in PIR. We do have exposure in Oceans.
The U.S. is, of course, one important market for us. As of this year, and also as we stated in the report in Q3, Americas was quite a strong region for us and was actually showing the highest growth year on year in the Oceans segment. We do not think, or we have not seen any impact in the numbers of the tariffs per se. I think that summarizes the question to that end unless you want to add something. Okay. Is increased geopolitical uncertainty driving higher demand for your R&D services? And does your PIR customers typically start out as R&D clients before transitioning to contract manufacturing?
I think this geopolitical unrest creates more demand in the long term, both for designed in Europe and made in Europe. In our factories in the contract manufacturing, we have clients that have done the R&D work themselves.
We have clients that have been utilizing the NORBIT R&D pool also. It is a mix.
What drove the increased Oceans sales to the Americas in the quarter? It is a mix of different drivers. I think it is hard to pinpoint the sort of exact driver or one driver. It is many things. As Per Jørgen said in his presentation, I mean, one large order could also impact a quarter. Generally, we are seeing quite good momentum in the Americas region. We are making progress in all regions, being North America and South America. I think, again, it is a mix of different drivers, but also good business development efforts by the team in the Americas region. Yeah.
I'd just like to, for those that haven't been on our webpage, looking on the Oceans part of the webpage, there are a lot of videos showing different applications, different use cases that's made together with some of our clients. I recommend that you have a look to that as well.
Are the core chips used in the PIR segment proprietary to NORBIT design or primarily off-the-shelf components integrated into your own modules?
When it comes to chip design, this is very limited activity in NORBIT. We do have very few NORBIT proprietary chips. Where we have that is in the Connectivity domain. For all the rest, it's components off-the-shelf from a global market.
Yeah. Maybe to remind that the PIR segment is R&D services partly, but mostly contract manufacturing. In the contract manufacturing part, we are not the product owner.
We rely on the design of our customers and do the manufacturing as one of our services. Of the 4% decline in the gross margin, how much is attributed to mix effect and how much was obsolescence provisions in Oceans? Should investors view these effects as one-offs or recurring going forward? I won't necessarily comment on the split between the two. What I can say is that the gross margin in Oceans has been quite stable. It fluctuates some percentage points up and down, but largely it's been in the area 72%-74%. Today, we are reporting 71%. It is not a material change. In Q3 last year, we also had a quite large rental project having installed surveillance sonars in the Seine during the Olympics. That has a very good margin.
It made the 75% be a quite tough comparable this quarter, at least. I think you should look at the margin over time and sort of extrapolate an average based on that to indicate what the normalized margin in Oceans is as we see it. You highlight a NOK 120 million contract post-quarter defense sector following an earlier NOK 100 million award. Can you confirm whether the full NOK 220 million is tied to defense customers or if the NOK 100 million contract was unrelated to that sector?
No, this was related. It is the same client space. It is just that the separate orders were not in a scale that it was above the threshold we have for making stock announcements.
Are sales to AUV customers becoming material for Oceans? It seems you are involved in a lot of exciting projects.
Sorry, could you repeat that?
Yeah, sure.
Are sales to AUV customers becoming a material part for Oceans? It seems you are involved in a lot of exciting projects.
Yeah. Yeah. That is a very relevant driver. And it is a significant or it is a relevant part of the business and the numbers presented also. I think still it is more to come. I agree. It is a lot of interesting things going on and a lot of interest all over the globe for different kinds of solutions. I think, I mean, the headline macro on this, the globe is covered 70% by water and only 5%, 6% has been explored. How can we explore all this? Autonomy is an important part of the answer.
Final question. Do you have any plan to get more recurring income?
It depends what you mean of recurring income.
I would say we do have some recurring income based on having a high degree of repeat clients. If the question is that if we are aiming to have more subscription-based revenues, I think so when we come back in February and we present how this year ended and we will announce what we aim for in 2026. Also, when we come back after the summer and probably announce our 2030 target, I think also looking to 2030, NORBIT will very much be a company where the invoices are based on a number of units mainly. As with the iWBMS X, where it is now possible to pay to get some upgrades, software components are increasing. The subscription-based revenue part of Connectivity, which we have from our daughter company Norbit iData, is expected to grow.
In a world where AI generates more code more efficiently, we think it's also good to remain a hardware company to be delivering hardware that the software could run on.
Good. Oh, final question here. Do you expect new GNSS On-Board Unit orders to come in the near term? What is the addressable market for the product?
Yeah. I think the addressable market for the product, that's the European market. In Europe, there are 6.5 million commercial trucks on the road. Over the last 10 years, there is an average of around 400,000 trucks being made per year. More and more countries are picking up according to the push from the European Union to finance roads by having the truck driver to pay per driven kilometer.
My understanding is, I'm not an analyst, but my understanding is when European countries are doubling their investments in defense equipment, the need for financing roads is increasing. This is a preferred way of doing it. We are now working with the leading player in this market. We have been in this domain for many years. It seems like our reputation in the market is good. Probably we should be able to take a good part of this business. I think maybe that is our take on that.
Maybe to add to that, you also said in the presentation that we have delivered approximately 2 million enforcement modules for these GNSS On-Board Units over the last five years. That also says something about the potential market in this.
That is prior to any replacement.
Okay. That was the final question.
Thanks a lot for good and interesting questions. Thank you to all that took the time to follow this presentation.