Good morning, everyone. Welcome to StrongPoint's Q2 Q&A Audio Call. Quick intro before we start. On the financials, there's a few things to highlight from the results that we published early this morning. Revenue is up by 16% to NOK 378 million. Total revenue for the quarter came in at NOK 350 million. That's up 18%. Regarding EBITDA, it's at NOK 7 million with a margin of 2.1%. On the company operations, again, three things to highlight. Fantastic news regarding Carrefour Belgium, which chose StrongPoint's order picking for all its scheduled e-commerce orders. Secondly, a Nordic grocery retailer has ordered over NOK 20 million of AI-powered weighing scales. They will be used by its end customers. Lastly, the grocery retailer Coop Estonia, a longstanding customer of StrongPoint, has ordered over 100 self-checkouts from us.
Reminder to everyone, you can ask questions via clicking the button at the bottom right of your screen, and then we'll see it automatically on our screens here at the StrongPoint office. Otherwise, we already have a number of questions that came in in advance via the investor@strongpoint email address. Kicking off, on the first question, it's actually regarding order picking. Jacob, question for you. Following the Carrefour Belgium order picking contract, where else do you see opportunities for more order picking?
First of all, just winning Carrefour Belgium is obviously a big step yet again for StrongPoint. I do want to remind all listeners that it's about a year ago, a year and a half ago, since we announced the win with Sainsbury's. Obviously, these two names are monumental in the world of grocery retail. I do want to be optimistic because I think we have reasons to be optimistic that when two such giants and two such brands choose a StrongPoint order picking solution, that's obviously a sign to others that the StrongPoint order picking solution is one to consider. I can't go into specifics, obviously, but I don't see any geographical limits to where we can deliver our order picking solution. Right now, we are delivering from New Zealand down west-south to Iceland on the other side of the globe.
Obviously, with also Carrefour Belgium being a country in which we're not physically present, that shows that we're able to both sell and deliver our solution also beyond the nine countries in which we're present.
Next question, which is slightly out of season. Is it worth believing Santa Claus that Walmart should start with order picking from StrongPoint? What about, for example, Tesco? I believe that Walmart and Tesco are some of the, Walmart's definitely one of the largest in the world, and Tesco is definitely the largest in the U.K.
Yeah, I mean, those names certainly ring bells with everybody. Specifically, as for Walmart and Tesco, it's worthwhile saying that both of these have their own proprietary solutions. Walmart has historically been trying to sell their order picking solution internationally. Our intelligence tells us that they have retracted in trying to do that, which creates opportunities for a company like StrongPoint. Whereas Tesco has their own solution that they have also tried now to get out to customers elsewhere. The solution is being called Transcend. Regardless, our intelligence tells us that our solution is outperforming these solutions. As such, you know, we're very positive about getting our solution out there in the world. To get someone like Walmart or Tesco to fold their own solution to go with StrongPoint's solution, that is certainly a stretch.
That is not, in any case, taking away the optimism that there should be around getting our order picking solution to others in the world.
Okay, moving on to CashGuard Connect. How is the CashGuard Connect project doing? It's been several years since this was presented as a hot potato. Aren't the market opportunities the same as you presented a little over a year ago?
This was presented in April 2024 with the largest grocery retailer in Iberia. Market opportunities are exactly what they were back then. It is and has taken long to get to a solution that is ready to be industrialized and scaled. We're still running pilot in one store. The big sort of next step for us would be to take that solution from a prototype and pilot phase into an industrialized setting. We're working now very closely to get clarity on how we can achieve that.
Next question regarding self-checkout. In the stock notice, that's regarding the stock notice for the Coop Estonia self-checkouts, you, Jacob, are quoted as saying, regarding self-checkouts, there are "tremendous international opportunities." Can you elaborate on your expectations?
Yeah, I think first of all, when it comes to the Baltics and self-checkouts, we are the go-to partner when it comes to self-checkouts. That's whether it's with our own proprietary hardware, own proprietary software, or with third-party hardware or software. We are the go-to partner for self-checkouts in the Baltics. There are certainly characteristics about the way that we are able to operate these self-checkout solutions that tell us that there should be opportunities and are opportunities elsewhere. I mean, even in Norway and Sweden, self-checkouts are getting more and more frequently used. Not least, you're seeing this in the U.K. where that market is highly mature, that there is a market for self-checkouts. I was about to say I see no reason why StrongPoint shouldn't be that provider, but there is a reason why it's not.
That is that most POS or point of sales providers also provide their own self-checkouts. As you can imagine, even with a solution that is better and more cost-effective, there will be some barriers from the POS providers to get our self-checkout in. The solution itself is very, very strong. I have very high hopes and beliefs in what we can do outside also the Baltics with our self-checkout solution.
Next question regarding Vusion Group and electronic shelf labels. First question, how is the cooperation going so far, and when can we expect any sizable orders?
First of all, just to elaborate on the partnership. The partnership is twofold. It's a value-added reseller partnership, which goes way beyond electronic shelf labels. That is offering the entire suite of solutions that Vusion offers. ESL is there, absolutely, but it's also about the new and revolutionary EdgeSense technology, Captana cameras, retail media, et c. That's one part of the partnership. The other part is that StrongPoint is an independent software vendor where we are partnering with Vusion on providing our order picking solution to Vusion's customers and vice versa. Vusion is very much seeing the need for grocers to leverage these store assets to conduct and complete e-commerce orders as efficiently as possible. We've been chosen for that reason. That's just to set the stage for what is the partnership. The partnership was announced around New Year's.
We all know that as for the value-added reseller bit, that was not really getting into effect until just recently. Whereas on the independent software vendor side, we have been able to work together and have been showcasing our joint solution at different trade shows. In short, the partnership is going very good. It would, of course, be wrong of me to start trying to indicate what dates the first orders or significant orders will kick in. I can say this much. Number one, we are already doing a number of installation work in the U.K. and Spain for Vusion. Number two, there are several joint discussions that we are having with customers when it comes to the independent software vendor side. Obviously, leveraging StrongPoint's order picking solution with Vusion's customers to get our foot in the door. So far, so good.
I understand if the market is curious and maybe even impatient about seeing the first contact, but we should also remember that changing electronic shelf labels or getting into a digitization of the store network is not something that our customers take lightly on. It's typically a fairly long process to get to those kinds of conclusions. So far, so good.
Next question related, again, to Vusion Group. If Sainsbury's decides to source its electronic shelf labels from Vusion Group, will StrongPoint be the partner to supply them? If so, what revenue streams can we expect from such a contract?
Okay, this will just be too much of a hypothetical question for me to sort of answer specifically. Yes, I'm just going to leave it like that. I know that in general, I think you could say that the U.K. market is very hot for electronic shelf labels. Our joint, or one of the joint value propositions of being able to provide pick-by-light solution is, of course, making our joint offering stronger. I guess in general terms, I can say that that is also the case with Sainsbury's. When and if we get to any contracts specifically with customers, we'll comment on those when they get there.
Okay, regarding 1X, question for you, Marius. The sale of the 1X shares is not in the Q2 report. Why not?
A few weeks ago in June, we announced that we had signed an agreement to sell all our shares in 1X. There are standard formalities between signing an agreement and doing the actual completion. We expect this transaction to be completed now in July, and hence, it will be included in the Q3 report.
Okay, that's it for the questions. I'll just wait a few seconds to see if there's any questions coming in because there is a slight delay between people writing them in and us seeing them. I'm not seeing anything more. I think we'll wrap it up there and wishing everyone a good day and a good summer. Thank you. Goodbye.