My 4th 1/4 as CEO in Zaptec, and I am thoroughly enjoying doing these presentations for you guys. Specifically today, I know I said this the previous 3 times, but today is definitely one of those times when I'm very excited about giving out our quarterly reports.
It obviously wasn't come as a surprise to anybody that 2022 was an interesting year and of course, we spent a lot of time there trying to make sure that we were in a good place when it came to 2023. We tested, we made sure, we Front-loaded. We even had CapEx and OpEx that had its impact on our bottom line. It is now pretty, with confidence in my voice, that I can say that those investments have paid off.
This has been an amazing first 1/4. I'm excited to take you through these numbers that I have in front of me, not least, to tell you guys about what we've been up to since we last spoke. We'll start with the financial highlights.
Order intake up 204% year-on-year. Order backlog up a whopping 702% comparatively to Q1 2022. We've had revenue increase by 105% comparatively. Gross margins, probably the number I'm most excited about, has increased 3% since Q4, now back in the 40s at a level at 41%. We're in the positive in the EBITDA. We had a very successful capital increase in February, where we raised 300 million NOK. What an exciting way to start this morning.
Maybe raining here in Stavanger, it's fully sunshine in here at Zaptec. We had record-breaking order intake. We, as mentioned, up 204% comparatively. Significant portions of these orders have been taken here in Q1, of course, will be in a staggered delivery as we move into 2023.
Very importantly, and what we'll be talking about a little bit later on in the presentation, is the Zaptec Pro MID type approval, which we got late in Q1, we are now ramping up and getting ready for production of the MID-certified Pros as we move into the second 1/2 of 2023. As we look here, we can see that the growth only goes one way. Classic hockey stick movement here. Very exciting indeed.
I'll pass over the word now to our CFO, Kurt, who will take the next couple of Slides.
Yes. Our production level is ramping up according to our plan. We produced 4 times as many charger, Zaptec Pro and Zaptec Go combined in the first 1/4 compared to last year. We will also start Zaptec Go production at Sanmina in the second 1/2, which is currently now in preparation phase, and we will produce the first prototypes this summer.
We are also looking for ways to accelerate the Zaptec Go production further due to the strong demand that Peter mentioned. This include introducing night shift at our production partner, Westcontrol. When we look at the revenue for first 1/4 is up 105% and ended at NOK 271 million.
This is a record-high revenue in one 1/4 for Zaptec, and this is particular strong figures considering that Q1 normally is a weak 1/4. We expect even higher 1/4ly revenue in the 1/4s ahead of us. Back to you, Peter.
When we look at the statistics for EV adoption here in Europe, it has been an overall increase. However, what's interesting to note is that due to a reduction in incentives in our home market, Norway, there's been a quite dramatic decline in EV sales in the first 1/4 of the year by 12%.
This has not, and I underline not, manifested itself into Zaptec sales. We have had the ability to increase our market share despite a decline in sales of EVs in our own home market to a point that you will when we look at deep dive a little bit more in the numbers, we'll see that the sales in Norway has increased in such an amount that it's actually had an effect on the overall balance of international sales versus home sales.
When we look at Europe as a overall, the macroeconomics and the Plug-in sales across Europe has increased by a 21% from Q2 to 1 2023 comparatively to 2021.
It is very, very interesting to look at how, when we deep dive further into these numbers, when you look at battery electric vehicles are actually up by almost 43%. That's quite a considerable amount, and this really, really does play into the mega trend that Zaptec is in.
Obviously, we've got a lot of points that are helping us move ahead in relation to the adoption in the infrastructure. We've got government incentives. We've got customers' focus on environmental solutions. There's not one automaker out there, one OEM out there, that's not going fully electric.
Of course, the availability of models to all different types of purpose use, whether it be SUVs, whether it be for private use or small businesses, it is now available as an electric option. The reduced pricing, both in relation to the battery production as well as ranges, obviously manifests itself in the reduction of total cost of ownership and naturally then puts a pressure into the requirements of building out further charging infrastructure.
This of course is where Zaptec excels, and we believe that this actually is becoming what one could sort of categorize as a critical infrastructure as we move into the future. As I just alluded before, export share has decreased in Q1.
However, this is specifically because of this extremely strong sales that we've seen in Norway. Of course, when we look at the overall numbers, we still have had year-on-year almost 100% growth in the export sales.
However, the growth in Norway has been even more exponential. We're still seeing, as mentioned, a positive trend in relation to our exports, and we will be expecting those numbers to even go higher as we go into the next 3 1/4s, specifically fueled by our MID certifications of the Pro, which does kick open the markets in specifically here Germany, also Benelux, and later on in the year, France. We're looking to do soft entries into Spain and Italy, as we move towards the second 1/2 of 2023.
I'd like to put a small comment here in relation to one of the export markets that has taken off to such considerable numbers that we had to put a specific note in here about it. That is our increased demand on the Swedish market specifically fueled by the Swedish Electrical Safety Authority that did tests on several charge manufacturers in the summer of 2022. These tests and specifically approvals of these, were announced here in Q1.
Of course, the fact that Zaptec Go passed with flying colors really put us apart from very, a quite considerable number of our peers out there, and this has created a very strong demand for the Zaptec Go in the Swedish market, but also spilling into the neighboring markets here, and not least, our home market, Norway, but also Denmark and other markets in the Nordics.
Now this is something that is really massive for Zaptec. It is something that we've been working on for a very long time, to get the MID approvals for specifically the German market.
Now this is something that basically ensures the perfect measurement accuracy as when charging specifically company cars and the likes, where you have the need to ensure that there is a precise measurement, and this is something that needs a specific certification, not only of the product itself, but also of the product production.
This is not, and no easy feat by any means, and or hence the quite a considerable number of years that we used on this. This has been a milestone for Zaptec. We will be focusing all our production on MID from the Norwegian production site, for to be solely MID calibrated, chargers as we move into the second 1/2 of 2023 and beyond.
This is another point that, another enormous milestone. It's almost in the same timeline as the MID certification. We have, right from the very start, been working with technology that we have patented. It's taken considerable time. We've been granted these patents in Asia, for quite some years now, here under Japan and in China, but it's taken somewhat longer to get these patents through the European patent certifications.
This has now been done. We were granted these patents here in March 2023, this does set Zaptec apart from many of our peers and competitors out there. It is a very important piece of technology. This is not just some little tiny part of a technical solution.
This is a monumental part of making sure that you can do charging simultaneously with several chargers going on at the same time, thereby enabling your ability to do smart charging, fast charging, with AC chargers in places where the availability of electricity can be meager, and thereby circumnavigating the requirement to do a lot of investment into the old-fashioned infrastructure to sure, when setting up new sites. Again, I think this...
I'd like to just put an extra note to this because I think it's important for anybody who believes that charge points is something that's just gonna be commoditized in the near future, please spend a little bit time to go in a deep dive in the requirements, into the regulations, and not least, patent technology such as this because it really does underline the seriousness of what it is that a charge point manufacturer does, and not least where Zaptec places itself on that list. Now I'll pass the words over to our fantastic CFO.
Thank you. I'm pleased to report that the gross margin improvement started in the first 1/4. The gross margin increased from 38% in the 4th 1/4 up to 41% in this first 1/4 in 2023. This increase is due to favorable FX development since the Norwegian krone is so weak, and we have 65% of our revenue outside Norway.
We have also a positive effect of the price increase from first of February this year. However, the gross margin was negatively impacted by the increased sales of Zaptec Go versus Zaptec Pro, since we have a higher gross margin on the Zaptec Pro. We see a positive outlook for gross margin going forward, backed on the sales start of the MID version of Zaptec Pro later this year.
We will also considering additional price increase later in the year if that's become necessary. Looking at the EBITDA. Our EBITDA development still reflects strategic investment in new markets, both product development and OpEx related to building new organization and in new market where we still not have significant sales.
We record an increased EBITDA margin during the 1/4 to 2%, and this is up from the first 1/4 last year. Going forward, we believe in improved EBITDA margin on the back of our maintained gross margin, also increasing the revenue each 1/4. We will continue to have strong cost focus to secure and higher EBITDA in 2023 as a whole.
To sum up, I know this has been a short and sweet presentation. However, the quality versus the quantity is what plays for itself here. It has been all in all a great 1/4 for Zaptec. We've delivered significant growth, including record-breaking order intakes, over 100% sales increase, strong backlog for delivery throughout the rest of 2023 here, and significant ramp up in production volumes, both in Norway as well as Sanmina in Germany.
As mentioned before, we've achieved key milestones, including the European patent for dynamic phase balancing, plus the MID approval for the Zaptec Pro.
Both the gross margin as well as the EBITDA margins have improved in Q1. Just like to say that we are definitely bullish, we're definitely excited about the future for Zaptec, and we will continue our vision to change the world with this cutting-edge charging solutions as we move forward. Now, we look forward to taking a Q&A session.
I'm sure many of you have questions. We're looking forward to answering them. Thank you. We have the first question. To what extent do costs related to the equity issue affects the P&L in Q1?
That had no effect on the P&L since the this cost related to equity. It's booked at the equity in the balance. It's no PNL effect.
Have you seen a pickup in order intake after the Swedish authorities levied a sales ban for Easee? Right.
Yeah.
Well, I can say that, in general, as I started out by saying, we spent all of 2022 gearing up, ramping up, for a considerable growth in 2023. This is what we are looking at right now. This is what we're experiencing right now. Now, there may be some triggers that have been helping us to accelerate that growth that we've been planning for in 2023.
Some of those may be because others are having difficulties. As mentioned when we looked at the Slide on Sweden, we were going through the Swedish authorities' discussions as well as their checks of our own products, the Zaptec Go, and we passed these with flying colors.
We believe that our uptake in the Swedish market has been because of our ability to have a certified product that the consumers can relate to, specifically because of the safety aspects of our... and the quality aspects of our products. What is the current production rate of Zaptec Go and Zaptec Pro?
We have a production forecast, more than 4x the production volume on the Zaptec Go, and more than 2x the production volume of Zaptec Pro. In total, we have a production forecast for 2023 up to NOK 2 billion in revenue.
This is of course production forecast that we can change along 2023 if necessary. We have a very high production capacity and have also order components to ramp up. We are ramping up every month. We are 2x the production capacity of Go this and next month. We will have a very huge volume at the end of 2023 since we also start with Zaptec Go in Sanmina in Germany from the second 1/2.
Excellent. Any comments on component availability and prices?
Well, the availability has been improved, so we have no specific issue with components availability as we speak. It's looking very good for 2023. When it comes to prices, we have a very, very competent supply chain department in Zaptec.
We are working very hard to reduce the prices. Even if the Norwegian krone is very weak, we have not got any price increases so far, and we are working to reduce critical components price on this. We don't expect any increase in the production cost as a result of a higher component price.
How is sales in the UK and Germany developing, and when do you expect these markets to really deliver higher sales? Well, as as we just alluded in the Slides we went through, the German market obviously has been waiting for these MID-compliant products to come into the market. We achieved the MID certifications at the very last day of Q1.
We've spent the last month, 2 months getting our production lines ready for production of these MID-certified Pros. We will be ready to start delivering these towards the very end of Q2. We hope and expect to see the sales from Germany to kick in at the end of this 1/4, beginning of next.
We should be able to see the effects of the German market in the second 1/2 of 2023. We're still very bullish on that. The same can be said for the other larger markets of Europe, i.e., France and Benelux, where we believe that the onslaught of our MID-certified Pro will have an effect. When we look at the sales in U.K., we're still we've seen quite a considerable uptake comparatively to 2022.
We're still in a early phase. We were had the first production start ramp up for the U.K. type Go in the beginning of this year, so beginning of Q1 2023, sales and deliveries have been ongoing.
We expect that we will be seeing significant numbers and an increase in the UK numbers as we go into the next 3 1/4s of this year. What is your recruitment plan for 2023, mainly recruiting in new markets? Yeah, I think our CFO can answer that one.
Yeah. We have now built up a organization in every market that we have our subsidiaries, so we don't expect to recruit many more people in the existing market in the rest of 2023. However, we will continue to recruit people at the head1/4 in the technical division because we speed up for the compliance to get all the product and compliance in new markets, and we have also started our development for the US market.
Most of the new recruitment will be technical division, but we will not recruit in that speed that you see in 2022. There will be a lower recruitment this year and this is also due to our cost control, so we will achieve our EBITDA for 2023.
Can you give some flavor on working capital and cash flow going onwards? When will working capital normalize relative to sales?
Well, it have a cost to grow so fast that we do. If you look at the balance sheet now, you see that it's mainly the inventory and the receivables who have increased. Of course, we will not continue to increase the inventory every 1/4, but the receivables will increase. They have it costs, but we planned and hope that the sales will be as so high as expected. Then we will see a positive cash flow at the end of the year.
Will Zaptec Go also be MID certified and get ISO 15118? The answer is yes, that is the plan. We expect that we will continue our MID certification with the Zaptec Go, as well as implementing ISO 15118. For those of you who wonder what ISO 15118, it is basically the new protocol for the communication between a charger and the vehicle.
In that lies many aspects here on the vehicle to grid, plug and charge, and a number of other relevant future-proof services. Now, in relation to the Go and the timeline, because that would be the secondary question here, we expect to have a Zaptec Go with a OCPP box level version in a 1/4's time. Around summer to beginning of fall 2023.
The actual MID certified Go will probably be more in about 12 months' time from today. Is the order backlog for the remainder of 2023 NOK 489 million also your sales target for the remainder of the year? If not, could you provide some indication how sales should progress in 2023?
Well, we expect much higher sales of the rest of 2023 than this backlog. We cannot give you exact numbers, but we should be able to double our revenue for 2023 compared to 2022. That means above NOK 1.5 billion, and even more if we get access in the new markets.
Uncertain, you're correct that you are targeting 2023 sales of NOK 2 billion? If so, what is the risk of not reaching this target?
No. We can schedule, and we can postpone production in the future. If we see that we don't have the order intake to reach NOK 2 billion, we can postpone production into the first 1/4 2024. We will not have any risk if we get below this number. This is the kind of maximum revenue in 2023. This is our capacity as so speak. It's no risk if we get lower. We just adjust the production after the order intake.
Yes. Just a comment to that as well, this is not to be seen as a guidance.
No, no.
... in relation to revenue.
No.
Excellent. It seems as if those were the last questions. Once again, I'd like to thank you guys for tuning in this morning. It's been an epic 1/4, and that's something that we are extremely proud of. On be1/2 of Zaptec and the fantastic team behind me, I'd like to thank you for listening and looking forward to joining you guys again in 3 months' time in the hopes that it'll be just as exciting as it was today. Thank you very much.
Thank you.