Hello, and welcome to Zaptec's Q1 2026 presentation. Today, we have a slightly new format. We will talk through the results on a high level while the written materials is available online as usual. Kurt, why don't you take us through the highlights the way you saw the quarter?
Yes. I'm pleased to announce that Zaptec have delivered a very strong first quarter. We set new records when it comes to revenue and EBITDA in this quarter. We also saw a strong increase in order intake, and we ended the quarter with a very strong order backlog. We also saw that we are increasing the installation rate month by month, and we have sustained our market leader position in our core markets. We saw also in the first quarter that we are increasing our market share outside the Nordics. This strong quarter, this strong growth have happened while we have continued and create positive cash flow and also have a strong position when it comes to liquidity.
Let's dive into the details of the financial highlights. As you can see on the slide here, both revenue and order intake was up around 30%, which means that we continued the strong growth momentum from the previous quarter. The backlog was up 45%, and we have strong visibility on future revenue due to this backlog. The gross margin came in at 43%, which is an increase compared to previous quarters. We do spend more OPEX, but that is because we have a higher activity level, and it's important to note that OPEX as share of revenue is declining. We delivered over NOK 50 million in EBITDA in Q1 for the first time, and the margin was around 11%.
I'll hand over to you, Kurt, to talk a bit more on our revenue and order development.
Yes. As you mentioned, the increase in revenue was 32% compared to the first quarter last year. Also, this NOK 457 million in revenue in the first quarter, that's the highest single quarter ever for Zaptec. If you look at the slide and see the history when it comes to revenue, you will notice that the first quarter is always the lowest quarter in the year. This gives a really good trend and outlook for the rest of 2026. Also, the order intake show a strong growth by 28% compared to the first quarter last year. Here it's important to point out the seasonality when it comes to order uptake in Zaptec.
We have a huge order intake in the 2nd and 4th quarter. You will see a much higher order intake in this 2nd quarter than in the 1st quarter. The most important is the growth of 28%, who is really strong numbers.
I wanna show you the development in gross margin. We have high focus on sustaining a healthy and strong gross margin, and as you can see on the slide, the gross margin increased to 42.5% in Q1. We acknowledge the geopolitical uncertainty these days with the situation in the Middle East, which might have an impact on various cost elements. That said, we aim to mitigate these effects by firstly opening the production line in Hungary, which is well underway, and also to shift the products towards more Go-tos, which has a higher product margin. As we look ahead, we aim to sustain a strong gross margin. Over to EBITDA, I mentioned over NOK 50 million in EBITDA for the first time for Zaptec in Q1.
This brings the LTM EBITDA to NOK 160 million. This demonstrates that we are able to scale the business as we talked about also in the past. As you see in the graph, it demonstrates consistent progress. Now with both quarterly and LTM EBITDA margin in double-digit territory, it starts to prove the scalability and the profitability of Zaptec's business model.
When we look into the market, we see that a shift in the demand for EV in the first quarter throughout Europe. People discover that both the fuel cost and the total cost of ownership for an EV make it a rational choice to buy an EV. The total increase in the EV sales was 28% in Europe in the first quarter.
Then I want to show you a bit more on the high-level EV transition and how early we actually are if we zoom out a bit. The slide you see now, the S-shaped curve, demonstrates a typical pattern for the adoption of new technologies. It's expected that the transition to EVs in Europe will follow a similar path. Some countries are quite advanced in the EV transition, like Denmark and Norway, where EV share of new sales is very high and closing in on 90%-100%. However, the largest markets in Europe are very early and are still to really enter into the mass adoption phase. That said, with 19% battery electric vehicle share of total new sales in Q1. We believe that the inflection point has been reached and that the mass adoption for Europe is here.
That means that in the next decade, an enormous amount of vehicles with electric powertrain will be sold in Europe. Also zooming out and looking at the big picture, based on the current vehicle fleet, only 5% of the vehicles in Europe are electric, meaning that over 250 million vehicles will have to transition from ICE to EV in the future. These vehicles needs, of course, to be charged, that's where we come in, as Zaptec who provides infrastructure to these vehicles. It's more than just about the EV and the charger. This is connected. If you could talk a bit about how the EV ecosystem is connected, it would help the viewers, I think.
Yes. To be able to receive this huge amount of EVs in the next years, you need a really huge increase in EV charging infrastructure throughout Europe. It's not enough with a standalone charging station. You need charging station who is connected to the EV ecosystem. You need station who is connected to the car, connected to the grid, to the energy service, to the software platform, and the operators. Only in that way we will be able to meet this transition into EV in Europe. Over to strategy. First thing is to build on success in our core markets. When we look at the first quarter, we saw a massive growth in Norway and Sweden, who are our biggest market, despite a relative low EV sales in the first quarter.
The market who really stick out in the first quarter is the Benelux. We see a massive growth in the Benelux, and if it's continue like this, we expect the Benelux to take over as our biggest market in 2026. The second on our strategy list is to accelerate the integration and the product rollout. We work very hard in Zaptec with the integration between hardware, software, and the cloud. We continuously upgrade our products through the year, we're working on integration between the EV, the energy service, and the grid service.
The third on the list is grow tier one markets. As explained in the markets section, U.K., France, and Germany are massive countries early in the EV transition with great market potential for us in the future. We continue to focus on these markets, and in Q1 we delivered 55% growth compared to the same period last year in these markets combined. The growth was strong in France and in Germany. However, somewhat disappointing in the U.K., Kurt.
Yes, we are not pleased with the development in the U.K. in the first quarter. This is due to big projects who have been postponed. We had expect a faster growth in the U.K. We are working hard to succeed, and we are really confident that we will succeed also in the U.K. market.
The fourth on the list is optimize cash flow. We have demonstrated for the last five, six quarters a strong cash flow and as you can see on the graph here, we made new steps in Q1. We added NOK 53 million in net cash, bringing the total liquidity position to NOK 789 million at the end of the quarter. This has enabled us to propose a dividend payment, which is subject to approval at the AGM in June. If approved, we will distribute around NOK 175 million in dividend to our shareholders. Even after the dividend payment, we have a solid liquidity to navigate future market fluctuations. Then I think it's time to sum up, Kurt.
To sum it up, Zaptec deliver a record strong, first quarter. We expect the second quarter to be even higher. This gives a really strong outlook for 2026. Thank you for watching.