Good morning everyone, welcome to Apotea's first quarter report this year. We will present today from our office in Stockholm, and as usual, we will start with the presentation and then move on to a Q&A with spoken questions. Today's presenters will be Pär Svärdson, our CEO and Co-Founder, Johan Mårild, our CFO, and myself, Sarah Ahnström, COO. Let's begin.
Oh, thank you. We have had a good quarter with good profitability and stable growth. Johan, so.
Yes, we had revenues of SEK 1.937 billion and a growth of 10.5% in the quarter and a operating margin in line with last year. The operating margin was 5.2%.
Yeah, as I said, we have had improved profitability and stable growth and our project, I think they are heading in the right direction.
Since this fall, we have put a lot of focus into our growth initiatives, as we have said before, and some of these have now been launched. We're very happy about that. Most recently, we soft launched our site in Norway, apotea.no, which means that we are now selling our health and beauty products on the Norwegian market under the Apotea brand on the site. We are delivering the customer orders from our fulfillment center in Varberg. This is, of course, a step to strengthening our position in Norway, as well as increase the utilization of the new fulfillment center. We have also continued during the quarter to scale up the production in Varberg. We have sent out as much as 27,000 orders in one day.
We have done that by increasing the number of shifts as we are now working both evenings and weekend shifts as well. Approximately one-third, or slightly above one-third of all customer orders are now going from Varberg.
When we launched this soft launch of Norway, we also launched our new platform, and that was a big step as well.
Yes, with the growth in the quarter of 10.5%, we now have rolling 12 months revenues approaching SEK 7.4 billion. We have a rolling adjusted EBIT margin, which is flat compared to Q4 2024, and it was 4.2%. Let's take a closer look on the revenues. To the left, you see our net revenue development. As mentioned, we had growth in the quarter of 10.5%, and the growth was fairly evenly distributed across our product areas. Roughly 10% growth in Rx as well as in non-Rx. We experienced a continued solid demand for pharmaceutical products online. To the right, you see our gross margin.
We had a slight increase in the gross margin in Q1 compared to Q1 2025. The increase was the result of successfully executed campaigns as well as improved purchasing. Our ambition is to have a fairly stable gross margin. With attractive prices, attract more and more people to buy pharmacy products online. Yes, we had a strong operating profit in the quarter. We had a operating profit of SEK 101 million. The operating profit increased despite increased depreciations related to the new fulfillment center in Varberg. The increase in operating profit was driven by increased net revenues as well as a slight higher gross margin, as mentioned, and continued good cost control. Let's talk more about the cost then. To the right, you see a breakdown of our operating costs.
As you can see, the depreciations in percentage of revenues increased in Q1 as expected and the increase was related to the new fulfillment center in Morgongåva. That was opened up last year, and depreciation started in Q4 last year. If you look on personnel cost and other operating costs and take those combined, these are fairly flat compared to a year ago, and we maintain a good cost control. As we've mentioned before and worth mentioning again, the mix between personnel cost and other operating costs is also impacted by the usage of external staffing in our fulfillment centers. We did not have any items affecting comparability in Q1. We had a strong operating cash flow in Q1 and that was fairly stable compared to a year ago. We had limited investments in Q1.
The investments in Q1 2025 were related to the new fulfillment center in Varberg, which is now the platform investments are completed, and we expect this year to have significantly lower CapEx level compared to a year ago. If we take a close look on the net working capital, to the right, you can see that the inventory increased compared to a year ago, and the increase in inventory also impacted the inventory turnover rate somewhat, which is slightly lower. The increase in inventory was primarily the result of increased inventory in Varberg. We have a slightly lower return on capital employed in Q1 compared to a year ago.
However, it remains, it's a strong return. The decrease in return on capital employed is the result of the new assets related to the new fulfillment center in Varberg. Finally, in terms of numbers, we had, let's look on the net debt and the net cash position. End of March, we had a net cash position of SEK 105 million. The increase in cash compared to a year ago was the result of a strong underlying operating cash flow, as well as then in Q1 2026, limited investments.
Our focus ahead is to continue to build the pharmacy of tomorrow, to improve the customer journey and improve our efficiency. I think we have, like, hundreds of projects to improve the customer journey, to make it a little bit easier for the customer, make it. I mean, retail is all about the customer, and if we can improve the customer satisfaction, then we will both be more profitable, we will grow faster, and so on. That's our super main focus.
Yes, we will continue to have a very strong focus on growth going forward. As we mentioned at the beginning, we have done a soft launch of the apotea.no site, but that also means that we will continue to work on that site and continue to improve the customer offering in Norway. We will also continue to evaluate and launch several growth-related initiatives going forward still. I think one of the examples of kind of optimizing operations also in terms of sales-oriented initiatives that we have done is that we have also expanded our offering of refrigerated deliveries on pharmaceuticals in Sweden and these types of initiatives with basically great potential in, I would say. We will of course also continue to scale up the production in Varberg.
The automation has a capacity of 50,000 orders each day, and as I mentioned in the beginning, we have reached 27 as of now. We will continue to optimize the operations, making sure that the system is stable even in higher volumes, and also work with the related processes such as purchasing inventory levels and the freight options from the Varberg facility. I think , we have not reached the maximum level yet.
Yeah, and as all of you already know, there's a lot of uncertainty out there in the world and we haven't been affected yet. We haven't seen any signs of that, we have a big focus on it every day because it can affect us in the future. Hopefully not. I mean, like logistics, where container is in the world and plastic bottles and so on. We haven't seen it and we are in a very stable industry. We have a focus on it. Thank you.
Yes. That was the end of the presentation as well. Now we move on to the Q&A with spoken questions.
The next question comes from Johan Fred from SEB. Please go ahead.
Yes. Good morning, guys. Johan Fred here from SEB. A few questions on my side. Starting off with the revenue growth, could you give us a sense of the split between volume growth and sort of price mix effect in the quarter?
Um.
I think we have a fairly stable AOV in the period.
I think, we have some, price effects, but it's more like, very expensive medicine. It's not like higher prices on, the same product, but it's, we sell more and more of very expensive medicines.
Okay. As mix then was an important factor in Rx sales growth, while sort of volume drove OTC growth. Is that correct?
It's a little bit 50/50, isn't it?
I don't have the exact split, yes, in terms of Rx, we had a positive impact from increased orders and/or increased share from very expensive medicines. Whereas the volume was the main driver in the other segments.
Cool. Got it. Got it. On the gross margin came in at, I believe 28.3%, which is, I believe the highest gross margin I think you ever reported. How much of this was driven by sort of one-off campaign timing in the quarter and how much was structural improvement in procurement?
I mean, if you compare with Q4, we have done a lot of improvements in how we buy things to warehouses and so on. Our goal is to have a stable gross margin, and it goes a little bit up and a little bit down, but we're quite stable. In this, particularly in Q1, I mean, we have had successful campaigns. I mean, you should buy the products from the right source at the right time and the right amount to the right warehouse and do campaigns together with the supplier and have successful campaigns and so on. It's, I mean, we have done a quite good job with that, and we can absolutely try to do it next quarter as well. It goes, I mean, it goes a little bit up and go down.
Okay. More sort of I don't wanna call it a one-off effect, but specifically relating to Q1, essentially the opposite of what happened in Q4. Is that correct?
Yes, something like that. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
In the light of this, how should we think about the revenue contribution from services? It grew 30% in Q1, I believe. Is that relating to the campaigns you are alluding to? Or is there anything that could indicate that this is a higher structural base going forward?
I mean, we try to improve, or raise that as well, but I mean, it's absolutely related to campaigns.
Okay. Got it. Got it. Makes sense. A final one, if I may, on CapEx, which was minuscule here in Q1. You've previously guided for around SEK 50 million-SEK 70 million, I believe, annually going forward. Does this still hold? If so, what types of investments should we expect in 2026 to get to that numbers?
I mean, we evaluate all possible investment we can do, and if we see that it's a profitable investment, we will do it. This SEK 50 million -SEK 70 million. I mean, it's more like some kind of target, but we haven't found that much investments yet because now we are improving the investments we already have done. I think we will have to come back over time and calibrate that.
I think if you look into the Morgongåva case, we have kind of done it step by step. We have improved the efficiency by smaller investments, that has happened several times each year. I think in the Varberg case, we have kind of still to optimize the operations and so on differently.
We have bought a few bins to Varberg.
A few more bins. Yes
put more stock.
Yeah. I see your point. It was just the SEK 50 million-SEK 70 million. Given that you essentially had no CapEx in Q1, it's quite a steep step up in coming quarters then. As I interpreted from your answers, you have no sort of planned CapEx investments in Varberg, rather, continue to optimize existing infrastructure.
Not yet.
Exactly.
It might come.
Not yet, no.
Cool. Yeah. Fair enough. Thank you so much for taking my questions.
Thank you. The next question comes from Benjamin Wahlstedt from ABG Sundal Collier. Please go ahead.
Good morning, guys. I will sort of say I will go back to one of Johan's questions about the gross margin. I got the impression last conference call that while the campaign intensity was one issue you faced in Q4, the gross margin pressure you experienced was also an effect of purchasing to Varberg. I believe you, Johan, said that you were sort of still in the process of calibrating the purchases for the new logistics center, for example. In Q1, it appears Varberg purchasing is basically not an issue at all. Was this a quicker turnaround than you expected? Or how should we think about this?
I mean, we have absolutely done much better purchasing in first quarter compared to fourth. I mean, it's probably too early to say that all problems is gone and to be sure about that, because if you have just one quarter, it's a little bit too early. I mean, we have absolutely improved our purchasing process, and we will continue to improve it over time.
Perfect. Thank you. Pär, you also write in the CEO letter about planning more investments to ramp up growth. Could you elaborate on the kind of investments you're referring to here? Is this the apotea.no website, for example?
Sarah mentioned that we have built a new e-commerce platform. I mean, it's not investment on the balance sheet, but it's working hours for the AI team and for the tech team, I mean, to improve the assortment, maybe do more campaign marketing. It can be a lot of different areas. Maybe not that big costs, but costs related to that. We want to focus on growth and want to spend both money and time on building more growth. I think it's very valuable for both Apotea and for our shareholders.
Perfect. Thank you. That's clear. Sort of following on that then, you mentioned marketing spend or marketing investments as an example of such investments. While you don't share marketing ratios explicitly, could you give us a hint or an indication of whether or not your marketing ratio is sort of up or down compared to the time of the IPO, for example?
I think it's, stable.
... quite stable. I mean, our goal is to find profitable marketing and do that marketing. I mean, for example, Google, it's not profitable to buy search terms that is not profitable, but we want to buy as much as we can that is profitable.
That's something that we continuously evaluate the marketing spend. If we see that there's a room to increase the marketing in external channels, that's the good Return on Investment. That's something we do obviously. I think as we've shared before, the main driver for Apotea's growth has always been having the best offering to the consumer and ensuring that with our attractive prices and speedy deliveries and free deliveries and attractive and large assortment that drives new customers but also keeping the customers returning more frequently. That's the main of our focus, ensuring that the deliveries and the assortments are the right, et cetera.
A happy customer is a good customer.
Yeah. It might seem like. That's, I think that's a good way to kind of drive growth. That's a long-term, sustainable way of driving growth rather than, having short-term adjustments in marketing, big calibration in marketing or prices, for example.
Thank you. That's very clear as well. Final one for me then. In essence, why do you not raise your short-term financial targets for the margin? I mean, you've showed in Q1 that you can deliver above 5% margins with the new setup running far from sort of max or optimum capacity, I guess. One could assume that with further growth, you would scale more on the now higher D&A from Morgongåva, for example, for a rather positive margin trajectory from here, assuming continued growth. Yeah, you're above the 3%-5% interval. Why keep it intact?
We mentioned, just before the uncertainty in the world, I mean, we want to grow faster and want to spend money on that, and I think we need a few more quarters. I mean, like fourth quarter was not that good, so we need more time before we can say, "Okay, this is the new stable level where we can be," because we don't want to overpromise. That's why we try to keep it that way.
I mean, we are in the middle of this short to mid-term corridor of being in within 3%-5%. We have a adjusted EBIT margin rolling 12 months of 4.2%. We are in the middle of that corridor. Even though Q4 was, I think we're fairly open that Q4 was a disappointment and low profitability below our expectations. Q4 tend to be with the seasonal variation and higher share of campaign sales, a softer profit-wise quarter compared to the other three quarters in during the year.
Perfect. Thank you. That's all I had for now.
Thank you.
The next question comes from Victor Hansen from DNB Carnegie. Please go ahead.
Good morning, Pär, Johan, and Sarah. A couple of questions from my side. I was curious on your impressions of the competitive environment during Q1, because we've had some peers commenting on this recently, and since that, the market remains tough, relatively low growth still. What's your view on the competitive environment here?
I think the competitive environment is quite stable as well. We have had a very competitive market for several years, that's how we like it.
Okay, perfect. Nothing, no change.
No, not really.
Q1. Okay. Okay. My next question is on your beauty segment. Beauty products are up a lot. Do you have any comments on how growth was within this segment and how important you would say beauty is for you going forward to reach your sales targets?
It's an important segment, I mean, it is a broad segment as well, right? It contains a lot of different type of products, and it's going well. Good growth in that area. It's one of the focus areas that we have. I think in order to have a higher growth rate, we need to work on all categories.
Yeah. We also have seasonal effects. I mean, now we're heading towards the summer, and then you have like sun protection sells a lot. In the autumn, you have different products. All categories is very important for us, and we want to grow all of them, and we try to maximize the growth on all of them. We try to handle them individually and try to do as good as we can with everyone.
I think in terms of.
Yeah
... beauty segment in specific, we have done quite the large steps in terms of the assortment and so on. We're very proud to welcome a lot of good brands to our site. That's something we have been very proud of, I would say. We're happy to see that the assortment-
Sarah is buying much more now but before.
I think we're very happy to see that the assortment is widening within those types of categories and especially in the more premium segment, I would say.
Perfect. On Varberg here, I was hoping that you could perhaps provide an estimate of the savings effects as you have lower fulfillment costs in Varberg compared to Morgongåva. Now you said you moved one third of your total orders.
Yes. I think it's still early days. We've been, and I think we mentioned this before. Yes, we see a significant improved efficiency in Varberg. However, it's early days in terms of ramping up and understanding the kind of, what should I say, more steady state type of like production cost in Varberg. At the same time, we've also been shifting and the production between our sites, and between different shifts. It's at this point, hard to say a fixed number, but yes, we see efficiencies in Varberg, and we will come back to that. Absolutely.
Okay, perfect. A final question from my side. Yeah, the consumer sentiment, it's tough now with another war going on. How did April start?
We will need to come back to Q2 in the summer when we report the Q2 results. I think, yeah.
Probably a good idea.
Fair enough.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Perfect. Thank you, everyone. That was the last question. Thank you for listening to the presentation of our quarterly report, and we wish you a pleasant day.
Thank you very much.