Good morning everyone, and welcome to C-RAD's presentation of the Q3 report. My name is Priscilla Kazumba. I will be your moderator today. The report will be presented to you by Tim Thurn, our CEO, and Henrik Bergentoft, the CFO. The presentation will address the first nine months of the 2021 fiscal year, with a focus on the third quarter. Tim will start off with a short introduction and comment on the financial highlights, followed by an analysis and sales development before he finishes with commenting on the key events. Henrik will then guide you through the financial review before he hands over the microphone back to Tim, who will conclude the presentation with a short overview of the market. Before we conclude the webcast, there is an opportunity to ask questions.
In case you wish to ask any questions, you can use the Raise Your Hand button. The Raise Your Hand button is just under the panel below, and it's a hand, and you have to click on it, and it will turn yellow, and then you know that we would see that your hand is up, and then we could unmute your microphone. We will not respond to any questions in the chat, so please use the Raise Your Hand button. Outside the Q&A session, all microphones are muted. If you wish to see a recording of the webcast later on, we will have it on the website after the presentation. Therewith, I hand over the microphone to Tim.
Great. Thanks, Priscilla. Let's get started with an introduction and the financial highlights. C-RAD is active in the field of cancer treatment. Our customers are hospitals that fight cancer with radiation. In modern high-precision radiation therapy, accurate tumor alignment is crucial for a safe and successful treatment. C-RAD positioning products are supporting this process and are fully integrated in the clinical workflow. Over the past years, C-RAD has been growing significantly and generated last year SEK 200 million in revenue at an operating margin of around 8%. We are reporting yet another successful quarter, featured by growing order intake of 8% in constant currencies and a solid revenue growth of 25%. The order backlog continues to grow as well. Approximately half of the order backlog is related to service contracts.
We are closing the third quarter with an operating profit of SEK 8.8 million or 14%. C-RAD is well on its way to make surface tracking standard of care. Let's take a closer look at our sales performance. This slide is showing the order intake for the third quarter. The left chart presents the results for the third quarter, whereas the right chart shows the period Q1 to Q3. EMEA accounts for close to 50% of the total order intake in Q3. After a pretty flat development in the first half of 2021, we succeeded to grow orders more than 20% in the region in Q3. After an exceptional strong quarter 2020 in the APAC region, we see now a decline of 46%. This is a result of primarily two factors.
One, last year, C-RAD received a very large order from our distributor in Australia. This order related to a governmental tender in the state New South Wales. Second, we see that especially in the APAC region, the pandemic is still having an impact. Pandemic control in some countries has not as well progressed as in other markets, and as a consequence, budgets have been reallocated to cover the cost of the pandemic. Of course, impossible for us to predict how this will play out. However, we see that there is a huge unmet demand for sophisticated cancer care worldwide, but also and especially in the APAC region. The growth journey in the Americas continues. Order intake went up by 86%, driven by a well progressing cooperation with Elekta in North America and a market in need of sophisticated patient positioning systems to adopt high-precision radiation therapy.
Looking at the order growth for the first nine months, order intake grew with 16% or 19% in constant currencies, driven by a very strong performance in North America. Our business reflected in revenue, but also and especially in order intake, is subject to a very distinct seasonality pattern, whereas usually the second half of the year is significantly stronger than the first two quarters. This is since many customers are hospitals and clinics which have an annual budget cycle aligned to the calendar year. The left chart is showing revenue by region for Q3, and the right chart displays the year-to-date perspective by region. The order conversion period is approximately eight months, meaning the time between us receiving an order and delivery is eight months. Total revenue in Americas grew with 168% in the quarter, whereas APAC is delivering a stable revenue.
Despite a forward-looking approach in securing the supply chain, C-RAD was somewhat affected by late incoming components during the last quarter, resulting in delivery limitations, mainly for the HIT Laser products, affecting the APAC region adversely. Europe showed consistent growth both in terms of order intake and revenue compared to the same period last year. Revenue over the first three quarters grew with 25% or 31% in constant currencies. This slide displays order intake and revenue by product category for the first nine months this year. We succeeded to grow all our product categories in both order intake and revenue during this year. Again, very encouraging and underlining that C-RAD is well-positioned with its product portfolio. Our positioning products and the Life Cycle Business continues to show notable growth.
Revenue in our service business, or as we call it, Life Cycle Business, grew this impressive 49% over the third quarter last year and is reflecting now 14% of the total revenue in the quarter, versus 11% in the previous year. Also, a very encouraging development. Let's take a closer look at the development of our service revenue as a proportion of C-RAD's total revenue. Over the last years, it has grown quite impressively from approximately 4% to close to 14% already in this year. For us, the service business is already now what will be even more important moving forward as our installed base is growing. The service contracts are usually long-term commitments both from the customers and from C-RAD to minimize downtime and to keep the systems up to date with the latest software.
C-RAD is actively working to optimize the customer experience as well as further improve profitability. The opportunities through digital services will play an even more important role moving forward. Looking at radiation therapy, clinical measures taken during the pandemic have certainly accelerated the implementation of high-precision treatment techniques, so-called stereotactic or hypofractionated treatments. For safe and efficient delivery, customers use surface tracking technology to position and to monitor the patient during treatment. This development makes us confident that the demand of our technology will continue to grow moving forward and will become part of the standard of care for such treatments, meaning that the majority of the LINAC, LINACs or linear accelerators by default will be equipped with surface tracking. Let me comment on the key event during the period.
C-RAD has signed an agreement with Accuray, another LINAC vendor who decided to develop interfacing to our surface tracking solution called Catalyst+. We see this step as another confirmation of the journey towards our goal to make surface tracking standard of care in advanced radiation therapy. The integration will support primarily deep inspiration treatments. This technique is frequently used for breast cancer treatments, especially for left-sided breast cancer. We are targeting a release date mid-2022. The solution is based on the C-RAD Catalyst+ HD system, and the development is focused on establishing the required interface as well as modifications to meet the specific needs of this ring gantry-based treatment system. Therewith, C-RAD is the first vendor of surface tracking technology that has interfaces to all major LINAC vendors.
What you see here on this slide is a picture from Lund University where we have installed the first system on such a machine. With that said, I will hand over the microphone to Priscilla.
Thank you for the presentation, Tim. Henrik will now navigate us through the financial review.
Let's see now. Thank you, Tim. Thank you, Priscilla. Now let's continue with a closer look at our financials, starting off with the P&L statement and taking it from the top. As said, revenues grew with 20% in the quarter to SEK 63.2 million. In constant currencies, the growth was 25%. Giving some more details here, the APAC revenue decreased with 3% compared to a very strong period last year when major orders were delivered. This region was also somewhat affected by supply chain issues, mainly related to the HIT Laser, with stalled deliveries as a consequence. Revenue in Americas grew with 168%, which is a result from increased sales and customers now are increasingly willing to take on deliveries of already ordered systems. Revenue in EMEA generated a growth of 13%.
For the total nine-month period, revenue increased with 25% to SEK 183.7 million, or 31% in constant currencies. The gross margin came in at 64% for the quarter, and I will comment further on this on the next slide. External expenses for the quarter amounted to SEK 12.4 million compared to SEK 10.5 million last year, and for the nine-month period, SEK 38 million compared to SEK 30.2 million last year. Important comment to be made here is that last year's both second and third quarter were significantly impacted by the pandemic, with virtually no travel or physical marketing events taking place, naturally lowering our external expenses.
Personnel expenses for the quarter amounted to SEK 18 million compared to SEK 14.7 million, and for the nine-month period, SEK 51.6 million compared to SEK 49 million. Both in the second and the third quarter last year, we had a pandemic-related governmental support in various regions which naturally reduced personnel expenses. One factor obviously increasing personnel expenses is the number of employees. The average during the quarter this year was 64 compared to 58 last year. We closed the period, i.e., September 30, with a number of employees on board in the group of 65 compared to 56 last year.
All in all, this boils down to an operating income for the quarter amounting to SEK 8.8 million compared to SEK 5.4 million last year, corresponding to a margin close to 14% compared to 10% last year. For the nine-month period, the operating income amounted to just about SEK 21 million compared to SEK 7 million last year, bringing a margin of close to 12% compared to 5% last year. Now, the increase in operating income in absolute numbers and the improved margins is a function of revenue growth with improved gross margin and that we do so with cost in control. Coming back to the gross margin, this slide displays revenue and gross margin over a longer period of time.
As said, the reported gross profit margin for the quarter came in at 64% compared to 60% last year. As shown with an underlying proven margin improvement over time. For the nine-month period, the gross profit margin was 62% compared to 60% last year. Fluctuations in the gross margin can be expected between periods, and it's very much dependent on mainly two factors. One being the product mix and the other one being the use of different sales channel partners. Over time, of course, the service business, as it grows, will have a positive impact on the gross margin. What we saw in this current quarter was a very favorable mix of both sales channels and the product mix, pushing the gross margin to 64%, which is a very high level in historical perspective.
This slide displays revenue in relation to our operating expenses over the last four years. What we saw in this current third quarter was a revenue growth combined with increasing operating profit, both in absolute and relative terms. Now, the key message of this slide is to show that this is a trend that is built up over time, where investments have been made in the organization to support growth, which has of course generated an increase in operating expenses over time. This graph outlines the development of operating expenses and revenue for the last four years, where we can see that these investments are in fact paying off in the sense that the revenue trend line has a steeper upward-leaning curve as compared to operating expenses.
Equally meaning that the average yearly operating expense in relation to sales is going down, ultimately generating what we presented now in the third quarter, which is growth with increased profitability. This slide shows revenue and operating profit over a longer period of time. A couple of takeaways here. One is that, as is quite apparent from this slide, the C-RAD business is fairly volatile between the quarters and also expected to be so going forward, since larger single orders will have an effect in the quarter when they are delivered. However, the trend line clearly shows that C-RAD is on the growth journey, where the company also since mid-2018 has reached a very important milestones in the sense that the company is not only delivering growth, it's also delivering a profitable revenue growth.
This profitability significantly improved by Q3 last year, i.e., the third quarter 2020, and has since then continued for the subsequent four quarters, including the current third quarter 2021. This slide displays a snapshot of our current balance sheet and our cash flow statement as of September, with some brief comments to be made. On the balance sheet side, we have intangible assets, but it's on a relatively low level. We are completely debt-free, and we have a solidity of 77%. The cash flow for the nine-month period is positive, slightly negative in the third quarter due to a vast part of deliveries taking place towards the very end of the quarter, so not yet settled to the bank account.
That said, we end the quarter with SEK 111 million in liquid funds, and on top of that, we have an unused credit facility of SEK 20 million. Last and final, slide on the financial presentation is our current order backlog. We close the quarter with a backlog of SEK 372 million, up 22% from last year. The total order backlog is roughly split half and half, as Tim already commented. Half is product and half is related to Life Cycle Business or service contracts.
With regards to the service contracts, almost SEK 28 million, representing some 15% of the order backlog for Life Cycle Business, will be recognized as revenue with the coming 12-month period, as service contracts are recognized as revenue over the contract period. By that, I'm happy to hand over the microphone to Priscilla again. Thank you.
Thank you, Henrik, for the presentation. Now Tim will lead you through the market and company overview.
Thank you, Henrik, and thank you, Priscilla. Cancer is among the leading causes of death worldwide. Three methods have been established to treat cancer, which is surgery, drug therapy or chemotherapy, and radiation therapy. C-RAD is active in the field of radiation therapy, and our products are used to improve patient safety and increase efficiency during treatment. The demand for our products is driven by the worldwide implementation of high-precision treatment techniques. A very important aspect of assessing the investment case in C-RAD is the question whether or not this technology will become standard of care. From our perspective, there are several indicators that prove the direction. Almost all tenders in the western world for linear accelerators include, in one way or the other, surface tracking or positioning products.
A very good example is a framework tender that has been published by the Spanish government recently with the objective to replace aging LINACs. In this tender request, surface tracking is a mandatory request for the majority of the treatment systems, so very encouraging. The major vendors of linear accelerators, namely Varian, Elekta, and also Accuray, have in different ways started to incorporate positioning products in their offering. The last aspect that we consider to be very important in this context of the question whether or not this is becoming standard of care, the latest technology, which is in radiation therapy, which is proton therapy, simply requires a degree of precision that also requires our positioning products. We believe there are three very different, important aspects to look at when we assess the standard of care.
The other aspect, if we take a bit more of a clinical angle, is the clinical adoption of the technology. If we go back five years or six years to 2015, the focus for the surface tracking technology was really on the treatment of breast cancer patient, accounting for around 20% of the patients that are treated at given treatment centers on any day. If we look at the adoption today, it's more than 70% of the patients that are treated can benefit from this technology at any given treatment centers that is equipped with surface tracking. The clinical adoption has certainly developed from a niche application back in 2015 to a application where the majority of the patients can benefit from. Worldwide, there are around 12,000 LINACs installed.
We believe that the advanced markets, which is North America, East Asia, Western Europe, accounting for around 9,000 linear accelerators, can be equipped with surface tracking technology. If we say it is becoming standard of care, we are looking at around 75% of the addressable market to be equipped ultimately with surface tracking. If we look at the clinical trends, why we see this high adoption, there is a very strong development to adopt this high-precision stereotactic or hypofractionated treatment techniques. The chart on the lower right, part of the slide here shows the development or the expected development. Whereas in 2016, roughly 60% of the patients were treated with so-called conventional treatment techniques. Those treatments are almost entirely replaced by high-precision treatment techniques, SRS, SBRT, hypofractionation.
For these high-precision treatment techniques, surface tracking and possibility to monitor the patient during treatment is required. C-RAD has sold approximately 800 systems worldwide. The annual sales volume of LINACs is approximately 1,300 LINACs. If we keep the current price levels and if the attachment rate follows my assessment, the market potential is approximately SEK 1 billion per year. We believe that C-RAD is able to capture a vast part of the potential. If we would capture half of the market, it would translate into SEK 500 million in revenue. This does not include the service opportunity, and it does not include the growing market for LINACs. As the current gross margin and the current cost structure growing at a lower rate as revenue, we would increase profitability over time.
If we look at the clinical selling points of the product, is this a picture here in installation together with an Elekta treatment system, and this red marked cameras is the C-RAD Catalyst system. The benefits are it's a dose-free system, so causing less side effects compared to other positioning devices. It is non-invasive, translating into an ease of use for the operator. It is markerless, translating directly into patient comfort. Less impact on the daily workflow. We have put a lot of effort in improving the level of integration, and I feel comfortable to claim that C-RAD is one of the best with regards to the integration into the outside world, so translating into usability advantages for the operator again, and high patient compliance.
We are set putting a focus on standardized workflow so that all patients that potentially can benefit from this technology are also able to get a treatment with the use of the surface tracking cameras. If we look at our business model, I mentioned already the focus for us are the advanced radiation therapy clinics. We approach these customers through three different sales channels. Number one, that is our direct sales channel. C-RAD employees are working with the customer and developing the project and ultimately bring the order home. In several markets, we are working with distributors, usually local companies working as an independent reseller. They are working towards the customer and purchasing the equipment from us, putting a margin on top, and selling it to the customer.
The increasingly important channel for us is the partnership with our industrial partners. For example, Elekta falls into this category. We see a huge opportunity to further develop this channel to grow our sales activities essentially worldwide. The core competence within C-RAD is certainly the product, the product development. We do have sales and service competence, marketing, test, and quality, what is very important in our space. What we have entirely outsourced is the manufacturing part. All manufacturing is outsourced to subcontractors. Let's take a close look at the service business, and I mentioned already that it is a very important part of our business already today but will become even more important moving forward.
If we look at the last year, attachment rates in the various regions, in the U.S. we can say that almost all customers have decided already for a service contract. In EMEA, we are at around 60%, but also here a positive development. Also here, the number or the attachment rate is constantly growing. In the APAC region, we see a bit of a diverse picture. Markets like Japan and Australia, where it's quite common for customers to have a service contract, but other markets like China, for example, customers are not so prone to invest in service contracts. We spoke about the growth rate, also this quarter. If we look at the service part and the service contribution to our business, usually we are selling service contracts as an annual fee, as a percentage of the initial sales price.
Depending on the customer's request and requirements, there are different levels. On average, we can say that customers sign up for a commitment three to five years. That depends on the market and the conditions. If we look at our strategy, it is based on three main pillars. We spoke already about the service part. I think from a product perspective, the C-RAD products are well-developed. We have clearly defined the clinical applications. There is clinical research out there which is confirming the benefits of this technology for the intended application. What is very important for us now is to get the message out or to continue to get the message out to the customers, about C-RAD, about the benefits that the C-RAD technology can bring to us, and that is really where we are focusing our activities today and also moving forward.
I would like to close my presentation with a quick summary. C-RAD brings measurable value for the society in the fight against cancer. I mentioned we have a proven and recognized product essentially worldwide. Through the different sales channels, direct sales, distributors, but the increasingly important cooperation with our OEM partners, we have very good access to the market in most of the regions worldwide. I'm coming back to the question about this technology becoming standard of care. We spoke about the indications that we see. There is a huge opportunity and a huge potential out there for us to further grow revenue. Last but not least, C-RAD has a stable financial platform. C-RAD is debt-free with more than SEK 100 million in cash on the bank.
The Q4 report or the year-end report will be published on the 27th of January next year. I want to take also the opportunity to invite you to an investor meeting, which will take place on the 8th of December at ABG. With that I hand the microphone back to Priscilla.
Thank you, Tim. Thank you, Henrik, for the great presentation. Now we will move on to the Q&A session. Just as a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, you have to raise your hand. It's at the bottom panel, and we will open your microphone. We will not answer to any questions in the Q&A box, so please raise your hand. We already have one attendee who raised their hand, so I'll unmute.
Hi. Erik Hultgård here from ABG. First off, gross margin obviously very strong this quarter at 64%. Usually pretty stable around 60%, and you do say that you benefited from good product mix and sales channels. Could you provide any more details on this, on the specifics here, on what was the key drivers within this? Was it mainly sales mix or the channels?
It is really both, as Henrik indicated in his presentation. What, of course, has an impact here is which channel we choose. If it is more on direct sales where we usually have higher margins, versus if there is a distributor or partner in between that usually gets a part of the revenue as commission. That has a very strong impact. I mean, when it comes to the product mix, and here also referring to the service component, I mean, as the service part is growing, where we usually have a higher gross margin in the service products, we have a higher gross margin. That has, of course, a positive impact.
Perhaps one point that we have not really spelled out that much yet, I mean, we have an ongoing activity, of course, to work with our suppliers, to develop a strategic partnership, and that is also partly playing into the positive development that we see reflected in the gross margin, where we are able to keep sales prices pretty stable or in some cases even increase them.
Okay. Thank you. One thing that stands out, I think, was sort of the North American sales, and you highlight Elekta partnership as a strong contributor there. Is this accretive for margins as well? Is this one of the sales channels that are supportive for gross margins?
Usually, price levels in the U.S. are pretty good, and that is due to the fact that the reimbursement situation is, in general, favorable compared to other regions in the world, so this is not margin dilutive if the U.S. business is growing. Moving forward, if we assume that the U.S. business is coming in strong, it would probably have a positive impact.
Okay. Thank you. On the sort of discrepancy between the U.S. and APAC, and I've heard that market conditions are more challenging in APAC, and especially China in this quarter, so that checks out. Is there any difference in how the Elekta partnership is developing between the regions, or is it just the underlying markets?
Well, as a matter of fact, China, or we were not so much affected in China from the situation. It was really primarily the region or the countries outside China that had a bit of a tough time now. I mean, China, of course, the situation is not entirely under control. Well, it's difficult to say if it's under control, but I mean, if we look at the development and the investments into the healthcare system, they have not been affected that much as in other countries in the APAC region.
Okay. No real difference in performance due to the Elekta partnership between regions?
The Elekta partnership had no impact here, yeah.
Okay. Perfect. Service up 49%, which is very good considering the comps you have in 2020, which then had a pretty solid window for hospital access. Now in 2021, is this mainly driven by going more remote for service, or have you in some way been able to find accessibility to be pretty good despite these lockdowns that we had?
I mean, if you refer to the service revenue, I mean, I think what we see overall is that there is a trend essentially globally. There's maybe some exceptions in the APAC region, but there is a trend globally to outsource services to the manufacturers. In some cases, it is, as a matter of fact, it's a mandatory requirement. Like, for example, in Spain, I mean, customers need to have service contracts on medical devices or on certain medical devices in order to operate them. In other regions, it's maybe more because the hospital staff that in the past was available to take care of the services is not part of the hospital team or of the clinical team anymore, and therefore, services are outsourced, instead of conducted by own personnel.
I mean, that is the overall trend that we see. Of course, there's also a component to it that customers are satisfied with our services, that they are confident to outsource the service to C-RAD, and the service team has done a great job to develop the relationship to those customers and develop the service business as well.
Just, specifically on the market dynamics in this quarter, have you seen any negative or, say, headwinds from hospital access, or have you been able to offset any such weakness through going remote instead?
Well, I mean, in general, we are trying to go remote, but I mean, I think you're alluding to the pandemic, and I mean, that at least in North America and to a large extent in Europe doesn't play a role with regards to our ability to service. I mean, we can get access to the hospital if we want or need to. Again, this is more something what is affecting the business in APAC. With that said, there is, of course, an underlying desire from our side, and we are actively driving this to provide our services more and more in a digital form.
Not only, because we don't get access, as I said, I mean, this is not the main issue anymore, but we have learned through the pandemic. We have learned that we can do certain things also remotely or improve our remote experience. There's a benefit for both, right? I mean, both for us as the vendor, but also for the customer, because the response times are, of course, much shorter if we do offer remote services. That is something where we believe we want to put more effort into moving forward because we still see a huge potential, both again, for the customer, but also for C-RAD.
Okay. Thank you. Very good. Then on orders, I mean, looking at other companies exposed to hospital CapEx, we're seeing really strong numbers. For example, GE Healthcare up 33% organically and Accuray up close to 40%. You're obviously facing pretty challenging comps this quarter in order intake. I was still expecting it to be a little better than it actually was. Is there anything holding back order intake this quarter, or is everything going according to plan?
I would say it's going according to plan, but I mean, yeah, I agree. If you look on the total order intake, I mean, it is a moderate growth. But again, I think, I mean, if you look in the different regions, I mean, the U.S. was developing very well. I think the EMEA region also developed very well. I think where we were struggling is maybe the wrong word, but I mean, exposed to less growth or actually a decline was the APAC region. As I mentioned, I mean, there are two reasons for it. One is, the pandemic that still has an effect in that region.
that we had a very large order coming in last year, which of course puts the reference fairly high for this year's third quarter. I mean, that was a positive impact last year, and I mean, that is the volatility that we are exposed to. that is something what we can and need to live with. I think the underlying growth and also the interest and the demand for this technology in the market is unchanged, and from that perspective, we are looking optimistically in the future.
Okay. Thank you. Very good. A last question from me before I jump back into the queue. Q4 is obviously a very important quarter for sort of full-year profits. Any comments on how this first month of Q4 has progressed so far would be very appreciated.
Yeah. No, but I mean, we are not giving an update in the middle of the quarter. I understand the background of the question, but I think you understand that I can't answer to that question.
Okay. Had to try. Thank you very much, guys.
Mm-hmm. Thank you, Erik.
Thank you, Erik. We have the next person, which is Hans. I will allow you to talk.
Okay, Hans? Okay.
Hello? Sorry.
Yeah. Okay. Now we can hear you.
Sorry about that. Hans Bostrom from Trinity Delta. I had a couple of questions, please. You talked about the costs with your suppliers being under review and being a positive impact or having a positive impact on your gross margin. I just want to understand better how you're thinking about this in terms of security of supply. It's obviously critical for a business like yours being so dependent on your suppliers. Are you running still dual component sourcing in all respects, or how do you operate that? Has that changed when you have increased your sort of focus on costs?
Yeah.
Second question would be simply, you mentioned the component sourcing being an issue for your HIT Lasers, which is still pretty small business. Would you be able to quantify how much on group revenue this component shortage might have had in Q3 or indeed on order intake?
Yeah. If you don't mind, I start answering the second question. I mean, I don't have the exact number here now, but I mean, it was a minor part. I think what we mentioned, however, and the reason why we mentioned it, I mean, it is affecting C-RAD also to a certain extent, that I mean, basically all industry, all companies are affected by that situation, and so is C-RAD. However, and now I'm coming to answering or to the answer of your first question. I mean, C-RAD has taken active precautions to secure the supply and the supply chain for components and material. We have taken measures with our contract manufacturers to build up stock levels.
In some cases, we have prolonged the forecasting horizon with the sub-suppliers, so basically made commitments for a longer period of time. I mean, there are different ways to address the challenges. We are actively managing this, and that is also why we so far sailed fairly smooth through the challenges. Again, I mean, the situation is unpredictable for us as well as for other companies, but I'm confident that we have taken measures to, you know, to be prepared in case of shortages.
Are you able to comment on that as to whether you are dependent solely on one supplier in certain critical components, or do you have alternatives in each and every case?
I mean, we are very much focusing on having backup suppliers. This is for the very large majority of the components. In the case, there are also components that are single source, of course, but I think in our industry, which is more important, is even if there are other suppliers, possible suppliers, whenever we change something to the product, that we would go through a validation process before we can release the product. For us, it is very important that we secure the supply chain with the suppliers that we have selected, and we have done a large effort there. We have invested in building up stock levels. We have contracts, long-term contracts with the critical suppliers. We have actively managed the supply chain.
Okay, great. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Thank you, Hans. We have Thierry Cereno, who also has some questions. I will unmute you shortly.
Great. Good morning, Thierry.
Can you hear me?
Yes, we can hear you.
Hi, Thierry. Yeah. Good morning.
Okay. Hi. Good morning. Just a couple of quick ones. On the service, I saw that you have a decline in the service order book, but given that the U.S. is going up but APAC down, but the attachment rate is higher in the U.S. than low in APAC, we should haven't seen a different, you know, the opposite trend. Why is the order book down and the order intake is down in service?
I don't have the exact numbers in front of me now, but I think the order intake has gone up as well from a service perspective. Henrik, can you comment?
For the nine-month period, yes. I would-
The quarter
Okay.
Sorry. I was talking on the third quarter, the order for service was down 17%, I think.
Right. I think as a general remark, I think it is difficult to assess both order intake and revenue on a single quarter basis, 'cause, I mean, single orders are of the magnitude that they certainly have an effect. Last year, for example, we had the Australian order inclusive of service contract that had such an effect. I would rather zoom out and look on the nine-month perspective and the growth that we have in service order in that perspective.
Okay, fine. Just about this big order then, was it delivered or big part was delivered in Q4 last year? I'm just trying to understand, 'cause Q4 was very strong. If that order was also part of that, it's going to be very difficult to beat it, if the trends of sales are going to follow the trend of orders the quarter before.
First of all, I would like to say we are exposed to challenges all the time. In regards to your specific question, when this order was delivered, honestly, I can't answer this right now. It is very likely that a part was delivered already at that time, but if that was the entire order, I really can't comment right now.
Okay. Just more specifically in the U.S., is there any way that, you know, what's your market share of the order intake to basically if you look at the whole market, what share did you take? Or which share are you taking at the moment?
Yeah. I think we are in a very good position in the cooperation with Elekta. I think that has developed very well over time. We you know built up a relationship with the Elekta team, so that in the large majority, it's not 100%, but in a large majority of the Elekta projects, where surface tracking is part of the project, and that it is part of a C-RAD solution. With that said, Varian is the other larger player in North America, and there we are also working of course on those projects with our direct sales force. There it is significantly less as with the Elekta customers.
With Accuray, the fact that you've got now the interface, then does it mean that they will offer your positioning system together with their system, or you will have to market to the client separately?
Well, in the first place, it means that the customer can connect these two devices, which is of course already a big step forward because, I mean, that is kind of the standard that we provide with Elekta and also, actually with Varian, and that is what customers want and need. I mean, always emphasizing the level of integration, how important it is for our customers. As a consequence, in the past, we have almost not sold anything to Accuray or Accuray customers simply because this integration was not there and customers didn't see a user experience that was worth the investment. This is a big step forward that both companies are working together to develop this interface to provide this user experience to the customer.
With regards to the sales channel, I mean, it means that customers that are interested in a solution, if they want to upgrade their Accuray system for deep inspiration breath hold, they can purchase the system either from Accuray or from C-RAD. That is also normal, as it was before. I mean, if the interest is there with the customer, then it is also so that either Accuray or in the past, Elekta and Varian are quoting their system together with our system, and then we are supplying to, in the past, Varian, Elekta, and now also to Accuray. So both.
Thank you.
Great. Thanks, Thierry.
Um-
Feel free to get back to me, because I was not able to answer all your questions, but feel free to send an email and then we are getting back with the answers to those questions.
Okay. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Thank you, Thierry.
We have another hand raised from Anders. Let me allow him to talk.
Great. Good morning, Anders.
Yeah. Good morning. A big congratulations to a great quarter.
Thank you.
Now we can look forward to the Q4.
Do we.
Yeah. Exactly. I just have a quick one that maybe you can comment on, and that is what is the situation with the appeal with the former employee? That looks to be a very never-ending story, but maybe you can handle that now.
Yeah. So I mean, as you correctly said, I mean, the case was won by C-RAD. The other party, however, decided to appeal in July, and this appeal is pending with the court right now. From our perspective, it's very likely that this leave to appeal is granted simply because in the very large majority of the cases, of such cases, leave to appeal is granted. We had similar cases with the same counterparty in the past, and also in those cases, leave to appeal was granted in every case where it was filed. I mean, we are expecting the similar development here. With that said, I mean, we believe that it was a very good verdict.
We believe that the initial court did a good job to assess the situation. Thereby, we are not concerned in the way that this leave to appeal is granted. Now we are waiting basically for a decision from the court and then in the next step the court will reassess all the information that were provided in the first hearing.
If I may add a comment, I mean, obviously, we are not in control of the lead times in the court, obviously. If I were to, I mean, give a qualified estimate, I believe, I mean, hopefully before summer next year, this should be resolved. Again, that is a qualified estimate, and ultimately it's the court that runs the timeline of this.
All right. Okay. Thank you.
Thanks, Anders.
Thank you.
Do we have more questions?
I think that was it. We don't have any more questions.
Great. I would like to thank everyone for taking the time to join our webcast today. If questions should come up later, please feel free to send us an email to the investor email address, and then we are happy to respond to those as well. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Thank you, everyone. Have a nice day. Bye.