Welcome to the CTEK Conference Call Q1 2024. For the first part of the conference call, the participants will be in listen-only mode. During the questions-and-answers session, participants are able to ask questions by dialing star five on their telephone keypad. Now I will hand the conference over to the Interim CEO Henrik Fagrenius and CFO Thom Mathisen. Please go ahead.
Thank you, Operator, and good morning everyone, and welcome to the presentation of CTEK Q1 Interim Report. The presenter today will be, myself, Henrik Fagrenius, and CFO, CFO Thom Mathisen. Let's start. Before we dig into the figures, spend some time with our history. CTEK was founded 25 years ago by the inventor Bengt Wahlqvist. He invented the world's first smart battery charger. Ever since, development has been core for CTEK. All design and development are done in Sweden. We are producing by our production partners in Asia and China, and we have our own personnel in place in China for more than 20 years to secure quality and production. If CTEK is then consisting of two main technologies, the EVSE, which is a charger for electric vehicles, there we have three, different, areas.
One is destination charging, one is mobile charging, and the last one is client-brand charging. Then we have our low-voltage segment, that is 12-24 volt chargers, and we have four different areas, consumer, professional, which is the workshops, client-brand, where we have had among Porsche as a customer since 2003, and we have other numbers, high-end marque, car manufacturers, and then we have integrated solution. So that is the four areas for our low-voltage business. We are going to market with two different divisions. One is the professional division, that is selling to big parking operators, our destination charging, and also selling our client-brand low voltage to the OEMs. In the consumer division, we're selling mainly our low voltage, but also our mobile EVSE, and there we're selling through different channels like retail and e-tail and through importers in some countries.
But let's dig into the numbers for Q1. It was a solid quarter. The net revenue, net sales ended up SEK 201 million. Gross margin ended up 54%, almost 10% higher than comparing quarter. Adjusted EBITDA, SEK 19 million, which is a 9.7%, also up 6.7 percentage points since the comparing quarter. Good stable cash flow of SEK 45 million. The share of EVSE fell to 17%, and our net debt ratio fell to 2.2 times. The key takeaways from the quarter is, of course, continuously good cash flow and increased profitability. We can see that our activities are working. We have a stable cost base. We are improving both gross margin and adjusted EBITDA margin. We have a stable cash flow, and we're working to reduce the net working capital. We have also had a very strong low-voltage sales.
This is the third consecutive quarter where we see a growth in that division. This quarter we grow with 11 percentage points, and we see some positive trends in Sweden and DACH region. What is reducing our net sales is significantly lower EVSE volumes, especially in North America for our customer there. It was a remarkably lower sales. We had also quite a strong comparing quarter to compare with. But we see a positive trend in the overall EVSE sales in the Nordic. And as we mentioned last time, we are now also introducing our new CHARGESTORM® CONNECTED 3 , which will open up more markets for us by the end of the year. So I would say that we have bottomed out the EVSE and see a growing trend in that segment as well. For some more details, I leave the word to you, Thom.
Yeah. So dig a little bit more into the financials. This first quite crowded slide highlights just a few items there. As Henrik mentioned, the decrease in the overall net sales is only related, I would say, to the EVSE and particularly the customer we have in North America. I'll come back to that a little bit later. We have a strong increase in the gross margin, and that is, I would say, a mixed effect from the higher low-voltage sales. So we are 10 percentage points above last year, same quarter. On the adjusted EBITDA, again, the increase there is related both to the higher sales of high-margin products in the LV side, but also to the impact of the lower OpEx of our cost reduction programs from end of 2022 and beginning of 2023. With that, I go to the divisions and the consumer division.
We continue to increase, quarter-over-quarter, the sales to around 10% higher net sales compared to last quarter, same time. Stable margins on good levels. And we also can see that quarter-over-quarter, it's a good positive trend both on margins and volumes. This division is, as you can see from the upper right-hand corner, two-thirds of our company. And as you see, it predominantly low-voltage sales. Almost the full sales are from low voltage. Coming then to the professional division, if we start in the same end, this is then one-third of our company, and it's around 50/50 between EVSE and low-voltage products. Here we can see the decrease quarter-over-quarter with almost 45%, and that is again related to this North American EVSE customer.
On the positive note, you can see from the graph on the lower side of the slide that it's a sharp improvement from quarter four 2023. Still, we are not happy with the margins. We will continue now, foremost looking for higher volumes to come up to profitable levels in the professional division. Finally, on the financial highlights, cash flow and CapEx, as that is really important for us to continue the good cash flow development. We have now operating cash flow positive of SEK 45 million, and after investments, it's still positive with SEK 26 million, which is SEK 50 million more than, SEK 70 million, sorry, more than same quarter last year. This good cash generation has made it possible for us to now also amortize on our loan with SEK 100 million in this quarter, which also will improve our cash flow going forward.
Most importantly, this continued to take down our net debt ratio from 2.7 at the end of 2023 down to 2.2. From the graph on the lower side of the slide, you can see that we have now stabilized our CapEx development on a lower level than we had 2022 and beginning of 2023 as well. So, if it should be 9% or 8% or 10%, you can always debate. We will always have quite high CapEx, investing in new products and improved products, but it should be on the levels as we are right now. With that, I hand over to Henrik again.
Thank you, Thom. Looking then a little bit into the future, as we presented last quarter, we have divided our future journey into three phases, where the first phase is stability. We can now conclude that we have a cost base that is sound, and we are having a positive cash flow. So we are leaving phase I and entering into phase II, where the focus will be on profitability and also profitability through organic growth. So we are putting more efforts into growth, into organic growth, and then we have a phase III that is more accelerated growth with both geographical new geographical areas and also to look into investigate the M&A possibilities. So what are the summary then of Q1? Solid quarter, continuously strong cash flow and increased profitability. We are continuing to reduce our net debt ratio.
We see a continued growth for the third quarter now in low-voltage sales. We see a significantly lower EVSE volumes for our North American customer, but we see positive trends for other EVSE segments in Nordic, and we will also open up new countries. I know there have been a lot of discussion about lower sales of EV vehicles, but there is also a growth in plug-in hybrids. For CTEK as a company, it doesn't really matter if it's the sales of an EV car or if it's a plug-in hybrid. Both need the charging infrastructure. We are leaving phase I and entering in phase II in our journey towards profitable growth. With that, we open up for questions. Please, operator.
If you wish to ask a question, please dial pound key five on your telephone keypad to enter the queue. If you wish to withdraw your question, please dial pound key six on your telephone keypad. The next question comes from Johan Eliasson from Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi, Henrik. Hi, Thom. This is Johan at Kepler Cheuvreux. I have a few questions for you. Talking about the low-voltage business first, how would you say dealer inventories are right now, at the end of the quarter? Are they high, low, or normal for the season?
Hi, Johan. Thank you for your question. We can see that after having very high stock after that pandemic, I now judging that they are more normalized, stock levels at our dealers.
Good. So, no, nothing to worry about when we go into the sort of summer season here in terms of sudden destocking or so.
Not when it comes to stock. No, I don't I don't see that.
Yeah. Good. Just curious a little bit, in the consumer segment, you had very limited sales of EVSE. I guess it's the new NJORD GO product. How is this product now developing when you have the load balancing as well? Are you seeing a positive trend there?
Yeah, we see a positive trend from low numbers, but we see a positive trend. And, personally, I think it's a fantastic product together with the load balancing. And, we are making efforts to sell that even further.
Yeah. And then, you talked about, still on EVSE here, CHARGESTORM® CONNECTED 3 , now with more countries available for you. What countries would that be sort of that you have provided for?
We are first, yeah, we're first introducing it in Sweden as our home market and UK, and then later on also a version for the German market.
Okay. And the current product you have today, I guess, is CHARGESTORM® CONNECTED 2 . Is that sort of today only for Sweden and the U.K., or was Germany already there?
No, it's only for Sweden and limited segments in the U.K.
Okay. Good. And then, just a question while we are on EVSE. You talked about North American customer volumes being down a lot in this quarter, year over year. Is the context sort of still valid? Is it more their rollout of their EV cars, or what's the latest on that this year?
Yep. The contract is still valid. We are still supplying one model for them. But I think it's more about their sellout of EV cars, which you can find quite good figures on their homepage. So it's a slow start. We don't know much more about that development, but we still believe in the long-term trend of electrification. We have a good product for the North American market when it comes to 19.2 kW charging.
Okay. Good. And then I notice you talk about the positive trend for EVSE in the Nordic. I guess that's the old traditional CHARGESTORM® product. But you were a bit more cautious in the Q4 call, because of, you know, the bleak outlook for construction in the Nordic.
Yeah.
Has anything changed here, or?
We see a positive tendency. We see more projects restarting. We see more activity. It's still not huge numbers, but that leads. It's a positive trend. I believe that we have seen the worst behind us.
Okay. Good. And then just finally, a question for Thom maybe. You talked about CapEx, staying at current level. Did you refer to that as percentage of sales or sort of in absolute terms, Swedish krona sort of?
Yeah, more or less both, but maybe we look more for absolute numbers, but it's because that is really the cash impact. And then, we try to balance that in a good level between low voltage and EVSE.
Yeah. Good. And the net debt target you have, can you remind me of where you want to be?
3. 3 is the national target. Obviously, the lower, the more space we have for various things like Capex or, further down the road, other possibilities.
Okay. That was all I had. Thank you very much.
Thank you. Thank you.
The next question comes from Sofia Sörling from Carnegie. Please go ahead.
Hi, Sofia Sörling here from Carnegie. Thank you for taking my call. Hi, Henrik and Thom. Let's see. My first question is about the consumer segment. As you mentioned, you had a really strong sales growth within the low voltage segment, and that also has a positive impact on margin. But would you say that the Q1 margin within this is quite inflated in Q1, or would you say that this is more of a sustainable margin level, within this segment?
Yeah. Good morning, Sofia. Thank you for your question. We are thinking that this, we should be able to hold this level of margin.
Okay. And would you say that it's extra boosted, the sales growth here in Q1 due to the cold weather, or that this is quite unusual growth here due to the cold weather, or yeah, would you say that is more expected?
No, I think it's more expected. We have strengthened the consumer organization, and we are doing more activities. So I would say this is more of an expected growth level.
Okay. Great. And then, if we go to the CC3 product, have you started selling this in Sweden, and can you say something about the demand already for this product and current trading, if you could give some details on how it has been, yeah, how the market viewed this product, basically?
We haven't started yet. It's in pre-production. We will start within short. We have seen great interest from, from our existing customers and new customers for this product. So we are positive going forward.
All right. But in Sweden, you will launch it then in the end of May or in June?
Something like that. Q2 and Q2, I would say.
All right. Yeah. And then I would say I have a question also about the, the EBITDA margin for the professional segment. So you mentioned that it has improved quite quarter by quarter. It has a sharp improvement here, as we can see. But what would you expect, when will this reach break even, and what would you expect be a more normalized EBITDA margin for the professional segment or division? Sorry.
I think what we see now in this quarter is the effect of the changes in organization within last year. So we have reduced the cost base in that division. And now it's more about adding volume into the EVSE. And we are not revealing any goals for EBITDA levels, but it should definitely not be a minus in terms of that margin.
Yes. Okay. Regarding the adjusted cost base, it seems now or should we interpret that this is stabilized now and you do not expect to make any further cost-saving implementations at all?
No, we can say that, we think, we have done what we should in the things we launched beginning of 2023. We can see that it stabilized on the good level. So now it's the volumes we are looking for.
Okay. Great. Let's see if I had a final question here. Yeah. And also, within the EVSE market in the Nordics, as you saw some more positive trends, is there any difference between the different countries? And also, if you could give some more details, how do you view competition at this moment? Is it very fierce? Is it price pressure? Yeah. How do you view it?
If we take the Swedish market, which is our biggest market, we see, of course, that there are a decline in new registrations of EV cars, but that is counteracted by a higher or an increase in the registration of plug-in hybrids. So.
Yeah.
If you look at Q1 in Sweden, I think, chargeable personal cars spent 54.6% of the new registration. So it's still a majority of the new cars registered that needs charging infrastructure. If you look at the competition, it is a fierce competition in the home charging segment, but that's not our focus. We are focusing on the destination charging. And there we are dealing with B2B customers that are appreciating our robust solution and our load balancing system. And there is competition everywhere, but I would say that we are keeping up there.
All right. Okay. Thank you. No further questions.
Thank you, Sofia.
The next question comes from Johan Eliasson from Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi again. I just had a minor question regarding this, a minor impairment you had in the quarter or charge you call it. Was that an inventory impairment that impacted cash flow in the quarter, or what was that?
It was rightly you said it was an impairment in the inventory, related to the EVSE business and to be specific for the North American customer.
Okay. That's all. Thank you.
Yeah. Thanks.
As a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please dial pound key 5 on your telephone keypad. There are no more questions at this time, so I hand the conference back to the speakers for any closing comments.
Thank you very much for joining our call. If you have further questions later today or later in the quarter, don't hesitate to reach out. Thank you so much and have a good day.
Thank you.