Good afternoon, everyone, and warm welcome to today's strategy update presentation by Elekta. My name is Peter Nyquist, and I'm Head of Investor Relations at Elekta. With me here in different time zones around the world, I have Jakob, our the CEO, in the studio here in Stockholm. In Crawley, just outside London, we have Christopher Busch, Chief Product and Technology Officer. And in Beijing, China, we have Anming Gong, Head of Region China. And finally, we have our H.ead of North America, Ardie Ermers, speaking from Atlanta, U.S. So today, we will talk about four priorities. We call them must-win battles. The first one, simplify, empower, and speed. That was one we presented actually as we reported our Q2 numbers.
Today, we will go more into how we establish our new operating model and talk about the SEK 500 million in yearly savings that is generating from that new operating model. We will also present for the 3 must-win battle. One is Focused Innovation , the second one is win in the US and expand in China, and the third one is continuous COGS reduction. Today, the presentation will not include any new financials. We will host a Capital Markets Day in Stockholm on June 17, where we have the opportunity to go into the financial plans and present targets in more details. Today's presentation is only about Elekta strategic direction and ongoing transformation. We will not talk about the current trading conditions in quarter three. Then you have to wait until March 5 when we present our Q3 earnings.
So please, when you do your Q&A, or questions, think about that and focus on the topic and the discussion we have today, and not have questions around Q3 and the short-term issues. So if you look at the agenda, we will start with Jakob, who will give an historic view of the market and also of Elekta, and some reflections and challenges going ahead. And then he will present the overall must-win battles, four of them. And then he will actually go into more details when it comes to the simplify, empower, and speed, the first of those. And then we will have Christopher talking about the second one, which is Focused Innovation . And then expand in China and must win in U.S. will then be presented by Anming and Ardie.
And then Jakob will come back and conclude the presentation by talking about continuous cost reductions. After the presentations, there will be time for questions. Again, as I said before, please focus the questions around the topics we have today. So before I start, I want to remind you that some of the information discussed in this call contains forward-looking statements. This can include revenues, operating result, cash flow, product, and product development. Since these assumptions or statements involve assumptions and estimates that are subject to risk and uncertainties, results could differ materially from those set out in this call. Some of these risks you can actually read about in the annual report under the section uncertainty or certainties, risk and uncertainties. By that, I will actually hand over to you, Jakob, to kick off the presentation.
All right. Thanks. Thanks, Peter.
Yeah.
First of all, a warm welcome to all of you. It's great you're listening. I would also say we really appreciate every feedback question we have had. We have had the opportunity to engage with, with many of you, and it actually, it really shapes our thinking as well. At our November call, we said that Elekta, we are not operating at full potential. That still stands. So we needed to transform, that also stands. And then we need to change with a high sense of urgency and high execution pace. The latter, I leave for you to decide whether we are living up to that commitment. But I would say when I look at Elekta, our colleagues, employees, the leadership team, there's really a strong commitment and understanding that to fulfill our mission, with the...
and fighting cancer, we need to change, and I'm really grateful for all the support we are receiving throughout the organization, also from colleagues now leaving Elekta to do other things. But with that, let me get into it. I just want to say that when we look at the radiation therapy market, historically, it has grown at a very respectable CAGR. I would say a bit notch above MedTech average, and it's important to understand when we also look ahead, it's not a zero-sum game where we take a bit from our competitors, and they take a bit from us. With the innovation that is happening within radiation therapy, and it's really coming at quite a fast pace, we see radiation therapy being more and more relevant for treatment.
So, to say, yeah, we have competitors, but we are also having the opportunity to substitute in radiation therapy instead of surgery or other ways of treating. So there is a potential for market expansion. In doing so, there is also we have an aging installed base, so there are replacement opportunities. Obviously, with that, upgrade opportunities for more innovative solutions. So example, I was in Holland a few days ago, and they only install now adaptive solutions into the market. So obviously, that's something that we can offer for. And then we still see many markets being underserved. And Ming will come later on, but when he talks about the systems we have in China, they operate at 22 hours a day, 7 days a week. That's not sustainable.
It's not good for patients, and that's why we need to have more installations. And then we do see, back to innovation, and Christopher will come into it, that there is a potential for getting more accuracy guided by AI imaging solutions. And with better accuracy, you can deliver a higher dose, and with higher dose, you can do more patients on the same system, which with fewer fractions or treatments and better patient outcome. So in many ways, the industry is attractive. Then, at the same time, when we say that we—the market has grown by 6%, and we as Elekta have grown 3%, it's clearly not satisfactory. And we have been... We have chosen to be very open about that we have challenges at Elekta.
I think that's part of the improvement process, to voice that out, very directly, both internally and externally. So we have been losing share over the last decade, really, accelerating the last half decade. We think we know why. And part of the must-win battles are exactly to address that, because, of course, over time, it's not sustainable, to lose market share, particularly when there is systemic demand for having a strong Elekta in the market, providing a strong competitive alternative. No one wants to see the industry monopolized. We also, if you look to the right, have seen in our numbers, that the gross margin has come down. Pre-COVID, it used to be in the mid-forties, you can say.
It came down to the 40s, and then it has been stuck around 38 or 37%, which is low for, for a company that invests 12% in gross R&D spend to, to deliver innovative solutions, to the market. So we know we have a challenge when it comes to, gross margin. If we then go in and, we look at the, why we state that, we are not at, full potential, as a company, then, then I would, before getting there, I start to say that we are, we are well positioned. We are clearly number two in the market we have chosen, to be in.
Let's not forget that we have very strong solutions for brachytherapy and, with our Gamma Knife for neuro, with global market leadership positions and a good margin profile. Then geographically, outside U.S., we'll get back to U.S., Ardie, we have many geographical strongholds, one of them being China, that we will, we will address. The portfolio logic is strong. Christopher will illustrate it, so we don't need to go in really and do hardcore pruning of the product portfolio. We have a direct sales force, so we are really in control of our own commercial execution. Do a bit of distributor sale, but really vast majority is directly from us, and we have built over more than five decades, a very strong brand within our industry. We continue to invest. We have invested a lot in R&D.
When we look ahead, we look at the current level, and maybe we can even prune that a little bit, but we feel that the current spending is more than sufficient to deliver best-in-class competitive solutions to the market. And then we have, if you will, a razor and blade model. So we sell equipment, very sophisticated equipment, and with that comes software upgrade opportunities and not least, service opportunities during the lifespan of the equipment. So a very attractive, inherently attractive, predictable business model. But as we said, we do have challenges evidenced in the financial performance, and we last time stated that we have had a layered organization. I said, "had," because we have addressed it now. So we have moved the organization from nine to six organizational layers.
We have reduced the number of material positions within Elekta dramatically, to have a higher doer-to-manager ratio, if you will. When you lose market share, of course, you have to take a very critical look at how you execute your commercially execute your product portfolio. And so are we. We have done quite some changes. Part of that is the reorg, flattening out, get our leaders closer to the commercial action, decentralized decision-making, and then we'll get back to the U.S., where clearly we are not at full potential, with only a bit more than 20% of our revenue coming from U.S., which as a global med tech company is too low. We have had long innovation cycles. It's complicated what we do, but Christopher will talk to some of the changes.
Dependency on single suppliers, sometimes needed, but it can also be costly if we start to see cost inflation. And then I personally feel, looking at Elekta, we can crank up the cost discipline within the organization, and we are in that process... And lastly, and I think also voiced by many of you on this call, we would like to see a stronger link between reported EBIT and cash flow generation, so less capitalization going forward. So that's where we are. But then, you know, maybe more importantly, what are we gonna do about it? Because I do think we have some exciting years ahead of us.
And we collectively as a team, it was really a long, painful, very, very interesting, 360 forensic exercise we did as a team, and we came up with what we believe are 4 must-win battles that will really move the needle for- on our financial performance, but also from the eyes of our customers, and colleagues. So the first one I'll give color on, simplify and power speed, as you said, Peter, right? And I'll give you some additional details. So where are we in the process? I think we are well on the way in terms of execution. Christopher, you'll talk focused innovation. Quite some changes, actually.
We'll discuss our expand in China and win in the U.S. strategy from Beijing and Atlanta, and then I'll give you an update on continuous cost reduction. You told me I couldn't call it relentless cost.
Yeah.
But that's what we are gonna do, because we need to get those costs down. But a little bit on simplify, empower, and just to tell you, so where are we? Some of you have said, "Oh, it's a cost out." And I started, I said, "No, it's not." What this is about is really resetting Elekta's operating model to increase the velocity throughout the organization, really get us moving faster and make the right decisions. So we are decentralizing to regions. We'll decentralize our ownership of P&L to regions, but we will also decentralize and empower our business lines and functions. So we really take decisions much closer to customers and product ownership.
So what we have solved for is clear accountability, speed, speed, speed, agility, of course, cost discipline, and then, yeah, just get very, very close to our customers. And I think, Christopher, you'll share some very concrete, examples of what that means, in Elekta real life. If we then do a status on where we are, I would say we are on plan. I'm quite happy with where we are. I have to say, we felt good about it when we announced it in November, that we had a firm plan, and nothing deviates from that. So we restate that it will have full runway effect, Q4 of or Q1, next year.
So what we say here is that it will lead to recurring net cost savings of more than SEK 500 million. We are now at a point where we have a good estimate of the restructuring cost between SEK 450 million and SEK 500 million, we expect to incur it this fiscal year. And then in terms of process status, more than 60% of the workforce have been notified and have agreed, and then the remaining part has actually also been notified, but then we are through co-consultation, in particular in UK. So we are very confident that we'll see it through by the end of this fiscal year. And then keep in mind, we're also rebuilding our leadership team. We have new CFO starting first of March.
We'll have new Head of HR. Eventually, we'll also have a COO joining the company. So, a lot of things are changing, but it's moving at the pace we, in fact, hope for. So with that, Christopher, over to you.
Yes. Thank you, Jakob. I will give you a few examples of some of the things that Jakob has already mentioned, into Must-Win Battle 1 . I'll go also a little bit more in detail on what we want—what we mean when we talk about focused innovation, and how we believe we will have a winning portfolio now already, and moving into the future, an even stronger portfolio for our customers. If you move to the next slide. You see, based on where we are, we have a very strong and solid existing portfolio, both from a logic perspective, but also from a value proposition that we offer to our customers.
You see, now from the left, you see our image-guided Gamma Knife for brain surgeries, then you have our image-guided brachytherapy suite that we call Elekta Studio, and then, of course, our two flagship image-guided and adaptive MR and CT Linacs, Unity and Evo respectively. Very important, our under proportionally shown in the real estate of this page, our Elekta ONE workflow solution. This is really important to point out because here we see a significant growth. What we are also, you can read, now, we are, of course, in the past, have been building up products from the ground up, whether that was in Euro, whether it was in the Linacs, or whether it was in software. What we are now doing, you see us increasingly building software based on workflows.
Workflow outcomes, efficiencies, ease of use can have different meanings for our customers, but they are the things that they experience in everyday life, and also how they measure their own performance. How fast is it for to treat a single patient? How easy is it to train a new RTT, and so forth? So while we of course still build our products to some degree bottom-up, we increasingly have a logic that is top-down based on our workflows. So this will also be a competitive differentiator, we feel, in moving forward in the age of increasingly integrated and adaptive radiation therapy treatments, where you specifically need to have deep integration between the devices and the software that together make the real difference in outcomes and efficiency. This will be, I think, to point solution provider, specifically on the software side, a key differentiator.
If you move to the next slide. A very important statement that also Jakob has already made, but here it's a little bit more quantified. We as Elekta, we have traditionally been investing a lot in new innovation, whether it was at the origin of the company with the invention of the Gamma Knife, or when we introduced cone beam image guided CT in the early 2000s, or the introduction of the high fields MR Guided Radiation Therapy with Unity in the late 2010s. Now we do it with major innovations on the software side, Elekta ONE planning. And we are committed to continue to do this at the levels around that you see here, which is over the average in the MedTech industry.
But we believe it is essential because there is a clear need from our customers, either providers and clinicians, but also, of course, our, cancer patients, where the gap between what society needs in efficient cancer treatments with the number of people, of trained clinical staff, to actually provide that and increasingly complex, treatment methodologies, is growing every year, and innovation is one of the key ways to address this gap. So there is a huge desire and need to have high levels of innovation, and we see that the innovation pace in radiation therapy is growing, and it's growing exponentially based on the compute power, the ongoing AI breakthroughs, and the ever-improving imaging capabilities. So the technology enablers are all there. There, then the question comes, what do you invest in? Because you cannot invest in everything and all.
So this is the second bullet point, that we increasingly are spending, where we really address these gaps that I just mentioned between providing care and the need for care, driven by customer workflow requirements, I mentioned it before, and the technology advances are very important as enablers, but the key performance indicators in the end, are increasing patient throughput, elevating treatment outcomes, while keeping patient safety high and even improving, moving forward, forward. And that is really for us. These criteria will determine where we put our talented innovation people and our money are at moving forward. If you go to the next slide. The next slide. This slide is actually addressing must-win battle one, and it's a little bit detailed on the left side, but I will explain the logic here. We want and need to become more efficient as an innovation team.
So what have we done? First of all, we created actually a new function, the Product and Technology Office , that didn't exist before. And what we did then, because the functionalities did, the roles did exist, removed one business layer in the vertical hierarchy of the company and have this new function integrated and report directly to the CEO. One vertical layer less, faster decision-making, and the innovation function is now sitting at the executive table as part of the Executive Committee. So this is a vertical change we made. At the same time, you see on the right side of the chart, our regions, our commercial people here in this call, represented by Anming and Ardie. And in the past, we had a business line, LINAC and software solution team, a layer organizationally between the innovation function and the regions.
There were good reasons to do it like that, but it also meant that the regions talked to innovation and the other way around, a little bit through an intermediate, managing layer, and that has been removed as well. So now there is nothing between the innovation team and the regions, and the regions, of course, act as the voice of the customer inside of Elekta. So this brings us also closer to the customer directly. And lastly, that is, of course, a necessary part of this. By doing so, we also removed managerial layers, teams, leading to a more streamlined and simple organization, and of course, that has also associated cost efficiencies. But driving this was to bring innovation up to the Executive Committee layer, removing one business layer, and bringing it very close to the regions, removing another one.
If you go to the next slide. Yeah, here it is about what is now actually our from and to, and what is the, are the expected outcomes. Traditionally, in Elekta, but also many other MedTech companies, our innovation agenda has been very strongly or has very strongly relied on our engineering team to create new technology options and to, to work on them, and when they were ready, to bring them then to the market, through our businesses. And this, of course, in a, as I mentioned before, high tech, MedTech, radiation therapy industry, this will not go away. But the decision on to how to evolve our portfolio and where to focus our innovation and innovation investments, needs to be much more based on real, what we call customer decision criteria. So what is truly important to our customers?
Where are they willing to spend their money?... and with the customers increasingly, it is not just the clinicians, very important now in the future, but also the payers and the providers who are running operational health systems that need to be profitable at the end of the day. And these different customer segments have also different criteria sets, and these are considerations that you cannot ask a technology team to drive. This must come from the markets and from the business. Second one is that in the past, our portfolio has depended very much on big bet initiatives, which are large, long-term development programs that are betting a lot of our investments for a very long time that we make the right choice.
So that is still something we will do, but very, very selectively, because a unity concept you don't bring out onto the market in small, incremental steps. But for the majority of innovation programs, we are switching over to a strategy of compounding innovation cycles that are much faster. So where a big bet might take 8 years to develop and a very large team, now we are talking about maybe 1-2 years for a device development and maybe less than a year in software, down to a few weeks when we talk about topics like cybersecurity, where you need to immediately respond. And that changes the organizational set up, it changes the processes of how you drive innovation. So this is a fundamental change in our behavior.
This is not only bringing value to the market more predictably and faster, but it provides us also the feedback from our customers much quicker about what works, what has to be improved, and then we can adjust our development and our innovation strategy accordingly. It's also a much closer, faster feedback loop from our customers. The third one is that we do, of course, as was also visible on our overview slide regarding our portfolio, have a proud history of device innovation, and we, as Elekta, are often still perceived to be a device-driven company. Devices, of course, are absolutely necessary if you want to provide treatment that you cannot do in software alone. But we are now in a world increasingly of software-enabled and even software defined treatments and devices or software solutions themselves.
So high quality and fast software innovation is going to be key for us now and increasingly in the future, because this is then in the end, the focus on the workflow, the service, the solutions, and let's not forget life cycle management, because when a customer chooses for Elekta, either in OIS or on the device side, this is a partnership for the next 10-15 years. So we have to keep our customers up to date, up to speed in the age of increasing innovation speed, where the world changes now in 5 years, more than it did change maybe in the past, in 10 or 15 years. So we need to make life cycle management a very key value proposition visible to our customers. And the last point that I want to talk about is the expected outcomes.
Best customer-led innovation, speed, faster cycles, already mentioned. I also indicated that the predictability of our roadmap will increase because we don't have to have these 8-year bets, but we can do it in 4 times 2 kind of cycles, or even faster when we talk about software. Overall, this will lead to an increased R&D efficiency. But most importantly, at the end of the day, it will result in a higher return on investment on our R&D investments. And that, of course, is first, very importantly, a higher important return on investment for Elekta, but also for investors, and most importantly, for our customers. Because every euro, yen, or whatever currency they spend on Elekta is then also an investment in the future of what their equipment and their software will do.
So for them, going with Elekta, knowing that we increase our innovation efficiency, is going to be a very important asset that we have. I know this is still very high level. We will go in more detail in the capital markets day in June, but with that, I want to hand over to Anming, head of our China operations, who, of course, we work very closely together to innovate, also specifically in and with China. Anming.
Thanks, Christopher. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Anming Gong, Head of Region China. It's my pleasure to have a chance to introduce Chinese RT market and the Elekta business operations in China. We started the sales activities in China from 1982. It is almost simultaneously with China's reforms and the opening up to the world. Thanks to Larry, board, and the executive management team, made a wise and visionary decisions. We started to build up facilities in China 25 years ago. Now, we have the most competent sales, marketing, service, R&D, productive, and the training education system in China. We also become the market leader of LINAC, brachy, TPS, Oncology Information Systems, and the LGK. Also become very strong number one, total RT solutions provider in China.
recent years, in order to adapt to the changes in market development, especially the Chinese government healthcare policy changes, we have established a joint venture with China's largest pharmaceutical company, Sinopharm. To further improve our coverage, penetration, and provide financing solutions to lower and the private segment market, we also established a software joint venture in Beijing to further enhance our total solutions provider positions in China. At the end of 2025, we also completed all regulatory clearance to manufacture and the sales of brachy, the gamma knife in Beijing. To secure the market leader position and to continue profit growth in China, we will focus to, we will continue to do the investment in training, education, localized manufacturing, and the supply chain. Work together with our local partners to be more competitive in China. Next slide.
Chinese market is a quite transparent market because it is mandatory for all public institution to go with the international bidding process to purchase over $100,000 medical equipment, and all radiotherapy equipment is managed by license. Also, Chinese market is a very competitive market. It has a very high-end market, similar with Europe, with the US. At the same time, they are also very big emerging market, similar with some other emerging markets. In the past three years, China's RT market has declined very quickly, especially from July 2023. Seven ministries and commissions decided to conduct an anti-corruption review of China's healthcare systems, which had a great impact on the entire market, but the needs of users have not changed.
Starting in May 2025, the market started to recover significantly, and according to the statistics from China Medical Equipment Association, radiotherapy equipment is recovering significantly, faster than imaging and ultra- and ultrasound. At the same time, we also see that the government is actively promote, even request, to establish of oncology departments and purchase radiotherapy equipment in county and the city hospitals. This give us much more opportunities to develop RT segment. Next slide. China revenue in the past, has with Elekta in China, we still maintain a very high market share, but only for Linac, also for brachy, for TPS, for oncology information system. But in the past, in the last 50 years, you can see that in the past two years, just I mentioned that the market decline is over 40%-50%.
But region China revenue had only fallen by 4%-5%, but at the same time, the EBIT keep continue growth. It is still, but we are working very hard, not only for the Linac, also getting very good business for the people to continue double-digit growth for service. And also, in the past 4 years, we also installed 16 units of our MR-Linac. So in general, that, this market still keep continue very big potential for the future. Next slide. To further reinforce Elekta's market position in China, we will focus on several priorities. Number one, deepen localization of Elekta portfolio and the supply chain. Just I mentioned that China is a very mixed market, also very complicated that, so we need to very localize some portfolio to meet the market expectations, to strengthen this in the market.
Number two, strengthen innovation partnership chips across China's RT ecosystem to further reinforce Elekta's market position and drive double-digit service growth. Number three, advance China-focused product innovation to expand into the underserved segments, especially for private segment, county, and the city segment in line with national healthcare investments. So thanks for your time, now I hand over to Ardie, the head of North America. Thanks. Ardie?
Thank you, Anming, and great job. I'm really envious of your market share position, so I look forward to see how we can do the same thing in the United States. Thank you, everybody. My name is Ardie Ermers. I'm the Head of Region Americas, and I'm gonna talk a little bit about how we're gonna address, you know, this market share position of Elekta in the United States. Next slide, please. So if you look at the performance of Elekta over the last five years, like Jakob said, we cannot be happy as Elekta with this performance. Our revenue over the last five years has seen a slight decline, and if you then look at the position of Elekta share across all the other regions, like Jakob said, we cannot be happy about our position.
I've been in med tech almost 30 years, and the U.S. market is the biggest market for med tech, and that's the market where you need to win, where we have good margins and obviously a lot of innovation. As you can see on this slide, you know, we have been underperforming in this specific market. If you analyze why this is, you know, you can actually see the clear focus area that we have been missing. Because if you look at our performance, for instance, in brachy, which is market leading, in Gamma Knife, which is market leading, introduction of MR-Linac with Unity, really driving market acceptance and a good share in OIS.
You know, you see that the real area that needs to be improved is our CT Linac space. And so I'm very happy now that we can obviously announce some big news that you probably have seen in the news is that we have received the clearance for our Evo platform in the United States. So as soon as we got 510(k) clearance, our customers are calling us, where we have been able to showcase Evo already in Europe, where we have seen those market share gains, where we have seen the expansion of margin. We are now happy to say we're gonna start doing this in the United States. Like I said, high interest from our customers because they see that this platform is going to enable them to do the future of radiotherapy.
That opens up not just install base opportunities and upgrade opportunities, but we also see that there's a high interest from our competitive customers. And so we already can celebrate some customers that are willing to switch to the Evo platform, because they see that the market leading adaptive therapies that Elekta showcases with Evo and also with Unity, can now be applied in the United States, which is a very highly competitive marketplace. So we are in the process right now to upgrade our reference sites so that we can take our customers to showcase this in the United States, instead of having to fly them over to Europe, and showcasing how we can do this, you know, based on US workflows.
We are currently already working with our manufacturing and get those products produced so that we can start the installations in Q4 and already see a revenue impact based on EVO installations. You can imagine, you know, the U.S. team is very happy now to go to market and be able to sell the new EVO platform. What is the opportunity for us? I just alluded to the fact that we have a big install base, and that big install base is looking for a replacement. If you look at the average years of Linacs in the U.S.A., you see that the average age is between, you know, 12-14 years. That means that we have a great opportunity to go to those customers and start replacing those older Linacs with the EVO platform.
Now, why are they interested? They're interested because with this platform, you can start doing hypofractionation. And in this marketplace, where we see aging population and a bigger incidence of cancer, they are looking for better ways to treat. And we know with adaptive therapy, you can unlock hypofractionation with more accuracy and better patient outcomes. And those workflows, you know, are something that can be combined with our Elekta ONE platform. So the combination that Christopher talked about by combining the device with an integrated software suite is really what makes EVO shine. We believe that, you know, this is gonna have a big impact for our patients, but also from a competitive standpoint for our customers. And last but not least, you know, the focus on bundled payments in the US will remain.
The pay per fraction model is starting to change, but we're already happy to report that there are very successful ways to treat and to also bill for SBRT treatments. We believe that the combination of good technology, good clinical outcomes, and obviously the financial impact is gonna create a winning success formula for us to turn this market share position around in the United States. We have a competitive portfolio. Like I said, let's not forget that this is not just about EVO. I mean, while we are very happy about EVO being cleared, where we can showcase these proof points, like we are showcasing in Europe, where you can do online and adaptive treatments in a very fast and efficient way. We are paving the way with our technologies in this space.
For those of our customers that are now used to using our Unity for MR -Linac, they're showcasing why adaptive therapy is so important. And what we have learned in that platform, we are now translating into our CT Linac platform, which makes, you know, this really a leading platform for the future. Like I said, while rocker is still in motion, we already see that customers are doing a great job with SBRT treatments, and the financial incentive system is in place. So we have customers that are able to make actually some good money by applying these capabilities. We are market leading in brachy and neuro, and we're going to continue to be market leading in brachy and neuro.
The new innovations that we showcase on our Esprit platform, with our Flexitron platform and the new applicators, is showing that, you know, by keep innovating in this space, you also can keep a market leading position. And last but not least, like Christopher explained, you know, Elekta ONE is crucial to integrate all these workflows into the department, make it easy to use, and make sure that, you know, the best treatment can be selected for the patient based on, the perfect therapy that needs to be matched. So when you add this all up, you can sense my excitement, that we are now starting to really turn the corner in the United States. So to summarize. Next slide, please. We are going to attack this must-win battle with full force. We're energetic about it.
We now have wind in our back, with the approval of EVO, and we believe that over the next coming months, you'll see more and more news about our installations and the excitement that our U.S. customers have for the EVO platform. So with that, I hand it back over to you, Jakob. Thank you so much.
... Charlie, thanks, Anming. Thanks, Christopher. So, so just to supplement an innovative product portfolio with commercial execution, you just got it demonstrated from China, US. Clearly, we also need to be able to offer our customers a cost-competitive solution, and that really rests from by having a cost structure internally, so we can pass that benefit on to our customers. If you look to the left... as I said in the beginning, we have seen our gross margin decline, and it's not linked to pricing, it's really linked to higher bill of material cost, higher service cost.
The way you should think about Elekta is that roughly two-thirds of our cost of goods sold, be that 60% in totality of revenue, two-thirds of that, i.e., 40%, relates to components we source in, and then the remaining one-third relates to manufacturing, logistics, installation, and not least service. Keep in mind, we are actually asset light company, so we have a assembly, really more than manufacturing in UK, in China, and in Holland. Holland for our brachy business. And we are now committed to have a, yeah, I would say, a continuous strong focus on sourcing at lower cost our bill of material, but also introduce excellence into how we manufacture.
Probably not that much potential, but certainly a lot of potential into how we install logistics, and not least, service our very large install base. So we will, as a company, do a structural change. We are lifting in the LSS operation into the Executive Committee of Elekta, really to ensure that at the Executive Committee level, we have an equal partner to you, Christofer, and to the commercial, who will safeguard the cost on, and safeguard the quality of our products. And we're in the process of looking for another high caliber executive to join the Elekta journey.
So the way I would like you to think through what our mindset is that we will, over time, transition from a single source supplier dependency to either deliberate low-cost alternatives, but with long-term contract duration or dual source to ensure that our suppliers, like we are exposed to competition, they will be exposed to competition. We, as part of our reorg, we are moving from centralized operation to decentralized ownership of the installation and service of our business with our five regions. And then lastly, we are rolling out actually quite exciting AI tools to our more than 1,500 field service engineers to ensure they have knowledge at a fingertip, and we can move more into the preventive, predictive maintenance, and less reactive.
So what I would like you to take away is that there's more to be done at Elekta in addressing our cost of goods sold. We just got started, but we can see a lot of potential. So I think, Peter, I'll close here, if okay?
Yep, sure. That's fine.
Just reiterate, we most certainly believe, and I think data supports this, radiation therapy is a niche, large niche, very attractive market. We have identified four must-win battles for Elekta, that is now on the way of execution. It also means that a lot of things within the company, we are saying to our colleagues, "Don't do it." Here we have really the transformation focus. We have a new leadership team in place. We have many great leaders already, but there's been a lot of change. I have announced some of them also a few months ago. So we have a team in place during our first half this calendar year. We will have our new operating model established by the end of our Q4, i.e., end of April.
And then we have our new ways of working built into both our budgets, our incentives with certain guardrails to the organization, so we are good to go. I mean, that's really the things should be done this fiscal year, and then we are ready for next fiscal year. We are excited about that.
Yes. And that sort of concludes then later on with the capital markets day we are planning for in June, where we will have much more financials, and, most but not least, we will also be able to present new financial targets at that point.
I think that's important, right?
Yeah.
That you say, give us a little bit of time.
Yeah.
Right now, we just focus on the execution, but I think it's important. Let's have the-
Mm-hmm
... new members of the leadership team to join.
Mm-hmm.
Give us a better time to really build a financial outlook.
Mm
... for the next couple of years, and make sure it's activity-based-
Mm
... and it has ownership, not only from me, but, but it's really from the wider leadership team, so we feel we can stand by it, and, you know, we support it, and, and we can see a clear direction. So we, yeah, already now, even though it's cold in Stockholm, we look forward to June.
Okay. By that, actually, we can start the Q&A session. And use your raise hand functions, and I will try to distribute the questions here. And after you ask the question, please then take away that function so we can go to the next person asking question. So let's start. And if I was correct, I think the first question here comes from... Let's see here, from Jonathon Unwin at Equity Research. So, Jonathon, please.
Hi. Good afternoon.
Hi.
It's Jonathon Unwin here from Barclays.
Oh, hi. Okay.
Um-
That's... Okay. Hi, John.
Hi. I have two questions, please. The first one is on gross margin. You spoke a lot about potential to reduce the cost of materials. Could you, like, perhaps quantify what impact increased software sales and Elekta ONE could have on the gross margin? Could we realistically see a gross margin above pre-COVID levels if you reduce costs and change the mix? And then my second question is on China. You said you've maintained share in China, but local competition is gaining share. Who do you think they're gaining share from? And do you think that United Imaging or other local competitors can gain share in Europe? That's my questions. Thanks.
I guess, Jakob, you start with the mixed question.
Yeah. Yeah, and I can also take-
Take the China. Yeah.
That's as far as I will go. In terms of, gross margin, as I said, we will have focus on reducing our cost. Clearly, the more software sale that comes at very high gross margin, the more we do, the higher improvement we are gonna see in our gross margin. We don't want to quantify it at this stage. We will come back to that at the Capital Markets Day in terms of what is the realistic ambition. So give us a bit of time, and then we'll get back to you on what we believe is realistic for Elekta. And then on China specifically-
Yeah.
Aming.
Anming, please, comments from your side.
As I mentioned that Chinese market is a very transparent market because it's a busy market, and also they all, LINAC, even the all radiotherapy equipment managed by license. So we... Yes, they, we are very clear market leader. Of course, even though we lost some market share to the local, competitors, and also, as you know, that the everybody can see that now the Chinese government also give more favorable policy to local branded. This also give us some impact, but now we also, in the very high, we still maintain a very high market share. So in general, that we are quite clear, the market leader in the market here.
Exactly. So we are clear market leader. We lost a few percentage points, that could change up or down. As you saw, it's roughly 200 units, so it doesn't take a lot.
Sorry, but we are in the brachy, in the oncology information systems, and also in the gamma knife or Neurology. We also making the big progress, so that's a little bit compensate some market share lost in the Linac. Thanks, again.
Thanks, Anming. Thanks, Jakob. Then we'll move to the next question, and I think that is from Veronika Dubajova from Citi. Hello, Veronika. Can you hear us? I think you're still mute. Now we go. Here we go.
There we go. Hey, hi, good afternoon, and thank you for taking my questions. I will keep it to two, please. Just the first one, and thank you for all the content you've given us. But just in terms of this kind of more faster-paced, incremental innovation, I guess I'm just curious what your views are in terms of the future direction of the industry, and whether, you know, if indeed it is sort of in the, you know, direction of AI and also, you know, imaging, whether you think you have all the skill sets and all the sort of know-how that you need within the business. I'm just thinking, obviously, relative to Varian, that sits part of a much larger imaging complex. So that's kind of the first one.
The second one, I just want to follow up on the sort of comments around Evo that you've made in the U.S. Obviously, you've only been in the market for a couple of weeks, so just curious, you know, to what extent those kind of competitive wins are coming from folks who have been waiting for a product for a long time? Are they coming, you know, from folks who had a very old Siemens machine? Just, you know, if you can sort of help us understand where those kind of hard-to-win conversions have come in such a short time from. Thank you.
Thanks. Thanks, Veronika. We'll start with your first question. Christopher, you can take that one, and then the US question is for you, Ardie. So please, Christopher.
Yes, thank you. So regarding the question of where the industry will go with faster innovation cycle, I think it's inevitable. I said the gap between what is needed in care and what can be provided with the current methodologies is becoming too large to bear for society. So there needs to be an increase in its faster innovation cycle to bring, to close this gap, or at least reduce the speed of how it widens. So that's, I think, is a given. Secondly, as I said, there is the underlying technology revolution, not evolution, that makes these things also possible. So the innovation speed will increase significantly, that's a given. Of course, healthcare systems have to adapt to that. Also, reimbursement has to adapt to that.
We see that what Ardie was talking about in the U.S., so this is still a process where society needs to catch up, I think, with the higher demand and as well, the technology advances. To your point about, does Elekta have the skill sets to address this? Of course, Elekta will never be a company that can do everything and anything, and that probably can, our competitors can also not do, because there will always be new ideas, new things coming up, specifically in these revolutionary times that you don't have in your skill set baked in yet. So what we are doing, and there, I think we are quite nimble as a smaller company compared to a few of our competitors, to have really important partnerships, whether that's with other companies or with also very important with our-
... key opinion leaders in the academia that do have these skill sets, and they do have the hunger to try new things as an exploratory thing before a bigger company like Elekta or others can make a big leap and say, "Now we are betting the future on that." So for us, and Jakob alluded to it, we visited a very important partner of ours this week in the Netherlands, and they are very, very eager to partner up with us, even more so than in the past, to bring their skill sets, but also their innovation hunger to Elekta. And also here, in the end, radiation therapy is a boutique industry compared to some others. So we don't need to invent new AI large language models.
We don't need to invent new, CT or MR-based imaging methodologies. We can leverage what is being invented in other industry, whether it's the car industry, autonomous driving, whether that's in AI, basic LLMs for service, for example, support, or whether it's in imaging in radiology. So I think we have the benefit of a fast follower in the industry, not as a company. We will make choices where we want to be leading, where we are going to be a fast follower. But I'm very confident that with these sets, we are going to be in a good position to compete very efficiently with, our larger competitors.
Thanks, Christopher. And Ardie, on the U.S. question?
Yeah, Veronica, thanks for your question. And I think, you know, the RT industry is actually a pretty tight-knit community on a global basis, and I think customers obviously been following how EVO has been performing in Europe, where we showcase that these online adaptive capabilities are fast and integrated. And I think also based on our leadership on the Unity side, they have been following us closely. But we were not in a position, obviously, to promote and to actively sell EVO until we got FDA clearance. So these customers were basically waiting for us to get FDA clearance. So as soon as we got that, we engaged with them and convert obviously those PLAs, and making sure that we can move forward with EVO orders.
So that's the reason why we saw some pent-up demand that we are now able to convert into EVO orders. Hope that answers your question.
Yeah. Thanks. Anything to add, Jakob or... And Veronika, you're happy?
I guess just I'm kind of curious if you can characterize the types of customers who are interested in EVO. Is this, you know, hospitals with multiple LINACs or that have historically not done hypofractionation, that are moving to hypofractionation? I don't know if there's sort of a common theme that you have this early on, but I'd be curious to see what those look like.
Yeah. So those are customers that are indeed looking at adaptive therapy, Veronica. So they want to do hypofractionation. They want to benefit from this new trend in radiation therapy. So really, their specific ask is, we want to do adaptive treatments.
Thanks, Ardie, and thanks, Christopher. We'll move to the next question. I think that is from Richard Felton at Goldman Sachs, and if you unmute yourself, Richard, you can ask a question.
Great. Thank you very much. Thank you very much for the presentation. Two questions from me, please. Both gonna be on China. So first of all, in terms of market size, the slide that you showed had between 310 and 340 units per year in 2021 and 2022. Do you expect the market to go back to that size? And if so, over what time frame? Then the second question, sorry if I misheard, but I think you did reference a few points of market share losses, specifically in LINACs in China. Given that you are framing China as a must-win market, what are you doing as an organization to address those market share challenges, now that United Imaging is in the market? Thank you.
If we start with you, Anming, on these two questions, did you hear them?
Yeah. Thanks. Thank you. Yeah, it's really good questions. Yes, before the anti-corruption, in China, every year, the units is going to over 340 units. Yeah, just I mentioned that this is very transparent market. Yes, absolutely, and also from last year, in the middle of 2025, the market is very quickly recovery. And also, I think in this calendar year, they should be going 260-280. It's very possible, and, I think we still need another 2-3 years to come back to the 340.
Because you know that the Chinese government now do a lot of motivation and a lot of investment, try to promote, even request the county or city level, they must have their oncology department. It means that if they want to promote to the Class 3 , they must get the oncology department and LINAC systems. So but at the same time, in China, we also face some challenge about the professional bodies. So this will come back slowly, step by step. And also, in Chinese government, the Chinese market, more radiotherapy equipments managed by license. For the Unity, they classified by the central government. For other equipments, licensed by the local government. So in general, that absolutely, they are step by step to recovery to over 300 units. About your, you mentioned about the competition.
Yes, United Imaging is only one of the local supplier in China. For the LINAC, it's over 15 local suppliers. So you have the imaging? Yes, they are, because they are successful in the imaging diagnosis, even in the ultrasound. So they got good branding, they're more competitive, and they got a very good supporting from government side, so they gaining some market share. But in general that, if you look at their performance outcomes, clinical that, absolutely we are very strong in the market as a clear, very clear market leaders. At the same time, we also maintain a very good market share for the brachy, for TPS, for the oncology information systems. Also, you know that in China, the proton is very active, so we more than half we got the oncology information from Elekta.
So we also have a very big installation base, so we can continue to do more of that. At the same time, from this fiscal year, from this calendar year, the government adjustment, the reimbursement, but they just go down for the routine operation treatment, but they give increase the reimbursement for the SRS, SBRT, even adaptive. So in general that, for this market, absolutely motivates the high technology, high performance system. Elekta, in this part, is quite strong. Thanks.
Thanks, Anming. Thanks, Richard, for those questions. We'll move to the next question, which I think is from Erik Cassel at Danske Bank. Hi, Erik, and you-
Hello, everyone. Hi, good afternoon.
Hi, Erik.
First, I have a question for Ardie. When it comes to gaining market share in the U.S., I guess for it to be meaningful, you'd need to sort of convert customers from, I guess, mainly using Eclipse and Aria to, to sell Evo to those sort of customers, since you're sort of ring-fencing the online adaptive. My best guess would be that you have sort of a smaller market share in software than you do in hardware when it comes to U.S., at least for customers using it as main sort of TPS. So could you talk about how you're planning to win customers over on the software side and get them to use your TPS systems more? Because that seems to be fairly sticky and also sort of a leading indicator for where hardware market share is heading.
Ardie?
Yes, thank you for your question. Yeah, I think we are in a very interesting phase, if you look at the ecosystem to do adaptive treatments. And so when we launched Elekta ONE Planning, we basically made a choice, to go with a market-leading contouring company called MIM, which is, in this case, really what's driving a lot of the preference of the physicians. And we tied into that, you know, a very good and very fast dose planning engine. So the combination of those two together and then putting that into the, let's say, ecosystem of adaptive planning, we actually see that customers, while they're still using, for offline their their main TPS, they're starting to move into this Elekta ONE Planning environment.
For them, I think, the key is that they can do fast, reliable, and accurate treatments. And so what we're seeing, the same thing as with Unity, where we have built this integrated solution, including Monaco, we see that customers are starting to use that in a integrated fashion. So how do you win market share in that case? You know, we are starting to see transition for people to say, "Hey, we want to do this treatment, and we're not just focused on the individual boxes." And so Elekta ONE Planning is the answer to this puzzle, but also integrating that within the OIS.
And we see that our footprint in OIS is still very strong, but, you know, the combination of the device, in this case, the treatment planning and the OIS, those three pieces together, that's what's driving that acceptance. And so I think what you'll start to see is that customers are gonna say, "Yeah, we still have a main treatment planning system like Eclipse, but we are starting to work within this Elekta ONE environment to do adaptive treatments." And that's how we think we can start really penetrating that position.
Thanks, Ardie.
Okay, thank you. Then can I just ask on Europe, can you perhaps comment on how successful you've been on upgrading the sort of loyal customer base that you do have in Europe, from going to a Monaco to using the full Elekta ONE suite? If you can sort of talk about some sort of ratio for the number of centers approached versus the one who decided to go with One.
Yeah, we don't, over and above the guidance we gave here last Q2 in terms of growth in Europe, we don't share more details at this call. But in general, I mean, of course, what we hope for is we see the same uptake in the U.S. as we have seen in Europe on Evo.
Okay.
Thanks, Erik.
Thank you.
We'll move to the next question, and that's from Sten Gustafsson at ABG. So hi, Sten. Are you on mute?
Here we go.
Oh, here we go.
Thank you very much for taking my question. So, I was wondering if you could share with us your installed base over, say, HD, in particular in the US. But it would also be interesting to hear, for example, in China, how many systems you have today and, preferably also the age of the fleet. That would be very helpful.
Oh, yeah, Sten, I fully understand, but I wouldn't want us to share our details on our IP in US or China. I don't think that would be very smart from a competitive point of view. But of course, I think Ardie showed the overall age profile of the market in US. Of course, we have it fully mapped as well in China, but I hope you understand that it's not something we want to share, because we may also have competitors listening in.
I understand. I just thought it was worth asking the question.
Yeah, but it's also a great question.
Well, I can add maybe a little bit of color here, Jakob, which I think is important to know, is that we also create upgrade opportunities, right? It's not just all replacements. For the younger fleet, we can also upgrade them to EVO capabilities. So it really is a, it's a double whammy. Yeah, it's not just, you know, upgrading, you know, to new systems, but we also have the capability to upgrade our existing systems. So that's exciting opportunity.
This is also the very same with China. I just mentioned that the Chinese government just adjust the replacement. The, the, they will be floating operation treatment to lower down the replacement, but they increase IGRT, VMAT, SBRT adapting. So, but in China, we more than half, even maybe one third, we still doing some routine operations. This time for them to upgrade, to meet the market requirements and also to increase their income, the revenue of the treatment. So it's very interesting topic. We also, tomorrow, we have a user meeting. This is a very important topic with the customers. So the more and more customers approach us, try to ask us to do the upgrading with their systems.
Mm-hmm.
Yes. Yeah.
Thanks for, for enlightening us there, Ardie and, Anming. Sten, thank you for those questions. If you don't have any further questions, we'll move to the next one, which I think is from, Kristofer Liljeberg at the DNB Carnegie. Hi, Kristofer .
Yeah. Hi, two questions, one on U.S. and one on China. If I take U.S. first, given that the U.S. approval and launch was so much delayed and the pent-up demand you highlighted today, how soon do you think we could expect to see a ramp up in meaningful order growth in the U.S.?
Yeah. Thank you, Kristofer . And, yeah, like I said, it's, you know, we have not been sitting still and waiting until EVO approval happened. We obviously have been working with our customers and educating them about what the capabilities are once we get FDA clearance. And so I think you'll start to see that that is now starting to happen already here in Q3. We already seen some some orders coming in, and that will continue, I think, into Q4. And then as far as revenue goes, you know, first, you obviously need to do bunker preparation. You need to make sure that the customer is ready to receive and obviously manufacturing the equipment. So that's a little bit more lagging, but the excitement is there and the funnel is growing.
Great. Thank you. And then on China, the pickup presented here for China LINAC sales, in 2026, how certain could we be about this really happening? And do you expect to take your 40-45% share of these LINACs? Thank you.
Thanks. Very big challenge question. Yes, I'm sure that the market will, in the two or three years, absolutely come to the peak. There's no doubt. If you look at that from last, not in the middle of last year, is, they are recovering significantly. Secondly, the more the government, more and more investment, even this, in the beginning of this year, the government emphasized that they will continue to invest in healthcare. For Elekta, yes, we are face more and more challenge. I just mentioned that in China is a very unique market. In the other countries, maybe only three or four competitors, but for us, maybe more than 16-17, even more will be coming.
So we absolutely face more challenge, but we are very confident because now only one company, Elekta, we provide the total solutions. That's not only for the LINAC, also brachy, TPS, oncology information systems, Unity, Gamma Knife. So for the hand, we are dominant in the market. Of course, we got some pressure challenge. It's not about the clinical outcomes. More pressure is from the government, some federal policy, policy to motivate some customers, especially public, to purchase local brand. But now we get more and more localization in China. Even, just I mentioned that by the end of 2025, we also got our regulatory clearance for the brachy and Gamma Knife. At the same time, we are working on the Unity to be into the local regulatory clearance, try to meet the government policies.
I do believe that we are confident we will continue. We lose some share, but we're still very strong market leaders in the market, in China market here. Thank you.
Thanks, Anming. Anything to add, Jakob, or-
No.
Kristofer ? Thank you for those two questions. We'll move to the next question, which I think is from Johan Unnérus at SB1 Markets. Johan, can you hear me?
... I think you need to unmute.
Yes, yes.
There we go. Now we can hear you.
There we go.
I can hear you.
Great
You can hear me. Excellent. Thank you for taking our questions. Follow up, especially for Ardie on the US side, you have a sizable installed base of LINAC. I don't know if it's approaching 1,000, perhaps. Pre-Evo is obviously a premium system with a premium price, without referring to any potential list price. It will not be for all accounts, but, presumably a sizable proportion. Can you elaborate further on the most likely characteristic on the early interest in Evo on your side? Is it sort of multiple multi-LINAC sites, sites that also operates other premium alternative systems and university sites and the like?
Ardie.
Yeah, thank you for the question. You know, what we're proud of with Evo is that it's a very versatile system. And so what we mean with versatile system is that it can actually treat all kinds of indications, including SRS. So even if you are one LINAC shop, you want to make sure that you can treat all your patients, and so Evo can provide that capability. And then the customer can decide to either buy Evo with Iris, or they can decide to, you know, further on upgrade later on if they really want to go to high-end adaptive treatments. So I think the platform is scalable for U.S. customers. So we don't see a difference between a freestanding clinic that has one LINAC or an academic site that has multiple.
It really depends a little bit on, on, what capabilities they want to buy. And then, lastly, I think, you know, Evo is, is, also a, a platform that can be expanded towards the future. So we believe that, it, it addresses most of the market segments. And if you look at price sensitivity, the, the market pricing for U.S. is actually really good. So we are not too worried that we're not gonna be able to serve a certain part of, of, of that, industry.
Of course, you are going to be sensitive to price rebates and so on. It's a premium new system, but you alluded to earlier that there is an option to upgrade existing systems as well in access. Is that a way to sort of be more flexible in on price, perhaps on freestanding that are have some of them have also economic pressure?
Yes, yes, correct. And so that's, I think the nice thing about our strategy is that we just, we don't need to buy a new system to get these capabilities, but we have to be also careful not to just upgrade everything. So we are looking at a certain age of the machine to make sure that we don't upgrade 15-year-old units. So we work with customers to make sure that they can get access to this technology, but it also needs to make sense from an investment standpoint.
Finally, on the art side, you obviously slim costs and take out costs and increase efficacy, but presumably, given the position you are in now, over the last 3, 4 years in the U.S., is it really possible to do this without stepping out the field force and the footprint? Jakob?
Yeah, if it relates to the U.S., Ardie should maybe answer, but I think I can answer on his behalf. It goes across Elekta. We can't save our way to glory, but of course, it helps to be competitive on the cost side. So we have been looking extensively at what is the right market coverage, and then we have really gone through with the lens of making sure we get our leaders and our salespeople very, very close to our customers. And that's why we say this was not a cost-cutting exercise. It was a reset in how we operate, and I think we are pretty happy with where we are now.
Great. Thanks.
Great. Thanks, Johan, for those. We have two more questions in the audience here. We'll take the next one from, I think it's from Kavya Deshpande at UBS. Kavya, can you hear us?
Yes, all good. Yeah, thank you for taking my questions. I just had two on China, please. So the first was, I think your strategy there mentioned deepening localization of your supply chain. I was wondering if it would be possible to elaborate on that, please, because I understand you've already got localized assembly for the majority of your LINACs. So would further localization cover raw materials, and what about software? Would that be in scope as well? And then my second question was, again, on, on China, when you mentioned sort of expanding into different segments where you haven't traditionally played, I think private hospitals were mentioned, for instance. I mean, who are the players that dominate there now?
Does it resemble the broader market, or would you be aiming to take share from sort of the local players in these new segments as you expand into them? Thank you.
Yeah. So let me, I, let me take on supply chain software, and then, Anming, over to you on, on the go-to market. Yeah, we feel there's an untapped potential in really localizing supply chain. I was just there with the team, with you, Anming, a few weeks ago, and clearly, the market in China, and it's so competitive, and we don't always need suppliers around the corner. In U.K., we can absolutely look at leveraging our global footprint and harvest savings. So I think the way you should think about it, that's very much part of our continuous cost reduction drive to really go for both resilient but also low-cost, high-quality suppliers. On the software, we have a big software development team out of Shanghai, and I have to say they are spectacular, phenomenal.
We call it China speed, but they really operate at high pace, as we can see China in general does. Part of our expand China is actually how can we tap into China speed even more? And I would—today we have roughly 700 people in China, would not be surprised if that number is higher in the years to come. And then to you, Anming, on the go-to market.
... Okay, thanks. Thank you for your question. Yes, you are right. We are very strong in the market about the software. Just, I mentioned that three years ago, we established a joint venture with the local company for the software joint venture. So, and also that the, in the top 50 RT centers, more than 80%, we provide oncology information system in China. At the same time, more than 50 proton centers, we provide a total solution to them for the oncology information system. Not only for proton, also you know that this top RT centers, the proton, always the collection with the LINAC.
So this is a very good profile of business, and also, just as you mentioned, we will continue to do this kind of investment, to work together with our partners, to provide more products, not only for top RT centers, also going to the next level. Because in China, we are less of professionals. Also, we also work together with the local companies, try to provide remote diagnosis, remote planning systems to support some private and low-level hospitals to get a high quality control on the planning for the treatment. And also, just as you mentioned, for the private segment, yes, we are very strong in the private segment, even much higher, even dominant for the private segment, for the LINAC.
As you know, the public sometimes gets more influence with the government policy. But for private, they only focus on the performance and the price. But for this part, we also provide a very good training systems, training and education in China. We have the one learning and innovation center in Beijing. 52 weeks, we got more. Every week, we have a training education course and free of charge to all our customers. So and also, we also work together with the top RT centers, universities, to deliver the training education. And also, in general, that this part, we are very famous in China because we do a lot. Not only for the training education, also get more with the Unity for the top RT centers. We provide academic support.
So we have one big teams only focus on advanced training, education, and academic support. So in general, that, Elekta region China, we do a lot of investment, try to give the customer a special hand, top and the private, to let them to get more professionals support. This part absolutely is a, is a big, bottlenecks for the, in China. Yeah. Thanks for your question.
Thanks, Anming, and thanks, Kavya. We'll now move to the last question of this event, and if I'm correct, that should be from Handelsbanken and Ludwig Germunder. Please, Ludwig, you're up for the last question.
Yes, good afternoon, and thank you for taking my questions. I have two quick ones, please. The first one would be on the four must-win battles you presented today. Would you say that you have a new ranking order for the must-win battles, or are they all equally important to you in order to unlock the full potential of Elekta? And the second one is on the US competitive situation. So prior to the FDA clearance for EVO, you told us that your customers were waiting for the EVO approval and stayed loyal to you, and now Varian has been teasing us that they are close to launching their next-gen LINAC as well. Have you got any feedback from current Varian users that they want to stay loyal to Varian and wait for that next-gen LINAC?
If so, to what extent have you got that feedback from the customers? Thank you.
If we start with Jakob for the first one and then move to Ardie.
If you think about it, to win in both China and U.S., now we have to, U.S., we need to come back to what I think, what should be our fair market share. Clearly, our customers wants us to win. We need a strong, focused product portfolio through driven by innovations, clearly, and then we need to be cost competitive so we can compete in the market. So I think I wouldn't want to sit here and rank them, one higher than the other, but there's a reason why there are only four, because we have the bandwidth to execute, all four of them. Then in terms of competition, I mean, Ludwig, great question.
I really have a principle about not commenting specifically on products of competition, and I think we'll stick to that. We know what we need to do. Of course, we know what products they will come with, and then we'll move on and execute on our innovation plans. We invest a lot, as Christopher said, and of course, we feel we have good plans ahead of us. All right.
Great. Thanks. That's it when it comes to question, but before we close this session, a few closing remarks from your side, Jakob.
Yeah. Yeah, almost, how I started, we have potential ahead of us. We know what we need to do. Now, it's just the grind of execution, and then we look forward soon to connect again early March on our Q3 numbers. So thanks for your attention, thanks for your questions.
Thanks.
Thanks for facilitating, Peter.
No, no problem. My pleasure. Thank you-