Financial Statement 2024. During the Q&A session, participants are able to ask questions by dialing #5 on their telephone keypad. Now I will hand the conference over to CEO Jenny Sjödahl and CFO Joakim Laurén. Please go ahead.
Thank you very much, and welcome everyone to Ependion's Q4 and full-year report. So, with me today, as usual, I have Joakim Laurén. We are both here in Malmö today. And the agenda is the same as usual. I will start by giving a general update, then Joakim will dig a little bit deeper into the financial performance, and then I will conclude with concluding notes and outlook. And after that, we will open up for Q&A. So, let's get started. If we look at the fourth quarter, it came in above our expectations, with an order intake that was 20% higher than the same period last year. And the increase was actually seen across both business entities and actually also across all our focus segments.
And also, the sales number came in at a stable level, but sequentially a step up compared to the rather weak Q3, which was driven then mainly by Westermo. It's good to see that the strong gross margin development that we have seen in Westermo for some time actually remains. And I do see that this gross margin level is sustainable over time. And it's due to the changes that we have done in the supply chain in terms of improving efficiency, streamlining operations, working on material costs, and so on. All that has, and also the pricing factor, of course, all that has led to this increase in gross margin in Westermo. In Beijer Electronics, the quarter was affected by an unfavorable mix with a larger portion of display solutions sales. And we have been talking about that throughout 2024.
It is a conscious decision to actually phase out these low-margin products. But of course, as we ship them out in the quarter, it does have an unfavorable effect on Beijer Electronics' margins. We continue to keep a very tight control over our costs, but at the same time, we are moving ahead with forward-looking investments in line with our strategies. So that's good. We did see an improved profitability in the quarter, where Westermo actually posts an all-time high level in terms of EBIT percentage, while Beijer Electronics came in at a similar level as last year, actually quite low level, explained by what I just mentioned, and the full-year EBIT for 2024 ended up at 11.3%, concluding a rather challenging year actually for the group. Positive was that we see a continued good free cash flow in the quarter, SEK 80 million.
If we look at the whole year, we ended up at a record high level of SEK 187 million. Looking a little bit deeper into the two business entities, I mentioned the order step up, in particular in Westermo. It's good to see that after five quarters of rather sluggish order intake, we did see a pretty big step up actually in the fourth quarter. It was driven by all focus segments, but in particular, the train segment actually doubled in terms of order intake compared to the low level that we saw in the third quarter of 2024. We did receive sizable orders from several of our key train customers. Sales also increased sequentially quite significantly with 29% and ended quite close actually to last year.
The most important activity that we are doing right now in terms of forward-looking investments, as you are well aware, is the establishment of Westermo India. That is progressing absolutely on plan. I'm very pleased to see that. The organization is set up, the production equipment is in place and installed. And we have a strong team in place there that are already starting to interact with customers locally in India. So that's a very positive development. I mentioned the strong profitability in Westermo at an all-time high EBIT, which was driven by the good gross margin level that I mentioned before in combination with, of course, the tight cost control. And I think that this actually shows the inherent earnings capacity that we see in Westermo. With those gross margin levels and a decent volume, we do get really nice EBIT levels.
In Beijer Electronics, we also see the orders pick up in Q4 compared to the last two quarters, and they also grew 8% compared to the same quarter last year. We're pleased to see that the marine segment continues to develop well. That is really mainly actually the key focus, I would say, of Beijer Electronics, even though we are also focusing on the manufacturing and the rugged environment segments as well. But also the manufacturing side picked up in the quarter compared to the rather flat development that we had seen earlier in the year. Sales for Beijer Electronics at quite stable levels, but I mentioned the unfavorable mix in the quarter. This is actually almost the last portion of display solutions volumes.
Joakim will come back to that a little bit later, but that had an effect in the quarter, which actually weighed down then on the EBIT level, which was at a similar level as last year. But again, we know why, and it's the result also of conscious decisions that we have taken in the business entity. All right, so if we look at this then in a graphical view, we can see that there is a bounce back, so to say, both in terms of order intake and sales. On the order intake side, you can see there how this quarter actually was stronger than the last five quarters, not quite as strong as the high levels that we had back in 2023, where we had very, very high order intake from our main train customer. So overall, a very strong quarter, 20% up versus last year.
Sales at a similar level compared to last year, as you can see here, but a big step up from quarter three of 2024. There were no translation effects, currency effects on the volumes, and the backlog is still at a healthy SEK 1 billion. So with that, I will hand over to you, Joakim.
Thank you very much, Jenny. I will take you through more of the detailed financials. I will start with the Ependion level, where we then see an increase in the order intake and profitability. Order intake came in the quarter at SEK 572 million, sales at SEK 578 million, and EBIT at 65, giving an EBIT margin of 11.3%. And as Jenny pointed out, the increases in the profitability is very much driven by the gross margin effects, especially then in Westermo. And we want to point out also that there are sequential improvements compared to the last quarters in 2024 as well. Including in the numbers, we do have a negative FX impact compared to last year, and it amounts to minus SEK 4 million in the quarter, mainly then transactional variances. Jenny pointed out the good cash flow. We had plus SEK 80 million in the quarter.
And the main driver, except of course for compared to the profit generation, is the quite significant reductions of the working capital, predominantly the inventory levels, which is something that we have talked about. We have been on a too high level, I would say, but now we came down in a decent way in the quarter. That's good to see. Net income at 35, slight improvement to last year, and the same goes with earnings per share at 122. I also want to point out that we did a small divestment in the quarter. We sold out the partially owned production unit in Taiwan, a small one related to the previous Korenix range. That has then been sold off with a minimal impact on the financials. Let's go to Westermo, where we then see a strong order intake and an all-time high profitability.
We had an order intake of SEK 354 million in the quarter, sales at SEK 347 million, and an EBIT of almost SEK 62, or an EBIT margin of 17.7%. So it's good to see the step up in order intake, as Jenny pointed out. And we can also conclude now that we have a quarter with a book-to-bill ratio above one at 1.00. We talked about the bounce back, and compared to when we went into the quarter, we talked about the relatively low order backlog going in, but we have had really significant book and turn volumes in the quarter giving this effect. And that, of course, is something that we are happy about.
And the 17.7% profitability in the quarter, the all-time high level, as Jenny pointed out, it is the gross margin improvements driven by the operational excellence or efficiency in the organization, the way we do things in the supply chain combined with a very tight cost control. Nice to see. Jenny has already talked about India, and we also want to point out that the minority investment that we did early in the year with Blu Wireless, that is then progressing according to our plans. Then we have Beijer Electronics. Here we note improved order bookings, but an unfavorable mix in the quarter in the sales. So order intake to SEK 19 million, the sales of SEK 232 million, and an EBIT of SEK 19 million or an EBIT percentage of 8.3%.
So if we look at the order bookings and we compare that to last year, it is an improvement and also sequentially. Still, we are reducing our backlog, and that relates to a big portion to the phase out of the products. And I will guide you with the coming slide here on how the phase out products will impact so we all get the numbers right. Sales levels in the quarter are quite stable, similar levels as we've seen now for quite some time. And profitability, as Jenny pointed out, this is due to the high portion of low margin deliveries in the quarter. Some impact also of the fact that we have somewhat higher depreciation levels. We do want to point out that, as we have said for quite some time now, there's a high level of R&D activities ongoing in Beijer Electronics.
It is the new generation of HMIs. We call them the X3 series that there's a lot of activities ongoing. And if you look at the R&D spend, we are on a high level in Beijer Electronics, and that is the reason behind it and also the reason why we see also a relatively high R&D capitalization level. Yes. My final slide is related to bring clarity to all of you when it comes to the phase out in Beijer Electronics. We did inform in the Q1 report in 2024 about the display solutions volumes in Asia. We had SEK 50 million in 2023. We said then that we expected to be around SEK 30 million in 2024, and onwards it will be zero. And those are the numbers also in the actuals.
What we now add on is that we have another part of low margin products that in 2024 were about SEK 70 million. That will be phased out now. We expect that to be around SEK 20 million spilling over, you could say, into this year, 2025. So if you summarize then 2024, it's about SEK 100 million. That will go to SEK 20 million in 2025, and onwards it will be zero. And again, we do this because this is relatively low margin. We believe that we will focus according to our strategies, and this is in the line of the strategies that Kristine and her team has presented earlier. And of course, as we are phasing out volumes in the beginning of 2025 or the first half of 2025, we will of course adjust and align our cost base accordingly.
So this one is to bring clarity, and hopefully this is helping you to understand what's going to happen in Beijer Electronics. With that, I conclude the financials, and over to you, Jenny, to conclude.
Yeah, thank you, Joakim. So as we have seen, the fourth quarter actually marked a shift from the somewhat hesitant pattern that we have seen throughout all of 2024 and actually starting already end of 2023 in terms of customer demand. So that is very positive. We feel that it's still too early to say if it is really a trend shift that we are seeing because external factors, as we all know, remain uncertain. So therefore, our cautious approach to costs remains, and we shall see what happens now in the beginning of 2025. But medium and long term, I am very, very confident about our ability to continue to grow profitably. And we have also done a lot of improvements in the two business entities under the hood throughout 2024 and also earlier in 2023.
So I feel that we have a very strong platform now in the group to actually grow from, so to say. And of course, in 2024, we didn't really move towards our financial targets, actually not at all, you can say. And we are of course not pleased with that, but we definitely have those targets in front of us, and we are relentlessly working towards achieving those financial targets. And just as a reminder, I think most of you are aware already, but our financial targets are that we should grow 10% on average organically, and then acquired growth will be added to that. Our profitability level in the group should be at least 15% on EBIT level, and we should also be a dividend-paying company.
So concluding that and talking a little bit about the outlook, I believe that we as a company are well positioned in attractive markets that are bound to grow in the coming years due to the big megatrends that we are seeing in terms of digitalization, electrification, and so on. So there's no doubt about that. I feel very confident with that. As I mentioned before, in the near term, there is significant uncertainty still, both in a geopolitical and economic sense, but we are actually carefully optimistic about the outlook for the full year 2025. So that concludes our presentation. So now we would like to open up for Q&A.
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 Marcus Almeroud from Carnegie. Please go ahead.
Yeah, hi, Jenny, hi, Joakim. Marcus from Carnegie. Maybe starting out with the demand, and you say that, I mean, you saw very strong order intake, and you saw kind of improvements of demand increasing after hesitation. Can you just talk a little bit more about what kind of conversations you're having with your customers? I understand that you don't want to give an outlook, and there's a lot of uncertainty, but what is your feeling when you talk to them in terms of demand?
Yeah, I can answer that one. Yeah, that is actually the reason why we are saying that we are cautiously optimistic because, of course, there has been a long period now where customers have hesitated, projects have been delayed and postponed, not necessarily canceled, but there has been a delay in the whole chain, so to say. And some customers, to be fair, have also had inventory levels that they have been using, so to say, throughout 2024. I do feel now that the world has not come to a stop. There is still stuff being manufactured, trains are being ordered, and so on and so forth. So I do feel that it is improving a little bit in terms of some projects that had been delayed now restarting again.
Slowly we are seeing a slight improvement, but again, it's too early to say whether it's really across the line and whether it's going to continue that way, but cautiously optimistic in that respect.
If I continue on the same track and talk about the Westermo's, so you talked a little about trains sticking out, and then we know that train has been weak, especially in Q3. Do you think there is an element of pent-up demand here, or is it the same thing that is very uncertain still, or do you feel the hesitation is kind of fading a bit in the train segment in particular?
Yeah, as we have said many times, when it comes to our train customers, the order intake or the orders that they place on us can actually vary quite a lot between quarters. There can be larger orders in some quarters and not in others and so on. So actually, you should not draw too much conclusion depending on just one quarter because that can happen. But in general, our train customers have very strong order backlogs from their customers in turn. And of course, in order to invoice and get their deliveries out, they need to build trains basically. So therefore, there is definitely an underlying demand, and I think that there has been a certain element of inventory depletion at some of our customers also that they have been sitting on larger inventories that actually stemmed from the component crisis.
So yes, I am expecting the demand to slowly but steadily pick up a little bit there at least compared to the low levels that we saw earlier in 2024.
If I continue on the margin side and starting with Beijer to Westermo, which I mean the best margin ever in the segment, you talked a little bit about the drivers and better gross margin, but can you maybe elaborate a little bit more? We've been talking historically a lot about the operating leverage in the business, and there's nothing on that here because you have negative growth still year on year. So can you just talk a little bit more? Is there any mix, anything else that kind of sticks out that can explain the strong margin?
Yeah, in Westermo, it's not so much about mix actually as it is about all the work that has been done in the supply chain to actually increase efficiency and operational excellence. We talked about it quite a lot during the component crisis that our production was running in an extremely inefficient way. The production planning was a mess really because component shortage forced us to actually replan basically every day and then just try to get out as much as we could to our customers. So that was not an efficient way of running our operations. Since then, we have put a very solid plan in place in terms of how our production system should look like going forward, and we have started to implement that plan, and there are several things there. It's about consolidating our footprint, which we are doing now.
We are moving the small production setup in Switzerland to Sweden. We have negotiated component prices with our suppliers, and we have done some redesigns in order to take costs down, but we have also streamlined our personnel, so to say, in the production sites because we are running in a much smoother way thanks to improved processes, improved system support, and so on. So a lot of things have been going on in parallel there in order to reach this higher level. And that is also true. It's true for Westermo here in Sweden, and it's also true for our subsidiaries in Ireland and Germany and Switzerland where we have also been working very diligently with pricing management towards our customers, which has brought up the gross margin also in those units. So it's a number of things that have led to this improvement.
So if I read you right, there's nothing to do with any particular order which was more profitable, anything like that, but it's really under the hood work that has been done. It should hence be more sustainable also going forward at these kind of levels.
Yes, definitely.
Okay, perfect. And then maybe moving on to Beijer Electronics, just curious, we've talked about the specialist solutions before. The other low margin product that has been phased out is SEK 70 million. How have those been distributed throughout the year? Is this most of this at the end of the year and been quite fast, or has it been quite even throughout the year?
The display solutions volume and the other low margin products, which the other low margin products include the non-Asian display solutions volumes, to be clear, and also some IDC kind of products, etc. I would say that that has been relatively well spread over the year, quite a big chunk in Q4. In Q3, however, if you remember what we stated then, there we had a favorable mix, not an unfavorable mix, so it was less of that in Q3, and then as we then stated in the specific slide, the remaining volumes for 2025, that will be in the first and mainly in the first, and that could be a very small portion in the second quarter as well, but it's definitely the first half.
If you would take out these SEK 100 million of unfavorable products that you have been phasing out with lower margins, has the underlying margin excluding that been kind of stable-ish?
I would say in the gross margin on all the other products, I would say has been quite stable, yes.
Okay, perfect. So the next question may be on X3, how the.
Say again.
Sorry.
No, the.
No, no, I interrupted.
We have seen in Beijer Electronics over the year between the various quarters is due to different mix of low-margin and you could say the HMI volumes. And so it's not so much that we have taken huge steps in terms of efficiency or that we have been very much taking steps forward when it comes to price management, etc. We are, of course, doing that on a regular basis. Of course, we are working with supplying components, etc., the procurement side to improve, but the big steps or the big swings have been because of the mix of favorable and unfavorable profitability, you could say, in the deliveries.
Okay, okay, and then finally, maybe a couple of words on how the X3 launch is progressing.
Yeah, I think it's progressing according to plan. The launch is happening in several stages, and the first product that we actually launched in quarter four is the web version of X3, meaning that it's a panel that is made for the web-based HMI, and that is something that has been really lacking in our portfolio. So it was a pretty good thing to actually start with that. But the whole family has been shown at, I think it's 25 exhibitions throughout 2024, even though we hadn't officially launched the product. So a lot of customers have already seen X3, and now in 2025, we are continuing with the stepwise launch of the different versions of X3, and we are, of course, talking to a lot of customers right now about this new generation.
So that's a very positive milestone that this product range is actually now starting to come out.
Okay, perfect. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Marcus.
As a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please dial pound key five on your telephone keypad. The next question comes from Henrik Alveskog from Redeye AB. Please go ahead.
Okay, hello. This is Henrik, and, well, congrats on strong numbers.
Thank you.
You hear me?
Yes.
Yes, we do. Hey, Henrik, thank you.
Okay, hello. Hey, hey, so I have a few odd questions, but let me start with one on the gross margin side, and on a few occasions, you have been generous enough to give us the actual numbers for the two business units. Would you care to do that for the fourth quarter?
We are not on a general basis giving exact numbers, but the reference points that we have given before, and for you who don't remember, we have talked about 50 plus for both business entities. As we have said now, we have seen good step-ups in the gross margins in Westermo. So obviously, it's higher numbers, but you won't get more details than that at the moment, Henrik.
Okay, all right, fair, and then, yes, I'm interested to hear, well, regarding the overall market situation. When it comes to the U.S. market, I saw in the report that you, well, sales increased in the Americas, but for the U.S. market in particular, I'm interested to hear if, well, with the election last fall, I understand that the market was kind of hesitant, and now we have the discussions around tariffs, etc. What do you hear from, well, customers in the U.S. in terms of, well, potentially holding back business decisions?
I think it's a little bit too early to say, actually, but of course, whether you like it or not, there will probably be more investment in North America in the oil and gas industry, which is an industry where Beijer Electronics has several good customers, which probably have been a little bit hesitant to see who was elected president of the United States. So that could, of course, be a positive development. In general, we feel that North America is a growth market for us. I mean, Beijer Electronics have been pretty strong there for a long time, but Westermo's business has not developed as good as I would have wanted it to. So North America is definitely a growth area for us, and it's a big market, and we are relatively small.
So we see growth potential both in the rail industry there, where we have very good customer relationships, but also, of course, on the energy side, where there's a huge investment need in the power grids, for example, in the United States, as it is almost everywhere else, and we have started to gain some traction in that market, so we look at North America in a positive way, I would say, going forward.
Yeah. Okay, and then I was curious about the contract that you received or the order you received from the German company Festo. That was also mentioned on Beijer Electronics' website, and they, well, you wrote that it was a significant contract, so I understand Festo is a new customer, and well, if you could just give some color on why you think this is a significant contract.
First of all, it is definitely a new customer, and it's an example of the new strategy that Beijer has to really go after medium-sized OEM customers in the manufacturing industry. And the other significance of this order is that we actually won it thanks to the WebIQ Smart HMI acquisitions that we have done, because that was a decisive factor for Festo to actually choose Beijer Electronics. So in that respect, it's very much the kind of customers that we want to see more of going forward.
All right. And then just regarding the pruning of the product portfolio in Beijer Electronics, is this going to be a smooth transition, so to speak, or will there potentially be any temporary costs that will be incurred because of this?
In general, you could say that there will be a smooth transition. I mean, this is something that we've planned for over quite some time, and as Jenny said earlier, I want to emphasize it's something that we've decided to do because we think it's the right thing to do, to focus and have a more solid base to grow profitable going forward. So that's the idea. Of course, when we are aligning our cost base, there could always be some cost elements related to that, but it's not significant enough to be material.
Okay, excellent. Thanks. That was all from me.
Thank you, Henrik.
There are no more questions at this time, so I hand the conference back to the speakers for any closing comments.
Yes, we actually do have a written question here from one of the participants in the call. So the question is, "Product development expenditure as percentage of sales continue to increase, can you give us some more insight in what opportunities you are investing in and the top priorities in the R&D pipeline?" So yeah, that is true. Even though we have been focusing a lot on costs during 2024, we have actually more or less protected our R&D organizations because we feel that strategically there is so much important stuff going on there that customers are waiting for, so to say. So that is why the percentage has gone up slightly compared to previous year because our volume has dropped a little bit. It's two things in Beijer Electronics.
The X3 family, as we have been talking about, is absolutely crucial for the entity to get that new family out. So that is leading to a higher than normal R&D spend in Beijer Electronics compared to a more sustainable long-term level. In Westermo, we see a continued high level. However, the R&D activity in Westermo is very tightly connected to customer opportunities and market opportunities. So we feel very confident that every dollar that we are spending in our R&D investment there actually is going to pay off, so to say, in terms of increased growth. So yes, it is a high level. We are expecting it to come down over time, especially in Beijer Electronics, but we feel that this is investment for the future, and it's crucial for us to do that. So I think with that, no more questions written here neither.
So with that, we will conclude the call. Thank you very much, and have a great weekend.
Thank you.