Thank you, Sandra, and good morning, everyone, and welcome to Fingerprint Cards earnings call following the release of our Q1 report this morning. We'll start with a presentation by our CEO, Christian Fredrikson, and then by our CFO, Per Sundkvist. We'll also have a Q&A session. If you're following the conference call on the web, you can post questions throughout the call. For those of you participating in the phone conference, instructions on how to ask questions will be given by the operator before we get into this session. With that, I now hand over to our CEO, Christian Fredrikson.
Yes, thank you. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the call, focusing on Fingerprint's progress and performance in the first quarter of 2022. Our revenues came in at SEK 300 million, which is 15% lower than Q1 last year, and 16% lower than the last quarter. This drop in relation to Q4 has been a normal seasonal effect for us, as well as for many other suppliers and component suppliers in the mobile industry. We did not see the usual seasonal effect in Q1 last year, and that was partially because of the economic recovery in the first quarter that was dominated by the coronavirus pandemic. Nevertheless, this means that we had a bit higher comparative figures versus the corresponding quarter in 2021.
Now, our access to production capacity was adequate during the quarter, but we had a dampening effect on sales as a result of logistics challenges in Asia due to the Omicron-related lockdowns in China towards the end of the quarter. This led to delays in goods transportation during a time when our activity level tends to be high at the end of the quarter, that is. Demand in China for consumer electronics has also been affected by these lockdowns, and it is unclear for how long the restrictions will be in place. However, this is a temporary situation in China, and we foresee a generally positive trend in demand for our biometric solutions, as we have said earlier. Which is reflected in our previously published forecast of between SEK 1.6 billion and SEK 2 billion in revenue for 2022.
The weaker gross margin in the quarter is due to a temporary less favorable product mix as we are going through a shift towards new higher margin products. Our assessment is that the mix will improve steadily during the year, which is also reflected in our previously disclosed profitability forecast for the fourth quarter of 2022 of an EBITDA between 14% to 18%. We continue to make progress in terms of strengthening our market position in mobile as well as in PC, payment, and access areas, in spite of the previously mentioned challenges going on now because of the lockdown in China. Next slide, please. We passed another milestone during the quarter when we announced that 600 mobile phone models with fingerprint sensors have been launched to date.
At the end of 2019, we passed the 400 mark, and the 500 mark was reached at the beginning of last year. We have built a strong market position in the smartphone industry through continuous product innovation. The milestone also reflects the general growth of capacitive fingerprint sensors in mobile telephony. If we look at the first quarter, 69% of announced phones by top 10 Android brands were equipped with a capacitive fingerprint sensor. This figure is 5 percentage points higher than what we saw in 2021 and 7 percentage points higher than in 2020. We are actually seeing an increase in the popularity of the capacitive sensor.
I would attribute this to its reliability, performance, and cost efficiency, combined with continued product innovation, which is so crucial for us as we can see also on the gross margin for the new products. Next slide, please. Fingerprint is a leader in capacitive sensors, and our curved side mounted ultra-thin sensors have really set the new highest standard on the market. At the end of last year, we implemented our first volume deliveries of FPC1552, an upgraded version. In February 2022, we were able to announce that the first smartphone that integrate this new product has been launched, Redmi K50 from Xiaomi. The FPC1552 will be a very important part of our capacitive sensor portfolio in 2022, and we will continue to focus on innovation and product development to defend our strong position. Next slide, please.
As you know, in parallel, we have also been working hard to develop our offering in optical under-display sensors. As you also know, we have an ambition to take a position in this market as well. Clearly, it has taken longer than expected for us to execute on these plans. I am now very pleased that our product has now passed qualification tests at the major Asian smartphone OEM. We expect the first commercial projects this year, which will mark an entry for us into a completely new market segment. We expect the market for under-display fingerprint sensors to continue growing in parallel with capacitive sensors and flatten out at an annual total accessible market of approximately 600 million units in 2026.
Under-display is an attractive new market for us to be in, and it creates new growth opportunities for us also in mobile going forward. Next slide, please. I am very pleased also that Lenovo, the world's largest PC OEM, launched its first two models integrating our biometric solution in the quarter. The fingerprint sensor is integrated in the power button on the ThinkBook 14 and ThinkBook 15 G4 models. Now in April, six additional Lenovo laptop models were launched with our solution. This means that our technology is now integrated into Windows PC computers from Dell, Honor, Huawei, Lenovo, and Xiaomi. The fact that our Match-on-Chip solution was added to Microsoft's approved vendor list for Windows Hello Enhanced Sign-in Security at the beginning of 2022 is important for us.
What this means is that we can now effectively address the entire PC market, both business computers and PC for private use. Match-on-Chip solutions for business computers have a higher average selling price, ASP, and currently account for about half of our addressable market in the PC segment. The proportion of computers equipped with fingerprint sensors continues to increase, and we are continuing to focus on the development of innovative products in this area. Next slide, please. Let me also mention that we continue to see commercial launches of biometric payment cards in the different parts of the world. This week, we announced that Fingerprint is supporting two additional launches in the Middle East and North Africa region. We will update you with details once these launches in Morocco are live.
As I mentioned already at last quarter's results presentation, the latest T-Shape T2 has achieved compliance with Mastercard's updated security requirements. This product will be an important part of the next step in the evolution of biometric payment cards being smaller, faster, and more cost-efficient than its predecessor, while also enhancing our already market-leading convenience and security. This sensor has made it possible to execute biometric authentication entirely within the secure element. Basically, what we have done is to enable full on-card fingerprint authentication without having to add an extra microcontroller. We have achieved this while maintaining biometric performance and actually increasing the level of security. We believe we have the strongest offering on the market, and we are continuing to drive innovation together with the ecosystem partners. Next slide, please.
To summarize, we continue to strengthen our market position despite logistical chain challenges in the China towards the end of the quarter due to the lockdowns. Demand and deal flow is solid for our capacitive sensors, although we have seen a temporary decrease in smartphone sales in China due to the lockdowns. It is unclear for how long these restrictions will be in place. As I have said, this is a temporary situation, and we foresee and see a generally positive trend all across our business in demand for our biometric solutions, which is reflected in our previously communicated SEK 1.6 billion to SEK 2 billion revenue forecast for 2022, and as well as our EBIT forecast for the fourth quarter of 2022.
We celebrated 600 mobile device models launched to date with our technology and saw the first smartphone launch with FPC1552, our latest generation ultra-thin curved sensor. In the PC area, Lenovo, the world's largest PC OEM, has now launched their first eight models integrating our biometric PC solution. We expect good growth in PCs in the quarters and years ahead, and our market position was further enhanced by the fact that our Match-on-Chip biometric PC solution has now been added to Microsoft's approved vendor list for Windows Hello Enhanced Sign-in Security. I realize that's a mouthful. This means that we can now effectively address the entire market, both the enterprise and the consumer segments. Let me also reiterate the wonderful news that our under-display solution has now passed qualification tests at the major Asian OEM, and that we expect the first commercial projects this year.
Finally, we are also continuing to make progress in payments with two additional upcoming commercial launches of biometric payment cards in the Middle East and North Africa region in Morocco using our T-Shape sensor module. During the quarter, as previously announced, our second generation T-Shape achieved compliance with Mastercard's new fingerprint sensor evaluation process. I'm also very pleased with that. Thank you. With that, let me hand over to our CFO, Per Sundkvist.
Okay. Thank you, Christian, and good morning, everyone. Now let's move to the first slide of the financial results section. As previously mentioned by Christian, our revenue declined by 15% in relation to Q1 last year, and by 24% in constant currency terms. Compared to Q4 2021, revenue was down by 16%, which is in line with or actually a bit less than the seasonality effect we usually experience. However, Q1 2021 was unusual in this respect, and that was in the fact that we did not really see the seasonality effect that usually occurs. It was, in other words, stronger last year than expected. The underlying reason can only perhaps be attributed to the global economic recovery in the first quarter after a tough 2020 that was so dominated by the coronavirus pandemic.
The conclusion is tough comparative figures in this quarter, though which might be worth keeping in mind when looking at the long-term revenue trends. The COVID-19 related effects in the world is still present and has created major lockdowns in China at the end of the quarter, which in turn has had a dampening effect on our quarterly sales due to logistic chain challenges. We have been working very hard to secure an enough supply chain capacity, and we have had adequate access to production capacity in the quarter. The problems have emanated and transformed the transportation of goods in a way that was not favorable. That has been affected highly by the restrictions imposed by the lockdowns, which in turn has led to some delays in deliveries.
Demand for our products was healthy in Q1, even as we saw decreasing sales of smartphones in China, which also can be attributed to the effect of the lockdowns. At this time, it is, as mentioned earlier as well, it's very unclear for how long these restrictions will remain in place. In general, we expect a positive trend in the development and the demand for our products this year, which of course, it has been reflected in our previously communicated forecast of SEK 1.6 billion to SEK 2 billion revenue forecast for 2022. The decline in gross margin in the individual quarter is entirely due to a temporary less favorable product mix. We expect sales of higher margin products and product categories to gradually increase during the year. This also is reflected in our previously communicated EBITDA margin forecast for Q4 2022. Next slide, please.
Looking at the long-term 12-month trend, we see this short impact of the factors I just mentioned in the previous slide. However, the long-term trend is still prevailing and developing positively. Again, let us reiterate that we expect both our revenue as well as our gross margins would show a positive trend in the coming quarters, primarily driven by the increased product and product category sales mix improvements within the mobile and PC segments. Next slide, please. Now, going over the operating expenses in Q1, they were SEK 95.9 million to SEK 96.3 million in Q1 last year and SEK 107.5 million last quarter. Development costs of SEK 27 million were capitalized during the quarter, which is to be compared with SEK 19 million in the same period last year.
This corresponds to 49% of total development costs and to be compared with 33% in the corresponding quarter of 2021. We are continuing to invest in growth, both by driving product innovation and by broadening our supplier base. We are, as usual, pairing the above efforts with maintaining a strong focus on cash, cost, and efficiency improvements going forward. Next slide, please. How has that been affecting our working capital situation then? Well, our core working capital, that is accounts receivable plus the inventory less accounts payables, was SEK 279 million at the end of the quarter, which is to be compared to SEK 147 million in the same quarter last year and SEK 217 million last quarter.
If we look at the development of the core capital and its components, and put that in relation to our rolling 12 months revenue, it increased to 21% from 11% in Q1 last year and 16% last quarter. The increase in the working capital is a planned action and the result of weighing several factors necessary to support, secure, and serve our growth in today's complex market environment, with, for example, inventory build up to meet the expected sales growth, as well as to mitigate and minimize any potential supply chain disruptions. As always, we want to continue to work very diligently and actively to manage our working capital in the best and most efficient manner available to us. Next slide, please.
As mentioned in the previous slide, this growth-driven increase in working capital, mainly receivables and inventory, is the main reason our cash flow from operating activities was SEK 90 million in the quarter compared to the positive SEK 36 in Q1 last year. At the end of the quarter, our cash position still stood at SEK 255 million versus SEK 314 million last year, and SEK 374 million at the end of Q4 2021. Cash flow from investing activities, that is capitalized development expenditures, was SEK 28 million to be compared with SEK 23 million last year. Thank you, and we are now ready to take questions.
Thank you. We will now begin the questions, question and answer session. As a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. Once again, please press star one if you wish to ask a question. First question comes from the line of Markus Almerud from Swedbank. Please go ahead.
Good morning, Markus Almerud from Swedbank. I would like to start asking about the gross margin and the seasonality effect because it's a bit difficult because Q1 was affected by COVID as you said. If you were to kind of compare an index kind of where demand is this quarter compared to where it normally is and how it's impacted in the normalized environment, how would you describe it? Just to get the feeling.
Hi, Markus, and thanks for the question. I think in the Q1, the demand was good. Now we couldn't do everything we wanted, obviously, because of the lockdowns that started at the end of the quarter. The demand was good. We knew, of course, that the mix in Q1 is going to be unfavorable if you look at the gross margins, right? But we see that trend, that improved gross margin will come because of the mix changes.
If you continue on that track, because that was actually my second question, maybe if we could get a little bit more color on that mix shift, because, I mean, you say that it's gonna come back and there were more lower margin products being sold in this quarter compared to normally. Is it both on the mobile side so that there's more volume type products which have been sold? And what are the PC volumes and access volumes, for instance, looking like? A little bit more color around the mix in this particular quarter would be helpful.
Yeah. I think that's a fair question, Markus, and it is so that we had just basically of our mobile volumes in the quarter. Basically very low of the other product mix that was delivered in Q4 a lot. That's how it went, right? It swings quite a lot between the quarters for us, depending on how the new business. Now of course, we expect and we can see that the growth of the other areas is coming in, is hitting in.
Mm-hmm.
That was atypical for us in the first quarter.
You would say that it's more on a mix within mobile, that you have more low, I mean, lower quality products or volume type products on the mobile side rather than we see weakness in PC or we see weakness in access. Is that the correct assumption?
Yes. There is no weakness. There is no weakness in PC or weakness in access. Absolutely not. Yeah, that's exactly the case, right. Now of course, nobody knows how long the lockdowns will last in China. I am sure you have also so read about it and can see that it is quite dramatic actions that the government is taking over there, and it is causing logistical challenges and demand challenges. That is still all temporary, I'm sure.
Yeah. Yeah.
We have seen that earlier with Corona as well, that there is of course an impact and then there is a bounce back. Of course, it cannot go on forever, but we will see now how long they try to contain the Omicron virus there.
Just a question on the clarification. I missed kind of you're talking about half of the addressable market on the PC side. Was that enterprise computers which you were talking about?
Yeah. We added that.
So that-
We were earlier in the consumer market, which is half of the market roughly, and now with the Match-on-Chip.
Mm-hmm.
We actually are able, and I have a launching also then into the enterprise market, which is of course a very good market to get into the PC as well. You can see of course with a lot of new PC launches coming from us on that.
Yeah. Yeah. Then maybe a little bit on the PC market. Are you feeling, 'cause we know that volumes in the PC side were very strong during, I mean, during the pandemic and there was a lot of purchases from people working from home, et cetera. Do you have an update for us on how PC volumes in general are going? Then I would assume that, I mean, on the other side you have the penetration rates which are increasing at the same time, and as you're also saying that you can now address the enterprise market as well. If you look at the market per se, what are you seeing there?
I think what we see is that it's flat. It looks very flattish in terms of the PC market. In the same volume, 350 million units, roughly in that same volume is the expectation for this year as it was last year. It's kind of came up from the 300 million to 350 because of the COVID. At the moment, at least it seems to be staying on that level.
Okay.
The overall PC side. Yeah.
One final question, if I can, which is more of a technical side. If we look at development costs and the capitalization on development costs, is it possible at all to say kind of where you should be on a long-term normalized level? Because it's very-
Right.
Volatile during the quarters and the years.
Um.
What we can look into.
Yeah. Normally, in our case, we capitalize, and that's been fairly stable over the last couple of years. It's around 50% is normally expensed there in the P&L, and the rest is capitalized.
That's a good level to put in going forward.
I had to say yeah. Yeah. It's been stable over the last couple.
In terms of the absolute levels, it came up from been around SEK 200 million over the past couple of years. It went up slightly last year. You've been talking about 200 million as a strategic level. It should be expected a little bit high now that you go into the payment area. More like, you know, 200 10%+, or is 200 million krona market more kind of a level that we should be looking for?
Yeah. We're gonna be on the same level. Of course, with the growth in numbers, it eases out, right? The investment level should be about the same level.
Okay, perfect. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Markus.
There are no more questions at this time. Please continue.
We have a few questions from the web. First one on growth and innovation. Will you continue to focus on growth and innovation in the near future, or do you consider pivoting towards a more cost-focused approach?
We will do both. What I mean with that is that we will continue, and that's why we have been building up a lead inventory as well now because of the demand that we see. We will focus on growth for sure. I realize that Q1 was not growth quarter. We are continuing with our sales forecast for the year, which is a growth forecast. What I mean with the cost component is that, for example, in mobile capacity, we have to drive innovation in terms of new cost. For example, the new curved sensor that we just launched that came out in the first quarter is our essentials.
I think it's almost on a yearly basis, we have to launch new cost competitive products in the mobile industry to not have declining margins. You can see how fast, of course, in the basic mobile, how the margins go if you don't launch new products, which we did as well now. We have launched, and we need to continue with that. You have to do both in this kind of business.
Okay. Thank you. How much do higher costs affect your gross margin? Are you raising prices toward customers?
We haven't given percentages, but yes, of course, there has been cost increases and inflation and the foundries when it comes to semiconductor industry. I think it's well documented there has been quite a lot of cost increases in there. Yes, we have also increased prices. We will continue, of course. The best way for us is to bring these new products as we are bringing now with the 1552 in the first quarter, which is bringing new products, which are then gives a possibility and has been increasing the ASP and improving the cost efficiency. That's how you, of course, need to do it, as well.
Yeah. Thank you. Do you expect the global shortage of semiconductors to improve in the short term? If not, how do you think this will affect the growth potential if the shortage continues?
I think it's getting more, a little bit better, I would say. There's a lot of capacity coming online. I think in 2022, in second half, you will see on maybe mobile business, you will see in mobile business an improved, more balanced, getting more towards a balanced situation. I realize that in the card business, it is going to be in the 2023 before it is balanced, and the automotive industry seems to have also maybe goes into 2023 before there is balance. It's a bit on industries now, but it is improving. We have now for if we look at the growth targets that we have, we have the capacity that we need to do that.
Okay. Thank you. Can you detail a bit more on the growth of payment cards?
Yeah, I suppose that payment cards is so that it is very clear that the whole ecosystem is more and more behind it. We see more and more banks launching as we just launched now with Morocco coming on the field. We are also working on product development together with the industry. It is very difficult for us to tell because we are not the bank, so we are not finally making the launches. The consumer feedback is extremely good. We believe and see that there is more and more pull from the banks as well. There is more interest. We have tens of bank discussion going on. But of course it does take time to see them launch and to see them go into volume. That's of course the slow painful part for us because we all want it to go faster.
It is very clear that this industry will happen, and it will be a big enormously good industry for us. The road to that is taking time to bank by bank to launch. We haven't given any volumes, but we believe strongly in this going so that half of the whole market will be biometric sensors in the payment cards. We see, of course, now growth. Every quarter we see growth in that business as well. It is, of course, starting from small volumes compared to our overall volume in the company.
Yeah. Thank you. Which business line do you expect most of the growth to come from in the next few years?
Well, of course, now we will see. Clearly we have a great opportunity to grow very fast in optical as we are getting into a market where we have had zero volumes. Of course, from a percentage points, that's an existing market where we are able now with the qualification to get into. PC market, we have said earlier, is going to be absolutely a very strong area for us year-on-year. We'll grow to number two. Optical will of course have a great chance now to become very fast growth business for us. Payment, which is growing, but of course from very small numbers when it comes to it and a new market as well. The others are existing opportunities, so to say.
Maybe in that or in those orders, right? Percentage-wise, optical will be of course when it gets going, quite a fast-growing market for us, I'm sure, as it is such a big volume market already. We have said that PC will be our second biggest leg in 12 months.
All right, thank you. Finally then, well, do you have any activity in Russia or Ukraine that might be affected by the war or sanctions?
I think that of course, the horrors of the war and attack of Russia into Ukraine is in front of all our eyes, and it is horrible to see, of course, as any person. I think that from the business point of view, it has really no impact for us because we don't have business directly in Russia or Ukraine, so there's no direct impact. There's not really either any material or such impact for us when it comes to any of the material needed in our parts of the productions.
Of course, the implications of that when it comes to whatever it has to do with the other logistical challenges in the world or so forth, that's then for everybody to see how that develops, right? There is no direct impact for us when it comes to it. Of course, on a global scale, those countries are not much of the total GDP of the world if you look at that.
Okay. Thank you very much. Do you have any closing remarks, Fredrikson, before we close the call?
I think that thank you for joining and we had a weaker quarter, as we had said earlier. Of course, it became even a little bit now dampened by the lockdown effects in China. We are very positive about the development and growth in our new businesses which are coming, and we are looking forward to that. We will talk to you again very soon in our next quarter and on this forum. Thank you very much for joining, and take care of yourselves. All the best. Bye for now.