Thank you for the introduction. Hi everyone, and welcome to today's presentation of our quarterly report. We can move to next slide, please. Some highlights from our Q3 report. Our net sales in Q3 declined organically, meaning measured in U.S. dollar by 53% compared to Q3 2020. It's important that our quarterly results is seen in the context of a record-breaking Q3 in 2020. In the second and third quarter of last year, the lockdowns rapidly increased the interest in PC gaming and acted as a catalyst for the revenues of Fractal Design. Our revenue increased by 83% compared to Q3 2019, and therefore the comparable numbers for Q3 2020 are very challenging. The major reason for our current drop in sales is the graphics card shortage, which began by the end of last year and is a result of the global semiconductor shortage.
There are hardly any graphics cards to buy at the moment, and if you get your hands on one, it will cost 2x-3x the normal price. This has caused gamers to wait and postpone their upgrades of their PCs, which have had a negative effect on our product categories, as well as the whole PC hardware industry. The availability of graphics cards has worsened throughout the year, and is expected to continue in Q4, but to gradually improve during 2022. It is believed that there is a strong pent-up demand for upgrades among gamers, which can lead to a strong sales comeback when graphics cards becomes more available again. While the current market situation is challenging, it is important to understand that this is something that affects the whole market and is not specific to Fractal.
During this year, we have kept or increased our market shares in our key markets. The freight cost for container shipments is continuing to be on a very high level, although we have seen the freight prices drop back in the last month. The high shipping cost affected our product margin by about 5 percentage points in Q3, and we expect this to normalize during 2022. Adjusted EBITDA declined year-over-year due to the lower sales volumes and temporarily affected product margins with freight and tariffs. We've had several successful product launches in the quarter, the most notable the new Torrent case series and the new water cooling series Lumen. We expect both to contribute healthily to our revenues and increase our market shares. The interest in high-performance gaming and esports is continuing to be very high.
Hours viewed on Twitch during Q3 increased by 21% year-over-year. Next slide, please. As mentioned, we see that interest in gaming continues to be very strong, despite economies and countries opening up to normal. This proves that the increased interest in gaming was not just temporary and would likely continue post-pandemic. We see that the viewership on Twitch, which is a common metric in our industry to measure gaming interest, increased by 21% in Q3 year-over-year, despite record-setting numbers in 2020. Furthermore, there have been several popular games released in the quarter, along with an anticipated new CPU launch from Intel. Next slide, please. Fractal remains committed to continue to release award-winning products, and we have in the last eight years heavily increased our investments in R&D to expand our product range, both within existing categories but also into new adjacent categories.
In the third quarter, we released a new case series called Torrent, which has been received extraordinarily well by press and customers. We also released a new water cooling series called Lumen with positive initial feedback. Next slide, please. The new Torrent case series launched in August, and the feedback and response from both editorial reviewers and customers have just been phenomenal. One of the most important reviewers in the industry, which is GamersNexus, have called the case the Best Case of 2021. The focus of the Torrent case series is high airflow and exceptional thermal performance, which is made possible by a combination of well-thought-through internal layouts and big, powerful fans. Unfortunately, a week after the launch, we had to take the decision to stop the sales of the Torrent case due to a fan controller failure.
The sales stop lasted for about five to six weeks, and while we of course would have wanted to avoid this issue, the positive feedback from the consumers that we took a responsibility and acted fast and resolute was overwhelming. The launch of the Torrent introduced a higher ASP position for us and is expected to help increase both our ASP and our market shares. It is also only the first in the family of the Torrent series, and more models will be launched soon. Next slide, please.
Okay, let's have a look at the financials. The graph at the top shows the development in net sales. Net sales in the quarter decreased by 54% to SEK 85 million compared to Q3 2020. We also measure our sales in U.S. dollars as we sell exclusively in dollars regardless of the end markets, and the organic decrease in dollars in Q3 was 53%. Looking at year-to-date numbers, the decline was instead 31% in SEK and 25% organically.
The Q3 deviation is mainly explained by high comparative numbers as the third quarter of 2020 was our highest selling quarter to date and had an organic growth of 83%, driven by lockdowns around the world as a result of the pandemic. As Hannes mentioned, the shortage of graphics cards continues to impact demand of cases in the market and affect our sales, but also sales for the entire industry. The limited availability of graphics cards, which is the heart of gaming computers and the most important factor for performance, means that many gamers are waiting to upgrade their equipment. During the third quarter, production in China was in some occasions temporarily stopped due to a shortage of electricity. The current production situation is uncertain and has had a negative effect on our sales during Q3.
The logistical situation in sea freight remains challenging with long and uncertain delivery times, in some cases five-eight weeks longer than normal. We had a good inventory situation in the sales channels, which means that sales to end customers were not materially affected by the logistical situation, and we also have a healthy level going into Q4. In the graph at the bottom, you can see our quarterly development in sales out to end customers that distributors and resellers report to us measured in U.S. dollar. Sales out is an important measure that shows the underlying commercial developments. In Q3, sales out decreased by 45% organically compared to Q3 last year. High comparative numbers and shortage of graphics cards explains the decrease in sales out. We expect that the shortage of graphics cards will impact our sales throughout the year.
However, what is important to say is that we see a continued strong underlying demand for our products, which will lead to a strong sales development when there is availability of graphics cards in the market. Moving on to the next page, please. Segment development. We can see that we have the strongest sales in Americas with 43% of total net sales, followed by EU with 39% and APAC and other with 18%. The logistical situation in China hampered net sales in EU, but did not affect Americas in the same extent as we have a regional warehouse there. Sales of cases decreased by 56% compared to Q3 2020. EU decreased by 63%, America’s by 54%, and APAC and other by 40%. Sales of other products and mainly power supplies decreased by 41%.
Americas showed a decline of 67%, EU of 21%, and APAC and other of 16%. Cases stands for 78% of the total net sales in Q3 and other products for 22%. Moving on to the next page, please, and product margin development. In Q3, product margin was 31% compared to 37% last year. The deviation of 6 percentage points between Q3 and last year is mainly due to extraordinary high freight cost and U.S. tariffs. Extraordinary high freight cost decreased product margin by 5 percentage points. The freight cost has increased dramatically since Q1 and was all-time high in Q3, but we see indications that shipping prices are starting to fall slightly. The increased cost for freight affect our P&L when we sell the goods, which means some time lag before impacting the margin.
U.S. tariffs on cases were reintroduced from January first, this year and decreased product margin by 1 percentage point. As we have explained earlier, we have mitigation plans in place which will reduce the impact of tariffs by working with our suppliers to move some assembly for the U.S. market outside China. Due to the continued traveling restrictions, it will not be possible to start the project until the end of Q2 2022 at the earliest. However, in 2020, Fractal was granted an exemption from U.S. tariffs, and we have recently got the information that the U.S. Department of Commerce will open up for application for a new extension. Only companies that have previously been granted an exemption for tariffs can apply. It is difficult to assess the probability of being granted an exemption, and it will probably take several months before a decision is announced.
We don't take anything for granted, but we are cautiously optimistic about the positive result. Next slide, please. Let's have a look at earnings. Adjusted EBITDA was SEK -3 million, and the margin was -3.2%. Year to date, adjusted EBITDA margin was 2.8% and rolling twelve months, 2.1%. The big gap in Q3 versus last year has mainly to do with decreased sales volume. As previously said, high freight costs and imposed tariffs affect the margins negatively. Due to the logistical situation, inventory levels in our central warehouse in China have been higher than normal, and costs for warehousing have increased.
Personnel cost is according to plan, and during 2021, we have hired new employees, mainly within marketing and product development departments to enable long-term profitable growth. To mitigate the increased cost, price increases have been implemented during the period, and the possibility of additional price adjustments is also investigated. We have good opportunities to largely compensate for the long-term external factors, both by increasing prices but also by moving assembly from China to third country for the U.S. markets to minimize the tariff costs. The latter will not occur until next year. However, as the freight cost is expected to be temporary, prices have not been raised to accommodate for them, and that also seems to be the general consensus in the industry. If freight costs normalize at a higher level, there are possibilities to compensate by increasing prices for that too. Moving on to the next page.
Operating cash flow is mainly affected by lower EBITDA. The change in net working capital is related to decreased accounts receivables due to lower sales. Inventory is slightly increased and still at a high level due to the logistical situation and issues with shipment from China, but also refill of new products. Accounts payable decreased by SEK 9 million. Investing activities amounted to SEK 9.5 million and is related to development of new products. Moving on to the next page and the income statement. As previously presented, we had a net sales decline of 53% organically. The main explanation is tough comparable numbers with all-time high sales in Q3 2020 and continued effects from the shortage of graphics cards. We only sell in U.S. dollar regardless of the end market, and the same goes for COGS.
That is also 100% in dollars, which gives a certain currency hedging. Fractal's reporting currency is SEK, and the numbers are affected by fluctuating exchange rates in currencies other than SEK. However, Q3 had an average U.S. dollar SEK rate of 8.7 % compared to 8.8% last year, so no material deviation this time. Goods for resale and product margin are, as previously said, mainly affected by higher cost for freight and imposed U.S. tariffs. Other external expenses are affected by higher warehouse costs and also costs related to more employees. Personnel cost is according to plan, but higher than last year due to investment in more employees. Other external costs and personnel costs are denominated in SEK to approximately 46%, U.S. dollar 42%, and other currencies 12%.
The financial net is affected by interest expenses related to the overdraft facility and FX translation effect. With that, we move on to the next slide, and I hand over to Hannes again.
Thank you, Karin. As mentioned before, we've had several successful product launches in the quarter, and we have a very strong pipeline and roadmap on new products. We're planning to launch several of them in the coming quarters. We are working hard to manage the cost impacts from the freights and the tariffs. The freight cost remains in a very high level, but we have seen a downward trend in the last month, which we're hopeful can continue. As for the tariffs, we're working on plans to relocate final assembly of production outside of China in order to reduce the impact from the U.S. tariffs. At the same time, as Karin mentioned before, the Biden Administration has recently opened up for applications to get an exemption, which we are hopeful we can get.
In order to mitigate the cost of tariffs, increases in raw materials, and FX impact, we have raised prices on most of our products during Q2 and Q3. Lately, we have seen a quite sharp price drop for both steel and plastics, which are main components in our products and cases, which could potentially lead to price decreases for us from our suppliers in next year if that price trend continues. As for the more long-term and strategic initiatives, we are working with several very exciting ways to continue our growth journey. We want to continue doing what we do today, which is to deliver best-in-class products and be one of the leading brands in our current categories. We can continue to grow in these categories, and we will launch a lot of new products in the coming year. Expand our product portfolio into new categories.
We have identified several adjacent product categories that are interesting for us to expand into and which fits well with our brand and with strong margin profiles. We're currently in the process of developing such products. We also want to diversify and improve our marketing efforts, primarily with more visibility in streaming. Last but not least, we aim to make geographical expansion in Asia, which is primarily succeeding in China, but also Southeast Asia is an interesting market in coming years. Next slide, please. A brief summary of the quarterly report and outlook for the rest of the year. Our net sales was negatively impacted by the massive shortage of graphics cards, leading to a soft demand in the market. Adjusted EBITDA was lower year-over-year due to lower sales volumes, and product margin was affected by freights and tariffs.
Our full year guidance on growth is 20% lower than net sales in 2020. While the current headwinds with graphics card shortages and logistics issues are extreme and never before seen in our industry, they are expected to be short-term, and we remain positive regarding our mid to long-term outlook and financial targets. We have increased or kept our market shares in key markets during the year. With a large number of products we have in our product pipeline, both in existing and new categories, we believe strong growth to resume soon. Also, the interest in gaming, it keeps being in a record high level, which indicates a strong underlying and pent-up demand once graphics cards becomes more widely available again. Next slide, please. With this, we have reached the end of our presentation, and we'll open up for questions.
Thank you. If you do wish to ask a question to our speakers, please press zero one on your telephone keypad. If you wish to withdraw your question, you may do so by pressing zero two to cancel. We will take a brief pause while questions are being registered. Our first question comes from Oskar Erixon with Carnegie. Please go ahead.
Thank you, and, good morning, Hannes and Karin. A couple of questions from me. Starting with Q3 here, you mentioned a slight impact from power outages in China. Could you talk a little bit about how big of an effect that had in Q3? If it's had any effect in Q4? If it seems mainly resolved now from mid-October, is that the right observation? Thank you.
Yes, that is correct. The power shortages lasted for about a month, the main part of them, from mid-September to mid-October. Our Q3 was slightly affected by that. Also, these power shortages have slightly affected our new products and delaying them slightly. The problems were over by mid-October, and we haven't seen them return since. It seems like the Chinese government has taken actions to stabilize this. At the moment, that does not seem to be an issue for us going forward.
Great. Very helpful. I mean, there's a lot of external factors to talk about here, as in previous quarter. It seems that raw material prices have fallen quite markedly here in recent weeks. Do you expect to see positive delta, positive effect of that going forward? Should it be mainly a 2022 effect or also here in Q4?
Yeah. Our products are mainly the cases. They contain a lot of plastics and steel, and we had quite sharp price increases on those materials late last year and in Q1 of this year, which led to that we had price increases from our suppliers that were effective from Q2 this year, which is also one of the reasons why we raised the prices in Q2 and Q3 to adjust for that. Now we have seen in the last couple of weeks or month that both steel and plastic prices have decreased quite significantly, which is an opportunity for us to get a decreased prices from our suppliers in next year if this price trend continues.
Excellent. With regards to the tariff exemption, which is also positive news here, could this also include a retroactive repayment? If you could remind me, please, of how much you paid so far in 2021. It's not a huge amount, of course, but a reminder that would be helpful. Thank you.
Yeah. In this case, they opened up for applications by about mid-October. Since only those that received an exemption last time are eligible to apply this time, we are cautiously hopeful that we can get this exemption, but we don't know, of course. If we would get it, which may take a couple of months until we know, we would get retroactive repayments from mid-October. We would not get retroactive from first of January, where the previous exemption expired.
So far, Oskar, we have paid around SEK 7 million year-to-date September for tariffs.
Okay. Excellent. Sorry, just to clarify, you would not get that from January to September, only from October. Is that correct?
Correct. Yes.
That is correct. Yes.
Okay. Okay, great. Just a couple of questions more here. I'll let other people ask. But on your guidance for this year, you lowered the organic revenue growth from -15% to -20% to now around -20%. But also, you stick, it seems to the guidance on the profitability here in the second half of the year, to low but positive profitability. Should we take this to mean EBITDA in the sort of 2%-4% range? Does that correspond to how you think? Given that you lower your revenue growth target here a little bit for guidance, does this also include some cost efficiency measures that you have taken?
Yes. We believe that even though we lower our guidance to the lower part of the range to 20%, from 15% to 20%, we still believe that a small profitability is possible. When we say profitability, we mean EBITDA, since that is our financial target. That is how we refer to that. We still believe that is possible even though we guide in the lower range.
Understood. I mean, very importantly, of course, graphics card supply here heading into 2022. Have you seen any changes in the last three months in the message around graphics card supply from NVIDIA, AMD, retailers, the industry? What changes have you seen in the message?
We haven't seen any real changes in the last three months, actually. The message is the same, and the consensus seems to be the same in the industry, meaning that now in Q3, Q4, we're probably seeing the worst, you know, part of the availability that will go up from here, and that it will gradually improve during 2022 and be more or less fully normalized towards the end of 2022. That is still the consensus in the industry, which means that we see 2022 as being better than 2021 in terms of availability, but not fully back to normal.
Great. Just one final question here from me. Your pipeline product roadmap. Could you talk a little bit about it? You released Torrent successfully here in Q3. Do you expect to release more product in the Torrent series? What else can we expect here? Will it be more coming in Q4, or is it more sort of weighted towards Q1, Q2 next year?
Yeah. No, we're very happy with the roadmap that we have ahead of us. We have a strong pipeline of new products, and we're very happy with the new Torrent series that we launched the first case of in August, which was received extraordinarily well. Even though we had this hiccup with the fan controller and sales stop, the feedback and sales has been very good. We will launch several more models in the Torrent series. The Torrent series is also interesting in that aspect that it's an ASP position which is fairly high, that we haven't had before, and which we expect will improve our average sales price in cases overall. We're very happy with that, a new series. We are also hopeful for the other new products that we have in our roadmap.
There has been some delays which are partly caused by the power shortage, as mentioned before. In terms of new products, that will be more Q1 and Q2, that we will see, these launches.
Perfect. That's it for me. Thank you very much, guys.
Thank you, Oskar.
I remind you that if you do wish to ask a question, please press zero one on your telephone keypad. Our next question comes from Simon Jönsson with ABG. Please go ahead.
Thank you, operator. Good morning, Hannes and Karin. Hope all is well with you guys. Initially, you mentioned that you've done some price increases both in Q2 and in Q3. Is your impression that the industry has done this as well? Also, do you see room for further price hiking in Q4 and going into 2022? I know that freight rates have lately stabilized, as you mentioned, but still, do you see more room to hike prices?
Yes. We have seen price increases from, I would say, almost all our competitors, and especially in the U.S. markets where the tariffs also taking place, but also in other parts of the world. It's difficult to say whether more price increases is possible, but we're monitoring this closely, and if we see a possibility to do that, we will of course do that. For now, we're sticking with the price increases we have made. We believe that the freight prices will normalize in the next year at least, and that effect will be taken care of. The tariffs, we are taking care of one way or the other. Either we get an exemption, or we relocate final assembly outside of China to mitigate that.
Thank you. That is very clear. I know you made some brief comments on it during the presentation, but do you have any data or more color that you can provide on how you currently perform versus competitors?
Right. We measure market shares in all our key markets. During the year, we have seen that we have either kept or increased our market shares, which we're happy about. We expect that our new product categories or new products in existing categories will increase our market shares once they're fully available, such as the Torrent series and other new products that are coming in the next year. We think that we can increase our market shares from this point with this very strong roadmap that we have ahead of us.
Thank you. Was there any non-recurring items that occurred due to production stop of Fractal Torrent?
Yes. We had some costs that were associated to that, in September and October.
If any ballpark figures you can provide to us would be helpful.
Karin, do you have a ballpark figure for that?
Let me come back with that, Simon.
Okay. Thank you. Finally, just a clarification on the improved situation in 2022. Is it fair to assume that it will be more back-end loaded? Meaning that situation overall, in terms of GPU shortage should be more back-end loaded, given recent GPU manufacturers wording? Or do you anticipate to see signs of improvements already in Q1?
Our view is exactly what you said, that is more back-end loaded, and that is the consensus in the industry right now. There are of course opportunities that it could happen earlier, but it's more likely to happen more towards the second half of the year than the first half.
Thank you. That is very clear. That is all from me as well. Thank you.
For the moment, there are no further questions. I hand back over to our speakers.
Okay, then. I would like to thank everyone for listening in, and wish you a nice day.
Thank you.
Thank you.