Welcome to the Getinge AB Audio Conference Teleconference Q1 2022. Throughout the call, all participants will be in a listen-only mode, and afterwards, there will be a question-and-answer session. Just to remind you, this Conference Call is being recorded. Today, I'm pleased to present Mattias Perjos, CEO, and Lars Sandström, CFO. Please begin your meeting.
Thank you very much, operator, and thank you everyone for joining today's Earnings Call. We can start directly with moving to page number two, and I will take you through the key takeaways for the quarter. If we look at the key takeaways on performance for the quarter, we have a net sales decrease of 6.4% and an order intake decrease of 4.4% organically in the quarter. If we adjust for the strong sales of ventilators in 2021, though, we grew organically both order intake and in net sales. This is a natural shift at this stage of the pandemic and into the new normal, so to speak.
The order book grew by 8% during the quarter and is now 21% larger than at the same period in 2021 if we adjust for currency fluctuation. We do have a strong order pipeline, and the sales outlook for the full year remains. Looking at our deliveries, these were negatively affected towards the end of the quarter as a result of temporary supply chain challenges. Our assessment is that net sales corresponding to about 300 million SEK have been delayed due to different constraints in the supply chain.
Despite the lower volume, the gross margin held up very well in the quarter, and we could see that the lower volumes from ventilators and the negative mix effect, as well as supply chain challenges, had a dampening effect on the gross margin. Our EBITA margin was negatively impacted by the lower volumes as well and the unfavorable mix effects, hitting the gross margin. We do expect that as volumes increase towards the second half of the year, we will see a good recovery in margins overall and EBITA especially. Finally, also in terms of key takeaways, I wanna highlight that the free cash flow continues to contribute positively to an already strong financial position. With that, we can move over to page number three please.
If we take a short step back here and look at some of the other key events during the quarter from an offering perspective, I think I wanna highlight that in February, our Aquadis 56, a new product family in the medium-range washer-disinfector was launched. These products offer efficient cleaning with high capacity and also environmental benefits. This makes the product well-suited for ambulatory care, for example, which is one of the faster-growing customer segments for Getinge. We also launched IN2, a system consisting of walls, ceilings, and floors and doors for modular rooms in the hospital environment.
The new product line here offers high quality and an efficient infrastructure for operating rooms, but also for intensive care units and sterile supply departments, and with selectable materials and different price levels to really accommodate the need to be flexible with the customer. In addition to this, we was also awarded a breakthrough three-year contract for anesthesia machines from Premier, Inc., a leading U.S. healthcare company operating 4,400 hospitals and care facilities across North America. This is very promising as we aim to grow our anesthesia business significantly in the North American region. I also wanna highlight the DPTE-BetaBag capacity increase. We continue to build capacity in the sterile transfer business.
With regards to the BetaBags, we had positive results from customer validations related to the new production line in Merrimack in the U.S. in the quarter, and the first commercial deliveries took place as well. A really great effort by the whole team, both in our legacy factory in France and the new team in Merrimack. Production volumes are expected to increase gradually throughout the year here, so that's something that we would look forward to. We also need to mention the Russian invasion and some of the supply chain challenges that we faced in the quarter.
First and foremost, the invasion of Ukraine is a tragic event and brings great suffering to the population. Getinge condemns this act of violence and works actively to support humanitarian action in Ukraine. We do not have any major suppliers or production in these two countries and Russia represented barely 1% of our net sales and net assets in 2021. However, we are indirectly affected, which might lead to increased input costs and delays, which ultimately will affect the patients and hospitals worldwide. If we zoom out and look at the status of the supply chain overall, our deliveries in the quarter were negatively affected, mainly towards the end of the quarter.
As you may remember, our supply chain teams have done a great job there for the last two years and kept us harmless. Towards the end of the quarter here, beginning of 2022, it became a bit more challenging. We have both the general effect of the difficulties in the supply chain and have been exacerbated by the war in Ukraine and also some of the lockdown effects in China. Our assessment is that net sales corresponding to about SEK 300 million have been delayed due to component shortage. We do have a well-functioning way of working though to ensure access to components and transport, and I'm confident about the second half of the year when we're expected to have large deliveries.
Cost increases regarding components have a negative impact on us, but we have to some extent compensated this through price adjustments. I wanna highlight that our customers do have a good understanding of the situation, and they do value the products and the services that we offer, which provide a good basis for a dialogue in this current situation. If we then move to sustainability, we have a number of improvements to report here as well. In January of this year, Life Science became the first of Getinge's business areas to operate all production carbon neutral. This is an important milestone in the process to become a carbon neutral company in our own operations.
I also wanna highlight that our products play an important role in tackling environmental challenges when they operate at the customer side. This is why we apply eco-design principles and invent features that bring down consumption of water, of energy, and of chemicals. On this last note, our efforts have also been recognized by the Journal of Clinical Monitoring and Computing, and a study showing a reduction of 58% in waste of anesthetics by using our Automatic Gas Control feature. As anesthetics are really potent greenhouse gases, they're multiple times more potent than CO2. This is a major success.
I also wanna highlight this separate study by the university hospital in Lund that estimates that the anesthesia gases corresponds to about one-third of the climate impact from energy consumption in hospital. This is definitely something that is material for our customers and a real positive thing that we can contribute with. With that, we can move over to page four, please. If we try to break down the order intake picture a little bit, we can see that order intake decreased by 6.4% and the net sales by 4.4%. Sorry, the other way around. It's the order part that is 4.4 and then sales 6.4.
As I said previously, the net sales and order intake didn't match the high growth in ventilators last year that we saw due to the Delta variant at the time. This is also what the main explanatory factor why EMEA is down significantly year-on-year, followed by America. We expect this to balance out though throughout the year as we move into more of a new normal sales environment, so to speak. Adjusted for ventilators, we grew organically in both order intake and net sales, and we have a stronger order book today versus the same time last year. I'm also pleased to see that Surgical Workflows continues to do good order growth in Americas. We expect North America to be an important market for this business area in the coming years.
It's really good to see the traction there. We can then move over to page five, please. If we look at the guidance for the full year outlook, we do have a 21% stronger order book than last year, adjusted for FX. We see a strong pipeline when it comes to customer activities and the demand situation in general, and we expect the delayed net sales to be recovered here. Based on that, we reiterate our outlook for 2022, that the organic net sales growth is expected to be at the upper end of the 4%-6% range for the full year. Let's then move to page six, please.
We did have tough comps for ventilators in this quarter compared to last year. If we look at Acute Care Therapies, we are down 7.9% organically. Order intake decreased as a result of challenging comps mainly, and also on the vent side of course, but also products for ECMO therapy in the first quarter of 2021. This is mainly related to Americas and EMEA from a geographic perspective. Order intake in cardiovascular surgery, though, continued to strengthen during the quarter, and this is something that we expect to continue as we move into this new normal. At the end of the quarter, the order book in Acute Care Therapies was 6% larger than the previous year, also currency adjusted.
If we then look at Life Science, we are down 1.1% organically. The organic order intake decreased slightly as a result of challenging comps for bioreactors, where you may remember that we had extremely strong growth in the same period last year. We saw also good growth in dishwashing disinfectors, service, and our DPTE-BetaBag product categories. At the end of the quarter, the order book in Life Science was 21% larger than the previous year, also adjusted for currency, of course. If we then finally look at Surgical Workflows, organic order intake in operating room products remained strong in the quarter. However, growth for the business area as a whole was dampened by negative year-on-year development in Digital Health solutions.
We saw strong momentum in the Americas and APAC, while the challenging comps, figures in Digital Health solutions in EMEA had a negative impact on the development there. At the end of the quarter for Surgical Workflows, the order book was 29% larger than the previous year. Again, this is of course also currency adjusted. With that, we can move over to page seven , please. If we look at the sales picture in Acute Care Therapies, we are down 14.3 organically. Organic net sales decreased as a result of the challenging comp figures for vents, ventilators in the first quarter 2021, and supply chain challenges in general at the end of the quarter. Organic sales of cardiovascular surgery products continue to increase.
This is a positive takeaway and a positive momentum leaving the first quarter of this year. In Life Science, we had a 19% organic sales growth. We saw good organic growth in net sales in sterilizers, in DPTE-BetaBags, capital goods in Sterile Transfer, and service and also spare parts. Net sales increased significantly in Asia Pacific, mainly as a result of large deliveries of sterilizers. Even though the growth number looks good here for Life Science, we did have some challenges in the supply chain towards the end of the quarter that had a negative impact on sales. Part of the SEK 300 million delay also comes from Life Science. In Surgical Workflows, we're basically flat, down 0.1% organically.
Here we saw net sales grow organically in products for the operating room, while net sales for infection control remained unchanged. In digital health solutions, then net sales decreased. Challenges in the supply chain towards the end of the quarter had a negative impact on net sales for surgical workflows, as well. If we then finally look at currency. Currency had a SEK 398 million or a 6.4% positive impact on net sales for the group in the quarter. Organic net sales of capital goods came down significantly in the quarter, due to tough comps, but also due to several supply chain constraints that we've touched on a couple of times here. We can then move over to page please.
Here we can see that the volume and the mix effects impact on the gross margin in the quarter. Our adjusted gross profit decreased by 24 million SEK to 3,261 million SEK in the quarter, where a positive FX effect accounted for 264 million SEK. For the group as a whole, the adjusted gross margin decreased by 0.6 percentage points as a result of volume and mix effect, as well as increased transport and material costs and supply chain disruption. This was in part offset by price adjustments and previously announced rationalizations. In Acute Care Therapies, the adjusted gross margin improved by one percentage point despite the lower sales volume. The margin strengthened mainly as a result of positive mix effects inside the business area and currency.
Life Science, the adjusted gross margin increased by 0.3 percentage points as a result of increased volumes, which outweighed the negative effect from mix and supply chain challenges. In Surgical Workflows, finally, the adjusted gross margin decreased by 0.6 percentage points, mainly as a result of negative mix and supply chain challenges. With that overview, we can move over to page number 10, and I'll leave it over to you, Lars.
Thank you, Mattias. Adjusted EBITDA decreased by SEK 240 million compared to the same period last year, while the margin increased to 13.6%, mainly due to mix and volume. Adjusted for currency, gross profit had a -1.4 percentage point impact on the margin due to the lower volumes and quite different BA mix compared to last year. As mentioned by Mattias, both ACT and Life Science had improved GP margins in the quarter. OpEx is down organically, but in actuals it is up SEK 201 million year on year. Together, this with the volume and BA mix effects on the margin year on year takes us to a margin impact of -1.7 percentage points.
Depreciation and amortization is impacting the margin by minus 0.3 percentage points, and currency had a negative impact of minus 0.5 percentage points on the margin as a consequence of FX itself, but also high volumes in accounts receivable last year. All in all, this resulted in an adjusted EBITDA of SEK 839 million and a margin decrease of 3.9 percentage points. Over to page 11, please. Free cash flow continues to be positive, even if we don't reach last year's level that was impacted by a higher level of deliveries, and net sales, together with operating profit and prepayments. This year, working capital had more of a normal seasonal pattern with some buildup on inventory for the strong second half of the full year.
Supply chain challenges also had a negative impact on inventory from longer lead times and our willingness to take on supply in order to have a a margin of safety. All in all, free cash flow amounted to 400 million SEK in the quarter. Working capital days continue to be well below 100, and we are now at some 88 days, down more than 40 days from the peak in Q2 2018. We also see a continuous strong operating return on invested capital, where we are at 18.1% on a rolling 12-month basis. We are now closing in on the long-term trend on return on invested capital as net sales have started to move into more normal territory. Let's move to page 12, please.
Net debt was positively impacted by the cash flow and revaluation effects related to FX and pensions, taking us to SEK 3 billion. If we adjust for pension liabilities, we are net cash positive by SEK 29 million. This brings us to a leverage of 0.5x EBITDA, and if we adjust for pension liability, this leverage is at zero. Cash amounted to approximately SEK 4.3 billion by the end of the quarter. Let's move to page 14, and back to you, Mattias.
All right. Thank you, Lars. We can skip directly to the summary page here with the key takeaways from the Q1 . Overall, we continue to see good activity when it comes to our strategy implementation journey. As you may remember, we've kept this going at full speed despite some of the turmoil caused by the pandemic. I'm very pleased with the continued implementation here in the tail end of the pandemic and entering the new normal, so to speak. We leave the quarter with a healthy order book and also a strong pipeline when it comes to requests for quotes and proposals and the demand situation in general.
Our guidance remains that organic net sales growth is expected to be in the upper end of the range of 4%-6% for the full year of 2022. We expect our margins to strengthen as volumes increase in the coming Q3 as well. We continue to generate cash and reinforce our already solid financial position. With that summary, I open up for questions.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, if you do wish to ask a question, please press zero followed by the one on your telephone keypad. The first question comes from Erik Cassel from ABG. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Hi. Good morning, everyone. First off, could you talk us through the current supply chain issues during Q2? Is a similar impact as in Q1 reasonable, or is it more significant? Some information on the sort of visibility you seem to have for that improving into H2 would also be interesting. Thanks.
I think, if we start in the Q1 , we continued the good momentum that we've had through 2021 when it comes to keeping the supply chain running. This year also started well, but we could see some increased challenges towards the end of the Q1 , and it's really the month of March that was most difficult. We do expect the challenges also in the Q2 , but we can see a gradual improvement. Already now in the beginning of April, we are beginning to receive components and materials. We can see that we are getting a better allocation from several of our suppliers as well, especially in the second half of the year.
We expect some disturbances still in the Q2 , but a gradual improvement during the quarter and then certainly for the second half of the year. Maybe to color that a little bit more as well, it's impacted, I think, generally by the type of the supply chain challenges that everybody talks about, especially related to electronic components. Of course, it's been made a bit more difficult by the war in Ukraine and also the lockdown situation in China. These are the different factors impacting this.
Okay. Thank you very much for that. On sort of guidance and margins, I mean, we previously talked about you thinking being able to maintain the sort of same EBITA margin as last year organically. Do you still think that's reasonable, or do you have any other assumptions for the EBITA margin?
No, we've not changed our assumptions. They remain the same. We're actually quite happy the way gross margin held up in the quarter despite the lower volume, and you can see the performance in Acute Care Therapies and Life Science, especially. Nothing has changed in our outlook for the year, or the message that we gave at the Capital Markets Day in November of 2021. That remains intact.
Okay, thank you. I'll limit myself to one last question. I mean, APAC was fairly strong this quarter. You said some of our servers, but I guess it's fair to assume that the sort of regional lockdowns has had some sort of significant impact on the run rate now into Q2. Is that a correct assumption?
Yes. We had close to SEK 100 million of delayed sales because of China lockdowns in the first quarter. There is still challenges from now in April due to this. We do expect an improvement in the second half of May is the best outlook that we can give right now. This remains, I guess, a little bit of a moving target depending on how the spread of the Omicron pandemic continues in China.
Okay. Thank you very much. I'll jump back in queue.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question comes from Rickard Anderkrans from Handelsbanken. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Right. Good morning, and thank you for taking my question. First one, a little bit more on the sort of phasing of the recovery here. Starting off with the SEK 300 million delayed sales, should we expect that most of it comes in in Q2, or will it be tilted towards H2? Is it reasonable to expect double-digit organic growth in the second half of the year starting there?
The phasing, we do expect the whole of SEK 300 million to be recovered in Q2 and Q3, but I can't break it down for you per quarter, right now. When it comes to the output for the year, the assumption is that what is required is the upper end of the upper end of the guidance that we gave of 4%-6%.
All right. Fair enough. Could you talk a little bit about partly compensating inflationary pressures by adjusting prices? Can you quantify the magnitude there?
Yeah, to some extent. I think this has been an ongoing exercise throughout the company. I think our teams have done a good proactive job so far, so we've been able to compensate ourselves to a rather large degree. There's about SEK 30 million in the quarter that we had to absorb ourselves, but the rest of the inflationary pressure we've been able to pass on.
Perfect. Thank you. That's all for me. Thank you for taking my questions.
Thank you. Operator, is there another question?
Yes. Apologies. The next question comes from Karl Noren from Danske Bank. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Yes. Good morning. I have a question on the OpEx side, which still is down organically year over year. It would be interesting if you could say anything about how much of the cost, you know, reductions that are sticky. Do you see that the OpEx is on a more normalized level now? Or are you still, you know, what is it, low, artificially lower due to lower traveling, due to COVID to some extent? Or do you see this as some good underlying level to be on?
Yeah. When it comes to OpEx here, I think, yes, we see that so, some of the restructuring activities are supported and have been and continue to do that. Having said that, there is still some lower activity levels when it comes to traveling and marketing. We have some increase here already in Q1. That has started a bit. We will expect, depending on, of course, how the pandemic develops and calms down here, but there will be some comeback on that. We also had quite a lot of commission last year that we connected to the high ventilator sales, but this has come out now compared to the pace that we see.
Okay. Another question on the Surgical Workflows. The order intake seemed a bit light, I think, in the quarter, especially in EMEA. Could you maybe explain a little bit more? I think you said it was very much Digital Health, but have you seen any changes in the underlying market or what are you seeing? Is demand still strong, so to say?
Yeah. The main thing from the comp perspective is on Digital Health. We don't see any underlying change in the demand perspective. We remain positive about the overall dynamic and the demand situation from customers both in EMEA but also the rest of the world, of course. Nothing dramatic in terms of changes. There is, as you know already, a bit of lumpiness in this business because some projects are quite sizable, and if they fall on one side or the other of the quarter, it does make a difference.
Okay. Just the last one on the life science side, where you now have ramped up or seems to have at least started deliveries from your new site in Merrimack for BetaBags. Can you just give us some kind of, not guidance, but how should we think about this throughout the year? Will you be able to deliver a lot more now in Q2 versus Q1, or how should we see that?
I think we can't break down and give more granular guidance on this. I think overall, the plans that we highlighted at the Capital Markets Day for Life Science with the expansion of production capacity and the volumes that we expect for this year, they remain intact. Yes, it's a gradual ramp-up, and partly adding supply, partly replacing some of the supply that we've done with the extra shifts in France.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question comes from Kristofer Liljeberg from Carnegie. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Yeah. Hi. Coming back to the supply issues here on the SEK 300 million. First, you say that this SEK 300 million will be recovered in the second and the third quarter. At the same time, you say that you expect to have some challenges still, although the situation has improved. If you take all this together, should we expect the supply issues to be less than in the second quarter than what we saw in the first quarter? Is that correct assumption or?
Yes, that's correct.
Okay. Based on that, do you think it's reasonable to assume organic sales growth again in the second quarter?
We don't guide per quarter, Christopher. You'll have to live with our full-year guidance.
Okay. The other question I have is, you know, despite the supply issues and cost inflation, I'm rather impressed by the gross margin. Would you be able? Of course, you have some positive FX impact here, but what other things are you helping the gross margin here and why are you able to protect it so well?
It's a number of different things. We have the impact from the rationalization programs that we've been running for several years now. That is one factor. We do have a little bit less remediation cost as well in Acute Care Therapies. That's another contributing factor.
Okay. You would say that's the two main, major factors there.
Yes. Underlying then of course you always have a bit of product mix when our ventilators is coming back to somewhat lower share of the total compared to the active part of the Cardiopulmonary. That is also impacting somewhat. I think what is especially on SW that is good development of even if it's a bit tougher on the price increase. Do we do price increases? Yes. It is a challenge then. Also here together with the core, all the good productivity work that we have done, and we reap benefits there. We are quite handling that and as in margin.
Sorry. I don't know if it's only me, but I've difficulties to hear you. It seems to be some problem with the line here. Maybe on my side. Thank you.
Okay. I just repeat there on the SW side, we could see somewhat lower GP margin here in Q1. I think here we have price increases coming in, supporting, but we also have somewhat cost increases coming and of course the supply chain issues that creates under absorption in the quarter here. But still, we are managing to offset a very large chunk of that, coming from the good restructuring work that we have done and productivity activities in SW that we are taking with us now going forward into the rest of the year.
Thank you. That was clear. Final question from me. I've seen a few companies talk about slower demand in the U.S. Is that something you have noticed or not?
No, I think it's a short answer there.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question comes from Victor Forssell from Nordea. Please go ahead, your line is open.
Thank you so much for taking the questions. A question regarding the backlog side of things and the visibility that you have to be fully confident that you could reach the upper end if by then material shortages, et cetera, would not have been an issue. At what point during this year would you say that your order book is filled for reaching that number?
That's not something we can answer. It varies a lot between the business areas here and the delivery times. You know, we have delivery times of over 18 months for some of our equipment, and we have within the week for other parts of our portfolio, so it's impossible to give an average there.
Okay. If you possibly can you explicitly put some numbers on how much the ventilators impacted from last year, i.e., how much you actually grew without that impact as you clearly stated here on both orders and sales level?
I think order intake on ventilators was about SEK 400 million lower than Q1 last year, and sales was SEK 500 million lower up.
Great. That's excellent. Just a final one touching upon the OpEx again. If we could just talk a little about your ambitions for this year and how you see, you know, OpEx as a percentage of sales translating into previous ambitions and how you see that play out for this year.
When it comes to OpEx, what you could see here in Q1 is that we have somewhat higher OpEx connected to R&D. There is more activity both on the OpEx side, but also on the capitalization part that ends up so to say in the cash flow in that part. There is somewhat higher activity here. On the other areas, we don't see big changes coming through. Of course, we have an inflation part that will come for like all other companies. Also here we continue to work hard with the different productivity measures that we have to offset as much as we possibly can on that.
The ambition, despite the inflationary pressures, would be then to have some leverage from the OpEx when we close out this year. That's your current ambition and partly relating to your margin assumptions for this year?
Yes.
Thanks a lot.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question comes from Oliver Reinberg from Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead, your line is open.
Thanks so much for taking my question. The first one would be on the U.S. environment again. Can you just talk a bit, I mean, obviously, U.S. hospitals face some kind of headwinds from rising personal costs, and also funding is a bit more of an issue. Can you just talk about what kind of feedback you receive from your clients in terms of demand for your products? Also, can you talk about the number of surgical procedures, how they develop over the course of the quarter? I guess, January may have been a slower start on Omicron. What are the procedure volumes at this stage? That will be question one, number one, please.
We don't have the number of procedure volumes that we can disclose. What we can say in general that we have not seen any real weakness in demand. Like in many other parts of the world, there is of course an operational challenge to ramp up. But in many aspects, it's gone better in the U.S. than in other portions. If you look at our elective surgery categories, from an order perspective, we have double-digit growth there. Continued good momentum. We highlighted as well the demand for Surgical Workflows also positive in North America.
Thanks very much. Secondly, on pricing, is there any kind of chance to get a kind of quantification to what extent organic sales in the Q1 were impacted from pricing? Or if you don't want to quantify it, obviously you're on the process of increasing prices at this stage. Compared to your expectation for the full year in terms of price increases, what share have you realized in the Q1 ?
Yeah, we don't quantify and then break down and communicate externally the impact of price increases. As I mentioned in my presentation part here, that there's been a good proactive work. I think the important thing to be aware when it comes to pricing in our environment is that we have some areas, both from a geographic but also category perspective, that we can change with rather short notice. We have some that are, you know, pricing for longer contracts, which are difficult to adjust. Some of them have adjustment mechanisms, but not every contract. There's of course also project supplies with long lead times where we also need to work with price and also the cost management side and pricing from our suppliers.
Overall, good proactive work on this, but not something that we can break down and communicate externally.
It's fair to assume that there's clearly much more support from pricing going to come in the coming quarters.
Yes. I think, yeah, that's a fair assumption. Yeah.
Perfect. Last question, if I may, just on specific products. I think you talked about that the demand for ECMO therapies has been slightly down year on year. I was a bit surprised because my memory suggests that last quarter in Q1 last year, you were not actively pushing for orders. C an you just talk to the demand situation for ECMO therapies and also what kind of demand you see for ventilators for the full year? Is that still a kind of normal ventilator year, the way you look at this? Thank you.
If we start with the ventilator part, in money terms, we expect it to be a normal year. Like we highlighted before, the number of machines are probably a little bit lower, but more services, connected, to them. Overall, a normal year in ECMO terms, so to speak. When it comes to Cardiopulmonary, I think the main thing to highlight is the absence of a flu season, the start of this year. That's, I think the only thing that has changed in the, underlying environment when it comes to ECMO.
Basically 15%-20% sales growth would still be a reasonable assumption for ECMO?
Yeah, roughly. We don't guide for quarters or particular years for this. The underlying growth for the segment, I think we believe remains unchanged.
Perfect. Thanks very much.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question comes from Edward Lewis from Redburn. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Good morning. Thank you. First question is to follow up on China. Thank you for the color that you have given. I mean, clearly, we see the headlines. Can you give us a little bit more color about why you feel confident that the deteriorating Chinese situation won't further affect your order book or indeed the supply chain over the summer? Clearly, you must have some visibility on that to give you the confidence. Secondly, just on life sciences, obviously very encouraging performance there. Can you give us any color on the extent to which COVID-related demand you feel is related to the performance this year and last year and where you feel your underlying growth is in that market?
Okay. Let's start with the last one. I think when it comes to COVID demand, we don't really have any positive effects anymore from this. I think that's the easiest way to put it. When it comes to the confidence for the rest of the year, it's mainly based on if you look at China. I think it's something that there's a lot of uncertainty with. It's not something that we can guide on. We're impacted like everybody else from lockdown. I think that remains an uncertainty. When it comes to the other part of the supply chain, one of the things that we've done in the wake of the pandemic is to introduce more redundancy in the supply chain.
We very often now have an alternative, for example, for critical components. We could see now already in the beginning of April that we're receiving more goods as well, with more components, more materials. We are getting allocations to a much higher extent when we look at the remainder of this year. That's the main for a bit more confident about the
Avoiding supply chain disruption for the rest of the year.
Thank you, Mattias. I mean, just to sort of further on that, I mean, would that be potentially that's including suppliers from other geographies that you put in place?
Yes, correct.
Great.
using our existing supplier base that we have good contracts with, who have the capacity to produce both in China and Eastern Europe, so we can move rather easily between these sites to support our supply chain.
That's helpful. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question comes from Craig McDonald from JPMorgan. Please go ahead, your line is open.
Hi, good morning. I think most of mine have actually been answered, but just one technical one to Lars probably. Can you help us understand the difference between the currency impact, the gross profit line, and the EBITDA line, which looks to be quite large? What were the moving parts this quarter, and how should we think about that going forward? Thank you.
Yeah. When it comes to currency impact, when it comes to the normal translation impact, of course, that has a positive impact, and also a transactional part with the weaker Swedish krona. What is also impacting here, as you look at the other operating income expense line here, there we have the revaluation effects of internal accounts receivable and payables. Last year we had quite a positive impact that, so the difference between the years of some SEK 60 million is mainly then related to this positive revaluation effect that last year, and this year it's rather flat. That's why we get a lower impact in the year.
Okay. Understood. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question comes from Patrik Ling from DNB Markets. Please go ahead, your line is open.
Thank you. Maybe a follow-up on the last question on currency there. I mean, given where currencies are right now, how should we think about these revaluations going forward? Because I as well noticed a big difference here between the gross profit impact and the EBITDA impact.
When it comes to currency rates, as of today, of course, it has a further somewhat positive impact related to the normal translation and transaction impact. When it comes to revaluation of accounts receivable and accounts payable, it will have less impact, because last year we had very high volumes of ventilators, which is creating this exposure, and that is coming down significantly now. We will have less impact when it comes to these revaluation impacts. It's back to, let's say, no more normal translation and transaction impacts going forward.
If we look at the ratio here or how we should look at between the impact on EBITDA and gross profit, the relative impact, positive impact on EBITDA would be larger in coming quarters. Is that the way I should interpret you?
If you look at Q1 as is now this year, and not so much compared to last year, this is the currency rate that we are having. If the currency as it is today, then of course it will have a slightly more positive impact. That is how you should think.
Okay, great. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question comes from Peter Östling from Pareto Securities. Please go ahead, your line is open.
Yes. Thank you. Two quick ones. Could you just talk a little bit about, of course, you lost part of your margin from lower volumes of ventilators, but I guess that you regained or recovered some of that by increasing sales of the high margin elective surgery business. Could you just talk a little bit about how much you recovered during the quarter? Thank you. Yeah. We can't quantify it for you, but you're absolutely right about the dynamic there. I think we had higher order intake than sales of elective products as well. We're leaving the quarter with good momentum from that perspective.
As you rightly pointed out, these categories in general have higher gross margin than the average for the group. Okay. Why don't you think that you have seen any effect on U.S. demand from all these things that when it comes to staffing shortages in the hospitals? There is probably some effect on our demand, but the demand is still good if you compare with where we were a year ago. We are impacted as well. If you compare with the momentum we had a year ago, it is better now. We do have an overall double digits growth in the elective categories. Okay. Okay. That's all for me. Thank you.
Okay.
Thank you. The next question comes from Virendra Chauhan from AlphaValue. Please go ahead, your line is open.
Mattias, Lars, thank you for taking my question. Just one from me. Apologies if I missed that in your earlier comment. Can you comment on the split of the delayed deliveries between the different segments?
No. I think the SEK 300 million that we've given, I think they are.
For the group, it is across all three business areas, but we won't break out the spread.
Okay, perfect. That's all from me. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is a follow-up question from Erik Cassel from ABG. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Hi again. I have two quick ones. I mean, first, you're saying that you're getting more allocation of components now in April, but is that to an extent the result of you paying up more than others or paying high spot prices from new suppliers?
Yes, to some extent, but I think the spot prices are what they are. It's more a question of having good connections and good relationship with different traders and suppliers when it comes to that, to find them. Because that has been, I think the difference here. We have had this issue as all companies all through last year as well. What has been more coming through now is that there is also a lack also in the spot market as such. That has been what has impacting us more, than that we are paying up much more than everyone else. I think the prices are what they are. It's a question of being quick and finding them.
Okay. No, no large sequential uptick into Q2 on costs?
No, not in material that impacts the group. Of course, these components are considerably more costly than they were a couple of years ago, but that we saw also last year. It's not that it's a big shift between Q4 and Q1 here. That is not the case.
Okay. Thank you. Just the last one on the timing of Surgical Workflows deliveries. I realize that there's some lag, but it seems to me like the installation readiness should have improved quite substantially now, at the end of Q1. I'm just curious to see if you expect sort of a bump already in Q2 or if it should lag more into or towards Q3 instead.
We expect a gradual improvement during the year, but I think the seasonal pattern that you see normally before the pandemic are going to be hopefully back to a larger extent than we would have liked.
Okay. Thank you very much. That was all for me.
Thank you.
Perfect. Thank you. This was the last question. I'll return the conference back to you, speakers.
All right. Thank you very much. I think we have already done the summary here, so nothing else to add from our end. I appreciate your time. Thank you for joining the earnings call here, and I wish everyone a good rest of the day. Thank you.
Thank you. This does conclude today's Conference Call. Thank you all for attending. You may now disconnect your line.