Hello. My name is Malin Siberg, and I'm the CEO of Guideline Geo.
Hi, I'm Jonas Nordstrand, and I'm the CFO of Guideline Geo.
Today we will walk you through the Q4 report of the company. As we know that we are not that known to many outside our industry, we will start by giving you a brief introduction to the company, to what we do and who we are, and then we will end up with the financials. If you have any questions along the way, please type them into our chats, and we will have a Q&A session in the end. If you look outside, everything you see above ground is mapped, digitized, and modeled. The building you're in was designed in a 3D model and is maintained in one. The bridge that you crossed on your way to work has a digital twin, and every lamppost along the road has been mapped, digitized, and is connected.
The construction and infrastructure sector is being digitized fast. What about Guideline Geo? We digitize what you can't see. We map and model what is below the surface. We use high-tech, nondestructive geophysical methods, and we can see anything from very shallow, directly under the surface, down to 1,000 meters below. Our main applications are utility locating. Utility locating is all about finding pipes and cables, water pipes, gas pipes, electrical cables, fibers, everything that is pretty shallow under the surface. The infrastructure and construction sector has realized that they need to connect the 3D model of everything that is above ground to what's beneath. The 3D modeling of what's underground, what's subsurface. Another application of ours is bedrock and ground investigation. Whatever you build, you need to know where bedrock is and the quality of it and the surrounding ground.
This means that whatever you want to build, if you want to build a building, a skyscraper, a bridge, a tunnel, or a subway, you want to know where bedrock is, the quality of it, and the ground stability as a way to build stable and secure. The third application is groundwater. Groundwater is a growing need all over the world today because of climate change and urbanization. Groundwater can be found very shallow, but also deep down in bedrock aquifers and fractions. We help our customers explore and find new groundwater. It's not only about finding water, it's also about monitoring the quality of the groundwater. If you are close to the sea, you want to monitor for any saltwater intrusion. If you are close to a waste deposit, you want to monitor for any pollution that might spread into the groundwater.
If you are close to dam, you want to monitor the dam for any leakage. These are our three main applications, there are many other applications where geophysics play an important role for our customers. Archaeology, finding things that is hidden in the ground. road scanning for potential potholes or cracks that you can proactively prevent if you know where it can be. environmental surveying, mineral explorations. There are many applications where geophysics play and can play an important role. If that is what we do, who are we? We are a stock listed company. We are listed in Nasdaq at the First North Growth Market.
Jonas will walk us through the Q4 and the financials in the end of the presentation. We're really proud and excited to share with you that 2022 was the year when we did a financial turnaround, and our three main financial targets were met. Last year we had net sales of SEK 173 million, which was a growth of 22%. Our EBIT went from SEK -1.7 million in 2021 to SEK +7 million in 2022. Our cash flow went from SEK -19.3 million in 2021 and SEK +6.4 million in 2022. We're pretty proud and excited about our financials. We have two strong brands, well-known and strong brands in ABEM, or ABEM in Swedish, and MALÅ. We have a global reach throughout the both a direct and indirect sales channel and support. We are made in Sweden.
We have Swedish roots and history, and we have our manufacturing, our operations, and global quality out of MALÅ, which is also the name of the brand, in north of Sweden, and our innovative R&D in Umeå. Our headquarters are in Stockholm. This year we celebrate 100 years. I will walk you through a little bit more detail into our three main applications, starting with utility locating. As I said, it's all about mapping, documenting, modeling pipes and cables underground, knowing where to dig, where to put your excavator to work, making sure that it doesn't hit anything. The industry segments are of course, infrastructure and construction. The tightened urbanization puts higher and higher demands on knowing where your pipes are.
It's a way to improve and increase construction productivity, but as important is constructor safety so you don't hit a gas pipe, for instance. A reference customer is from Sweden. A well-known technical consultant, Tyréns, used our equipment for a large project in Slakthusområdet outside Stockholm to map where pipes and cables and fibers were in the ground prior to a major reconstruction that is ongoing. Utility locating has been a growth application for us, and we have invested heavily in R&D over the years, over the last years, and we have a market-leading solution for this. Nevertheless, even if we sell worldwide to more than 80 countries, it's just a few of them where we see a really strong growth. We think that we see a lot of untapped potential in the utility locating application. Bedrock mapping.
It's all about understanding bedrock depths and bedrock quality and the ground stability surrounding it, and it's all about being able to build safe and stable. Knowing where to build is key for this. Again, it's the infrastructure and construction markets that rely on this application. A reference customer from this area is a customer I met weeks ago from Nepal. It's a geotechnical consultant called Clean Energy Consultants. They invested in our equipment to be able to do ground investigations and bedrock investigations in the planning and development of a new hydropower plant in the slopes of the Himalayas. The third application is groundwater. I think everyone understands and sees the need of finding new groundwater, and that's a need worldwide.
To drill for water is expensive, knowing where to drill is really key to this sector. Apart from finding new groundwater aquifers or new groundwater is to monitor the aquifers that you do see and do have. Monitoring for pollution, for leakage, and for saltwater in-intrusion. One reference customer we work with in groundwater sector is USGS in the United States. It stands for U.S. Geological Surveys, the comparable authority in Sweden would be a combination of Lantmäteriverket and SGU, [Sveriges geologiska undersökning] . It's a U.S. authority. They use our equipment. They publish reports on what they do. The one I mention here is a report on saline groundwater in Western New York, where they've used our equipment.
There's a lot of growth potential in groundwater application for us too. If this is what we do, how do we do it? We use four different technologies in our solutions, and we're the only one in the market that carry these four technologies. It's good for two reasons. First of all, we're a one-stop shop for any type of customer wanting to work with geophysics. Even more important is that many of these technologies are complementary. You need to use both or two or three technologies to get the best data, to get the most accurate analysis of ground stability. It's a good combination to have all four technologies. Starting with GPR. GPR stands for ground penetrating radar. It's like any radar that we use. We just put, send the signals down into the ground instead.
It's very highly useful for utility locating. You don't go that deep, but you get a good resolution on what you're looking for. TEM is when we use electromagnetic fields, send it into the ground, and measure the changes. This is where we can go really deep, and it's a good application for finding water. Resistivity is when we send current into the ground and measure resistance differences between different layers and different materials. Resistivity is a good combination technology to TEM, and both are good on their own as, and in combination when, for instance, finding water. Seismic is when we induce vibration into the ground, and we measure the movement of the vibration throughout the ground. This is really good for bedrock analysis, analyzing quality of bedrock, searching for cavities or fractures or potential pit holes.
It does say a lot of quality of, for instance, bedrock. We have two strong brands, ABEM or A-B-E-M, that is the brand for TEM, resistivity, and seismic. MALÅ, which is our brand for GPR, for ground penetrating radar and utilities. As in most high-tech companies nowadays, the software is what is driving our growth. We have a strong workflow focus in our solutions, and we bring features to our customers and added value through software. We have two strong software platforms, MALÅ Vision and MALÅ Controller App for the GPR solution. We have market leading unique features such as AI to locate utilities on the ground in the radar data. We use visualization, 3D model visualization to visualize where the pipes are, where the cables are, and what they look like. We have...
We can geoposition our datasets through GNSS and include maps so we can really get a map on where you find your utilities and the location of it. This is mainly on our GPR side, where we are market leading both on the instrument and data quality as well as on the software side. We have been in this market since 100 years ago. Our origin is from the North, from the mining sector, where we first introduced solutions to the mining sector in 1923. Throughout the years, we have innovated over and over again on both product lines, the ABEM side and the MALÅ side. On the GPR side, we are leading in data quality.
We have seen trends, and we have innovated in how to increase productivity for our customers through how we can put our radar solutions after a vehicle to make it faster, more productive, or make it more easy to use. We put our antennas under a drone to be able to survey in areas where you can't walk. The latest trend is that we're going autonomous with our ground penetrating radar solutions. Another strong trend has been on the software side that I just mentioned, we are seeing more and more features and customer value add being brought to our solutions through the software solutions. That was a brief introduction to the company, and now I will hand it over to Jonas to walk you through the Q4 financials.
Thank you, Malin. Yeah. This is the key financials. The net sales for Q4 was SEK 47.1 million compared to last year, it was a little bit higher, but that's mainly due to the launch of MALÅ Easy Locator Core that was driving the sales more or less on that quarter. If you compare with the 2022 with last year, it looks a really good year with very high sales. I think it's yeah, one of the best sales so far. The operating profit was not too good on Q4 this year, but it was affected by a write-off in one of our development projects that we need to take. For the full year, I would say still good numbers.
If you look at the operating margin, also a bit lower, but we still compare with the, with last this year, in 2022. What you actually see here that we have at least four, five quarters more or less in a row that we have constant growth. I think that's... It's a, it's really good work with all the people in Guideline Geo and our customers and partners and so on. The order intake, as you can see for the Q4 2022 was SEK 42.2 million. It's also pretty much as last year. I think that's also this is really strong numbers. We still grow. If you look at my next slide here, we look at net sales per region.
You can see we have a more or less constant growth since 2020. This is Americas and EMEA. Look at this, that they're growing pretty much at the same speed, but also APAC is growing really good numbers. It was a lot of affected by the China COVID lockdowns. Yeah, I think this is excellent numbers for this type of company. This is also shown a little bit more of where do we make our best sales. Malin just mentioned about ABEM and MALÅ, and you can see they are ABEM is have pretty much the same sales. MALÅ is a little bit bigger, especially since, yeah, Q4 last year, 2021. With the launch, but it's growing.
This is a growing company, has been doing since a couple of years, but now we get out the new platform. I would say we are a little bit more stable. I think the numbers tell us by itself, this is strong numbers. Also a little bit information about cash flow. The net cash flow for Q4 is really good. 2022, SEK 1.7 million . I think, as you can see, it's quite some time since we have that good cash flow except for I think it was a couple years ago when again, Leah was selling a property that we had. It's really good numbers, I think. Yeah, this looks good, and we're working more and more this year.
Mm-hmm
T ry to improve the cash flow, both, the operating cash flow and also the net cash flow. We still, and we will continue to do a lot of investment in new products, new solutions, and new, yeah, findings of what's, what we needed. Yeah.
That was the brief introduction to the company and to the Q4. Let's see if we have any questions from the audience.
We have two questions right now that we think can answer. First was, any financial goals for 2023 and 2024?
I think it's a bit difficult for us to state the financial goals going forward, but I think we are pretty positive as optimistic as you hear that we have we are on a strong path, and we are confident that we will continue on this strong financial growth path.
Yeah. We also have. It's in Swedish, but I think I can try to translate it. Can you tell anything more about the beginning of this year?
It is some seasonal variation in this. January is always not the best month of the year, but still it is according to our plans.
We also had another question in Swedish. I think I will take it in Swedish. [Foreign language]
[Foreign language] . It's, we want to have a good cost control, but we are continuing to invest in growth, profitable growth. A tight cost control is required to continue our growth path in this profitable manner.
Yeah. I have another question. I think it's a bit more for you, Malin.
Mm-hmm.
How has the competition landscape evolved the last couple of years, and how do you differ it from your competitors?
It is not an straightforward answer. The competition looks pretty different if you look at the ABEM side compared to the GPR and MALÅ side. On MALÅ and GPR side, the competition is pretty fierce. There are several players, both American and European ones, where we have head-to-head competition and pretty tough price competition. But we think that we are one of the leading brands and one of the main players, with strong or strongest growth. On the ABEM side, it's not as many competitors, and the competition is not as fierce. News is not coming out as often. The competition landscape is pretty different.
Yeah.
It is there, so we will continue to invest in R&D and be making sure that we are in the forefront of technology and leading this business going forward.
We have an answer in Swedish about exchange rates.
Mm-hmm.
valutapåverkan Q4.
Do you want to respond to that?
Yeah, I'll respond. Sorry, I think it's Swedish, but, [Foreign language]
I can elaborate a little bit on that. Of course, we had a positive currency exchange like all export companies, last year. We have that as a tailwind. Against us, we had increased component costs and transportation costs. If we deduct those external factors, we're very confident we still have a stable and healthy and profitable operations within the company. If you look at the financial situation, and turbulence or uncertainty, we think we have pretty good position because of our and way to risk mitigate against that. We are, as you saw, active in many different sectors, infrastructure, construction, water. We're selling to private consultants, to contractors, to authorities. We are active in 80 different countries, and as you saw, we have a pretty good balance between America's sales, European, and APAC. From a, kind of, risk mitigation in this uncertain environment, I think we are well-positioned.
Yeah. We have a couple questions about gross margin and also will you improve the net margin if volume growth continues? I would say we don't talk too much about gross margin. We talk about little bit more about operating margin. Operating. Since we invest a lot of money in new products, new solutions, and so on, that's a little bit more important figure, at least for us.
Mm
We focus more on...
Mm.
I would say. Yeah. Since we're, I would say, yeah, an investing company still.
Mm
In new products and so on, that's one way to compete with the, with our competitors.
Mm.
That's the answer to that. I have also a question I think I need to take in Swedish. [Foreign language]
We
Yeah. The component side.
We Yeah, on the component side, it's still a struggle, but it's a bit lower, less struggle than it was half year ago. I think we see the light in at the tunnel, but we're still not home safe. The second question was around?
About the prices.
About the prices. We continuously look and review our prices to stay competitive, and at the same time adjust for cost increases that might be because of transportation or component or inflation or whatever it does. We continuously review our prices and of course we do that also this year.
I'll take another question. Margins are always low. Is that because competition? Is that because competition from other companies, or will it be possible to higher prices and still get orders?
I think that's the million-dollar question for any company to set the price right and we try to find the optimal, and of course we never do. Raising prices without losing too much, that's a challenge. We are a high-end brand. We have the industry's best quality data sets, so we want to be, we don't want to be a low price actor in the market. We are high-end, high priced company. If we can raise prices even more, we will see, and we will adopt to make sure that we have sound and safe margins to reach our financial targets. All right. I think time is running up.
I have one last question.
One last question?
Yeah.
Yes.
I think it's really good. I think, we could take English. There's a one in our audience asking a little bit more about our communication to investors.
Mm-hmm.
Do we have any more plans except for this?
Yes. We are planning to do a podcast coming out in Marknaden in March, then we hope to do more like this after every quarterly report. Let's keep an eye out for us, we will continue to communicate through our website and through these type of sessions. I think that was the last question. If you have more question, we are more than happy to answer them, please call us or send us an email or ask a question through our website. Thank you very much for listening and attending this session. T hank you and goodbye.