Hello and welcome to today's webcast with Impact Coatings, where CEO Jonas Nilsson and CFO Lena Åberg will present the year-end report for 2024. After the presentation, there will be a Q&A, so if you're calling in and would like to ask a question, please press star nine to raise your hand and then star six to unmute yourself when you're handed a word. You can also send in questions through the form to the right. With that said, I hand over the word to you, Jonas.
Thank you. Welcome to this presentation of the Q4 and year-end report. I am Jonas Nilsson, and I would like to take the opportunity to welcome our new CFO, Lena Åberg, who stands here beside me in our brand new facility in Linköping. This is the agenda: Q4 highlights, financial update, summary and outlook, and we will round off with a short Q&A. Q4 highlights. Let's start to talk about the market situation. Several major players face significant setbacks in 2024. For example, some of the big electrolyzer companies announced layoffs and delayed forecasts. Here at Impact Coatings, we have continued to strengthen our position, especially in China. In hindsight, we can see that several market players and some of our customers probably accelerated too aggressively during 2023, and maybe also we got a bit carried away.
We had to switch focus from the North American market to the Chinese market. This was, of course, a challenge, but we made it. Twenty twenty-four is actually better than twenty twenty-three. A small crisis can be what you actually need to push yourself. Today, we have multiple systems in commercial operation in China and a local coating service center where we have seen increasing volumes during the year. We also see signs of recovery in North America and increased interest from new customers. Also, we see the sampling orders from some customers start to reach production quantities, and we are in the process to get qualified for volume production at those customers. Looking at Europe, Europe is not as volatile as North America and China. In Europe, we have ongoing coating services business for other things than hydrogen.
In the past, Europe has been slower in hydrogen, but we see also increased interest in hydrogen in Europe, and we also see interest from potential machine customers in Europe. Let's talk about our business approach to this market situation. We have a strategic sales focus. System sales remain steady throughout the year, and we see a strong growth in China. We measure the number of new paying customers ordering the first sample. A total of 29 new customers were welcomed during the year, including eight in Q4. The new customers are well distributed across the regions, so I would say that we do have an increased sales momentum. Ordering the first sample is, of course, the start of the customer journey, and it's the start for the customer journey both for machine customers and coating services customers.
This is typically followed by more samples until we are qualified, that is, selected as approved supplier, and then it continues with either coating services orders or a machine order. We have increased our delivery capacity. In Q4, we made a successful delivery of yet another IC2000 system, and all the way during 2024, we have delivered with short delivery times. At previous webcasts, I have said that our goal is to be able to sign an order and deliver that order within the same quarter, and we have once again proven that. The shift towards standardized product production of systems, which we base on forecasts, has improved delivery times. It will reduce costs and will enhance operational efficiency. Proactive management. We are on a path to profitability, and the focus has been on increasing sales and deliveries while maintaining cost control.
We're looking at internal efficiency, and in the end of 2024 and now beginning 2025, we made a slight reduction of headcount to improve cost control and internal efficiency. The reduction affects both contractors and permanent staff and is combined with other actions to increase efficiency, so it will not impact our ability to deliver. Already last quarter, we passed SEK 100 million in rolling 12 net sales, and now we also show it for the year. Net sales for the quarter amounts to SEK 42.4 million, which is higher than Q4 2023. To make a fair comparison, in 2023, we pushed very hard to deliver everything we could at the end of the year. We also did that this year. We delivered a machine to China, and we also see growth in coating services in Q4, also mainly driven by China.
Aftermarket is comparable to previous year, but we see a small increase both compared to last year, Q4 2023, and compared to the previous quarters in 2024. All in all, this sums up to almost SEK 110 million for the year. Let's switch to rolling 12. As you can see, after a temporary dip in Q1, we are witnessing an increase in rolling 12-month sales during Q3 and Q4. Sales growth is the cornerstone in our journey towards profitability. When looking at sales over the past quarters, it is clear that we have now established ourselves on a new level. While Q1 2024 was a bit slow, the quarters both before and after have been the best we've seen in the past six years, and we had an all-time high this quarter, Q4 2024.
As I said, we are on a path towards profitability, but we're not really there yet. For the quarter, we have a loss of SEK 3.6 million. The main focus is to sell and deliver more, but we're also looking at costs and improved efficiency. At the end of Q4 and beginning Q1, we made a small reduction of staff. When it comes to cash flow, it has been a deliberate strategy to standardize and build a forecast to enable shorter delivery times, which enables increased sales. This strategy has been successful. Today, we have the level of inventory needed for fast deliveries, so there's no need to further increase the inventory. It can also be noted that there are substantial payments that will come this year, i.e., 2025, that originate from the sales and deliveries in 2024.
If you look at the picture on the slide, the picture shows our assembly hall here in our new factory in Linköping. As you can see, there is one IC2000 in the front of the picture and one IC500 in the back of the picture. Both are in the assembly stage, but can be delivered to customers with fairly short delivery time. Previously, I've been talking about the IC2000 as our workhorse. Before December 2023, we only had one IC2000, the first prototype in commercial production. Now we have multiple machines running 24/7 at customer sites. If we look at the bullets on the slide, proven delivery efficiency, the successful delivery of one more IC2000 system within the same quarter as order was received demonstrates the effectiveness of our forecast-driven production strategy. Market acceptance.
The IC2000 is about to establish itself as a key solution to the industry and to be recognized for its reliability and also ability to meet customer demands. Optimized for large-scale production, the IC2000 is designed for high volume throughput, but it's also a design you can grow with. Multiple systems in full-speed production, which drives system and product refinement. Real-world operational experience enables us to continuously fine-tune the IC2000 for high-performance series production applications. To have multiple systems running in real production at customers is a technical asset. Those customers, they test our machines in a way we could never test them here in-house. When something goes wrong, they send us error reports, we fix it, and we improve the machines. In this way, we get our machines battle-proven. We believe that this will be a very strong competitive advantage when the hydrogen market expands.
Although this is a Q4 year-end report webcast, I want to mention some technical things. Compared to our competitors, we have very few moving parts in our machines, and we only have one turbo pump in the center of the machine. Having customers that run the machines 24/7 can be a challenge, but with fewer moving parts, it's also less of a challenge. With fewer moving parts, you can get battle-proven faster because you have an intrinsic robust design. Here are the press releases since the last report. We have one machine order of yet another IC2000, and we have one collaboration with Feint ool SITEC. The collaboration is non-exclusive, where we together promote stamping, welding, coating, and sealing, and that is the complete value chain to a plate that is ready to be mounted into a fuel cell stack.
With that, I hand over to Lena, who will guide us through the numbers.
Thank you, Jonas. Yes, as we have concluded, we had a strong quarter in all revenue streams. We delivered one coating system to Feint ool in China, and we also delivered some upgrading. It was a very strong quarter in coating services with increase in Sweden, but especially in China. This quarter reduced the gap compared to last year. The sales in the quarter was SEK 10.4 million compared to SEK 4.4 million last year. Also, aftermarket increased compared to previous year, SEK 5.1 million compared to SEK 3.9 million, with a good level in Sweden, but the increase was in China. Gross margin at 61% for the quarter was lower than last year, but an improvement compared to Q3 2024 and contains a product mix including one coating system.
We continue to work with improving efficiency, of course, and lowering COGS. Personnel costs and other external costs were SEK 27.8 million compared to SEK 22.7 million last year. The increase mainly pertains to increased costs of hired consultants and also higher rental costs since we had rents for both the old facility and the new one in Q4. We also have some extra costs for moving to the new facility. Currency exposure resulted in a foreign exchange loss of SEK 300,000. Interest income amounted to SEK 200,000 compared to SEK 1.8 million last year. In total, this adds up to a negative net income for the quarter of SEK 3.1 million compared to plus SEK 0.6 million last year in Q4, where last year's Q4 included a one-time gain of SEK 4.0 million.
As for full year, we had a strong growth in sales, 12%, supported by increased activities in customer acquisitions and investments in our coating service centers. Full year net sales were close to SEK 110 million, as Jonas has mentioned, with the strong sales increase in coating systems, SEK 74 million in total compared to SEK 51.9 million last year. Aftermarket increased as well to SEK 14.3 million compared to SEK 11.4 million last year.
Coating services did not really increase but made good progress in the last quarter and ended at SEK 21.6 million compared to SEK 35.1 million last year. Gross margin for the full year was 57% compared to 59% in 2023. The year 2024 contains a product mix including more coating systems and less coating services. As mentioned before, personnel costs and other external costs increased in Q4 especially and ended at SEK 88.8 million compared to SEK 83.6 million in 2023.
The main explanations are the increases in Q4, that is, increase in hired consultants and extra facility costs and increase in facility costs, as mentioned earlier. The increase in depreciation, SEK 6.4 million compared to SEK 4.8 million last year, is mainly from the Chinese facility. There was an exchange gain of SEK 1.0 million in 2024. The interest income for the full year was SEK 1.2 million compared to SEK 1.8 million last year. In total, this led to a negative net income of SEK 29.6 million for the full year compared to SEK 32.0 million last year, negative. We move to the balance sheet and conclude that we have continued to invest in coating systems to our coating service centers. We have also continued our work to produce systems based on forecast.
Of course, there are a lot of figures on this slide, and I will explain the most important changes compared to the end of last year. Starting at fixed assets, intangible assets have increased in capitalized development costs. If we go down a couple of lines, it's also assets under construction have increased. The closing balance is SEK 18 million. That is to support future growth in sales. We have been working with one IC2000 system to the coating service center in China, which was delivered in Q4. We have also been working on one IC500 system for Sweden, as well as made investments of other equipment to the new facility in Linköping. We also have long-term accounts receivables in the balance sheet of SEK 16.3 million. In total, this means an addition of SEK 26 million in fixed assets compared to the end of 2023.
The next major change compared to last year is related to our continued work to manufacture systems based on forecast to shorten lead times and generate an increase in sales. For these systems, we have purchased components, which can be seen in the increase in raw materials, which have increased to SEK 94 million from SEK 80 million in 2023. We also see an increase in work in progress by SEK 7.7 million. Other short-term receivables have increased by SEK 26 million and consist mainly of customer receivables and also prepaid expenses and accrued income. As for cash, we will come back to that in the cash flows statement. For short-term liabilities, they have increased SEK 9 million and is a mix of increased accounts payables and increased accrued expenses and prepaid revenue.
The cash flow statement, we can conclude that at the end of the year we ended with a cash balance at SEK 32.5 million. Continued sales growth is vital to scale up the business, and we are working according to our plan to get in new paying customers, and we are well prepared for fast deliveries to increase sales. The cash flow was negatively affected, of course, by the operating result for the year, which was minus SEK 31.3 million. The increase in working capital of more than SEK 50 million is driven by a large increase in receivables, mainly due to high sales, especially in Q4, and also driven by the new strategy in 2024 to produce systems based on forecasts. We are well prepared for fast deliveries.
As we have mentioned before, investments during the year, almost SEK 17 million, is mainly related to one coating system to our coating service center in Shanghai and one system to the new facility in Linköping, but also capitalized development and investments of equipment to the new facility. In total, this resulted in a negative cash flow of SEK 89.7 million in the year and a closing balance of SEK 32.5 million Swedish kronor. This was a financial update, which means that we now move on to the summary and the outlook.
Thank you. Summary, net sales exceeded SEK 100 million. This is a key milestone demonstrating strong growth and strategic execution. Continued system sales momentum, we have successfully delivered multiple IC2000 systems, reinforcing our market position and customer trust. Growing traction in coating services, increasing demand, particularly in China, will support long-term recurring revenue.
If we look at operational improvements, standardization gives result and increased delivery capacity. Proactive management and stricter cost control measures. This includes adjustments in staffing and operational expenses with the aim to strengthen long-term profitability. Looking at the future, maintaining leadership and explore new opportunities within the hydrogen business area. We are striving to become the market leader across the board in the hydrogen market. This means maintain leadership where we are leaders and explore new opportunities within the hydrogen business area. We want to expand further within the metallization vertical while being open to horizontal application opportunities. We use active sales activities in the metallization vertical, and we continue to be open to horizontal application opportunities that sort of comes our way. We target profitable growth through increased sales with cost discipline. Continued momentum in adding new customers. Last year, we added more than two per month.
We will continue to add more new customers in parallel with developing the ones we got last year into big ones this year. We have reduced coating system lead times by production to forecasts, and we will continue to decrease costs by producing to forecasts. With that, thank you everyone.
Thank you so much for the presentation here. We will now carry on with the Q&A. The first caller in that has a question is Lara Mohtadi from ABG. You have the word.
Hi, Lara here from ABG. My first one is on your gross margins. You obviously managed to increase them this quarter, both year- over- year, but also quarter- over- quarter. Could you maybe tell us how you've been working on improving your gross margin? Is it mainly from your new forecasting-based systems? What levels can we expect moving forward?
Yeah. Mainly, we are working with reducing COGS. When producing to forecast and standardizing our machines, you can reduce the production cost of the machines. You do that in two ways. One is if you have standardized machines, you buy more of the same from your suppliers. If you buy more of the same, then you can lower the cost for the parts. Also, when producing to forecast, you can plan your production in a way that you can be more efficient in your production. What we see in sort of the future that will also come, we have moved to our new facility here in Linköping. We have invested in some new equipment to make the assembly much faster and more efficient. We do have a good potential to further reduce COGS.
Okay, great. Thank you. During the quarter, you had some elevated costs, which were partly due to the expenses associated to relocating your offices. Have all these costs been accounted for, or should we anticipate additional costs related to this in the upcoming quarters?
Yeah, I can answer that. Yeah. We have already caught these costs, I would say. There could be some investment inside the facility, but that's not connected to the move. That is normal improvements.
Yeah. I can also say that we are up and running in the new facility. We have delivered our first machine from the new facility. It is working. We see shorter assembly times already now.
Very clear. Thank you. If we talk a little about pricing, could you talk about the latest pricing trends you've seen? How has the pricing trends of the INLINECOATER systems changed in recent years? Maybe if you could just elaborate a little on this.
Yeah. In general, we have raised our prices a lot. If we look sort of over a bit longer term, this is mainly driven by the fact that our machine is getting bigger and bigger. The IC2000 was released in, yeah, released to the public in 2022. We made a first delivery to a customer in late 2023. Now, during 2024, the focus has been on the 2000, and the 2000 is much bigger than the 500. We can charge more for it. We also have improved our machines in terms of capacity. Also, the small machines have been improved in terms of capacity. We can raise the price.
If you just look at sort of the price the customer pays for a machine, that is going up. If we look at the trend on the market, we see that we are sort of pushed downwards, and we see that competitors, they sometimes, what we think at least, underprice their machines to try to get orders. Especially when we win and they lose, they have sort of nothing to lose on sending in quotations that are quite low. We see a sort of push to lower the prices, but we try to mitigate that by adding sort of more functionality and more capacity to our machines so we can keep the prices or even increase the prices. In parallel with that, we are working with lowering the COGS to maintain and increase our gross margin.
Very clear. Thank you. Can we just please talk a little about the market momentum in the U.S.? You mentioned briefly this earlier, but what's the current status of your U.S. coating center?
Yeah. We still have the plan for a U.S. coating service center. We have not stopped that. We're just holding our finger on the pause button, but we are ready to start. As soon as we see increasing volumes, we will go for a U.S. coating service center. One of the drivers to have a coating service center in the U.S. is to be present in different parts of the world. We are not that dependent on sort of tariffs and trade wars and so on. Whatever happens, we will have a production where we have our customers.
We see this will probably be more and more important, especially for the U.S., to be able to produce on U.S. soil. We are talking U.S., not only North America, but U.S. I sort of lost your—it was a long answer, but I maybe lost your question. Was it an answer to your question?
It was an answer. Thank you. That was all from my end. Thank you very much.
Thank you so much for the questions. We will now carry on with some questions that have been sent in to us. The first one is, analysts and financial media predict need for a capital raise in the near future. Can you comment on that, or can you avoid it?
We have a business plan, and we have enough liquidity to execute on that plan. I will try to give you a bit more details.
Our strategy has been and is to standardize and build to forecast. This requires inventory. Now we have the inventory needed to execute on that plan. We do not need to build any more inventory. We also have a brand new factory here in Linköping, and we have the capacity to produce one machine per month. We do not need to take any more investments to get to that capacity. We have that capacity. We already have what is needed to execute on the plan. We have shown during 2024 that we can get orders and we can deliver. Of course, we have to get the orders. To do that, we do have the right sales team in place with designated focus salespersons in the right places around the world.
We are well prepared for 2025, and we have everything in place to execute on our business plan.
Thank you. You mentioned inventory here in the last answer. How many systems can you deliver based on the year-end inventory?
We sort of have the inventory level we need to deliver. There is no need to further increase the inventory level. For example, you saw from the picture of the factory where you could see that we have different sizes of machines in different stages of assembly. Today, we can deliver any of our standard sizes with any configuration at a decent delivery time. This is important for the sales process. I mean, the ability to deliver is important to be able to sell. This gives us a competitive advantage.
Thank you. You exclude only SEK 0.3 million from metals from electrolysis 2024. not you deliver electrolysis coatings in volume any longer, or are there metals included in the coating service revenue? If so, how much?
Yes, we do deliver such coating services for electrolysis. We have customers who prepay the metals, and we charge them in a cost-neutral way. We show that in our reports. Today, this is, however, not the preferred model because that model is good if you have one or two customers. With many customers, it is a much more efficient model to include the metals in the price and also charge a margin on the metals. You cannot charge that much margin, but you can charge a margin also on the metals. We use the new model for all new customers where we sort of have one price which includes everything. We are also working on transferring the old customers to this new model.
Thank you. How big is the accounts receivable balance?
Yeah, this is a very good question. Maybe we did not mention that in the question before, but I think I kind of talked about it when presenting the balance sheet. We have a lot of receivables, both short-term and also some long-term. I would say we have about SEK 45 million in receivables coming from sales. There are receivables we are awaiting payment for, of course. That will contribute well to the future cash.
Maybe I should have mentioned that on the question about our liquidity, that this is sort of incoming cash where we have already done the sales job. There is no sales job needed to be done to get those payments.
Thank you so much. Moving on to the last question here. How big is the potential in the Feint ool SITEC partnership announced in January?
I can first tell you a little bit what it is. It is a non-exclusive collaboration where we promote each other. For us, this is an opportunity to create a whole product. This is important for the push-pull strategy because we become much more relevant to the customer's customer. I will give you an example. A stack manufacturer, which is one of our customer's customers, a stack manufacturer typically buys ready-to-mount bipolar plates, buys membranes and other stuff, and assembles that into a stack. If we look at a bipolar plate, it consists of two sheets of formed stainless steel, and it is welded together and then coated by a PVD coating. Feint ool, they do the forming and sell machines for forming of those metal sheets.
SITEC focus on the laser welding, and we do the coating. Together, we have a complete offering. We can go to our customer's customers and be relevant for the customer's customer. They can choose either the complete offering or they can pick and take the coating from us and the rest from someone else. This is important for us to be able to be more relevant for our customer's customer. It is also good to have this collaboration because we can do joint activities. For example, we went to a trade fair in Paris, and we shared a booth, which means that we can be an exhibitor at a very low cost, and we can ride on each other's customer base.
Thank you so much. That was all the questions we had. Thank you, Jonas and Lena, for presenting here today and answering all our questions. Thank you all for watching. I wish you a pleasant weekend.
Thank you, everyone.