Hello, and welcome to today's webcast, where we have I-Tech presenting their year-end report 2023. With us presenting, we have CEO Philip Chaabane. If you have questions, feel free to use the form located to the right, and we'll take it up during the Q&A. With that said, please go ahead with your presentation, Philip.
Thanks so much, and most welcome to the I-Tech presentation, the year-end report and quarter four highlights. I'm Philip, and I will guide you through this slide deck, and we'll be available for questions right afterwards. So for those of you who may be new to the company, short overview, I-Tech is Interface Technologies . It's an ingredient chemistry technology company, which is supplying molecules or add molecule into the marine coating industry. So we're available. The technology, called Selektope, is available in marine coatings. More than 20 are on the market as we speak, used by six of the nine largest paint makers in the world, who together are more than 95% of the global coating industry. So it's condensed markets, and we're well advanced within them and their portfolios.
And then it has been applied on several ships. More than 1,000 ships are actually using the technology as an ingredient, component in the antifouling coatings. And the aim is to resist biological attachment or growth onto a surface, the ship surface, called the hull . The company was listed in 2018 and is relying on unique technology, of course, with this specific molecule and its mode of action, and then the patterns surrounding it, including also regulatory protection. The purpose is to enhance efficiency in shipping because marine growth adds to resistance buildup as it makes the surface rough, and that is to be avoided. It's dealing. As we're dealing with biology, we have to tackle it with biology science, and that's exactly where Selektope comes in.
So it's a unique way of repelling away the most critical organisms associated with marine biofouling. So that is I-Tech in a nutshell. Then going into the numbers of the year and the quarter. First of all, I want to show that, or highlight that the profit is a strong increase from the year before, based on a 45% sales increase. So there's a huge leverage here in this business model on increased earnings as we continue to grow our performance. And the growth then, compared to last year, was 45%, coming from a year already back then with quite high growth numbers. And for the quarter, we were a bit lower, 16%, compared to the same quarter last year, which was then quite a good quarter.
But overall, for the year, quite solid figures. Looking at the margin, the overall year ended up at EBIT margin up to 19%, higher than the year before. And due to costs that came into the quarter, it was reduced quite heavily for the quarter, ending up at -2. The net result is reported at GBP 20 million, comparing that to GBP 10 million, so that's where the huge scalability factor comes into the case. And for the quarter itself, then, a slight negative result of GBP 0.4 million, comparing to GBP 4.4 million. I'll guide you through these numbers more in detail as we move on, but before that, some fundamentals on the technology and the company and our performance.
Then back from all the way from actually where we started at the Nasdaq Stock Market. And you can see that's been a tremendous nice journey in the beginning. COVID flattened everything out, and then luckily, a lot of our customers were preparing themselves to take to bring forward new products, and those have been fueling the growth that you're now seeing all the way through 2023, with a small adjustment in the fourth quarter. The graph also illustrates how costs are, in general terms, low and not at all, you know, moving in the opposite direction as the sales revenue growth. And that is the interesting thing with this business model. The fourth quarter itself marks a bit of a challenge, but I'll come back to that.
And the challenge is the fact that Q3 deliveries were very high. That put the sales and deliveries in quarter four lower. It was also a matter of inventory cleanup, assumingly, by the customers. And we also had some exceptional costs that were pushed into the quarter. I will also touch on those. So having said that, we are on the same solid fundamental growth path that we have talked about previously. We are one of the interesting components in marine coating industry that can help reduce the emissions to air quite significantly.
The hull itself is associated with a lot of resistance, as I said, and the industry is aligning around a figure somewhere around 100 million tons of additional CO2 saving potentials, only if the performance of the coatings can then be averaged to the best possible level across the fleet. And Selektope is a component that can help achieve those numbers. But it's not only that, it's the fact that fouling on a ship also is correlated to the risk of transporting alien species between ecosystems. And some of those alien species may be invasive, and then it causes a lot of harm, and that induces a lot of costs. A bit more difficult to put a number on the cost, but it's a regulatory issue on IMO level.
So coatings are a big focus when it comes to this issue. So keeping them clean will definitely be a priority, and it will increase throughout the different regions of the world, although it's most emphasized right now in Australia and New Zealand. But it's also about material optimization, try to make these coatings as high-performing as possible by using the lowest possible amount of chemicals, since everything leaches out in this industry, or not in this industry, in these coatings. It's important that we together, as an industry, try to minimize that and optimize all of that, as far as possible. The extremely low concentrations of Selektope that are used can enable a trend shift in this context.
Those are the three really strong reasons why we are confident about what we do and that we see a very bright future moving forward. We're getting it, we or I should say, the industry, independently of what efficiency measure you actually are developing, selling to the shipping industry, there's a big support of regulatory measures put in place by IMO, which is under United Nations, the only body that is globally impacting the industry. So they have put forward a lot of different measures. Some of them are related to greenhouse gases, and they have been enhancing their criteria or the guidelines for what needs to be done in the industry. Even at 2050, they would like to see the industry to be somewhere close to net zero greenhouse gas.
That obviously implies a shift to different fuels. What we know as of today, that requires, well, that will imply higher costs, of course, because there are different energy sources will be more expensive and have less energy per kilogram, so to say, than what they have today. And to reach there, you need to optimize everything else on ship. The coating and underwater hull performance is one of the key fundamental aspects to contribute to transition to non-fossil fuels. But before that, the industry has to reach already by 2030, 40% reduction in CO2, and that can be achieved through these technologies that are now successfully being implemented step by step in the industry. Not only marine coatings, of course, but that's one of the interesting and important parts.
In addition to that, there are more local regulations, such as the EU Emission Trading System, which forces ship owners, I think from 2026 and onwards, to pay a fee for excessive CO2 emissions. There's also design index measures, and there's also operational efficiency indexes that are classifying a ship's efficiency level year by year. Those are put in place as of 2023. It will take a few years, obviously, to see the big effects of this, but it's already a quite substantial change in how the industry is looking on efficiency technologies. So this is a key, key element in the growth of I-Tech moving forward. And through that, including the strong attributes of the product, all the nine customers who are dominating this industry completely are working with the technology.
Six of them are on market. All of them are on the new building segment market, which is new building of ships, and three of them are also moving into the dry docking market. One have been there quite some time, and that is where the volumes are. If you compare rough numbers, it's about 1,000-1,500 new building projects, or sorry, deliveries per year, while the dry docking market is maybe tenfold, right? 15,000 dry docking opportunities on the larger segment of the global fleet. And we are seeing development activities moving or transitioning into commercial interesting opportunities. We are looking forward to, within the year, have new products from new customers on the markets.
One of them, we signed a license agreement not too long ago, and we're well progressed with also the other one to hopefully see commercial product coming to the public domain within not too long timeframe. So we're quite confident in the development of new things around our technology. And as I mentioned, the different drivers for the industry to make them or make it more efficient combine that with an enormous impact from coatings and also other attributes such as invasive species is fueling a transition of medium grade, or what you call standard grade, to premium grade antifouling products.
One paint maker has put forward some figures that indicates that they have moved from 40%-55%-ish of increased premium products as share of their portfolio within the past 5 years. And we can see the picture is a ship taken from a new build yard in Korea, where the clear message is none of it is possible to miss out from, like, all the way to zero. The focus is clear. It's a container vessel. They use the best possible coating. They use the best possible technologies all over the place. This is super important.... I think this illustrates how strong the trend is to shift from medium or economy-grade products to the premium range, and that's where Selektope belongs. So into the figures.
It's, of course, so that it's bare figures for the quarter. We lost a bit of sales having strong deliveries in quarter three as one of the reasons, maybe building up a bit of excessive inventory that they wanted to keep low over the shift from at year-end. We also see some costs here coming in from one-off costs associated with regulatory affairs and investments in production efficiency projects and other actually personnel-driven costs. So the total difference from the last year was GBP 2.7 versus GBP 0.7. So that has an impact in addition to the loss to the reduced sales in that specific quarter. We don't see any effect from currency between the quarters here.
Apart from that, highlighting again that new customers are moving forward, one is now official, it's International Paint. Although their launch is not official in time, they signed a license agreement, which is more of a design win, and we'll see here during the year how that unfolds. Overall figures remain strong, right? Maintaining a good gross margin. We're seeing a very strong cash balance, which we then have addressed through the news today that we are embarking on a dividend policy. Looking at the full year, the growth is very convincing, moving from GBP 83.6 to GBP 220.9 between 2022 and 2023. That is a very strong growth.
To have one quarter that is a bit slower in the scheme of this is not surprising. We also see a very strong performance here on the earnings side with the net result and EBIT margins coming up to nice levels. So the EBIT margin itself is 90%, and the EBITDA, respectively, is 26%. The interesting thing, which I highlighted also in the initial slide, is that with a 44%-45% growth in revenue or net sales, the profit increases by 95%. So the case is defined as a highly scalable case. Just pointed out for this quarter, we were hampered by some lower sales and higher costs.
We also have a strong cash balance, with fueled by a strong, strong cash flow over the year. For the year itself, it's a step change in demand, right? We've been up at GBP 30 million per quarter in revenue. We dipped a bit in the quarter, in the fourth quarter, but still, that's still a strong shift compared to where we were, before. Sales are mainly into one main customer. We talked about earlier. 81% is to the leading customer, Chugoku Marine Paints. While 16% is for a second-largest customer, and our priority is obviously to balance this as we move forward. But we do see a strong growth potential within both of these, in addition to what we talked about in the past slide, where new customers are coming in.
And we do believe that one of those will not only be in new building, but also dry docking. That will help to bring forward more revenues to the top line and a good results. It's also so that we are in this regulatory process, which I will define in a few slides from now, a bit clearer on what's going on. But that is a cost on the consultancy side, external cost that we have to bring forward now to make sure we prepare everything we can for the important meetings that are scheduled for the year 2024. So, some highlights here on how the sales are distributed.
You can see that's a dominance here by Korea, Japan, 40, respectively, 30%, and then, Singapore, China, and then Europe, 80%. It's not too dissimilar from any other industry supplier or activity within marine, shipping. That is a very Asian-focused industry when it comes to repair and, new build and maintenance and all that stuff. And we also see, the products are launched, and most of those are actually available specifically for that geographical area, Southeast Asia or Asia in general, while in Europe, a lot less products are available because of the very long, registration times that are applied also for the end products.
So to bring a product forward and get it registered in Europe is a multi-year task from the paint maker, which limits their interest to focus on that, given that Asia is much simpler, knowing that the ingredients they are using are exactly the same on the two markets, and they are approved on the two markets. So there's a barrier here in registering final products in Europe that is not existing in Asia, which partially drives this industry even further eastbound into the Asian continent. Growth over the six last years is impressive, 40% CAGR, which is, you know, probably better than what we could assume back in 2020, 2017, 2018.
Of course, we've been spoiled the last few quarters that this will just continue to rock on, and I think it will over the years to come. We have a positive outlook moving forward, and that is symbolized by the fact that the company, the board decided to give the dividends and embark on a dividend schedule, policy. So if you compare to what we talked about last year at this time, we gave a guidance in terms of strong positive outlook, meaning we are looking at double-digit profitable growth and earnings in our core business. The core business is then what we're talking about here, the Selektope business, and that we stand firm by. We believe that this will grow many, many years in that magnitude. At some... And so we did conclude also 2023.
The policy is now put in place where GBP 0.75 per share as ordinary dividend, making 44% of the earnings. As we're overcapitalized in general, we allow the board has decided for an extra GBP 0.75 per share. So total of GBP 1.5, that will be then the dividend for the AGM to decide about. But in addition to that, we are also doing investments that will put us in an even better place moving forward. We're investing in ways to increase profitability, meaning more efficient production processes and a possible restructuring of the supply base. Either way, we will see positive effect on the gross margin somewhere down the line.
Not saying this quarter or next quarter, but maybe at the end of the year and certainly into 2025. Takes time to implement these things, but we have found interesting opportunities that we are now focusing more on. And then it's to enhance the investigation of alternative and complementary growth opportunities. As we still have a good cash position, we're still confident in our growth moving forward, and we are fully aware that our product is a niche product, although a very good one. There are interesting options potentially to broaden the business to make it even more impactful to our customers. So we'll come back to that over the course of the year, I would assume. Looking at some opportunities for the market, this summarizes the call and the slides so far.
Onboarding new customers obviously will help, not only justify the need and clarify the very strong attributes of the products that are then being used of more and more paint makers. Now they go commercial, hopefully also into the dry docking market already from start. We do look deeply into this process improvements that we think can help us bring forward more value to the shareholders and to the company. Then we have strong growth opportunity within the existing leading customers. So they are not sending any signals that this is how to say, a plateau effect of any magnitude. They firmly go on with their strategies, and of course, there will be ups and downs, but there is identified opportunity within both of them.
On the challenge side, it's needless to say, the EU BPR process is overarching a lot of things and also unfortunately bringing on quite some costs moving forward as well. It's a bumpy ride, and it will continue to be bumpy until the decision falls. 2024 and 2025 is important years, and I will soon show you how the different milestones are outlined as far as we know today. We also see positive and meaningful activity in the terms of searching for an alternative or a broader strategy focus on what we have today. And that obviously requires resource that will come in and in some dimension add and enlighten the opportunities for us.
Obviously, some costs will be associated with that moving forward, but we think this is a good time to do so. And although not impactful for the business, even not, if we would have held the time frame, now looking at the next few years, the U.S. EPA, where we were aiming and are aiming still, obviously, for the leisure boat market and the domestic fleet as such, we hope to get through that process earlier, meaning being finalized maybe 2025. It's just obvious that the process has been delayed. Now, we know why. It's a shift of people. The whole case and many others has also just been put on a shelf somewhere, and, you know, new staff coming in and not prioritizing this.
So we're at least three years delayed compared to where we were hoping to be when we first launched this news. We'll have to come back later on where this is, but a bit unfortunate in the turmoil of a significant change of staff at EPA. So final slide, and which I think many of you have been asking and wondering about, is what's happening within the process at ECHA. ECHA is European Chemicals Agency, and as you can see, we are in April, March, looking forward to a first round of discussion after the initial statements that they made, or not they made, but the Norwegian authorities, who are now responsible for hosting our technology on a regulatory level, in terms of the European focus.
When they made their statements in March in May 2023, now in May, March, April 2024 is the first time we actually can engage in those discussions and be part of the, be around the table and be part of the commenting and the discussion. We're looking forward to that, and that explains some of the cost back in quarter four as we have to prepare a lot for this. But we're also preparing for other steps in this process. Before we reach those, we can just inform that May, June, there will be a what we call [combative] meeting that would then conclude ECHA's opinion on approval or not.
And then, the official opinion would be addressed in the what is called PPC opinion meeting, which is done in June, July timeframe, 2024. At that timeframe, there can be two outcomes, approved or non-approved, and if it's approved, things go directly to the EU Commission, where decisions may be taken at the end of the year. If non-approval is recommended, the whole case goes into socioeconomic analysis, meaning taking into account all the other aspects other than the pure scientific aspects. And then that committee will look again on this opinion or recommendation from ECHA, and possibly send it back to ECHA for reevaluation or make a different opinion or stand firm with the opinion.
The whole thing is then dealt with in what you call the Socio-Economic Analysis Committee, probably gathering somewhere first half 2025, where a revised opinion may be given or they will just stay with what it is. But that's important part because that drives a lot of cost at the moment to prepare for this, as consultants need to be on board to build the dossiers and the case for the socioeconomic analysis. So here's the route. So if it goes a non-approval route, there's a lot more stakeholders to be involved, as you can understand. And then the final decision will be or final, relatively final from a commission perspective, might be then quarter two to quarter three, 2025.
And after that, if it falls negative, there is still this option of running legal actions, which is quite common in the chemical industry. All this is subject to a lot of uncertainty, so there's a disclaimer here. We know that some molecules have been in this loop for 10 years. Not saying this will take 10 years, but who knows? This is what we know as of today, at least. And by that, I finalize and welcome questions.
Okay, thank you so much for that, Philip. And, we will now turn over to the Q&A section of this webcast. And the first question, let's see here: Can you motivate why sales dropped quarter-over-quarter?
Yeah, sales drops in the fourth quarter for two reasons, we believe. One is that we had a large delivery schedule, a significant such in quarter three. So, a lot of material was delivered. They received that at the end of the quarter into quarter four, so they probably built some inventory there and therefore were reluctant to put new orders on the same level they did before in the fourth quarter. Also, moving into a new year, they probably want to optimize their financial statements. There's no single issue that we are aware of that has caused any shift in the overall aspects. This is a quarterly effect that are related to the factors we just mentioned.
Okay. Will sales continue to be volatile going forward, or do you expect a recovery in Q1?
I mean, we look long term, right? So, comparing to 2023, we believe we will grow beyond what we delivered in 2023. How each quarter plays out is a bit difficult. Depends on how things moving. As you saw from the past year, it was very strong in three quarters, and one became lower. We're confident that the year will yield a strong performance over as such. And let's see where quarter one and quarter two moves, but we have no reasons to not be optimistic.
Okay. Next question. Can you specify how much the bonuses affected the cost and how these bonuses are determined?
Right. So if you start with the second part of that question. So bonuses, as I think, are highly skewed towards sales growth and earnings growth. So those are the most fundamental aspects when the bonuses are defined. So how strong we grow sales and how strong we grow earnings comparing to what we actually performed in the year before, not comparing to budgets or anything else, right? So it's a pure correlation to or comparisons what we did the year before, and the year was extremely good. Therefore, the bonus levels came high, and that impacted the fourth quarter by around GBP 1 million comparing to the year before.
Understanding that, we are in, leaving 2023 in a very good shape, meaning strong growth and high numbers, obviously, it's gonna be a more difficult year by year to, to, to get the, the higher returns on this bonus as we have to grow quite significantly between the years to reach the levels we, we reached, this year, 2023.
I understand. Can you tell us a little bit more about the regulatory process in the EU? What is the status at the moment?
As I highlighted in the slide here, I think that basically answered the question. We are preparing all these different things. We're preparing the scientific discussions, which are kicking off March, April, and then moving on until June, July, with ourselves and all the different experts we have engaged. That is one track that is ongoing. The other one is preparing socio-economic analysis report, which is a massive document that is prepared by external consultants. We are also then, step by step, preparing, if and only if needed, a legal action, a strategy with lawyers involved. As you understand, costs will come in, in the quarters here related to this. This is what everybody does. We're not the only ones in this process, not even within the marine industry, we're not alone.
There are others with similar experiences. So this is part of the game in a highly regulated industry like the one we're in.
Okay. You have announced that you will step down as CEO after the annual general meeting. Has the recruitment to find a new CEO begun?
Yes, the recruitment has begun. It will take some time. It's a complex role. We believe we will try to Well, we obviously do it carefully and with full respect for the team that is here and doing the job very well today. We will come back with updates on this later on, of course, but let's say it would be an interesting endeavor to search and find the right candidate.
Okay. How big market share has Selektope in Japan or Korea for new building at the moment? Is it possible to double it in a few years' time?
Yes, it's possible to double it. No problem at all, I would say. The shares are not exactly defined, but it's far from significant. It's, I mean, it's our main markets. It's not that it's not significant in that sense, but there's a lot of room to grow. As you have understood from the presentations, we're basically into two main companies driving sales, right? One of them is Japanese. They happen to be quite big in Japan, around 60%, I believe they claim themselves. And we can grow within them, and we can grow with other paint makers in Japan. So that, yes, that can grow our business considerably in that market.
If you go to Korea, there are two main players, driving our volume in Korea, which are also the two largest customers we have. And there are another five quite big customers, or another four, at least, that are quite big in that industry. So yes, there is opportunities, both within those we have and the ones that we hope will import, embark or start to grow from where they are.
Okay. Next question, is could you give some color to this, quotation? "Increased temporary costs were incurred for pilot projects aimed at verifying the efficiency potential of the manufacturing process.
Nice sentence, isn't it? What we are doing is tuning in the processes. We, I mean, produce a chemical through chemical processes. It's about increasing the yield and finding ways to reduce costs, simply speaking, and also cooperating with what is to us then maybe novel and interesting suppliers that could help us gain further efficiency in this supply chain or in the manufacturing landscape. That's worth investing in with a very attractive return on capital if all these things fall into place that we're now seeing possible.
Okay. Can you talk more about the volatility in quarterly sales?
Difficult to say. We will have ups and downs as everybody else. The industry will continue to grow. We are looking firmly positive to the full year. There will be obviously ups and downs, and we can't really control and see how, and we should not control how that goes, but we can't really see already from the start, where it will go. We're off to a good start so far this year. But if that's how that quarter, this quarter will end, we cannot say at this moment. What we do know, and that's known for everyone, is that the comparative numbers to last year are going to be quite tough. We had three very strong quarters.
So if you compare with those, you know, there will be bumps and there will be positives as well, right? Overall, seeing the yearly trends, we are firmly positive about the continued growth, both in earnings and in revenue.
Okay. You mentioned inventory buildup as a reason for lower sales. Can you elaborate?
Well, it basically comes from the fact of having three really strong quarters. Of course, we were stressed to deliver most of those orders because there was an immediate need. But at some point, they also accumulate something, and quarter three was exceptional in delivery. So it's not really big differences between, I mean, quarter four was down 16%, yes, [audio distortion] And that was GBP 25 million comparing to GBP 30 million, or comparing to 31 or 32, and the quarter was GBP 7 million down, maybe, right? But that can happen, right? And if orders come in on the wrong side of the month, from a quarterly comparison perspective, this can happen.
We think, you know, we delivered out a lot in Q3 that you know made the inventory sufficient in a larger degree than what we saw before, meaning orders didn't come in and deliveries didn't go out as much in quarter four. There’s. That’s the only reason.
Okay. Will you be able to provide us with data points on the underlying growth in adaptation of Selektope, such as the number of ships painted per quarter, for example?
We don't know what goes into inventory and what goes into the paint bucket for ship application at yards. We, it's impossible for us to see that. So we can continue to disclose our sales, and we can try to estimate how, you know, how many ships that would correspond to, but we have no visibility really on what happens once it's delivered to the customer. The important thing at the company is mainly not that, is to see how a customer grow, and new customers adapt to technology, and step by step, that will capture more ships, and also that will help grow in the future.
Can you elaborate on the developments in price versus volume?
So is that price to customers, I assume? If so, I think we're in a very attractive price range. I mean, we're still a significant part of cost of goods. In terms of volume, of course, customers have a volume benefit of engaging with Selektope. And that has, you know, that's why gross margin has been moving up and down between what we have now, 52%, I think, right, to 56%, I think we have had at the top level. And that depends on customer mix, depending on how much volume comes in from those with low volumes compared to those with high volumes.
So at some points, this will even out, of course, but there's still a mix in the customer portfolio that will have differentiated, you know, contributions to the top line.
Yeah, understand. So, what's the expectation for growth in 2024?
We don't put forward official statements on the actual growth, right? We had this slide before where we said that our w e're quite confident that there will be at least a double digit growth figure on revenue and earnings comparing year by year, and that's what we stand by. We see positively on the start of the year, we see positively on the adoption of new customers, and we see clearly that our main customers are focusing on Selektope and continuing their efforts in promoting their products that are really, really good that then contain Selektope.
Okay. Now that two-thirds of Q1 has passed, would you say that the slowdown in growth for Q4 2023 is confirmed to be from inventory optimization among your customers?
No, so far, I mean, we're into the quarter, yes, but we don't see, I don't see that affect us as continuing into the quarter. Again, let's see what happens when we approach the shift between quarter one and quarter two, what comes in, and this quarter goes over to the next, but so far, we're happy with what we see as demands on the technology on the products.
Were there any one-time effects in personal cost, or is this a new normal? Do you see any new need for hires?
So, as outlined and asked by previous questions, the main difference in the personnel cost was this bonus payment, right? That was then linked to the performance of 2022. That performance, of course, we hope as a company, as owners of the company, of course, that we will continue to grow by 45, 55, 60% per year. And if that happens, of course, the bonus schedule will result in something, you know, more important. But again, comparison numbers are tougher and tougher, meaning that that will probably be less likely to see that effect in the same time next year. We have hired, however, one person in R&D that has been transitioning from what do you call that?
Covering up for maternity leave, and then now being employed to add one resource when the person on maternity leave comes back. So, that's in R&D. That's not a significant change for us, but it's from a cost perspective, it's significant as a team, of course. But that's it. And in terms of the new hires, the new CEO will come in at some point, and let's see if that brings forward needs for some other changes. But we don't see a huge shift here. What has been said before also is that we're running very, very lean, right? There's not that much redundancies.
At some point when we start working on new strategy endeavors and so on, we might have some extra resource on that, as we don't have much time ourselves to work on other ideas or other pathways. So those are areas maybe that can come in on the personal side, looking over the year.
Okay. On your production, have you added a third production location, or has there been movement in the previous setup?
Not yet. We are assessing a new supplier. We are engaged in discussions with the existing ones, and the year will tell where it goes. And that's the whole thing that we mean with optimizing processes. So we've been working with the new processes, we're talking to suppliers, we've found a new supplier, potential new supplier, I should say. And this will help find the optimal setup for the manufacturing. I would say it will take 2024 to set it all down, and you will see the effects of that end of the year or 2025. But it's quite interesting what we're seeing.
China and Korea continue to take market share in new builds. We know that you're strong in Korea, but what about China? What is your market reach in China, and how has it changed over time?
Well, as you saw from the pie chart we had, we are quite strong in Korea, right? Korea, Japan. Both of those are also big new building countries next to China. The difference, how to say, the difference in Korea and Japan compared to China is that most of the yards, almost all of them, are exposed to oceanic environment, meaning ocean, you know, coastal, but ocean-exposed locations. So a lot of fresh ocean water creating a lot of fouling pressure. In China, many of these yards are upstream rivers, right, with more or less brackish water with a completely different set of problems not related to fouling.
So the drivers, they're not the same for the paint makers offer a special upgrade to protect it over this new building period, as an example, right, which has been part of it. But of course, many ships that are built want the best as possible at fouling, and then they are specified with Selektope coating independently on where they're built. And that is what we see when we sell into China. It's not at all related to this, what you call, static exposure of outfitting or a new building period. As the product is picking up in popularity, we will have more sales to China as they also dominate the dry docking industry, which is on the maintenance part of it.
On capital allocation, should one expect that excessive cash will be distributed to investors rather than invested in new technologies?
Right. So, we are doing a little bit of everything in that respect. We have a proposed dividend schedule here, as informed. We are investing in ways to make the company even more profitable. Hopefully, we are investing in ways to look, you know, five, ten years ahead and see what broader strategic opportunities we may have. And, I think that encompasses a lot of interesting things that confirms that we're one of, you know, first of all, confident with the growth. We don't give dividends if we don't trust that there is a, you know, continuity in that. We do see that cash is needed to invest in the supply chain somehow, right?
We do see that we need to make ourselves ready with some cash and for potential strategic movements.
Okay. We are 33% into Q1. How do you see the revenue developing going forward? Do you have any indications about the product intake going forward?
That's similar to the, the question we just had, right? So we're looking positively to the year. We have seen. We're not disappointed at all with the start of this year. What happens in the quarter will depend on how things end up, but shift between quarters, I think, rather than anything else. We're not concerned on an overall level.
No. What does the dividend policy look like?
So, this time it was 44% of revenue, sorry, earnings, that was proposed as a standard dividend. And I think the company will take appropriate measures every year to balance that between what I also presented was strategic efforts, as well as investments that can provide higher value to the company by operational needs. So, it will be, I mean, around the number you have seen, that would be expected. We, we're not, you know, we're thought it through. And so this is a level that, you know, around that, we would expect to see it coming forward.
Okay. Could you shed some light on the next strategic phase of development that was announced?
Yes. Selektope is a very unique molecule, right? And as a unique business model, that's very difficult to mimic, of course. But we also understand that how good and how strong the product and the selling points that comes with it are, every product at some point have some sort of life cycle peak, right? And although this industry is super sticky and it takes a long time to see that, we also need to acknowledge that any other effort will also be quite long term. So that's why we're looking into marine coatings in general on exploratory level, I should say. It's not pinpointing specific opportunities at the moment, but we do see our capabilities as I-Tech being quite well known.
We're good in scaling interesting technologies that sometime end up on our desk anyway because we are associated with scaling up interesting technologies into this marine coating industry, where we know the customer, we have the coating experience from our lead side and regulatory side, and we know how to build brands and how to bring things forward in a very lean way, which is maybe not possible in larger context or in a start-up, right? I'm not saying that we're gonna go into immature things, but I think we have a position here that we're exploring a bit further. And if that is validated to be interesting, we will start to make some activity in that direction. For now, it's an assumption, and we're looking in deeper into it the next two quarters, yeah.
Mm-hmm. Could you give us some color on the shipping industry's profitability at the moment?
I can not give much more than what you probably can read yourself out there. It is a challenging industry. Some segments are doing really strong, some are falling behind. This is always in shipping. Very rarely, you see all different ship types or cargo types doing really well at the same time. We have now the crisis with rerouting around Africa as opposed to other quicker routes for geopolitical issues. That is obviously putting pressure on the whole system and would have a logistical super challenge all around the world for the industry as such. And what we've seen before, that comes with the hiccups in the earnings and you know, the pricing and the cost of operating the ship and all that. So.
Let's see, as long as the global GDP grows, shipping will grow. As long as we maintain a global view on, on trade, shipping will grow. And I believe that, that's what we have to do. But yes, there will be quite some ups and downs with what's going on in the world right now.
Mm-hmm. So the last question is, is the regulatory situation in Korea stable?
The regulatory situation in Korea is, depends how you ask, but yes, stable. I think this question relates to the 1% indication or proposal that Korean authorities have put forward. 1% means that no biocide in a paint can be dosed at higher concentrations than 1% by weight. Every biocide except Selektope is dosed at much higher than 1% per weight. So in that sense, it is putting a lot of pressure on the coating industry. And so far, regulators are standing firm, from what I understand, around this proposal. I think there will be grace periods. I think 2026 will maybe be a grace period, you know, for 5-6 years until the final solutions are put in place. But I don't see any..
I haven't heard any shifts in that direction, although a lot of lobbying is going on. Then on the other side, Korea is entering the K-REACH or K-BPR implementation as we speak, and for marine antifouling substances of niche character, that's something that will come into play in 2029. That has been known for quite some time, so that's a re-registration phase in Korea, 2029. That, that's the total things that needs to be known about regulations in Korea.
Okay. I want to thank you, Philip, for your presentation today.
Thank you.
I want to thank you all that tuned in today to this presentation. With that said, thanks and bye.
Thank you. Bye-bye.