Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by, and welcome to the presentation of INVISIO Q3 report 2022. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. After the speaker presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question, you will need to press star one and one on your telephone. I would now like to hand the conference to our floor speaker today, Lars Højgård Hansen. Please go ahead, sir.
Thank you very much, welcome everybody to our Q3 update. The headlines for this quarter is increased growth and a strong order intake. The main points from the quarter is that we continue to see a positive market development, a lot of activities going on. We have a very active sales effort in all parts of the world, and from that, we have seen increased growth in sales during the quarter. It is also very rewarding to see that our order intake on a rolling 12 months average, for the first time exceeds SEK 1 billion. Of course, a milestone for the group. Our order book is also the strongest ever, but we still see deliveries lagging due to component and supply issues. However, the situation is gradually improving.
After two years of difficult conditions in our industry during the pandemic, it is now time for us to start harvesting from our recent years' investments in the product portfolio and the sales organizations that we have continued to do despite the global pandemic. If we turn to the next page for the financial result for the quarter, you will see that our revenues are up by approximately 37%. There is some currency in that, so if we disregard currencies, it's 26% growth up to SEK 195 million. For the nine-month period, it's about 10% growth, whereof 3% are related to currencies. Our gross margin is a little higher than the previous or similar quarter last year, 58.1%.
For the nine-month period, we are at SEK 58.4 million. We are still seeing some effect from the fact that we have to buy certain components at the spot market at a higher than normal price. This is probably impacting our gross margin in the size of 2%-2.5%, because of these extra high component costs for certain components. We are happy that we are now, after two difficult quarters, back in a profitable situation. EBITDA is SEK 29 million, and for the first nine months we are at SEK 40 million. That gives us an EBITDA margin of 15% for the quarter and 8.3% for the year.
Again, we are, of course, affected by the fact that the two first quarters of 2022 were not so strong. A little further down, the operating margin is 9% and 1.1 for the nine months of the year. What is very rewarding and very good for us to see and report is the order intake that stands at SEK 291 million, almost SEK 300 million. That is very high, almost a doubling from last year in the same period. Now for the nine-month period, we are at SEK 845 million. As I said, on a rolling 12-month basis, we are above SEK 1 billion.
Of course, if we have a little luck and work very hard in the last quarter, we have a possibility to even exceed SEK 1 billion for the calendar year 2022. That gives us the strongest order book in the history of the company, SEK 615 million, almost three times as much as last year at the same time. We are well positioned for the coming quarters. On the next page, just a few more details and graphs on the order intake and the order book. As you can see, the order intake during Q1 and Q3 in 2022 has been very strong.
That of course has helped us get to the level where we are now with the breaking of SEK 1 billion line. That is fantastic news. The order book per quarter and rolling twelve months on the right-hand side, as I said, is showing a record high level of plus SEK 600 million at the end of the quarter. It is of course always a question of how much more could we have delivered if we hadn't had any difficulties with components and that is yeah hard to estimate at this point.
We think that we are in a good position to manage customer expectations, most importantly, so that we deliver within the time frames that our customers are asking from us. That is, of course, the most important. On the next page, the sales performance, sales per quarter and rolling twelve months. Sales, as I said, up at 35%. Still somewhat impeded by component delays. We, as I said, also do see improvements. It is fewer and fewer components that are causing us issues, but we still expect it to continue for some more quarters until we are fully back to a normal supply and component situation.
The gross profit per quarter, on the right-hand side, as you can see, we are close to our internal target of minimum 60%. We have been impeded by these spot buys that we need to make in order to be able to do certain customer-requested deliveries. On the next page, the operating expenses, we are at the same level as the previous quarter. In the previous quarter, we did have some one-off costs, and in this quarter we do not. In this quarter we are seeing very high costs related to sales activities, and that includes trade shows and includes a lot of travel and customer activities, et cetera.
There is a lot going on, but it's also clear that travel has become more expensive for many reasons. We have many more people in the company that travels these days in our sales organization and also other parts of the organization. The good news is now that we have broken the downward trend on the earnings, both EBITDA and EBIT. We've had some tough quarters during the pandemic, where we couldn't get out and visit customers as normal. As you know, we consistently continued to invest in products and in our sales organization so that we were ready when the curtains were lifted.
I think we are seeing the trend being broken now, and hopefully we are back on track for continued growth after this quarter. On the following pages, a few highlights from a customer point of view. We received an order worth SEK 58 million from a European NATO country, a new customer, and this concerns the latest generation of our control units and headsets under the INVISIO brand. Here, deliveries are planned for the first half of 2023. We also received an order from an existing customer within the U.S. Department of Defense. Same here, it's for our advanced communication and hearing protection systems under the INVISIO brand. This is a long-term INVISIO customer, and we continue to roll out our system solutions for users of this customer.
Deliveries here are mainly within 2022. It is very encouraging to see that we during the quarter have received two volume orders now for our new intercom system, and the cumulative value is about SEK 30 million. It's been a little bit tough to introduce the intercom system during the pandemic due to the lack of customer visits and so on. Now we are seeing a very high interest and also a good traction in several markets for the intercom. A number of small test orders. This is an order where we have a higher volume, and we actually expect this customer to continue to buy more intercom systems.
This will be a good reference for us in other parts of the world as well for the intercom. There is good activity, and we continue to strengthen our sales efforts and put resources into making sure that the intercom will fulfill the potential of being a very important growth contributor to the INVISIO Group. On the next page, another area of growth and interest for us, the law enforcement and security. Here we have signed an agreement with the Danish police, which includes the latest generation of our headsets, both in-ear and over-ear headsets and control units and cables. The agreement is a longer-term one that also has an extension possibility.
We are of course very proud that we now have both the Swedish and the Danish police, our home markets, on the customer list. That is important reference customers for us elsewhere in the world. We also have a large and growing number of some of the most demanding law enforcement units in Europe as well as the U.S. The law enforcement part is important for us and will continue to show good growth. Turning to the next page, the outlook. Everyone has of course fully aware of what is going on in Europe right now and the geopolitical uncertainty that we see.
You've also, I'm sure, seen all the announcement about increased defense budgets in several or many European countries. There's no doubt that the need for modern communication equipment with hearing protection and also communications equipment in vehicles is great in many countries, and that the larger budgets will allow for a faster rollout. We will still say that in the short term, the impact on us is probably limited. There are other things that need to be bought before you get to the communication part, but there's no doubt that the communication part is very important, and that larger budgets and the more soldiers that will be deployed will mean an increase in demand long term.
We are sure that this will be a growth opportunity for INVISIO over many years. In summary, we are very positive for the end of 2022 and, as far as we can see, in 2023. The market conditions are again very active and are starting to resemble what we saw before the pandemic. As a result of the large order book we have now and the current very active market, we predict that the order intake and sales will continue to be strong in Q4 and into the beginning of 2023.
We continue to have a high focus on the sales and marketing of our many new product solutions and we will also now increase penetration and expansion on the new geographical markets that we were addressing prior to the pandemic and where we have been impeded a little bit. We are now starting to get back on track. The immediate future looks bright. It's time to start harvesting from our recent years of investments, and we are absolutely sure that INVISIO has a very bright future. With that, I conclude the presentation for today, and operator, we are ready to take questions, please.
Thank you, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, we now begin the question and answer session. If you wish to ask a question, please press star one and one on your telephone. We have the first question. Please stand by. The first question from Hjalmar Ahlberg from Redeye. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Maybe just the first question on capacity and deliveries. I mean, you're still constrained by logistics and components, but can you say anything about the kind of maximum quarterly delivery rate you can do with the current capacity? If you can say, I mean, how fast can you increase capacity if delivery constraints were to ease?
I would say that we don't have any capacity in that regard because it is a little bit related to certain products. It will depend a bit on what certain orders we got for certain products. I don't think that we see constraints in that matter. We have to say also though, that of course, coming out of the pandemic now and suddenly increasing volumes quite a lot is of course also a short-term logistical challenge for some of our partners in the sense that they need to employ more people to make our products. This is what they do all the time. We expect this only to be a very short-term thing. Yeah.
As an answer to this, I don't think we have capacity issues. It is the component situation that is constraining.
All right. You comment on the cost base. I mean, we did see that you have a more stable cost here, but you do see increase from more customer activities and sales activities. Do you think this will increase even more looking into next quarter and next year? Or do you think, I mean-
Hard to say. Yeah. Hard to say. I think of course we are of course now following long-term investment in a lot of new products and seeing a lot of opportunities around the world. It would of course be wrong not to take these opportunities. If we see that we do actually need a few more people to be able to manage all the different things that we are working on and the different customer opportunities, then we will do it even though it is an investment in more people. It will be activity driven, so to speak. When we see more opportunities and things we need to work on, yes, and that also includes R&D.
We are constantly looking into different types of product additions or things that we could what customers are asking us for. If we think it makes sense, we will add more R&D people to develop some of the stuff that customers are asking for. It is activity driven.
Right. You do also touch on the gross margin that you are getting close to your minimum 60% level. Do you think that's something you can reach, I don't know, during 2023? When do you think you will reach that kind of 60% level?
That's at least the ambition, but again, it is a little hard for us still to estimate when we will be out of the spot market buys of components. At least, that alone would have taken us to 60% if we didn't have to buy certain components at a higher price. Of course, it's very uncertain right now in terms of.
Mm-hmm.
What the inflation will continue to be and how suppliers will react to increased prices. So far we've been able to manage increased supplier pricing with our own price increases. We will continue to monitor very closely and hopefully soon be back towards 60%.
Right. A question on your growth level here. You mentioned I think 27% organically excluding currency. Can you also say how much, I mean, did prices have a big impact here, or was it mainly volumes that were?
It was mainly volume.
Okay. Great. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Thank you for your question. We are now taking our next question. Please stand by. The next question from Daniel Thorsson from ABG. Please go ahead.
Yes. Hi, Lars. Thank you very much. I start off with a question on the geographical development here. The growth in Q3 was driven by Europe while North America dropped year-over-year despite strong FX tailwinds. Is that just a temporary effect in the quarter or anything underlying causing you to have negative growth in North America, both in Q3 but also year-to-date? And do you expect that to revert to growth in Q4 and 2023 related to your positive outlook? And I apologize if you talked about it in the beginning. I was 10 minutes late due to another conf call, but that's my first question.
No problem. Yes, I think it is all down to timing and the different geographies. Certain large orders will turn the picture upside down. I would say there's no real trend in this, more than sort of timing of certain orders. As we said here in Q3, we did receive an order from the U.S, a larger one for about SEK 40 million from an existing customer. That, of course, will impact sales positively to the U.S. in the fourth quarter. It is about timing mainly where we see the different regions performing.
Okay. Thank you very much. Nothing underlying in the US that you see any type of competition or that you-
No.
Have penetrated more of the market, et cetera?
No.
Okay. The second question, more long-term thinking here. Do you see any effects of you launching much better products today than five, 10 years back, prolonging the lifetime, which means that you're limiting your TAM potential a bit here? Or is that? Does it have any meaningful effect versus previous years of
No, I think it's probably the opposite because I think we can see that the market is actually increasing for many reasons. If we look 10 years ago, our product portfolio were quite limited to a few product lines. Now we have a wide selection of products also in different price brackets. At the same time, the number of radios and modern communication solutions have increased dramatically. We can see that more and more countries are now starting to, if they have not already, they're starting to look at the communication part and investing in that. Those that already have communication solutions will upgrade to more advanced solutions.
I think the market has expanded quite a lot, and at the same time we have a much broader portfolio now.
Okay. I see. I was just thinking about your existing customers, so the ones that upgrade this year for a product.
Yeah.
That you sold 5 years back. Will they upgrade in 5 years' time because your product is equally good? Or will they upgrade in 10 years' time because your today product is much better than the 5-year-ago product? Is that a risk?
I don't think so. I think that you will keep the sort of the same cycle. At least that's what we see for now.
Excellent. I see. Yeah, I stop there for now. Thank you.
You're welcome.
Thank you for your question. As a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please press star one and one on your telephone. We have one question. The next question from [Guy Darwell] for [P Funds]. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi, Lars. It's Guy here. How are you?
Very good. How are you?
Good. Good. Just you mentioned investments in potential new markets, new geographies. Is there any more detail you can share about that, whether it's new markets within Europe or maybe further afield, sort of Asia, Australasia? And can you give any quantification of the kind of investments that you might consider there? Is that gonna be something that will? I know you talk about harvesting the recent years of investments, but obviously if you get new opportunities, you're gonna invest. Can you give any sort of limit to what you will do here to make sure that you stay profitable?
Yeah. No, I think, yeah, absolutely. I think that if we start with the last part of it, our ambition is to grow with an average of 20% per year, but still with a margin of 15%. The profitability is important for us. I know we have sacrificed that a little bit during the pandemic, but I think that was for good reasons, because we didn't see the market disappearing, we just saw it being halted. But going forward, we will continue to look for growth, but also have the EBIT target in mind so we don't run too fast and forget about profitability. That's one.
In terms of where we will grow, yes, it is definitely new markets in Europe, but it is also the geographies in Asia, especially, and parts of Middle East where we see opportunities and where we have been working for quite a while, and we were doing well just before the travel restrictions and lockdowns and everything hit us. We are going back now and they of course have a high interest in many of the products that we have presented during the pandemic. That goes both for the INVISIO-branded range and also for the Racal-branded range.
Okay. Just to follow up, if I may. China's, you know, is obviously trying to expand their sphere of influence in Asia. Does that make it more difficult as a European supplier for you to target certain Asian countries because they just, you know, they're basically being told, you know, via the back channels to not buy anything from Europe or America because, you know, otherwise they're gonna threaten their relationship with China? I mean.
We haven't. No, I don't think we have seen that, and also we come from a different angle, because first of all, a requirement for us when selling to someone is of course that they do have a radio and the radio normally comes from a manufacturer within NATO. It's a radio from one of the big radio manufacturers like L3Harris or Thales or similar. We follow the radios, so to speak, and that also guides us to the countries that we can sell to where they have radios that are made in NATO countries. From a European
Yeah. I guess.
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. I guess I just wondered more about Asia if you know.
Yeah.
Unfortunately the world's going in a certain direction and does that.
Yeah.
You know, if the radio guys are not allowed to, you know, go to certain Asian markets, then that makes it harder for you or.
We haven't seen anything like that or even remotely heard about it. This is the first time I hear about it, to be honest. That's not something we have been exposed to.
Yeah. Well, I don't know, I'm just guessing what might happen, but
Yeah. Right.
Okay. Thanks.
Good. Thank you.
Thank you for your question. There are no further questions at the moment. I'll hand the conference back over to Mr. Lars Højgård Hansen.
All right. Thank you all very much for listening in today, and look forward to speaking with you again at the year-end report in February. Thank you all, and have a great weekend.
That concludes the conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may hold.