Employees hold the power to shape their futures alongside us, fostering a collective force that builds our company together as one. MilDef, we armor it.
Welcome, everyone, to MilDef's first-ever Capital Markets Day. It's in a sense an historic day because you're all here. Thank you for that. My name is Olof Engvall. I'm the Head of Investor Relations and Corporate Communications, and I'm also the Chairman of the Board of the MilDef Charity Foundation. We can talk more about that later. This is for us a bit of a historic event because this is the first time we meet so many friendly faces that have followed us for a long time. Some of you have been around the MilDef story ever since the IPO on the 4 June 2021 . So, you know that we've disclosed 13 quarterly reports so far, 13 occasions to deepen and widen the MilDef story and explain to you what this company is all about.
But as you know, those moments, those 30, 40, 50 minutes of meetings during the quarterly reporting are quite brief. So today, for the first time, which we're very happy about, we can throw a show all together, four hours, if you spend the lunch with us, to deepen and widen the story. For those of you following us on video, thank you for taking part of the MilDef journey, very much so, and that's why we do this in English, by the way. Welcome. Please find a seat. It's good to see it's full. And we have packed an agenda, which is quite ambitious and maybe overloaded. We'll see. In four hours, you will give us the verdict, and I will send out an inquiry later on so you can tell us how we can evolve during the Capital Markets Day. But we have listened to you.
Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for those of you who helped me understand what we want to present, and this is what you've told us. You want us to cover the MilDef journey, also going back a little bit, and you want us to explain how we capture the winds of the growth potential right now, and how we do R&D, product innovation, to whom we sell and how, and with what ethical standards. That's a special segment of today's show that is actually very exciting, and maybe in a bit, the first time you hear this. We will dive into the numbers that matters, of course, with our CFO, Viveca, and we will talk with Daniel about the path to the future growth, and we will have a smashing Q&A at the very end. This is the agenda.
It's been printed out, so you can see it. It's one hour, 25 minutes before the coffee break with sandwiches and treats, and we packed a full suitcase in the morning here, as you can see. We will listen to Daniel Ljunggren. We will listen to Fredrik Persson, our CTO and Deputy CEO. Fredrik Jacobsson will take us on a journey on where and how we sell the MilDef product and the offering. A nd then we'll do that special segment about the ethical sales with our CLCO, Karin Svalander, in a talk, actually, and you can ask questions, of course, yourselves. After the break, we'll have a little special segment from SOFF, the Swedish Defense and Security Industry Association, with Robert Limmergård. A nd then Viveca will take on the show, and Daniel, and our CPO, Martina Karlsson, will talk about how we recruit for growth.
We're in a very different atmospheric pressure right now compared to a few years ago, as you probably understand. It is today extremely relevant what we do, and the people that want to work with us are extremely motivated, c ompletely different situation. A nd then we'll do the Q&A, but like I said, before we get the show started, this is the first Capital Markets Day of MilDef, so it's in a bit historic event, and now I would like to also say that this is not, this is not only that, it's also the first time that we show you the full corporate management team of MilDef, and now I will ask my dear colleagues to stand up and turn around and just face you all, because you will meet this crew later on.
This is the seven-people crew, the corporate management team of MilDef, and they will all make presentations during this show. Now, you can be sure that you understand who's on stage, and the tall guy is Daniel. Some of you have already visited MilDef, because we had a moment of doubt, Daniel and myself, when we planned this event. We were thinking, "Should we bring all our friends down to Helsingborg?" Quite a few of you have visited the MilDef Fortress, state-of-the-art facility, where we manufacture, we do the R&D, we do the innovation, we do the selling, we do the testing. It's quite a fascinating facility in Helsingborg. We were thinking, "Maybe we should bring you all down to Helsingborg." But then we realized it's a bit easier to have you walk over to AD6.
But, so now, for those of you who did not yet visit the fortress in Helsingborg, we want to take you there on a super quick flyby. And, this flyby is about one minute, 30 second long, and we travel by helicopter, and we will meet a super excited host at the MilDef Fortress in Helsingborg.
Thank you, Olof, for that handover from myself. Welcome to the MilDef Fortress here in Helsingborg. Behind me, the headquarters of MilDef and our main production facility. At MilDef, we collaborate to armor IT. Now, let's have a look at how hardware comes to life. First of all, our R&D teams are being put to work to design and engineer what we are to build for our lovely customers, and you know, it's very often tailor-made. Step by step, concepts are being made ready for production, and the production magic happens downstairs. This is the beating heart of the MilDef Fortress, our assembly lines. This is really where the magic happens and products come to life by my many talented colleagues ...
Looks are important, but not enough for our armored IT. It needs to be super ruggedized, and therefore, we test it for pretty much everything, water, vibration, dust, and heat and cold. But that, ladies and gentlemen, is not enough. This is maybe the most important room of them all at the MilDef Fortress, the EMC chamber, testing for electromagnetic compatibility. Remember, our ruggedized hardware needs to be super silent and almost invisible. So this is the final station of the MilDef tour. This is the logistics department, where batch after batch of MilDef's products are being sent out to the MilDef Universe and to our many trusted customers and partners. So this, ladies and gentlemen, concludes this super quick tour of the MilDef Fortress. Now, back to myself in Stockholm.
Thank you, myself. That was the fortress. How many of you have already visited the fortress? Oh, quite a few. How many did not? Okay, you're warmly welcome at any point in time, so please remember that. Okay, now it's time for the first, the real handover of today's program, the first segment. For 13 years, he has been central, instrumental, together with his colleagues, in building the MilDef journey. When he arrived at MilDef 13 years ago, MilDef turned over approximately SEK 50 million . Today, it's well over 20 times that size. Please welcome Daniel Ljunggren, CEO and our President.
Thank you very much, Olof.
I think we'll give him an applause, don't you think so?
Yeah. Thank you very much. That was quite an introduction. It felt like a rockstar introduction or something like that. Welcome, everyone. As Olof said, a historic day for MilDef, our first capital market as a listed company. Me and my management team up here are very excited to meet all of you here today, some familiar faces and some new faces. That's a great mix for a capital market day. You normally meet me, you meet CFO Viveca Johnsson, and Head of Investor Relations Olof Engvall. And now you also get the chance to meet the rest of the trusted management team, and try to give them some tricky question, at least, so. This first scene is about just to set the scene for the rest of the day, so to say. We have three hours here together. We can go deeper and wider into MilDef and what we're doing and how we operate, so to say.
So this is just the first 20 minutes to give you a brief overlook over MilDef, who we are and what we do, so to say. I guess it's green. Behind me is our customer promise, "We armor IT," or "We armor it." Some kind of humor in it, of course, but what we do at MilDef has nothing to do with humor. This is serious things that we are doing. We are providing the IT backbone, the IT infrastructure, IT solutions to our peacekeeping defense forces, and that is a job that we take very seriously. That is why we build products that never can fail. When and where the stakes are the highest, our products needs to be up and running and in function, so to say.
I would say, to find adaptable solutions in tactical IT, together with putting the customer's need as top priority, that's the DNA of this company. That's MilDef's DNA. That is what we are built for doing, so to say. We're also very proud to be very relevant, and now it's if we just be serious once again for 30 seconds. I mean, we have war again in Europe. We have war again in our near geography, and of course, that is not the way you want to be most relevant in, of course, but that is the situation we have, and the whole defense industry is now in the spotlight, so to say, and MilDef is very much into the spotlight again. So it's even if we think we're, we have a full room here today, we have a lot of interest coming from different ways, but MilDef and the defense industry is very relevant.
And if we look at MilDef from a more of an investor perspective, so to say, and give you five bullets that we think can, we can later on go through this even more. Well-reputed supplier on a strong growth market. Technology and solutions positioning for a defense ramp-up. Experienced experts on digitalization on defense and security. High-level engineering skills and strong industry knowledge, and also a proven strategy for accelerated growth and value creation. This is the five bullets that we will all the areas we'll cover this in some kind of way, so to say. We will come back to this, but this is how we see that we are very relevant from an investment perspective as well. Now we can go back to a little bit, set the scene of MilDef, the MilDef story, and the MilDef Universe, so to say. Founded in 1997 by Thomas Odelid and Marianne Trolle.
Thomas was the entrepreneur guy, crazy ideas, all these kinds of things , and Marianne was the administration, taking care of all of that, and I think that those two together created a very dynamic duo that was really great for the start of this company. A nd we also say that history matters. Founded in 1997 means that we have more than 25 years as a company in this business. And f or our customer, that really needs to rely upon the solutions we provide, that's very important. We have been around. Our products and solutions is field-proven, has been out there, and that's very important as well. We did an IPO June 2021. Short story, me, and our Co-Founder and current Board Member, Marianne Trolle, and the former CEO, and now he's the current Chairman of the Board.
I sat in Marianne's kitchen and said, "Okay, I think it's time now to go for a listed company." This was a couple of months into 2020, so we were a couple of months post the breakout of the global pandemic. We said, "Okay, this may be extraordinary. It's only gonna be MilDef who will be making an IPO in this kind of dynamic." We were wrong, as you all know. There were probably plus a hundred companies doing an IPO in 2021. Today, we are more than 300 employees, and we have legal entities in nine countries. Our core markets is the Nordics and also selected E.U. and NATO countries. We can find our customers within defense, government, and critical infrastructure. What we offer the customer is hardware, software, and services.
And I said history matters, and let me just give a quick overview of the history of the company. As we said, it was founded in 1997, started off as a pure reseller of rugged IT, and that IT was produced in Taiwan by a company called MilDef Crete Inc. And MilDef Crete Inc. also co-founded the start of the company, so that is also the reason why you can find MilDef Crete Inc. quite high up on the cap table today. They have been around since 19 97. The first 10 years, as I said, acting as a pure reseller on the Scandinavian market. 2007 , they launched the 19"/2 concept that we now see is driving our growth.
If you see these big server halls like Google and Amazon, et cetera, those IT racks are 19 inch, and 19 inch half, of course, is half of that. A nd that is because space matters in our business, let's say. If you can just build a bigger hall, then you can keep this 19 inch. But if you have battle tanks, or Combat Boat 90, or something like that, the space is really small. They have the same size as they had 75 years ago, but now they want more power, more computer power, digitalization, and of course, that means that we're doing the small things, smaller and smarter things, so to say. The next phase in the company's history, I will call it internationalization and growth phase, so to say.
In 2011, we started to look outside Sweden, so to say, and outside Nordics. We realized that we will end up in a one-customer issue if we don't do that strategic move, so to say. We also changed name from LogIn to MilDef. LogIn was the previous name from the start. This 2010, 2011, where search engine optimizing is very in a hot spot, so to say, and you can try to have a company name that is called Log In. I mean, it will be 10,000 page something on Google. So it was named--was changed to MilDef instead. We acquired our first acquisition, I'll say, Nordics, was a U.K. company, Talogic Ltd., which today is MilDef Limited. We also mention 2016 , two important acquisition, one in the U.S.
We started our U.S. journey by acquiring AMREL's Rugged Computer division, and also Bedriftssystemer is a Norwegian company, who is today our MilDef Norway company, so to say. The final phase, and the phase we are in right now, I would say, is the strategic expansion through acquisition and accelerated growth as a listed company. So this is the time where we have been acting as a listed company. And as you have seen in 2021, we did two acquisitions, Norway and here in Stockholm. The Stockholm acquisition is about the integration services that we can talk about later when we talk about the new facilities that we are building here. Also can mention the subsidiaries in Finland and in Denmark.
That is, of course, our ambitions to cover the full Nordics and be, the number one choice for tactical IT, at least in the Nordic markets. In 2024, where we are right now, acquisition of AVT was a U.K. company. We bought assets from that, and that also paid off by a big order coming in here. New premises in Stockholm, I mentioned, and then we also have the Sweden joining the, the NATO. That sets the scene as well going forward. What to whom and how we sell? A brief overlook. Hardware is our legacy, and it's still our biggest revenue stream is coming from the hardware. Our CTO, Fredrik Persson, will deep dive into a little bit more into the products later on, but hardware is still our main revenue streams coming from. By acquisition, I said that we also added services revenue streams.
25% of the sales today, on a rolling 12-month basis, is coming from services, and then I think we have software as well. Today, they are standing for 5%, but I think this is something that is really interesting, that we can hopefully continue to grow that percentage of the software. Customer segment, of course, defense, 80% is coming from the defense sector, and I think that the defense sector is where we put our main priorities, so to say. It's the defense sector that we think we should be in. If we have been now working with the defense sector 27 years, and we have had just declining military spending, we don't see any reason to move away from defense now, when we see rapidly increased defense spending, but we have also some 20% of sales going outside defense.
It could be field hospital, it could be firefighting, it could be Polismyndigheten police, for example. It could be a coast guard and things like that, critical infrastructure for the society. If we break down the revenues the last twelve months and see does the geographic split look like, you can still see that the Nordics is our home market, our home base. That is where we generate more than 50% of the revenues, let's say. But we also have a quite strong footprint in Europe, 25% of the sales coming from there. And also in the by far the biggest land when it comes to military spending, U.S., of course. We have presence there, and we hope that we can increase that number.
But last twelve months, 17% of the sales coming from the U.S. We have had a busy Q3. Let me tell something about it, at least. I mean, we signed this new facility agreements up here in Stockholm, in Rosersberg, and that is around the integration service part, so to say. Our current facilities, we can bring in-house, on-site, one platform, and a platform could be a combat boat ninety or something like that. In the new premises that we hope will be ready autumn 2025-something, we can have four platforms at the same time, so that will drive efficiency and synergies, how we can when we can work on four platforms instead of one at a time. So that is something that we're really looking forward to.
I am very happy to announce that we signed a contract with Magnus Hagman, who will have the opportunity to present himself later on here, but that was also in Q3. Magnus will be responsible for business area Nordics, so he will be the vice president of that. A couple of weeks ago, our board had a strategy meeting, and they said that now it's time to challenge me and the management team a little bit more. Challenge accepted. They raised the profitability targets, and instead of at least 10% EBITDA, it's now saying at least 15% EBITDA margin. That is something that we now do everything we can to meet, of course.
If we look at some—i f we take it down from the corporate news to the business news, we can see a palette of good orders coming in here in the Q3, so to say. This one, European Military Vehicle program, SEK 135 million , is connected to the AVT, the asset project we did in U.K. And that is also very, very, I'm very happy that we also added this display capabilities into our portfolio. We can use that, selling that to other customers, so that is very interesting as well. Have you followed MilDef in 2024, you know that we signed a 10-year framework agreement with BAE Systems Bofors, and they ordered 52 million in the first round, I think, and now additionally, 80 million to that. And that's the platform Archer you can see there.
Also, Norwegian order coming in, our biggest Norwegian order ever. They are doing a midlife upgrade on their existing CV90 vehicles, battle tanks, SEK 72 million. And today, this morning, we also announced that we received an order from the Danish Procurement Agency, so to say. So it's Norway, Denmark, and Sweden, and a palette of Nordic, and also we have this U.K. over here. So very intensive start of Q3, I would say. I will give you some short recap of the financials, so you have that also during the day with you. If we look at the MilDef journey, and we take out the period, even going all the way back to 2014, we can see that it has been quite a journey, CAGR of 24% the last 10 years.
But we can also see that we are ramping up the speed here, 36% since 2018, and then since 2021, a CAGR of plus 57%. Of course, there is some acquisition driven growth in this as well, but I think that the big pattern is there, so to say. And then we just take a deep dive into the isolated quarter, Q2, and see what has happened there. SEK 302 million in net sales, a slight increase. I know we will have, we have been up to some tough comparison figures and quarters. Q1, Q2, last in 2023, was really strong numbers, but at least we could establish this new level and increase a little bit of the growth. But most exciting, I think, with the Q2, was the order intake increased by 43%.
That is something now we have seen for a while. The market is being more and more active the whole time, so it's. I will come back to that later, but we're seeing that we're seeing beginning of the beginnings, let's say. From an EBITDA margin perspective, we increased the margin a little bit from 16.5 to 17.8. And also, the gross margin was north of 50%, which is very important for us to keep that gross margin and continue to develop the gross margin in the right direction. Operating cash flow, also super important for us. We are now, for the Q3 in a row, presenting a stable, positive operating cash flow, and that's very important.
If we should be able to do this growth, we also need to find smart ways to work with the net working capital and cash flows. This headline is the beginning of the beginning, as I said, and this is just to set the scene and trying to explain that MilDef is a late cycle in this defense ramp up, so to say. The defense ecosystem, they are hit by the new money, so to say, in different cycles. What we saw in February 2022 was, of course, that the end customer was running towards this one, operational focus, fuels, ammunition, boots to the soldiers, et cetera, everything that's needed here and now, most important for them, of course. And yeah, I mean, that's the natural, of course, to run to that.
Then we saw in the second phase of this, that the platform providers are starting to getting really strong orders and order backlog. For example, BAE Hägglunds up in Örnsköldsvik. Saab, here in Sweden, for example, all the ones that providing the big platforms, they have felt this ramp up of the defense spending, so to say. And we have said many times that we are here. MilDef is in the third wave. When all this platform needs to be equipped with some intelligence, they need our products. And the big question have always been, "Okay, when will this happen, and where are we right now?" That's the ten- thousand- dollar question everyone asks them. And today, I would say, I think we are here somewhere between two and three, I think two point five, something like that.
We are moving into a phase where we see more and more activities, more and more order intake coming, to equip the platforms that has been ordered. I think we will see full effect of what happened in February 2022 for MilDef in 2025. But we are starting absolutely to ramping up, and we are starting to see the beginning of the beginning, as we say here in the headline. So it's interesting times for MilDef. I think I would stop there, actually, and see if there is any questions due to the first slide, first deck.
Yes, excellent. Thank you, Daniel. We have about three minutes if you want to shoot some questions now, and I forgot. Please forgive me if I did not say that earlier. We do not want questions in the presentations, but right, right after. So, if someone has a question for Daniel right now, or you'll save it for the Q&A, you're welcome to do it right now if you want to. But I see no hands in the air. Yes, I see a hand in the air. Erik?
Thank you. I'm just curious, you know, placing that out over there, there's gonna be something that, you know, specifically to make that decision.
You mean on this slide?
Yes.
I think we see orders coming in right now that is relating to the new money that was added after February 2022. I showed you the growth journey before started already before 2022, but that was more of a decision based on 2015 something, when they invaded, when the war in Ukraine actually started. But in February 2022, those money, I think we're starting to see the effect of what they have done with that. So that's why I'm saying that we are now probably in 2.5 something. That we see. For the first time, we're starting to see orders that are coming from February 2022 money, so to call.
Thank you, Erik. Yes, sir?
Do you see any bottlenecks for this growth?
Of course.
The question was, if you see any bottlenecks. I think that we, for example, we will talk about later on here. I mean, the staff, the middle of employees, that could be, absolutely be a bottleneck. I talked about the integration part of our business. Now we have addressed that question, and we have the new facilities where we're ramping up four times, for example. But I don't see—i f the supply chain will keep up, and will not go into like how we had it in the COVID time, I think that there is no major bottlenecks to produce even more, so to say.
Thank you. We'll save the questions for the Q&A. Thank you, Daniel Ljunggren—
Thank you
— CEO and President, MilDef Group. Yes, why not? As you've heard already, the MilDef tagline is, "We armor it," or "We armor IT." We make everything we do stronger. Sometimes our many products, and services, and hardwares are described as a box of Lego, a box of Lego with components that you build together to create a competitive edge for the end user. So to help us dig into that big Lego box of the MilDef offering, we now present the best we can master for increased understanding of the MilDef offering, namely our CTO and Deputy CEO, Fredrik Persson. Take it away.
Thank you, Olof. Yes, I have the challenge to try to summarize our portfolio of hundreds of products and our legacy in 27 years here in twenty minutes, so that's a challenge I have taken, but let's see what we can do here. I will, as Olof said, talk about how we armor IT, which suitable for this session, and I will start with the big picture to try to dig into the customer value we create and into our portfolio later on. This is where we started. 27 years ago, when MilDef was founded, it was founded on three principles. Military is here and will stay here for a long time, and there we will find our business. Number two is the digitalization of the military has just started, and we will support that by delivering rugged electronics.
And number three, we will do it where requirements are the toughest, like the tactical edge. And that was 27 years ago, and we still do that, and that's still defining our business, which I think is showing our focus in doing exactly this one. We have added software and services. It's not only rugged electronics today, but still, we deliver that for combat vehicles, soldier systems, and command posts, and we do it on land, air, and navy. As Daniel mentioned in his presentation, he said, "Your number one choice of tactical IT," that is our vision. Then I quite often get the big question, "What do you mean with tactical IT? What do you deliver to the customers?" So let's dig into that. Tactical IT for MilDef is what we...
It's the backbone of our IT system, a military system. It's the IT infrastructure, and it is the operator environment that get a lot of subsystems to function as one system, so IT infrastructure is integration of hardware, software, and it ensures secure communication, data processing, data storage, seamless integration of all the different special functionalities, and interoperability with other systems, and then you have the operator environment, which you also can provide, and that is where the soldier can consume the data and the resources made available of the IT infrastructure, so for example, it can be monitor and control system, makes the soldier to be able to command and control the operations.
So in the end, with our offering, we provide tactical IT to have effective operations, and basically, the final line here, we want to be able to deliver the right information at the right time... to ensure the right decision, and we want to do it every time and faster than the enemy. That's basically what it all ends up in here. If we go a little bit more in details and tell a bit what we do, to the right here, we have a simple illustration, and if you have sharp eyes, you maybe can see it's a CV90 in the background. But it could just as easily be a Boxer vehicle, it could be a operator center, or it could be a Combat Boat 90, because all of them are built up on the same principles.
It's the system of systems, and with that, we mean all the boxes around are independent systems that are vital for functionality for a military system. You can have battle management system to have surveillance, you can have navigation, military radios, weapon systems, et cetera, and that's just the small subset of all the systems that are in vehicle. But they are really important to get the functionality what you want. But if you don't communicate and get it to function as one, then you don't get the effective operations as you want. So there MilDef comes in, in the middle. Here you see a rack of MilDef IT equipment. You see our displays, keyboards, and ones it's our software.
We can provide services to project manage, to put the requirements, to design the systems, because that service is an experience and competence we have. Then we have the portfolio of hardware and software to put in there to get the full picture and guarantee what's needed to get an effective operations. But today, we usually don't deliver the full scope. We don't take the responsibility for the full system. We have delivered, for example, one computer to Norwegian CV90, or just the software. But we try to build this, what we built up the last five, six years with hardware, software, services to one package and taking bigger and bigger responsibility of that. But still, we deliver separately, hardware, software, and services quite much. But to deliver that one, we need a portfolio.
This one you've seen quite many times before, I guess, if you have seen our presentations, our software and services, but we dig into it. Our hardware is based on these four segments. The Small Form Factor is also called 19”/2, this standardized form factor, half IT rack. We have displays and panel PCs since five, six years back in time. And then we have the mobile computers, which was what we sold for from the beginning, from seven years ago. And then we have customer projects, which is very specialized projects and products, for example, what we deliver to Clavister, where we do projects together with the customers. But we dig into a little bit more.
Then we have a Small Form Factor with 19”/2, the standardized width, and it's a modular IT components. They are small, high performance, and rugged and very reliable. They have been deployed and used in battlefield for 15-plus years, and here we have the Lego building on a system level. By this, you can select what functionality you need, if it's power distribution, it's routers or gateways for setting up the network, computer servers, switches. You can build up all the functionality needed as a backbone in a military systems. And we can customize this one. Tailor-made is very important, this one, because you need to do it exactly as it fit into a system. Displays, to this one. We have a complete range of rugged displays and panel PCs for technical scenarios.
It's a perfect complement to the Small Form Factor, because if you have a computer and you have an IT system, you need to be able to consume it, so you need a display to see the data. And then if we can deliver the computer and the display and the cable, we can take full responsibility. They are interoperable, they work, and we can take the responsibility there. We can, from now on, in-house capability design from bottom up. We have all the capabilities needed, and since this summer, when we did the asset acquisition, AVT, we now have the last piece of expertise we lacked. So now we can do video and image processing, we can do video distribution by our own software developers and FPGA solutions.
That means I see it as we have all the competence and the expertise in-house to be industry leader within this segment as well. That will be really interesting to see how it works out. But, I mean, we have the products, we have the functionality, and we have technical specifications. That's important, but equally important to sell in this market is quality, of course. Quality is on top, and as I said, they are battlefield-proven since 15 years back. But what else to sell in this industry is standardization. All of our customer, they want stability. They want form, fit, and function units.
They need to be able to do form, fit, and functional replacement when, for example, military platforms live for twenty years. They need to replace the computer every 5th or every 10th year to have the security features, software updates, and so on. Then so easy to just remove the computer and replace it with a form, fit, and function computer. You can reuse the mounting, can reuse all the cabling, and you... We make sure that the software works, and you don't need to recertify the whole system. Maybe most important for our unique selling point is our ability to customize our products. Here we build Lego again, because as you see in this picture, the inside is modularized, and here we get the economy of scale.
We try to have as few parts as possible, as few PCBs as possible, but create as many products as possible here for a customer. So if we can get up the volume, we create products for less bill of material cost, but we also use less R&D resources to deliver more products. So here, the strategy around that one, I think we've been very successful, but now we take the next step where we level up in number of units. So this is really the base of our ability to deliver quite small volumes and still make money on it. And that we do because we have the full ownership and the IP of the products. We have our own capability, capabilities within product development, test and verification, manufacturing, and service support.
We own the full life cycle of our products, and we can keep them alive for 10, 15, 20 years in front of us. Always designed for defense from the start. We don't have any moving parts. We have fanless designs, long life cycles, 10 years minimum. We can deliver for 15, 20 years as well, and that's really important when you have platform life cycles up to 50 years, and we have it, it's proven as well, and then everything is designed to military standards, no matter if it's electromagnetic compatibility, environmental power, and we do it against NATO standards, U.K. standards, and U.S. standards, so proven supplier of this kind of products. You have the technology, the specification, but this is equally important to be able to be a successful supplier in this industry.
Then we go further into the portfolio, and we have the mobile computers, where everything started. We have PDAs, tablets, and laptops from Taiwanese MilDef Crete. But here also we add capabilities from the acquisition Handheld. So here we can get Android devices, because we think Android devices are digitalization of the soldier will be a big thing here from now on and into the future, and we need to have the capacity and capability to deliver those units. And therefore, we put it in there as well. But that you see, almost the same unique selling point. It's form factor ruggedization, because if you have a docking station to properly set your laptop in a mount in a vehicle, then easy to just remove it and put the next generation of the computer.
In that sense, make it easier for a customer. Rack design, life cycles, and we can deliver for all domains, land, navy, and in the air. And they are used for many years, and it's proven a good track record. That is the hardware. So if we go into software that we acquired, it's the OneCIS it's called. We acquired Sysint, company in Norway, 2021, and we acquired them because we think this software is brilliant and a perfect complement to our hardware. It's a deployment software, which means it take care of rolling out the software, get it in place, and get the system up and running in a military platform. Usually, air-gapped, which means it's not connected to cloud.
So you need to do it from a hard drive or from USB memory, and that is proven and used by Norwegian Defense, and we think there's a big interest outside Norway now as well. What we do here is that we, with this software, also can offer to deliver turnkey solutions, hardware and software, because in this software, we take care of the integration of third-party products, services, and operating systems. So basically, from our USB memory, we can set it in, can install everything. It's security hardened, it's penetration tested, and we can maintain the software package for a long time in the same way as we do for hardware. So then we can deliver the software and the hardware, and we can promise effective operations.
And in the end, very important, these days, it's NATO compatible and compliant with Federated Mission Networking. It means that it, out of the box, can guarantee interoperability with other NATO countries. So, that's something we've added, and it's very valuable for us when we are talking with new customers. And then into services. We have organically, since 2019, with acquisition of Defcon, added services into our portfolio. And that is strategically done because we think that, our customers, all help we can give them to integrate our products and our software in the best way to get best effect of them is valuable. And also, these days, the capacity that our customers are at the limit, and I think we can help them to offload.
We can deliver full systems, full products from start, defining requirements, to designing systems, to physical integration, to training and maintenance, and keeping live with them. We have the full spectrum of that, and we built up that capability during the last five years. It's interesting travel. One example of that is, next month, in October, there will be an exhibition in U.S., A USA. Then we will launch our dismounted soldier offering. Now, this is just an example of what we can do with all the capabilities and products we have in the portfolio. This is showing an ecosystem for a soldier, or at least a small part of it, where the white circles are things that MilDef can provide.
There we have, for example, a tactical Android device that, via the capability of the Handheld, can get into the middle of portfolio, then we have a tactical Android device that are suitable for soldier to use on field. We can fix cabling, we can fix mounting, but with legacy R&D, we can also develop, and there is actually the first prototype out there, a USB hub for soldier, which is the IT infrastructure on soldier, connecting all the devices, and then we have software, OneCIS, that make sure that we can do device management and deploy all the software as well in this ecosystem, but now we take the next step here. Normally, we just, we sell the hardware, we sell the software, and, and the services here, but here, we also would like to take the responsibility to for a full system.
So by our partners we have, we can get in tactical radios, we can get in batteries, we can get in software. And by that, we package it, we can take the full responsibility, and we can keep it alive for a long life cycle. So this is what we would like to. So it's not a coincidence that we have built up the portfolio we have, the services we have, and the software we have. We think there is a position for us to get to, to solution provider, a system house. So we would like to customize solutions for all kinds of platforms, objects, and facilities. And we have the hardware, we have the services, we have the software. Now, we would like to position us for solutions.
It's not instead of what we have done the last 27 years. It's extension of our offering, and we will do this for the whole life cycle, and back to this picture, why do we want to do that? I would think the defense industry. The timing right now is that everybody has a little bit too much to do. Everybody need more capacity, and I think we can help them by make it easier for our customers. We can do more of their work, and we can take bigger responsibility. We come closer to our customers. We'll be strategic partners. We will have strategic collaboration, and that means that we have better insights in what they're doing. We will be able to be more proactively and work more proactively and prepare our portfolio to what's coming.
Have the right products, the right services, the right software. It will reduce complexity for our customers. They have one point of contact, one point of responsibility and accountability, and that will be us, and we will take care of the sub-suppliers and take that. I think they will gain quite much of what MilDef, our DNA, we're agile and customer-centric approach. I think we can do much of this work quicker than the big procurement organizations or the big companies as well. So if they try new things, they will get things done quick. I think we are very suitable for that. And then, of course, the dream is that we can tailor-made systems, but we use as much of possible of the existing products, and we have some smart way we can do that, that our customer is not aware of.
So in that way, we can. I hope we can streamline our hardware portfolio, but still keep the flexibility on the system level. Of course, in the end, we add this solution or getting to a system house is, of course, to enable to sell more hardware and software. It's a complement to what we already do. To summarize it, and tie it back to where I started, I think military digitalization of the military, and where requirements are toughest, is more relevant than ever. Daniel talked about it, the military. Everybody knows about it for some reasons or what reasons, and it's very relevant. Digitalization of the military is growing faster than ever. So there's a big need of those products and those services and software.
And the third one, the requirements are tougher than ever. It's everything from technology to security of supply, cybersecurity, and it's just getting tougher and tougher to fulfill all of these needs. So with that said, I think we have the portfolio, we have our offering that's all ready for the next challenge to be a system house and solution provider, but also to keep doing the business we already do.
Thank you, Fredrik.
Thank you.
If there is an urgent question right now, or we can save it till the break or the Q&A, because we're gonna move from one Fredrik to another Fredrik. But before we do that, Erik, in the back, we'll run that Kongsberg video just to give you a glimpse of where our stuff ends up. So we'll travel to Norway and our Kongsberg friends, and we'll display. In the middle of this video, you'll see some of our displays and keyboards. So please take it away, Erik.
Developed for the Norwegian army, the new air defense system, NOMADS, represents a groundbreaking innovation within its segment. NOMADS is designed for maximum efficiency on the battlefield, capable of operating and completing air defense missions autonomously and in netted operations. Air defense established. Ready for fire. NOMADS has the mobility to get into the best positions to sense and shoot in a matter of seconds. Protection levels are high, enabling NOMADS to operate on the dynamic land warfare frontline battlefield. This complements NASAMS in order to give highly mobile forces, typically battalions and brigades, the ability to counter a larger portion of the threat spectrum. With capabilities unmatched by any existing system, it is tailor-made to address both current and future challenges.
... Yes, ladies and gentlemen, this is the world we live in, and we work in. So just a brief reminder of where our technology ends up, to protect what we cherish the most. Okay, so let's go on back to the slide deck, and I will now hand over to the next Fredrik. We have been traveling into what we sell, and now we will travel into how and where we sell things. You all know that we are brought up in the Swedish context. We traveled out to the Nordics, we traveled into Europe, we traveled to Germany, U.K., and the U.S. But I think there are some holes maybe in your knowledge and understanding of how we sell, and to whom, and what channel strategies we have.
Add some reference cases at the very end of the next presentation, and we have a perfect setup for the next, Fredrik. From one Fredrik to another Fredrik, who joined the MilDef journey in 2007. So you are really the long-timer of the MilDef company.
Yeah. Thank you for that.
Welcome, Fredrik.
So, yeah, I've been around for 17 years, but every time is a first, so this is my first cup today, and I'm looking forward to it. A bit nervous, of course, but that's how it is. Up until beginning of this year, I was the Chief Sales Officer. But starting from this year, we also did a change in how we operate in sales, and that also goes hand in hand with our climb on the value chain, you could say. So before, a couple of years ago, we had a lot of different MilDef sales companies around the world. But now we have added more, like, production, integration, and other things. So that's also why we did this change into the two business areas.
I'm responsible for Europe and North America, and we have Magnus on board now, being responsible for the Nordics. Just to give you an idea of what we have in these two business areas, we have, of course, all of the sales operations in here, but we also have the Handheld operation in my business area. All of the Handheld operation goes there. We also have an international sales team that works out of Sweden, but sells to all the countries where we don't have our own company. They sit in Sweden, but travel around the world to sell and promote our products.
Like you've seen before, we have added production in U.K., so U.K. is not just a sales office anymore. It's also a production and service, and we're starting to build up the local technical expertise in U.K. And we do mainly B2B sales. I will explain why a bit later on. But compared to the Nordics, which is our home market, we have been able to grow more quickly, I would say, on the value chain, closer to the government. So in the Nordic countries, we do more government business directly, but of course, also a lot of B2B business to Saab and BAE, and so on. In the Nordics, we have people employed in these four countries here.
Of course, it's the sales and service in all of these countries, but we also have the big site in Rosersberg, where we do all the integration. The software development is taken care in, y eah, we do that in Norway. As you see here, also relating back to Daniel's slide, a lot of these additional comes from acquisition. So the U.S., the U.K., Handheld, software in Norway, and integration in Sweden all comes from acquisition over the past couple of years. It's a 50%-50%, roughly 50%-50% split here between the two areas, both in people and money. Okay, so how do we actually sell this, then?
Of course, we have salespeople that travel around the world and talk to all our customers. They go on exhibitions. We try to be active in seminars, working group, we engage ourselves in the local, like SOFF, we have here in Sweden. There's a lot of other similar organizations in other countries that we are involved in, so we engage in those. But the most important thing here is that we build strong relationships with customers, and with many of the customers, we have had those relationships over 15, 20 years. So we have set up the business to not gain, you know, short-term sales and wins, and instead build these very long relationships with our customers, and there's a lot of benefits with that, of course.
By doing so, we have gained a good position in a lot of different platforms and have proven ourselves in these platforms because we have delivered to these platforms over so many years. And that also gives rings on the water. It spreads itself. When people are looking what to have, they look at what's existing in other platforms and other systems, and they find MilDef in there, in these. I was asked how many public tenders we compete in every year, and it's not that many, actually. We do compete, of course, in public tenders directly to government agencies, but most of the business we do is business to business, as I said before.
But our next slide will give you an overview of all the different layers we have when it comes to the customers. And we had several instances, this one here, when the government customers ask for MilDef, maybe they have MilDef equipment in a platform, and they are expanding into new platforms, into new areas, and they want, of course, to use the same. So sometimes we have government customers basically pointing at MilDef. We want MilDef in this next platform, and that's kind of the best, of course, best position to be in when that happens. Oh, sorry. So, I will try to explain the different levels of customers we have, and if you look here at the top, we could call them end users.
That's the actual soldier or operator that Fredrik talked about, that is actually using our equipment in a vehicle, in a command post somewhere. We rarely do business directly with these entities, but they take care of, of course, the, let's say, life support and spare parts and things, but it's not up here that we do the business. So they can set requirements, and they can have needs on the systems and products, but we don't do business directly with these. Instead, most countries are organized in a way that they have defense buying organizations. So in Sweden, we have FMV. In Norway, we have the material agency. In Denmark, similar. So it's with these organizations that we do the business to government. Sorry, business, yeah, business to government sales.
And here we also find the public tenders, and you also find, of course, when they're acquiring a new combat vehicle, they compete. Yeah, people compete for that, but as Fredrik said, we're not there yet. So we will never deliver a complete CV90, but we can deliver the IT infrastructure into these government bodies. Worth to notice is that we also have existing framework agreements with a lot of these bodies, and with that, they can order from us the products that we have decided, and they don't have to make a new public tender each and every time.
And, you can get those tenders, of course, by competing in an in an open tender for the first time and win it, but in some cases, they also direct the business to a company that they want to acquire products from, products and services from. So we have several ongoing active framework agreements that these companies can buy from us. The next level is all the global defense companies. So if you take the top hundred global defense companies, you will find them in these layers here, and these are, of course, also our customers. And it can be different depending on if we sell to a platform provider, or if we sell to a system provider, or if we just sell a piece of hardware, like we do sometimes.
You will also see that a lot of these companies compete with each other for some cases, and in other cases, they cooperate, and it's the same with MilDef. So when we are now climbing the value chain, we are sometimes competing a bit with these companies, but we often complement very well. So we can, in other programs, we can deliver and be a very good supplier, but for some other bigger programs where we sell our system solution, we might compete in a way. Lastly, we also have local partners in some countries, and we have that on markets where we don't have our own company, but we still think it's a very attractive market to be on. The examples here are from Germany, Czech Republic, Estonia, and Japan.
So here we have the international sales team, work with these local partners on the local market to then work on with, with the defense players and the government bodies in those countries. Okay, three short reference cases. First one is from U.K., and this has been press released and everything, and this is a program that we won a couple of years ago. So we were tasked to develop four products for this kind, this vehicle, and we won it basically on the product, the customization of the products, the price, and that we could fulfill their Made in U.K. requirement. So to be able to win this, we had to set up production in U.K., which we also did after the award. And this program is now running all the way up to 2030 with deliveries.
But then, of course, you have a lot of extended, how should I say, obligations to because they will need spares, they will need other programs and things going forward. And of course, it's not just developed for this, this product, this platform. All of these products could be put into any other military platform, and this is just a good example of when we are in a platform, it spreads. Other people are looking at what they are doing in UK. It can be spin-off effects to other RBSL platforms, and it's really good to be in these long-term relationships with the platform providers for that sake.
Next one is Saab, Swedish company, and when I started MilDef, I worked as the key account manager for Saab, so I know quite a lot about this. The first big sale we made to Saab was a display into their radar surveillance aircraft back in 2006. We met them at an exhibition. They wanted a display, and we quoted that, me and the old founder of the company. That's a fun story, but what happened after that, we managed to deliver that one, and since then, we have been involved in a lot of other Saab programs. We have, over the years, built this trustworthy relationship with Saab, which means that we are at the forefront. We always get the information on next programs, what's happening next.
We can develop the next generation products to fit their needs, and it has been a very good customer for us over many years. Last one, we have one outside if you want to have a look on this product, but it's a collaboration with Clavister, a Swedish cybersecurity software company, and BAE, which is the customer for us. So it's a combination here of MilDef hardware and Clavister software that is put into this nice product there, and it basically protects the vehicles, all the IT infrastructure in the vehicle, so cameras, the vehicle itself, from cyber threats. And again, it's a good example of when you're in a platform, because BAE is now promoting this as a kind of a standard solution in a platform.
When BAE is selling and promoting this CV90 platform, we are embedded in that as a standard. It's not guaranteed that when they sell a CV90, we will sell this, but it's a good chance to be in there. Okay, that was my last slide.
We have ample time.
Sorry. Sorry.
Thank you. We have a few moments for questions. If you want to shoot one now, you can do that for Fredrik Jacobsson, or we will dig in even deeper. Yes, sir. Please.
Yep. I would say it's a mix. It's not any big program, like for example, in U.K., where we have the MIV, that stands for a big portion of our sales in U.K., but in U.S., it's a lot... It's more programs in less volume, I would say. So we don't have one big program that we're delivering to in U.S. It's a mix, a, a good mix. Yeah.
Okay. Sorry. Let's do the microphone, so we can-
How is the competition in U.S.?
It's very hard. It's very hard, and we are not as well known as we are here in the Nordics and Europe, of course. But we build on the things that Fredrik presented, like the quality on the products, the Swedish heritage, the customization possibility. So we still have a good chance in U.S., but the competition is, of course, it's harder. We see a lot more companies that do similar things, but of course, we don't think it's as good as we do it. But yeah, but it's harder. But our sales in U.S. is increasing, but I'll let Daniel and Viveca answer to numbers if you want, but it's in...
The sales in U.S. is increasing, and has-
It's not a secret that we want to reiterate what has been doing in the U.K., the project in the U.K., which actually, in our world, was a bit of a miracle. That we won that big European contract ... little MilDef in U.K. So we traveled, so we want to do again what we did in the UK, in the U.S.
But have you all production in the U.S.?
No, we don't. We don't. But-
So it's not U.S. made?
No, but we could easily set it up because we have done it in U.K., and we are also moving new products to U.K., so we know how to do it. But so far, we have not competed and lost just because we have to make it in U.S., and if that was a requirement, we would offer it to make it in U.S. It's the assembly that is made in U.S. and also in U.K., we use a lot of U.K. sourcing and manufacturers in U.K. to mill the aluminum and make the PCBs and things. So it can. It doesn't only has to be, you know, assembly, it can be also local suppliers for making all the parts.
Okay. Yes, Erik. Let's give Erik the microphone, so we get it on tape.
Thank you. On the B2B part there, and the large tier one defense contractors, a couple of obvious, maybe you didn't, that was not a full list, but how do you when you enter a new one, any obvious ones missing that you would like based on their exposure? And how do you get in, and what are the lead times to do that?
Yeah, there's a lot of companies missing here, of course. We, as I said, if you, if we look up at, like, the top hundred defense companies, I think we are selling to most of them. But most of them are also huge companies with, you know, 20, 30, 50,000 employees. So it's... Yeah, we have to work many different ways to get into those companies, and it can take time. I didn't mention it, but our regular sales cycle is maybe somewhere between six to twenty-four months, I would say. So it takes a really long time to get into these platforms.
And, I mean, in the network we have, we can easily find who to call, but then they also need the budget. They need a funded program, and so they need—w e can't just sell it. Then it needs to be a funded program from a government to even have an interest from those customers. Yeah. Yep.
Out of those 100, let's say the top 100 then, how many have an internal competing business to yours, roughly?
I don't know. What can it be? 15%. I'm looking at you here as well, 10%, 15%. Quite many, but we're usually- Quite specialized. We are focusing on projects, so it's not direct competing, I would say. More like generic product, products we're getting in.
Thank you so much. We'll close the Fredrik section, the segment right now. Thank you.
I'm available in the break.
Yeah, you will be available in the break.
Yeah.
Thank you so much.
Thanks
... with an applause.
Thanks.
Thank you, Fredrik. Now, we have 15 minutes before the well-deserved break, so bear in mind we will be refreshed in 15 minutes. However, we will now make a special contribution, a special segment. We will dive even deeper. No, we will not dive deeper now. Thank you, Karin. So we have 16 minutes. Now, we will present our next Vice President of the Nordics. Please, welcome.
Thank you, Olof. Good morning, everyone, and happy to be here. Really excited to see so many interested in MilDef. My name is Magnus Hagman. I have, since yesterday, assumed the position as Vice President of Nordics. So we have long timer in the corporate management team with Fredrik, and the new timer, that's me. I'm on the crash course learning about MilDef quick here. So for today, I would, of course, not be responsible for answering detailed questions, but I'm gonna be around. But what do I bring to MilDef? What is my experience and my immediate contributions? Well, my origins in the work life was a fighter pilot in the Swedish Air Force.
So between 1998 and 2012, I flew Gripen, worked as a qualified flight instructor, working on the export programs, training some of the Swedish customers to Sweden on the fighter jet. From there, I transitioned over to Saab, had a decade-long tenure with Saab, working on international business development and sales for large system programs, half of that time in markets outside Europe. And this is what I believe also my immediate contribution is gonna be to MilDef. It's this international business development, how to collaborate and cooperate with some of these big logos. I've seen the inside of them. I know they're all different, but they work on that kind of metrics. So that's my immediate contribution, but also, of course, spearheading the continued growth for Nordics. That's my two minutes, isn't it?
Fantastic. We could listen to you for much longer. Thank you, Magnus Hagman. Sorry about that blooper. Naturally, I will make at least five bloopers during the course of the action. Oh, thank you. Am I the moderator by the way? So now, the next segment is very exciting. We will dive for the last 15 minutes, even deeper into who do we sell, and we will put an ethical layer on that discussion because that is important for you. This is actually the first time we do this in a room with people like yourself. This is something special for this day. Before we head into why we do this with an interview with Karin Svalander, CLCO, and we do this without the PowerPoint slides, we just want to let you read for 30 seconds the following message.
Yes, so you see that MilDef aims to go above and beyond the norms set by legal regulations. Okay, thank you. CLCO, Karin Svalander. That's the chief legal compliance officer.
Yes, that's correct.
That's a fancy title.
Yeah.
Good acronym.
The longest one.
We will make an interview about this because this is very important. Sustainability, responsibility, we take very seriously, and therefore we do this work, and you lead this work. First, let's just set the scene and understand here. Tell us about the rules that apply to the sales of the MilDef products.
Yes, as for any company, there are, of course, general rules that apply to all sales, like rules to prevent corruption and to promote fair competition and so on. And then, since we also have some products that are classified as dual-use, and that is, a technical classification based on the characteristics of the products, which means that they can be used both for civil purposes, but also for military purposes. And some of our products have, this classification, far from all, but then we have to be aware of, when we export products outside of the E.U., that the products, must sometimes have a, a specific, license to be exported.
And then a third layer of sales regulations are, international embargoes and the ever-increasing number of, international sanctions, which can be directed at countries or organizations... Companies or even individuals. A nd we are, of course, very, very keen to follow all of those regulatory rules, and we work constantly with our regulatory compliance.
There are many rules to follow, but do we do more than follow the rules?
Yes, we do, actually. We have set up our own ethical framework regarding our defense business, and this means that we sell our products primarily to selected E.U. and NATO countries, and this applies to all of our products. So not only the products that are classified as dual-use, but also our civil products that we could sell anywhere and to anyone within, of course, the anti-bribery and other general rules.
What you're saying is that we actually do more than the rules require. Why does MilDef think it's not enough to follow the rules?
Yeah, as you know, we sell our products primarily to the military defense sector, and we think that that gives us a great responsibility to make sure that the products end up in the right place and that they are used for the right purposes. So we feel that, I mean, doing what the law says, that's sort of the absolute minimum, and sometimes we feel that it's required to do more than the bare minimum, and especially when it comes to sustainability, and we have identified this area as a sector where we can contribute to a more sustainable future by taking care to whom we sell our products.
Okay, so if you relate to this group here today, potential investors, current investors, how should they relate to this all? Doesn't this ethical approach limit our ability to grow and sell more, sell more?
Yeah, that's a very good question, and it is, of course, a limiting factor. That's sort of the thing about it. But we conduct this ethical approach not only because we think it's the right thing to do from a sustainability perspective, but also because we are convinced that it creates business benefits, long-term business benefits. So, we are really confident that we can grow this business in the way that we want and fulfill our long-term financial goals within this ethical framework.
In a way, you say that not only can we sell as much with this ethical framework, we can even sell more due to it. Can you elaborate on that?
Yeah, well, it's pretty simple. When we reduce the number of customers and do not sell on certain markets, we reduce our risks, and we increase trust. So it's just a fact that when we stay away from some markets, the risk is less of, for example, accidentally contributing to corruption, and at the same time, our stakeholders can feel secure that we are a reliable business partner and a reliable investment. So, even if we have to then say no to certain business from time to time, we feel that it's very easy to stick to this agenda since we believe that it is the right thing also from a business perspective over time.
So how does this work in practice, everyday life, Karin? I mean, different people have different ethical compasses, in a way, don't they? Or could be.
Yeah, that's certainly true. And we have set up there for a framework, as I mentioned, to help our sales organization. And as a basis for this, we have our internal green list, and the green list lists the countries where we prefer to do business. And this list is, of course, very well aligned with our business plans and our business strategy. And the countries on the list are most of, but not all E.U. and NATO countries, and in addition to that, some other countries like, if you remember the map that both Daniel and Fredrik had shown before, also Japan and Australia, New Zealand, and Switzerland are included.
So the green list is very important for us, as a framework. Does this mean we do not sell outside the green list?
Well, sales outside green lists are not entirely excluded, but they require a more thorough customer control and also approval from the ethics council. And I mean, we are very confident that our sales organizations are good at prioritizing and sticking to their core markets. But if there is a deal that a salesperson wants to pursue with, that is outside the green list, then we think it's important to have a central function that sort of takes out the direction of the company's ethical compass. That shouldn't be for that salesperson to do, but to have the bigger picture, sort of.
The ethics committee is very important in this work. Who populates the ethics committee? I would guess you're in it.
Yes, it's chaired by me or by the Chief Legal and Compliance Officer, which, for the time being, would be me. Other members are the CEO and the chair of the MilDef board of directors, and also our director of quality and our director of business development, so five people in total. We have deliberately kept our sales organization outside the council, but instead, the relevant salesperson that has a case outside the green list is invited to the council to present the case and describe why this case is interesting, still being outside the list.
So-
And we have seen also, I mean, some of our peers have started to be more interested in this approach, also, but then sometimes still leave the decision with the salesperson. And we have chosen another path in that direction, and I think that we are one of the companies that go furthest when it comes to this ethical approach on our sales, and very proud of that, of course.
I was going to say, some other defense and security companies have sales people in their sort of committees. We do not.
Yeah.
Sales people don't get to decide. How does the council decide on what is okay or not?
Yes, those decisions are not always easy, but that's also why the council is there, to sort of make the hardest decisions. When we decide on a case, we do not care about the monetary value of that specific case, but instead we look at the bigger picture. So we take into account the level of corruption and the level of respect for human rights and democracy in the relevant country. When doing so, we use independent data from, for example, Transparency International.
So still, isn't there a risk that all these decisions become very political?
Not really. We consider ourselves to be both the privilege and the obligation really to be as apolitical as possible, and that's possible because ethics and politics aren't really the same thing. I mean, politicians can sometimes have to make decisions that aren't perhaps the most preferred ones from an ethical perspective, but maybe are necessary due to a bigger political agenda or some bilateral negotiations or whatever. But we don't have to take those considerations, but we can instead stick with our ethical agenda.
Thank you, Karin. Some questions perhaps before the break, but my final question to you is, what's the next step? How do you evolve this even further? Because this is not a new thing. This, it has been going for quite a while. How do you evolve it further?
Yes, we have had this ethical approach really since long before the big growing budgets. We have always considered it more of a benefit than a limitation. The next step is to continue to always educate our sales people and to have workshops and discussions to evolve this work even more. The ethics council meets not only to decide on specific cases, but also to evaluate whether any country should be taken away or added to the green list and so on. We are also now trying to digitalize more our whole KYC process, and also having the customer interact more directly with us in a digital way when we evaluate the cases.
Questions before the break? Yes, sir, with the microphone coming up.
Yes, well, you have been around now for more than 25 years. Have you had any sort of issues, or have you been involved in transactions where these have become issues, and how did that resolve itself, if so?
I would say that we have been both lucky because there is sort of even if you do as much as you can, there is also always a bit of luck, sort of, in this, because it's hard to control everything until the final end. But no, we haven't had any crisis or anything, but we have had situations where our KYC has deducted things that could have been problems. Luckily enough, not any big crisis so far.
Fredrik, what-
Can I add?
You can add, if you have the microphone on. Fredrik Jacobsson.
No, but we are. We have been quite good at seeing when, if you have somebody that asks for something specific from a country that we don't want to sell to, and then the same thing pops up, you know, three months later from another country that is on the green list. It's built into the organization that, "Oh, it's the same case." So it's kind of built in also that we try to, when people try to, what do you say, go around our-
By proxy, sort of.
By proxy our rules, we can also pick that up because we have that built in into the sales organization. So we have had a few cases like that where we see people might try something fishy.
Ladies and gentlemen, we thank you, Fredrik, for that contribution, and thank you so much, CLCO Karin Svalander. Thank you for that presentation interview. We are running about a minute and a half late. Coffee break, 20 minutes. Be back, and then we'll listen to Robert Limmergård from SOFF, CFO Viveca Johnsson, CPO Martina Karlsson, and CEO Daniel. Enjoy the break. See you soon.
Okay, ladies and gentlemen, welcome back. I'm so sorry. What a party pooper to break up the wonderful stemming and mood. Thank you for doing that for us, bringing that atmosphere and energy into the room. Sorry, we have a full long hour of lunch where we can continue our talks, and I know that the management team will stay along a little further. Not maybe you did some other plans, Daniel, but, I'll say you can continue after one o'clock if you want to have some one-on-ones with my lovely colleagues. Please go ahead and do that then. Okay, for some of you who are not so well-versed in security and defense, we now make a special contribution to today's program by inviting the Swedish Security and Defense Industry Association, SOFF, namely General Secretary Robert Limmergård. Please take it away.
Thank you, and thank you very much for having me. I'm not going to do a blinder here and start making presentations because we have seen so excellent presentations from the MilDef team here. So I decided that I will not use any slides. And I also will follow a little bit of a script here because this is sometimes a little bit sensitive, and since we are live streaming, I'm going to stick on that, and also to make me a little bit more comfortable between you all guys here. But I hope that I also will be able to take a few questions later on. But to start off and talking about the state of the market and the growth of the market, of course, this market doesn't really behave as other markets.
I'm going to talk a little bit about the characteristics of the defense market, but also, what will happen going forward. I mean, the defense market, it has different, preconditions, requirements, that makes it unique. Like all companies, of course, defense companies need customers, but all the defense customers, end customers, are and must be governments. The defense companies and its exports are therefore, of course, subject to different regulations by the different governments, but they're also a direct connection to politics. That is that the government is when customer means that the defense market is, by state intervention, a market which has quite high barriers to enter, which each national defense market. So on most defense markets, you find a symbiotic relationship between the government and its national defense companies.
Most countries take their defense serious, and therefore, consequently, they also take their defense industrial base serious. It's not possible to really talk about one defense market. All markets are like different animals, and therefore, there is different ways of entering all the different markets, and I think that's very important to keep in mind. What is a defense company? Most companies have defense as a business area. But very few companies really are specialists, focusing on understanding the customer and taking a little bit of a position like an OEM, a system integrator, or as Fredrik pointed out before here, called it a system house. Because it's a lot to do to understand the context of the military requirements and how the war fighter, the soldiers, and the sailors and all really needs to work with the material.
So those companies, like MilDef, that has found its niche and excels in understanding the military problem, are interpreters of the customer and therefore has a very important role in the ecosystem. There is not many startups that will directly enter this kind of market, because the knowledge of the market is something that is a very high barrier. We have 250 member companies in SOFF. Most work on civil commercial markets as well, but what bring them together is more or less that they have the defense customer, as something that we all work on. So it's not really what they do. They offer products ranging from space capabilities to freeze-dried food, but they work on the same specific regulations that's following from doing business, with this kind of national security.
It's not just the national regulations. It's also like the U.S. regulation, ITAR, CMMC, or there are some extraterritorial regulations as well that are affecting the supply chain, even if you're not just doing business with the U.S. The defense market is filled with those special conditions, and that makes different approaches to different markets, and the interface between government and suppliers looks very different in the different states. That's something that to keep in mind. But also to add to the complexity, in some cases, the government has control of some parts of the competencies of the companies, of infrastructure, which is needed to do business. Looking a little bit broader in the Nordic area, you have Kongsberg, which you showed, which is a state governmental-owned company.
In Finland, you have Patria, which is the main, but you also have it in the U.K. and in most of the European countries, state-owned companies that work on this area. But in Sweden, we have a tradition of actually having privately owned since we deregulated and privatized all the industry in 1998 to 2000 . But having said that, how is the market doing? Well, the market situation finds itself in a time of great change. We are at a critical point where we can see the outlines, but there are challenges we face, but the rate of the change is very accelerating, and the level of uncertainty is actually still growing. So due to the deteriorating security environment, we have seen increase in defense expenditures, and those are actually unmatched since the thirties, and it has just started.
In 2023, the revenue of our member companies was up 25% from the previous year, breaking SEK 64 billion. It started really already in 2014 when Russia attacked Ukraine, and since then, we have seen an investment in defense spending in all allied countries steadily, but which is not often noted, more and more defense spending is being operationalized by the companies. What I mean is that the armed forces in the West, in order to focus on their war fighting, they have started like all other business areas or different kind of operations, to outsource more and more of their operations to companies. So businesses are increasingly getting involved in training, MRO, services, and so on.
So it's not just the defense spending that has been growing, it is also the share of the cake that is open for business that is growing. At the same time, today's era of military competition is characterized by additional variables like speed and agility, and we are now seeing a great challenge in competing regarding how can actually one party outpace the other party faster than the other, to out-invent everyone else, and that is something that is changing. It's not just a matter of what armed forces are buying. Now, more than ever, it's also about how they buy things. They want to ensure that they buy the function of things, how quickly they can buy those things, whom they are buying from, because trust is being more and more into the supply chain.
How rapidly and creatively they can adopt those and use those new capabilities in different ways. And everything is down to actually staying ahead. And the warring in Ukraine show us just how important it is to innovate and adjust, as Ukraine has done in this tech race. The challenge for Ukraine and all in the West is actually quite clear. To stay ahead and to ensure this kind of deterrence from China, from Russia, from Iran, and other adversaries, we need to out-invent, we need to out-discover, we need to ensure that we can work on that on a daily basis.
To be able to do that, you need to tap into the synergies, both that we have partners with the private sector and the commercial sectors and adopt new technology, but also accessing different types of defense markets and then to ensure cooperation above borders. To continue to stay on this cutting-edge technology, we need to be able to take more risk in creative thinking, in innovation, to up our game in terms of the speed. Here comes the problem. Everything that comes to funding in this time is more or less focused on time. I mean, the budget increases are offset, of course, by price hikes and so on, and we can see that there are constraints in the supply chain. The real challenge is that everything takes time.
We have built a system in the previous years to focus on economy, to ensure that we are cost efficient, and now when we need to up our speed, it takes time and the different processes, and it will take time until those investments that we see from the political side actually are offset into orders. Even if the budgets increase, we are in a time where we are develop the whole procurement processes in and for a peacetime economy. It will take time to do business in defense. The upside is when you do it, and you have all the green lights, and you have crossed all the certificates, and you have all the permits, and most importantly, you have earned the trust of delivering, it's a long-term business. The defense business is like no other business.
Trust is important in all businesses, but in defense, it is vital, reflecting Karin's statement here earlier on being a reliable business partner, and in reference to system house, the key is to understand the market, and that is also what makes it a good business, so I think I will stop there and see if you have any questions for me, Olof.
I certainly do have one. Sometimes these lovely ladies and gentlemen ask us about the ketchup effect. When will things really accelerate in procurement and ordering of material? Is there an answer to that?
Usually, we said previously that it took about, from political decision to delivery, about five years. That's, I mean, the long-term perspective of different types of capabilities as an average. Some even took longer. It's very hard to predict where the market is heading. It is a very opaque situation, and there is not really any statistics about it. Where will we see our new, I mean, baseline when it comes to defense spending? One way to try to understand the growth is actually to look at the export control permits, because when you have some military equipment that is classified as military equipment, in order to do an offer there, you need to go to ISP and put in a file, a permit request to make an offer.
It's the volume of offers taken that they actually have some statistics on. And, so it doesn't really show what kind of order intake you have, but at least it shows the idea of where we are heading. And for MilDef, I believe that most of it is unclassified, and most of it is dual use. So I'm not talking about that type of equipment, but it is more export control of military equipment. And for 2022, it amounted to about SEK 50 billion , and according to ISP, in 2023, it has risen to SEK 100 billion , and now they are looking at probably SEK 200 billion for the year 2024.
So that's a little bit that shows that, and I mean, companies on the market today, they don't run for all the different businesses. I mean, if you are working on sales in this business today, you need to prioritize your business really, really hard. You can't go for all the different opportunities out there. So having said that, then you see an increase from SEK 50 to 200 billion in two years. Well, that shows a little bit about where we are heading, but it's slow because that's. I mean, yeah, and it takes time until it actually gets to the companies themselves.
It's a trust game. It takes a long time, and finally, with a few words only because we're at the end of your show, but you're staying during the lunch-
Yes.
which is fantastic. But, how long is this trajectory? Are we talking 10, 20, 30 years? What kind of journey are we on in ramping up defense spending and rebuilding what we have destroyed?
Most countries work with defense plans for about five years, and what we see now is that the Swedish government is about to launch our new five-year defense bill on the 15th of October. So it's pretty close. And I mean, we are going up to about 2.6%-2.7% of GDP. In Poland, we are getting close to 5%. In most allied countries, they are increasing quite steadily. I would say that in the short time up to 2028, 2030, we can actually see a little bit from those kind of defense bills where we are heading, and that's, I mean, that's going like three times where we were like—
Yeah
— two years ago.
Yeah.
But beyond 2030, it's very, very hard to actually understand, and because even if you have platforms like aircrafts or naval vessels, it's not sure that one vessel will be replaced by a new one. Because the new capabilities and the new technology race means that everything is changing- even in the war fighting environment.
Thank you, Secretary General at SOFF, Robert Limmergård, who will stay with us during the lunch. So thank you.
The next speaker of the program has been with the company for a year now, so note to myself, buy flowers, I guess. Together with Daniel and myself, Viveca Johnsson is the person that you guys and girls meet the most when you tune in to the MilDef story on the quarterly reporting. You have a hawk eye on the numbers that matters. Take it away, Viveca.
Thank you, Olof. I'm gonna move this table so I have a better dancing space than Robert did. There we go. I want to start with zooming out. Robert talked about the future. Let me talk about the history. You saw this picture when Daniel presented. Back to 2014 , why am I showing you this as the first slide? Well, I want to really bring to your mind what is the core of MilDef. We are a growth company. This is what we have at our core. To further emphasize this, of course, we need to talk about order intake. This is what it has looked like since 2020. We did the IPO in 2021.
Rolling 12 months of 2024, it's on the same level as 2023, but, given the highlights that Daniel presented to you, I'm sure your imaginations can run wild about what will be in the next quarterly report. This, of course, has now brought us to an order backlog positions, which is close to SEK 1.5 billion , an all-time high and a security for a good growth going forward on the sales side as well. This is something that we talk a lot about when we talk about our financial targets, our long time, term financial targets, and I will come back to those later on, so don't be afraid. This is not the only slide on those.
Here I've chosen to present organic and acquisition growth, and I often get the question, "Why don't you have a financial target in growth split on acquisitions and growth, organic growth?" and this is why, because it fluctuates so greatly. You had here in 2021, a negative organic growth, whereas in 2023, you have an almost 50% organic growth, and there was a quite small acquisition growth. So that's why we have chosen to have, or our board has chosen to have one growth target and not two. Growth, fantastic, but to be sustainable in growth, we need to be profitable, and this is my favorite KPI, the gross profit margin. I love how it has developed, and my absolute favorite about it is how it's been so stable since about 2022.
That is now constantly moving towards the 50%, even quarter-by-quarter. Even if it can fluctuate, we have some customers, some contracts, some products with lower margins, some with higher, but you can see a very clear trajectory on this. Getting closer to those 50 that we have talked about, for a while. On the other side of the profitability coin is, if you will, the cost side, or cost to serve. What does it cost us to bring our offer to the market, to present to our customers what we have to offer? I've chosen to illustrate this as operating expenses in relation to sales, OpEx, if you will, expenses, you know, a dear child has many names, cost, coin, none the least.
You see here in 2021, we IPO'd in June, of course. Cost goes up, and that's not only the direct Nasdaq fee that we need to pay. It's the whole cost base that goes up. We need to be more professional. We need to have more qualities to be able to deliver on our promise also to you guys, the investors, of ourselves. It's also part of growing up, isn't it? The larger the company you get, the more professional you need to be, the more compliance we need to invest in, the more important that becomes, the more IP we need to invest in, and the more people we invest in to secure our future and our growth journey. You see here we continue to build 2021, 2022, we are growing into our cost base a little bit better now.
Will it continue down? We see this as a growth company. We need to continue to add resources, but we do not see adding resources in the same pace as we're adding growth. And with an increased gross margin as well, I think this could be a really nice case, which our EBITDA is, a good example of the scalable business model. Here we see it in absolute numbers. Little bit softer start to 2024, bringing the rolling twelve, number down, more or less fully dependent on the volumes being a bit softer at the start of 2024 on the sales side. And here we see it as a margin. And now I'm sure that some of you at least are thinking, "Why is she still talking about EBITDA?
Didn't you change the target to get rid of the D?" Well, let's talk about the financial goals, and let's go through them one by one, and I promise you, I will drop the D and just go for the A in a few slides. But let's take them one by one. Let's start with our growth targets. 25% growth per year. I think I've made my case why we don't split it on organic and acquisitions. 56% growth in total in 2023. So I think it's safe to say that target accomplished in 2023, and I joke with Daniel all the time and say, "Can we do zero in 2024, and everybody's still happy?" He doesn't think you guys will be happy with zero in 2024, so we try to exceed that, of course.
This is the new target, which we have gotten from our board and happily accepted, so we are moving from EBITDA of at least 10% to an EBITA of at least 15%. So let's start with the D. Why did we get rid of the D? Again, it's part of growing up. We're at that point now that we need to be able to show you guys that we can carry our depreciations in our operating excellence, and we can do that, so it's time to drop the D and show you an EBITA to better represent our full operational performance. 15%, we had 12.2% in 2023, so here is, of course, a bit of leeway to reach the target. By purpose, I think from our board, we need ambitious targets. We need something to stretch for.
It would be unwise to set a target that we would achieve already the same year, given that it's a long time target. We're quite confident in this, that we will reach that within a few years. Let me come back to that in a couple of slides as well. To remind you, this is not new capital structure. We have a net debt in relation to EBITDA, not exceeding 2.5 unless on a temporary basis, 1.7 in 2023, so well within range also on that one. And finally, our dividend policy to distribute between 20% and 40% of our net profit as dividend payout. Of course, having with that the consideration of the capital structure of the company, the market conditions, and our growth journey, that from time to time requires capital.
So I promised you I would show you this without the D, so let's keep that promise. But you can also see that the trend is very similar. We are keeping the A and not going for a clean EBITA because part of our growth journey is acquisitions, and with that comes amortization of surplus value. Let's not mess up the operational performance with those choices that we make on how to allocate that. So we keep the A. We give you the trend on the percentage as well, and with the same explanation that the volumes has brought us a little bit down here on the rolling 12 compared to the full year of 2023. But as you can also see, we have been up there on the percentage with the different type of profile on the company, we should remember here.
In 2021, we acquired Defcon Solutions, which is now fully integrated in MilDef Sweden, which has integration business. This is running with a different type of profitability profile than we had here in 2020, where we had more of a pure hardware sales and profile of our portfolio. 2022, we have brought in Handheld, also a different kind of profitability profile. But as you can see, we have worked in 2023 to bring us up to 12.2% in EBITA. Quite proud of that, and it's also a good evidence of our scalable business model. On the next slide, I want to bring you along on a thought experiment, on an illustration, if you will. Don't take it as a promise, but take it as a thought experiment here.
If we are imagining that we 2024 hit our long-term targets, and we'll do that for a couple of years, we will, by 2026, through organic growth and acquisitions, be on SEK 2.2 billion. A true, fast-growing, and global company in that case, but the most fantastic part is what's happening down here. If we're doing all of that, and we're meeting 15% EBITA, we are bringing SEK 337 million bottom line. What do we have to do? Fredrik, you talked about in your presentation, economy of scale, effective innovation, customer-centric. You also mentioned that customer in focus is what we need to do. That is what we are doing. We can do more, and we can be even better than we are. And then, of course, we have our acquisition synergies, as well as strengthening our position in our current markets.
Profitable growth, because without being profitable, growth will be limited at some point. We will bump our head into a ceiling, but we believe we can do both. For the sake of formality, I'll go through the other two financial targets as well. Net debt in relation to EBITA, DA, sorry. Now I've so lost the D somewhere. Here, I want it back, so here it comes, in relation to EBITDA. Under two point five, illustrated by the line here, only temporarily exceeding that. That was with our, at the point, largest acquisition of Handheld that we temporarily went above. After that, we remained on a solid level, below two point five. Dividend. Well, to be honest, this is where we have deviated from our, first part of our policy, where we say 20%-40%.
But we also said, remember, the capital structure, the long-term development of the company, and the market conditions need to prevail and be present here. So for example, in 2022, the company chose not to pay dividend to secure our growth journey, which you saw quite well in 2023 numbers. That was our financial targets, and I want to take you through another part of this, which is a dear topic for everybody who has followed us for some time. I see smiles in the audience now. So I'm trying to do this a little bit differently by showing you our working capital structure in days. So how many days it takes to turn the working capital into revenue, basically.
Starting from 2020, going up to rolling twelve in 2024, the dark green at the top is the net between our receivables and payables. So the smaller, the better, preferably negative. But given that we have a margin on what we sell, it's not gonna be negative. What you can see, however, is that it has shrunk, indicating that we are doing quite a lot on this to negotiate better terms with our customers, better terms with our suppliers. Something to be proud of. The light green part is the inventory, always a dear friend to talk about. What happened here? I'm sure you all remember the pandemic and the component shortages that it brought along with it.
It was a challenge for us, and we started stocking up, both on almost finished goods that we couldn't deliver because we missed one or two or three components. And after that, we did, MilDef did, the industry did, and most industries thought, "Wait a minute, these global supply chains are really fragile. We need a little bit more on stock to be able to deliver to our customers on our promise." And that's where we have been since, a little bit more stocked in order to secure our customer promises. In 2022, we acquired Handheld, also a different capital profile than the classic MilDef portfolio, if I call it like that. We have more off-the-shelf products there, so it brings with it, it's a larger inventory volume, basically. We are working to bring it down.
Fredrik, you mentioned a couple of modular projects that we have going on to limit the number of components available, but still being able to customize. That sounds like one project, but it's in reality, of course, many projects, given the width of the portfolio. That's a target area for us, clearly. And then we have this. I was going for beige, but slight pink version down here. It's a nice other, if you will, where we have all the taxes and all the VAT, but we also have something of quite big important in that number, and that is our work in progress on our projects, and that's especially our integration projects after the Defcon Solutions in 2021. Here, we can do something. Here, we can negotiate better term milestone payments, longer payment terms with suppliers in that.
That will be a focus area as well going forward. Given how successful we have been on our hardware sell, sales and the net between receivables and payables, I have good confidence that we will also make good progress in our project business. Turning then to operating cash flow. Here, of course, I have two pictures in one. The left one is the rolling 12 months, and the right one is rolling six or year to date for 2024, as per June, if you will. Trying to bring you from our EBITDA to operating cash flow. Starting rolling 12, good profitability brought down quite severely by changes in working capital that was adversely.
Of course, we paid some interest in taxes, CapEx, some material ones and some, immaterial, which is primarily in our product development, and a few other bits, bringing us to 21.5. Talking about an operational cash conversion ratio in relation to an EBIT, it's about 0.3. Nobody gets excited about 0.3. On the right-hand side, what did we do rolling six? What's the current trend? What are we working towards? Here we have still a good profitability, although slightly lower due to the softer sales volumes in the start. We have working capital positions that is, progressing, in our favor. We paid interest in taxes a little bit more than we did last year.
We don't have any carry forward losses anymore because we are profitable in more countries than previously, which is, of course, very positive, unless when you pay tax, of course, then you pay more tax, which we are happy to do. CapEx, same profile, and now we land on an operating cash flow of 37, north of 37, and that brings us to a 1.4 in an operating cash conversion rate. That I get excited about at least. So why do I bring you back to this picture as the final picture in my presentation? It is to remind you that even though we are profitable, we can be more profitable. We are cash positive generating, and we can be even more so. We are, at our core, a growth company. Thank you.
We have time now. We are protecting the Q&A session because Erik told me to do so, so we don't miss out on that important moment, but we have a few minutes for questions to Viveca, if somebody feels urged. Yes, Hugo Lisjö, Carnegie, with a microphone.
Hi. Thank you. Could you provide a more detail on the concrete example of the steps you've are taking to improve the cash flow?
We can take a couple of ones. Fredrik mentioned one, increased modularity in our products to reduce inventory positions, and as I said, that sounds like one project, but it's actually several or many of them. So that's absolutely one of the focus areas. Then you always have the ongoing discussions with suppliers and, and customers. But I think I've said this a lot of times for those who have listened, like yourself, Hugo, that it's long lead times in this. You mentioned six to 24 months in the sales cycle. That's where we negotiate the terms. Once we've landed that order, it takes maybe a year, or in the case of the mechanized infantry vehicles, up to 2030 until the delivery happens, and we see it in the cash flow. So all the good activities over here takes a little while for it to be shown, but that's a ongoing job as well.
Anything else, Hugo? We're done. Okay. Anyone else? Yes, Erik. Thank you. I was expecting you to-
So was I.
Yes, so continuing on the working capital discussion, then just, I mean, it's coming down in relative terms, but where is it? I realize you're a fast-growing company, and that's always gonna be a strain on keeping it down, but assuming you hit your own growth ambitions, I mean, where is normalized working capital to sales for you? And then the second question straight after that, on the gross margin, really nice trend, as you say. What's the— I mean, 50%, is that how you run the business roughly, or is there more potential? And how mix dependent is that figure still? Thank you.
I think maybe those two hang a little bit together in terms of the terms we negotiate with customers and suppliers. Of course, that can emphasize our margin, but it can also help us on the working capital side. What is a normal working capital? With the current profile that we have, the current mix of software, solutions, integration services, this type of hardware, we have said, and I'm sticking to that, even if I'm still repeating midterm, length on the, on the goal, that we are coming down to. These are days we're talking about percentages, that we are coming down towards below 30. I think this is absolutely possible, and with the initiatives that we are taking midterm, still, we have good ambitions for this.
I have good trust in these projects that we are making in the inventory because we cannot just scale down on the volume in inventory per component. We need to take a different grip on it. We cannot go back to that. In terms of a normalized gross margin, then, is 50% the normality, or can we go above? We've said 50% is some sort of target. Are we seeing quarters with above 50%? Yes, we are. Does that mean that can be sustainable? Of course. Will it always be so? That depends. It depends on what customers we're taking. Are we starting to take these larger projects? Then maybe the margin will be smaller, but the volume will be much higher. So it's difficult to say on a quite long-term basis, but with the current profile, 50 is clearly doable. Above 50, well, I'm an optimist.
Okay. Can we, one more?
Yeah, one more.
And a quick answer. A quick answer.
There's a lot of commentary from, sort of, when Handheld came in, it was a, it was typically a blip in most charts we see. How's Handheld performing today compared to the group?
Handheld has brought very good opportunities to our product portfolio. Fredrik showed one example in the dismounted soldier concept. We have announced in, I think it was Q2, a very good order that the Handheld product is involved in. So I would say that that is indicating that the performance is on the sales side increasing here on the product side and enhancing the MilDef portfolio and performance as a whole.
We'll get back to that later. Daniel who might be able to comment on that as well. Thank you, Viveca Johnsson. Now we'll have to rush forward. Thank you. We are now at the final approach of the MilDef flight, the landing gear soon to be deployed. But before we open up for that Q&A that I keep talking about, Daniel will return to share a few glimpses into the strategies going forward. But also, we will tune into an important message from our CPO, Martina Karlsson, who, in a few moments, will tell you all about how we will stay cool to attract the sharpest mind for our continued growth. But this is yours now, Daniel. Take it away.
Thank you very much, Olof. I hope that my mic is on here. Before I jump into the next topic, very important topic, I also want to say thank you to my MilDef colleagues for great work and great presentation, and thank you, Olof, for project leading and being the moderator here today. He's the reason behind why we have this Capital Markets Day and then everyone here, and I hope that so far you think this is valuable time, so to say. Strategies for growth. As Viveca said, this is a growing company, and we have growth in our DNA, and we always want to be forward-leaning, we always want to aim higher than we do.
I think that we need to start with these fundamentals that is in the market right now for being able to understand the additional growth, so to say, how we can continue to grow this company. This is no news for no one in this room, but I think it's worth mentioning all over again. I mean, due to the war, we now have the largest increase in military spending in Europe in the past 30 years, and this will continue for many years going forward, most likely. This is, of course, a fundamental platform for a defense company like MilDef, that there is money in the systems. We have spent many, many years where we have seen the customer, the end customer, having a lot of time, but no money. Now, it has swift.
Now they have not so much time, but a lot of money. So that dynamic will absolutely play out in the favorite for a company like MilDef. But we heard about Ljunggren talked about this five-year period, maybe, and we, from the beginning, thought that this is going to be much, much quicker before it hits MilDef. But now we have seen and understand that it will take three to five years before it has a full impact on MilDef. We talked about that earlier and in the different waves we presented. And the next bullet around this fundamental platform that we will build our growth is, of course, if they have more money, what will they spend the money on? Of course, very important. And we, Fredrik Persson, CTO, talked a lot about this increased need of digitalization of the end customers.
We have a war going on in Ukraine. We need also to see how that could develop the future defense capabilities, what is the end customer will ask for in the future. We don't really know here and now, but I'm sure that when they summarize the war, all the data they have around what is future defense capabilities, there will be some development, and we need to understand which way that's going. But I think absolutely that digitalization will be one big part of future defense capabilities, so that's very important. They will start spending. The more money they have, they will start spending them on increased digitalization. We also, Fredrik talked about this dismounted soldier concept, so to say.
We think that we will see going from digitalized vehicles in numbers, maybe hundred, maybe thousand, to individual soldiers, then we're talking 10,000; 100,000 . So that is also a volume game that can benefit MilDef in the long run. So I think it's very important to keep these fundamentals in mind when we're talking future growth, so to say. We also have a bonus. We don't really know exactly, and I have listened to many others speaking this about this as well. No one can exactly say what this will take us, but I think even if MilDef is an international company, we have strong Swedish roots. So I think it's important for MilDef that Sweden now finally have joined the NATO membership and are aligned with the NATO countries.
I think that will be something in the long run, where we can build trust as being a company from a native country. So this picture is setting the context and the market dynamics that we're operating in right now. So there will be a lot of opportunities to capture out there. I'm sure about that. It's just down to the MilDef team here to capture that opportunities that we see out on the market. A little bit around how we see that we can continue to grow this company and the routes to accelerate the growth and how we can further expand MilDef. One, of course, if we're talking about the organic growth. One is, of course, I think we have a huge untapped potential in our product portfolio. We have been in this industry 27 years.
We have built super good products. We have an IP bank of knowledge, how we can build those kind of products, find solutions that the end customer is asking for. I think that we can bring this out more widely, geographically speaking, so to say. We have dug very hard in the Nordic countries, that is our home markets, and that is where we're coming from. As I showed before, revenues is 50% of the revenue is coming, the lion's part is coming from the Nordic countries. I think we can do more geographically if we spread out. We can talk about Central Europe, for example, very attractive market here and now. We can talk about the DAF we doing down in Central Europe.
We can talk about a country like Germany, for example, that has, due to the World War II, underinvested for many, many years in their defense capabilities. They have just ripping off the wet blanket they have had since World War II, and now starting really to increasing their spending. They're aiming for the 2% GDP, and since the German economy is quite big in absolute numbers, that will mean that there will be a lot of money and opportunities out there. And also adding to German, that they have, due to probably the World War II, have a lot of the big platform providers like Rheinmetall, for one example.
If we can increase the presence in Germany, for example, I think also we can be closer to the big global tier ones and platform providers, and work hard with them, and get our products also when they export further out. I also think we have talked about. There were some questions around U.S., for example. I said before that U.S. potential, our products is super good for a U.S. market, I think. And if we can have this breakthrough order like we had in the U.K. with MIV contract, and that started to giving ripple effects, we're just seeking that breakthrough. And we are competing, and we are quite close in many of this one.
And hopefully, we soon will get this breakthrough in U.S., because U.S. today, what we sell there is the mobile segment that Fredrik showed, coming from Taiwan, mainly. The laptops, the notebooks, PDAs, et cetera. If we can get in with our own products, the stickiness is very much higher. It's higher threshold to get in, but when you're in, it's much more sweet to be in that context, so to say. Okay, so geographic expansion of the portfolio we already have in terms of building organic growth, but also, of course, like we did now in the U.K. with AVT, where we purchased for a small amount of money, their capabilities of building displays that we then sold for, plus 10 million GBP, I think it was. And we can take that further to the next customer as well.
Finding those kind of do it in-house new technologies, moving up in the value chain, being this integrator, taking on more complex business, also acting more with the third-party products, but we are acting as providing the capabilities in the end, that this turnkey solutions, as we talked about here today. That, I think, is a way to expand this business as well. Finally, we of course have something that is always on our radar, our M&A agenda, where we always trying to find strategic acquisition that fits very well with MilDef. We are not saying, as we said a couple of years ago, that we need to do one or two per year.
We need to do the right acquisitions at the right time for the right price, and that is very important for us. And I think that, since our M&A radar is always on, we have always some kind of discussions going on. The crispness of it can be depending on exactly where we are in the phase, but we're always looking. I think it's a very fragmented market, in Europe, at least, where we can find great opportunities.
We can find companies where the founder has a great technical interest and have taken the company to a certain level, but maybe lacking the business development side of it, lacking the size of the customer base of the company, et cetera, could be a great opportunity for us to turn into acquisitions like that and grow the company. So we still will continue very hard to find the right objects. We have, for example, looked in the U.S. on the M&A activities. We normally walks away because I think that the multiples on the price for the companies in U.S. are ridiculous high. Always some private equity company coming in and bidding, and we're trying to bid as much as we can, and we're not even coming to the final phase of it.
But the acquisitions will be a part of our growth going forward, so to say. Also, a potential driver for higher volume, of course. I've talked about this before, but this is the smaller and smarter thinking of a new computing power. AI, for example, what that can brings to the table. But it's, as I said, going from low volumes in terms of vehicles, maybe to much, much higher volumes, smaller devices, but in volumes that will drives our growth going forward. But to be able to perform growth, of course, we need to take care of the most valuable assets we have within MilDef. I mean, it's always coming down to people in the end. It's the people that should drive this company forward.
And I always say that that's our greatest asset at MilDef, the people and the culture of MilDef, so to say. And that's why I've invited our CPO, Chief People Officer, Martina Karlsson, to talk us through a little bit how we work, what kind of strategies we have to get people on board and that they feel healthy, and they feel that they are in a great place when they're working for MilDef. So please, Martina.
Thank you, Daniel. Hello, everyone. I'm just gonna grab my hidden water over there. Hello, everyone. Just like Daniel said, I got the opportunity to talk to you about our absolutely greatest assets, the people of MilDef. I'm happy to share my passion with you, how it is to build a thriving workplace. What is a thriving workplace, and why is MilDef a thriving workplace? It is our internal capital, as we already said, but we are growing continuously, and we keep up that growth. We have grown three times our size in the past five years. We have come from less than 100 to more than 300 today. That's why I very often get this question: How do we attract and retain for growth? What is it that makes MilDef unique?
Just like many of my colleagues already mentioned today, first of all, we are in an industry more relevant than ever. We are delivering reliable and advanced products that the real world needs, and we do this at a time in a world where what we do is needed. Workforce today very often look for a employer with a higher purpose, and that is what we have. We have a vision of a secure world. MilDef is a place where people want to stay, and where they also know that they can grow, because since we grow and our expansions continue, great opportunities for internal movements, bigger responsibilities, new challenges comes to our people when you stay and want to grow your competence portfolio continuously in MilDef. It is true, people stay at MilDef.
We stay for about 5.5 years, and that's a quite high number for us, and a good number because they need to stay. We need the knowledge, we need the competence, we need the people. Because it's a high number because we are having a quite aggressive recruitment rate, as you all know. But the core why we would like to join MilDef, why we're curious to know more, and why we decide to stay, it's because we are strong within. All businesses experience external pressure, external difficulties that we really cannot control. External pressure that comes from the macroeconomy or what we have experienced for the last years, the pandemic. What we can control and what we should focus on is our inner strength. And I'm proud to lead the people agenda at MilDef because we put focus and effort to be strong within.
For us, that is about leadership, employeeship, and our culture. So leadership, we lead through others in MilDef. The leadership culture is the engine that enable us to move forward. We invest in leadership on all levels because we believe strong leadership is important to create employees that are inspired to follow. And inspired employees, they not just only stay with us, it also creates employeeship. And employeeship, that stands for accountability, commitment, and a proactive attitude to your job. We want to create some, an employeeship that that we feel that we are on this journey together. It's my job matter. What I do is important for the bigger picture. Together, I contribute to the strategy of MilDef and our long-term success. But finally, and probably most important, that actually puts those two together, that's our culture. Because we know that culture is not just an internal matter.
The culture is shown in our behavior, how you perceive us, how our customers and partners perceive us, what they think about us when they're interacting with us, how we do business. Like Karin spoke about before, we're doing sustainable business. We are trustworthy, relationships with our partners and customers. That is culture. The culture is the invisible force that drives us in the same direction and help us to make decisions, the glue that keep us all together. It doesn't matter where we are located in the world or which department we are working in, we are all working according to our strategy, and we do it in the same way, the MilDef way.
I'm confident that our focus on being an attractive workplace, but also to keep the great talent we already have, together with our focus on and efforts to be strong within, will ensure that we remain strong and successful. For me, that is a thriving workplace, and that's what MilDef is. Thank you. Thank you very much.
Martina, thank you very much. So, and now Daniel will wrap it up, and then we'll—
Yeah, thank you very much.
Hop into the Q&A.
We were trying to speed this up, because I agree with Erik, we need a dynamic Q&A session in the end, so save some time for that. But now it's time for the crystal ball, future outlook. What do we see out there? So this is mainly what we see when we look into our crystal ball, at least. We see a high-demand landscape, and we see it's here to stay. I'm talking about some generals I talked to. They say that this is gonna be a 40-50-year play. I think I would stick with a five to 10 years at least, before something changed around the demand in the landscape.
And also, the bullet number two here, I think is very important, that it will be the end user's needs that drive innovation and volumes. And there is a great need for digitalization, but also understanding the market and understanding the end user's needs, that's super important for us going forward. We will see what come out from the war, Ukraine, Russia, and what kind of capabilities we will need to produce in the future. But the fact, I would say, that there is a great need for digitalization, everything that has happened in the commercial world has not been. The defense has not been able to keep up with that.
If we go back 20, 30 years, something, it was the military that was driving the development forward, then the Silicon Valley took over, for example. But I think we will see changes in that now, when also there is money in the systems to be able to sit in the forefront again when it comes to the R&D, for example. That would be very important. And also continue, as I said, active M&A agenda, adding strategic acquisitions, and by that, also creating long-term shareholder value for every shareholder of the... How many are we now, Olof? 70,000 ? 14,000 ?
14,000 .
14,000 shareholders.
1,700 new shareholders last month.
Mm-hmm So that is our future outlook, and if we should just summarize that in one sentence, so to say. So for the coming years, we expect an accelerated growth, as we predict that increased defense spending will have a full impact on MilDef from 2025 and onwards, so to say. So that will be the final statement from MilDef here today before we move into the Q&A session. So that was all from me, actually. Will you take it from here, Olof?
Absolutely. Well, you will most certainly stay there, because now it's time to rise to the occasion for the corporate management team of MilDef, because I'm sure there are some holes to fill. So please get up on stage. You have mics, and then we just let loose the audience. I mean, Tom, Pareto, we're very happy that you're with us, for instance, tracking the MilDef journey. And Daniel from Danske Bank, you climbed around warships with myself, haven't you? So, I mean, there are quite a few analysts out there that know a lot of things, so I anticipate good questions now. Anders?
Thank you very much. I have a question on the profitability target. You said that it came from the board, the 15% EBITDA margin target. Was that really the case? And if so, on what basis did the board find that level appropriate?
I would say that mainly that's coming from the board of directors. They are setting our financial targets, so it's not a management question of how the financial target should look like. We adopted that challenge. They increased it with more than five percentage points because we also took away the D. We think that we are in a position to be able to delivering up on the new target as well. I know that we have overperformed on the previous targets for a long time, so I think that many in this room has also realized that the old target has been obsolete, so to say, for a long time. I at least, and I think management in total as well, feel much better around the new target.
Now, we can talk to shareholders and others in the right context, so to say. Otherwise, they have always asked, "Why shouldn't the profitability be more than 10% of the EBITDA?" And they see the gross margin going up, and they see the top line going up, and they see that the OpEx is quite flattening out, at least. So if you do that in a calculation, it doesn't match up in the end. And now I think that we can see that matching up better.
Okay, thank you. Could I also ask about your growth target? 25% per year means more or less you double every three years. So by 2030, you will be four times bigger than today. How confident are you about that target? i.e., what's the visibility? And finally, which target are you most happy or confident about, the growth or profitability target?
As we've shown here before, if we went back to 2014, that's 10 years back in time. When we say we, we have delivered an annual growth of 24%, I think was exactly. So of course, we have belief in the financial target of growing 25% per year, and of course also it will be tougher and tougher when we're growing more because it's gonna be adding more absolute numbers on the top. I think from here and now, and coming years, I have great belief in that we will be able to achieve this 25%. Longer out, of course, when the absolute numbers is going bigger and bigger, then I think the board needs to sit down again and take a new decision, so to say. Which one is the most tough to meet?
I think it's hard to say. I think that the growth target is probably maybe the hardest one to meet. I think the profitability will come when we have a scalable business, as we have, adding 25% on the top where we are today, growing into the new customer. As Viveca showed before, also, that the OpEx in relation to sales is going down, I think that we can meet this 15% at least.
... I want to throw my 50 cents on that, as well. Of course, it's two things. I think we have a very wise board who sets long-term targets that aren't, you know, somewhere over in infinity. It's something that is achievable within a few years. And I think it's the package of the financial targets that is the sweet spot for me, that, yes, we should grow, that is challenging, and we will do so, but we must remain profitable. We must have a capital structure that makes sense while doing it, and we must also, of course, have a nice dividend policy for those of you who are in the game for that, part, so to say. But for me, it's really the package of those, that it hangs together, that creates the sweet.
Tom, from Pareto, go ahead.
Thank you. I was just wondering, how important do you see delivery pace in contract negotiations? So you said there's a change of pace from the customer having a lot of time to having money and no time. So how important is that in winning contracts now?
Yeah, I can start, and someone can fill in maybe. But of course, we see that the end customer is picking up when it comes to the deliveries time, so to say. They want things quicker, yesterday, sometimes. But they also need to understand and realize what kind of world we're living in. What is the quick lead time, so to say? And I think we are quite much competitive when it comes to the lead times. We're talking a lot about the end user when we're talking about the government side, for example, how we can share risks, how we can be able to shorten the lead time, maybe by having more critical components in the inventory and things like that.
In the end, I think MilDef is very great when it comes to lead time. Sometimes the customer wants it fast, but I think we are reasonable time that MilDef can deliver it. They are asking for it, but is it reasonable to do it? Then I think they need to come into play as well and share some risk with... I say sometimes that I can't put how much money on the inventory because I have 14,000 shareholders on my shoulders as well. The government needs to understand that play as well, and they need to take risk on shorten the lead times.
Can
Sure.
Can I add? Yeah, yeah, and also, when we are included in these, like, ten-year contracts, it often come with a delivery plan. So they want quick deliveries for maybe prototypes and test vehicles, but after that, it's often a plan that rolls out over, like, five, seven, 10 years, and then we know a few years ahead when we will have the big batch of delivery. So for the MIV, it stretches almost over 10 years, and the big batch is somewhere in the middle. So it starts small, ramps up, and then it goes down at the end again. So the more bigger programs we are involved in, we have a much better, you know, crystal ball to see when we need to deliver the things.
But there is also the opportunities for these quick deliveries, so that if you have short lead times, you can win them, otherwise you're out. So it's important to have the possibility to be agile or have a process to deliver quick, but then it need to cost something. But at least that you have the possibility to deliver quick for those opportunities when they're going to donate the equipment or whatever do. But in general, we have quite okay lead times compared to the lead time of a combat vehicle.
Yes, sir.
Yes. Thank you. I think earlier about order time, you mentioned about six to 24 months, typically, thereabout. And in this situation, then when more and more countries are stepping up and need to order and well increase the capacity faster and perhaps also relating to giving away to Ukraine or likewise. Anyway, is this process changing? Are there more pockets of faster processes and perhaps scope for a larger proportion gravitating towards the six month?
I think we are in a landscape that is starting to shift. As we said before, we haven't really been into the phase three with the orders and the money starting to rippling down and hitting a small defense company like MilDef. But when we will move into that phase, maybe in 2025, then I think absolutely that will be a matter of time. I mean, how can we shorten the lead time? How can we go from shorten the sales cycles, et cetera? I think for example, they are talking about moving on from find some standard products and just buying the standard products. But I don't think that they really understand the dynamic here, because there is no standard products.
So they, yeah, then they need to identify, okay, this is the standard products. Could you buy all the components, put them in inventory, set up a product line so you can quickly turn this into, to finished products, let's say? But I don't think we are really at that moment, for us.
Yeah.
Yeah, uh-
And also, if it's a new customer, then the lead time is longer to get the contract. If they know us, it's trust business. So I think all the customers where we have agreements in place, we know each other, then it can go quick. It's more the introduction of new customers, then you need to do the whole dance there to get them on board, so to say.
Fredrik?
And compared to 10 years ago, we talked in the break here. We did much more very specific custom. We still do that today because it's part of our DNA and our business model, but we always promote what's available, and we have customers asking, "Okay, what can we buy and get delivered now?" That will be the already existing products that we have delivered to other platforms. So we are going for that approach, but then in the end, they still want to change a connector or something that makes it fit, you know, 100% into that vehicle. So it's yeah, they have to choose with what's existing today or perfect fit. So we see customers, you know, moving towards looking at what's existing, but thank you.
Thank you, corporate management team. Do we have more questions? Yes, at the same time. Okay, which one? Erik goes first. Remember, he often asks three questions in a row. S o it's really—y eah, always hard to remember. Keep track of all those three questions.
I think it's great.
That's another one of those three questions. Firstly, on the dismounted soldier, which is really interesting, and you've been working on it for some time, but where are we in the development of this? I mean, do you have any advanced discussions with clients, or is this something that we might see somewhere in the future?
Yes, there is ongoing discussions, absolutely, and we are discussing now about it's just how we introduce it, because it's not really decided how they're going to use it, how they're going to digitalize the soldier, and it's still a discussion about that. But we are talking about project-based, so they fund projects, and the pre-testing the systems, and introducing that way. And we are talking about we need to invest.
For example, there is a soldier hub outside there that we have invested in ourselves, also in the devices. So we need to do some proactive investment, but we hadn't done that if we didn't have the discussions we had a number of clients. So, I think that we will have clients that test our prototypes or our first samples during next year. Absolutely.
Thank you. And then the second question on M&A, if you could just explain a bit the general rationale for that. I mean, where's the value created when you look at acquisitions and do acquisitions? Is there part of portfolio that you're missing, you think that you really need to have a complete offering? And what's the I think it's two What drives you to M&A?
I think it's two types of M&A we have looked deeper into. The first one is to get something with really edge on into our portfolio. I think we did that when we did a small asset acquisition in U.K. We added this highly competitive displays. On the other hand, we're also looking for geographic expansion. We know that this business is quite much local sales. You need to have presence in the country, speaking the language, understanding the network and the sales channels, et cetera. And there, I think that we can find some suitable acquisitions going forward. So it's more of either due to geographic expansion by maybe buying sales and support company that has the right networks and framework agreements, or something that could add really edge to the portfolio.
I think that is the two main acquisition targets that we are, we're looking for and aiming to find. Okay, and then the third question on OpEx and the pace of growth to support your targets. I think you're around 10% or there below in the current expansion pace. Is that what we should expect going forward, or will it be higher, lower? What are the variables?
I think the current pace is somewhat of an indication, absolutely. Then we might have periods where it's lower and periods where it's higher, given the growth journey. We sometimes, you know, invest in a lot of people at one time, and sometimes it's a bit of a slower period. But, as a general trend, where we are right now, I think this is an appropriate level.
I think the next question is from Gustaf.
Yes, Gustaf from Calgus Fond. We've been owners in this stock since you came to the stock market, and your next biggest cost after cost of goods sales is your sales costs. And I ask you all the time, will it come down? Yes, it will come down, but it's still at 26%. It was 26% on last twelve months, it's 26% on the first half year. So, will they actually come down, or is that sort of a static number that you will stay on going forward? For example, if you in 2026 turn over two billion, what will that percentage be? Do you have an ambition to take it down? I mean, of course, yeah, but will you actually do that, or shall we just go for 26% on sales cost? I met. It's maybe Viveca.
Yeah, sure. I think as I just answered Erik's question, around this pace of increase is somewhat of an indication over time, but there's two parameters in play here, both the sales cost as such, but also the sales number. We had had a weaker start to the sales number. It was a bit soft here in the first half of 2024. Once that is ramping up to, let's call it normalized levels, you will see the percentage coming down due to that, so to say. Then we have the quarterly volatilities, which we have talked about so massively. It also shows a little bit in the sales.
As Fredrik explained, sometimes we get this delivery that is quite long, and they hit sharply at the time when we deliver, and then the sales goes up in that period, but it might mean that it's lower in others, so yes, it will come down, but it will vary over between quarters, so the volatility remains.
Okay, second question then for Martina here. When you hire people, you're in the defense sector, we heard her previously that you need to invent better and do better than the, I mean, the enemy or the, whatever you say, the competitor. But when it comes to the enemy anyway, do you have any security classification of people you hire, and how do you do that, or is that not done?
Yes, we do that in part of the organization, in part of the roles. We do a background check on all our employees, all that we are hiring. And then people working, especially in our organization here in Rosersberg, we do a specialized security control.
Thank you, Gustaf, for those questions. I think we are finally, Daniel. I'm happy. I was waiting. This might be the last question because we want to go for lunch.
Just on a gross margin, I mean, now your supply chain is working, the input prices have come down, and you have supported your gross margins. But how scalable, what kind of scalability effect should we expect from higher volumes going forward? And then the second question, the Q4 is still a very important quarter for you seasonality-wise. What should we expect, and how fast will that even out, and what will be the main drivers of that?
Do you want me to go first with the gross margin, and then-
Please.
You can elaborate in Q4? In terms of the gross margin, increased volumes will have an impact on the gross margin as such, because when you can buy more from a certain supplier, you can have better negotiations. It could, of course, have the reverse effect. When you have a customer with a really big volume, they limit the margin. I would say it's rather the incremental changes that impact our gross margin, and where we really see the leverage on increased volumes is on EBITA, on our operating profit. That's where we get the full exchange from bringing down our total cost to serve and our sales expenses in relations to sales. Now, Daniel, you get to elaborate.
Yeah. Thank you, Daniel, for that question. I mean, absolutely correct that the seasonality has been high in this company, and the Q4 has been, delivery-wise, the absolute biggest quarter. But I think also over time, that has been reduced a little bit. We are not so much Q4 heavy that we were before, and that, of course, depending on that, when we have much sales to Sweden and Norway, they have their budget path, et cetera, that they use the loose budgets, I'd say. I think that we will see less and less Q4 heavy. I think we will see more spread out over the year, so to say. When that's gonna happen, I'm not really sure. We saw last year that Q4 was quite a significant quarter again.
So we will probably have that dynamic for a couple of years going forward. But since we— success with the internationalization and growing the company and adding more customer to it, I think the seasonality will reduce heavily in the upcoming years.
Perfect. Thank you.
Thank you, Daniel. Yeah, I think that's it. That's the show. Don't you think so? Let's give them another call.
Thank you. Thanks.
So, thank you all and thank you all for taking part of the first ever MilDef Capital Markets Day. We hope, after three hours, that you've gained some new knowledge and deepened and widened your knowledge on MilDef. My name is Olof Engvall. Reach out if you wanna keep in touch.