Well, good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to this investor call with MilDef, with a special focus on MilDef's reporting on the first quarter of 2026. This quarterly call will be presented by CEO Daniel Ljunggren and CFO Viveca Johnsson. We expect approximately 30 minutes to be sufficient for this call and the Q&A. At this time, all guest microphones are muted, but I will open up and allow individual mics for the Q&A. If you wish to state a verbal question, raise your hand or write in the chat. I will then open up your mic, and you will also have to open up your individual mic to let your lovely voice come through. Also, for information, we record this meeting. Now, with no further ado, please take it away, Daniel Ljunggren and Viveca Johnsson.
Please remember to help the audience understand where we are in the presentation by stating the number on the slide. Daniel?
Thank you very much, Olof Engvall, and a warm welcome to all of you that are joining this Q1 update here from MilDef today. We will try to remember to state the numbers on each slide. This is what we will try to cover today. We will go through some highlights for the first quarter, and after that, we will dive into the financial numbers, and then we will also further give you an update around the road map progress, and then we will have a short summary, and then we will open up the floor for a Q&A session in the end. Let us then start with the highlights for the first quarter here. Q1 was a record quarter in terms of order intake, indicating the strong customer demand for our products and solution, and the demand is still very solid.
This is now the second quarter in a row where we exceed the milestone of SEK 1 billion in order intake for an individual quarter. I think to bear in mind it's especially strong, that is, in a Q1 that is normally a little bit weaker quarter during the year. It is, however, worth repeating that MilDef operates in an industry where order intake, net sales, are typically volatile over individual quarters. For this reason, as stated before, it's very important to assess MilDef financial development in a more long-term perspective. The second one is a very strong delivery execution in Q1 here. Our investments that we've done in the past here and already started doing in the second half of 2021 has now really started to paying off in an increased delivery capacity.
We already in Q1 stated that the delivery situation in the beginning of this year was clearly improved, and that is something that we now see in the net sales numbers as well, that we have had a strong delivery execution in the first quarter. We also saw a clear improvement of the margins here in Q1. As we have stated before, when we see a strong top-line net sales development, the margins also increase and following in the right direction. Here in Q1, that was a good proof in the pudding for that statement with a high margin. This also, of course, relates to our scalable business model with a high share of fixed OPEX. If we continue, we also see another positive trend in Q1 was that we saw a significant improvement of the free cash flow.
The cash generation here in Q1 amounted to SEK 159 million compared to same quarter last year, where we had SEK -75 million. A huge difference between the different quarters. This is, of course, improved due to that we have a better margin, we have a strong growth, and we have done this without adding more working capital in the same extent. Also worth mentioning as a highlight here in Q1 is that we have secured some strategic contracts within our new established solutions offering. This is an offering where we mainly support our customers around system design, system engineering of technical IT system for military purpose. This is a support that we provide that guarantees high availability and quality for our customers throughout the full life cycle of the systems.
This contract, I would say, is also evidence of our capability to delivering turnkey-ready IT solutions to our customers, and that our portfolio is not just isolated to the hardware, it's now a wider offering. From a pure financial perspective, these contracts are mainly improving our margins, but also that the nature of this business have a less volatility over each quarter and also provides a more stable cash flow. Finally, as a highlight here in the Q1 is around our investments into additional capacity expansion, and they are still at a high level. At the same time that we are delivering this high growth rate and also improving our margins, we continue to invest to be able to meet future customer needs. The investments that we are doing are mainly consist of onboarding more coworkers, but we are also increasing our production areas.
The latest major investments that we have announced is the extension in Helsingborg, where our current operating premises in Helsingborg will be doubled in square meters. That is something that we think and expect to be ready somewhere around summer next year. With that said, I will move over to slide number 4 and give you some of the key figures for Q1. If we start with the net sales, we're in Q1 SEK 708 million, and that is a strong growth, 108% if we compare year-over-year. As I said, this all-time high net sales in the first quarter is due to our strong delivery execution. Organic-wise, the growth amounted to 41%, and M&A-wise, the contribution from the roda acquisition was 67%. Let us then move over to the Adjusted EBITDA, SEK 121.6 million.
That is also very strong growth compared to last year in the same quarter. If we look at the EBITDA margin here in Q1, as I said, really improved to 7.2% compared to 4.6% in Q1 2025. Gross margin in total ended up at 44.3%. If we are including the M&A from the roda acquisition, but also very pleased to see that the underlying gross margin, excluding the M&A, was at the high level this quarter at 53.9%. If we then go further down in the P&L and also look at the OpEx development, I would say it's according to plan. If we are excluding the OpEx that is coming from the M&A, the increase was around 6% year-over-year, which I think indicates a good cost control within the company.
Even if we are growing net sales and order intake really strong, we still continue to have a development according to plan when it comes to the OpEx. That takes us to the order intake, which I think is the really strong number here in the Q1, 169% growth if you compare year-over-year. This is also an all-time high for an individual quarter. I would say that underscores the robust demand we see for our offering on the market. Also indicate even if we have a strong growth in terms of net sales, our book-to-bill rate is still strong, 1.5, and if we look at the last 12 months, it's 1.6. That indicates continued growth when it comes to net sales and so on. Finally, on the key figure slide, the free cash flow, huge delta between Q1 2025.
We are improving that with SEK 234 million. It's an all-time high number for the free cash flow in an individual quarter. It's due to, as I said before, our growth in combination with improved margins without being able to add working capital in the same extent. That was the key figures for Q1. Now I will move over to slide number five, which contains the operational highlights. Just to give you a quick overview of some other highlights that is not on the financial side. Right here and now, the construction of our new assembly space in Helsingborg is ongoing, where we're adding up to 50% more assembly area. This is something that we expect to be ready in the near term here before we move on to the summer vacation in 2026. Ongoing.
As I also mentioned that a more wider decision to make a bigger expansion in Helsingborg to meet the long-term demand is now taken, and this is something that we expect to be up and running not later than fall in 2027. I mentioned this before in the highlight as well, and it's really important to do it once again. There's several large system engineering contracts that we have secured here in Q1. It's towards both the government side, but it's also towards the business-to-business customer. Really puts MilDef in a good position on this market, making sure that we are making the movement upwards in the supply or in the value chain, et cetera. It's really strategic, important contracts that we have secured here in Q1.
Finally, I will come back to this a little bit later on our roda progress, but it's now a milestone where we have reached a one-year milestone together with roda in MilDef Group. I will give you a little bit more flavor on the progress around roda later on. With that said, I will wrap up the first session here, the highlight session, and I will leave the word over to Viveca Johnsson, our CFO, will give you some more details around the financials.
Thank you, Daniel. We will be starting on slide 7, which is quite a busy slide, but the message is quite concentrated. It's a fast-growing defense tech company. We have annual growth rate over time here of 40+% , which is, of course, exceeding our long-term target of 25%. We're doing that with a book-to-bill of 1.6, which is, of course, indicating a strong future as well with the backlog of just north of SEK 4 billion. 514 employees enabling this growth and this continued journey is the main message from this slide, which will be taking us to slide 8, where we are having a bit more of a deep dive into order intake and book-to-bill, where you can see that we are on a rolling 12 basis on an order intake of roughly SEK 3.9 billion. Also here, catching up on the four.
You see the book-to-bill ratio remains rather stable the last three comparative periods here, full year 2024, full year 2025, and the rolling 12. We are continuing to adding more orders to our backlog than we are delivering out, although we did see a very strong delivery during Q1. Following that on slide 9, we are looking into our backlog duration, where you can see the deliveries for the current year here, 2026, as well as the coming years 2027, 2028, and then what we have beyond that. We do see that we have, for the first year here, roughly a 20% growth in what we have already now after Q1 in the backlog for delivery in the current year. Just shy of SEK 1.9 billion for 2026, which we are counting as a strong sign and a good basis for 2026.
We also see good growth in the other period. The small dip in the last period here is related to our previously announced contract that was going on deliveries for 10 years, which we have now started to deliver on. That naturally goes down. It's important for us to strengthen our backlog in closer deliveries. Furthermore, we're going on slide number 10. After orders, backlog comes sales, which it also does here on slide 10. An 84% growth on a rolling 12 basis. Again, well exceeding the long-term target in growth. This picture is also showing our gross margin development, where we have on the gray line indicated the group's total gross profit margin development. You have on the above brownish color, the MilDef without the roda acquisition. Then you have the isolated roda underneath in a more beige color.
What we are seeing in MilDef excluding roda is a further strengthening of the gross margin, which is completely in line with the communication that we have given beforehand, that we see that this is roughly a level where we can be at, where all the stars are aligned, so to say. We're also seeing the roda acquisition delivering on and about the level that we were expecting at the time of acquisition with some 30+ percentages. That is of course a different business model, where you have a lower gross margin, but also a lower OpEx than the other part of MilDef where you have a higher gross margin, but then also a higher OpEx. It roughly evens out on EBIT, EBITA level, but on the gross margin, it differs a lot.
What could look like an indication of a declining margin is in fact not. It's simply a combination issue of the two business models here. That will be taking us to slide 11 and EBITA, with the exceptional growth of 133% on a rolling 12 basis. As Daniel mentioned beforehand, this is yet another proof of our scalable business model where we have a strong top line. We will be having a nice contribution on that on EBITA. With that said, we will be focusing a little bit on our working capital and net debt position. We had a free cash flow of SEK 159 million, which is historically a very large cash flow. We have a couple of positions in our balance sheet, which individually are not maybe significant, but we have a quarter here where a lot of things are aligning on a very good side.
I think this should not be seen as the new normal, 25%, but it will be higher than that. We have spoken previously around 30%, possibly a little bit lower, but this is more where we think we are going to be long-term. This is also building on what Daniel said previously, where you have a growth journey, there will be some capital tied up in inventory, in accounts receivable, just due to the heavy and quick growth. We are doing our best to balance that, but I think 25.8% is, all things considered, correct this quarter, and we're quite happy about that. I would like to remind you of the volatile quarters that we do have that you have seen historically. Net debt also a very good development in Q1 2026, primarily driven by the strong cash flow.
Our payment terms and amortization of our debt and so on are exactly according to plan. The further decrease in net debt is driven by a strong cash and a strong profitability over the last 12 months, and then maybe particularly here in Q1. Yes, we will be rounding off the financial session with the geographic spread. Here we see one year after the roda acquisition, one year of integration, that our geographic map is looking more or less exactly as per prediction. That we have a Nordic and the rest of Europe that is on the same scale. We have a North America with primarily USA of the same size, and we have a Europe and a Nordic that is in parity with each other, which is giving us a better foothold in the European markets, especially in Germany region, Central Europe region.
This is, of course, giving us a better focus area in those interesting markets, but also balancing out our geographic footprint. I will be handing back to Daniel now on slide 14.
Thank you very much, Viveca, for guiding us through the financial numbers and package. Now I will take over again and jump over to slide number 15, give you some update around the roda progress for Q1. This is now really a milestone we have passed when we now have had roda within the MilDef Group for more than one year. When we really look back in the mirror here, we can see that roda has been a strong puzzle piece into the MilDef growth journey. It continue from the roda side with a strong order intake development, showing that the underlying demand and a good market situation on German market as well. As I mentioned before, roda has been a really important part of MilDef growth, but also in the improved profitability in the last 12 months that we have been together as one.
That continues to be a strong combination of the two companies. Integration-wise, everything goes according to plan, and I'm happy to see that we are really proceeding in the integration phase. Also we have talked about our ongoing investments into increasing the capacity. That is also something that we are really doing on the German side and it also applies to Germany, where we're investing due to a high customer demand in Germany. That is why what we are seeing on the German market when we look 3-5 years out in time is a very promising outlook for the German market.
There is a lot of defense ramping up that needs to be going on in Germany and that roda and MilDef has a really strong say and a ticket around the table for being able to execute on those business opportunities that we see on the German market. Now I will move on to slide number 17 for a short summary of today's trading update from Q1. I would like to start the summary where we started the full presentation by the record high order intake that is of course, driven by a high customer demand. We also saw in Q1 a strong delivery execution was impacting the net sales and also due to the scalability in the business, also give a good boost for the margins in the first quarter here. That is why the higher volume drives an improved margins.
That is something that we have stated before within MilDef, and that is something that has been now also evidence here in Q1 that is something that is correct. Worth mention here in the summary part, the continued investment in capacity expansion. I think we have already during 2025 started this ramp up in capacity and we're now seeing that we are getting good payoff from that. We also need to continue to invest at a high level to meet more of a strong long-term demand. Also of course, this continued investments is also supported by a record high order backlog that now exceeds SEK 4 billion. It's strong order backlog and strong demand. We also make sure that we are investing enough to be able to take care of this situation and market needs that we have at the moment.
By that, we are moving into the Q&A session. Let's see if we can open up the floor and Olof can give you the right to speak.
We now segue over to the Q&A segment of this presentation and raise your hand, write in the chat if you wish to state a question. We have a short line up so far. If you want to state your question verbally, please line up, write in the chat, or raise your hand and I will allow your microphone if you need to open it. This has been done by Mads Brinkmann with Berenberg. Please go ahead with your question, Mads.
Yeah. Good morning. Can you hear me okay?
Perfectly.
Perfect. Thank you very much and thanks for taking my questions and congrats on the strong quarter. Just a few quick ones from my side. You already mentioned the order intake, and I know you say it's lumpy, but as you also allude to yourself, traditionally Q1 is the weakest quarter of all, and there's quite pronounced seasonality in the business. I'm just wondering whether there's any sort of particular shifts or anything that we should think about in terms of the order intake or whether we should, I guess implicitly just get used to you guys delivering above SEK 1 billion in order intake, and the sort of normal Q1, Q2 sort of relationship still exists.
On the second one, please, just on the types of orders that you're seeing, would be great if you could add some additional color on what sort of end customers or end products you're actually seeing, essentially really moving the needle here, if it's just more of the same or if you're seeing any sort of shifts compared to the previous quarters, that would be a great help. Last but not least, obviously strong free cash flow and the net debt position in a very healthy space. Just wondering, I know it's only been a year since you've acquired roda, but I'm just wondering if you're essentially on the M&A side of things, if you're already ready for a bigger acquisition again, please, that would be my initial three. Thank you.
Thank you very much for that question. I would like to start to give you some flavor on the order intake, then the lumpiness on that, and if this is a shift or not into be able to exceed SEK 1 billion quarter by quarter. Of course, this is driven by a very strong underlying demand on the market, and also a relevance in the offering that MilDef has on the market. I'm not sure that we will be able to meet this SEK 1 billion target of order intake for each quarter going forward because we know it's lumpy, but we also see, as I said, a strong demand on the market. Let's see what's happened here in the continue of 2026 and around order intake. You also had a question around the type of orders.
I would say we have mentioned this relatively new established solution business area that we have had some good success when it comes to order intake in the first quarter here. Otherwise, I would say it's the full portfolio that we have that are performing well. We are, of course, continuing to be strong on the hardware side. That is mainly the driver behind the strong order intake here in the first quarter. Finally, you had a question around that now when we are strengthening the cash flow, and we are strengthening the balance sheet, and coming down also in the net debt to EBITDA our M&A activities forward. We have said this before that we are looking, we are having the radar on. It also want to be really value-created M&As and acquisitions when we're going forward.
At the moment, we are not stressed about doing any M&A activities, but we are looking into the market. We are investigating what kind of value-creating acquisitions we can find on the market. Let's see what's happened here in the rest of 2026.
Understood. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Mads.
Thank you, Mads, from Berenberg . The next question lined up. Please repeat, state your request in the chat or raise your hand. We still have some time for this conference. The next meeting is very relevant. Thank you, Melker Sjöstedt. The question is: Can you explain why the solutions segment is expanding right now? What do the customers order the most of at the moment, and how is it correlated to the current hardware deliveries?
Thank you, Melker. That is a really good question. If we start with why it's expanding right now, I would say it's down to the lack of resources from our major customers, I would say. They need support. We have said this before in this defense ramp-up in Europe that we are now seeing that is historically high numbers. The whole ecosystem needs to be able to support each other and help each other to be able to deliver in the high demand. This is something that our end customer has really asked us to do to pick up around the solutions segment, where we can help them to design their future IT solutions and systems out in the field. We are already involved in the business on an early stage. That is where we can come in and help them.
It's also a really strong enabler for us as being able to sell even more hardware, because when we are designing the systems, we are more of understanding the need and what type of hardware they will have a need for in the future. That has also given us a good insight and intel and also given us a good chance to impact the customer choosing the MilDef hardware in the future.
Thank you for the question, Melker. We can also emphasize the fact that in this report, you can actually see the split between hardware, software, and solutions integration sales. If you deep dive into the report, you can see the difference in that area. I have actually no more questions in the lineup and no more raised hands. I guess you have answered all the possible questions, Viveca and Daniel. Unless somebody shouts out in the very end of this meeting, I would need to say that this concludes the Q&A session of the MilDef Q1 2026 conference. Thanks for joining and for your contribution to the MilDef journey. Also, put a note in your calendar. Q2 report is up next on July 16th, in the middle of the Swedish summer. Now over to Daniel for the closing of the meeting.
Thank you very much for that, Olof, and thank you all for joining this meeting here today, and thank you for following the MilDef journey. I hope to see you again when we are releasing the Q2 numbers. For those of you that are already shareholders today, don't forget that you can join the annual general meeting in May 21 in Helsingborg in the fortress, where you can meet all of us and also hear us talk about what happened in 2025 and the beginning of 2026. I wish you all a great day. Take care. See you. Bye-bye.
Bye.