Warm welcome to this investor call with MilDef, with a special focus, naturally, on MilDef reporting on the third quarter of 2026. This quarterly call will, as always, be presented by Daniel Ljunggren, President and CEO, and Viveca Johnsson, CFO at MilDef Group. We expect approximately 30 minutes to be sufficient for the presentation and Q&A. At this time, all the guest microphones are muted, but I will open up and allow individual microphones for the Q&A. If you wish to state a verbal question, raise your hand or write in the chat. Naturally, you can write your question in the chat, and I will moderate it for you. Also, for information, we record this meeting. Now, with no further ado, please take it away, Daniel Ljunggren and Viveca Johnsson.
Thank you very much, Olof, for that, and welcome to all of you joining this conf call today around MilDef achievements in the third quarter here in 2026. For those of you that are not so familiar to MilDef and may be new to the MilDef case, we are just trying to give you some short flavor and introduction to the company. We are a rugged IT solution company delivering tactical IT into defense and security. Founded in 1997, so we are almost 30 years in the business. We are today a capability company delivering tactical IT solutions for the armed forces. Our core markets is the Nordic states, U.K., U.S., and selected NATO countries. Employee-wise, we are today roughly around 580 people, and we were listed on Nasdaq Stockholm in 2021.
On the numbers side, we can see now that the last 12 months net sales is almost reaching SEK 2 billion, where we also have an adjusted EBITA last 12 months of +SEK 500 million, an order backlog that is record high in SEK 5.6 billion, and the adjusted EBITA margin here rolling 12, 18.7%. So that is just to give you a flavoring to the MilDef world and set the scene for the rest of the presentation here. This is the agenda that we would like to share with you today. We will start with some of the highlights for the third quarter, and after that, I will leave the word over to CFO Viveca Johnsson, who will deep dive a little bit more into the financial and the numbers.
Then, of course, we will have a summary before we move over to Q&A in the last phase of this presentation. Let's start with the highlights for the third quarter. When we now summarize the third quarter, we can state that this was a very strong quarter for MilDef. Order intake, net sales, and margins all reached record levels for a single quarter, and they all did it in the same quarter here. Order intake was, of course, supported by strong business momentum with some major contracts awarded in Q3. One of these important contracts in the third quarter was an extension of a new seven-year strategic framework agreement with the German Defense Material Administration, which goes under the name Bundeswehr in our book at the moment.
The agreement has a potential value of up to EUR 527 million , and the first call-off order that was worth EUR 95 million was also placed here in connection with the signing of extension. That also really boosted order backlog and order intake. Further here in Q3, we saw a clear margin expansion as well, driven by a high operating leverage. Net sales grew by 54%, purely organic, and operating profit grew with 131%, which is a clear evidence of the operating leverage and the scalability in the business model that we have stated before. The EBITA margin in this isolated quarter was high at 21.8%, and that is compared to 15.7% in the comparable quarter previous year. Our investments also in additional delivery capacity are still at a high level.
At the same time as we are delivering growth and improved margins, we also invest to be able to meet future long-term customer need. In the third quarter, we announced an additional expansion in Rosersberg, which entails doubling of the production area and also strengthens, of course, our capacity to handle this increased volumes, which is very important, not least in the light of the recently signed framework agreement with Swedish Defence Materiel Administration, FMV. At the same time, we continue to strengthen our organization also in order to support continued growth and meet the long-term demand. Another bullet worth mention here as a highlight is our integration of the roda computer GmbH, that company that we acquired 18 months ago. It is now formally adopted to and rebranded to MilDef, as now the name is MilDef GmbH instead of roda computer GmbH.
The name change reflects our long-term strategy of fully integrating roda into the MilDef Group. By bringing our businesses together under one brand, we create a stronger and more unified platform for serving our customers, while we maintain the expertise, the products, and the relationships and the good people we have in roda. We keep that as a trusted partner for many years on the German market.
It also comes to the record high order backlog. By the end of Q3, we had a record high order backlog indicating a good chance to continue our long-term net sales growth. The backlog by the end of Q3 was more than SEK 5.6 billion . By that, we have grown that with 61% the last 12 months, and that is despite that we have performed a really strong top-line growth as well, with 76% the same 12 months.
We continue to see a long-term demand across our entire portfolio. The demand for advanced military IT solution is increasing, and we have an offering that clearly meets the requirements set by the customer. The geopolitical drivers behind these increased defense investments are long-term, I think, and the demand for what MilDef are delivering, which is the robust digital infrastructure, continues to grow. Also worth mentioning on the challenging side, that we still see challenges in the supply chain for electronic components, both in terms of lead times and also price levels. We try and we are continuing to take proactive actions to secure access to these critical components. Mainly this is done through a range of activities, such as we are building inventory, we have a close collaboration with suppliers to ensure deliveries, and we also have a frequent dialogue with our customer regarding the price absorbing.
And so far, I think we have been able to meet these challenges in a good way, but we also know in the long time, in the long term, this could be an issue that will continue. Now I will move on to sum up page five, which includes some of the key figures for Q3. If we start with the net sales, it ended up with SEK 829 million , which as I said before, is an organic growth of 54% year-over-year. And it is also on a record high number. And it was mainly driven by the Nordic and the German markets, if we break it down to geographic areas. And this also, due to the scalability and operating leverage in the business, also created a strong adjusted EBITA. In absolute numbers, SEK 180.5 million , and that is a growth of 113% year-over-year.
When we come down to the gross margin level, we saw a solid level, 45.4% compared to 45%. It is very similar to the comparable quarter. OpEx side, I think the development was according to plan. We increased by 21% year-over-year, excluding non-recurring items and FX. And OpEx to sales ratio improved from 33% to 26%, also indicating the operational leverage in the business. But probably the biggest number and the strongest number in this third quarter was the order intake, increased by 130%. And this, of course, reflects the continuing high investments activity among our customers and their growing need for robust digital defense infrastructure. And even if we had a strong net sales growth, we see that we have some strong book-to-bill rate to 2.5x here in the isolated Q3 quarter.
Finally, the cash flow side, a -SEK 112 million , mostly impacted by the inventory buildup here from making deliveries in the third quarter, or in the fourth quarter, sorry, but also impacted by strong net sales in Q3, which is building up your accounts receivable. And this is something that we look forward to improving in the upcoming quarters. Also mention some of the strategic events in Q3. I have pinpointed three of those. One is the, if you start from left, one of the major contracts that we have, that I was mentioning before, was a hardware contract with a European NATO country worth SEK 553 million . This order is about digitalization of the armed forces in the country and is one of the single largest hardware orders MilDef has ever received. This order is expected to be delivered in 2027.
Another major contract awarded, and I mentioned this before as well, and really sets the scene for the future and builds some comfort in our order backlog and comfort in our continued expansion, is the extension of the seven-year framework agreement with Bundeswehr. This agreement, in both size and duration, is a strong testament that MilDef is going to be a significant supplier in the ramp-up of the German defense capabilities. And the final here on the strategic events is the expansion in Rosersberg, Sweden. We will increase the production and office facility, and hopefully this will be done by the early 2028. And we expand that by 7,600 sq m. So it is quite about large investments into our increased capacity ramp-up. And by that, I will leave the word over to Viveca Johnsson, our CFO, who will deep dive a little bit more into some of the numbers.
Thank you, Daniel. Let's begin then on page eight, which is a collection of key numbers for a fast-growing defense tech company. The order intake, just shy of SEK 5 billion. We have a book-to-bill ratio of almost 1.7x on a rolling 12 basis, despite the strong delivery execution during the quarter. We continue with the 60%, 70% growth on order intake and net sales, which is also demonstrated in the increased backlog. Of course, we mustn't forget the people that we have brought on board the last 12 months to be able to execute on the strong order backlog and turning that into deliveries for our customers and their capabilities. An additional 25% in the number of full-time employees in relation to this 76% growth on last 12 months basis for net sales. The charts at the bottom of the page is further strengthened from last quarter.
We are now showing a CAGR of roughly 50% growth on an average then over five years. We are, of course, proud of this. We continue on page nine with a deep dive into the order intake and book-to-bill ratio development. The third quarter here was, as Daniel said, a strong quarter. We're particularly lifted by the two press released orders during the summertime, but also the net sales was strong in the quarter, especially the latter part of the quarter, we saw a strong execution of deliveries which all bundles up to a book-to-bill ratio of 1.66x to be very precise, but let's call it 1.7x. If we further on to slide 10, look at the backlog duration, which I know is, especially after doing the revised profit last week, you were waiting for this number, the 2027, 2028 numbers.
As you see on the right-hand side, it's a strengthening of both those years, particularly the 2027 numbers in relation to where we were last year. We have now just shy of SEK 3.3 billion already now for deliveries in 2027. So we're going to need those additional people that we have brought on board to continue the strong delivery execution and the continued expansion of the MilDef Group. Briskly swept over to slide 11, we are talking a bit more about the net sales and the gross margin development. Rolling 12 is a similar composition as the quarter and year-to-date numbers, where we see a strong growth geographically in Germany and the Nordics, especially Sweden is strong in the rolling 12, but also the other Nordic countries are performing well. Germany and the mobile part of our portfolio is also growing well, which is impacting the gross margin composition.
We have a slightly lower gross margin profile on the mobile assortment, and we have contradictory to that, the solutions and integration margin, which is strengthening the quarter, and that is also growing. We have a little bit of both salt and sweet, if you will, in terms of the gross margin percentage, ending up here on 45.9%, which is in line with the expectations in the current setup of the MilDef Group. We go to slide 12, where we deep dive into the scalability of the business and EBITA development of 181% for the last 12 months, SEK 553 million on EBITA level. This is proof of the scalability. Those of you who have followed us for some time, you know this is exactly what happens when we have stable gross margins. We have control over our OpEx.
We pour the volume on top, and this scales through according to our business model, and then you get this operational leverage. But of course, that prevents that we do have good control on OpEx and gross margin in terms of percentage, which I think we can see in the former slide. Let's proceed then to slide number 13, where we talk a little bit about the working capital and our net debt development. Jumping to the balance sheet here from profit and loss statement. On your left-hand side, you are seeing the development of our working capital in relation to sales as well as the absolute position. We spoke last quarter about it was a particularly strong position, and we then talked about that this would not prevail all the time.
It will be also sometimes going back to around the 30%, which is what we are seeing now, and as Daniel mentioned, in the quarter, we are building a little bit of inventory, partly to secure deliveries for Q4 and forward, but especially Q4, but also to secure some components which we have deemed critical to physically keep on stock due to the global supply chain tightening that we have seen over time. So 31.2% is where we have our position. Net debt continues in an undramatic development. We are on track. Maybe not sad about that. We will finalize the financial chapter on slide 14 with the geographic split, which is also not something extravagant. It's something in line with what you've seen before. We have some 45-ish% Nordics, 45-ish% Europe, and a smaller part in the North American region. Daniel, I think it's back to you now.
Thank you very much, Viveca, for putting some extra color on the numbers. I would move over to slide number 16, and that contains the summary from this Q3 presentation. First of all, the all-time high order intake net sales margin in the same isolated quarter. We are reaching all-time high on three very important KPIs in the quarter. We also see a margin expansion that is driven by the operating leverage that we have talked about before, really puts us in a really strong EBITA margin for the isolated quarter here. Order intake, first time in the history of this company that exceeds SEK 2 billion in one quarter. So we have a strong business momentum, major contract was awarded, and I have mentioned them already earlier in this presentation.
Also, what I think is worth to keep in mind that is our capacity investments are starting to really make a difference. They are driving a solid delivery execution, and I think that we are on delivery levels that we have never been in within MilDef. So that we have taken this to the next level due to our capacity investments. The final one is, if we look a little bit in the future here, and Viveca also presented the whole backlog duration, I think we have a strong position for ending this year in a good way, but also in 2027, we feel comfortable that we are a backlog that is in the position it should be in for having comfort for continuing investing in the company. By that, I think we have reached the station where we have the Q&A session.
Thank you so much, Daniel Ljunggren and Viveca Johnsson, for that briefing. We have a lineup of five analysts revving up for questions. I have allowed your mics, and you need to open your mics also individually. We start with Danske Bank and Jacob Andersson that is in the pot. Please go ahead with your question.
Perfect. Good morning, guys, and congratulations on the strong numbers. As you know, we are stuck in a pause trying to solve the equation with what is old roda and what is MilDef. It seems that the old roda sales was very strong in the quarter, which I guess explains the gross margin. Is that correct, and is there anything else we should bring with us?
I would say that is a correct statement. You are probably looking at the German development. I remind you again that there are sales from roda even out, or old roda, I should say, MilDef Germany, we say now, that is outside of Germany in other parts of the world. But yes, the mobile part of our portfolio, which is strong in MilDef Germany, is normally with a slightly lower gross margin profile.
Yeah. Okay. We are happy to see that the order intake starts to fill up for 2028. But can you tell us anything of the 2028 orders, what kind of character, any software orders that you know of at this point?
Hi, Jacob. Thank you for your questions. I do not think there is so much to give macro intel into the 2028 numbers. I think that we will start to fill them up here in the end of this year, but also, of course, going into 2027, we will start to get more visibility into the 2028 numbers. I think we have, if we look back, increased the visibility, but still, if you look at 2028 today, it is just more of the long-term contracts that we have had in the past. So nothing additional to add in the backlog for 2028.
Yeah. Okay. Just the last one on OpEx. Should we expect a relatively flat development excluding the integration facility now until you have increased the capacity in Helsingborg?
If you take in mind the top-line expansion and what that will require in OpEx in absolute numbers, I am assuming you are then referring to the percentual development. Yes and no. As you know, we have the summertime in both Germany and the Nordics, which are our main markets, and that gives us a lower OpEx mass in the third quarter. That would not be consistent. I hope that is enough input for your model.
Yeah. Okay. Thank you. No more questions from me, guys.
Thank you, Jacob.
Thank you.
Thank you, Jacob, with Danske Bank. From one Jacob to another, Jakob Marken at SEB. Please make sure to open up your mic. Welcome, Jakob.
Perfect, thank you for taking my question. First one on the Bundeswehr order. As you said in the press release, you expected it to start in late 2026 and then into 2027. Given the order book number that you gave today, it does not seem that all that much is happening in 2026. Can you just give a bit more color on how much is to be delivered in 2026, i.e., Q4, and how much is to be delivered for 2027?
Thank you, Jakob. Good question. I think that the lion part will absolutely be delivered in 2027. I am not going to put exact numbers behind it, but that good majority of those deliveries will be in 2027.
Perfect. Thank you. On the gross margin, just a follow-up there. This level, given strong German sales and given the strong order intake for next year, should we expect the gross margin to be at roughly this level going forward?
I do believe that the current composition geographically is something that we will see prevailing also going forward. Absolutely. Then we, as all of you know, have an underlying and continued work with expanding the fixed network equipment portfolio also in the German market, which will locally then enhance the margin. At the same time, we are, of course, valuing also the mobile part of the portfolio. So I do not see anything deviating substantially from your proposed date.
Perfect. That is very clear. Then just on that large order, MilDef Crete is, of course, going to be an important supplier for you in 2027. How comfortable are you with them being able to deliver the capacity or the amount that you need?
Okay, thank you, Jakob. MilDef Crete is and has been for many years a very important supplier for MilDef, and we have strategic partnership and worked really closely together. As you mentioned, of course, it is also strength in their capabilities, but we are having a good dialogue and they are investing a lot into increasing their capabilities. So we are doing what we can at the moment to make sure that they are meeting the demands that we are seeing here and that they can delivering up on this new high order intake.
Okay, perfect. A question on, Q3 and Q4 seems to be a lot more similar in top line and deliveries. Given your historical patterns, how should we view H1 of 2027? Should the whole of 2027 be kind of similar or should we expect H1 to be a bit weaker than H2? Or how should we view that?
As you mentioned, we have a clear seasonality or have had a clear seasonality if you look back on the historical numbers with a strong finish of the year, normally a strong finish in Q4. We also have now talked about that we have moved into a new dynamic on the market, that time is of essence in this industry as well. So we will see that we could flatten out the seasonality a little bit in 2027. Also, the increased capabilities that we have invested in are making sure that we are ready for doing higher volumes already in the first half year. But I have said that in some couple of years back as well, and then still we have a seasonality in the end of the year. But let us see in 2027.
I think that we will have a pattern that is more taking away this major seasonality that we have had with this hockey sticky Q4 at least.
Okay. Fair enough. The last question from my side, just on the component side, as you mentioned in the report and on the presentation, I am just wondering how do you work on that with the large contracts that you have signed for next year? Are you buying the components already now or is that something that could affect potentially the margin in next year?
We are absolutely proactively. We work with trying to secure as much as we can, and sometimes that is by buying and put on stock, and sometimes that is securing by agreement. But we are on top of the question, and we understand that this is an issue and could become an issue in the long term. So we are absolutely doing what we can to secure access to these components in the long run as well.
Okay, perfect. That was all for me, so I will get back in line. Thank you.
Thank you, Jakob.
Thank you.
Thank you, Jakob Marken with SEB. Now we travel to Mads Brinkmann with Berenberg. Open your microphone and welcome, Mads.
Yeah, good morning. Thanks for taking my questions and congrats on the strong quarter. Just quickly on, if we just think about the market, I think probably out in the public domain, that expectations at least for some bigger orders for vehicle platforms this year that we haven't really seen. Are you hearing anything or how are you seeing the sort of development and when should we see at least possibly some of these big orders coming through that could feed into your sales as well?
Hello, Mads, and thank you very much for your question. Of course, we are trying to be as close as possible to our customer, to big platform providers and listening in on what is the timeline and things like that. But we also know that this is an industry where timelines can move around a little bit. Sometimes it becomes a very long sales cycles in this industry. But we are very close, working together with them and see how we can support them when they get the big contract, et cetera. But also worth mentioning maybe is that it indicates that we are really not so heavy platform dependency from a MilDef perspective. We have been able to perform a very good first nine months there without any major platform programs.
I know that is also strength, I would say, from our side, not being too much dependent on big platform programs.
Yeah, that makes sense. Maybe just if we think about the sort of normal seasonality of orders, I know you just talked about seasonality before, but if we just think about, obviously, normally have a very strong Q4 as well in terms of order intake, at least the normal seasonality would dictate that. Given how strong Q3 has been this year, should we sort of expect that the seasonality is less skewed towards Q4 and that maybe even Q4 is going to look a little bit similar to something like Q2? How should we think about it?
It is a really good question, Mads. You know that in the past there has been this kind of use-it-or-lose-it budget dynamics, especially on the Nordic markets. I think we still see some of that use-it-or-lose-it budget dynamics and that will indicate that there will be some orders here in the last quarter of this year coming in. Also the volatility in the order intake is still going to be strong going forward. We do not really know exactly when we are going to close one of the big contracts like we did here in Q3. So I expect more of a high demand in Q4 with a running business. Let us see where the numbers end up when we are at the other side of this year.
Yeah, makes sense. Thank you very much. Just one last from me, please. Obviously, the services business and the software business, if you look at that software up quarter-over-quarter, a little bit down year-over-year, but up quarter-over-quarter and the services business continuing to do well, flat quarter-over-quarter, but up a lot year-over-year. How should we think about those two in the near term? When should we expect that, for example, software will start to see incrementally or meaningfully more momentum? Then sorry, just adding another one here, but if we look at the services business one or two years out.
Do you expect this to still largely be a Swedish business, or do you expect that you can start taking or doing more work, for example, in the Norwegian or the Danish Armed Forces? That would be all for me. Thank you.
Thank you, Mads. Of course, we have a long-term strategy to be able to be more equal in this kind of three divisions if we take hardware, software, and solutions into that. But at the moment, we have a really strong momentum in the MilDef hardware business as well, making the percentage numbers of the software is not being able to grow here and now, but we think in the long term, that will be standing for more than in percentage what they are doing today. The solutions offering is really growing quick. We are also just climbing in the value chain thinking, making sure that we combine different parts of our portfolio to the end customer. It is also driving, so they support each other in the different products areas and enable stronger sales from the different areas.
We talked about Germany, for example, with a strong net sales, with mainly consisting of hardware. So that can also play out a little bit different, where are we growing the most in the future, and how can that impact the split between those three product areas?
Thank you very much.
Thank you, Mads.
Thank you, Mads.
Thank you so much for that, Mads. We go to our next analyst, Thomas Blikstad with Pareto. Make sure that you open your mic, Thomas, and welcome.
Thank you, and a lot of good questions already. I will just have a couple of clarification questions.
Please.
Firstly, based on the remaining delivery value for Q4, you do not anticipate any material product mix changes then?
Nothing dramatic, no. Nothing dramatic.
Okay. On the input costs, which have been a sort of a hot theme lately, I understand that you are currently able to pass these through to customers, but how should we look at 2027 if this continues? Are you willing to sacrifice some margin to win orders, or what is your view on this?
I think we now are in a situation, and thank you, Thomas, for the question, sorry about that, but I think we are in a situation right now where we are able to have the price dynamic already when we are closing the deals and making the quotes, let us say. So we can work with an open book scenario and let us see what the components prices will be in the long run when we are actually delivering, or we can increase the prices already here and now. So price-wise, then impacting on the gross margin, I was more worried about if you go nine months back, the orders that we have really already in the order backlog with a fixed price, and then you see a heavily increase of the component prices, then you can be a little bit worried.
But I think we have been able to mitigate that situation here, and that is also shown in the numbers for these first nine months. So I'm not so really afraid of when we're talking about price and price impact for this component situation. I think I'm more afraid of the access to the components whatsoever if this will continue for a long time.
Okay, that makes sense. So I understand that perhaps your new large orders, they have more clauses that should sort of offset higher input costs that you can continuously increase prices to reflect this?
Of course, it can be different dynamic in a different contract, but that is in some kind of way, of course, we're working with that. So the end customer also understands that kind of dynamic that we need to either increase the prices here and now or we can have an open book scenario in the contracts for just those components, and then we can have our standard margin on the price we can buy them for when we are making the deliveries.
Great. Thank you. And just very quick on the orders, could you give some color on the split between products for existing systems and IT replacements versus new platform deliveries?
That is nothing that we really have disclosed in the report. I think I need to pass on that question.
Fair enough. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you, Thomas.
Thank you, Thomas. We go to William Balksten with SB1 Markets. Your mic is open. Please take it away, William.
Yes. Thank you, and congratulations on a strong report. I believe most of my questions have already been answered, but I have one or two follow-ups here. Just on capacity and delivery, you have SEK 923 million scheduled for Q4 here and approximately SEK 3.3 billion here for 2027. How confident are you in delivering the full Q4 schedule? For 2027, how much of the SEK 3.3 billion depends on Helsingborg coming online in the autumn. Should we expect those deliveries to be back-end loaded, or how does delivery look?
Thank you, William, for the question. It is a good question around capabilities and our capabilities to delivery. We have strengthened our capabilities now for a couple of quarters, and I think we have seen now that we are reaching a new level and getting paid for this investment into the capacity that we have invested in. If you look at Q4 here, it is always tough to give guarantees because you always know that there is something that you do not really can see around the corner today can come up, and we also have this global component situation. We do what we can. I think we are quite comfortable that we have strengthened the capabilities in the company.
If we look at the order backlog for next year, we are forced to continue to invest in a higher delivery capacity to be able to take on those kind of big numbers that we have there. At the moment, if we are doing what we can and continue to move in the right direction, it looks good for 2027. You will never be able, in this steep growth, be able to put a ready stamp on your delivery capacity. You always need to be there and make sure that you have the right resources in the right place.
Okay, great. Thank you. Also there on Rosersberg, you announced you are building out here, and the facility opened only last year, and you are already building out. Just what drove the decision to expand this early, and should we look at system integrations to be the main bottleneck right now?
The expansion of the Rosersberg site was mainly driven by the new, recently signed framework agreement with FMV. We signed that here in June, and that was something that we did not really have on the radar when we started the progress with building the first phase of Rosersberg. Now we are in need of a little bit different facilities and different operations within that facilities. That is why we have decided to be able to meet our customer, FMV, in this case. We need to be able to increase some facilities and build it in a little bit other way.
Okay, that is very clear. Thank you. Just to follow up on that, would that then mean that you, in some way, expect orders to be called off from these framework agreements?
Yes, that is correct.
All right. That is loud and clear. Thank you.
Thank you, William.
Thank you, William Balksten from SB1 Markets. The final verbal question comes from Hugo Lisjö with DNB Carnegie. I have a couple of other questions in the chat that I will reiterate, but we are getting closer to the hard close time of this meeting. So final analyst verbal question comes from Hugo Lisjö with DNB Carnegie. Other questions, please state them in the chat.
Yes. Hello, everyone, and thank you for taking my questions. A little bit more on the OpEx development going forward. When looking ahead with the production expansion you are doing, do you believe you can maintain the margin levels you have or that we have seen the past four quarters?
If I comment on the OpEx level then, isolated, we will expand in the same way that we have done before. This is leased facilities. It's coming in, it's going to be incremental, and so on and so forth. We do the OpEx expansion to be able to deliver on the top line. So we expect to keep, over time, the same ratios.
Perfect. Then actually my last question is on order intake and the exceptionally strong order intake in Q3 that was largely driven by the contract with Bundeswehr. Would you describe such order as a one-off, or do you see potential for more contracts of the similar size going forward?
Thank you, Hugo. I think we, in the long run, are of course seeing order intake or individual orders that are in the same size. Now, there is still a large room for additional orders within the maximum amount or potential value of the framework agreement. We've received this SEK 1.1 billion call-off, but there is still room for some major additional orders in that contract. Of course, as we move along and also this increased demand for what we are delivering, we see higher and higher numbers in the individual quarters or individual orders as well. So we work hard to get them into the order backlog, and hopefully, we can be able to have some major contracts during next year as well.
Interesting. Thank you.
Thank you, Hugo.
Thank you, Hugo Lisjö with DNB Carnegie, and thank you all analysts for tracking MilDef on such a busy reporting day. Thank you for that. We have two more questions stated in the chat, and the first one is about the software in comparison to hardware and system integration sales, which we disclose in the report. The question is, "How is the software side developing, and do future orders to be delivered include more software than before? How should we interpret this result?
Thank you for that question in the chat here. I think we give guidance around that in previous on this call, how we would like to see the dynamics in the different product areas moving on. Of course, we would like to, in absolute numbers, being able to drive our software sales even higher because it also have a strong margin and also are a strong enabler if we continue with selling more of our MilDef hardware. So that is something that we should continue to push for growing our software sales in the future.
Thank you for that question, Melcher. The final question for today's call comes from Eduardo, and this is a very exciting one regarding Europe, the Eastern Flank Watch as one of the first European defense projects. To cut to the chase, should we read the 553 million order from a European NATO country this quarter as part of that Eastern Flank build up or as a separate national program?
Thank you very much for that question. It is a really good one, and I would say that it is the final one. It is a separate national program around that order, strengthening that country's capabilities in their defense and armed forces. Nothing actually to do with the Eastern Flank build out.
Thank you for that clarification, Daniel and Viveca. This was a long Q&A with many good questions helping explain the MilDef equity story. This concludes the Q&A session of Q3 conference. Thanks for joining everyone, over 40 participants on this journey, and thanks for contributing to the MilDef story. Also put a note in your calendar, year-end report is up next on February 4, 2027. Time moves fast, so we will be soon there. Now over to Daniel to close the meeting.
Thank you very much, Olof, for that. Thank you all for listening in to this conf call here, and we hope to see you again in 2027 when we have the conf call for the fourth quarter of 2026. Until then, take care and have a great day. Thank you very much.