Ovzon AB (publ) (STO:OVZON)
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May 5, 2026, 5:29 PM CET
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Earnings Call: Q1 2024

Apr 19, 2024

Operator

Hello and welcome to today's presentation, where we have Ovzon with the CEO, Per Norén, and CFO, Noora Jayasekara, who'll be presenting the Q1 Report for 2024. If you're calling in and would like to ask a question, please press star nine to raise your hand and star six to unmute. We will also announce the last four digits of your phone number if it's your turn to ask a question. With that said, please go ahead with your presentation.

Per Norén
CEO, Ovzon

Thank you, Martin, and good afternoon, good morning, and warmly welcome everyone. Thanks for joining us today on Ovzon's Earnings Call for the First Quarter 2024. I'm joined here today by our Chief Financial Officer, Noora Jayasekara.

Noora Jayasekara
CFO, Ovzon

Good morning, good afternoon, and welcome.

Per Norén
CEO, Ovzon

Thank you, Noora. Well, the first quarter 2024 has been more than exciting for Ovzon. Not only did we end 2023 with a major order from the Swedish Space Corporation that we started to deliver on both in Q4 2023 and in the first quarter of this year with regards to terminals, we also successfully launched the Ovzon 3 satellite on January 3rd earlier this year, an absolutely historical milestone that obviously will have a huge impact for our company going forward. During the quarter, Ovzon's order intake continued with the same positive trend as the fourth quarter 2023, with expansion in Europe mostly coming from a major order valued at $9.7 million. The quarter had a strong order intake, a successful launch, and in all, a good start to 2024 for us.

We will obviously get into more details in a few minutes, but before that, let me, as always, provide a brief introduction to Ovzon. Ovzon is a leading provider of advanced and unique satellite communication, spearheading the progressive development of the most sophisticated mobile satellite communication solutions in the world. We're committed to constantly developing and introducing relevant solutions, business models, and technologies to our customers. Our company has a clear strategy and implementation plan to revolutionize guaranteed connectivity for all critical missions through our unique integrated satellite communication solutions. We continue to be fully dedicated to our vision of connecting the world's most critical missions via satellite. A little bit of the background: Ovzon was established in Sweden in 2006 and has been publicly traded on NASDAQ Stockholm since 2018.

Initially, the company concentrated all its efforts on the design, development, sales, and delivery of the most compact and high-performing mobile satellite terminals in the industry. Today, Ovzon has expanded its offering to be the only turnkey provider of Ovzon Satcom-as-a-Service, the industry's leading premium solution offering unparalleled levels of connected performance. We work closely with customers, partners, distributors, and end users across the United States of America, Sweden, Europe, and South America. We've invested over SEK 2 billion in our new revolutionized technology programs the past few years, resulting in cutting-edge next-generation platforms that will be delivered to customers during 2024. What's absolutely unique with Ovzon is that we deliver a solution that we manage end-to-end, and we control the entire value chain for guaranteed performance for our customers' critical missions.

In the first quarter, we have had 100% uptime for our customers with very high demands and requirements. This has become highly valuable and a critical success factor for us. Our customers view Ovzon as a true partner. As you can see in this picture, we deliver Satcom- as- a- service with immediate connectivity from 1, furthest to the left we call this the Circle of Life, the smallest, lightest, and most high-performing mobile satellite terminals: two, number two, 12 o'clock, managing high-performing agile and stable satellite networks.

Today, our service is based on leased satellite capacity, but by mid-2024, we'll have our own satellite, Ovzon 3, in operation and thereby manage an integrated network of owned and leased satellite capacity and networks. Three, to the east or to the right in the picture, we partner with a few selected secure gateway providers where we implement our own hardware and secure racks.

And four, furthest south in this picture, we manage all of that through our dedicated white glove 24/7 expert support from our network operations centers to ensure that any potential anomalies are resolved in real time. We have demanding service level agreements, so-called SLAs, with customers, and our uptime, as I mentioned before, the past quarter has been 100%. As a reference, many of the alternative solutions to Ovzon, including LEO or low Earth Orbit services, only promise best effort.

Ovzon is truly unique in this regard, which is something we will continue to deliver on. Satellite communications has today become an integral part of any communication infrastructure and the broader communication landscape. The infrastructure for fixed and mobile telecom networks are, as you know, well built out and covers the need for well-functioning communication for most people and organizations.

However, many areas and situations at land or at sea or in the air simply lack trustworthy or even broken communication capabilities. Fixed and mobile networks also lack some important features that only satellite communications can offer. When land-based communications are down or cannot be trusted for whatever reason, satellite communication may provide instant communication access. As we start to see more floodings, storms, and wildfires due to changing climate patterns that destroy land-based communication capabilities, satellite communication is, in many cases, the only answer.

Moreover, as we can get fed with daily in media, the geopolitical tension in the world has regrettably continued to significantly increase. Many nations, alliances, and organizations are accelerating and strengthening their capabilities for total defense, national security, and public safety. Space, and specifically satellite communications, plays a vital role and is rapidly becoming a critical part of any nation's overall strategy.

It's, frankly, also building a new space-based economy. Countries with little to no satellite infrastructure are now shaping plans to create sovereign systems that allow for more autonomy in any increasingly space-based geopolitical environment. This enables governments to build a more resilient communication infrastructure. The Ovzon 3 satellite and the unique Ovzon proprietary developed onboard processor will shortly bring capabilities online that will be more important now than ever. Here's a graphical description of where we are positioned today in the competitive solutions landscape, with mobility on the x-axis and performance on the y-axis. Built-in is the ability to deliver high-performing connectivity in a highly resilient way. Those three components, performance, meaning data rates up and downlink, mobility and resiliency, are what sets different services and service providers apart.

Ovzon operates in the most distinct segment, the premium value segment, helping customers that have no failure requirements and in demand for guaranteed connectivity. Our next-generation technology based on the Ovzon 3 platform will be made available for customers by mid-2024 and will move us even further up the value ladder. The Ovzon 3 platform will lift guaranteed satellite communication and customer experience to totally new levels. Now, let us run through the highlights of the first quarter of 2024.

As noted earlier, a very, very exciting quarter for Ovzon. Let me start with the most important milestone in the history of our company: the successful launch of Ovzon 3. During the fourth quarter of 2023, we were concentrating on the finalization of Ovzon 3 and the Ovzon Onboard Processor. After some weather-related delays, Ovzon 3 was finally launched into space from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on January 3rd, 2024.

2024 has kicked off as it should, with intense focus then on customers, products and service delivery, and market penetrating activities, including customer presentations, in-depth dialogue, and capability demonstrations. We have continued the strong order momentum that we ended 2023 with, both new orders and contract extension and renewals from current customers. We won a significant order of $9.7 million from a new European customer, considerably expanding our installed base of Satcom as a service offerings in Europe. We also received a continuation and renewal of the delivery of Ovzon Satcom- as- a- service to the Italian Fire and Rescue Services. Last but not least, the US Department of Defense showed a strong signal by being the first customer to place an order for the newly launched Ovzon T7 mobile satellite terminal.

The Ovzon T7 is the smallest, lightest, most powerful, and easiest to use mobile satellite terminal ever designed. After the first quarter ended, we also received a six-month extension for Satcom-as-a-Service from our Spanish partner, Aicox Soluciones, supporting the Spanish Civil Defense. Now, let's dig a bit deeper into the successful launch of Ovzon 3. What you see in this picture is the actual launch of Ovzon 3 on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket that carried Ovzon 3 out in space from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on January 3. This is the same rocket that launched the Swedish astronaut Marcus Wandt to the International Space Station a few weeks later. I personally stood at the launch site watching Ovzon 3 lift off. It was an amazing experience for myself and all stakeholders.

Ovzon 3 is the first privately funded and developed Swedish geostationary satellite ever to be launched and is the most powerful small geo satellite launched into orbit. When parked in its orbital position at 59.7 east, it will cover a third of the Earth with its steerable spot beams. The satellite and payload are patented by Ovzon. It includes five high-power steerable beams and software-defined capabilities.

The Ovzon onboard processor is a unique and powerful in-orbit processing platform, allowing users to be directly connected across multiple beams without the use of teleports, cutting latency in half and enabling previously unavailable resiliency for assured connectivity. In synchronization with our newly launched mobile satellite terminal, Ovzon T7, we're now demonstrating and enabling our customers and the markets we serve with this unique solution. We, of course, very often get the question what the status of the satellite is.

Thank you, by the way, for all of those questions. Ovzon 3 is now in its orbital raising process. As my teammates say, boring, meaning no news, is good news during orbital raising. I can assure you that the satellite is in excellent shape and it's fully on track towards its orbital position. There's health monitoring, tracking activity going on with the satellite constantly. We have, for example, successfully completed the planned in-orbit test of the satellite platform.

Since launch, the deployments of solar arrays and thrusters have been successful, and the propulsion system, including the thrusters, are continuously working nominally. It's now three months since launch, and perigee is raised, apogee reduced, and inclination decreasing. All of that means we have a healthy and progressing satellite towards its orbital position. On the ground, in parallel, we're actively preparing for its entry into service by mid-2024.

During the next couple of months, there are several planned activities to be performed. When the satellite reaches its parking slot of 59.7 east, there will be several in-orbit tests before commercial deployment, all planned and scheduled. Now over to order intake. As we've noticed, 2024 has started in a strong way. The largest order came in the quarter was a 12-month contract with a European customer at the value of $9.7 million. It includes both mobile satellite terminals as well as our high-performing Satcom-as-a-Service. The service starts in the second quarter. This win is important as it is a significant expansion of our installed base in Europe and also underlines the fact that Europe is a key geographical market for Ovzon. Let's dive a little deeper and then on to a more detailed financial update by Noora.

For a company of our size, serving mostly the government markets, our order intake is still somewhat cyclical. The lead times are often fairly long in concluding major new customer contracts. In parallel, we're working hard to complement larger long-term contracts with small to medium-sized orders, which then become reference points and the start of the expansion in that geography or with that customer group. In a niche market as we're in, this is very important to understand. In the first quarter, order intake amounted to $11.1 million or SEK 118 million. Our analysts display that our momentum has improved in the last number of quarters. We also experience increased interest from customers for our next-generation Satcom as a service.

Looking at our order intake in a rolling 12-month perspective, our order intake by end of Q1 was SEK 369 million compared to SEK 259 million for the full year 2023. Our order book at the end of the quarter increased to $19.1 million, corresponding to SEK 204 million. Now, let me hand over to Noora to provide some more in-depth details on our financial performance. Noora, over to you.

Noora Jayasekara
CFO, Ovzon

Thank you, Per. I will now give you some details on the financial performance in the first quarter of 2024. Revenue totaled SEK 65 million for the first quarter, corresponding to an increase of 13%. Adjusted for currency effects, the increase was 16%. Revenue from Satcom as a service, as well as terminals in Europe, has a positive impact in the quarter, compensating for the decrease we saw from the US.

Run rate revenue for Satcom as a service was SEK 145 million, a decline compared to the fourth quarter due to lower order intake for services during 2023. Next slide, please. EBITDA in the first quarter amounted to -SEK 18 million and EBIT to -SEK 25 million. EBITDA in the first quarter this year was positively affected by much higher utilization of purchased satellite capacity and sale of mobile satellite terminals, but also negatively impacted by higher sales cost and personnel cost related to activities in conjunction with the finalization and launch of Ovzon 3 and soon-to-be launched Ovzon 3 products and services. As a reminder, the comparative period was positively affected by a foreign currency effect of SEK 11 million. EBITDA margin for the period was -28% and EBIT margin -38%.

Considering that the comparative period contained a significant positive foreign currency effect and that this quarter has slightly higher costs, we are pleased to see our financial performance improving. Next slide, please. Cash flow from operations landed at SEK -3 million, slightly better than the comparative period. Improvement is primarily linked to payments from customers. Investments in Ovzon 3, as well as the development of the mobile satellite terminal Ovzon T7, still drive cash flow from investing activities during the first quarter. Net debt landed at SEK 520 million as a result of the mentioned investments affecting cash negatively. With that, back over to you, Per, for some final comments.

Per Norén
CEO, Ovzon

Thank you so much, Noora. Well, we would like to conclude this part of the webcast before we go to questions and answers with some further comments and forward-looking remarks. First of all, I'm obviously very pleased with the successful launch of Ovzon 3 and to now finally have this industry-first capability healthy and making progress on its way to its orbital position. Clearly, one of our main targets for 2024 is first to operationalize Ovzon 3 and enter that satellite into service and make it ready for commercial use.

We're in close dialogue with interested customers about our unique Ovzon 3-based SATCOM-as-a-Service. We will continue our very, very focused execution to drive a step change towards profitable growth and strive to be more even and more predictable in our order intake. Our customer segmentation and geographies are focused. They are to be found in the United States, Sweden, Europe, and within defense, national security, and public safety.

In the constantly ongoing dialogue with our customers, both the current and new ones, coupled with our in-depth demonstration, it's clear that we are here as a partner to solve their problems with guaranteed connectivity for any critical situation and mission, long-term, mid-term, and short-term. At Ovzon, we have a unique value to deliver, and we know we're the market-leading solutions provider of satellite communications, delivering measurable performance, mobility, and resiliency. We're concentrating all of our sales efforts towards longer-term commitments of Satcom as a Service based on Ovzon 3. In 2024, we'll also continue to accelerate what we call our industrialization initiatives.

As we plan for growth, we also plan for scaling up the company in both quantity, quality, and efficiency when it comes, for example, to volume production of mobile satellite terminals, concentrated and targeted sales, business development, marketing efforts, and in-depth partnering with selected partners to mention a few of the actions we're working on.

We'll continue to accelerate the positioning of Ovzon and our Ovzon SATCOM-as-a-Service for customers, countries, and alliances with critical missions. Nations, alliances, and organizations are strengthening their capabilities for total defense, national security, and civil defense. Countries with little to no satellite infrastructure are shaping plans to create sovereign systems that allow for more autonomy in an increasingly space-based geopolitical environment. After a period of years with heavy investments, we now enter a phase where ongoing technology programs will be finalized. Our financial position is obviously very important.

Managing costs and scarce resources is and have always been a key to Ovzon. But growing revenue is where the big lever will come from. We continue to have continuous discipline in both of these areas. Even though we'll continue to have a mix of our own and leased satellite networks and capacity, the use of our own capacity from the satellite will provide more flexibility and should start to work in our favor during 2024.

Creating and achieving more predictable and profitable growth is critical to Ovzon at this point. In summary, I remain very confident in Ovzon's ability to deliver and exceed the world's requirements and rapidly increasing need for high-performing mobile connectivity via satellite. And I would really like to thank my colleagues, the Ovzonians, for all dedication and excellent work so far. The best is yet to come. With those closing words, I want to hand it over to you, Martin, as we're ready to get to questions and answers. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you very much, Per and Noora, for that presentation. We'll jump right into the Q&A part here. If you're calling in and would like to ask a question, please press star 9 to raise your hand and star 6 to unmute. We will also announce the last four digits of your phone number so you know it's your turn to ask a question. We got the first person calling in, Mikael Laseén from Carnegie. Please go ahead. You have the word. Hello.

Mikael Laséen
Analyst, Carnegie

Can you hear me?

Per Norén
CEO, Ovzon

Now we can hear you. Hey, Mikael. We can hear you now. Thank you.

Mikael Laséen
Analyst, Carnegie

Hey. Okay. Thanks. Yeah, I have a few questions.

Per Norén
CEO, Ovzon

Perfect.

Mikael Laséen
Analyst, Carnegie

First of all, yeah. First of all, can you talk to us about the U.S. market? Revenues were around SEK 13 million in Q1. What are your expectations for Q2 and the coming quarters?

Per Norén
CEO, Ovzon

Absolutely. Very good question, obviously. The U.S. market has traditionally been extraordinarily important to Ovzon, where the bulk of our revenues actually come from, as you know and most others know. The situation in the U.S. is right now a little bit complicated when it comes to budgets, decision-making between politicians and the DoD, what's being prioritized and not being prioritized. And we have an election year in the making as well. So I think we're in the middle of a situation which is fairly difficult to read. But I would say this. It was not real positive for us not to renew all the contracts that we had with the U.S. DoD in December as we have gotten used to.

However, the dialogue with the customer is very close, very strong, and very strategic. They renewed a very core element of their Satcom as a service with us. And we believe that we're going to recoup back some of those things that weren't renewed before. And we're also working on expanding our customer base and customer interactions within the U.S. DoD and within the U.S. market. So I think we've not seen a new norm, but it's fairly difficult to predict exactly what's going to happen during the year.

Mikael Laséen
Analyst, Carnegie

Okay. So is it primarily the budget process which is complex and complicated here, holding back their decisions or other things?

Per Norén
CEO, Ovzon

Yeah. I think in general, it is a sketchy prioritization alternatives that are going on within the U.S., within the U.S. DoD as well. But I will end my remarks on your question on a positive note. So we should see it as a very strong signal that the U.S. DoD acquired the first Ovzon T7 mobile satellite terminals. That sets us up well to have the right dialogue about the future of their architecture and infrastructure. But foremost, it's not an easy situation with the decision processes. And it's hard to fully predict where it is. But we're working around the clock to actually recoup some of what wasn't renewed and then find new ways to find new customers within the U.S. DoD as well.

Mikael Laséen
Analyst, Carnegie

Okay. Got it. But when you talk to the customers in the U.S., what's your view on their demand when you talk to the users and, I mean, the persons who are actually going to use it and how they use it today and your lessons so far?

Per Norén
CEO, Ovzon

Yeah. I see your question. Yeah. Yeah. The end users have a desperate need. They're now being sent on various missions, so to speak. So they have a desperate need. And I think that will eventually evolve into that decision needs to be based to allocate money towards those needs. So there's a need. There's a trust in Ovzon. And there's a continuous dialogue going on for it. So I think we'll see some we'll see some uptake here. But it's hard to predict, as I said, when those decisions will be made.

Mikael Laséen
Analyst, Carnegie

Okay. Yeah. And now I have a few, I mean, more detailed questions on the financial performance. The first one is the gross margin. It was stronger than in a long time, 38%. How should we think about the gross margin and the cost of leased capacity right now in the contracts that we have in the order book and potential contracts in the pipeline? I mean, I'm talking about the leased part and also the gross margin on terminal sales.

Per Norén
CEO, Ovzon

You want to take the question, Noora?

Noora Jayasekara
CFO, Ovzon

Sure. In the first quarter, as we mentioned in the report, we are not burdened by unsold capacity. We are basically fully utilized for the whole quarter. That obviously shows in our gross margin. That's the effect you are also seeing. We are not planning on acquiring capacity that we have not yet sold going forward either. That should remain.

Maybe I'll brag a little bit more. I think our team has done an incredibly good job in optimizing the utilization of the capacity that we have acquired from leased capacity. As Noora said, we're basically fully utilized. We did also actually not renew one of the steerable beams that we had before that has had a good effect on the gross margin for us. That's what Noora was referring to. We see good uptake on Ovzon mobile satellite terminals. Normally, we bundle with our plus services, for example, or our GEO service. But when we get closer in with the U.S. DoD and other customers that are MOD-related, they want to buy the terminals outright, which we allow if they buy the service. We get fairly reasonably good margins on those things. It helps the gross margin as well.

Mikael Laséen
Analyst, Carnegie

Okay. Good. So it means that you are now maybe on track or you're back to the levels in terms of gross margin that you manage and balance the capacity and demand. So the gross margins on the leased capacity can be a lot higher.

Noora Jayasekara
CFO, Ovzon

Correct.

Mikael Laséen
Analyst, Carnegie

Okay. And what is the gross margin on terminal sales? Is it well below this 38%, or is it in line, or?

Noora Jayasekara
CFO, Ovzon

Mikael, we have chosen not to disclose that in exact numbers. But the margin on the terminals is somewhat lower than for the service.

Mikael Laséen
Analyst, Carnegie

Okay. Got it. And then a question on the operating cost. I think you mentioned that you had a bit higher cost in connection to the launch in January. But can you be a bit more specific? Any one-offs, non-recurring costs that you had? Maybe break that out so we know the underlying cost when you go into Q2 and the second half?

Noora Jayasekara
CFO, Ovzon

Well, we have sort of several components in the cost base in this quarter that are one-offs. But none of them are big. But together, they are a number, at least, worth talking about, both related to personnel costs but also mainly related to marketing efforts of different sorts and sales efforts of different sorts in conjunction of launching the Ovzon 3 services. And those costs will not run over to Q2. They are isolated to this quarter.

Per Norén
CEO, Ovzon

It's almost like you look upon it this way. We have chosen to put the pedal to the metal because there are long lead times in sales, and we need to be out selling the current and future capabilities already now due to those lead times. So if we don't do that now, there will be a lag in when those contracts will come in. So I don't think you'll see a continued cost increase from us at all.

But it's almost like kickstarting with the launch of Ovzon 3, kickstarting the year with being very, very aggressive in the marketplace to try to gain the profitable growth element of what we have in front of us. And that coupled with more optimized network management that we do, I think that should be viewed as a healthy sound of a business that is driving towards profitability and higher growth rates than what we historically have had.

Mikael Laséen
Analyst, Carnegie

Okay. And so more or less unchanged cost in the second half or in Q2, maybe a bit lower but not much. Is that the right conclusion?

Per Norén
CEO, Ovzon

That's probably a fair assessment. Yes.

Mikael Laséen
Analyst, Carnegie

Okay. And then my final question is on the remaining CapEx. You had a bit lower CapEx than I expected, at least in Q1. What remains to be made here in terms of payments to your suppliers?

Noora Jayasekara
CFO, Ovzon

Right. So CapEx will continue related to the satellite until Ovzon 3 is operational and maybe somewhat past that moment as well. But they will decline over time during this year to a level that is sort of normal for a technology company who needs to sustain the competence and the products that we have out there.

Mikael Laséen
Analyst, Carnegie

Okay. That's it. Thank you so much.

Per Norén
CEO, Ovzon

Thank you, Mikael.

Noora Jayasekara
CFO, Ovzon

Thank you, Mikael.

Operator

And we'll move on to the next person calling in is Simon Granath from ABG. Please go ahead, Simon. You have the word.

Simon Granath
Partner and Equity Research Analyst, ABG

Thank you, operator. And hi, Per and Noora. And thanks for the presentation. Initially, would it be possible for you to talk a little bit about Ovzon 3 and how to think around the number of tenants over time? Are you seeking to have multiple tenants that, of course, may be useful from a diversification perspective? But at the same time, I could also see you planning for a smaller number of tenants that you would work particularly close with and therefore have a large, call it, stickiness with. Thank you.

Per Norén
CEO, Ovzon

Yes. Very good question. I would call it the race to space right now. So it's a very strategic question you're asking. One, probably would be good to have a few tenants that took on longer-term commitments on the satellite that would make it easier to utilize the unique capabilities and steerability of the antennas and the onboard processor performance, etc., etc. But you can't always choose how to do that. So right now, we're allowing everyone that has an interest, and there is quite an interest given the geopolitical situation we have. There's quite an interest.

So we are entertaining to have more tenants, obviously, on the satellites and finding ways to manage the services towards those. They're actually so that there are some customers that are collaborating over borders as well in terms of using Ovzon 3 as an interoperable capability for joint efforts, etc., etc. So I think the answer is probably a mix of fewer and joint and a few more than that. That's probably the answer to the question.

Simon Granath
Partner and Equity Research Analyst, ABG

A very clear answer. Thanks for that. And then, I guess, would it be possible for you to add some more color on the current order momentum? We did discuss this earlier. But could you talk a little bit about the potential nuance shift in terms of what you and your customers are seeing today versus, call it, say, three months ago in terms of demand? I guess we have spoken about the U.S. Could we also talk about Europe as a market? Thanks.

Per Norén
CEO, Ovzon

Yeah. Another good question. There is clearly a momentum shift, both in terms of if you take on the highest level, the strategic notion of having satellite communication capability at the fingertips of users in the current situation that we have in the world. Europe is becoming more and more of an important market to us. U.S. is not unimportant, obviously. But Europe is becoming more and more important as a market for us. But we have to also think about who we are. So we can't be out talking to everyone about everything. So we're fairly targeted. We're fairly granular in our analysis in where we engage.

When we engage, we engage fully so that we both build the business case for the customer as well as the value that our capabilities bring to those customers. Then we demonstrate. Already today, we use the Ovzon T7 terminal to demonstrate on already available capabilities since Ovzon 3 isn't in orbit yet. But you can actually simulate and see how you can utilize this in, for example, GPS-denied environments or areas where jamming is becoming more and more of a threat or resilience is coming more and more of a threat.

These are kind of the use cases that we're working on right now. Europe is actually taking major steps into that direction. I think Sweden joining NATO is another aspect of that where an interoperability component between nations and between units is very, very critical as well. So all of these are use cases and things that we work on basically on a daily basis.

Simon Granath
Partner and Equity Research Analyst, ABG

Thanks a lot for clarifying that. If we zoom out a little bit, could you discuss on what has happened in the satellite market since the geopolitical tensions started to worsen, I guess, two years ago and how this may progress also going forward? You did mention NATO, etc. Now, yeah, some brief comments on that would be very helpful as well.

Per Norén
CEO, Ovzon

Yes, of course. Well, I think if you take it back 10 years ago, satellite communications was for those that most critically needed it. Today, I think it's driving both on the consumer side as well as on the B2B side, if we call ourselves that, that organizations, whether they are countries or government or agencies or larger organizations, are actually looking into saying, "How can we have redundancy?" So I think the word redundancy is very important here.

Redundancy doesn't mean that satellite communications necessarily is the primary source of communication. But it could be the secondary or tertiary if the first or the second is lost for any reason, right? But in some cases, you want a dedicated communication channel, which, for example, with the onboard processor we have, you could have a closed-loop communication system where you actually know that you've locked out the rest of the world from that. And you can have sovereignty with that system for countries or for organizations.

So that's where it's gone from nice to have to extraordinary strategic to both build knowledge and competence in how to buy, use, and develop this and how to do it jointly with others that are in alliances with you or that you trust, and then to work across the fibernets, the cloud solutions for storage of data, as well as cybersecurity, both in those and in mobile phone telecom systems as well as satellite systems. So there are bigger architectures. There are bigger projects going on that have totally changed the last 2-3 years, I would say, very, very, very much changed in landscape. And we get invited to instead of knocking the doors down, we get invited to those conversations early in a strategic way.

Fantastic. It all makes a lot of sense. Thanks. That's all for me.

Thank you, Simon.

Operator

Okay. We're moving on. We've gotten a few written questions here. We'll take the first one. Is it possible to refinance our extremely expensive loan with a bank loan using Ovzon 3 as a security?

Per Norén
CEO, Ovzon

I can start on the strategic level. A very good question from whoever wrote it. Obviously, everyone can read our balance sheet and our P&L and so on. So this is an important question for the company, which you have to work long-term with all the time. We're always looking at all of the alternatives we have to both finance and refinance the company and optimize the cost of that financing. We do it regularly. We do it all the time. And obviously, the proposal here or the question could be one answer to that. There are other alternative ways to do it as well. So we're looking at all of it for the moment.

Operator

And will your cost for leasing capacity change when Ovzon 3 comes online?

Per Norén
CEO, Ovzon

Good answer?

Noora Jayasekara
CFO, Ovzon

Sure. Well, that depends on how much capacity we purchase, of course. And time will tell how our customer base will develop, where our customers want to be, and on which satellite we can and choose to place those customers and their networks. Yeah. I don't think if there is any other science to the cost of our networks. And obviously, the bigger company we become, the better negotiators we also become when it comes to buying external capacity.

Operator

Okay. And we take one final question here. Are you going to transfer clients from leased capacity to Ovzon 3 and thereby improving the gross margin?

Per Norén
CEO, Ovzon

Thank you for the question. Yes. We will do all we can to optimize our margins. But we also need to be strategic at the same time with how and in what way we do that. But if and where we have a chance to look at the total networks and the total capacity, the revenue base, the cost base, and the margin, we will do so. That's absolutely part of the plan. That's what I meant in some of my remarks where I said it allows us to have more flexibility in our decision-making in how to manage the company, the cost base, and how to win more business based on that.

Operator

Okay. That was all of the questions that we had. Thank you very much, Per Norén and Noora, for presenting and answering all questions. And also, thank you very much for everyone who followed along today's Q1 presentation with Ovzon. Thank you very much.

Per Norén
CEO, Ovzon

Thank you, Martin.

Noora Jayasekara
CFO, Ovzon

Thank you.

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