Welcome to the Ovzon Year-End Report 2022. For the first part of this call, all participants will be in listen-only mode, and afterwards, there will be a question answer session. Today, I'm pleased to present Ovzon CEO, Per Norén, and Ovzon's CFO, Noora Jayasekara. Please begin your meeting.
Thank you, Steven. Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening, depending on where you are in the world. We are very pleased to welcome you to Ovzon's fourth quarter, and year-end 2022 financial report and audiocast. I'm joined here today by Ovzon's Chief Financial Officer, Noora Jayasekara. Hello, Nora.
Good afternoon and welcome everyone.
The format today will be the following. We'll start with a business update, we'll summarize the performance of 2022, and then we'll dive deeper into the numbers, and that will be followed by a questions and answers session. let's begin. I want to take the opportunity to ensure that we thoroughly represent who we are at Ovzon, what we do, and who we serve. We were founded in Sweden in 2006. At that time, the company was focused on world-leading development of mobile satellite terminals. Today, we're the leading solutions provider of SATCOM-as-a-Service, a fully integrated, high-performing, truly mobile and truly resilient satellite communication solutions for customers with critical missions worldwide. In 2021, strategy to drive a step change in profitable growth.
As you can tell, on the graph in the upper right corner, it is starting to pay off. We'll touch more on that when we get to the financials in a minute. We are also continuing to invest in our own purpose-built satellites, Ovzon's unique patented technology for resilience and ubiquitous communication, the Ovzon On-Board-Processor, and our new mobile satellite terminal, Ovzon T7, which has a dual modem and is OBP compatible. What sets us apart at Ovzon from other satellite communications providers is that we control the entire value chain and deliver SATCOM-as-a-Service with immediate connectivity from the smallest, most high-performing and agile mobile satellite terminals to managing the networks and satellites that are both based on leased capacity and of course, from 2023, it will be a hybrid of owned satellite capacity and networks combined with leased.
We partner only with a few selected secure gateway providers to guarantee the utmost performance. We implement our own hardware and stacks at those gateways, and we manage all of that through our 24/7 service delivery support and network operation centers, both in a centralized and decentralized way, which makes scalability a non-issue for us. You know, thanks to the extraordinary selection that the team at Ovzon has done in choice of technology, how we've packaged our products and services and solution, we are uniquely positioned to serve any country, any organization, any mission that requires high throughput through satellite communication capabilities in areas which have weak, fractured, or non-existing infrastructure. And in today's world, it's also backup to other systems of communications.
We are today, as you can tell on the slide, focused on government, military and civil defense, emergency and rescue services, and protection. We're very proud of our current and growing list of prestigious and highly demanding customers. Our go-to-market approach is simple, yet it's very critical to understand that our success so far has only been derived from always working very closely with end users and with selected partners across the globe. Our partners range from large multinational industry companies to smaller and more agile and local partners, all chosen to serve our customers best and to deliver tangible and unique value. Today's world is very dependent on connectivity, ways of being connected by different methods of communications. Some of the, Part of the slide here, you can see kind of the fixed infrastructure, the mobile networks, and also satellite communication.
That today makes up the fully integrated communication systems in the world. We're all very dependent on information and communication technologies as it connects societies and communities. Satellite communication was nice to have and has become an integral part for industries, businesses, government, and individuals. It also brings many economic and social benefits and supports a myriad of applications, both directly and indirectly. All of them help to improve the state of the world. At Ovzon, we're very proud to support critical missions for defense and civil protection, of course, but also humanitarian efforts and emergency and rescue services such as wildfires, the recent landslide on the beautiful island of Ischia in Italy, and in support of the horrific earthquakes in Turkey and Syria. Most recent also for surveillance and security with the Spanish National Police. I can only conclude that Satcom is no longer nice to have.
It's an essential part of the world's integrated connectivity and communication systems. At Ovzon, we pride ourselves with having a greater global calling than only running a company. Over to the fourth quarter, which you've all been waiting for, obviously, 2022 and the year-end results. First of all, I have to say that I'm incredibly proud of my fellow Ovzonians and our partners in the performance we achieved this year. We managed to grow revenue with 38% in the fourth quarter and reached SEK 101 million- SEK 357 million, a record both in the quarter and for the full year. We also improved our operating results considerably. We're however not satisfied until we reach and deliver sustainable profitability.
Our performance is based on our strong focus and ability to develop, sell, deliver, and support our customers with the value-added services I previously talked about. The new contracts we signed are added on top of the already existing customer base. We are exceptionally good in turning on our services quickly and with high quality. In 2022, not only did we continue to renew contracts with our current key customers, foremost the United States Department of Defense and the United Kingdom's Ministry of Defence, but we also saw that our initiatives in Europe that we've talked about the new contracts in the UK, in France, and I'm happy to report in Sweden as well. After the period, we also expanded further by signing with the Spanish National Police.
I conclude with saying that demand is still strong, but it's a fact that larger long-term where regulatory and government contract is involved, takes time, but they're definitely worth the effort and investment, which is proven by our strong and continued renewals from the current customers we have. While we achieved great and record-breaking growth in 2022, we also had our work cut out for us in getting our own first satellite finalized and launched. The team has worked around the clock, but regrettably, the manufacturer of the satellite, Maxar Technologies, encountered continued delays with which in turn led to we had contracted with to launch the satellite in the time frame of December 2022 to February 2023 could not meet the new timetable for the satellite's readiness.
This in turn meant that we had to find a new launch provider, of which I'm very pleased to inform you that we agreed a contract with SpaceX on the launch of Ovzon 3 in the July to September 2023 time frame. For everyone on the call that know the satellite industry well, you know that this is a major undertaking and a shift that requires that all aspects, technical, manufacturing, test, economical, regulatory, is coordinated and agreed upon in detail. Unfortunately, this comes with an additional cost, in our case, around $25 million, which we needed to refinance with our current lender, P Capital Partners, and we also executed a directed share issue from our long-term and committed shareholders.
The satellite is making good progress in manufacturing and is in final phase of production to then move to final assembly and thereafter move to dynamic testing, which is the last step before it will be shipped to SpaceX and Cape Canaveral. We expect to launch Ovzon 3 in the already mentioned time window of July to September 2023. I can assure you that our partners and team Ovzon are working around the clock to deliver Ovzon 3 in orbit in 2023. We're going to turn to the financials, and before we hear from Noora on more of the details, I'll summarize with a few comments on the strong order intake we had in Q4.
It is, though, somewhat, as you could tell by this slide, lower order intake in 2022 versus 2021. That is because of one thing, a large order of Ovzon T6 mobile satellite terminals that we got from the United States Department of Defense in Q4 2021. As can be noted on the rolling twelve-month SATCOM-as-a-Service recurring revenue, it's now over SEK 30+ million per quarter, which is almost doubled from where we ended 2020 and started 2021. It is a very critical evidence of our healthy business and our growth trajectory. With that, I'll turn to Nora.
Thank you, Per. I will now give you some details on the financial performance in the fourth quarter and the full year 2022. Turning to slide 11. Net revenue increased with 38% to SEK 101 million for the fourth quarter, and with 87% to SEK 3 million for the full year 2022. Adjusted for one-time effects and currency effects, the growth was 57% and 75% respectively. Growth in both the quarter and for the full year is driven by increased utilization of previously long-termAs well as adding new customers. Net revenue for the full year is also positively affected by the sales of terminals. Gross profit for the fourth quarter increased to SEK 54.9 million, corresponding to a gross margin of 48.8%, a significant improvement from the fourth quarter 2021.
This is a direct effect of the increased utilization of previously long-term purchased satellite capacity. For the same reason, EBITDA and EBITDA margin are closing in despite a bad debt reserve of SEK 10 million in the quarter and SEK 16 million for the full year. We are actively and closely working with the customer to ensure payments, including the establishment of a payment plan for the customer. EBIT landed on minus SEK 8 million for the quarter and minus SEK 47 million for the full year. The improvement driven by the already commented effects. On Slide 13, increased inventory and delayed customer payments burdened the operative cash flow in the fourth quarter as well as for the full year.
The investment in Ovzon 3 and Ovzon T7, our new mobile satellite terminal, have continued in the fourth quarter and full year 2022, amounting in SEK 19.8 million SEK 146.4 respectively. Net debt has increased from a net cash position at the end of 2021 to net debt of SEK 202 million at the end of 2022, mainly driven by the continued investment. Back over to you, Per, for some final comments.
Thank you, Nora. Well, that was kind of the introduction first and the financials that we wanted to take you through. Extraordinary, as I said, proud of the achievement of growth, and I think it's the start of the beginning in many, many ways. As noted, we had a very strong 2022, and we reached the highest revenue, as you can see on the net revenue slide here, of SEK 350 million. We've never been at that level before. That's a where we reached our inflection point and we're on a trajectory. Our EBIT also improved. We're not happy, as I said, until we have positive numbers and we see the path towards a sustainable profitability. Let me conclude.
We will continue to drive a step change in profitable growth. Our teams are hard at work out in the market. As I noted earlier, we do have a broadened and deepened market and customer penetration. We're looking at expanding the use of our Ovzon SATCOM applications on top of that. We are positioning also on as the premium solution provider in the marketplace. All of that is the preamble of actually driving a step change in profitable growth. I think the most important thing besides growing really obviously is the launch of Ovzon 3 in the July to September 2023 timeframe. We will get there this year.
We're working very closely, as noted, with Maxar, with SpaceX, and with other stakeholders to get that finalized to ship on site and launched with a Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral in Florida. Last but not least, all businesses, however, are people businesses, and we continue to strengthen our organization. We continue to drive industrial and we continue to transform the company for scalability, so we can meet the demand we see in the market, and we can leverage our new satellite, our new terminal, and the On-Board Processor once it's in orbit again. With that, I will end the session by saying our new vision statement fits us very well. Connecting the world's critical missions via satellite. That's who we are, that's what we do, and that's the growth you've seen in 2022.
With that, I'll hand it over to you, Steven, and let's go to questions and answers.
Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, if you have a question for the speakers, please press star one one on your telephone keypad. Should you listen via the webcast, you can type your question into the Q&A box, which is directly underneath the audio section. Please hold until we have the first question. Our first question today comes from Tomas Gyland from ABG Sundal Collier. Please go ahead, sir.
Thank you so much. Good afternoon and good morning, Per and Nora. Thanks for the presentation. Just a couple of questions from me. Initially, given recent delay, in relation to Ovzon 3 and also your decision to change launching partner, I think one relevant question is on your visibility for the new anticipated launch slot. Could you talk a little bit on the differences between Arianespace and SpaceX? Thank you.
Yes, Simon. Thank you. Good afternoon. Good to hear your voice, and thank you for asking the question. The difference was really. Listen, I'll be too brutally honest with you. Did we want to change launch provider? No. Did we have to because there was no room for us on Ariane 5? Yes. When we realized that, we turned immediately to SpaceX. They've been phenomenal to deal with, I have to say. Very hardworking, very accommodating, very precise from their engineering perspective. We've also kept the contact with Arianespace, of course, and as part of that, they're actually helping us with one aspect of the launch. The payload adapter will actually come from Arianespace to SpaceX Falcon 9 .
We have a good collaboration from Arianespace with that, and we have good work going on with SpaceX. SpaceX is also involved in with some of the information that needs to go to Maxar to complete the dynamic testing, which is the of the test that has to be done before the satellite is shipped. I don't know if that answered your question, but that was the transparent truth of it.
It was very helpful information. Thank you so much for the transparency. Moving on, 2022 turned out to be a strong year, both when looking at services sales, but more particularly when looking at terminal sales. Could you talk a bit on the dynamic between these two revenue streams going into 2023? Should we be more cautious on the terminal sales given the recently strong number?
Thank you again, Tomas Gyland. That is a very adequate question, of course. I'll try to elaborate somewhat on that. When we sell and deliver SATCOM-as-a-Service contract to our customers, we sort of... The terminals are part of that service revenue stream. However, the U.S. DoD, for example, wants to acquire, because they have a specific process to certify the product for their own use and put them in their own inventory, but they're good want to purchase the terminals directly. That's why we saw, I mentioned it in the Q4 2021, right? We had a very strong order coming in for terminals from the U.S. DoD, that was reported separately.
That's why we actually have also broken out that so that we can track it. Let's go back. The basic rule is in peaceful situations in the world, terminals are integrated in the SATCOM-as-a-Service. If terminals go to areas that are in crisis, there might be search and rescue missions in Italy, as we talked about, or it might be in close to war zones with geopolitical instability. We decide from case to case whether we sell the terminals directly, because it's very hard for us to know if they will actually come back and. The ground rule is terminals are embedded in the SATCOM-as-a-Service normally.
If there are specific sales to areas which might be in distress, then we would choose to sell the terminals directly to the end users. I hope that answered. You have to analyze yourself on your own, Simon, whether or not you should be conservative or progressive with it. That's how we do it, at least.
Thank you so much. I'll make my own interpretation of that answer, but it certainly helps. Moving on, you mentioned that you're now utilizing most of the available capacity. Still, demand seems to increase. I'm wondering if we should expect you to expand capacity in 2023, and is that possible perhaps more specifically when talking about IS-37 or IS-39?
Another in-depth very, very good question. When we spoke, or when Noora spoke, and when we also wrote the quarterly report and the year-end report, you could see that we've used the term long-term, we have secure with the contract, longer term contracts we had with Intelsat. That was also to build up for the launch of Ovzon 3, right? We would have enough capacity. These are steerable antennas or steerable beams as well. They're very high performing, and sought after, and they fit the mission and the product and solution that we deliver, right? We have had that. One of the things that you've seen historically in our numbers is that it directly affects the margin if it's unsold capacity. And we've been...
We were very good in Q4 to have enabled all that satellite capacity during parts of that quarter. It, you know, as well. The most important thing for us is actually in sales and in customer engagement to have full utilization of that capacity. For us, it utilizes kind of the inventorial capacity we have. In parallel, we also have now, because of our industrialization built up, so we have an inventory of Ovzon T6 terminals that we can quickly turn to customers, meaning we can turn on services quickly. Also have the possibility to buy other types of capacity, if needed, but we are not doing that proactively.
We have an ample time and enough time with the deals and the sales cycles we have to look at what is the best solution. Do we have inventory of capacity we have, or do we have to add more capacity on top or to both optimize the inventory we have, as well as delivering quickly on the contracts and the services we have? I hope that helps.
It certainly does. Just a final question for me. On cost, you have recently ramped these up, mainly relating to your headcount. Do you have the operational cost costume in place ahead of the anticipated launch of Ovzon 3, or should we expect the recent cost trajectory to be a good proxy for the future as well?
Well, Tomas, obviously, as the company grows, the base of the costs also tend to grow. I think that we will be, and we have been quite good in managing our overhead costs, historically, and will be going forward as well. Explore them too much.
Thank you. I agree with that. Thanks again for addressing my questions, and have a nice, rest of the day.
Thank you, Simon. You too.
We're now going over to the next question. Our next question comes from Mikael Laséen from Carnegie. Please go ahead, sir.
Yeah, thanks. I have a few questions also. First one is on the cost of sales in Q4. When I look at cost of sales, excluding the terminals, it looks like cost of service in decline quarter and quarter. Can you explain the satellite leasing cost in Q4 and the dynamics around that and how we should think about the coming quarters?
I'll let Noora look at the numbers here, she can come back with an adequate answer on the numbers. In general, looking at satellite capacity, I think that's what I was trying to refer to in the previous question, that we've found a way now to utilize and sell. Hey, listen, The company invested in that satellite capacity, it has been unsold. It's been one of our main objectives into such capacity. I call it inventory. It's been one of our main objectives in 2021 to sell that out, so to speak. We managed at the end of the year to really do that with some of shorter term contracts, smaller contracts, and the utilization of that capacity.
That we believe will continue, you know, on a step-by-step basis here, contract by contract. Our ultimate goal is also to sell out that, which is O11S1. We call it O11S1. To sell out that full beam and get full recovery of that investment that we've done. It is very hard and I should not be in a position to say, to predict when and how, but that is our ultimate goal. When that is also utilized and we have other networks that we buy capacity from, when Ovzon 3 is in orbit, we can, number 1, start to mix in when contracts expire, mix in Ovzon 3 to take over that, and then sell new also on Ovzon 3.
We have both a hybrid of mixing it in and utilizing it for the already existing customer contracts, as well as renewals, as well as new sales. That's the whole strategy and plan, and that was always the strategy and plan behind the company investing in that city. Do you wanna address the cost of goods sold?
Mikael Löwgren, I think the power already partly answered your question. The cost of goods for satellite capacity, it's a mixed bag of all the capacity we are currently purchasing. There is no one price for all capacity. It differs per beam and per supplier. It might have been a slightly lower base in this quarter, but nothing that we especially highlighted.
Okay. What is the approximate gross margin you have on terminal sales? Just to get a full feel of what you have. Is it 20% or 30% or?
Especially to Mikael, we haven't reported on that level.
Mm.
Okay.
We're not gonna give you guidance. That's what Noora is saying on that.
Yeah. Yeah. It's important to understand the gross, underlying gross margin situation.
We understand.
when we go into 2023. That's why.
Yeah. No, we understand.
Yeah. Is it fair to assume that this satellite leasing mix that you have right now is a fair assumption for the coming couple of quarters what we saw now in Q4?
Well, it's a name. You know, As I said, we had month-to-month contracts in Q4 actually on the last beam, the O11S1 as we call it. We had that on month-to-month. It is our goal to continue that, but actually the ultimate objective is to sell that out. I can't really answer your question with more than that is our goal, to have that rolling on monthly or quarterly or yearly basis. Yeah.
Our goal is obviously to grow as well.
Of course.
Okay. In general, can you talk to us about the market situation in North America and in Europe? What you see, market activity, and so on.
Absolutely. I'll be happy to. I'll try to do it in a succinct way here. You know, first of all, we have to start on the 40,000 feet level. The geopolitical situation in the world, of course, centers a lot around on the defense side, around Ukraine. There's a lot of money, of course, from a military perspective invested in equipment and so on going to Ukraine. Our field, satellite communications is becoming more strategic thing when there is no infrastructure or it doesn't work at all. That becomes then a hindrance for defense or so on and so forth. There's actually a lot of activity in that field going on both for NATO as well as Europe as well as the U.S.
A lot of the US, you probably followed here how much money the US is actually investing or supporting Ukraine with. We're part of those solutions discussions, it's very, very difficult to say exactly what that would mean by when. That, those discussions we were involved in during the whole of 2021 and also, of course, continues now in 2022. There is actually a lot of activity, but that's what I was trying to refer to in one of the slides where I said sale cycles are fairly long. They're also not always predictable when it comes to regulatory and government procurement processing. Sometimes they can go very fast when you have a situation like Ukraine, but sometimes it also gets stuck in bureaucratic processes, frankly.
I know that this is an answer and a no answer, it's a lot of activity. You have to actually be engaged both with decision makers, those that allocate funds, as well as the end users that actually then have a demand. You have to push the demand from the bottom, you have to then educate the insights of what this means and how it can support and protect and help the organizations that are involved. That, that's that answer to I think, though, ending on a different note than that. It's a lot of activity.
Ending on a different note, I think what you saw with the end of the year for us, where we had been engaged with both in the UK and across France and Sweden. One of the things when I took the helm at Ovzon, I felt, not Embarrassed is probably the wrong word. I felt like we need to have something in Sweden, whether that would be an emergency or rescue, civil protection or defense side, or even with media and broadcasting.
We've had some good attempts, but the partnering we've had with the Swedish Space Corporation, and they have a teleport in Sweden and, you know, you can get the signal down here, has actually led to the first contract we really have, which is a trial contract on for six months that starts now in first of March. That's a first step in. The same with the French contract we have and so on. We view them as the step in to broadening as well. I'll stop there because that's a too long answer for you actually.
That was helpful. Good color. Given that you have slightly shorter duration contracts now in the backlog, I think, can you say something about how we should think about the start of 2023 Q1, Q2, maybe? Help us here a bit.
I think the start of 23 means that you know, that starts with the most prominent source of income really and revenue for us, the United States Department of Defense and that contract, which we managed to, as we traditionally have actually, in mid-December. That kicked in immediately, and that's going very well, which also means that we have a platform to grow from. The same with the early renewal with the UK MoD. We always view it. It's almost like an avocado model. The core of the avocado, the hard core is the current customers you have, and you have to make sure that you renew those. Then you, the meat becomes you should expand. One of the part of our strategy is to expand outside of those, but within those organizations.
U.S. DoD obviously is not a small organization. Neither is UK MoD or so on and so forth. We have efforts there. You know, we can't really say if there's something there, when that's gonna happen, and so on. Of course, you have the new contracts, which I said are kind of the first step in which we're now working on cross-sell opportunities with. There are other discussions going on, as also mentioned before, which we hopefully can then bring to fruition. I can't really give you a guidance on. You have to base your guidance on what you know that we have in the book to say, but we are, we're confident that the discussions we're in will bear fruit. When will they bear fruit? Can't tell you that.
If I knew I would.
Okay. Fair enough. Moving over to Ovzon 3, I have a couple of questions. Can you just remind us here what you have to do until the satellite production is finalized and the satellite is fully tested and verified?
Yeah. Absolutely. I'll, I'll take it from all the way back to the, to the beginning of the design of the satellite. This is the first satellite that is designed modularly. It's actually built in different modules. All those modules have been built in parallel. The first delay or problem we encountered was not in manufacturing. That was due to manufacturing due to COVID obviously, and some of the wildfires in California, as it's built by Maxar in Palo Alto in California. That was, that's one of the pieces that I think is important to remember. Of course, when Honeywell recalled the reaction wheels, the famous or infamous reaction wheels, that took a long time.
Those organizations that were prioritized were those that had especially coded military programs, defense programs, whether it was the U.S. or other parts. We were one of the top commercial programs. We our kind of slot in the queue there was as okay as it could be from a, from that perspective. It took longer for Honeywell, according to Maxar at least, it took longer for Honeywell to actually get those. That meant that we. I'm giving you more information than you need, but I know that there are many interested parties, and I actually see some questions on the chat here as well, which so I'll answer it this way so we satisfy most of the questions.
That meant that we Maxar could not put us into what's called the thermal vacuum testing until they had the reaction wheels. That's also a scarce resource, you know? It meant we had to wait for that to be done, and we had to wait for the reaction wheels to be put on the satellite. I know there are many questions. I've gotten questions from shareholders and others around is there really a satellite and so on. I can assure you there is a satellite. It's been built together. These were things that happened then. You start to build it together. You integrate the OBP on the satellite. You bring the propulsion model on the satellite with the. All of that is built together. All of that is put together.
What's now in process is there's some software tests that needs to be done. There is the whole rig where the actual antenna, reflectors and so on sit on, that needs to be fitted on and tested. There is the ROSA, which is actually the solar panels. That is a uniquely cool feature, which it, when it goes into orbit, it's not there. When it's in its position orbit, you can almost like a curtain, pull them out, and they absorb a lot of energy. There are a number of pieces that needs to be put together, and each piece of it gets put together now and needs to be tested in sequence as a whole. The last portion of what happens with the satellite is that you put the satellite on a big.
It's a perfect optimized mimic of how the rocket actually functions. The rocket, Ariane 5, functions somewhat different than the SpaceX Falcon 9 . Which means that, for example, SpaceX Falcon 9 has more power when it takes off first and less of a push when it pushes the satellite from the rocket out to reach its position in orbit. Ariane 5 has less power when it goes up, but pushes harder when it pushes the satellite off. This gives you a little flavor of ... still needs to be done, but it's progressing very well. Maxar is pushing and have more shifts on the satellite.
There's some coordination, as you could understand from some of the comments I made earlier on between ourselves and well, it's actually Maxar, SpaceX, and then Ariane is in the mix as well. That's where we are, but we are in a phase where we're moving towards final assembly and then the last test phase before it can be shipped to the launch site. That was the one-on-one in that lab.
Yeah, that's I think it covers everything. Thanks. Okay. I've got a couple of more actually, if I may, and it's about the timing of events around the O3 launch and how we should think about, for example, how long time it will take to get the service up and running from the launch date, when you can start to receive orders for the service. I think there are a few questions on that out there. Also, if you can talk about utilization, how we think about that, when you can start and how it should start in an optimal way?
Yeah. Yep. That... It's a good question, and I think that there are questions around that out there, so I'm very happy to answer them, and thank you for asking them, Mikael. Well, the fact remains that as soon as the satellite's ready and it's launched, it will take about four months for it to get to its position in orbit. As soon as it is, it can be utilized obviously for because all the other pieces, the ground segment, and all that is in place and all organizations involved there is in place. So it'll take four months. Theoretically, I would say, and practically, we can start to utilize as quickly as it's in orbit.
The positive I would say for us is that we continue to have, obviously, discussions with current customers, with new customers on the uniqueness of the On-Board Processor, which I'm not going to go into detail, but we're as you heard, we're actually constructing and developing, and we'll launch at the same time as the satellite and the On-Board Processor, a new Ovzon mobile satellite communications to have two and a half actually functioning in the test lab, two modems. One is for regular, similar to our Ovzon T6 for regular use for Ku-band bandwidth, and the other one is specifically for the On-Board Processor, what we call OBP compatible. For defense organizations and rescue organizations, this means that you will have a guaranteed resilient communication if teleports and others are taken out.
I think the positive for us is the demand is not less. The demand actually increases with the geopolitical and the environmental things that happen in the world today, and we have discussions, as I said, with current and new customers on that. Going practically to your question, we should be able to have the first customers on O3 as soon as possible after we've reached orbit.
Okay. Is it possible?
We're working with them on their network architecture to fit that in and how it fits in.
Yeah. Okay. Just curious, is it possible for the customers to sign contracts on the service during the sort of way to the orbit? Do you have to have it up and running operation?
You... In most cases, for government contract, it needs to be a functioning service and a product. If it's possible to have letter of intent, if it's possible to have from a certain date, if the satellite is in orbit at that time, yes, it is. It is. They won't be fully functional contracts until the satellite is actually in its position. That's for government organizations, and most of our customers are government organizations. Most commercial organizations wouldn't do it either. It's like you sign up for a new car, you actually need to have the car in your ownership before you can use it, right? That's what's going on.
Yeah. Okay. Yes. Is it possible to say something about the interest? Roughly how much capacity of Ovzon 3 have you sort of covered at this stage?
Well, let me talk about one thing that I actually had on one slide that I did not mention, but I also see that one of our, one of the people on the call here has asked about, which I actually did want to mention as well. We did have a pre-capacity agreement signed with Inmarsat Government, which is the government arm of Inmarsat obviously. That contract, we mentioned it in the earlier quarters as well, that if the satellite wasn't in commercial use by a certain date, that their agreement would be reduced with 10% and then further reduced with 10%. There was a contractual exit clause or termination clause that said that if the satellite wasn't in orbit at the end of December, they could opt out.
Inmarsat Government has actually opted out from that. That doesn't mean that we don't have discussions with them and other organizations on other pre-capacity agreements, but that's more, that's the fact, right? That is, that's the case. We are not. That comes with another thing which is actually positive to us. They had IGC, so they're our main partner with the U.S. DoD. They had exclusivity services to the U.S. DoD. When they opted out of this, they do not have exclusivity. We have a very, very strong situation, relationship, and customer in the U.S. DoD, and the specific customer we have. We now are exploring else would maybe want to get in together with us on that, and which also means that we're talking to IBC.
We have a very strong relationship, worked together for a long time, obviously, and bought capacity from them, other company, Intelsat as well. We have a discussion with them on maybe what this would look like for the future. I just wanted to mention that. That also answers the question, I think, on, yes, we are in discussions with many others on this for the current customers and new customers as well. I don't know if that answered your question, but hopefully it did.
Yeah. I wanted a number, but fair enough. No worry.
I can't give you a number. That's why you got my sloppy answer.
Okay. Yeah. Thanks. That's it from me. Thanks.
Thank you, Mikael.
As a quick reminder, if you want to ask a question, you will have to press star one one on your telephone keypad.
Steven, I'll actually jump in here. I can see some questions on the web as well. I'll start with one of our shareholders has asked about Intelsat General has opted out. You know, as I was hoping to pre-capacity. I hope by answer that. There are ways for them to get back in. There are ways for others to get back in. There is an interest. We are exploring what we think is best for Ovzon and our customers when we explore that we have there. Next question is actually the delay due to Maxar leading to a $25 million in extra cost. Will Maxar cover that cost later or so on? It's too early to say.
We're obviously currently analyzing and discussing the situation and the delays and the cost and the repercussion of the delays, we'll continue those discussions with Maxar. I think what we need to do is that, have the main focus now is to get the satellite ready, have all hands on deck and get that in orbit. Economically for Ovzon, that has a great effect for us and our solutions going forward. Of course, we think our goal of the fact that it's delayed and that we have increased the cost, we'll analyze what that means to us in the future. There's another question on... which I think I've answered, but, you know, I'll do it for the integrity for everyone that's on the call. How much further capacity can Ovzon sell?
One whole beam? Are you close to selling all your capacity? I think I've actually talked about that. I think we had a lot of it sold in Q4, all capacity sold in Q4. We hope to continue with month-by-month contract or quarterly contract, three to four-month contract. Our ultimate goal is to sell obviously a full beam. Those discussions take longer time, longer sales cycles and those budgets or funds needs to be taken, you know, pretty high up in both government and procurement organizations. That's want to have inventory capacity, and there is more capacity to be bought from other providers if there would be customers coming in wanting specific steerable beams or networks as well. There is one more question here.
When you reach profitability, how does cash conversion work, i.e. working capital capture versus cash payment? That's a tricky question, Noora.
Yeah. It's.
It's a good, very good question.
It's a good question. Yeah.
Yeah.
We are a small player in a huge industry, which obviously will affect our cash conversion ability to increase cash conversion. We are getting there, and hopefully we work to a positive direction from our end. I'll stop at that for now.
Yeah, for now, I think that's what we can say.
Yeah.
Obviously that's part of the inner makings here, of the whole business model with Ovzon 3 to that conversion point, inflection point in it as well. I think that's what we can say now. I think, Steven, that makes up all the questions on the chat. If there are no more questions on the audio cast, we would like to thank...
There-
Sorry?
There are no further questions.
Okay. Thank you very much, Steven. We would like to thank everyone that participated today. We used our full hour, which means that there is a lot of interest in Ovzon, which we are very grateful for. We promise all of our stakeholders that we're working around the clock to continue to develop the company, drive a step change in profitable growth, and launch our satellite during 2023. With that, thank you very much for participating, and I'll hand it over to you, Steven.
Thank you. This concludes our conference for today. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.