Good morning, welcome to Sectra's year-end report presentation with CEO Torbjörn Kronander, and CFO Jessica Holmquist. My name is Helena Pettersson, Investor Relations Officer, and I will be the moderator of the Q&A session after the management presentation. The chat function is open from the start, and you are welcome to write questions during the management presentation. They will address them afterwa rds.
With that, I hand over to you, Torbjörn .
All right. Thank you very much.
Welcome to our year-end presentation on June 2, 2023. The a genda for today is I will begin with some highlights from the year that passed. Jessica Holmquist will talk about our financial development. I will give a brief overview of our way forward .
We'll have a Q&A session. Note, again, as Helena Pettersson said, you can give chat questions during the entire speech. If there is something that Helena Pettersson determines that we should actually reply to immediately, she will interrupt me or Jessica Holmquist, or otherwise, we'll kind of collect them at the very end of it. Sectra is part Imaging IT Solutions and IT Security Solutions. That is our large business lines. Imaging IT Solutions is close to 90% of what we do, at handling images in hospitals all over the world.
IT Security Solutions is mainly mobile encryption devices and high-speed, very high-assurance secrecy encryption systems. We have a greenhouse of new things that we are developing. These are smaller units.
They are bundled together in our accounting, and this is innovation. That's medical education IT, which is about teaching both new medical students, veterinarian students, and also continued education with a portal that is globally accessible. That's more or less only an Internet business today. It's a cloud-based operation. Orthopaedics IT, which mainly sells through Imaging IT, with special software and systems for orthopaedists, which are the largest house customer group of radiologists all over the world. We have research, mainly doing AI in various areas, and then we have within Secure Communications, we have growth opportunity in IT Security with critical infrastructure and imaging.
In Imaging IT, we have digital pathology and integrated diagnostics, which has been moved from the business innovation, when it matured, and we saw it was more or less the same customers.
During 2022, we added Genomics IT, and I'll come back to that a little later. We are currently have direct sales in 19 countries. We have partner sales in many others, and customers in more than 60 countries all over the world, and our largest markets are in the U.S., Scandinavia, U.K., and the Netherlands. Highlights from the year that well, passed, we went up 100% in contracted order bookings. We see larger systems. The hospitals today have consolidated, and they are larger groups buying things, and it's also very long term. It's long-term products, which means that the order value, of course, becomes very large.
We have two substantial Sectra One contracts, and I'll come back to Sectra One later, but it's about recurring revenue, selling software as a service instead of just upfront license deals. We still have significant quarter variations due to large individual orders. We still sell quite a lot in as a license, especially in some countries and markets, and that will continue. Gradually, we think that will go away, but we have huge variations between quarters still. We have a positive trend in all business areas, which is very encouraging. All business units are profitable and growing.
We have substantial currency tailwind, which is good in this transition, to recurring revenue, that kind of remedies, they change a little bit, but of course, that's not substantial or cannot be trusted for the future. Currency goes up and down, this year we have had substantially tailwind. Sectra Communications, that has been a bit problematic for some time, is now contributing positively with solid growth again, which is very nice to see. We are transforming the company to not only software as a service, actually, it's also hardware as a service. We do sell systems in communications as a leasing contract instead, or as a service, but mainly it's transiting Imaging IT to software as a service operation. Net sales increased by 21% all over the company. Profit per share increased 20%.
Recurring revenue, which is a very important figure, of course, when we're transforming to a service company, increased by 26%, and churn, which is a new performance measure we have introduced this quarter, is a 1.3%. We lose very few customers, and that is a very important figure to recognize, because within growth and recurring revenue, of course, can be compensated. You lose a lot of those customers, but we lose very, very few, only 1.3% last year. Financial targets for the group, we have three overall financial targets as we've had for substantial time. The first is stability. Our customers must need to trust us. The hospitals are depending on our systems.
They are crucial in their operation, and if our systems fail, the hospital more or less come to a grinding halt. Therefore, also financial stability is very important for them. We have a target to be above 30%. Equity assets ratio, we are currently at 47%, and we have a very strong cash position to that. Profitability, that's more of hygiene measure with us, because if we run out of things to invest in that we believe in for the future, we can increase that figure a bit. Right now, the target is 15%. We are currently at 19%. Note, though, that we have currency tailwind on this one as well.
The most important target, which is growth of profits per EBIT per share over 5 years period, which should be above 50%, which is substantially more than double as large this year, 110% growth in EBIT per share. That's our most important target, but the 2 first can be seen as hygiene targets, and growth of profits is the most important one, but we need to fulfill the 2 first. In Sectra Communications highlights, considerably improved earnings. We've got NATO approval for our latest version of the SECRET level Tiger Phone. We make our own phones, and they are built here. We got NATO approval, which of course open up orders from NATO countries all over the world.
We have growing demand, large and more prospect, partly that is unfortunately due to the crisis in Ukraine, we also see that we have products now that after a long development period, really fulfill a lot of needs in the modern society. In Imaging IT, we are growing in all geographic areas, and we are going more and more enterprise imaging, not only radiology. We're transitioning into a software as a service model, as I said before, and cloud deliveries. They are not exactly the same, these two. People confuse them. Cloud deliveries means that the server are in the cloud, but we can have on-premise software as a service. That means the customer gets a license installed on-prem, but they pay as a service. They are not 100% overlapping.
We have a few of those software as a service deliveries, but on-prem, not on the cloud. We saw that cloud recurring revenue, which is the measure of how much we are growing in the field of cloud deliveries, increased by a very large and promising 40%, which we have kind of forecasted for some time, that this will grow and will continue to grow. Sorry about that. We are dedicated to global customer satisfaction. What sets us aside is that we have very happy customers, and that has been proven again during the year. We got the Best in KLAS Awards. KLAS is an independent company in Salt Lake City in Utah that does evaluations on medical IT systems. We are, for the 10th year in a row, the happiest customers in the U.S., large hospital PACS.
PACS is what our main product of radiology, and we also have the happiest customers in the US. Canadian, for fourth year in a row, we are clearly number one. In Asia, Oceania, we're mainly Australia, we are number one for the second year. Financial development, I'll leave the word to Jessica.
Thank you. Good morning, everyone on the call, and welcome again to our year-end presentation. During the past year, we made a few changes to our financial reporting, driven by the shift towards selling software as a service. In brief, those changes are increased details on order intake, to reflect the new contract terms. Increased focus on recurring revenue, as recurring revenue development is key to understanding our business in the future. We also introduced 2 new APMs. The first one in Q1, cloud recurring revenue, a subset of recurring revenue, capturing growth in our cloud business. The second one being recurring revenue churn, which we'll report for the first time now in Q4.
The purpose of recurring revenue churn is to show the share of recurring revenue from customer contracts that have been terminated or not renewed during the period. With that, I move on to some numbers. As Torbjörn pointed out, contracted order intake doubled in the past year and is to a large extent explained by the two multi-year Sectra One contracts received in Q1. Demand in the market is high, we've had a stable inflow of orders, smaller and mid-sized orders throughout the year as well. In Q4, some of the orders we highlight are Sectra One Cloud for Parkview Health in the US, as well as a contract renewal in the Netherlands, where the customer is transitioning into Sectra One Cloud solution.
We also received the NATO orders from two NATO countries for Sectra Tiger/S. Our net sales continue to grow. Sales grew by 21% to SEK 2.3 billion in the past year. Currency helped substantially, but there is underlying growth, both for the full year and in the Q4. Both recurring revenue and non-recurring revenues are growing. The share of recurring revenue out of total revenue is currently at 58%, very similar to last year. We had substantial or strong growth in cloud recurring revenue, although cloud recurring revenue still represents a smaller part of our revenues. Recurring revenue churn was at 1.3%. Sales per business segment, we grew in all our business segments.
There is solid growth in Imaging IT, 20% up, driven by growing customer base, larger volumes, as well as positive currency impact. Secure Communications increased top line by 20% versus last year. Over the past quarters, we've seen a positive trend, although large variations are still expected within this segment going forward as well. We have sales per geographic market, and apart from the Netherlands, we grew in all geographic markets. We have the highest growth in the US and Sweden, and for rest of world and rest of Europe, Australia, Canada, and Denmark are contributors to growth. Our operating profit increased by 19% to SEK 456 million, equal to an operating profit margin of 19.4%.
The margin is well above our target of 15% and very close to what we delivered last year. We note that investments in delivery capacity and cloud transition is partly offset by favorable currency effects this year. Looking at profit generation over the year, it is very much aligned with our traditional seasonal pattern, with a weaker Q1 and a very strong Q4. Please also refer to our interim report for more details around seasonal variations. Operating profit growth and profitability is stable in Imaging IT, with an operating profit margin of 22%. The ramp-up of the organization and also higher costs for travel and marketing has, however, reduced the margin slightly versus last year's 24%.
In Secure Communications, we've turned a negative operating profit into a SEK 19 million profit at an 8% margin. Again, large fluctuations from quarter to quarter, but in the past year, orders have been placed and also turned into sales and profits, contributing to the financial outcome that we present today. Our cash flow is positive. We had positive cash flow from operations of SEK 441 million for the full year, and SEK 382 million in Q4. Cash flow from operations is lower than last year due to increased tied-up capital in customer projects. Last year, we also received unusually large cash advance payments in Q4.
The overall cash position is solid, with cash and cash equivalents of SEK 945 million at the end of the fiscal year. Per, over to you.
Thank you, Jessica. What are we going forward? I can also remind you that we had a Capital Markets Day in January, which is available on the net if you want to see more in-depth, kind of ideas going forward. Focus forward for us is high customer satisfaction that drives customers to recommend us to other customers, which is our most important road forward. You cannot have high customer satisfaction unless you have happy employees. We need employees and culture that works as well, and happy employees. We want to continue to grow profit, with profit, not necessarily driving profit margins where we can, but invest in future growth as well.
skate to where the puck is going to be," that's a quote from Wayne Gretzky, that when he was asked why he was so good in hockey, said, "I'm better than others in seeing where the puck is going to be." We have been traditionally very good at that. We saw pathology coming before others. We saw mobility in security coming. That is a very important thing for us to position ourselves well for business to continue to grow and prosper three to five years out. That is what we are using, that, excessive, or excess profits, that we could have taken, above the 15% thing. In medical, we are concentrating on the age-related diseases. The main reason is that these are things that society has, have to deal with.
The entire Western world, people are getting older and older, and they live, the last year of living is very, very expensive, and that means we should be good in these five areas: neurodegenerative disease, cardiovascular disease, cancer, which is a very kind of core of what we want to do, musculoskeletal disease, grossly underestimated disease area, and vision. Vision we've added over the last two, three years because people who cannot see are also very handicapped and very expensive society. We just added genomics. As I said before, that fits into the cancer area of area, but it's not images. We're not only doing images anymore, we are also adding adjacent areas to needed in diagnostics. Means we're slowly transforming into diagnostics company from a pure imaging company. In cybersecurity, we have a new digital reality.
Cybersecurity market will grow because it has to grow. We have increasing demands in society. We are very well-positioned. We are regarded as one of the top companies in the world in mobile security and very high speed, high-level encryption, and the current crisis in Europe will boost and has boosted demand even further. We're also transforming into as a service company, both hardware as a service and primarily in Sectra Communications, but mainly a software as a service company. We're moving away from the initial license sales to a longer-term revenue stream. For the first three, four years of such a contract, it looks a little less profitable and good than it would have looked if we'd got an upfront license.
After four or five years or something into the stream, it will be grossly good, both for customers and for us. Customers prefer the model of when you pay for if it works and when used, and they get continuous upgrades, et cetera. We, of course, get the revenue stream that will be substantially stronger somewhere down the line. We are currently, as Jessica said, at 58% of the company. We have a huge interest in pay per use in all product areas right now, and especially in the U.S., where almost all contracts discussed now are cloud deliveries and pay per use contracts.
This demand new roles as well, so we have created customer success managers that monitor usage, work with customers, and we monitor usage, so we can see if usage goes down in some parts of the world, and we can go there and find out if there is a problem with the product or why they're not using it as much. That, of course, increases customer value as well. During the transition, though, revenue and profit growth will temporarily be smaller than they otherwise would have been. We have seen over the last year a little effect that we could have presented better figures in the old model, going forward, that stays with us for a long time, that revenue stream. There will be an impact in the year that comes here, in front of us here.
Long-term, the financial effects will be strongly positive. We introduced a Sectra One model a few years back, where all imaging for the hospitals can be achieved in one single contract. We have some large contracts discussed now where customers have gone over to this, and also where future contracts will be going into this. We are currently the only company in the world that can provide all of these services, all of these types of images in one single contract, in one single system, which is important. We don't have multiple system, each one for each of these systems. We can provide all of it. We have added enterprise diagnostic software. It's becoming not only imaging software, and that we've done by adding genomics to this. This is not yet on the market.
We are doing a primary delivery into University of Pennsylvania in the US, where we have a preliminary delivery in Q1 next year. From 2024, we will have genomics added into this, which means we will not only provide imaging anymore, we provide diagnostic data and diagnostic software. Our philosophy with shareholders are, as we have said before, if you start with a good position in growing markets, ideally, markets that have to grow, despite if there is a recession or good tight times, then if you have happy customers, and in order to have happy customers, you need happy employees, reasonable cost control, and some stubbornness, then shareholders will be happy.
I think we've proved that over the last 10, 15 years, that it has worked quite well. Why should you invest in Sectra? We are positioned in markets that are forced to grow. Both cybersecurity and medical IT must grow for society to cope with the demographic situation and the digitization we see in all society today. We have high customer satisfaction in all areas where we worked. We have high employee satisfaction with a strong corporate culture. We are a strong brand in market where trust is critical. If our systems in medicine break, the hospitals come to a grinding halt.
I heard a CIO from hospital in the U.S. in the fall, who said, "We have gone through all our IT systems, including the EMR in this hospital, and you are the most critical for us." Trust is very important, and that means a strong brand. In security, if people breach our encryption units, the most valuable secrets of a nation will be exposed, and that also provide or demands a very strong brand and a lot of trust. Which means that the barriers to entrance, of course, are high into our markets. Why Sectra? Again, we're also profitable, we have a strong cash flow, and a solid balance sheet. There is low risk, short-term risk in the company. We have rapidly increasing recurring revenue and very low churn. 1.3% is very low.
We have sustainable investments in a lot of greenhouse product that might become very large in the future. Of course, that is yet to be seen. We have had operate products there that we have shut down and closed. We've also seen some that we have divested. We did digital mammography a couple of years back, and we also have seen some that we merged into other business lines. Something will happen with these products. If they grow as we think, it will be sustainable growth also in these areas. We also have all management, top management, own shares in the company, which I personally think is a very important thing. We have a strong cash position. Our proposal to the general meeting in September is to increase the dividends.
Well, not dividends, but we have a share redemption program, but we'll do the payout about 1.10 kronor per share to shareholders. Our upcoming financial events are September 5th, our Q1 report, and September 7th, we have our annual general meeting. Please remember that your feedback is important for us. These meetings, these presentations, are made for you. If we can make them better for you, that's good for everyone, good for you, good for us. Please give us feedback if you want us to improve. We have changed it a little bit, as you see this time, in order to cope with the feedback you have given us. I open up for questions.
We have got a number of questions today, and I will start and take them in the order that we have received them. The first one I have received by email from Kristoffer Liljeberg, analyst at Carnegie. The first question is, "Please explain strong sequential growth for the recurring revenues.
That I did not fully understand.
Me neither.
Kristoffer, can you please specify that a little more? What do you mean? What is the question?
We take the next question: "Why are both personnel and external costs lower in Q4 than in Q3? Historical seasonal patterns are for higher cost in Q4.
Those are temporary effects. That's what I can comment on.
Okay, thank you. The next question from Kristoffer is: "What explains gross margin being 85% in Q4, compared with around 90% in the first three quarters this fiscal year?
That's a mixed question. It depends on the share of hardware versus software and services.
I will take his fourth question right away . "Why is share of recurring revenue not going up more compared with last year?
We have strong growth also in our non-recurring revenues. We deploy a lot of new customers in our medical systems. We also have deliveries in Secure Communications, which are accounted for as non-recurring revenue.
We go over to some questions from David Vignon at Stifel, a new analyst covering Sectra. The first question is: "Could you share some insights into the progress you've made in imaging IT outside of radiology and breast imaging, both in terms of offering and in terms of commercial momentum? Particularly interested to hear your thoughts on cardiology.
We can say that we do have an offering in cardiology. It's not complete yet. We do what we do very well, but it's a subset of the needed functionality in cardiology. We do have customers using our cardiology solution as well, but it's not as broad as we would like. We use partners and software contractors to work with it. In the most interesting area of growth outside of pure radiology is pathology, which is growing rapidly, but not in all markets. It's come from the north. As you can see, it's a very common pattern of new technology. Mobile phones, for example, came from Scandinavia, grew into Europe, and then into the US, and we see the same pattern here.
Central Europe and Southern Europe is not yet large in pathology, but Northern Europe, and especially the UK, is growing rapidly, and we see a largely increasing demand also in the United States. Cardiology will come, but as I said, we are not complete there yet.
The next question is, "Could you share some insights into competition in the U.S., as well as on pricing dynamics?
Our main competitor in the US is Visage or Pro Medicus. They are good in radiology, but we are much wider. We have all the ologies and different imaging capabilities. They have been better than us in radiology before. We have closed that gap. It typically is a race between us and Visage, and some prefer one, and some prefer the others. I would say that is the main competitor we see in the US.
The third question is a bit similar to the one before about the personnel costs during Q4 that decreased slightly. "Could you indicate why that was the case and how we should see personal cost increase in fiscal year 2024? Should we expect personal cost to grow slower than revenue?
It is a figure we do not disclose going forward , and we cannot disclose that, but we need people to deliver. Even if it's on cloud, you still need a lot of product management, you need integration engineers, you need application specialists to teach the customers. We will continue to grow personnel cost in the next year, and I cannot give the relationship to the revenue.
We move on to questions from Carl Nolen at SEB. "What was the driver of the strong margin in Secure Communications?
Deliveries of products. You know, conventionally, we have done a lot of development, contracted development work in Sectra Communications, where especially the Swedish government, has ordered large development products. Now we have gone over to product deliveries and where the margin is much higher.
Next question: "Imaging IT grew recurring revenues strongly. Is it only new contracts, or can you comment anything on how much of the growth that came from existing customers?
We do not reveal that figure, but it's substantially growth in both areas. We see existing customers who want to go into Sectra One, and also new customers who want to do that.
A third question: "Were there any larger orders in the order intake for Q4 or more day-to-day business?
I would say it's close to day-to-day business, but of course, there are large orders coming in as well, not the least in communications, in the security area.
We have another question from David Vignon. "Thanks for the answer. Could you share some more details on pricing dynamics in the U.S., both Sectra versus Visage and Sectra versus incumbents?
I do not see a lot of pricing. There's always a price issue, of course, especially U.S. hospitals are strained on profitability after COVID, so there's always a price discussion. With super critical systems as ours, people pay for quality. If you can show your stability is above others, downtime is so extremely expensive that there is a little more or a little better position than most other software industries because of that reason also.
We have another question from Kristofer Liljeberg: "What do you mean with temporary effects for lower costs? How big was this effect, and why?" He refers to the personnel costs.
I mean that it's not a trend that it's not a new trend. That's what I mean when I say it's temporary.
It's also, we use a lot of consultants, which are also accounted for as temporary personnel costs , and that might go up and down.
If you have any more questions, please write them now. Otherwise, we will end this Q&A session.
All right. Seems to be no more questions. Okay, thank you very much for attending, and we'll see you in September next time then. Have a nice summer, all of you. Thank you.
Thank you.
Goodbye.