We hope and we expect that situation to normalize. We therefore do not expect to have those kind of negative effects in 2020. If anything, it should actually, relative to 2019, it should switch to a positive relative effect in 2020. When it comes to the U.S. and some uncertainties around research funding, both for universities and other types of government customers, we don't necessarily see that materially changing in 2020. I would personally think that's likely to continue on the same level.
On the other hand, that means that it should not be as it was in 2019. It was something which we felt was something that pulled down the growth numbers. If we then look relative 2019- 2020, I would expect it to be a neutral component. It shouldn't hamper growth in 2020 the way it did in 2019.
All right. Let me answer your question around the efficiency topic for this year and going forward, as I understood it.
Yeah. It's not going to be a completely new set of initiatives. We have already started on this path, which is simply put, to make sure we have a solid revenue growth. We look for opportunities in terms of COGS down and at least maintaining our gross margin, and we will be very prudent when it comes to operating expense investments. Just to give you a sense, in the quarter, we actually declined operating expenses, and for the full year 2019, we were flat. You've already seen some of the efforts actually resulting in 2019. Maybe that gives you a flavor. All right. Thank you.
Thank you. We have no further questions at this time. You can continue.
What we have is we have questions on the web. As usual, I thought we would go through as many of them as we have time to. The first question is on profitability from Bo. Is the profitability goal for the whole year 2020 or just part of the year?
It is for the full year 2020.
Okay. How do we define profitability, by the way?
We measure that as our operating profit or EBIT.
Okay. Here I think is a question for you, Henrik, regarding the Qualcomm reference win. Do they mean that you supply both hardware and software, or do Qualcomm deliver the hardware? In other words, the IR cameras, you are just delivering software. Will you get revenue from only software or both software and hardware? How does this work?
Yeah. The short answer is it depends.
Aha.
Generally, when we provide an eye tracking solution for integration in a VR headset, there is three main parts of that. One part is the algorithm software that actually runs all the machine vision algorithms to do eye tracking. One part is the processing platform, and the third part is the actual optical system reference design is what it's called. The optical system reference design is essentially the blueprints for an optimized system with cameras and illumination systems and other optical components that we provide and sometimes customize together with a customer that has a VR headset. That reference design is licensed to the customer, and it is associated with quite a bit of IP and patents and things like that. That's a license to a design, essentially.
Okay.
As part of that, we also sometimes can provide optical components. It depends a little bit on the exact solution of the customer, whether we provide some of the optical components or whether they buy the optical components from a third party that we typically then recommend. We have the algorithms. That's always a part of what we supply. We always supply the algorithms with a license. The third part is the processing. In the case of a Qualcomm-based headset, then typically the processing is done on the Qualcomm Snapdragon processor. That's typically then supplied by Qualcomm. We have business arrangements with Qualcomm around that, and that then runs our software. If it's a solution that's not based on the Qualcomm system, often we supply our Tobii EyeChip as a separate component. That's how it works.
Okay. Thank you. We have another question on the goal to reach profitability. We've done that profitability, when should we expect Tobii to be cash flow positive, Joakim?
We haven't stated a separate goal around cash flow. I'm not going to go into details in terms of where I see questions on when this will happen. Generally, I would say that cash flow positive will be in 2021 and probably not for the full year 2020.
Okay. Here is a general question on that. What is the conviction level in reaching profitability? Is it a must-reach event for management? How will this be affected by the M&A agenda?
We are very committed to this goal. We have a very strong focus on reaching profitability in 2020. We believe in our plans to accomplish this. We do not expect acquisitions, at least not in default scenario, to have significant impact on reaching the profitability targets.
Okay. I know we might have another couple of questions from the telephone line. Carol?
Thank you. We've got a question from Tommy Helin. Please ask your question.
Yes. Hello, my name is Tommy. I'm a private investor. I was just wondering, Tobii has in the past chosen not to focus on the automotive market, and it was never mentioned in any report last year. In this report, you now mention eye tracking for the automotive market is coming at a fast pace, and you also mentioned it in the call here. Are Tobii in a place now where you can proactively focus on the automotive market, and are you in any serious collaborations with major players there? Thank you.
Correctly, as you say, we have previously proactively actually chosen not to focus on the automotive segment, and it's not because we do not believe in it. We have essentially always believed that there is good user benefit and a large potential opportunity for eye tracking as part of advanced driver monitoring in the automotive market. It's rather been a question of focus for us. We are doing a lot of different things in parallel in Tobii, and there's only so many things that you can do in parallel with good quality and execution focus.
In Tobii Tech specifically, we have chosen to focus on PC and VR and niche applications as our near-term targets. However, long term, obviously, we do see opportunities and potentially opportunities for Tobii also in the automotive sector. We are doing business development in that direction, and if the right opportunity materializes, we do have readiness to move into that market.
Okay, there are no active collaborations right now. One more question. Yeah, go ahead.
No, please go ahead, Tommy.
Yeah. Last question. A year ago, you said that the interesting question is to ask how fast the adoption rate would be of eye tracking in PCs. Now, one year later, could you give us a clear outlook on what to expect, or is it still a good question to ask?
I still think it's a fair question to ask, at least. I think if we look with a really long-term horizon, we've been working for a couple of years now actively pushing in the PC market, and it is taking time, and frankly, it is taking longer time to develop the PC market than we had hoped, and probably some of our shareholders as well. That said, though, we still believe very much in eye tracking in the PC market, and specifically in 2019, we've taken several really important steps forward. I think the fact that Dell, who's actually now been working with eye tracking with Tobii and are extremely knowledgeable in the gaming space, are going from one product model to incorporating eye tracking across their entire portfolio of gaming laptops is a very strong vote of confidence from them.
We definitely are progressing in growing the value proposition around eye tracking, both in PC gaming and generally. We see a lot of interest for our new lower cost Tobii Aware offering also outside of the gaming market. We are looking positively on the development of eye tracking in the PC market over the coming years. I still think it's reasonable to have a realistic expectation on the growth rate. It's not a sprint, it's a marathon, but it's a very large long-term opportunity for us.
Okay. Thank you.
Carol, we have another couple of questions on the web. At least one, I would like to do.
Please go ahead, sir.
Okay, here is a question from David.
Any new updates on IS5 integration in laptops and monitors from new OEMs other than Alienware?
Nothing specifically that we can communicate today.
Okay. Yeah, I think we covered that. Anything else to say about, well, we talked about automotive. Okay. I think that's it for today. To Therese, I can tell you that I see your comment, but I don't see a question, and I don't have you on the phone line. Please feel welcome to drop me a mail, ola.elmeland@tobii.com, and I'll do my best to answer your question. Okay. Thank you.
Thanks, everyone, for attending our earnings calls today and for good questions. Have a great continued day, and I'll see you on the next earnings call, hopefully. Bye for now.
Thank you. That does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may all disconnect. Speakers, please stand by.