W5 Solutions AB (publ) (STO:W5)
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May 12, 2026, 5:29 PM CET
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Earnings Call: Q2 2025

Aug 5, 2025

Hannah Falkenström
Director of Communications and IR, W5 Solutions

Our President and CEO, Evelina Hedskog, who will share an overview of the market landscape, recent business developments, and key events during the quarter, as well as a brief introduction of W5 Solutions. Also joined by CFO, Cecilia Driving, who will take us through the financial performance during the second quarter and the first half of the year. After the presentations are complete, we will end up with a Q&A session, so please feel free to submit your questions during the presentations, and we will answer them one by one. With that, I'll hand over the word to you, Evelina.

Evalina Hedskog
President and CEO, W5 Solutions

Thank you, Hannah, and welcome everyone to this presentation. I will kick off by giving you a brief introduction to W5 Solutions as a company, who we are, and what we do. After that, we will dig into the Q2 report. W5 Solutions, our vision is to become the leading global provider of sustainable defense technology. Our mission, what we do every day, is to deliver cutting-edge solutions to empower own and allied forces. Cutting-edge solutions for own and allied forces. That's what we do. We do this through our operations, which are divided into three different business areas: Integration, Training, and Power. Our headquarters are based in Stockholm, and we have operation sites from Älmhult in the south in Sweden up to Piteå in the north, and also in Kongsberg in Norway and Nurmijärvi in Finland. Our organization today consists of around 175 full-time employees.

Looking at our customer base, it's a mix between defense agencies and also other defense industry companies as customers. Last year, we communicated the long-term financial goals that you see here, and by the end of 2027, we aim to have a turnover of SEK 1 billion and a profitability of 10%. The strategy to reach these targets is to have a well-balanced organic growth of about 20% per year, but also work with acquisitions in order to reach these targets. Having a bit of a closer look into the three business areas together, they comprise seven product areas. If we start by looking at the business area Integration, where we have Gunilla Stomberg as Head of the business area, we have two product areas there. The first one is systems integration, where we do exactly that, systems integration, but also design and manufacture bespoke harnesses and intercom solutions.

The second product area within Integration is shelters, and here we do the design and manufacturing of highly sophisticated container modules for different military purposes. It can be anything from a command post to a field hospital. The next business area headed by Toralf Johannesson is business area Training, also with two product areas, and in this case, it's also two customer segments. Here we have lifeguard training products and solutions for defense and security, as well as for sports and hunting. The product portfolio ranges from both the equipment that you would need on a shooting range, all the way to more tactical training targets out in the field. It's a mix between hardware products, but also software to both store information about shooting performance and do the analysis of the data. The third business area headed by Joachim Hammersland is Power.

Within Power, we have three product areas, starting with batteries and chargers. We come from a history of designing and producing battery chargers for the military customer, and we have now recently, last year, moved into also battery manufacturing. The second product area closely related to that is gensets, where we do tailorized solutions both for generic power supply for military units, but also power supply to specific systems such as radars. The third product area within Power is simulation, and that we will talk a little bit more about later. Within simulation, we are specialized in hardware simulators. With that little recap of who we are and what we do, we're moving into the quarter two report. I just want to start by giving a brief overview of the situation on the market at the moment.

There are a number of, I would say, macro factors that are affecting us right now. Starting with NATO, you probably all know that at the NATO summit in The Hague in June, there was a 5% spending target accepted by the member nations, and 3.5% of that will be directly dedicated to spending on defense materiel. Looking at the EU perspective, we have the ambition from the EU that 50% of the spending within the member states should be on technology developed and produced within the member states. Of course, that's also something that is positive for us. If we look at the Swedish perspective, in June, the Swedish government issued a defense industry strategy that basically handles the discussion around how we should have the best possible defense industry in Sweden to support the Swedish Armed Forces.

The one thing that I want to highlight from that strategy is that it has a good focus on the small and medium enterprises and our role in building the Swedish defense capability. Looking at the macro perspective, there are a lot of long-term policies now in place that will support our market and make sure that we have a growing customer base going forward. From a business perspective, from W5 Solutions' perspective, this is all positive. I think the happiest message that we have in this quarterly report is, of course, the order intake, and it's a real order boom. We're up 211% from the same quarter last year. I would like to just give you a quick overview of the biggest contracts that we have won and tell you a little bit more in detail about them.

Starting off with our live fire training contract for the Finnish Defence Forces, I mentioned this in the last quarterly report as well because we signed the contract early April. Just to give you a bit more detail, it's a contract for SEK 25 million. The size of the contract is not huge, but it is of strategic value. The solution that we are delivering here is a trailer-based live fire training system. Why is this strategically important to us then? To start with, we won this in a competitive procurement. Today we have the Swedish home market as our absolutely main customer for live fire training. Winning a competitive procurement in Finland also shows us that we have a very, very good product portfolio and price-wise we are competitive. It is also a strategic market entry, of course, to Finland.

We hope that this is just the first contract and that there is much business to follow. Through this contract, we are also developing this new product concept based on existing products, but making it a mobile trailer-based solution. The next contract or contracts I would like to highlight is a bundle of orders from the Swedish Defence Materiel Administration, also for live fire training. Within these contracts that together amount to SEK 68 million, we are basically providing the entire range of products that we have for live fire training, defense, and security. It is all to be delivered within this year, which is a fantastic challenge that we are happy to take on. Of course, very, very important for us given the business situation that we're in. We need to grow our top line, and this is the perfect opportunity to do so.

It is based on proven and reliable solutions. There is no development included in these contracts. It is off the shelf, basically, so it needs to be produced and delivered. These contracts really reinforce the position that we have here in Sweden as the supplier of live fire training to the Swedish Armed Forces. Moving on to simulation, we were also very happy to announce an order from a UK customer during this quarter. It is a loader drill trainer system for a UK vehicle, starting deliveries or development this year, and the project will be ongoing until 2028. We have talked a lot about moving into the export market to a larger extent, and I think this market entry for simulation in the UK is a very important part of that. As always with simulation, these contracts are difficult to win.

It takes a long time to win them, but once you have them and once you have delivered your products, it is also a long sort of life. The lifetime of this system is long, and there is an aftermarket to be addressed. It's a long-term commitment. It's based on a proven and reliable solution that we have delivered before. However, now we are modifying it for this specific UK vehicle. Lastly, the simulated order that we also received from KNDS Germany, this is a different kind of simulator. This is a tactical CV90 simulator, and even though the customer is German, the end user of this system will be the Swedish Armed Forces. The same delivery span between 2025 and 2028 as the UK project as well.

Strategic importance for this, the tier one relationship that we have with KNDS is very important to us, and there is more business to be won there. At the same time, through this project, we are strengthening the Swedish national defense. Just as with the UK simulated contract, it is a long-term commitment, and we see an important aftermarket for these projects. That was a little bit of a deep dive into different big projects that we have won this quarter, and we are really excited about delivering on these new contracts. Before handing over to Cecilia, I would just like to give you some information also about something that happened outside the period, very closely outside the period. On the first of July, we conducted a directed share issue and raised almost SEK 104 million for that.

It was done to a premium of SEK 1 added on to the average closing price in June. Through this share issue, we are welcoming new investors, Sallenia AB, into the W5 family. Of course, you wonder, what will we do with this cash injection? As you can understand from listening to the projects that we are now starting up, we are in need of working capital and have some flexibility with that. I would say that's the number one reason, but we are also intensifying our M&A discussions, and we need to have a cash pool to be ready for when we find the right target. M&A strategy in combination with the working capital with the big new products that we have is the rationale behind this share issue. With that, I hand over to Cecilia to take you through the numbers.

CEcilia Driving
CFO, W5 Solutions

Thank you, Evelina. Now let's turn our focus to the financials for the second quarter. Net sales have increased by 14% compared to last year, while the EBIT margin remains negative, but we expect it to improve as the top line continues to grow over the year. As you already heard, order intake has been fantastic during the quarter. It was three times higher than last year, and the order book now stands at nearly SEK 600 million, representing a growth of 170% year over year. If we're looking into how that order book is composed, we have more than half of that order book for delivery during 2025, and then one third for next year, and one sixth for 2027 and forward. Demand has remained strong this quarter, as reflected in the order intake figures Evelina presented.

The book-to-bill ratio is well above 3, which is a healthy sign for a growing company, and should typically be about 1. Moving into net sales and EBIT per quarter, here you see the seasonal variation. This year, net sales in the second quarter outperformed the first quarter, but if you look back to the second half last year, you can see that the third quarter was weak, and the fourth quarter is very, very strong. We expect to see the same pattern this year since we have the summer holiday period during the third quarter. Increased sales will in turn drive higher EBIT towards the end of the year, as you can see. Let us look into the business areas and how they have performed during the second quarter.

Integration has had sales of SEK 38 million and positive EBIT and has an order book of SEK 161 million for going forward. For Training, we have SEK 48 million in net sales and positive EBIT and an order book of SEK 132 million. For Power, we have a little bit less in sales, SEK 25 million, and a weak EBIT or even negative EBIT, but a very strong order book. Going forward, this will be much better when the sales grow. Let's move into the year-to-date figures. The net sales is SEK 106 million, and if we're looking into the different business areas, you can say that a little bit more than one third of the net sales is in Integration and Training, and a little bit less than one third in Power.

Here you also have the EBIT margin, and Integration is well above our target of 10% EBIT. Training is positive, and Power is on the year-to-date numbers negative as well. When we see the sales grow in Power, we will see that the EBIT margin will grow as well. Order intake is very nice for this year, SEK 467 million. You have 20% of that in Integration and 36% in Training and 43% in Power. Of the almost SEK 600 million in order book, half of it is in Power, and the rest of it is in Integration and Training. With that, I'll hand back to you, Evelina.

Evalina Hedskog
President and CEO, W5 Solutions

Thank you, Cecilia. Yeah, just to summarize what we have presented here, we have a very positive market outlook in the long term, both the short term and the long term, with a lot of policy decisions taken during this year that will support our market growth. As Cecilia just showed you, we have a very strong order intake, and of course that will support top line growth going forward. Within this order intake, we have now also been able to demonstrate multiple export contracts, and again, moving out on the export market to a larger extent is one of our strategic goals. I'm very happy to see that happening now. We are struggling with profitability challenges, and I guess it's part of the ramp-up happening right now, and for sure we need to address this and monitor it closely.

With the order intake that we have and the possibility to grow top line, I'm confident that we will be able to show better figures going forward. That actually means that, I mean, for the end of the year, we should be able to really benefit from the order backlog that we have now and deliver on our promises. It's a very exciting autumn that we have ahead of us. Thank you.

Hannah Falkenström
Director of Communications and IR, W5 Solutions

Thank you for your presentations. That leads us to the Q&A. Looking in the chat, I would say that we have a lot of questions to go through. Let's dive into them directly. The first question, when comparing the performance across the business areas, what are the factors driving the significant differences in results?

Evalina Hedskog
President and CEO, W5 Solutions

Yeah, I think, of course, it's partly the product mix and the ongoing projects. Of course, in Power, we see that we need to really get the top line up in order to cover the cost side, that's for sure. Just looking at a quarter separately is difficult in this very intense growth phase that we're in now. It will differ a little bit between the business areas over time. I think in the longer perspective, they will have more or less the same both size and possibility to be profitable.

Hannah Falkenström
Director of Communications and IR, W5 Solutions

Thank you for that answer. Next question, looking at your M&A agenda, what is the status and has anything new happened recently?

Evalina Hedskog
President and CEO, W5 Solutions

We are working intensely with M&A, as I referred to in the beginning of my presentation. To reach the financial targets that we have set for ourselves, we need to acquire companies. The work was really ramping up, I think, before the summer, and we are now excited to continue that work here after vacations. It is ongoing, and we hope to see some successes eventually.

Hannah Falkenström
Director of Communications and IR, W5 Solutions

Sounds exciting.

Evalina Hedskog
President and CEO, W5 Solutions

It is, yeah.

Hannah Falkenström
Director of Communications and IR, W5 Solutions

Next question in the chat, it's about the book-to-bill. It says, given where our book-to-bill ratio is right now, are you thinking about raising your targets? Not really for the book-to-bill, but we already have the financial target of a turnover of SEK 1 billion for 2027. We need to grow, and we expect to have around 20% growth in organic and also with some acquisitions as well. We should, over time, have a book-to-bill around 1.2. Now it was 3. We can't expect to see that every quarter, but still, it's healthy for us because we are growing, and you can see that in the stronger demand. Thank you, Cecilia. Moving on, we have several questions to go through. Order intake has really picked up this quarter. What is the rationale behind this?

Is it a result of orders clustering in Q2, or do you see a broader increase in demand, and what are your expectations for future order intake? It's three questions in one.

Evalina Hedskog
President and CEO, W5 Solutions

I can start by referring to the larger contracts that we discussed here. If we talk about the simulator contracts, these are contracts that we've been chasing for, years in plural. The fact that they're both happening in the same quarter is more or less by chance. It shows that you really need to have that endurance to win contracts sometimes. At the same time, the live fire training contract for the Swedish Armed Forces, which is a very big contract for us, but it's delivered this year. That was something that only surfaced on the agenda, I would say, end of first quarter, and that we worked really hard to close before summer. Yes, it's going to be delivered this year. Two very different types of contracts, different delivery timelines, but it shows that it won't be one or the other.

There will always be a mix of different types of business that you need to chase. On top of that, of course, all the small and medium-sized contracts that we also need to win in order to continue to grow our backlog.

Hannah Falkenström
Director of Communications and IR, W5 Solutions

Yeah, I think that sums it up very well. Moving on, looking ahead, do you expect future order intake to be driven primarily by larger orders or by a higher volume of smaller ones? It's pretty much like you said.

Evalina Hedskog
President and CEO, W5 Solutions

It will be a mix.

Hannah Falkenström
Director of Communications and IR, W5 Solutions

Yes.

Evalina Hedskog
President and CEO, W5 Solutions

The mix can vary a bit over time, but in general, we need both.

Hannah Falkenström
Director of Communications and IR, W5 Solutions

Are there any specific segments where you're seeing a particularly strong interest right now? I understand that this may shift quickly.

Evalina Hedskog
President and CEO, W5 Solutions

Yeah, we didn't announce any large orders for business area Integration this quarter. It doesn't mean that there won't be new to come. I think overall, we see a demand for the entire product portfolio that we have. If I look in the pipeline with yet-to-be-won cases, it is a healthy mix between the three business areas and with them the seven product areas. There is overall a huge demand now in defense. Yeah.

Hannah Falkenström
Director of Communications and IR, W5 Solutions

Thank you. How should we think about OpEx development going forward?

Evalina Hedskog
President and CEO, W5 Solutions

That's a question for you.

Hannah Falkenström
Director of Communications and IR, W5 Solutions

Yeah, I don't think that OpEx will increase that much, a little bit because we are growing a little, but not on the OpEx side really, more for the COGS.

Evalina Hedskog
President and CEO, W5 Solutions

For the COGS.

Hannah Falkenström
Director of Communications and IR, W5 Solutions

That is connected to the net sales. Do you plan or need to invest in production capacity to sustain 21% annual growth?

Evalina Hedskog
President and CEO, W5 Solutions

Depends on which year.

Hannah Falkenström
Director of Communications and IR, W5 Solutions

I think.

Evalina Hedskog
President and CEO, W5 Solutions

Yeah, I mean, if we play with the idea that we would have 20% growth this year and 20% next year, I think that we have definitely facilities well prepared for 20% growth next year as well. From a personnel perspective, of course, we probably need to recruit some more people, but in general, I would say that we are in a very good position to take on future growth. I guess eventually we would have to invest, but for this and next year, I see that we have everything we need really.

Hannah Falkenström
Director of Communications and IR, W5 Solutions

Yes. We have time to go through a couple more questions. Will profitability for Power be in line with the group average over time? How do you expect cash flow to develop over the second year? H2?

Evalina Hedskog
President and CEO, W5 Solutions

Cecilia.

Hannah Falkenström
Director of Communications and IR, W5 Solutions

The first question was, sorry, will profitability for Power be in line with the group average over time? That was the first question.

Evalina Hedskog
President and CEO, W5 Solutions

Yeah, we expect that Power will be in the same range as the other business areas, and all will be somewhere where we have the target for 2027, which is 10%.

Hannah Falkenström
Director of Communications and IR, W5 Solutions

How do you expect cash flow to develop over the second half?

Evalina Hedskog
President and CEO, W5 Solutions

We expect to deliver more in the second half like we used to do, and we also will have a better, more positive cash flow during the second half.

Hannah Falkenström
Director of Communications and IR, W5 Solutions

Thank you very much. I see that the time is running out here. A lot of questions, so please feel free to email Evelina or Cecilia after the presentation, and we can answer. To close today's Q&A, Evelina, you mentioned several favorable conditions, but if you had to pick just one focus of the year, what would it be?

Evalina Hedskog
President and CEO, W5 Solutions

It will be top line, to grow top line, because that will help us with the profitability issue. With the backlog that we have now, we know that there is business to be delivered within the next months here running up to Christmas. That's top line focus, definitely.

Hannah Falkenström
Director of Communications and IR, W5 Solutions

Thank you for your perspective.

Evalina Hedskog
President and CEO, W5 Solutions

Thank you.

Hannah Falkenström
Director of Communications and IR, W5 Solutions

That brings us to the end of the presentation, and thank you for listening in. We appreciate your interest and engagement in us. Before we let you go, I'd just like to remind you that our next financial report will be out November 5, so we look forward to welcoming you back. Take care and have a great day.

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