Hello to everyone. Thanks for joining today's investor conference. Please interrupt me at any point in time to ask your questions, either within or obviously after the presentation. Let's see how we delivered in 2022 Q4, but also the whole 2022 on a year-on-year basis. We'll go through an overview, continue with the results, financial results of Q4 and the whole 2022. A touch on the 2023 outlook. Let's see how we later on delivered on the revised forecast to the market, and then we summarize everything. 2022 has obviously been maybe the most challenging year in ASBISc's history. It's not the first time we had issues, but this time around we had a war, maybe a continuation of what we have experienced with Crimea in 2014, but that was to a greater scale.
Most important part is that we managed to come out from this situation, though the war still continues, and being able to achieve unprecedented results given the turbulence around us and the war in Ukraine affecting not only nearby markets, but affecting the globe. We keep continuing our growth. We continue investing in the robotics division. We have been diversified into investments in biotechnology companies, including the recent Promed Bioscience and RSL Investments. We continue strengthening our market position in countries we are franchised, but also extending franchise in new geographies. We continue with the APR stores of our pool, 27 as we speak, with further growth expected in 2023.
When it comes to dividends, given the very healthy profitability of the company, we have been paying significant dividends out to our investors for the last seven years in a row, and this is expected to continue in the course of 2023. We continue paying attention and put emphasis into us being a socially recognizable entity, donating significant money for humanitarian assistance for Ukrainians. Also we pay significant attention to being and continue being a climate-aware entity. 2022 characteristics, 28 subsidiaries, four distribution centers. We reached a revenue of $2.7 billion as compared to almost $3.1 billion the year before. We continue, as I said, growing both geographically and product-wise in different markets to remedy some reduction in sales, in countries like Russia, of course, Belarus, and obviously some in Ukraine. We will talk about it later on how do we try to remedy this reduction.
As we said, we continue growing on the own brands, Canyon, Lorgar, AENO, Perenio. At the same time, we are investing into robotics division and minor, for us, investments in companies like Promed Bioscience, EMBIO Diagnostics, RSL. Share price. Share price of the company is picking up, though we had this reduction in the market cap given the war, right after the war in Ukraine. Still the market appreciating us being able to not just survive through, but come out stronger of such crisis. As I said earlier, maybe the most important of which has been the war in Ukraine. Already started to appreciate that, and we see that the share price started to come up again. Maybe not to the extent we believe the company's worth. That's a personal opinion I'm expressing here.
Still, it's only a matter of time that we get full appreciation of the delivery of the results and the robustness in the entities' business segments and growth expected to come, both product-wise and geographies, new geographies. Let's touch upon a bit Q4 results, and later on we move to the full- year results. Some highlights for Q4. We had a reduction of 18% in Q4 in sales, but gross profit, due to a significant increase in the gross profit margin, reaching 9.06% for Q4. We ended up more or less with the same gross profit as a number for Q4 on a year-on-year basis, reaching a net profitability of $28.7 million, exactly the same amount or very similar amount in Q4 2021.
When it comes to main product lines, in Q4, we have seen our number one product line being smartphones reducing on a year-on-year basis by 7% to $270 million. Obviously affected by the war in Ukraine. We are franchised in Ukraine, with Uphold. The most significant reduction has been with the laptops, PC business, and components business. Most important reduction out of the components business has been on the CPU side, noting a 42% year-on-year decrease. At the same time, a lot of efforts together with our suppliers to extend, to grow business in different geographies to remedy for this loss of business in Q4.
By regions now in Q4, a 31% reduction in the FSU. A very significant reduction to very small figures for Russia and Belarus. We are fully abiding to all the U.S. and European sanctions. That's why the significant reduction in the FSU, though countries like Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Caucasian countries like, Georgia, Azerbaijan and Armenia noting significant increases. This is part of the effort of the company to remedy and make up some of the lost revenues, in the affected by the war countries. We paid more emphasis on the Central Eastern European region, noting for Q4 a 3% increase on a year-on-year. Mostly MEA, Middle East and Africa region, noting a 28% year-on-year.
As we see later on, that the company tries also to move in Western Europe with certain product lines, not with full infrastructures, fully fledged offices, but to enable increased sales in Western Europe. Income statement for Q4 year-on-year comparison. 18% reduction on the top line. Significant increase in the gross profit margins exceeding 9% for Q4. Profit from operations, EBIT only a 7% reduction year-on-year, reaching $38 million. Managing well on the expenses given the growth in gross profits. Not growth year on year, but significant gross profit figures, but also, most importantly, the investments into new business directions. Finally reaching a very healthy, we consider, net profitability of $28.7 million for Q4, resembling the figure of Q4 2021, with the net margin improving on a year-on-year basis from 3% to almost 3.7% for Q4 2022.
Some graphs on the gross profit margin reflecting the efforts of the company to concentrate not just on revenue, but most importantly, on product lines that leave us with a more healthy gross profit margin. The fact that the low-margin tender business for Russia is gone 100% is by itself improving the gross profit margin, the overall gross profit margin for the group. Also the efforts into VAD business, some own brand business and other more healthy on the profitability side business is obviously giving us this success, a success that has started a number of years back with all these announcements we kept making on improving the product mix and moving to new geographies.
We actually see on the bottom side of the right bottom. We see the graph of the gross profit margin showing a continuation in the increase in the gross profit margins.
When it comes to the overall 2022 preliminary results, a 13% reduction in sales is noted, but with a gross profit increasing by 4% due to a healthier gross profit margin reaching almost 8.5% for the whole year, leaving us with a net profitability of almost $76 million as compared to $77 million in the year before. Given all this mess in Ukraine affecting, as I said, global demand, I think this is, and the board believes that this is outstanding results given the circumstances. Full income statement here for the whole year. We talked about the reduction in the top line.
EBIT and EBIT margins, especially the EBIT margin, shows a significant increase from 3.7% last year to 4.1% this year, leaving us with a much improved net margin of 2.8% as compared to 2.5% in 2021. These are times I wanted to add that we see significant increases in the base rates, in the borrowings of the company, given increase in both EURIBOR and US LIBOR, but also a higher increase in local base rates, especially in countries like Ukraine, Kazakhstan, but some other countries in Europe as well, in Hungary, in Czech Republic, significant base rate increases. Still, we manage that.
We experience some increase in financial expenses, but at the same time, we manage through early payment discounts due to good cash flows to enable more or less the same net interest expense, net financing costs. Therefore, not of a heavy impact, negative impact on that trend on our financial statements, at least for 2022. We will see later on that the weighted average cost of debt has increased from 6% in 2021 to 10.5% in 2022. Top ten countries then. Kazakhstan, by far, is taking the lead in this top ten league in terms of sales. Ukraine is still strong, obviously lost revenues on a year-on-year basis. We still try to get stronger and stronger, as you see for the Dubai subsidiary, the Middle East subsidiary.
Slovenia is also very strong, and we see some smaller countries of Central Asia coming into the top ten league. As an effort of the company, I said earlier, to remedy some of the lost sales in the affected-by-the-war countries. Yes, we improved considerably given the circumstances, some profitability and net margins and EBIT margins and gross margins. In Q4, we had some exceptional deals for the benefit not only of Q4 2024 profitability, but also for 2023. At the expense of the cash flow, we needed to make significant payments to suppliers, mostly to Apple, to obtain certain products that will give us very healthy profitability, especially this year, Q1 and Q2, mostly. Therefore, we ended up having a negative cash from operating activities.
That was an intentional call of the board of the company to go more for that product and weigh a bit more the profitability rather than the cash flow. This is something that is expected to show the opposite trend in 2023 by disposing of this product with very healthy margins and thereby improving its cash flow, especially for the first half of this year. When it comes to debt, though the negative impact on the operating activities on the cash flow side, if I were to count the factoring advances, still year-end, we are sitting with almost $70 million debt, which we consider very healthy given the equity of the company and the business it runs. We could have done better, but we consider this as a very acceptable debt level for the company.
If one also takes into consideration that out of the $69 million, $62 million relates to factoring advances. When it comes to the outlook for 2023, we expect significant growth in the Apple business. Though Apple reports lower revenues globally, they have big prospects for the emerging markets we are franchised with Apple. Therefore, we expect growth and significant growth in 2023. We continue investing in VAD business. We are searching, and we are in the process of developing, as I said earlier, Western Europe. Central Asia, we have allocated resources, some of which we have actually transferred people to countries like Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, to enable increased business. Not just Apple business, by the way, but other business like the VAD business, like the own brand business and some other businesses to enable increased sales.
At the same time, as announced, we are moving on to South Africa through our South African establishment, but also we are moving into other countries of Africa. Nigeria is one important one, Tanzania, et cetera. We continue investing and growing our own brand, business and the robotics business, the prospect of which is very important and is aimed by analysts to grow significantly in the course of the next two to three years. Therefore, we want to be part of this growth. A map showing the geographies I mentioned earlier and the effort of the company to grow in these markets. We talked about Western Europe, not necessarily with fully-fledged subsidiaries with infrastructure like we do with the rest of the markets, but sales to these countries through local sales reps.
We are setting up a distribution center in South Africa to sell not just the South Africa country, but nearby markets. Also, we are moving on to countries very big in population, countries like Nigeria, say, to, as I said, remedy some of the lost revenues in the affected-by-the-war markets. When it comes to the revised forecast we have given to the market, it seems we are somewhere in the middle of the range on the top line. We are reaching $2.7 billion with a forecast of $2.6 billion-$2.8 billion.
Most importantly for us, though, the forecast on net profitability given to the market of $70 million-$74 million, we have reached an almost $76 million, very close to the $77 million we delivered in 2021. Which, as I said earlier, given the turbulent environment around us affecting not just the countries involved in the war, but nearby and not only globally, all markets that affect significantly demand, significantly reducing the disposable income of consumers, et cetera. We consider this figure to be an excellent, as I said earlier, figure for 2022. Interest rates also going up, the impact of that taken out. I think this, and the board believes that these are outstanding results. Let's summarize. Strong results. Given the situation, I think excellent results as compared to 2021. We managed, as we kept saying to you guys, we managed to continue growing the gross profit margin.
Being a very healthy in terms of profitability company, we continue paying significant dividends for the last seven years to our investors. The same is expected to continue in 2023. We continue investing in developing new business segments like the robotics. We keep signing contracts, new contracts for existing markets or extending our franchise to new markets. We put infrastructure into further growing, other markets like the one in Georgia. We continue being a socially recognizable company, putting emphasis on climate and recognized as a climate-aware entity. We see a positive outlook for 2023, both with the important suppliers like Apple, but growing into the new markets we described earlier. We want to grow the second-life products, Apple, Samsung, and not only under the Breezy business unit.
We believe that the prospect overall for 2023 is very positive, though the war is continuing. We believe we have a good prospect to deliver excellent results also in 2023. At a certain point, we'll come out to the market with a forecast, sometime early spring, maybe prior releasing Q1 2023 results. As we speak, the numbers look good. The company is healthy. No significant issues noted. Therefore, all the ingredients of us delivering a healthy 2023 is there. Any questions?
Maybe if I could ask about
Please
The business in FSU, especially Russia and Ukraine. How is your current feeling, I would say, about those markets? Do you expect possibly the revenues in Russia falling closely to zero in next quarters, or they remain stable as in the previous year? As the general feeling of those markets from the current perspective.
The post-sale service of all suppliers, including Apple, must continue in Russia. You see, we have gained out of that because Apple didn't want the local disties to continue doing the post-sale service. They gave it to us. They don't allow sales, and we don't dare sell a single unit. First of all, we are not franchised with Apple in Russia. To the extent we need to support Apple in delivering their promises to the market and fix the product they sold earlier, you know, we are there present. Yeah, same with some own brand that we are left with that is intended to go to the Russian market. You cannot be selling like an Apple, say, like an iPhone, say, so easily. Instead of losing significant amounts of money, we said we clear the stock gradually into these markets.
Other than this, we don't see and we don't budget any significant numbers for Russia in 2023. Same with Belarus. Restricted markets, restricted products. A lot of competitors or some competitors have lost franchise not only for those markets, but because they dared, they lost franchise for all the markets and all this business is an opportunity coming to ASBISc. Yes. We don't expect anything significant, answering your question, for Russia or Belarus in 2023.
It means both sides are significant. That means that
Will come and
Continue going down.
Continue
Continue going down.
Down, down.
Because if not anything else, 2022, we had two strong months, January and February, yes. We don't have it in 2023. Yeah, one. Second, most of the stocks we had, especially the own brand that we could sell, you know, continued to flush out 2022. We have less in 2023. Yes. That will continue decreasing for those markets in 2023.
What about Ukraine?
Ukraine, you saw the numbers, and you saw a year-on-year comparison. We still run significant business in Ukraine, but it's up and down depending on the situation with the war. We have business, and people have to work. The economy has to steam up. They cannot just stop it like that. Also we had different stance coming from suppliers like Apple. At a certain point, they said, "We stop business," because they are the first importers of record in Ukraine. Later on, they decided to continue. We are, you know, relying on that to a big extent. We believe, and we have budgeted for Ukraine to grow in 2023 over 2022.
Thanks. As you already have a budget, what are your prediction for 2023 as a whole company?
As I said, we need to be patient a little bit more. Early spring, maybe May, or maybe earlier, we come out with a forecast. I just can tell you that we expect growth. Not that it really matters to us if we are focusing on improving profitability margins, net profitability, and cash flow. But it has to do with us trying to remedy lost sales in the affected markets by different markets. Preliminary, we expect growth and maybe significant growth in 2023 over 2022 given today's situation in the markets.
Okay. You mean the sales level, but, I may assume that the high level of gross profit margin won't be sustainable in the medium period, I think. I could bet that 2023 will be also much more difficult to maintain such a level of gross profit margin. Do you see that it is sustainable?
We believe that an 8%+ gross profit margin is sustainable, but that remains to be seen after we assess the budgets we have already put in place, and we consolidated to see whether we can sustain this 8%+. I think it is sustainable.
What markets do you see as main engines for the growth in 2023?
Kazakhstan.
Kazakhstan.
Markets like Uzbekistan, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan are growing quickly. We will see more sales in Western Europe. If this machine of Africa steams up, we will see much increased sales in this MEA region as well.
Okay. What are your assumptions for Africa? Do you see that the sales in 2023 will be significant in the whole company level, or do you think that it is still a little early for Africa to-
I think we will see a significant.
Contribute to the company sales.
In the new markets, of course, it will be significant because Nigeria, Tanzania, all these countries are zero-based. Therefore, we will see obviously significant growth. Whether that will affect significantly year-on-year MEA regional growth remains to be seen. We will see it starting from and including 2023. Because the South Africa establishment is there, the North Africa establishment is there with Cyprus, Egypt, Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia. The Middle East infrastructure serving a number of countries of Africa today will grow bigger. The infrastructure is really there to us. It is not something we need another year to prepare. Not the case. Obviously, you have other issues. You have other risks issues, credit risk issues, foreign exchange issues, et cetera.
Therefore, we will be on the safe side, not just go grow sales and grow significant money in, credit terms or FX terms. We will be careful, but we expect growth in 2023 and maybe significant growth. Yes.
Okay. You will probably sell in US dollars or business euros, or you will sell in local currencies and then hedge it?
Mostly USD.
Okay.
Like we are selling today in USD. Again, it's an issue of the local people trying to find this USD. We have today cases, we have customers today, we just want to grow this business carefully.
What prospects do you see for smartphones? I understand also that Apple sold you, generally smartphones, as you made these bigger purchases at the end of the year.
The end of the year was not iPhone. Was laptops, Macs. We are growing with Apple, and one of the reasons why we are growing with Apple and we are improving the overall margin is that we are boosting sales of other products other than iPhone products, usually selling with a higher gross profit margin. That's the effort of Apple as well, to grow all lines, not just grow the iPhone. Yes. We see prospect in 2023 with all the products of Apple, and we expect significant growth with Apple on a year-on-year basis. We have done about $1.4 billion last year. We expect a significant number. Expect that $1.4 billion to significantly grow in 2023. I repeat, not only with the iPhone.
At the same time, talking iPhone, we have the Breezy business, the second life product, not only for the Apple, but we are distributors of, and it's easier to grow the Breezy business. But also with other suppliers like Samsung, for example. We see a lot of tendency of people to buy cheaper the Apple at $200-$350 level instead of buying new one, and we expect significant growth of the Breezy business unit to enable that through the ASBISc channel on the sales. That's another element of growth in 2023.
You have a lot of own label products.
Yes.
You didn't mention anything in financial statement about the importance of this.
The importance of this is that you don't solely rely on third-party because the rest of the product lines are growing much faster, especially Apple. It's hitting the market, you know. It's grabbing market share, et cetera. You are left in a window that allows you to make a double-digit margin, 11%, 12%, so that's important for us. Yes, but we will not go fight for market share and start selling with a gross profit margin we enjoy with third-party brands that we are covered, stock-wise by suppliers. You're only doing that because the gross profit margin is better. You're earning more money. Otherwise, it doesn't make any sense. We expect to further grow the own brands. Will it be 15%, 20%? We will see after we are prepared to announce the forecast. Yes.
If you could.
Please
Distinguish between the inflation effect and the volumes effect on the markets in previous months. Do you see some trends like?
January, February, you say?
Yes.
This year?
Yes, yes.
We see positive trends. Business as usual. The war in Ukraine unfortunately continues. It's been already a year. We are doing significant business, though less in Ukraine, but business continues with mostly Kyiv and the west area. As I said earlier, we don't see any negative trends that could significantly affect our 2023 results. As we speak now, nothing significant is happening in the markets, in geographies, in product line terms, in franchise from suppliers. It's actually the opposite. We see extending franchise, either new brands in existing markets or a new franchisee with Apple to move quickly into new markets because they also need additional sales. That's why they are helping us grow together in Uzbekistan, in Azerbaijan, in Georgia, Armenia, et cetera.
Company is assuming significant expansion. The inventories are elevated now, I assume.
Year end, not now. Now it's getting better, much better.
So-
That's what I said. The opposite of what has happened in Q4 is expected to happen, I said, in the first six months of this year. Improving the cash flow because all this money we invested into stocks, into inventories end of the year, is expected to give us the cash and the profitability in this year. This is a positive trend for 2023.
You're not afraid that the gross margins which should be upside from 2022 is elevated just because of this FIFO effect, and if the prices would slow down, we would see negative effect.
We didn't have a lot of sales of this Q4 business with Apple towards the end of the year, not just Q4, November, December. It didn't go into the margin of 2022. It's expected to go into 2023 profitability. It just consumed the cash flow of Q4, profit of which will mostly come in 2023. That's a positive trend for 2023 rather than a negative one in terms of profitability and cash flow.
Mm-hmm. Okay. Also to distinguish between the exact products, which product showed slowest pace of growth in terms of prices?
For last year?
As for now.
Okay. For last year, we showed in the analysis that the CPUs had the biggest hit, 42% reduction year-on-year, mostly Intel rather than AMD. For this year, we don't expect growth. On the PC segment and component segment, we expect a reduction. Now, will it be further reduction from last year remains to be seen after we put the numbers together. But at the same time, we see significant growth coming from other brands, talking brands, especially Apple, and not only the iPhone, the overall Apple portfolio for 2023 over 2022. Same time, escaping a little bit from the product lines, geographies will give us additional sales that we described earlier, Western Europe, more Central Asia, Caucasus, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, obviously.
Because in Kazakhstan, you see instead of laying off a lot of people from Russia, Belarus, and some Ukraine, we physically transfer to these markets to grow not just the Apple brand, but also other brands.
Okay. For inventories, do you use FIFO method for accounting or the average price?
It depends on the product. We treat differently the protected by supplier product versus limitation of protection. Yeah, some is average, some is FIFO. Yes.
Okay. Regarding this elevated level of inventories at the end of 2022, it is more for B2B contracts, or it is because you predict some shortages of supply? What are the reasons?
We had a lot of shortage of supply in Q4, but then everything comes in end of November, beginning of December, and we made an intentional decision there to buy the product. It was also very good prices on the product, maybe because certain suppliers had issues selling into other Western European or America markets, and we bought the product to cover that supply constraint we saw throughout Q4, beginning of Q4. This is a very good prospect for 2023, what I'm trying to say.
Okay.
Yeah.
What product lines are these inventories made of mainly?
Mainly Apple. I mean, a significant part of the business, number one supplier by far is Apple. Therefore, some of these products, some of this big deal that happened towards the end of Q4 is Apple.
Out of this, $190 billion of inventory is more year-on-year, what part is Apple products? About
More than-
A third or?
More than 65%.
Okay.
The big deal was with Apple, end of the day. It's not iPhone.
Okay.
I have a question.
Please.
on your expansion plans
Yes.
In Western Europe.
Yes.
If you could help us understand how do you intend to expand specifically?
Yes.
Do you have any logistics set up already? Aren't you worried about, let's say, competitive landscape?
There are ways to the market. First of all, there is a consolidation happening by suppliers. Big suppliers, Intel, AMD, Logitech, and a lot of others decided to shrink the customer portfolio. We are winners of that. Therefore, they say we want you to do more sales in Western Europe because from, I don't know, 50 customers, I'm staying with 15. They're cutting costs. They're cutting staff. Not all of them, but most of them are. This benefits, it's a big opportunity for us. Therefore, they expect us to sell components, to sell consumer products, to do the VAD business in Western Europe. That's an opportunity. This is supply-driven opportunity. We have the biggest distribution center is in Prague. You have one-day delivery. It's not anything. The competitive landscape is there on one side.
On the other, we are well prepared for that. You know, 24 hours, you can deliver anywhere close to Prague. We have been doing this business. That's why the Western Europe region in our sales split. We're gonna grow that. We have already customers in the Netherlands, in Austria, in Germany, where we don't have subsidiaries. We are selling by moving product through Prague today. The infrastructure is there really to help the markets. Yes. These opportunities are driving us to grow, and as I said earlier, take some of the lost sales in the affected markets and, you know, put some additional sales into Western Europe. We are franchised with a lot of products in Western Europe. More and more, these suppliers are appointing us as a pan-European entity to enable this strategic step of them shrinking their customer portfolio.
You do not need any more significant capital expenditures.
No.
Prague is enough.
No, because we don't go full-fledged subsidiaries in this Western Europe. I said earlier, we put sales reps in Spain, in Portugal, in Netherlands. Yeah. Nothing significant on the CapEx in this Western European expansion. Any more questions?
Perhaps about dividends. Does this elevated level of inventories in any respect impacts your dividend decision this year?
We don't expect. We may see more. I said earlier that the inventory year-end, we take a photo 31st December. This inventory starts to liquidate now, and this is improving the cash flow. By the time we have an AGM sometime in May, actual payout to happen usually early June. I don't expect any significant impact.
Okay.
We, as we speak, intend to continue this seven-year payout of a dividend to continue in 2023.
Okay. Because some historical pattern for cash flow was that it was really hard for the second quarter, then there was some-
Yes
decrease in the third, and the biggest
Yes
Part was in the fourth quarter.
Save for the big deal that happened for last year. Yes. It was exactly the same trend in 2022, really.
In this year. Why not going to France?
We are going to France. We have customers in France, and we wanna grow this customer base in France.
Still not enough. That's right.
Yes. We gotta keep selling. We are selling not only in France, we are selling some other countries that are not noted there. Even in Switzerland, we are selling. Very specific. We don't want to go and fight with the other big guys of $8 billion, $10 billion, $15 billion business there unless we see that we can make money. Yes. We have customers in France today. We have customers in 70+ countries today, and we don't name certain countries there.
You are investing also in such other products like cosmetics, medical diagnostics.
Minor investments. We being a minority investor.
Is this like copy or you see?
No, it's not copying.
Okay.
First of all, we have synergies. We have distribution hub. They don't.
But-
We have, I don't know, 10%, 15%, up to 20% MBO 20% stake. We wanted to deviate from the core business on one side. On the other side, we want. It's a socially you call it investments in pharma, you know, exploring therapies for cancer, for example. We don't want to become a medical company or a biotechnology company, but minor investments here and there with strong cash flows for very small amounts. You see overall the amounts invested is not anything significant.
Do you see prospects that it will be your second hand or something like this?
No, we don't expect that this will, you know, reach anything close to $1.4 billion we ran with Apple last year. No. No. No.
Do you expect maybe increasing your share in these companies or?
We don't have it. We don't have it in the plans for 2023 at least.
Okay.
We don't want to run the show in this company. They are the experts.
Okay.
We put a minority stake, a minority investment of up to 20% in these companies. Yes.
For a lot of this growth in Kazakhstan, does the consumers decide to buy more and more, or you win additional deals? What's the structure of this growth?
I'm not sure I understand the question. Are you asking me where the growth you expect coming Kazakhstan is coming from? Is that the question?
Yes.
Okay. Kazakhstan is now our number one Apple market. We never had Russia, by the way. It's Ukraine that is affected by the war. The big emphasis of Apple is to grow business in Kazakhstan. Similar to other Central Asian markets, that we are the sole franchisee of Apple, like Uzbekistan, like Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, I mentioned earlier. Kazakhstan also experiencing movement of population from Russia, Belarus, even Ukraine to some extent. They are going to Kazakhstan. In cycles we experience, we see a lot of them emigrating to these countries. There is a lot of demand. Now, will that be a permanent one or not? I don't know. For the time being, we see that.
Plus, I said it earlier, because we elected to transfer people, physically transfer people to Kazakhstan, we are further exploring business segments outside the Apple. We are growing the VAD business because we had the expertise in Russia, but the business of Russia now is zero. Therefore, instead of losing this business, we transfer the brains that have been running this business to Kazakhstan. Therefore, we have a lot of prospects to grow business in Kazakhstan. We haven't still explored the whole country. I mean, we are exploring main cities, both with the APR stores, but mostly with distribution and services and Breezy, the second life products, that is expected to grow significantly, the analysts say, the next one to two years. Because it's cheaper, it's more affordable, and Apple is driving affordability in these markets.
For all these purposes, we expect Kazakhstan to remain very strong, maybe number one again in 2023. The new tenants.
Can you explain what is the definition of your shops, APP, APR, and mono brands? What are the differences?
Mono brands is mostly AENO. For example, we bought a very recent one in Hungary. It's driving only AENO business. You go in, you only see AENO. It's a mono brand. We are in the process of acquiring certain mono brand stores. Now, Apple, when it comes to Apple, APP and APR have certain metrics, square meters, product portfolio, look of the store, et cetera, that they rank as APP, APR.
Like premium.
Premium. Yeah. Yeah. Overall, we have 27 today, and we are growing the numbers. More, three at least, is expected in 2023. This business has become very significant for us, this store business. We are running the stores. We are franchised brand the stores by Apple. Yes. They do mostly retail, but they do e-tail as well, e-commerce. They do services. In countries where we don't have an ASBISc subsidiary, for example, Uzbekistan, they are doing wholesale distribution as well because we are franchised. In our markets, though Apple is not reporting growth year-on-year, they have a very significant growth year-on-year. We see that because it's our sales. It's Apple sales. Jacob, I didn't hear any comment on the results.
I will ask some questions, but I prefer one on one. I was wondering what are your expectations about the sales of robotics division in 2023? When do you expect, like, first-
Understand. I cannot name a number.
Mm-hmm.
A number could be $50 million, could be $100 million. I cannot know because we are in the process of still hiring and developing product to sell. Some of the products is ready to sell in the sense that we buy a ready product either from America or from China, but we don't have a figure yet. We are not ready. We're gonna be ready when we announce the forecast, both sales figures and net profit figures. We should be able to say more. One thing is for sure on this business is that this business in the next three to five years is about to reach, if not exceed, the PC business. We are talking about hundreds of billions of business. That's why the prospect is there. We need to be there. Now is the investment time.
Toward the second half of last year, toward the first half of this year, it's mostly an investment time. Low sales of this product will start even from the first half of this year. How important? As I said, let's wait until we announce the forecast.
For which markets you are directing these robotics products?
For Central and Eastern Europe, as a start, as a sample if you want. Later on, in more and more markets where we have presence. Yes. We don't have any restriction to markets. We just try to test a couple of markets, and then we expand business. Any more questions or we go for a break? Thank you very much for your presence and your questions.