Okay. Hello everyone, and thank you for coming here at our presentation of quarter two and half one results of ASBIS Group. It is a pleasure to be here with you again. It's been six months now I hadn't come to Warsaw to see you. But now here I am to present to you how the company performed and yeah, undertake any questions you guys might have as regards to the result and the results and not only. We start, I think we are also being recorded and online, I have to be more careful of what do I say.
In any case, feel free to stop me at any point in time you feel that you want some questions or some explanations. We start with how the key business events of quarter two, sorry. We saw some very good increases of year-on-year growth in revenues per month, as we expected it actually, because of the low base of last year, but not only. We saw some interesting growth rates reaching and exceeding 30% in terms of revenue. We managed like we promised the market to have more transparency and more assistance on the board. We strengthened our board with two extra members, one executive, one non-executive board members.
The non-executive comes from a very high position of ours, Mr. Constantinos Petrides, who joined us recently, used to be the Finance Minister of the Republic of Cyprus in the previous government. He actually also served as Interior Minister as well. Constantinos is a very well-known educated person in Cyprus, and he was very much thrilled to join our board, having seen the exposure of the company, and we are sure that he's going to bring significant value in terms of transparency and communication with the authorities to the company. Through the quarter two, we also managed to fulfill our plan in terms of registering new subsidiaries.
New subsidiaries that will help us penetrate these markets in the business to business level. Because in Armenia, in Georgia, Azerbaijan, where we had subsidiaries mostly was dedicated to manage our retail stores, our Apple stores, iSpace. Now this the purpose of this new subsidiaries is to cover also the B2B sector. The subsidiary we now have in South Africa, which was a purchase of the 81% of the remaining shares of ASBIS Africa from our partners there, completed the puzzle of our expansion of the operation. We are very happy with this development.
Now in South Africa currently, we are also opening a brand-new warehouse since the business expectation there is quite significant and we believe that the new warehouse we are undertaking will be enough to carry us for another three, four years ahead. We paid our final dividend, a record-breaking dividend in quarter two. Actually, it was recorded in quarter two, but it was paid sixth of July in quarter three. It was recognized by ASBIS as a great employer in Cyprus, but not only.
If I was to move fast into the financial results, the revenues of quarter three with a 31% increase year-on-year, and a growth in gross profit by 12% reaching $54.2 million, ending up and allowing the group to deliver a net income of $11.2 million, which is in line with what we expected, and it is actually in line with what some of you expected also. It is, according to the forecast we have, in line with the realization of this forecast as well.
With our gross profit margin stabilizing above 8%, despite being decreased from the 9.3%, which was in a quarter last year, which we considered and we knew that it wasn't sustainable at these levels. Moving overleaf, to see how the overall results were. We see a profit from operating activities of $21.3 million. Very important to mention that. Again, it was expected that the financing would be so much increased, and it is. Interest rate increases have caused this significant financial expense increase. Despite that though, we were able to deliver the results we wanted. We were able to hit the targets we wanted, and this leave us very happy and satisfied.
The gross profit as a number and the gross profit gross margin, again, we are quite satisfied with what the result were. The gross profit it is a function obviously of how well we perform our revenues. We are in a position to see that we are gaining revenues from the market. From a market that is deteriorating, and from a market that especially on specific product categories, is declining. ASBIS manages to increase its revenue and increase its strength and market position. This is also proven overleaf next page, where we present our product categories. We are happy to see that we had growth in the majority of our product categories.
I repeat, in a market where it is declining, an IT market which is shrinking, ASBIS finds ways to increase its revenue, finds ways to penetrate into new markets and develop itself. Obviously, the strongest growth come from smartphones, from Apple smartphones, but very impressive revenues from CPU processors and laptops, proving the case that ASBIS is gaining market share from these categories, given the fact that the majority of the market players are declining. When we move on to regions, we had the growth almost in every region we operate. Still, FSU market with Kazakhstan and Ukraine being the two biggest markets of ours conquers the spot number one.
We saw some good increases in Central Eastern European countries. Also very significant growth coming from Western Europe with the help of specific projects fulfillments in Germany. The group is quite satisfied given that we decided to put more efforts, to put more resources in Western Europe, and this is now paying off. Middle East and Africa is performing the way we want it, but we have higher expectations from the region, and we believe going forward, their contribution, as soon as the machine in Africa will steam up, we will have much better results there as well.
Taking a look at the H1 results, we see a growth in revenue by 15%, taking into consideration that our base from 2022, we had the two very good months at the beginning of January and February of 2022, prior to the war eruption. This result is quite satisfactory for us. This result is, like I said, in line with our expectations and what we wanted to see. With a net profitability of $28.6 million, which is $1.5 million more than we delivered last year, it is a result which allow us to feel that our forecast is safely achievable. We believe that.
It is also important to mention that in this result, there is also a special aid to Ukraine, which amounted almost a million dollar. Therefore this is plus this amount. With our cost structure being to the extent possible under control, and I say to the extent possible since we are in a phase of investment, especially in human capital, especially when it comes to our new ventures with robotics and with Breezy and with all the other startups we are engaged. It is requiring significant amount of investment in human capital, therefore more expenditure. Given that, the result is considered to be extremely satisfactory for the group.
Looking at the countries we operate and how do they perform, we expected Kazakhstan to grow and we expected Ukraine to grow, and we are very satisfied with what we see. Slovakia and the Emirates following with very strong presence and very strong revenues. Polish market keeps growing and happy to see that the Polish management team is doing the utmost to grow it and yeah, they have set the bar very high. They want to become top three in our revenue contribution, which it will be extremely satisfying if it happens. However, we see that the majority of our countries are growing and will continue to grow in the second half as well.
When it comes to cash flow, we saw that a difficult cash flow position in first quarter. Very happy to see almost $60 million positive generated cash in the second quarter, which bring us to minus $40 million and which make us much more certain that in quarter three and quarter four, we will be able to turn the position positive, certainly. We do not have any issues with financing of the group. We never had any issues with dealing with our financial institutions. Therefore, we are in a very safe position there. Looking at it, at the net debt, including and excluding factoring remains at very good levels, given that the availability of cash to the group remained intact.
Yes, it is a fact that there is an increase, the weighted cost of debt, given all these increases from central banks across the border where we operate. We still expect some hikes interest rate. That's what the market analysts also expect from the U.S. LIBOR and the Euro LIBOR to go up by another half basis point, which then after this expected to start at least stabilizing, if not decreasing. We see that the group undertakes all measures to decrease and minimize this bad effect on its financial expenses.
It was from quarter one to quarter two of this year, it was slightly decreased, and that was a result of also some optimization from the management team of the utilization of financial facilities. I said it before, I will repeat it once again, with our forecast. We believe that the group is well prepared for a very good second half, for a second half which will deliver the numbers we promised the market. Before at the press conference, someone asked me about last year same time your percentage of realization was much higher, it was 50%. I reminded them that the first forecast we gave last year, it was only $50 million. Now the forecast stands at $82 million.
We are very much confident that this will be happening, given what we saw and what we see in front of us, going forward. To summarize the results, we as a management team are very satisfied with the performance of the company. We are looking very positively in the future. Unfortunately, the war is taking much more time, and most probably it will take much more time than anyone ever anticipated. This doesn't stop the group from making its own developments. This doesn't stop us from making new investments in territories which are much, let's say, safer as opposed to the markets around us.
This is again the reason why we established and we look towards the African continent. Given our investments in robotics with the second life products with Breezy, we believe that it started showing the result. Breezy already has some very good indications and pickups from customers, which we believe it will give a significant boost. The aim of the group is to be able to refurbish and sell 30,000 units on a monthly basis, 30,000 devices on a monthly basis. This is something which is very well achievable given also the investment we undertook here in Poland with the grading facility of second life products. With robotics we see that a lot of developments took place.
We saw that multiple countries started contracts with clients. It takes more than what we anticipated at the beginning. However, we understand that investing in robotics is more to sell solutions as opposed to sell products. Therefore, this requires more skill sets and more, let's say, knowledge to be built, which is now, like I said, gained by the new teams we are engaged with. We are very much looking forward into these developments since the group has invested into the two categories where everybody predicts that is the future. We see that the steps we undertake for our shareholders and investors are the right ones. This is what I wanted to share with you today.
Thank you all for being here and for your participation, and I'm very much ready to take any questions you might have.
Okay. Maybe I will start a little bit with this gross profit margin, because it's not a surprise that this margin is much lower year-on-year because in the second quarter of last year it was record high. But we can see also that this margin is lower in quarter-on-quarter comparison for the second consecutive quarter, and now it is at the edge of 8%. I'd like to ask what we could expect in the second half of this year and what should be the key factor determining your level of your gross profit margin.
Gross profit margin in the second half traditionally is higher. Okay. You said it yourself, we discussed it during our previous meetings that the 9.34% gross profit margin of quarter two last year was not representative. Now, the aim of our budget team is built to have a sustainable margin above 8%, and this is where we are looking towards second half. Now, what were the reasons again for quarter two lower than what some people expected is the demand was very thin in quarter two. Yes, we managed to grow, but against a very slow-moving market.
Therefore, the margins there are being pushed and, taking into consideration that currently the demand, you have to fulfill it when you find it. Yeah, revenue building, again, the strength of revenue building, it's more important these days as opposed to, stay still, on pricing. The major driver was there. It was the fact that although we were able to generate revenues and demand, the demand was thin and the customers were picky. That's the major issue we had. Plus, there was specific country-to-country specifics, and I can give you an example in Ukraine, where the product mix wasn't the right one and, there should be-- We undertook some corrective actions in the country in order to make sure that the stocks are moved out.
Given all this, we look forward to a higher gross profit margin going forward, given the market situation to stay the same.
Okay. Thank you. My second question, because operating cash flow it was very strong in the second quarter, $60 million. Should we expect that your cumulative cash flow might become positive already in the third quarter?
This is our aim that quarter three should turn positive.
Okay. Thank you. I would like also ask about the current situation of the market during the third quarter. Do you see some breakthrough in demand? Is it similar to the second quarter or it's improving?
July was good, because I saw only July and, we are now on the 10th of August. July was good and I can tell you that, from all the Julys I saw, this looks quite better in terms of revenue. I believe that, because now we do not have. We will be able to compare good months with good months. Yes. Because from July last year, already our revenues started picking up. The 30% growth of April and May and June, you know, we all understand that it's not gonna happen going forward, especially on September, where we almost reached $300 million. Yes. All these things now will be much better comparable to each other.
What we see today, we see good results coming out. We see good developments around us. Difficult markets. Very difficult and very competitive markets. This proves again the strength of the group. This proves also that the strategy of the group is being again recognized as the correct one. I'm very positive for the second half.
Okay.
I would like also to ask about your new markets, predominantly South African and Central African markets. When should we expect some more meaningful contribution of these new markets?
Look, we already started sales in South Africa and in the East Coast of Africa. We faced some difficulties, although we started in Nigeria, and we decided to deeply monitor the market because there it's not easy to ensure, it's not easy to even to deliver products. We have to learn to walk before we learn how to run in these markets. Now, when it comes to South Africa, though, I'm sure that quarter three will be already picking up because we see a pipeline of orders. We see pipeline of clientele and yeah, the team has been building quite nicely there. With the addition now of the new facility, we believe that we are in the right shape to start giving meaningful results like you mentioned, from quarter three onwards.
Thank you very much. In terms of the margin, what were the costs of these extra activities like robotics, Breezy? Can you make a guidance about it? What is the group insight?
I will tell you in terms of number of employees that in Q2, we had almost 120 extra heads relating to these two projects. Now, in terms of monetary, allow me not to give you any number because I don't wanna make it up, because I don't have it, but it is quite significant monthly cost which we added. We added it because we believe in it, and we added it because we see that it is the right thing to do. Now, where this will stop, I think, from third quarter, we should see a stabilization on these extra costs, added costs. Because the teams are now almost completed.
The teams are required now to start delivering, and we believe that we will see some deliveries of results from quarter three therefore. That should be one of the final quarters where we only add costs as opposed to getting back good numbers.
The majority of the costs are the overheads or the other costs that are not amortized?
Human capital is the most expensive one in these two categories. You understand that because you are dealing with very highly educated employees, the cost is quite significant there. We're talking about software and hardware engineers where yeah they are who they are and how expensive they are.
The 120 new workers is both for Breezy and
Yes, both.
-Aros?
Both.
Could you just briefly.
It's 80 to 40.
ASBIS in Greece?
Oh, 80 is in AROS.
What is now the situation with your stocks? Because at the end of the year, you had a very big supply from Apple.
Mm-hmm.
I thought that during selling this within the first half of the year, you will have extra profits.
The project of Apple, which we announced last year and it's ongoing, it was known to us that it will take more time to be realized. The very important thing and a very important note here is for everyone to understand that all these stocks that we have on our balance sheet is price protected, and it doesn't form any kind of risk whether the price will change or the technology will change. Because the agreement, being an authorized distributor, is that any time there is a price difference, a price drop from any supplier, especially Apple, we will get the credit for this price drop. Therefore, we do not run any risks on that. The ability of the group to sell these goods faster is there, but it will go against the margin and we don't want to do that.
Because the purpose of undertaking this project is to make higher margin by delivering these products to the markets on time. Now, the cash flow of the group is already becoming much better. The $60 million generated positive cash flow from operating activities give you the answer to that. The stocks we have there is fresh also, because we are entering now into the most, let's say, intense period from September to December. Therefore, we need to have at any point in time stocks to deliver into the territories. Plus, the new product introduction will come in September sometime of Apple, and the targets of the old products or the old models have to be fulfilled before that.
Answering your question is that we are very much on top of the management of our inventories and stocks, and we have no worries about that.
How much of the stocks, let's say, these extra stocks in Apple were sold till now, say?
More than half of it.
More than half.
Yes.
In Breezy, do you want to grow organically or do you consider any takeovers? I read last time about a firm from Poland that want to sell themselves to an investor. How do you look?
It is without me knowing. Is it the company that is owned by former investors? Also because,
Oh, I don't know.
All right. Okay. Look, we tried and we identified a couple of companies, to be honest with you. We saw that building our own self and our own way pays off better. The investment in Poland with the grading facility here is proven to be the right move since Poland is a market which we very much believe that Breezy will be very successful. It's already picking up. We already had an agreement with an MEA reseller, and we are working on several other agreements which will make an impact to the name, to the brand of Breezy.
Because the second life products, smartphones and other devices are expected to be equal to the brand-new ones in five years from today. We believe again that building our own platform and giving our own expertise there, because we have enough expertise, is the right option to move forward. This, however, does not exclude us from buying any companies which might be interesting and we found throughout the years of operation.
In Breezy, let's say, in five years, looking forward, do you think the margin in used units are better or-
De facto, the second life products have a better margin.
Yeah
Especially on the high grades, okay? Because the second life products are graded from A to E. When you take a used device which is graded A, means that the battery and everything are like brand new, but you sell it at a much discounted price. Plus, the dictation of the price comes to you as opposed to the supplier when it comes to second life products. Therefore, you can also take advantage, if you want, of the ability of the company to nominate the price, as opposed to. A brand-new iPhone is a brand-new iPhone. It has the same price everywhere.
May I ask a bit deeper about the general market situation? Which product categories and geographies do you see as, I would say, most problematic nowadays, and with which factors do you connect it? Is it about, I don't know, declining consumer sentiment, tightening credit conditions, the spreading war consequences? If you could elaborate a bit more, you know?
Okay
the market.
Thank you for the question. The markets that are tougher for us obviously are the markets where we do not have Apple to sell. All right? We refer to markets like Central Eastern Europe. Yes. Czech Republic, Romania, countries like the Adriatics. All these markets, which are more educated, I would call, and not so emerging as the Kazakhstans and the Georgias and the Armenia. Why? Because there, the effect of the inflation, all these pushdowns have made the consumer sentiment much worse. The increasing interest rates also push things and demand to be thinner in these markets. Now, as opposed to the markets we have the Apple product, which is a flagship, and we can really bundle in the demand.
These markets that are now performing so well, like, the Caucasus markets of Armenia, Azerbaijan. These markets, we have been there, and we have been servicing them, but we were not focusing so much. Now with the embargo on Russia and Belarus, we have already sent and made a transformation of our people towards the penetration of these markets. A lot of people are asking actually whether all these revenues are really there. The revenues that you see and we manage to deliver in these countries are local revenues because they are 100%, almost 100% Apple revenues, where Apple dictates and knows where the activation happens. Therefore, it cannot be that we sell there, and these goods are delivered to Russia because of the activation. Russia knows, Apple knows where all these devices are being activated constantly.
Now, consumer demand, it is low. It is saturated in many markets. We see that from how also corporations are behaving in terms of investment in IT. You know, after the war, we forgot where we came out of a COVID era. We came out of COVID where the technology sector was so much benefited, where we all expected that there would be a decline in all this IT spending. Yes? This, together with the war, made it sharper. Okay. The curve, it was much steeper as opposed to a much more naturalized decrease in demand. There, and we see it from all IT major companies like Intel, like AMD, we see one after the other announce declines in revenues. This helps us. Why? Because these people decided to consolidate now.
In countries where they had five, six distributors, they decided to have one or two. ASBIS is one of them. I give the example of Intel in the Middle East area, where it cut five out of seven distributors, and we are now left two. This allows us to have a bigger share of the pie, which is a smaller pie, but our share is already bigger. Okay, this is where and how we manage to gain more revenues on the expense also of some because the demand, like I told you before, is thinner. The margin, you have to sacrifice some going there. But overall, I believe it's a combination of all these things you mentioned. It's the war, it's the inflation, it's the demand that is already down, which causes this.
The fear, the instability also in the environment we are in these days.
It's the Middle Europe, I would say, they're the main impact on.
Yes. Yes. The Middle Europe, which it was flourishing somehow and is close to the war zone, and it got the biggest problem out of this. Yes? Because the former Soviet Union countries did not get that because a lot of Russians emigrated there. Okay. Can you give us a little more specific why these big tech companies consolidate their resellers? They cut costs.
Having an extra one is a bigger cost for them.
Yes.
Why?
Yeah, because they also have to have account managers. If you have five distributors in a country, you need a team of 10 people to manage these five distributors, as opposed to if you have two distributors, then you only have three or four people to manage that. We saw offices of major suppliers in major countries shutting down and consolidating. I give you the example of Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Hungary, where they had offices in all these countries. Now they are all consolidated either in Slovakia or in Czech Republic. It's a matter of cutting costs for them. They fired a lot of people. They laid off a significant amount of employees in our territories. That's why they are consolidating the channel. That's how they see it.
Plus, they see less business there.
Do you actually expect this will go on in the future?
I think, I mean, all these American companies are so fast to react when it comes to this kind of. We don't see further cuts. We see, I mean, some of the big names coming in also with new ideas, but I think the majority of the cuts has happened already.
You don't have this risk that they will cut you?
You see, no, we don't. The reason is that it's very difficult to cut someone who is present for you in 28 countries as opposed to cut someone who is present for you in two or three countries. Because with one vendor, you get access in 28 countries as opposed to a local or a regional distributor. It's there. It's announced already who they remain with, and that's business on the positive side.
Could you elaborate a little bit more about your strategy going to Western Europe? 'Cause you have very good growth over there.
Mm-hmm.
Is it possible, and you see this maybe in some time that it may reach the same level as Africa and Middle East, perhaps?
Look, to reach the Middle East and Africa, yes, I see it. I see it happening because we are now hiring more and more people in Western Europe. Because the same way they consolidated the big IT companies, they consolidated in our markets, they consolidate also in Western Europe. At the time that ASBIS didn't have the right to sell in Germany or U.K. or Spain Intel products, now we are becoming a pan-European distributor, meaning that we are allowed to sell everywhere. Not only that, when they cut out distributors from Germany, U.K., non-performing distributors, there is some business that these people used to do, and it's not a secret. I mean, the business you saw in Germany for quarter two of ours, it was a very good tender deal that was left on the table.
Mm-hmm
It was pushed from Intel and from AMD to us. Okay, so it is an opportunity for us to put our footprint in the territory. We have now some very good leads, and we are building teams in Iberia, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Germany, and the Benelux. The country that we consider a bit more fragmented for us still is the U.K. We were there with private labels, and we are still selling some in the UK. But yeah, it's not so easy as opposed to because Germany is next to Poland, yes. In Germany, the logistics are very fast for us because we have to be also giving super service to the clients.
The growth is mainly attributable to Germany, I believe.
Yes. It was. I mean, for quarter one, but in the last couple of quarters it was Netherlands, where we had a very big and we gained one very big Intel sub-distributor which is buying from us.
Going forward, we should expect similar.
In all countries like this.
All similar countries, yeah.
In addition to the ability of the group to push its own products into these markets and gain a much better revenue from these markets.
Generally it is Intel, AMD or others who come to you and give you proposals or rather you are going to them? I mean.
It's a combination of efforts. Like I said, we have now people on the ground, and these people working in the markets get to know, and then we go back to the vendor and we request, and we get these tenders, these deals.
Any inventory write-offs in the future is possible?
Not outside the ordinary course of business. We do not expect to do any inventory write-offs or any. I was saying before that, during the first half, we were obliged by the IFRS 9 to have a provision on bad debts of almost $900,000. It's a provision because we have to make provisions according to the standards. It's not something which. We haven't lost any customer in.
Just some certain percent of.
Yes, it's.
Vendor is like.
It's-
You are right.
Yes.
Okay.
It is, like I said, following the international accounting standards, we have to do some provisions, which are reversible, by the way.
Okay.
When the numbers are going down, again, you reverse this back to the profitability.
Could you elaborate more about AROS? Where do you see yourself in three years? Well, at least me, I'm a little bit skeptical about this initiative. I believe that probably robotics have a bright future, but it is reserved for the big tech companies that will probably be the biggest beneficiaries of this trend of automation.
Mm-hmm.
Where do you want to be in three years, and where do you believe to be robotics-
Okay. Before I answer the question to you, Piotr, I will come back to you because we know each other many years, and I will remind you when ASBIS was entering the tablet business in 2011, and yeah, I was also very skeptical at that time. How can we do such a thing? How can we follow up on Apple, which at that time was the only one offering tablet PCs. We ended up in 2013 being number five brand in the whole Europe, Prestigio, in tablet business, bigger than Dell, bigger than Acer, and bigger than big names like them. Now, I'm not saying it will happen with AROS as well. I'm just
I hope so, 'cause I remember it didn't end up quite well.
Actually, it worked quite well in 2013, but again, there was a war in 2015 in Ukraine where it costed us all these millions of write-offs because we had $80 million of stocks.
You had some problems.
RMA
suppliers.
Yes. Afterwards. Yeah. It all happened in 2015. All right? I gave you this example only to say that I understand what you say and your skepticism, and I share some of your skepticism because I am a risk-averse person, and this company is paying me also to manage the risks. However, when you see the opportunity, the beauty of this company was built exactly because people had vision. The vision is to take the company to the next level. Now, the robotics, how we as a management team undertake this project is that it's not so simple to sell robotics. Robotics to be sold, they require to be sold as a solution as opposed to as a product, okay? This is what we have to learn.
It all will depend, Piotr, how fast we learn and whether we manage to grab the right people around us to build all these competencies in order to be. Because we were fast to move into that territory again. Meaning that we had the vision. We have to make this vision now the right strategy. We have to make this vision generate profit. Okay. Now, in three years from today, we want to have a full scale of robotic solutions in terms of service robots, in terms of this overall. Because when we are building a beer kiosk or when we're building a coffee machine kiosk to work as a robot, it is very great idea, and it offers, but you have to find the right clientele in order to make money out of it.
By the time you manage to put this into a constant production line, then the development stops. It's only the upgrades that is there. Okay. It has a significant amount of early development costs, which we are currently on to.
Mm-hmm.
The result and the profitability going forward can be very significant going forward. In three years from today, we want to have a full set of robot solutions and a revenue exceeding $200 million -$300 million at least to make sense.
Okay. What about profitability?
Profitability there is well in double-digit margins, depending on whether you will go through distributors, okay, or whether there will be direct solution you are selling. Which most probably is this one, that it will give you the edge of making more money because you are making now the investments, the development, so you can take advantage of that. On the other hand, on the robotics where we are now distributors, we want to establish ourselves in two to three years as, again, in the top two, three robotic solution providers, third-party solution providers.
Which is your target group according robotics? Because you have a good experience with other-
You see, the target group of robotics, depending on what robot, yes? Because a robot, a robotic arm, all right, goes into a manufacturing plant. But a service robot, which you see working around here in Marriott, it goes to the hotel, yes. It goes to hospitals. There is a very big spectrum of clientele to be focused on to. Okay. Again, Piotr, to finalize the... If we manage to focus, to build some expertise and find our niche where we want to attack, I think we will have a very good success on that respect.
Okay. Assuming that your expectations about robotics materialize in these three years, what will be your advantages against the competitors that are entering the market at that moment?
Okay. The advantage of first mover will be there always, yes? Because no other distributor I know is dealing with robotics today. Okay? The robotics companies that we have seen around us, again, is fragmented into local players. All right? If we manage to make exactly what we did with our overall this IT distribution, geographical spread is an advantage of ourselves. Okay? Access to all these markets. Markets that, you know, traditionally, the developed markets which adopt faster, all right? They are very also unwilling to change. New markets that do not have at all, they are much faster penetrating new products and new services. I don't know if I answered you, but I believe that our advantage, again, will emanate from the fact that we were first, faster, and our geographical spread.
Okay. The geographical spread, you will have no matter if you start with robotics now or in two years. About the first mover-
Yes.
What are your competencies on the people that you are hiring?
People and processes. Okay.
Excuse me?
Absolutely. You asked me what it would be our competitive advantage against the second movers. Yes? Because we will be having all this expertise already, and the second movers will not have the same geographical spread like we will have.
Okay. Perhaps regarding the second half of the year, you mentioned that dynamics of CapEx should be much lower than the.
Mm-hmm
First half of the year, which is quite understandable if you need to have the base. You're maintaining your full year guidance, which means that the level of the gross profit margin should be of about 8.5%, 'cause in the second half of the last year it was about 3.6%.
Mm-hmm.
To achieve the similar result, you have to do to achieve the guidance. Probably you will require this kind of margin. I assume that you are assuming that we are bottoming out in respect of the margin drop, and now we will maintain.
Higher level of margins going forward.
This is exactly what I answered to Jakub when he asked the first question, that we fully believe that we can sustain gross profit margin of 8% and closer to the numbers that you are mentioning, given also the fact that there will be increases in revenues. Yes. Depending on how much that would be.
In the G&A is probably as well, so.
True.
What about the next year? Because I understand that the picking up in the second half of the year is quite seasonal. What are your expectation about the gross profit margin going forward in 2024?
Okay. 2024 is a bit far from us, given the fact that we have another six months to deliver the results of this year.
You are the company with visions.
We are very-
So I-
We are very visionary, and I think we have proven it, Piotr, so many years now, and thank you for that. However, gross profit margin versus what? Versus increased revenue? Versus better growth?
In nominal terms.
In, in-
In nominal terms, what should be the gross profit margin? Do you expect it to maintain the level from-
We do not expect it, and we do not plan for the gross profit margin to go down, if this is the question you're asking. Okay? We are focusing, and we are always targeting higher from what we do today. Now, if I am to give you any kind of prediction of the next year, we aim for a better year next year, actually, like we always do, and we are not afraid to say it.
That's good. Do you expect any new products from Apple which can improve margins?
They are expecting now. There is an NPI in September, a new product introduction. The iPhone 15, I haven't seen it. I didn't hear any rumors of how it will look like. Yeah, we are all expecting it to see what's gonna happen. If Apple sells calculators, we will sell calculators of Apple. I mean, no matter what they sell, we will be there.
The last question from my side. Dividend payout ratio, 'cause in 2022, the dividend was a record high, $0.45. On the other hand, it was about 30% of your net profit.
Mm-hmm.
I understand that the year was quite difficult in respect of cash flows. It can be understandable that you pay out less you could in a better liquidity situation. How do you see the dividend going forward? Do you expect the payout ratio to increase or maintain the level of this 30%+?
You see, our dividend policy was built at times when we never believed we could pay so much dividends. The dividend policy remains stable, saying that we may pay up to 50% of the net profitability, which now you correctly said it, we paid 30% of the net profitability, yes. Looking also at the needs of the company, yes. We cannot be loaning money to develop our own selves, and then go constantly pay dividends. However, I wouldn't exclude a higher dividend payout, given if we see that the investments we did, they started generating, they don't need, they are not eating cash any longer, and we see that there is an ability of the group to even increase that to a higher record dividend payout.
We are very much in favor of sharing the success period , and we will continue doing that. You're welcome. Any further questions? Okay then. Thank you very much for your presence. It's a pleasure always seeing you. Yeah, see you soon.