Hello, everyone. My name is Jacob, and I work as an equity analyst at Kalqyl. Today, we are joined by Andreas Lifvendahl, who is the CEO of Imint. Today we're going to discuss their latest report and some interesting topics. It's nice to have you back, Andreas.
Thank you. Thanks so much.
All right. Let's start off right away. Would you like to elaborate on the greatest challenges and opportunities that you encountered during this quarter?
Good start. I think it's, as you can see in the report and the weak top-line revenue, the biggest challenge is, of course, the ongoing and in some aspect accelerating crisis in the smartphone industry, and especially in China, where we have our main market. Good thing in Q1 is that we have been able to travel again and meet up with customers and clients.
That is always helpful o f course, then you also learn that, you also see more challenges, and you see more opportunities. It's better to know than not to know. I think the quarter has been a combination of successes and failures. It's a mix on where our customers are. Obviously with this, the dynamics of a shrinking market is always hard, right e specially as a supplier. Competition is fighting, our customers are struggling to find new approaches to cost-saving programs, and so on. It is a tough market.
Interesting, that actually brings me to the next question, which is about the market.
Do you see any, like, signs of it being a little bit better going forward, or is it gonna get worse? What's your thought about the market going forward from now?
That is really hard. I think it's going to stay rough for a while. I think if you look back in, like, the five, 10 or 15-year kind of cycles, consumer markets are extremely volatile, and when raises start, then times can be crazy again, whether it will be in smartphones or some new camera-driven gadget like smart glasses or... It's still to be found out. But for sure. You have entrance of newcomers or new, more disruptive ideas within the smartphone space. Things might change quickly and it's often companies like Apple are... can be the one that starts a new disruptive trend.
Yeah.
Then a lot of Asian companies will try to catch on.
Okay. Interesting.
For sure in the long term, I think consumer market space is always fun to be in, but you need to understand it's sort of a lottery game. And we wanna keep ourselves in that game but be really smart and efficient and agile in terms of opportunities we run at.
Next off, wanted to ask you a little bit about the increased costs during this quarter. This is, if I understand it correctly, particularly attributed to investments in the professional segment. Are there any specific strategies that you're implementing to address the cost increase in the upcoming quarters, or how do you see? costs going on from now?
We'll keep a close eye on that, and I think Q1 will mark a peak level. We expect them to come down then. In what pace and through what measures is sort of still being discussed, of course.
Yeah.
The key thing here is, of course, we have a really good cash position, and we believe in, especially in the professional market, that there is really long-term growth opportunities.
We wanna make sure that we can continue to do the right investments for a very long time so that we can be bold enough to push through the right business models with our customers.
Mm.
Basically, what that is mean to not be forced to take the quick wins that don't scale, but actually being able to hold out, trying to push for subscription models and the long-term sticky kind of business.
Mm.
That is why our cash is important and gives us confidence in building that.
Yeah. You have a strong cash position, and I also think the professional segment is really interesting. You mentioned potential for reoccurring revenues and so on. Another question about the professional segment. It grew by approximately 13% quarter-over-quarter, I think. When do you think the investments in the professional segment will start to pay off, and we will see accelerating growth for the segment, do you think?
I think we can see, probably next year you can see a very clear acceleration. When we reach the point of profitability, we said that by 2025, we should have a good margin on that. I think that is still a valid assumption. I think measuring growth from Q1 over Q4, I mean, it's nice with the growth, of course, but still we have to put these, especially recurring models, in place. We can start to present another type of metrics maybe also in our reports on how we are growing that business to basically build more confidence that this is not one-offs, but this is actually a foundation for accumulated growth on top of it.
If I understand it correctly, it is remote like remote access and remote help that's being sort of prioritized first.
Is that correct?
Yeah. It's like a spearhead market where-
Yeah
It's really a horizontal market because it's centered now we started like the old image way by looking at relevant devices where our software can really help. Like if you wear a camera on your body, on your head, it will be bumpy and jerky and very annoying for someone to watch that. As we explore from the device view, the device eyes perspective, we realized that this is actually used in a variety of very different industries where the mission value or business value can be quite high, like in surgery or medical applications or also industrial maintenance and utilities inspections, and what have you. It's really broad kind of use cases centered around body-worn cameras.
Yeah. It's a very interesting, yeah, very interesting segment indeed. We, we touched a little bit about it in the previous questions, but do you have any targets for when the professional segment could be expected to become profitable or how do you view that?
Our assumption is still valid, and that is by end of 2025, revenue should have built up. Of course, that's still an assumption, and when we look at the kind of deals we are talking about now and the kind of models that we think we can put in place, that's a highly realistic ambition.
Mm-hmm. Okay. Nice. My last questions is about acquisitions. We talked a little bit about this in our previous interview. You said that you're always looking for interesting companies. How do you view that now in light of this quarter being a bit softer?
Mm-hmm
... is this still something you're considering or?
For sure. It's still high on the agenda. Of course, we need to be open to reality as well, which means that we are now using our own cash for our own investments, which means that we're have slightly less cash. Also, on the market cap reacted negatively to our report, we also have less value in printing new stocks, right? That's just the reality. The basic assumption remains that I think the kind of technology and expertise we have could be really beneficial in a bigger constellation with other parts that could complement each other. Whether that's an acquisition by us or a merger by equals or any other kind of like a corporate structure remains to be seen.
I do believe that is the right path for Imint going forward, to also use the non-organic toolbox, basically.
Such an acquisition or merger or whatever it would become, would that be aimed more to the professional segment, or how do you view that?
Yeah. Yes, most likely. If it comes to complementary technology companies that already have a running business, ideally, of course, the technology would be applicable for many type of camera systems or video usage, right? I think we will primarily judge the merits of such a merger acquisition in terms of how we can accelerate the professional business unit.
Mm-hmm.
If there's a company that relies heavily only in the consumer space, then we would not reduce the long-term risk levels that we already are exposed to. I think that's a good argument to look primarily at the professional segment as the primary market where they have a running business.
Mm-hmm. Very interesting. Lastly, is there anything you would like to add, or talk about that I haven't, asked today?
No, I think you covered it good. I think your first question was the biggest challenges and opportunities.
Yeah
we only got to challenges. On the opportunity side, but we covered that later on in terms of especially the professional market segment, where Q1 was marked by a lot of really good development. I mean, I've been mentioning that in many reports that these markets take time, please be patient, and so on. Maybe frustrating for some owners. A lot of really good steps were taken in Q1 in terms of sort of handshake concept agreements with some of our partners and prospects that, okay, this is a model that could work.
Mm-hmm.
Now we're working on implementing that. We took uncertainty levels down a few notch in terms of this being a viable market for us, and that is really healthy. Of course, this is pre we can announce concrete stuff. From the market perspective, it's still just words, right? In my heart, I feel that the risk level has been reduced significantly in making this a really good business for us.
Mm-hmm. Very interesting. It's gonna be very exciting to see what you come up with here in the coming quarters. With that, I would like to wish you, Andreas, a very nice weekend and also everyone who's watching the interview. Thank you very much.
Thanks so much.
Okay.
Thanks a lot. Bye now.
Bye.