Tekna Holding ASA

OSE:TEKNA

Earnings Call Transcript 2024-Q1

[Luc Dionne, executive]

Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us today, and welcome to Tekna's First quarter results for 2024. I am Luc Dionne, the CEO of Tekna. And I am joined today by Irina Van Oost, our VP for Investor Relations; and by Espen Schie our CFO. In this presentation today, we will cover the usual agenda as we have done in previous quarterly webcast. But at this time, we will provide you with a market update on the main business signs we are developing as well as midterm guidance for our business plan. The presentation should take about 40 minutes and will be followed by a Q&A session. So for those who have questions, you may post them in the chat during the presentation, and Irina will walk us through them at the end of this presentation. So next slide, please. So I'll take a few minutes to introduce you to Tekna, and then will go into the details of the presentation. Next slide. So Tekna is a world-leading provider of advanced materials and plasma system solution. The company was founded in 1990, and the headquarter of the company is in Canada, and we are listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange since July 2022. Tekna just over 200 employees globally. We have 2 production facilities in Canada, offices and distributors located in Canada, U.S.A., France, China, Korea, India and Japan. We're looking at our sales distribution -- in 2023, 48% of our sales were generated in North America, 37% in Europe and the balance of our sales were generated in Asia and other countries. The market segments where these sales are generated from here in the middle section of my slide, close to 40% of our customers are in the aerospace industry. And of course, this is a consequence with the resources we have invested in this market over the past years. Another segment that is promising is consumer electronics. We expect that the ratio of sales will likely grow from 5% to 10% in 2024. The other customer segments, 12% are R&D printer manufacturers, 7% of them manufacture medical implants and devices. And the balance, 37% are various segments such as academic and industrial research or who are distributors of Tekna [indiscernible]. You can see here on the right that we are serving quite a large base of high-quality customers. And as I mentioned earlier, there is quite a high proportion of players here that are operating in the aerospace industry. Next slide, please. So Tekna is reducing its CO2 emissions, focusing on 3 key projects: improving performance of atomization systems. This is improving the energy intensity per kilogram of powder produced. So since 2019, we have reduced the electricity consumption of our machines by 24% and customary in the additive manufacturing industry metal powder, this is being supplied in single-use plastic drums and metallic bottles. So for the second project, Tekna has developed together with the industry partner, a universal and reusable container. So we are currently placing this container in operation with customers. We are gaining insights into our emissions in Scope 3. So this covers items that are outside of our facility. So therefore, we are reducing logistics emission -- actually reducing logistic emission is our third decarbonization project. So basically, we are committed to meeting the 50% reduction of CO2 emissions by 2030. Next slide, please. Among Tekna's shareholder base, there is Arendals company in short AFK. AFK is a majority shareholder who owns 70% of Tekna shares. They acquired Tekna in 2013 and have been an active, responsible and supportive owner from the beginning. 4 out of 7 Tekna Board members are representing ASK. It's worth noting that in the list of the shareholders here, Dag Teigland, the Chair of Tekna is also a shareholder with 0.5% ownership as well, some of the management team members of Tekna who together own 1.5% of the company's shares. Next slide, please. So I will continue with the company highlights on the next slide. So our revenues for the quarter totaled CAD 8.5 million, decreasing 8% from the CAD 9.4 million recorded in Q1 2023. Our Systems revenues saw a 5% decline compared to the same period last year, largely attributed to the strong performance we had with the Plasma Sonic in 2023. Fluctuations in this segment are inherent to this business line and they are to be expected. Similarly, materials revenues saw a 10% decrease in Q1 -- and this is primarily attributed to 2 factors: firstly, the timing effect of a robust invoicing we had in Q4 last year; and secondly, a slowdown in customer investment in new 3D printers, and that is basically due to the high interest rates we see today in the market. The adjusted EBITDA for Q1 was recorded at minus CAD 2.6 million, which represents a decrease from the minus CAD 1.2 million reported in Q1 last year. And this is attributed to 2 main factors, the decrease in the revenues that we've discussed earlier and one-off cost incurred with the joint venture in France during this period. But Espen will cover more in details about these elements. And despite these challenges, however, our commitment to robust cash management and cash flow remains unchanged, of course, and we're determined to pursue margin improvement for the remainder of the year as we have previously guided. The order backlog at the end of Q1 was CAD 22.9 million against CAD 26.4 million at the same time last year. We have recorded sales of plasma systems, spare parts and accessories, but no sales of a natural system in the Q1. The pipeline of system opportunities, however, remains strong and especially for the plasmasonic wind tunnel units. On the other hand, the order intake from materials picked up pretty well. That has increased 26% over the last year, with CAD 7 million in new orders. And consequently, the backlog rose 17% to CAD 15.9 million from last year. And we are already seeing the Materials segment to be being reenergized with just over 1 month in Q2. So the sales in other customer segment continue to develop, and we maintain our guidance for revenue growth for the balance of the year. Now let's turn to the next slide. So looking at the trailing 12-month performance here with revenues on the left and adjusted EBITDA on the right. Both graphs exhibit a trend of cumulative improvement over Q1 last year, with revenues up 35% and adjusted EBITDA loss reduced by CAD 5.7 million. So despite a slower start in Q1, we're on an upward trajectory in performance. Quarter-to-quarter variations are to be expected in developing markets, such as the one we are in, but it's nevertheless encouraging to see all an overall improvement in these key metrics. The focus on increasing capacity and reducing operating cost is enhancing the resilience of our business model and its better positioning Tekna to maintain the momentum built over the last 12 months. So let's have a closer look at some of the development in the Systems and Advanced Material businesses. Next slide. Starting with the Systems' performance for the quarter. So we had a soft start on order intake with CAD 0.4 million. The Systems' segment is generally more volatile business, and we did not have any orders scheduled to be received in this quarter. So this did not come as a surprise to us. So our backlog of orders to be delivered in '24 right now stands at CAD 7 million, and the pipeline for the remainder of the year remains strong, especially with PlasmaSonic opportunities that could convert into sales later in the year. I'm pleased to report that the factory acceptance test for the PlasmaSonic system that we manufactured last year has been successfully completed. We can see on the image here on the right, the unit is already -- this unit is already delivered and in preparation for a customer site acceptance. The contribution margins for Systems in Q1 were impressive. We registered a 66.4%, surpassing the average of 63% for the fiscal year 2023. Next slide, please. So -- now we're looking at additive materials. So the order intake for Q1 was at CAD 7 million, 26% above the CAD 5.6 million we had at the same period last year. The order backlog is at CAD 16 million, 17% above last year's Q1. And we can see with the backlog that's been growing for the past 12 months that we are receiving an increasing number of orders with deliveries already expected later in the year or in 2025. So as we have reported earlier, we have commissioned a new atomizer late last year in Q4 and another one. Another one is expected to be commissioned by the end of June this year, -- so we'll see the result of the increased capacity from this machine in the second half of the year. So consequently, deliveries are expected to accelerate throughout the year. And on another note, we are proud to report that the quality control lab, the Tekna Quality Control Lab was certified a few months ago by a major aerospace equipment manufacturer. So we cannot disclose its name for now, but it's a current customer of Tekna with who we have a supply agreement and monthly deliveries ongoing already. So this certification further strengthens our business relationship and increases our reputation in the market as a reliable supplier in the additive materials industry. So this completes the first part of my presentation. So I am handing it over to you, Espen.

[Espen Schie, executive]

Good day, everyone. Next slide, please. Let's look at the Q1 results. Our revenue decreased 8% year-over-year to CAD 8.7 million. The materials revenue was CAD 5.8 million, a 10% decrease from the previous year. In part, this was driven by robust invoicing we saw in Q4 and less orders from 3D printer manufacturers in this quarter. Our system revenue was CAD 2.9 million, 5% decrease year-over-year. This is mainly due to higher project revenue recognition on our large PlasmaSonic backlog that Luc mentioned last year. Our adjusted EBITDA ended at minus CAD 2.6 billion due to the lower revenues and partly costs previously absorbed by our joint venture. We do experience quarterly variations but with improvements over time. So all in all, we had a slowdown in the quarter, but the positive underlying trend is expected to continue. We continue our focus on profitability and cash, and we had CAD 10 million cash at quarter end. Next slide, please. So let's compare this quarter to Q1 last year. First of all, our revenues had a decline both in Systems and Materials -- which combined drives the majority of the lower EBITDA. Secondly, our margin in materials remain stable. Meanwhile, the system margins were lower as our PlasmaSonic order was mostly completed this quarter. Thirdly, we have good cost control on [ staff ] and OpEx, but we had an FX loss of CAD 0.1 million in the quarter compared to a gain of [ CAD 0.3 million ] last year. Fourth, last year, we had invoiced CAD 0.6 million of services to our joint venture. Meanwhile, as we are in process of improving the cash flow, we have reduced this significantly. We have also taken a restructuring cost of [ CAD 219,000 ] this quarter, which is adjusted out of the EBITDA metric on the screen. The adjusted EBITDA ended in at minus CAD 2.6 million, and we have a strong focus on improving profitability and cash. Thank you for attention. I will now hand back to Luc. Next slide, please.

[Luc Dionne, executive]

Thank you, Espen. So we are now moving on to the business plan and market updates, starting with our portfolio. Next slide. Next slide again. So from the inception of the company in 1990, we have systematically perfected the plasma technology. We have expanded our commercial and manufacturing footprint globally. We were the first company to qualify additive materials with Boeing and along the way, securing major wins and supply agreements with leading OEMs, such as previously announced Airbus. For more or less 15 customers back in 2014, a Tekna now delivers quality materials to over 200 customers every year, of which 70 of them are large OEMs representing 80% of our annual revenues. Next slide. So Tekna is engaged in 2 business lines: plasma systems on your left and advanced materials. The Systems business line is serving 2 distinct market segments. One is R&D plasma systems and the other one is plasmasonic wind tunnels, as you can see here, honestly. And the plasmasonic tunnels, as a reference, is similar to the one or similar to the one that we have delivered a few weeks ago and that I have shown on the previous slide. So the Systems business line represent approximately 1/3 of Tekna's total revenues in 2023. A key application of our plasma systems is to produce advanced materials in the form of very fine metal powders. So Tekna has developed a customized versions of these plasma systems for its exclusive use and production of advanced materials in 3 rapidly growing segments that we see here under the Advanced Materials business line. On the left, additive manufacturing, microelectronics and energy storage. The production for materials serving the Additive Manufacturing segment is fully industrialized, and it has generated 2/3 of Tekna's total revenues in 2023. Materials for microelectronics are at various development and qualification stages with [ selected ] prospective customers. So these materials represent a significant potential upside for Tekna. For energy storage, Tekna has developed a portfolio of both manufacturing processes and materials. But for now, their commercialization is on pause. Next slide, please. This slide here provides a much more detailed overview of the Plasma Systems and Advanced Materials business line. So it contains more insight on each market segment and is available for you online to review. So in the following slides, we will go -- we will discuss the market drivers and the business potential of our 2 revenue-generating business segments, Plasma Systems and Additive Materials, and I will follow with a brief update on our efforts for developing microelectronics. A more detailed business update for the microelectronics is expected to be available later this year. Next slide, please. So how do we plan to capture and harvest the potential of these markets. First, on the next slide, -- the market segments we are serving are experiencing rapid growth, and it's no stranger to the macro trends that we are observing to date. So as a result, the industry needs to adapt to higher market volatility, to supply uncertainty and manufacturing complexity. So to maintain their competitive position and cater to a globally evolving diversity of customers, the OEMs around the world are developing new manufacturing technologies such as 3D printing, qualifying new supply sources from geopolitically stable countries and or introducing in their product portfolio, better performing, more efficient materials, such as those for microelectronics and energy storage. With our innovative products and the high quality of customers developed over the recent years, Tekna is strategically positioned to be the ultimate partner for these industries. So one market segment that is quickly developing is space exploration and hypersonic flight, on the next slide, please. The PlasmaSonic solutions delivered by Tekna are unique tools, especially designed to test materials at the high temperatures experienced by aircraft or space vehicles traveling at 5 to 10x, the speed of sound. This is what we call hypersonic travel. The typical customers for these solutions are government-based agencies such as NASA and the European Space Agency or private companies such as Raytheon, SpaceX or Aireon space. So according to [ Ark ] Invest study, the satellite broadband, which requires many travels to space and hypersonic flight industries could generate annual revenues between CAD 84 million and CAD 270 billion, respectively. So as we can see on the next slide, this is creating a huge opportunity for Tekna. The next slide. So over the recent years, we have expanded our portfolio with off-the-shelf PlasmaSonic solutions with price varying from CAD 1.5 million to CAD 10 million. As explained on the slide before, the increasing interest in hypersonic travel and space exploration are accelerating the demand for these high-tech devices for which Tekna, by the way, is one of the very few integrated manufacturer globally. We have built a solid pipeline with nearly CAD 300 million in new opportunities with CAD 35 million of customers having today an approved budget to purchase one of these equipments. So we believe we could conclude on one opportunity by the end of this year or early next year. So in conclusion for the Plasma Systems segment, -- our many years experience in developing this technology have contributed to providing Tekna with a reputation of competence and excellence in the field of plasma solutions and materials. So this reputation, as we will see on the following slides, preceded us in the market and was pivotal to building an enviable position in the advanced material field. Next slide, please. So Tekna started competing in the Additive Manufacturing segment in 2014. The industry was then at its early age, but indicators are showing that it could be reaching now an inflection point, transitioning into the industrialization phase and serial production. And we see this transition through multiple indicators, in fact. For example, many OEMs have set up full-scale 3D printing facilities. They have invested massively in developing 3D printed parts for 3D-printed part subcontractors and 3D printed parts, and they have qualified and entered into multiyear supply agreements with their supply base, including Tekna, of course. Another element that is leading to this observation of transition to industrial and serial production is the 3D printing machines and metal material sales to the AM industry shown on the 2 graphs here. We can see that they have grown year-on-year in average, respectively, 24% and 23% since 2021. So the average order size, which is an other indicator for Tekna, the average order size are increasing and sales to our top 10, 15 customers in 2023 have grown threefold since 2021. So for these reasons, we firmly believe that this industry is reaching an inflection point. Next slide, please. So here, we're showing some graphs how we have developed Tekna. So it's exciting to see that for sales of materials for additive manufacturing, how this has developed since 2001 -- 2021 for Tekna. So there have been, of course, quarterly variations as we saw here in Q1, but the perspective we have, looking over 3 years, illustrates Tekna's tremendous progress in positioning itself as a lead supplier of materials for the treaty printing industry. All segments considered we have grown annually on average 42%, outperforming the industry growth of 23% referred to on the previous page. We have built an address book of over 200 customers with 70 of them generating 80% of our material sales annually. This business is a sticky business model with a strong base of recurring OEMs and top-tier customers firmly committed to growth. We have signed a multiyear supply agreements so far with our customers, including not the least Airbus, and we have achieved this in a competitive landscape served by a handful of titanium and aluminum suppliers with Tekna ranking among the top tier. So as I said earlier, for Tekna, these are clear indicators that the additive manufacturing is at an inflection point, transitioning from [ prototyping ] and experimentation, to industrialization and serial production. Then let's see how all this translates for Tekna in the future. Next slide. So we have done pretty well so far, and we will do more, scaling additive materials revenues with cost control in mine and significant productivity gain. We plan on adding manufacturing capacity to support a projected increase to CAD 70 million, growing nearly threefold from 2023's CAD 24 million. This growth aligns with a market CAGR estimated between 25% and 30% and will come from the addition of 3 atomizers in our factory. This is on top of the 6 we have today, productivity improvement of the existing and new atomizers and optimization in sales mix, including particle sizes. In addition, we have identified potential for further improvement that could bring the sales revenue per atomizer as shown on the graph here, from the current CAD 4.7 million, up to CAD 8.5 million per atomizer by 2027. To realize our plan, AM growth CapEx needs should be limited to CAD 2 million per year in average, and this will be used for the installation and minor adjustment on the 3 new atomizers that are already manufactured. And the CapEx -- growth CapEx will also be used for the utilities and acquisition of peripheral equipments. So this slide includes our business update for the current segment, plasma systems and additive manufacturing materials. Next slide. So here, I'd like to provide you with an update on our efforts to develop our position in the microelectronics market segment. For those who are joining us for the first time, this business line here reflects -- relates to materials produced by Tekna that can be used in the next-generation multilayer ceramic capacitors or in a short form MLCCs. So MLCCs are small microelectronic components using hundreds or thousands in the manufacturing of nearly 100% of all electronic devices used to date. Over 1 trillion, it's a big number of these MLCCs are sold every year. So we refer to these MLCCs as high-end MLCCs because they are the most advanced of their generation. And those are the ones that Tekna targeting. The body size makes 1 or 2 millimeters in length with a thickness of less than 1 millimeter. So it's a very, very tiny device. A high-end MLCC can contain up to 1,000 layers of nearly atomic scale range of pure nickel powder, stack one layer over another. So the almost unthinkable knees of these layers and the chemical purity requirement is what makes Tekna plasma process one of the very few capable of producing this material. So of course, this is a highly attractive and a relevant market for Tekna, and we have achieved a steady development progress over the past few years. So the first revenue-generating order of 50 kilogram announced earlier this year, was produced and shipped to the customer and feedback is expected in the second half of this year. We have factory trials with our materials have been scheduled with 2 prospective customers, including this one above. And we're all excited about the recent progress, and I know many of you are anxious about the development. It's a [ let the ] development cycle, but we trust a rigorous process we are following in this development. So now let's move on to the concluding remarks. Next slide. So in summary, for Q1, we closed with revenues of CAD 8.4 million, slightly down from Q1 last year, in part due to a timing effect of robust invoicing in Q4 of last year. The adjusted EBITDA was recorded at minus CAD 2.6 million. The order intake for the quarter was CAD 7.4 million, including a solid 26% booking increase over last year on additive materials. And this has contributed to an order backlog of CAD 22.6 million at the closing of Q1. So despite a slower start, which we had somehow anticipated for Q1, the market sentiment remains very positive. We see the additive material sales picking up early in Q2, and we have manufacturing capacity available to meet the increasing demand ahead of us. Hence, we are maintaining our guidance for growth and margin improvement for the balance of the year. Next slide, please. The growth opportunities for Tekna are driven by technology and supply chain transition. We see this across multiple industries that are developing new or better performing products, transforming how they manufacture them and/or reorganizing their supply chain to be more competitive and sustainable on the long term. With these drivers and market dynamics in mind, we expect our additive material sales to grow between 25% to 30% and deliver CAD 70 million in revenue by 2027. Sorry, once again -- the PlasmaSonic pipeline is CAD 3 million strong with well-funded customers, including prospective customers with budget approved totaling CAD 35 million. We see the potential of closing an order in the horizon of Q4 this year and Q1 next year. Next slide, please -- sorry. MLCC is an important potential upside to Tekna, and we are confident in our efforts to develop a winning position in this segment. This confidence has been reinforced by the latest 50-kilogram order that we have delivered. Some cash management and cash flow focus remains a top priority. Our business development efforts will lead in the near future to increase and more profitable sales of the smaller and larger powder [ fractions ], those who are either selling less or selling at a lower price today. So this will improve our profitability and significantly reduce our working capital. For the period 2024 to 2027, we expect to ease off on CapEx, as we have explained earlier, and we'll take advantage of the 3 atomizers that are already manufactured to increase our capacity. Next slide. So on this slide have key performance indicators and financial targets are marked by the strong potential. So the additive manufacturing average revenue growth rate per year over 2024, 2027 should follow at least the industry estimated CAGR between 25% and 30%. The adjusted EBITDA should reach the 20% mark by 2027. The capital expenditure is expected to be CAD 5 million in 2024, including CAD 4 million in growth CapEx. Then we will see ease off to treat the CAD 4 million per year, including growth CapEx for utilities and peripheral equipment as discussed earlier. Regarding our potential upside in microelectronics in the '24-'27 period, we aim at qualifying and scaling up with at least one customer, hopefully more. So this then on this, I conclude the first quarter results and business update presentation. Thank you for your attendance this session with us today. So I'm handing over back to you, Irina, to take us through the Q&A session. Next slide, please.

[Irina Van Oost, executive]

All right. Good afternoon. We have received a number of questions via the application already. We will start with some questions on the quarter and then follow up with the market update. I think you need a little break Luc, since your voice is...

[Luc Dionne, executive]

You can start with Espen.

[Irina Van Oost, executive]

Yes, I'll start with some questions for Espen. I really like the midterm outlook. Could you elaborate on how you came to these numbers from a financial perspective?

[Espen Schie, executive]

Yes, correct. So we have seen a few slides now from -- look in the market update section where Tekna's revenue growth has been above the market in that period. and we target to follow the market by means of planning. So this is supported by our market intelligence and also by published external market reports. The industries and applications we're [ selling to us ] still relatively early in its development. So it means growth rates also are relatively high, and investments going into these areas are still significant, and we are very well positioned to leverage these opportunities as more and more customers are advancing to industrial scale. And then as -- on the margin side. So we have a base setup in the company today that is great. We have done significant investments in the last years, and we will be able to scale the revenue while maintaining a stable cost base in line or battling with inflation rates. On the CapEx side, we have done significant investments also in the last years. Luc, mentioned that we have 3 machines that are, for the most part, already got with one ramping up this year. And then we have 2 more machines at hand ready to be installed to take advantage of opportunities and as demand [ scales ]. So -- and to install these machines, then we do foresee an average of about CAD 2 million annual growth CapEx, which not is utilities, Luc mentioned peripheral equipment and factory fixtures. So yes, I think that answers that question.

[Irina Van Oost, executive]

Very elaborate. Let's stay with you. We've had the adjustment in the quarter. Could you please clarify the situation around the joint venture?

[Luc Dionne, executive]

Yes. Around the joint venture, we are in process with our joint venture partner to optimize the cash flow. The variations we see in the Tekna EBITDA are related to the services that we provided last year to the joint venture, which was much higher. These services have been significantly reduced in Q1. We have done restructuring costs for CAD 219,000 for staff reductions in Q1, and the cash flow is already improved and further improvements are expected. I will also add -- come back to more details on this in Q2 as the development on this will be more advanced.

[Irina Van Oost, executive]

Yes. So we have received -- this is for Luc. We have received the order of the 50 kilograms of nickel material for microelectronics -- was that what does that mean for the business line?

[Luc Dionne, executive]

Well, it means a lot because it's -- first of all, it's the first sizable order we have received that typically, we were receiving smaller sample orders like the order of 1 kilogram for lab evaluation analysis, lab analysis and so on. But when we think about 50 kilograms, we're thinking about size volume that is -- you can introduce into your factory, you can expose this 50 kilogram to actual industrial equipment to manufacture these MLCCs. So for us, it means that it's the first time this -- with all the progress we have made in the past few years. This is a major milestone for Tekna as this material will now be evaluated in a factory. So it's quite a step in the process.

[Irina Van Oost, executive]

Yes, I agree. Some questions around aerospace. So first, on the material itself. So what is the advantage of powder or additive manufacturing versus traditional production methods when producing parts for aviation in general?

[Luc Dionne, executive]

There are, I would say, a few rationale where the OEMs or decide to use 3D printing. One of them could be because they want to manufacture a lower weight component. One other option could be that they could want to combine many components that are machines that are welded or bolted together. You may want to print the role part in just one buildup and avoid to have these multiple parts to be managed in their supply chain. One other reason could be, and you will see that everyone who flew saw that, you will often have parts on an aircraft that have a lot of cavities and cavities are there to remove the weight. So -- but there's a cost to removing these cavities because the aerospace customer or manufacturer, the aircraft customer manufacturer actually procure the wall piece of metal and just machine off these chips. So it's costly. So what the aircraft manufacturers want to do with 3D printing is basically print up the part as it will be in its final stage. So you avoid losing a lot of scrap material. So in the aerospace, we talk about the buy-to-fly ratio a lot. And for example, 50, you could have to buy a 50-kilogram block of titanium machine that and end up with a 1 kilogram block of finished [ part ]. So with treaty printing rather than 50:1, you will get 3:1, which is a significant cost reduction for the aerospace. So those are like, I would say, some of the more usual rational while the aerospace are adopting this technology.

[Irina Van Oost, executive]

Well, your last point is also helping the resource efficiency, right? So it's really also for the environment, a better technology. So there's a couple of follow-up questions on that. So does Tekna's powder have the necessary approvals to be used in aerospace parts, specifically for Airbus and Boeing in the question, but also in general?

[Luc Dionne, executive]

Yes, absolutely. I think there is one thing is that our power is qualified with many suppliers. If you recall the slide there at the beginning of the presentation, we have listed almost every known aerospace player -- the list there are not thousands of these players in the world. There may be 25 relevant ones, Airbus and Boeing, [indiscernible], and those are all [indiscernible] those are all the players in aerospace today. So without being specific on any of them, we do supply a lot of materials to this industry. As you saw also in the charts that I shared with the growth over the past 3 years. Aerospace has grown by 49% in the last 2 years. So you can tell that we've been supplying materials to this industry. A lot of them are OEMs, but also a lot of them are suppliers to these OEMs company. So it's not just about having the locking in, I would say, sales with one OEM, but you want to be qualified in the whole supply chain of this OEM. So -- and this is what we have achieved. I would say, brilliantly, over the past 5 years. It's a long process, and you want to be the selected supplier and we've managed to do this in a very harmonized fashion, I would say, with the customers.

[Irina Van Oost, executive]

So would you say we have a systematic approach to the market development for aerospace?

[Luc Dionne, executive]

It was very systematic from day 1 -- talking all the time with the printer manufacturers with the OEMs, with the [ car ] suppliers and progressing every day, a little bit or every year a little bit with each of them. And as I said earlier in my presentation, we can feel that we're at an inflection point now because we're not talking about small sample batches of 50 kilogram. Some of these customers now are delivering tonnes every month. So it's -- this is -- and the number of these customers requiring tonnes every month is increasing year after year. So yes, we've done -- we felt how long it was here at Tekna, and I'm sure that everybody listening today have the same feeling. But I think the indicators are there that this is about to switch to high gears. And the nice thing is we have the capacity to follow this growth.

[Irina Van Oost, executive]

Yes. Well, talking about capacity, let's continue with that one because now you prepare some better insight in the number of machines and the revenue per machine that deviates a lot from previous numbers. Can you explain the deviation? So what we kind of released in the IPO?

[Luc Dionne, executive]

Okay. Well, first of all, when we released the IPO, we've added up all the machines that were available in Tekna that would eventually end up being used for either 1 of the 3 materials segment. And what we have presented today, we are focused exclusively on the machines used for additive manufacturing. So this is one of the explanations where to explain the gap with what we have presented earlier. Another important explanation is the fact that when we went public, we did not have the full road map of performance improvement of each of these machines. And if you recall, Irina, we have -- last year, we have increased by more than 70% the output of our atomizers. So that was not foreseen then. So in fact, we are doing better with these machines that we had anticipated. And therefore, it requires less machines to achieve the same similar level of revenues we have now forecasted.

[Irina Van Oost, executive]

Yes. We are more than doubling that and that looks very good. One more question. You seem optimistic about the materials revenue for the rest of the -- of 2024. Can you elaborate on that?

[Luc Dionne, executive]

Well, I think for you -- those of you who read market studies or analysts for the additive industry, everybody agrees that Q4 was a good Q4 in general for industry, not just for materials but printer manufacturers. But Q1 and generally in the industry was a soft Q1. More importantly, for the manufacturers of 3D printers from what the analysts are reporting. So -- and we felt that because, of course, we sell powders to manufacture of printing machines. But on the other hand, what happened is that the current owners of printers, they are starting to increase the number of hours that they are using -- running these printers. So I mean we had quite a lot of invoicing materials invoicing in Q4. We probably have suffered from that a little bit in Q1. But right now, we see that the market very early in June, we see that the dynamic is coming back. The number of requests for quotes is accelerating. The number of order intake is also accelerating. So we see the dynamic coming back out of Q1. And I'm referring here to material sales. I cannot comment for how the business for 3D printers manufacturing is going.

[Irina Van Oost, executive]

Of course, that's out of our hands. One last question. This one is for Espen. Obviously, we are talking about 20% EBITDA in 2027. Can you tell us how this profitability will develop over time?

[Espen Schie, executive]

Yes. So as I mentioned, I was a bit short on this in my previous answers, but what we will see is general or what we're planning to see here are also [ projecting ] on our end as a scaling of revenues on the material side. We have mentioned 20%, 30%. And as the revenue scales, we maintain a stable cost base, the cost base to be in line with or better than inflation numbers. So we're targeting to be better than to be -- or to be around or better than that. So doing the maths, there is a leveraging the cost base as it is today, scaling the revenues essentially. So that -- and that will go on over time.

[Irina Van Oost, executive]

All right. Thank you. I have no further questions in the system. So this concludes the Q&A for this quarter. Luc and Espen will present and answer further questions on Wednesday in 22nd May next week at 7:00 p.m., we have another session there for private investors and more info can be found on our website and on investorweb.no. Feel free to reach out also by e-mail if you have further questions, [e-mail]. Thank you for joining today's webcast and we're wishing you a good day.

[Luc Dionne, executive]

Thank you.