Xplora Technologies AS
OSE:XPLRA
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Excellent. Welcome. We are live. It's a pleasure to welcome everyone for this Q1 report, 2023. Before I start the presentation, I would just like to say thank you to the whole Xplora team. It's been a fantastic team effort. And on behalf of the full company, we are very excited and proud to present the Q1 results.
Today, jointly with myself, we will present with our COO, Kjetil Fennefoss, extensive experience from the telco industry; our interim CFO, Jonas Ringstad, that has done a fantastic job with a lot of the great improvements we will see later today in the presentation.
Today, we have a slightly different format. I will take you through a quick summary of the key takeaways from Q1. Afterwards, Kjetil will guide you through some of our operational improvements and details, then Jonas will go through the financial details. And as always, I will end with an outlook to see forward.
Everyone is always curious about the key takeaway for the quarter. And we are very happy to present to you the number this quarter, and we can also emphasize what we said on the Capital Market Day, given the development, given the results, we can also continue to state, there are no further funding requirement plan for the company. And also, we have managed growth in a general, quite tough consumer market.
Overall, we managed to reach NOK 100 million in our first quarter. It's up 36% from last year. Recurring service revenue accounts for NOK 49 million, which is up 47%.
We have subscriptions, almost 170,000, of which 9,000 comes from premium services. Our gross earnings, NOK 42 million, equal to approximately 62%. And we have a reported EBITDA of positive NOK 1.6 million. Our cash balance ended at NOK 55 million.
I would also like just quickly to reemphasize what we said during our Capital Market Day back in April. It was 3 key drivers for the foundation of success for 2023.
First, we would like to work and prioritize to improve our cash situation, which we could do by really look into how we can disrupt our distribution model. And given all the investment we did last year in platforms, MVNOs and new product, we also could significantly reduce CapEx this year. Kjetil will take you through some of the details.
On the revenue side, since we did invest in new hardware platform last year, we are also expecting to be able to increase our price points of the new products and also with investment going from to 4 to 9 markets where we can sell SIM, that will also increase the revenue. Kjetil will again take you through the details.
On the cost side, we are heavily focusing to reduce our OpEx. We said last time, we would target 10% to 20% reduction equivalent, up from NOK 25 million, and we'll take you through the details of the status there as well.
And also in general, we have been working very hard during Q1 to see how we can improve a lot of our major agreements, which we, already in Q1, see some major effects of.
All right. Before we will see the details later, we would like to emphasize 7 -- sorry, 6 of the key accomplishments we have managed already in Q1, laying a good foundation.
Jonas will take you through some of the effects we have seen from being able to negotiate better deals. One of the key reasons why we have been able to renegotiate is that we currently are the #1 in our category. That gives us power, which we now have turned into action and cash improvements.
We also said, in order to reduce our OpEx, marketing is a big part of it. Already in Q1, we have seen that our marketing cost has gone from 12.4% to 9% of our revenue, already a good improvement while we're still increasing sales.
The team structure, we had a lot of growth last year, particularly from first to second quarter last year, we really started to grow the company in order to be able to handle this growth we have had.
By end of last year until now, as we said, we have been able to reduce from 132 to 120 full-time equivalents. Because, again, we did a lot of investment last year to finalize 3 new products, MVNO setups and a lot of services.
We are on track -- Jonas will show you details, but we are on track to reduce CapEx and OpEx. CapEx in first quarter, down from NOK 7.5 million to NOK 4.4 million. And we have already identified savings on the OpEx, particularly from Q2 going forward, roughly at NOK 11 million. We feel confident about the target to at least reach NOK 25 million.
We have managed to successfully increase our ARPU. In general, we have increased price point of roughly NOK 10 per month. And as we recently announced, we have managed to get a complete new distribution model and strategy, allowing us to release NOK 60 million of working capital, because building our company comes with a huge inventory investment.
And we have a new model, which Kjetil will take us through in detail. We are also even improving margin, and we can streamline the whole company even more.
I said I was very proud of the whole team of the company. One of the reason for that is that reading the news over the last 6 months, we have all seen that this market is trending downwards. Consumers are buying less. Wearables are falling. I don't think we read the same newspaper because we are still able to grow.
Germany is one of our biggest markets, so we have some data point from Germany, not just in the kids industry, but the whole wearable industry with Garmins and Fitbits and Nokia and Samsung.
Xplora is actually currently on top 5 of all wearables. The market is falling. We are still able to keep growth. I think this also showcase that potentially the kids smartwatch category, in general, are more resilient than other consumer industries. We are still growing.
What makes me very positive going into 2023 is that for the first year, for the first time in the company history, we have a crystal-clear strategy that we can execute on. Because leading up to now, we have been in a lot of development, a lot of testing, a lot of investments.
This year, we have one focus. We have 3 new hardware platforms; we have 9 global markets where we have SIM connectivity; and we have a SIM, now with 2 price points, to increase the ARPU. The only thing we are allowed to do this year is to execute this strategy.
We will do so while we'll be super focused on reducing cost, profitability over growth alone and continue to really demonstrate we're one of the few that are able to increase the ARPU. Kjetil will show us that as well.
And before you do, Kjetil, I think I would just like to spend 1 minute on this slide. It really summarized the job that has been done over the last 2 years.
When we were entering into 2021, some weeks after we got listed on Euronext, Xplora was a company that had really only a watch, a hardware product. We had a strong ambition to set up some SIM solution, try to sell SIM cards and potentially introduce some value-added services, someone would be willing to pay for.
We had roughly a lifetime value in gross margin of EUR 25 to EUR 30. That was what we were making on one sale. You all remember, the stock was traded at roughly NOK 40.
Going 2 years ahead of time, we are now a company that has an average lifetime value measured in gross margin, tenfolded that number. We have our products, we have 9 global markets, and we are one of the few able to execute on increasing the ARPU, becoming very profitable on our services.
With that, Kjetil will take us through some of the details on how we have executed and come to this position.
Good morning. I will start on with the telco part that Sten just referred to. We have been operating the telco model in the Nordic for several years. And as a curiosity, we can state that we have been able to capture the major growth or the net growth in the Norwegian market, as an example, from the period quarter 2, 2017 to quarter 2, 2021, we took 49% of the net growth in Norwegian market.
I think that proves that we have found a niche in the market that is untapped and where we are really able to monetize on.
During second half of last year, we set up the MVNO services in several other markets in Germany, in the U.K., in France, Spain and we had an intermediate solution in the U.S.
We have secured these telco deals with the leading network operators in the major markets where we offer our service on top of their networks. So we have the best coverage and capacity that we can get in those markets.
We're now taking the next step in the U.S. We will -- we expect to have the required certification for AT&T in place during June. That means that we have now started to implement our MVNO setup in the U.S. We already have 6,000 subscribers in the U.S. They will then -- in some few months, we will start to capitalize on our own MVNO solution also in the states. That means an even higher gross margin on that service.
So actually, we have the largest footprint of any Nordic-based MVNO across Europe. We have done 8 setups in Europe, and we are getting done the ninth MVNO setup also then in the U.S. So that means that we have the foundation to scale our business and make even more money on this business as Sten explained.
As I said, we started with implement -- or releasing the MVNO services in the other European markets outside of the Nordics last year. And we see now that in Q1 this year, we have been able to get the first growth figures. We have 10,000 subscribers outside of the Nordics.
You see that in Q1, there is a relatively flat curve for the Nordic markets. That is because of the slowest sales season of the year combined with churn on a high customer base. So we see the net growth comes then mainly from the markets outside.
Interesting to see is that also in the U.S., we have the 84% conversion rate of those people buying our product with the Xplora SIM card. They convert into our service. So that's a very high number.
Telcos have been talking about, for the last 10, 15 years to monetize on value-added services, which has proven to be very difficult. We have already proven that we are able to do it. We have 9,000 subscribers on our premium services after Q1 this year, and the growth continues. So as of today, we have 12,000 subscribers now in May.
The way we do it is that we have 2 subscriptions. We have the basic and we have the premium service. As you see here on the right-hand side, it's a very simple choice for the customer when she activates the mobile subscription plan.
And only through the activation page, we have 20% of the customers electing then the premium service. And that comes with an equivalent to EUR 3 markup on the price. So it drives the ARPU even higher.
We also sell the premium service through our Xplora app, where we address the entire customer base.
We have 274,000 customers who tried the Goplay formal version of it. Now we have started to capitalize it as we have proven that there is actually a big interest for using this service.
So at the bottom, you see some of the icons, what actually the premium service contents. So it's like auctions, books, adventures, competitions for kids, which is, again, based on the activity platform. So very popular among the children and also to drive the activity.
Then the financial impact of what we are doing. Here again, you see the basic and premium service. On the left-hand side, you see the price plan development in the Norwegian market over time.
We have done multiple price increases, which is different from most of the telcos that are really struggling to keep the prices flat. And then from the beginning of this year, we introduced under premium service as an add on and increased the price by equivalent to EUR 3.
The impact we see on the -- in the ARPU that we have had a steady growth over the last 4 years. We have done multiple price increases, and we have then added the premium service. So quite in percentage a very steep growth, and that also is then reflected in the revenue and gross margin out of this service.
A little bit on the U.S. operation. We are in place with the leading channels in the U.S. We have still quite moderate numbers, but we have actually got the first big order from a U.S. retailer. And we see that also then, the 6 products have been successfully listed with all these retailers.
We have also experimented a little bit on the price level on the connectivity service in the U.S. And we have actually just recently increased the price by $2 in the U.S. to really monetize even more on that service.
And as I mentioned, we are now moving into the next phase in the U.S. where we will implement our MVNO service, which will lead to -- actually that we will own the customer base, not using a third party, and we will increase the gross margin by more than 20 percentage points from an already high level.
We expect that implementation to be ready then -- ready for Q3.
Then one of the biggest news we released this quarter is that we have done a significant change in our distribution setup. Over time, we have built an extensive network of distribution channels across Europe using different distributors to serve different end customers, if it's a telco, a retailer, Amazon or web. So it's a complex setup that we have.
In order to simplify that and release capital and improve the EBITDA, we have just entered into an extended agreement with our long-term distribution partner in Germany, Brodos.
They will actually buy our entire European inventory that we currently have in our balance sheet and physically located with a third party in Poland. They will buy the inventory, and they will serve as our major single European distributor.
That means we get a onetime effect that they will buy the complete inventory that we hold for the European markets, will release cash equivalent to NOK 68 million.
On a permanent basis, this business model will go on. They will buy directly out of our production. So instead of having constantly 10,000s of products in stock in Poland on our balance sheet, they will now buy it directly out of production.
We have managed to improve our margin because there is a scale of economics in this deal for Brodos. So it is both release of cash that we can use for other purposes, and it increases our margin and it takes out some OpEx that we have in our own organization to serve all these distributors.
So that's, let's say, the 3 main effects of that deal. So we will implement this starting from now, then with the ambition of them having sold the inventory during this quarter.
All right. Thank you.
Good morning, everyone. So as we've already alluded to, it's been a pretty good start to the year. As many of you know, Q1 is the softer quarter in consumer electronics.
We've, however, managed to grow 36% year-over-year, which is really good. But looking at what we've done in 2 years, we've actually almost doubled our revenue, which is, in my opinion, incredible. As Sten said, it's the first time we've surpassed NOK 100 million in Q1. We see a lot of that as growth in recurring revenue, meaning that, at this time, we have annualized recurring revenue, ARR, of almost NOK 200 million.
We also have a positive gross profit of NOK 62 million, gross margin of 62% and EBITDA of NOK 1.6 million and a market capitalization of NOK 280 million, meaning that we currently trade at 1.4x ARR, pretty attractive for any investor, I would assume.
Going further into the P&L, we see device revenues of NOK 50 million, which is up 26% year-over-year; see device service sales of NOK 49 million, up 47%; and we have a cost of goods of NOK 39 million, which is up 26%, in part due to a one-off adjustment that, in sum, reduced COGS by NOK 4.1 million.
We also have payroll for the quarter of NOK 27 million, which is in part due to the establishment of the U.S. presence, the office we have in New York focusing on sales in -- throughout the U.S. and a strengthening of management and the growth of the organization to a company or prepare for the revenue growth that we've had.
We have marketing, as Sten mentioned, of NOK 9 million in Q1 '23 and Q1 '22, which is similar. But as a percentage of the revenue, it's down from 12.4% down to 9% of revenue. So we're getting more value for our marketing spending, which we think is really good.
Also, we have other OpEx of NOK 24 million, which is up 24%, a little lower than the overall revenue growth. And it includes in other OpEx, primarily external consultants, outbound freight and the U.S. investment that we've made throughout 2022.
We also saw in Q1 that we managed to complete initiations or initiatives where we reduced other OpEx by a measured NOK 11 million for throughout 2023. This is equal to about 7% of our total 2022 other OpEx and is step in the right direction for targeting NOK 25 million reduction in OpEx from 2022.
Our EBITDA was NOK 1.6 million, which is up from the restated Q1 of minus NOK 0.5 million, and depreciation was at NOK 13 million, which, in large part, is due to write-downs -- not write-downs, but depreciation of the Xplora Mobile acquisition that we had at the end of last year.
Looking into the balance sheet. There was a NOK 15 million increase in inventories as a preparation for sales throughout the high season and the rest of the year. This is financed through the Nordea agreement, in line with what we have said earlier. And a large part of this inventory will now be sold over to Brodos, and we will work on trimming that inventory going forward.
One thing about the Brodos agreement is that they will buy directly from our point of delivery in Asia. And meaning that we will likely not have or significantly reduce our inventories going forward as well.
And just on the Brodos agreement, as this is something that we've been preparing for a while, we have also secured a factoring agreement for the invoices, meaning that we will have an immediate cash effect after we issue the invoice to Brodos. There are no 6 or 12 weeks credit agreement, so meaning that we get the immediate cash effect.
We've had a cash increase throughout the quarter of NOK 4 million, in line with previous guidance. And the increase in short-term debt is from exclusively from the Nordea financing, and it covers goods in stock, prepaid goods not received and also reflected -- is also reflected in accounts payables. This gives us a net working capital of NOK 126 million.
So just to illustrate the cash statement and the cash flows we've had throughout the quarter, the CapEx was minus NOK 4 million, which is lower than what it was last quarter or Q1 2022, and is in line with the guided NOK 20 million to NOK 25 million forecast for total CapEx throughout 2023.
The change in debt, just to give a very clear overview of how that is structured, it's an inventory increase of NOK 15 million. It's NOK 11 million in prepaid goods not received, which is money that we've paid upfront for initiation of production of goods. So that is goods that we will receive.
And also accounts payables, as some of our inventories are financed directly as an invoice and not directly through the LC agreement, but the overall Nordea financing agreement.
So we still continue to forecast improvements to cash balance now at the end of Q2 2023 and a positive cash flow from operations in the second half of this year. That gives us a road ahead with Sten.
Thank you, Jonas. I hope everyone appreciated that walk through. As we always do, we try to give a glimpse of the future where we are heading. We'd like you all to pay some attention to the details of the upcoming slides with a sharp eye.
And as I said initially, please make sure to really understand our key strategy. The only thing we're allowed to do, 3 products, they are already developed; 9 markets where we have SIM, as Kjetil explained. We have 2 price points to drive the ARPU.
We have a success in Nordic with 2 million kids, 4 to 10. We have just started in Europe, 25 million market opportunity, and a couple of months with North American sales and operation, a 30 million markets.
I've been challenged today, particularly after the Capital Market Day, quite a lot of the investor in the market, some journalists even told us or asked us why do we see the success? Why are we able to outperform the market? Why are we able to do something quite unique as being a Norwegian tech company developing, selling hardware and even being able to monetize on services? What's the reason for that?
It's a pretty good question. And I wonder, is it because we just had an exceptionally good timing? I happen to lose track of my son. We needed to develop a product. The product didn't exist. We were the first mover into a market to provide safety with GPS technology that no one else had. Was that the reason we were the first one, and we have still kept a strong position? Or is it a fact that originally, we were a software and platform company.
So we actually happen to develop imaginary engaging content. So our kids, our user just loves our product more than the competitors. They use it more. Is that the key reason? Or is it a fact that how our kids, they just move more because they use the product every day. In fact, we can document that kids using our platform, they walk 2,500 steps more every single day over a year.
I'm going back to Trondheim today with my family. That's the same if I should walk from here all the way back home. That's how much more our kids walk than other kids. And I can tell you one thing, in the point of sale to a parent, that's exceptionally strong proposition. Maybe that's the reason.
It's probably a little bit of all of it, but I've been blessed working with brand marketing and tech for 2 decades. And I think we see the same blueprint every single time a brand has a big success. They have a story people really can relate to. Every single parent I talk to over the last 10 years have said, "I have experienced this myself. You are on a good journey."
Every single day we get stories that will make life easier for people, more peace of mind. They don't want to buy a smartphone, but still can actually call their kids agree on things. We make life easier. And some of our best successful marketing campaigns is when kid, can use stair step to help other kids when we work with UNICEF for United Nations.
Every single day, our whole team work darn hard to make a more sustainable future with kids more active, learning them how to help other kids. I think that's the reason. We happen to be in a growing market, even if the overall market is declining, we are still growing.
Now with what Kjetil explained, we have a strong competitive advantage on watches, on SIM, on services. We are a category leader already. I'm super proud to say, we have the strongest team in the whole category by far, and we have just disrupted the whole distribution model. No one has done what we have done in our category.
So I'm quite optimistic on our outlook. We didn't guide this year, but we still find it quite reasonable that the overall category, the smartwatch category, have a 15% CAGR target. I find that reasonable to assume.
We have some increased confidence to deliver the minimum of 175,000 subscribers, some more subscriptions because we have 2 different services to sell.
As Jonas said, we are on track to reduce our OpEx savings. We are working really hard to streamline the whole organization. As a tech company, we also embrace new technology.
Last time, Kjetil explained to you on the Capital Markets Day, we use AI chatbots to efficiency or make our whole support vision more efficient. And if you really paid good attention, every single image I just showed you in the outlook statement, 6 or 7 images, they are all generated by AI.
If we should have these images developed 2 months ago, we would have to have a budget on NOK 200,000. Now we spent NOK 100. It's generated by AI, and we have a huge opportunity because we're a tech company to really embrace new technology to create fantastic things.
We will remain focused to make money, become profitable. And the little time we have left, we are still exploring to really grasp the future opportunity within family IoT, a category that is 3 to 5x bigger than the smartwatch for kids industry. So we are excited.
I think it's a good segue to get into the Q&A. I need this. All right, Kjetil, if you can come here with Jonas.
The way we will execute, we will read through the questions from our online audience. Last time, we had actually 100 or so joining online, so that was very good. So we'll read through the questions first, and then we can take questions from the audience afterward.
And question #1, I think that will be you, Kjetil. Can you elaborate on to the Brodos deal? How close to NOK 60 million do you think you will get?
Pretty close. It depends actually on what we have in stock at the time we transfer it. So they will buy the entire European stock. So it will be on the date of execution that we will say the exact number, but it's roughly what we estimate to have in the -- in stock at the time when we do the transaction.
Thank you. And why -- that's for Jonas. Why is there a onetime adjustment of NOK 4.1 million? And what is that?
So that is costs that we have accrued for, but not received an invoice for. And as a part of Sten and the rest of the team's renegotiations throughout the quarter, we have now been able to make sure that this is not something that will actually be charged to us and which will be included in the reduced OpEx going forward as well. So that's a NOK 1.4 million -- sorry, NOK 4.1 million reduction, and it's a onetime effect.
Okay. Kjetil, you currently have 8 MVNOs. What is the value of adding another MVNO in the U.S.? And explain a little bit more about the value of having MVNOs. That's a good one.
Yes, it's important for us actually to -- as an MVNO actually own the customer base. In the U.S. today, we use an intermediate solution where we get the revenue share of somebody else operating it for us. So it's the value of the customer base that you build over time. And secondly, it's a margin increase of approximately 20 percentage points from an already high level.
Okay. Can you elaborate a little bit more in Germany? It's your largest market, but you are selling mostly hardware so far in Germany. Can you explain a little bit more about the German strategy in general moving from hardware [ region ]?
Yes. Currently, we also sell, including our own subscription service on Amazon, on our own web shop. And we have just entered into 3 large retailers in Germany. On top of that, we sell to the telcos where we obviously don't have our own connectivity service, but we are then expanding our connectivity business in Germany.
Okay. Then it's a lot of question about Brodos. So let me try to go through. One -- yes, one very relevant one. Can they send it back?
No. No.
If the agreement is signed, so they actually can send it back to us?
No. I mean it's a partner that we have been operating together with for many, many years. So we're actually expanding the business relationship. They will serve the same volume as we sell ourself. We have a fresh new inventory.
Of course, we have made a forecast, and the volume that we will transfer will be in line with the forecast that we have made for the coming months. So it's not that they will, anyway, raise a claim to return it.
And Jonas, will this new distribution agreement remove the need for the Nordea facility going forward? Or how is that correlating?
Well, it won't reduce the need for it. We can still use it. And as it is on very favorable terms, I have suggested that we keep using it, but it will significantly shorten the time period that we use it. So it will free up a lot more capacity as the rotation will be lower.
And also actually, a good question here. With the Brodos agreement, is there any change of ownership to the customer? Just that explain that a little bit.
Yes, no, no. They are only selling our hardware and the customer relationship is through the services that we have, either the premium service or the connectivity service. So no change.
All right. Do you have any other views on why we are able to efficiently or reduce marketing still growing in an overall category that is still declining? That's for you. That's for me. I tried to elaborate on it. I think it all boils back to still parent are concerned, love their kids if the market is going up and down.
Actually, one interesting point we have seen is that the more challenging the market becomes, we see the pattern on Internet instead of searching for activity or phones, people are then starting to search for GPS and safety. So I think actually the more challenging marketing are being, even it's financial or other things, our product is just even more relevant. And also what I addressed previously, I think that's the reason why we are keeping growth while the overall category is coming down.
Rest of the question is still kind of the same thing. We already have -- is the Xplora Pay still a business opportunity?
I think that's a good one. And the best answer to that is, yes, potentially in the future. But as Kjetil elaborated on, we use 2022 with almost 300,000 users on our platform to see what is actually the services that are sticking with the users. And we realized, let's use what we have in 2023.
And as you showcased already now, 20% are by default upgrading. So instead of adding more services, CapEx development for this year, we use what we have because it's selling quite a lot. In the future, for sure, we can add more services such as Xplora Pay.
I think that's the questions from the online audience. Anyone? Øystein, you'll get a microphone.
Øystein Lodgaard, ABG. First, a detailed question. In the U.S., when you move to full MVNO license, will the existing subscribers that you have there remain with the old agreement? Or will you move them over to the new MVNO license?
They will stay on the current agreement. The experience is when you try to migrate customers from one subscription type to another, you roughly lose 30% of them because you have to replace the SIM card. So the most efficient for us is to leave them under. It's still a very healthy margin, and all new customers on the AT&T network will be on our MVNO service.
And on the Capital Markets Day, you talked about an initiative to monetize the big base of non-Xplora subscribers. Can you say how is that progressing? And how do you differentiate the 2 services in order to incentivize them to sign up for a paid subscription?
Again, for premium services, we have 2 ways of selling it. It's either for new customers when they select the type of mobile subscription plan they want to have or either the basic or the premium, which included increase in value-added services.
The other part is to existing customers that can sign up for the premium service through the Xplora App. So initially, I would say, of that base of 12,000 that we have as of now, a little bit more than 50% have come through new sign-ups, but we haven't really started to aggressively market the service through the app.
The way we will then drive the take-up through the app is with through in-app communication, one of the so-called tiles in the app that we will use to monetize existing customer base.
But also to be very clear, we have not started that for a full year. And as Kjetil said, we already, in the point of purchase, see 20% conversion. We have started to convert some from our application, but that is really one of the key priorities from now going forward to capitalize on our whole user base to upgrade.
All right. No more question online. And thank you, Øystein. Anyone else? If not, we will continue to serve coffee and have some one-to-one conversation. That's why we love to actually have people live with us. If not, thank you so much for joining us live and online as well. Thank you.