Doro AB

STO:DORO

Earnings Call Transcript 2021-Q3

[Operator]

Hello and welcome to the Doro Audiocast Teleconference Q3 2021. [Operator Instructions] Just to remind you, this conference call is being recorded.Today, I am pleased to present CEO, Carl-Johan Zetterberg Boudrie. Sir, please go ahead with your meeting.

[Carl-Johan Zetterberg Boudrie]

Thank you very much for the introduction, and good morning and welcome, everyone. I'm delighted to be here and to present the third quarter results for Doro. And as usual, we will start with key highlights for the quarter, followed by some more detail on each business for the third quarter. And I said, finally, some concluding remarks and also a question-and-answer session.So let's start, and we can move into Slide #4 and key highlights in the quarter. So looking at the third quarter for Doro, we had a stable sales development in the quarter where our business in Doro Care showed growth both organically and through acquisitions. And Doro Phones increased its revenues compared to the second quarter this year and maintained its market-leading position.In the quarter, we showed very strong profitability. Both gross margin and operating margin have benefited from the restructuring program that we have implemented.The listing of business area Doro Care continues as planned where we are preparing for a listing -- or the ambition to separately list Doro Care before the end of the year.So maybe with those short highlights, let's move into the third quarter and give you some more color on each business area, starting with business area Doro Care. So if we move 2 slides ahead to highlight business area Doro Care.In Doro Care, I said, we grew both organically and through acquisitions. In total, in the quarter, growth was 15%, adjusting for currency effects. In the quarter, we also made a strategic acquisition of the Dutch company Innocom, which is one of the 3 leading companies in the very interesting Dutch market of technology-enabled care. This gives us an interesting position in this interesting market to continue to drive growth and market share gain in the Dutch market. And it's also completely in line with our strategy to expand both from an operating perspective and market perspective our business within Doro Care.Gross margin in the quarter was stable compared to last year. We have, during the quarter, faced challenges which have put pressure on gross margin, both from component costs and freight costs, but also with a high demand in the market in general for skilled staff within the health sector. These different elements in total, as I said, they have put pressure on the gross margin. But I am delighted that we, despite these sort of external factors that are influencing us, have managed to maintain a similar margin compared to last year, meaning that we have managed to ensure that we have worked more efficiently to counter some of the negative external effects.Towards the end of the quarter, we also acquired the assets from Helpline from Bromford Housing. One of the key reasons why we were selected to take over the Helpline business from Bromford Housing Association is they are standing in front of the digital shift, and we start to see more and more companies in the U.K. that are facing this challenge and are seeing it difficult for them to handle. And this is perfectly what we said before in line with our desire and ambition to support and drive the digital shift in the U.K. And this is exactly what we are doing and supporting Bromford Housing in acquiring the assets from Helpline and helping them through the digital shift.From a strategic perspective, our ambition to become the European market leader continues. And we want to be a key player in transforming the technology-enabled care market, where both demographics and technology will shape the future and enable several interesting value drivers.We can take next slide, please, to give you some more color on the financials for business area Doro Care. As I mentioned in previous slide, revenue increased with 15%, adjusted for currency effects, driven by both an organic growth of 6% and, in addition, growth from acquisitions that we made. It is also perfectly in line with our strategy that we should continue to grow with a high pace in business area Doro Care, both organically and through acquisitions.Sales and services increased by 8% in the quarter and products increased by 40% in the quarter. As I mentioned the gross margin level before, it equaled 40.2%, on a similar level as last year. It is not in line with our ambitions, but as I mentioned, we have faced a number of external challenges in the quarter. But it is positive also, as I mentioned. I see we are continuing to make our service delivery more efficient but with maintained quality and service level. And that have resulted in mitigating a few of the negative effects in the quarter.Operating profit in the quarter for Doro Care was SEK 9.4 million, adjusted for a historical VAT adjustment that we made in Norway. And we have continued to invest in our business, both operationally and especially from a sort of portfolio development perspective, to continue to be one of the leaders in transforming the technology-enabled care market and driving tomorrow's solutions.Next slide, please, and give you some highlights in the different markets in Doro Care. As I said, we did have sort of, in total, a decent growth in Doro Care. In Nordics, growth was 1%. Of course, we have sort of higher ambitions. And I think the underlying performance in the quarter is showing a better trend than maybe what we see in the third quarter results.We have won a number of new contracts in Sweden in the quarter due -- and I would say also in Norway, we have a number of services and products that we are waiting to deliver to our customers. In both Sweden and Norway, we have faced some delays in implementation of the new contracts, new services and new products due to both component availability, making sort of shortage in supply; and secondly, resource constraints with our customers as they have focused efforts on other things during COVID-19. And also for them, difficulties in finding competent staff in the health sector, meaning, as I said, there have been some delays in implementation, which have impacted sales or have resulted that we haven't seen the full sales effect in the quarter.U.K., Ireland, sales grew with 15%. And as I said before, I think one of the key elements in the U.K. is the acquisition of Helpline because it is a testament to the digital shift that is about to happen. That is cumbersome and challenging for many players in the market and where we are committed to be one of the players that will drive and support the digital shift.Rest of the World, sales amounted to SEK 13 million. That's an increase of 123%. And the increase is a combination of the acquisition of Innocom that we added in September and also increased product growth in some of the other markets in Rest of the World.We can take next slide, please, and give you some highlights of business area Doro Phones. Overall, in business area Doro Phones, I would say there's continued good development in our key markets, in our core markets, where we did show growth over the second quarter and we maintained or strengthened our market-leading position in these key markets. It is especially positive that we have started to see that the restructuring in Central and Eastern Europe that we initiated towards the end of the first quarter have started to show results, where sales increased significantly in the third quarter compared to the second quarter.Also, what's very positive in Doro Phones is the strong improvement in both gross margin and operating margin, which is an effect of the restructuring that we've done in the specialty business area Doro Phones, focusing on our key markets, key customers and key products, which we see signs -- clear signs that that's paying off.And looking forward for Doro Phones, we will continue to broaden our offering and continue our commitment to make technology available for seniors, expanding into new offerings besides our market-leading phone position.Take next slide and give you a little bit more color on the financials for business area Doro Phones. As I mentioned, sales increased compared to the second quarter this year for Doro Phones. We have maintained or strengthened our market-leading position in our core markets in Europe during the quarter. You could say despite this, sales decreased with 15% compared to last year. But this is very much due to the strategic decision that we took and the restructuring program that we've implemented where we, as a consequence, have phased out less profitable markets, customers and products. So to a large extent, the sales decline compared to last year is a consequence of the strategic decisions that we made, which has shown a clear positive contribution to the margins in business area Doro Phones.And as I said, gross margin continued to increase in the quarter to 36.0% in the third quarter, which is a very strong improvement compared to the same quarter last year and also a continued improvement over the last quarters.Also, operating profit, which equal close to SEK 40 million, is a very strong improvement compared to last year and also a strong continued improvement from previous quarters, giving an operating margin of almost 15% in business area Doro Phones.We can take next slide, please, and give you some more highlights in the different markets for business area Doro Phones.In the Nordics, sales equals SEK 66 million, an increase of 9% compared to second quarter -- sorry, third quarter of 2021. We have continued to -- I would say, we are the clear market leader in the Nordics, a position that we have manifested during the third quarter this year as well.West, South Europe and Africa, sales decreased with 20% to SEK 94 million. We have still and maintain our strong market-leading position in this market. But as I mentioned before, one of the key elements of the decline is our strategic decision to phase out certain markets where, especially in Southern Europe, we have taken strategic decisions to phase out Italy and Spain in the region, which have had a negative impact on sales in the third quarter compared to last year.There were also some positive effects in the third quarter last year of, you could say, the sort of bounce back from the first COVID-19 wave in 2020, which gives a tough comparable in the third quarter 2021. But we have maintained our strong position in the market during the quarter.Central and Eastern Europe, it declined 17% compared to last year. But we've seen clear improvements from the second quarter 2021 and also from the first quarter 2021, which shows that the restructuring that we initiated in the first quarter are starting to pay off and show good results.In United Kingdom and Ireland, sales equaled SEK 44 million, an increase of close to 4% compared to last year. And good, stable development in U.K. and Ireland region.Next slide, please. Looking into the total of the group. Net sales for the group totaled SEK 410 million, which is a decrease of 7% compared to the same quarter of last year. The main reason for the lower sales is our strategic restructuring program where we have phased out certain markets. If we look to our core markets, we see, as said, growth in Care of 15%, and we've seen a maintained position in our key markets in Doro Phones in the quarter.Operating profit equaled SEK 38.4 million, which is a 54% increase compared to the same quarter last year and continued good increase compared to previous quarter as well. This equaled an operating margin of 9.4%, which also is a very solid improvement and sort of steady improvement compared to previous quarters.Of course, the main reason for the good profitability development is, again, the strategic restructuring program in Doro Phones and also that we have, to a large extent, maintained our profitability within Doro Care, despite that we are investing and building a much stronger foundation to continue to be and to accelerate our position as the leader in transforming technology-enabled care.If we take next slide, cash flow for the third quarter. Cash flow in the quarter equaled minus SEK 34 million. The main negative development in the quarter is related to a negative change in working capital, where the main component is a change in inventory, where we have increased inventory in order to ensure that we can support and fulfill customer demand despite the challenges we have faced and we are facing from a supply chain perspective, especially component availability and freight.Also in the quarter, which, of course, impacted cash flow after investment activities was the acquisition of Innocom, which, of course, also then impacted net debt, that equal SEK 173 million at the end of third quarter 2021, where a key part of that change is the acquisition of Innocom that we did during the quarter.We can move 2 slides ahead to just give you some concluding remarks before I give you the opportunity to answer -- to ask questions.The Q3 positive, it is positive that we continue to see growth in Doro Care, double-digit growth. That's a combination of organic and acquisition-driven growth. The acquisition of Innocom in Doro Care have given us access and strong position in one of the interesting markets in technology-enabled care in Europe. Together with Nordics, the Dutch market are one of the frontrunners in sort of embracing and implementing tomorrow's solutions for technology-enabled care. A clear improvement in profitability, both in gross margin and operating margin, showing that our strategic restructuring program have given the desired effects.Challenges in the quarter. As I mentioned, we have continued to face challenges from the component and freight perspective, which has put some pressure both on margin, especially in the care sector, because in Doro Phones, we did a strategic price increase towards the end of the second quarter to mitigate the effect. In Doro Care, given the nature of the contracts and long service contracts we have, the sort of adjustment between -- the price increase adjustments that we are able to do have a longer lead time than what is possible in Doro Phones. So that's putting some pressure on the margin.And also, as I mentioned just before, also from a cash flow perspective, we have strategically made sure that we have availability to as large extent as possible, which resulted in higher inventory numbers and then a negative change in working capital.It's been a challenge in the quarter even though I'm satisfied that we managed to maintain the margins within Doro Care despite sort of challenges that we faced, which, to a large extent, are sort of the aftershocks from COVID-19, which resulted in both, as mentioned, from a component perspective but also from a resource perspective, where there is a high demand in the market for highly skilled health professionals, making it difficult for us and all others in this market and in the health sector to recruit competent staff, which, in turn, of course, from our perspective, lead to higher overtime, higher sick leave and, as a result, impacting margins negatively. But by making sure that we continue to drive efficiency, we have, to a large extent, managed to mitigate these negative external factors in the quarter and then maintaining our gross margin level.Of course, priorities ahead. We continue to ensure that we limit the effects from the component shortage and also, as I mentioned now, from -- you could say, from the staff shortage that we are seeing. We will continue to drive growth in Doro Care, both organically and through acquisitions. We are focusing a lot in broadening our offering within Doro Phones to ensure that we continue to make technology accessible and available for seniors and also other offerings and product areas. And we continue the preparation for a separate listing of business area Doro Care, where we continue to have the ambition to finalize the separate listing during the fourth quarter of this year.So that was the concluding remarks for the third quarter for Doro that in many ways showed good elements where we saw a stable sales development, good total growth in Doro Care, and especially the effects that we have carried out in restructuring the business have given very good results in driving increased gross margins and operating margins, giving a solid and strong profitability in the quarter.So I think with those final words, I open up for a question-and-answer session.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] We have one first question from Mr. Niklas Sävås from Redeye.

[Niklas Sävås, Analyst]

So the first question I have is on Phones. I mean you have mentioned that you have phased out a few markets, such as the U.S., Italy and Spain. And I'm wondering, how are your competitors responding to that move? Have you seen signs that they are moving out of markets that you have traditionally been strong in? Or -- yes, I'm curious to know the situation there.

[Carl-Johan Zetterberg Boudrie]

Yes. I think we've seen, you could say, similar effects from certain competitors and probably a trend that we've seen also almost before our restructuring program. One key example -- and maybe either pulling out from certain markets or pulling out from senior mobile phones all in all. I think one clear example of this, say, 1.5 years ago, Thomson decided to leave the market for senior mobile phones, they were especially strong in France. So that's a clear evidence of sort of similar things that we have focused on.And I think looking forward, the senior mobile phone market is still -- fragmented is not completely the right word, but we're still seeing quite a lot of brands, if we look at the European market in total. And I think for several reasons, as both sort of technology and the markets change, I think there will continue to be players who decide to sort of withdraw from either certain markets or products or entirely.

[Niklas Sävås, Analyst]

It's really helpful. Again, you mentioned the digital shift in the U.K. And I'm just -- yes, I will continue to ask the question, because we see the fiber penetration continues to spread at a rapid speed. And when do you think the digitalization will really take off in the U.K.? Will it be a gradual takeoff? Or do you see like a break point in the future where it really will take off more quickly?

[Carl-Johan Zetterberg Boudrie]

It's a really good question. I think, in general, what we see in our industry, there are a number of -- as I said, there are a number of factors, both from sort of demographic perspective and from a technological perspective, that are driving a change in our industry. To a large extent, we are seeing that the change -- and probably also because the type of sort of customers we are working with, the type of business that we're in, the type of services we deliver, the change is typically gradual rather than digital, if you understand the difference.So I think we'll continue to see a clear trend in a change in the industry towards the more proactive, preventive and predictive and towards digitalization, which is a requirement for the more proactive, preventive and predictive type of solutions. But again, I think this step will be gradual.But also, of course, if you take the U.K. especially, there is -- and Helpline is probably a good example. Our customers are sort of faced with a challenge they don't really know how to handle. Why -- they are, to some extent, postponing it. If you speak broadly, there are exceptions, where sort of they faced the problem early on.While I actually believe, as you say, things will start to sort of gradually move, but then we'll see an increased pace. And if you take sort of the fiber rollout, that's probably quite a good example in the U.K. as well, where they've been lagging behind many other parts of Europe, but then sort of the pace had picked up significantly just in the last quarters.

[Niklas Sävås, Analyst]

Yes. The last question I have is with regards to the acquisition you made in the Netherlands of Innocom. I just want to know how has the start been?

[Carl-Johan Zetterberg Boudrie]

So far, from our perspective, we're very positive with Innocom. We received a lot of positive feedback from the market about the acquisition of Innocom. And that was a good acquisition of a very good company. Also from, if you say, integration perspective, we're bringing Innocom into Doro, there's been a lot of positive elements and positive energy from the Innocom team and from the Doro teams, I'd say. And we have continued to see sort of continued development on a positive trajectory for Innocom in the Dutch market.

[Operator]

We have no other questions. [Operator Instructions] It seems that we have no other questions, sir.

[Carl-Johan Zetterberg Boudrie]

No, I think maybe we have a few questions online that I can try to answer.The first question is relating to sales levels in Doro Phones after the restructuring.You could say, to a large extent, and if you look at the last quarters and the sales levels we've achieved in the last couple of quarters in Doro Phones, and if you would look at rolling 12 months, which would be quite good indication, of course, adjusting for maybe some COVID-19 effects, you're probably looking at rolling 12-month sales in the size of around SEK 1.1 billion for Doro Phones as we, during the last 12 months, to a very large extent, then have phased out both U.S. and markets in South Europe.There's a second [ quarter ] on the increased component and freight costs where sort -- and a margin impact from the increased component and freight costs. We have, of course, seen -- and this is related to phones, and just take margins in general. One element, of course, is that we have seen increased component and freight costs in our Doro Phones business. What we've done, as I said, we did do a strategic price adjustment in the second quarter to, as to a large extent as possible, compensate with the increases in cost of goods sold.Secondly, the restructuring program that we've done, we have not only lowered our operating costs, getting sort of the organizational structure in place to right size, but we have also worked with several areas in the gross margin element, ensuring that we drive, for example, right warranty costs, right supply chain setup, which both improves margins and mitigate for the increased cost of the component and freight.I think also -- and another question here on Doro Phones, if there's a catch-up effect from COVID-19 and it was sort of -- we would expect the similar numbers in 2022.I think just focusing on COVID-19, and I think it depends on sort of the comparables that you make. The main effect we saw from COVID-19 was during the second quarter of -- or the negative effect, the second quarter 2020, where the majority of our main markets was shut down. So both customers and end consumers essentially just left the shop floor. We've then seen a gradual improvement after COVID-19. And I think both customers and end consumers found a way to handle COVID-19. And as a result, there's been gradual improvement from COVID-19. So I would not expect that there will be a significant bounce back as we saw maybe when we compare to the second quarter of 2020 in the quarters ahead.I think a question here, also online, when it comes to the improvement we can expect for Care during 2022 and also asking about a little bit of maybe the progress for Thomson in Sweden and actions to improve growth in EBIT in care.So several perspectives in Doro Care. As I said, we continue to see that this is an industry under transformation. In many markets, first of all, we need to move from analog to digital. And secondly, we need to move from reactive to proactive, preventive and predictive. We think that this change is inevitable. This is the only way to handle the demographical challenges and the funding challenges that we're seeing in society and especially in social care and health care.An industry in transformation, going from -- or in transformation and as an industry maturing, there are, of course, things that will take time, even though there will be a lot of positive elements during the entire transformation. We are committed to be one of the drivers and one of the leaders in this transformation. Why? We think there are very good opportunities ahead, both maybe short-term 2022 but even more so long term, looking beyond 2022 as the industry continues to transform. And I think this goes for all markets, Sweden and others as well.And that's why we, from a Doro Care perspective, we continue to invest and continue to focus on strengthening our product portfolio -- maybe wrong word -- our offering, because our offering, to a large extent, is more and more becoming an offering where we have both hardware, a software platform where hardware can be sold as more as a hardware offering, our software can build a combination with hardware and with our contact centers where we offer a managed service business. That is the largest part of our business today. But then software in itself, that is a key element that also is offered or started to be offered to customers as software-as-a-solution service. And we continue to invest to strengthen our offering to be the leader in driving the change in the technology-enabled care market.Then in terms of sort of margin improvement in Doro Care. So one element is, of course, making sure that we continue to capitalize on the value drivers we see in the technology-enabled care markets. But in combination, we will continue to drive efficiency and effectiveness in our service delivery, making sure that we continue to have sort of an industry-leading quality of service that we deliver to our customers.I think those were the questions from -- so the chat or the digital questions that we got as well. I don't know if there's any other questions from participants in the call.

[Operator]

We have no other questions, sir.

[Carl-Johan Zetterberg Boudrie]

Yes. Okay. One question. Yes? Okay, no more questions.

[Operator]

Yes, no more questions.

[Carl-Johan Zetterberg Boudrie]

No more questions. Okay. Excellent. Then thank you again very much for listening, and wish you a fantastic weekend.

[Operator]

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes the conference call. Thank you all for your participation. You may now disconnect.