OVZON Q4-2023 Earnings Call - Alpha Spread

Ovzon AB (publ)
STO:OVZON

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Earnings Call Transcript

Earnings Call Transcript
2023-Q4

from 0
Operator

Hello, and welcome to today's webcast with Ovzon, where CEO, Per Noren, and CFO, Noora Jayasekara, will present the year-end report for 2023. [Operator Instructions]

And with that said, I hand over the word to you, Per.

P
Per Noren
executive

Thank you so much. Hello, and welcome, everyone, and thank you for joining us today on Ovzon's earnings call for the fourth quarter 2023. I'm here today with our Chief Financial Officer, Noora Jayasekara.

N
Noora Jayasekara
executive

Good afternoon.

P
Per Noren
executive

Thank you, Noora. The end of 2023, the fourth quarter and the beginning of 2024, have been very exciting and eventful for Ovzon. We'll get into all of that in a few minutes. But before I get into it, let me provide you a brief introduction to Ovzon.

Ovzon is a leading satellite communications provider, pioneering the most advanced mobile satellite communications in the world. We continuously innovate and deliver new solutions and technologies to our customers. The company has a focused strategy and execution plan to be the game changer in guaranteed connectivity for any critical mission using mobile satellite communications. We're staying focused and true to our vision, connecting the world's critical missions via satellite. The company was founded in Sweden in 2006. We're listed on Nasdaq Stockholm since 2018. In the early days, the company was focused on designing, developing, selling and delivering the smallest and not high-performing mobile satellite terminals. Today, Ovzon is the leading solutions provider for a fully-integrated SATCOM-as-a-Service solution that delivers the highest level of connected performance. We work with distributors, customers and end users in the United States of America, Sweden, Europe and South America. What sets us apart from any other satellite services communications provider is that we manage and control the entire value chain. As you can see in this picture, we deliver SATCOM-as-a-Service with immediate connectivity from the smallest, lightest and most high-performing mobile satellite terminals; two -- #2, managing high-performing steerable satellite networks and offering until today -- our offering has until today been based on leased satellite capacity, but later this year, we will have our own first satellite Ovzon 3 in operation, which means we will manage a hybrid of our own satellite network and lease networks. We partner only with a few selected secure gateway providers where we implement our own hardware and secure stacks, and we manage all of that through our dedicated 24/7, 365 service delivery and support through our network operations center, both in a centralized and decentralized way. Ovzon is truly unique in this regard.

Now if you look at the broader perspective of things, satellite communications has today become an integral part of the broader communications landscape. The communication infrastructure for fixed and mobile telecom networks are, as you know, well built out and covers the need for well functioning communication to the vast majority of people in urban regions. However, fixed and mobile networks lack some important features that only satellite communications can solve. When land-based communications cannot be trusted for whatever reason, satellite communication may provide the instant communication access. Moreover, many areas at land, at sea or in the air simply lacks communication capabilities. As we can all follow daily and very near to us, the geopolitical tension in the world has regrettably continued to increase. We also see more flooding, storms and wildfire due to changes in climate patterns. As a result, large volumes of refugee streams cross borders daily. We now see many nations increasing their spending and investments in upgrading their total military, national security and civil defense capabilities. Space and satellite communication is now becoming a critical part of the communication backbone as it provides guaranteed connectivity. Here is a graphical description of where we're positioned today in the competitive solutions landscape. If you look on X-axis, which represents mobility, and the world is getting to smaller and smaller mobile terminals that can connect to the satellites. Performance, the Y-axis, drives them performance, how much bandwidth and how much data you can -- throughput you can get through those small terminals. This sets the different services providers apart. As you can see, Ovzon operates in the premium segment in this market, with no fail requirements and guaranteed performance, mobility and resiliency. Our next-generation technology based on the Ovzon 3 platform will be available for customers during 2024, and move us further up the value ladder. The Ovzon 3 platform will take guaranteed satellite communications and customer experience to totally new levels. Now let's begin with the highlights of the fourth quarter of 2023. Without doubt, it's been very exciting times for all of us at Ovzon. Let me start with the most important milestone in the history of our company, the successful launch of our first own satellite, Ovzon 3. During the fourth quarter, we were busy with the finalization of Ovzon 3 and the Ovzon On-Board processor. We were also planning and preparing for the launch of the satellite, which was planned for mid-December. Due to very unusual weather conditions in Cape Canaveral, Florida, the launch was postponed to January 3, 2024. That was the day and time when Ovzon finally was launched into space. We'll talk more about Ovzon 3 and the launch on the next slide. We also finished the year strong with a strong order momentum. We received a significant order of SEK 135 million from the Swedish Space Corporation, an order that really underlines that Europe is now solidified as an important and strategic market for Ovzon. Moreover, we received 2 orders from the United States Department of Defense of a total value of USD 4.3 million during the quarter. In December, we also successfully concluded a new share issue of SEK 250 million to strengthen our financial position and creating. [Audio Gap]

All right. Satelite communication is obviously something that is very important and something we have also worked with. As I've now understood, you lost -- we lost a connection here. We're not on satellite connection with Ovzon. We're actually on normal connection. So I was actually talking to all of you while you were not hearing me. So I'll do a little bit of a regroup here and try to get us through what we had prepared to present to you. We deeply apologize for the SNAFU, and we hope that when people have Ovson 3 and satellite communications, connectivity will be better. And most of you know that the company was founded in Sweden in 2006. We're listed on Nasdaq Stockholm since 2018. In the early days, the company was focused on designing, developing, selling and delivering the smallest and high-performing mobile satellite terminals. Today, we are the leading solutions provider of fully-integrated SATCOM-as-a-Service that delivers the highest levels of connected performance. We work with distributors, customers and end users in the United States of America, Sweden, Europe and South America. Next slide, please. What sets us apart from any other satellite services communications provider is that we manage and control the entire value chain as you see in this picture. We delivered SATCOM-as-a-Service with immediate connectivity from the smallest, lightest and most high-performing mobile satellite terminals. Number two, managing high-performing satellite networks.

Our offering up until today, has been based on lease satellite capacity. But later this year, as you all know, when we have our own satellite, Ovzon 3, in operation, we will manage a hybrid of our own satellite networks and leased networks. We work only with a selected few secure gateway providers where we implement our own hardware, secure stacks, and we manage all of that through a dedicated 24/7, 365 services where we deliver services and support through our network operations center in both centralized and now also a decentralized ways. Ovzon is truly unique with this value chain and in this regard. Now putting it into the broader perspective. Satellite communications has today become a very integral part of the broader communications landscape. The communication infrastructure for fixed and mobile telecom networks are, as you all know, well built out and covers the need for well functioning communication for the vast majority of people in urban regions. However, fixed and mobile networks lack some important features that only satellite communications can cover. When land-based communications cannot be trusted for whatever recent satellite communications may provide instant communication access. Moreover, many areas at land, or at sea or in the air, simply lacks communication capabilities. As we can all follow daily and near us, the geopolitical tension in the world has regrettably continued to increase. We also see more flooding, storms and wildfires during the change in climate patterns. And as a result, large volumes of refugee streams cross borders daily. We now see nations increasing their spending and investment in upgrading their infrastructure, their total military, national security and civil protection capabilities. Space and thereof satellite communication is now becoming a critical part of the communication backbone as it provides guaranteed connectivity, not just nice to have.

Next slide, please. This is a graphical description of where we're positioned today in the competitive solutions landscape. The X-axis is mobility and the Y-axis is performance or data throughput, or how much data you can send and receive. And what sets us apart is that we have the smallest on the X-axis, mobile satellite terminals, through mobility. And on the Y-axis, we guarantee and can provide the highest level of throughput and data rates. We operate, therefore, in the premium segment, in markets with no fail requirements and where they must have guaranteed performance, mobility in a secure and resilient way. Our next-generation technology based on the Ovzon 3 platform will be available for customers during 2024, and this will move us further up the value ladder. The Ovzon 3 platform will take guaranteed satellite communications and the customer experience to totally new levels. Now let's begin with the highlights of the fourth quarter of 2023. Without doubt, it's been a very, very exciting time for us at Ovzon. Let me start with the most important milestone in the history of our company, the successful launch of Ovzon 3, something we've been working hard at and waited for a long period of time. During the fourth quarter, we were very busy with the finalization of Ovzon 3 and the Ovzon On-Board-Processor. We were also planning and preparing for the launch of the satellite, which was planned for mid-December '23. But due to very unusual weather conditions in Cape Canaveral, Florida, the launch was postponed to January 3, 2024. At that date and at that time, Ovzon 3 was finally launched into space. We'll talk more about the launch and the health of the satellite on the next slide. We also finished the year very strong with a strong order momentum. We received a significant order of SEK 135 million from the Swedish Space Corporation, an order that underlines that Europe is now solidified as an important and strategic market for Ovzon. Moreover, we received 2 orders from the U.S. DoD or United States Department of Defense. The total order value was USD 4.3 million. In December, we successfully concluded a new share issue of SEK 250 million to strengthen our financial position and create flexibility. 2024 has kicked off with intense focus on sales, customers, delivery and market penetrating activities. After the fourth quarter ended, the United States Department of Defense was the first customer to place an order for the new Ovzon T7 mobile satellite terminal. This terminal is the smallest, lightest and most powerful and easiest to use mobile satellite terminal ever designed and produced. Early in the first quarter of 2024, we also received a continuation and renewal of the delivery of Ovzon SATCOM-as-a-Service to the Italian Fire and Rescue Services. I want to just share some highlights and high-level information on the share issue as well. It was concluded on December 6, 2023. It was fully subscribed and no guarantee commitments claimed. The use of the proceeds amounted to SEK 250 million. The proceeds will be used for financing the company's operations, strengthening working capital and cover the remaining cost for the finalization of the Ovzon 3 program. I would sincerely like to thank our loyal and long-term existing shareholders for their continued and solid trust in us. The process we had was very good, That, in combination with an increased public interest in the company and the launch of Ovzon 3 has increased our shareholder base with approximately 20%. I hereby want to officially warmly welcome all of our new shareholders to Ovzon. Now let's dig a little bit deeper in the successful launch of Ovzon 3, which also included the planned and executed outreach and market activities that we performed in conjunction with the launch. I will, of course, update you on the current health and status of the satellite as well, something many people ask me about on a daily basis. What you see in this picture is the actual launch of Ovzon 3 on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket that carried our satellite out in space from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on January 3, 2024. The picture is actually taking exactly from the spot where I personally stood and watched the launch of Ovzon 3. So Ovzon 3 satellite weighs about the same as a modern car, about 1,900 kilograms. The satellite is 27-meters wide when solar panels and antennas are deployed, which is more than twice the length of a normal bus.

Our Ovzon 3 satellite is the first privately funded and developed Swedish geostationary satellite ever to be launched, and it's the most powerful geostationary satellite launched into orbit. When parked, sometimes mid this year, in its orbital position, it will cover 1/3 of earth by its steerable spot beams. The satellite and the payload is patented by Ovzon, it includes high-power steerable beams and unique software-defined capabilities. The Ovzon On-Board-Processor is unique and powerful in-orbit processing platform allowing users to be directly connected across multiple teams without the use of teleports. This cuts latency in half and enables previously unavailable resiliency for assured connectivity. Together with our newly launched terminal, Ovzon T7, we're now demonstrating and showing our customers and the markets we serve are cutting-edge, next-generation technology on Ovzon SATCOM-as-a-Service. As the launch was truly a historical milestone for Ovzon and all of our stakeholders, of course. We wanted to use the opportunity to really highlight this together with customers, partners, investors and employees. In December 2023, we gathered about 150 stakeholders for the launch in Florida. Even though the weather prevented us from witnessing the actual launch at that time, it was a unique opportunity to emphasize all the benefits of our new technology and solutions platform and strengthen all the ties within the Ovzon community. When the actual launch took place on January 3, we arranged and I personally led a smaller VIP launch event in Florida, as well as launch viewing events led by our leaders of the company in Sweden and the United States, both for external stakeholders as well as for employees in our offices in [indiscernible] and in Tampa. I'm also pleased that this historical launch was broadly covered by both Swedish financial and industry media, but even more so international industry media, which, of course, is important in our continued work in accelerating and educating the market about the unique tangible value Ovzon delivers. To sum up the update on Ovzon 3, which as I said, often get interested followers to ask questions about I want to share an update on the current status of the satellite and the planned activities and time line ahead. In this picture, you see the elliptical orbit of Ovzon 3 on its way to geostationary orbit. Distance to earth is at any given moment in time between 60,000 and 5,000 kilometers. Right now, the satellite is actually close to earth at about 6,000 kilometers. It travels at a speed of about 10,000 kilometers an hour. Since the launch, the deployment of solar arrays and thrusters have been successful, and the propulsion system, including the thrusters are working nominally. There is tracking and activity going on with the satellite constantly, and it's in full health and functioning as designed. We have, for example, successfully completed the in-orbit test of the satellite platform. During the next couple of months, there are several planned activities to perform before the satellite would be ready to be brought into commercial service once it's reached its dedicated orbital position at 59.70s. I can't provide an exact date, but our estimate is that Ovzon 3 will be ready for service around midyear 2024. As already mentioned, we finished 2023 with a good order intake, symbolized foremost by the large order from the Swedish Space Corporation, as the most important one with an order value of SEK 135 million. The order was for integrated Ovzon SATCOM-as-a-Service, which includes Ovzon on the [indiscernible] mobile satellite terminals, and we started the delivery of the mobile satellite terminals already in December 23. This order again emphasizes the fact that Europe is a very, very important market for Ovzon. Let me turn to order intake for the fourth quarter, followed by a more detailed financial update by Noora. For a company of Ovzon or our size, serving mostly the government markets, our order intake is still somewhat cyclical and not as predictable as we're striving for it to be. In fairness, it takes time to build market awareness of our unique value-added products, services and solution and to achieve in-depth and relevant market presence in the right geographical markets and segments. The lead times are often fairly long, and they're long and also concluding what we strive for more major long-term customer contracts. In parallel, we're working hard to complement larger contracts with small- to medium-sized orders, which then becomes a reference point in that specific market and the start of expanding contracts from that. In the fourth quarter, order intake amounted to USD 17.6 million, and our order book at the end of the quarter amounted to USD 14 million. Both ended up somewhat lower compared to the comparable quarter in 2022. As already mentioned, the order intake includes a large order from SSE, but also renewals from the United States Department of Defense, which this time was rescoped to an 8-month contract of USD 3.1 million. The renewal was lower in size compared to previous years, mostly explained by a very complex political and fiscal situation in the U.S., resulting in new budget considerations, processes decision-making and timing. However, I'm glad to say that our relationship with our customer within the United States Department of Defense remains long term, solid and strategic, where our next-generation services, including Ovzon 3, the Ovzon On-Board-Processor and the Ovzon T7 terminal are important new capabilities. We see a positive sign with this -- with the order on the Ovzon T7 terminal from the United States Department of Defense early here in 2024. Now let me turn the floor over to Noora to provide some more in-depth details on our financial performance.

N
Noora Jayasekara
executive

Thank you, Per. I will now give you some details on the financial performance in the fourth quarter of 2023. Turning to Slide 14. Revenue totaled SEK 91 million for the fourth quarter, corresponding to a decline of 10%. Adjusted for currency effects, the decline was 15%. The lower revenue from SATCOM-as-a-Service was mitigated by revenue from terminal sales. Run rate revenue from SATCOM-as-a-Service was SEK 223 million, a slight decline compared to third quarter due to the low order intake during 2023. Next slide, please. EBITDA in the fourth quarter amounted to minus SEK 6 million, and EBIT to minus SEK 14 million. EBITDA in the fourth quarter this year was impacted by higher overhead costs partly related to costs in conjunction with the launch of Ovzon 3. And as a reminder, the comparative period was negatively affected by a bad debt reservation of SEK 44 million. EBITDA margin for the period was minus 6%, and EBIT margin minus 15%. Excluding last year's bad debt reservation, margins are slightly lower due to the lower revenue, higher overhead costs related to sales and personnel costs for the launch of Ovzon 3. It is delighting to note that sequentially, EBITDA and margins are improving due to the improved utilization of purchased capacity. Next slide, please. Cash flow from operations landed at SEK 10 million. The improvement is primarily linked to improved capacity utilization and lower inventory. Investments in Ovzon 3 as well as the development of the mobile satellite terminal, Ovzon T7, drive the cash flow from investing activities also during the fourth quarter. Net debt landed at SEK 410 million as a result of the mentioned investments, proceeds from the share issue and utilization of the remaining credit facility. And with those words, back over to you, Per, for some final comments.

P
Per Noren
executive

Thank you, Noora. Well, let us close up this part of the webcast before we go to the questions and answers with some concluding comments and forward-looking remarks. As you've noted, I'm really pleased and relieved with the successful launch of Ovzon 3. For us to have this industry-first satellite healthy making planned progress on its way to its orbital position is exciting, provides energy and drives our motivation at very, very high levels. Clearly, one of our targets for 2024 is to get Ovzon 3 operationalized and entry into service and ready for commercial use. We are now out in the field, close and close dialogue with a lot of interested customers about the next cutting-edge SATCOM-as-a-Service based on our new platform. We will continue our focused execution to drive a step change towards profitable growth. As I mentioned earlier and something we've communicated before, sales cycles are fairly long for unique, value-added and advanced communication solutions that Ovzon delivers. But there is a clear, solid and true underlying need and request for Ovzon SATCOM-as-a-Service. Our core market segments and geographies are focused. They are to be found in government, defense, national security and public safety sectors. In the continued dialogue with our current and new customers, our demonstrations and our message is very clear. We're here to solve your problems with guaranteed connectivity for any critical situation and mission, long term, midterm and short term. And at Ovzon, we are uniquely -- we have a unique value to deliver today and a definite clear market offering of our next-generation SATCOM-as-a-Service. We will also continue in 2024 to accelerate our industrialization initiatives. As we plan for growth, we also plan for a scale-up of the company in both quantity, quality and efficiency when it comes to, for example, to volume production of mobile satellite terminals, concentrated and targeted sales, business development and marketing efforts, in-depth partnering with selected partners, to mention a few critical actions we're working on. Our financial position and managing scarce resources and cost is and have always been key to Ovzon. We continue to have a discipline and continuous focus in this area as well. Even though we will continue to have a mix of our own and lease satellite networks and capacity, the use of our own capacity will start to work in Ovzon's favor, creating and achieving more predictable growth is very critical to Ovzon at this point. I remain very confident in Ovzon's ability to deliver and exceed the world's requirements and the rapidly increasing need for high-performing, resilient and fast mobile connectivity via satellite. Last, but not least, I really want to thank our dedicated stakeholders, meaning our customers and business partners, our people, what we call Ovzonians, and our shareholders for their continued passion, trust and dedication and support in Ovzon. We are up and running in full force and at full speed in 2024. And with those closing words, I'll hand it over to you, the operator, and we're ready to go to a few questions and answers.

Operator

Thank you so much for the presentation here. I think we'll jump to the question straight ahead. [Operator Instructions]

S
Simon Granath
analyst

This is Simon Granath at ABG. Can you hear me?

Operator

Yes, we can hear you.

S
Simon Granath
analyst

Perfect. And sorry for the inconvenience there. Initially, so, Per and Noora. Initially, would it be possible for you to add any color to the current situation in the U.S. We also hear other companies talk about the dampened activity more recently despite that military expenses are generally growing. Have you gotten any feedback lines on when this might resolve?

P
Per Noren
executive

Thank you, Simon. It's a very good question, obviously, and something we work on and wrestle with on a daily basis, frankly. First of all, I think I laid it out somewhat in the webcast here. There is a political situation where there's not alignment on where proceeds and money should go in the budget process in the U.S. and it's somewhat blocked by political decisions. Secondly, there is also not alignment on supports to Ukraine, which -- so that then gets into conflict with how decisions are made for what and where to invest in the U.S. -- on the U.S. defense side. So in general, it's quite of a turmoil situation, I would say. Now -- and then budgets gets released on a yearly basis. Sometimes, they're held back a little bit and sometimes they're reshuffled depending on where the priorities are. I think we're staying extraordinarily close to our core customers. We have a good in-depth dialogue and we're also expanding outside and beyond those to discover a little bit what will be unfolded here during the spring and during the summer. So it's really hard to predict. But there are always ways, and there is always a need for value-added capabilities that we provide, but it's difficult to say how it's going to be resolved given that it's not in our hands and not actually in our customers' hands all the time either. So we're staying at it. We have a great team. We're staying close to the customer and I'm sure it will be resolved and we'll find ways to work with customers and get the capabilities of Ovzon 3 and other things in the forefront of discussion here.

S
Simon Granath
analyst

I appreciate the color added here. And then secondly, you continue to see strong sale of terminals and encouragingly terminal orders comprise a segue towards your SATCOM services. Would you expect this mix to continue in the near term? Or should we see a gradual increase towards a higher share of SATCOM services sales as we move through 2024?

P
Per Noren
executive

Yes. Thank you for the question. I think that's also a very good question. We do foresee the need for more terminals as well. But as you will recall, our integrated offering often includes bundling of the terminals into the SATCOM-as-a-Service. So you'll probably see a mixed bag of where it's integrated and where there are separated sales of terminals. But for the larger orders, for example, the one we just saw with the Swedish Space Corporation, there was a significant portion of terminals in that. They don't come that often at that volume. But I would say that you should probably follow the trend that you've seen in the last 2 years from Ovzon, in terms of the mix of terminals and SATCOM-as-a-Service and the fully-bundled integrated solution. So somewhat of the same pattern as we have seen in the last 2 years.

S
Simon Granath
analyst

Very good. Then finally, we have historically seen a relatively short durability in the delivery of your services. Would it be fair to assume that you strive toward -- to move towards longer durability in your services as you grow in size, simply to mitigate some of the cyclicality we have seen in recent years. I guess it depends a lot on the customers, but one could argue that you aim for this.

P
Per Noren
executive

Yes. Thank you. Another great question. Absolutely. I think where Ovzon stands today is at a very interesting juncture. What we strive for and what we've set our go-to-market activities up for is to try to get in with longer-term contracts. Now that's easier said than done. Most government procurements are focused on yearly budgets, et cetera, et cetera. But we are trying to get kind of the value proposition of the Ovzon 3 platform and SATCOM-as-a-Service into more of a discussion of strategic capability for sovereign nations, et cetera, et cetera. So that is a stride we have. It is very difficult to predict, and therefore, you don't see an outlook from us. It's very difficult to predict exactly how and in what way that can be achieved. And meanwhile, we have to actually get into the shorter and midterm contracts as well, yearly or some of them maybe even shorter to get a foot in the door and being able to demonstrate the capability while we get paid for the work of getting to the longer contracts. So I'm trying to be extraordinarily honest and transparent here. Our strive is, of course, longer term, more subscription-based contract that creates more of a predictable revenue stream for us going forward.

Operator

[Operator Instructions]

M
Mikael Laséen
analyst

Hello, can you hear me?

Operator

Absolutely.

M
Mikael Laséen
analyst

Great. It's Mikael Laséen from Carnegie. Thanks for the presentation. Just curious about order activity, of course. And if we can talk to us about what's happening in Europe and how you're working in the U.S. internally to get more orders?

P
Per Noren
executive

Yes. Yes. Thank you, Mikael. I hope you're well. Yes. So it's quite similar to the answer I gave before, but I'll shed some more light on it. So in the U.S., and you've noted it's probably in our quarterly announcement as well. The contract that was renewed or the order that was renewal in December, normally, we've had December to December renewals with this customer. They're -- number one, trying to align their renewals to their yearly budget cycles, which is really October to September. So hence, it's also aligned towards that with this renewal that we got. Secondly, we are continuing -- obviously, we're out working with a number of customers, I'm talking U.S. now, but in general as well, with the Ovzon 3 capabilities and what they would mean. So we're out demonstrating not on Ovzon 3, but on other steerable capabilities we have and utilizing the Ovzon T7 mobile satellite terminal to build up the business cases for the use of Ovzon 3, Ovzon On-Board Processor and Ovzon T7, then -- who is compatible with the Ovzon On-Board-Processor, to work with them. They align pretty well with the renewal cycle that we've moved into now. And I think the internal decision-making within the United States Department of Defense, within the Senate, within the Congress and the allocation of means towards U.S. Defense versus support to Ukraine versus other interest that the Republicans and the Democrats are arguing about will smoothen out a little bit here in the first half of the year, and I think we'll see some release, we hope, I would say, and hope is not a strategy, but we hope it will see more of a release of means into strategic assets and capabilities such as ours. But it's very hard to predict, as I said, we cannot guarantee anything, but we're fully on it and at it, both with the current customer base and with other interested customers in the United States. In Europe, we have embarked upon a country strategy. So given the geopolitical situation in Ukraine and Russia, most countries, including NATO as an organization, as a joint organization, are looking at their own capabilities, the combined capabilities. They're looking at sovereign capabilities, meaning can we have, for example, a satellite signal go down in our own country and be connected to secure networks, et cetera, et cetera. So it becomes very important to control such a capability yourself. So there's a lot of interest, and our sales team is actually divided into geographies now and countries. And then where we have reference points in each of those markets, we're using that as the platform for discussion and then expanding out of that with Ovzon 3 demonstration and other types of capabilities. So we are encouraged by the interest we see. We're encouraged by the discussions that we're having in several countries. We are -- we have become much more mature in talking to high-level political decision-makers and industry lead decision makers as well as end users. We have proven to ourselves that when we win, we win, because we both have the end users as well as the decision makers on the higher level engaged. Obviously, those things take time, but we've been at it not only this year, but we're at it during last year as well. So we cannot promise anything. We can only say that we have a good and solid interest, and we will do everything we can to close those deals, obviously and start to utilize Ovzon 3 capabilities when we deliver those services.

M
Mikael Laséen
analyst

Okay. I appreciate the information about that. Also curious about the work to integrate your solution into different platforms that we have talked about previously that is developing or how it is developing.

P
Per Noren
executive

And just to -- so I understand your question, platforms you mean on moving platforms such as land vehicles, air and unmanned, manned?

M
Mikael Laséen
analyst

Yes, exactly. And you talk -- you had a contract with Saab, for example.

P
Per Noren
executive

Yes. Yes, we had a small test installation and contract with Saab on something as well. Yes. That continues. The ultimate goal we have is, of course, to try to become an option that you can choose when you buy such a vehicle, unmanned, manned, land, air, sea. That obviously takes time. You have to be approved by those organizations. There are a couple of them that we have to work with. The positive thing for us on that is that the Ovzon T7 terminal is fairly easy to also utilize there because of its size and weight. So it gets us into more interesting kind of platforms that we haven't been able to do before because of size and weight. And remember, we're the smallest of -- there are out there. But secondly, we also have a new set of -- on the [indiscernible] terminal platforms that are tested both in air and on land vehicles and on ground that are becoming somewhat more affordable for our customers, which means that it can faster drive the interest of implementing those things on those platforms. And they also go down in size, weight, but keep their performance going. So we're working pretty hard at this, also not fairly clear. I can't be very clear on when we can expect something, but we're working on that as well.

M
Mikael Laséen
analyst

Okay. And when it comes to sales guidance, previous years, you have provided guidance for the coming 12 months, but I couldn't find anything this year. Do you have any more color on this and the reason for not publishing anything?

P
Per Noren
executive

No, I think that we're -- I think I described it in the previous question. There is a -- we're at this inflection point, obviously, with the company. We're going to take Ovzon 3 online early in the year. You saw that actually, on the U.S. DoD side, you'll detect this that it was somewhat of a lower renewal that we got, but we also got a big order from the Swedish Space Corporation. So we've kind of balanced that up. So we are at this stage in that inflection point. So before we get more predictable revenue streams, it's really difficult for us to guide anything on that. So we decided not to do that and rather surprise positively with that. So that's what we can say at this moment in time.

Operator

Thanks so much for the questions. I think we should have some questions that have been sent to us by e-mail. How will Ovzon create a compelling case to new customers? Is it investing in local expertise, in overseas economic environment? Or is it catering more favor in the U.S. and Europe?

P
Per Noren
executive

There was many questions in one. I'll try to answer it as good as I can. First of all, our core markets that I talked about before is in government markets, defense, national security and public safety. We've honed in on that. We see that we have a strength there for supporting critical missions. We are investing, as I said, in country strategies. We are then working with local distributors that we are selecting and signing up to work together with so they can represent us locally. We think that's very, very important. We have a service delivery model that we can decentralize as well. So I think we have all the means to be able to do that. Of course, you have to be very focused on in the areas, a year is pretty short so you have to be very focused in the areas where you can get most attraction as quickly as possible. And also, we concentrate on areas where Ovzon 3 capabilities and Ovzon On-Board-Processor and our new terminal can have -- increase our uniqueness and our value, as I talked about in the webcast. So the United States is an important market for us, or United States Department of Defense foremost. Europe, as I mentioned, is very important to us. Sweden has become now a new platform for us to grow from. But there are other countries and other parts of Europe that are important too. So we are targeting 3 or 4 of those where we have made good progress. So that's where you probably would see most of our activities come from the United States and Europe at this point in time. And that's how we work with it. So we're -- I think that's the answer to that question.

Operator

When can we expect to start signing orders for Ovzon 3?

P
Per Noren
executive

First of all, the satellite needs to get to its orbital position but we've talked a lot about tht. it's on its way and it's in full health, and it's doing very well and it's tracking to the time line. Secondly, when it's entered into service, that's when our customers can actually officially sign contracts, utilizing the service. We have 2 things that we're working on in the preparations of getting Ovzon 3 into service. One is to sell the capabilities on that, from somewhere midyear 2024. And the other one after that, entry into service point is also to utilize the capacity with some of the current contracts we also have. So there will be a mix and hybrid mix of both utilization and new sales. So the expectations you should have, that it's sometime during the second half of 2024, there will be utilization of Ovzon 3 and capacity with current and with new customers.

Operator

What is the potential total revenue stream from the Ovzon 3 satellites?

P
Per Noren
executive

That's nothing we give guidance on at all. Obviously, we believe we have a super strong platform to utilize from, but we'll get back to that as soon as you see the first orders come in on the platform.

Operator

Can you describe the business models?

P
Per Noren
executive

Can I describe the business models? Yes, I would be delighted to. SATCOM-as-a-Service is something that Ovzon has coined, because we have the unique value chain of having the mobile satellite terminals at hand that we both produce ourselves, and we have selected on-the-move terminal providers. The terminal is what the end user holds in his or her hands and can get a connection from. We deliver that, integrated with the satellite network, now soon from Ovzon 3, but also from lease capacity. We take the signal down in a secure gateway somewhere, probably in a sovereign capacity in a country. And then we manage all of that service by our own team in 24/7, 365 a year. We have 3 different service levels that we provide. It's called Plus, Go and Hero. It depends on the size of the customer, what they want to use it for, if it's short term, if it's long term or if it's a strategic asset. And we are going to launch new types of services based on Ovzon 3, the Ovzon On-Board-Processor, et cetera, as well. That's how our services model work. If you want more on that, you can go to our website or e-mail sales@ovzon.com or myself.

Operator

Thank you. Moving on to the last question here. Are you planning to launch more satellites? And if so, how will you finance them?

P
Per Noren
executive

Great question. So first of all, successful launch of Ovzon 3 is the start of the new era for Ovzon. Of course, our main focus there is growth and utilization of the satellite. Secondly, it covers 1/3 of Earth, so we have a strategic decision to make. We own over 10 orbital slots or control over 10 orbital slots. So we have the possibility to launch more satellites into space. Our goal has always been to have global reach, meaning you could roam on Ovzon globally. Ovzon 3 covers 1/3 of earth. So if you do your math, we would need 2 more satellites to cover full earth. One of the key elements of that would be how you finance that. And that's something we're looking into during this year in what way and how and when should we go and do new satellites ourselves, or do we think it's fine to stay with one satellite and then lease capacity and have a hybrid network that we manage with. But it's a very strategic question for the company. We're working on it, and we will inform the market as soon as any decision or movement have been made.

Operator

That was all the questions we have. Thank you so much for your presentation today and answering all the questions. And thank you all for tuning in.

P
Per Noren
executive

Thank you so much. Have a good afternoon.

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