Powercell Sweden AB (publ)

STO:PCELL

Earnings Call Analysis

PowerCell Group's Q3 2024: Growth and New Opportunities in Marine and Aviation Sectors

PowerCell Group reported a 3% growth in Q3 2024 and 12% over the last 12 months, signaling a recovery from earlier soft market conditions. A major order worth SEK 165 million from an Italian OEM suggests strong future prospects, with serial production underway. The approval for a methanol reformer enhances their market position, expected to double revenue per installation. Gross margins remain above 30% but may fluctuate. Guidance for Q4 shows improved cash flow from increased orders, with a target of breakeven by year-end 2024 as they adapt to quicker sales cycles and rising industrial demand.

A Strong Quarter Amid Soft Market Conditions

In Q3 2024, PowerCell reported a modest 3% growth quarter-over-quarter and a robust 12% increase year-over-year on a rolling basis. Despite operating under softer market conditions, the company successfully navigated challenges by focusing on larger OEM contracts, resulting in a significant order of SEK 165 million from an Italian OEM. This order marks a pivotal moment for PowerCell, establishing their first-ever serial production, vital for scaling operations and driving future growth.

Revenue Recognition and Production Efficiency

A key indicator of PowerCell's operational efficiency is the shift in time from order to delivery, which has dramatically decreased from five years to approximately 18 months. This rapid transition enables PowerCell to convert negotiations into revenue more swiftly, reflecting improved maturity among customers who understand product applications better. The company anticipates recognizing revenue from a significant marine order in Q4, with actual deliveries expected by 2025, indicating operational readiness and forward momentum.

Navigating Gross Margins and Product Mix

PowerCell’s gross margin stood at a healthy 32%, albeit lower than historical averages of around or above 45%. Management attributes this decrease to a changing product mix and unfavorable currency exchange rates. They remain optimistic about improving gross margins moving into Q4, supported by a better product mix and an uptick in royalty revenues from partnerships, particularly with Bosch. The company emphasized that maintaining a strong gross margin is crucial for sustainable growth.

Focus on Hybrid Applications in the Marine Sector

The marine industry represents a crucial growth opportunity for PowerCell, with increasing market activity evident as OEM customers integrate fuel cell solutions into their offerings. The company noted that hybrid installations can help maritime operators begin their decarbonization journey while managing risks effectively. PowerCell’s ability to fulfill these needs positions them favorably within the marine sector's evolving landscape, supported by their recent Approval in Principle for a methanol reformer and fuel cell system.

Overall Market Dynamics and Future Outlook

Looking ahead, it is clear that market dynamics surrounding power generation and electrification are shifting positively. PowerCell’s ongoing discussion with existing and new customers offers potential for sustained growth. As they navigate through a landscape with increasing commitments to decarbonization and energy transition, PowerCell is well positioned with a solid industrial infrastructure that supports scalable production. CEO Richard Berkling indicated that the company is targeting breakeven soon while preparing to leverage market opportunities, which reinforces their strategic focus on product development and customer satisfaction.

Earnings Call Transcript 2024-Q3

[Operator]

Welcome to the PowerCell Group Q3 2024 Report Presentation. [Operator Instructions]

Now I will hand the conference over to the CEO, Richard Berkling; and CFO, Torbjorn Gustafsson. Please go ahead.

[Richard Berkling, executive]

Good morning, everybody, and a warm welcome to our Quarter 3 Report live from a sunny Goteborg morning. I'm joined here today with Torbjorn for the last time actually reporting on quarter 3, which was a very intense quarter with a lot of activity. We are happy to report that we have strong market activity. Previously in the year we have communicated that we are operating in rather soft market conditions. We now see a significant improvement not necessarily all the way into the books of quarter 3 where we report a 3% growth in the quarter, 12% growth in the last 12 months, rolling 12; but especially in market activity and incoming orders. So we now with the large order that we reported in September, SEK 165 million, of fuel cell systems sold to a leading Italian OEM manufacturer that establish us in a position where we now have serial production for customers starting up.

So we have a road map of more than 100 systems to be produced and that is for the first time in PowerCell history where we have an ongoing serial production, which is really positive and a good trigger for what we see going forward. We also reported that we received Approval in Principle from Norske Veritas for the solution you see to the right here, a combined methanol reformer and fuel cell system, which in essence is a [indiscernible] solution where you have methanol as a fuel and then you have electricity out, something that we believe is going to create massive value for the customers in the marine market and we will elaborate a bit more on that later. Besides that, we had a good order in July also from a European marine OEM manufacturer, which was important to get. The season started and we have seen a lot of activity after the summer.

What is interesting to see in the market fundamental is the fact that we see a rapid acceleration and when we talk about that, it is from start of negotiation to when we see a complete delivery where we see the invoice going to the end customer and money into our account. So previously with the large orders to marine and also aviation, typically it was a 5-year period from initial negotiation to complete the delivery. Now we see that that time is limited to 18 months and that is a very significant indication for us because that also gives us an opportunity to go faster, but also that we have more mature customers with a good understanding of what to do with the product and how to put them into implementation and it's also driven by the fact that we now have commercial customers that need to get the products out there making money.

So a significant change in the underlying characteristics of the business, which comes from the focus we have had on OEM business where we now see marine and power generation driving demand going forward. As communicated, the order from a leading Italian marine OEM manufacturer is a milestone order for us. We have talked about finding the first really strong OEM manufacturers designing in our solutions into their product offering and bringing it to market. Gives us a rather sticky business model, but also strong value and large order numbers. So for PowerCell, this was something that we have been working quite hard on and we're very happy to be able to report this. So it is a milestone not just for PowerCell, but for the full industry on the path towards decarbonization and energy transition applications.

One of the orders also that we're very happy to report was agreement for a concept study for vertical take-off and landing aircraft confirms our very strong position in the aviation sector where we have, as reported before, more than 20 customers. Of course Australia is the leading entity pushing our technology and their offering into aviation certification, which is going very good and according to plan. So aviation continues to be a strong segment for PowerCell where we see continued growth and hopefully we continue to have progress with this.

If we dig slightly deeper into the numbers of quarter 3, I hand over to Torbjorn for explanation of the [ numbers ].

[Torbjorn Gustafsson, executive]

Thank you, Richard. And yes, regarding net sales development, we have previously in quarter calls also explained that we've been in a softer market situation. But with that said, we are then growing quarter-over-quarter, but also year-over-year now with 12 months rolling growing with 12%. And given the fact that we've been in a softer market situation where the dialogs have been more towards bigger OEM sales that have taken longer time, I think that the performance is good. And like Richard mentioned before, the order intake coming in supporting sales going forward. Gross margin development, we have seen right now a downward going trend on the gross margin side, but that is for PowerCell something that will happen quarter-over-quarter and not a trend that we can see going forward. So it's related to the product mix and how it works out and at the moment, the product mix has been towards a gross margin of still healthy above 30% gross margin, but we also see that this product mix will change over time and will also vary then on the gross margin side going forward.

[Richard Berkling, executive]

And if I can elaborate, we see an improvement from quarter 2, which is the result of a very close focus on this one because we want to have a healthy gross margin over time. We can also conclude that quarter 3 was affected by exchange rates, which is the case for PowerCell. But as previous said, quarter-over-quarter we will see some shifts going up and down on the gross margin. But we have a strong focus on bringing the rolling 12 months up to an average where we feel comfortable. And we think that we will be able to report stronger numbers in Q4 and onward.

[Torbjorn Gustafsson, executive]

And on the operating leverage side, which is 1 slide that we've been using before and now again, we can still see on the long run a downward going trend. And although we haven't had the net sales growth in the last quarters, we still are keeping the leverage and we also are doing this with continuous building capabilities in both our industrial offering and commercial offering together with keeping a high pace on developing the technology. So we are safeguarding the operating leverage, but at the same time still keeping the development of the company towards future growth.

[Richard Berkling, executive]

And just to clarify, this is 1 trend where you want to see down trend.

[Torbjorn Gustafsson, executive]

That's right. And cash flow, impacted by working capital and then having an operating cash flow of minus SEK 7.4 million in the quarter. So an upward trend from last quarter. But then again that we highlight also in the quarterly report that it had significant catch-up effects in the third quarter and customer payments from increased OEM sales will increase the cash position beginning of the fourth quarter and a lot of it has already happened today. So a good situation and good momentum in the cash flow situation.

[Richard Berkling, executive]

And also here worth noticing the improvement from last quarter, the improvement through the year. So once again strong focus on this one and we're happy to be able to report an improved situation still having an effect as you pointed out. So if we then go back and look to what we have communicated previously, what has been in focus for 2024 for PowerCell. Of course the OEM customer orders because we want to build a more solid order portfolio, get competitive business, but also get the OEM customers that are actually using the products in commercial applications because that is the trigger that is indicating that this is now entering into more of a normal market-driven growth. So the order that we reported in Q3 was a step in that direction and the fact that we see with ongoing dialog is a step in the same direction.

We also have continued to grow and expand in the U.S. with customers and opportunities. U.S. is continuously a strong market for us and will be even more important going forward. The position we have at the moment is to scale the current product generation and driving PowerCell towards breakeven and balance the cash flow. We see that we are doing that in a very good way. As Torbjorn pointed out, we think that we have managed the situation on the market in a very good way of making sure that we are gaining market share, growing despite softer market, but especially put ourselves in a position for when we now see market accelerating that we are in position for that with really strong product offering, really strong also industrial setup for production and also that we have continued to be presenting new product launches.

Quarter 2, the Marine System 225 where we improved the performance on the existing Marine System with 12.5%, which is really valuable. And then quarter 3, the Approval in Principle for the methanol to hydrogen power plant, which will give us a very strong position for marine applications where you want to have complementary fuels compared to hydrogen in the form of methanol, slightly more of that going forward. With all that said, we have been able to also industrialize and accelerate industralization of the next gen product portfolio, which is extremely important. We are market leading when it comes to performance on our core technology, which uses technology that we have together with production. We are not resting with that leadership. We continue to build on that. So accelerating the development of our next generation heavy-duty platform is important.

So the balance between performing short term, having a clear path to breakeven while still investing into more capabilities. That is the balance point that is so important for a company like PowerCell to manage and we are quite happy with the position we have. We also indicate that it is a new phase in the market. We see commercial growth from the OEM business. That comes with new requirements and also new opportunities. As indicated before, the negotiation cycle is slightly longer when we are trying to negotiate an OEM contract because it's more complex and it become designed into an industrial system. So the technical and commercial due diligence from the customer is more expensive. With that said, we also have a stronger position when you win OEM business and you are designed into their offering.

So a really good opportunity that comes with rather strong requirements and performance on power cells and we have developed abilities and capabilities to be able to support that with everything from the internal quality process through the manufacturing process and also aftermarket support capability. So the order that we received in September was an important proof point on that because it's not just the order value, but the fact that we are qualified to win those customers is extremely good. And we have prepared for this by investing heavily into our product offering not just having superior technology, but packaging products that are relevant for the customers in different applications. We have also invested time and effort into the slightly boring concept of productivity and internal efficiency.

Quite often in the early stages of the partnership, companies focus very strong on their core product and forget this really, really important traditional competitive advantages like productivity, like uptime on the product and internal efficiency. So the industrial stability and the capacity we have is something that we're quite happy for and we see that we have a structure that will lead us towards breakeven even in a low volume market. So in this growth journey that we have started and are now accelerating on, we have a very strong industrial footprint. We have our offering industrialized innovation that pass a bridge between our industrial support components and the end customers' need for adaptation. We have a strong first-mover advantage from the fact that we are active in different applications, building knowledge on the aviation industry where you have really strong requirements on performance, safety, robustness that we then apply in marine sector, in power generation, et cetera.

So the mix we have is making our application models really, really strong and that is a competitive advantage in the market that we see today. We're happy that the growth is coming in the shape of commercial orders and not just the exploration early stages of project orders. And we are now ramping up production for serial deliveries to customer orders, which is a first for PowerCell. We have had strong growth previously, but it's been a bit of an up and down when it comes to production volumes. Now we can see that we have a stable pipeline where we can have serial deliveries going. The fact that we have Bosch as our key partner and key supplier of course gives us both massive stability, but also credibility to customers when it comes to the OEM customers with strong request for industrial stability and [ credibility].

So if we look at the market drivers and we attended the UN Climate Week in Europe 3 weeks ago. We left there with a sense of a strong acceleration in the market and a very positive sign. Some of my colleagues went back feeling a bit discouraged because they felt that focus on decarbonization is not as strong as it's been previously. To me, that is a positive thing because decarbonization is no longer the only driver in this energy transition. It's still extremely important. We see massive commitment and investment going in to making sure that we are in alignment with the Paris Agreement trying to keep global warming below 2 degrees. But at the same time, we now have full strength also from focus on air pollution from combustion engines and this is something that is important today.

The climate issue is a big concern, but it has a 20-year perhaps perspective where air pollution today is causing massive health issues and cost for society already today. So in urban areas, we see now legislation trying to cut especially emissions of NOx and SOx. And there the fuel cells and electrification in general is viewed as something that will create value immediately. And this is also one of the drivers we see in the marine sector where especially cruise ships will not be allowed to enter ports in urban areas and be outside idling their combustion engine. So either they will have to have an electric charger from the port, which is not available everywhere, or they need to have an electrification system on board to help them [indiscernible]. And this is the driver behind the OEM business that we now see in the segment.

Time to market on those products is also shorter because they are not safety critical because they're not necessarily propulsion. So it's a really interesting acceleration into the market. But then the overall increased demand for electricity in society, we saw a report from the International Energy Agency where growth in demand in electricity is at the highest ever it's been growing 4% year-over-year. And you would think that 4% is not necessarily that high; but if you compound that year-over-year, you quite rapidly see that numbers are adding up. So society will need to have energy solutions. And while we see the green sources of solar and wind growing in contribution to the energy system, they are in their characteristics volatile. So you need to have an energy system where you can store energy to be able to control load and not cause stress into the grid of society.

So the energy mix going forward will require different solutions where of course hydrogen and fuel cells are viewed as one solution into that. We can also see that the slowdown in battery electrification deployment is opening up a window of opportunity for hydrogen electrification in certain markets. So interesting opportunity to be able to act on. And then we see continued strong initiatives when it comes to governments trying to accelerate the energy transition for of course purpose of the climate change, for the purpose that we communicated now for the evolution and the hazardous particles in the areas, but also to be able to build a new industry and make sure that we don't have dependency to certain markets or certain suppliers of technology.

So hydrogen as a central role in the upcoming energy system is recognized and strengthened and we see now the hydrogen industry maturing at a rapid pace where we see availability of hydrogen, both green and other sources of hydrogen, improving and also being deployed into the products. So to summarize, we continue to see strong market drivers. We see that the energy transition is accelerating and it is supported by both the governmental initiatives, but especially of OEMs taking a position, really investing into their transition towards what is sustainable energy solutions, but also sustainable business model. We do that with the leading technology and leading proposal where we have what we claim is the best fuel cell technology in the industry, best performance and best validated together with Bosch.

It gives really a reliable high power density and a compact for which is important because size, weight and cost will always be a competitive advantage in any application that we are active. And the fact that we are starting serial deliveries to commercial application is an important proof point and an important shift in the industry. And we also see scalable production within our existing industrial footprint that will carry us towards breakeven already in the early stages in this year. Looking into where we will meet again. We will have our quarter 4 report and year-end report on February 13 and then subsequently following as you can see from this schedule.

So with this, we open up for questions and comments from the floor.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] The next question comes from Sofia Sorling from Carnegie.

[Sofia Sorling, analyst]

Sofia here from Carnegie. Can you hear me? Well, a couple of questions from my side. So we start with questions on market. You mentioned quite soft market activity, but could you elaborate a little bit on that and which end market segments? But you also mentioned that you see progressing activity on your own. So could you also elaborate a little more on that as well? And also if you refer to discussions regarding add-on orders from current or existing customers or if you see like a higher activity level related to more new customers? I think I'll start there.

[Richard Berkling, executive]

I'll try to remember all questions. I'll start with the last one. We actually see follow-up orders and incoming new customers, which to us is important. The fact that customers who have been working with us for a number of years continue to put trust in us and continue to invest in deliveries from us is an important proof point. So having customers that are satisfied and returning is of course really, really important. But equally important is the fact that we see the customer pipeline with new additions. So it is a good mixture of both. Commenting on the soft market, that is something that we have described in 2024 as a softer market because activity was slightly lower. And it's not necessarily just because of lower activity, but also the transition away from the early stages where you have project sales where you might be selling to a customer that is a oneoff, which has one budget that will be just for a single purpose. That decision process is faster than when you negotiate an OEM contract. So perhaps soft market is a bit exaggerated.

But at the same time for us, the result is the same regardless of what is the driver behind it. After summertime, we see a complete shift in that where we have more market activity, more orders coming in at higher average value. And as I also pointed out previously in the talk, the fact that you go from negotiation to complete the delivery and invoice in 18 months compared to 5 years previously, it means that we are accelerating through the order book in a faster way turning prospect into revenue in a much faster way. And that is not just one customer, that is actually throughout the whole scale of segments. And then I think your question was also related to how it is distributed in the different segments. Of course with this marine order, that was a milestone order. The value in marine is very high, but we see activity actually in all different segments, both power generation where we now have interesting dialogs, but also aviation. So I think it's evenly distributed and I think it will be interesting to see how we can report on this going forward.

[Sofia Sorling, analyst]

Okay. So I saw there was some new information about this marine order that you actually will have recognized revenue of this order already in Q4, but deliveries will not be until 2025. Can you give some more details on why is that the case and also should we interpret that the deliveries will be earlier than previously expected or is it still according to the press release?

[Richard Berkling, executive]

Deliveries will be according to expectations when we sign the order. And then on how this is reported, I will hand over to my very qualified CFO.

[Torbjorn Gustafsson, executive]

Yes. So exactly the delivery days hasn't changed. What is the case with this marine order and will be the case without exactly knowing potentially future marine orders and other big projects, it will be revenue recognition according to percentage of completion. And then since -- and I think Richard talked about it also previously in the call that from order to delivery, the time spend there is much quicker now or less than what it used to be. So from now on or from signing the order and then starting the work within this project, it's very quick and we will be working with it and that's what we also wrote in the quarterly report that there will be work being done already in the fourth quarter to be able to deliver according to plan and deliver.

[Sofia Sorling, analyst]

Okay. That's clear. And then maybe a final question on profitability. So you mentioned that the gross margin is still at quite decent level with this 32%. But what would you say is the main reason for still this is a lower margin compared to your historical margin of at least around or above 45%? And would you expect or should we interpret that we should expect and extrapolate this type of gross margin level? Why not? If you can elaborate a little bit on that? And also what do you expect is a normalized gross margin level for PowerCell in the midterm?

[Richard Berkling, executive]

Unfortunately, you will receive the answer that you don't appreciate that we are not commenting on forecast nor on details like that. But the variation is related to the fact that we have a number of revenue sources. I mean we have the product sales, we have engineering sales, we have the loyalty sales. So we have a number of those that will vary over time. Unfortunately, in quarter 3, it is affected by currency exchange that is to our disadvantage. The royalty development with Bosch is as always stronger in the end of the year so hopefully we will see some improvement in quarter 4, but there are some delays. Quarter 3 last year had a very strong report on royalty. So comparing it year-over-year will always give some variances. We are happy to see the improvement compared to quarter 2 with a better product mix in quarter 4.

Hopefully, we can see the continued improvement. but it will vary. But it's been a priority for PowerCell over the last 3 years to have a strong and solid gross margin. Where the level will be kind of going forward, that will be for us to prove to you and for you to follow. We are not making any comments on how it will be developing, but it is the main focus for PowerCell because you cannot have a healthy long-term sustainable business without a strong gross margin. So that is the #1 priority especially if you want to be able to continue to invest into new innovations that we're doing, being able to present product updates and product news every quarter. Not necessarily having that activity in every quarter for new innovations, but this is the only way to kind of control your own destiny and we have a clear path to breakeven.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] The next question comes from Henrik Alveskog from Redeye AB.

[Henrik Alveskog, analyst]

My first question relates to the SEAM order and the deliveries to the Norwegian ferries. As far as I can recall, you said before that that delivery will be finalized in '24. Is that still the case? And also when we are trying to figure out how much remains to be invoiced from that order, is it fair to assume that the sales that you are reporting in the note to Norway is mainly related to this order and that what you have invoiced since Q4 last year to Norway is regarding to this SEAM order? I hope you understand my question.

[Richard Berkling, executive]

Yes. First and foremost, I don't think that we have said that it will be completed by 2024. On the contrary, the shipyard was selected later than expected. Still we have been able to develop our business in SEAM in a very good way. So we have not been affected in that way where we don't have any effect also on cash. But we are building up the value as we go along. And the absolute majority of the revenues from Norway is related to that customer, but we are not giving any more details of breaking down the Norwegian sales into individual customers. But you're right in your conclusion that it's the absolute majority, but we will continue to have revenues also in 2025 from that project.

[Henrik Alveskog, analyst]

Okay. And then well, relating to the stationary segment and power generation and then your partnership with Hitachi. First, I'm wondering are you also working in parallel in this segment on your own so to speak or are you focusing entirely to the partnership?

[Richard Berkling, executive]

No. The partnership with Hitachi is important to PowerCell. They represent an OEM customer who have designed in our technology into their product offering. With that said, as many OEM customers they have long internal processes, which means that they sometimes have a long time to market. But on the other hand, when they go to market, they have a massive organization to push out products globally and to be able to manufacture in substantial volume. So we still value the collaboration with Hitachi really, really high. We hope to see it materializes into actual orders and delivery rather soon. So we have a good dialog with them. But we have not just been waiting for them. We have a number of other applications out there in the power generation segment.

It's been reported previously with the customer [ Tyson ], who has been touring the world with Formula Extreme E where they have actually the methanol reformer to the fuel cell to generate power to charge the cars. So they have also massive market and application knowledge and expertise from this. So we have products deployed in that segment. We have reported also that this is one of the segments where we expect to see the highest volumes, but it's been slow in transition. So hopefully we can report on progress in this area, but we don't see that this segment has reached its potential in any way. So let's keep an eye on it.

[Henrik Alveskog, analyst]

Okay. Just finally, a question on OpEx. Maybe you already explained this in the presentation. Sorry if I didn't catch it. But selling and admin expenses were a bit lower here or quite significantly lower in Q3 compared to what we've seen lately. Is it something temporary or more of a -- is this more of the run rate going forward?

[Torbjorn Gustafsson, executive]

I think also on selling and admin, there will be some variances depending on what kind of projects or what we are doing. But looking at an overall trend going back a couple of quarters and then relating it to net sales development and knowing that we are focusing on operating leverage, you will find sort of a way forward on putting that in the front.

[Richard Berkling, executive]

And then we have a question here on screen on elaborating on the Approval in Principle for methanol reformers and how does that fit into the growth strategy of PowerCell.

Our growth strategy is quite simple. And in any technology shift in the early stages, you need to focus on building more installations, a larger population, and you also need to focus on increasing your value for that installation. And value is not just sales value, but you also need to contribute, you need to create value in every installation. So the methanol reformer to hydrogen fuel cell is a very important plug-and-play solution. So PowerCell will be integrating a methanol reformer from RIX Industries, a very strong supplier from the U.S. with experience to both naval applications and military applications. So they have really good knowledge on safety critical applications. But the fact that we do the integration is shorten time to market for our customers. It's also complementing customers that are not either comfortable with using hydrogen or they cannot get availability of hydrogen. So methanol as a fuel carrier is something that will also open up more markets. So that will drive the number of installations. And then for PowerCell by doing this integration, we actually doubled sales value. So per installation, we will have twice as much revenue, which is then fully according to our growth strategy. So that is perfectly in line and we were really happy to be able to report the Approval in Principle, which indicates that we have a safety system and solution that is according to marine industry standard. Hopefully, we can report even more progress in the following quarters on this one, but this is a very important step forward to accelerate the growth strategy for PowerCell.

We also have a question here. With the orders that you have already signed, do you have capacity to take more orders from new customers?

Yes, we do. Tell me how much you want, we will deliver. Now what we have, as we said before, we have an industrial footprint where we can scale up production both rapidly and in great numbers. The collaboration with Bosch is of course a very important contributor in that sense because the fuel cell stack manufacturing is the most complex part of the manufacturing and assembly process and having a solid industrial partner like Bosch in your corner is a strength. And then the assembly of different systems towards either marine or aviation or power generation application is something we do in-house with PowerCell and there we can scale up numbers quite rapidly and in a good way. We also have this asset-light business model where we can set up production close to the customer. So would we have a breakthrough order from the U.S. market, which is another question here on the screen, we could have an assembly of systems in the U.S. market in a very short lead time without any substantial investment. So the setup for PowerCell to be able to supply greater volumes and also in different locations geographically, we're quite happy with that positioning and that industrial setup. So yes, we can do.

Do you see that there will be service and aftermarket sales for you in the future?

Yes. We have reported previously that especially with the Norwegian [ OEM ], there will be an aftermarket contract where we have a performance guarantee over 15 years. So that will be like a subscription-based fee annually, which is a solid revenue going forward when this is both commissioned and deployed. And we see the same for a number of customers both in marine, but also in other segments. As soon as you have your product in a commercial application, the customer is requesting what is called an SLA service agreement. So yes, we will see recurring revenue. We don't have any guidance on to what extent that will match the product sales. But in more mature industrial markets, the aftermarket sale is a very important contributor to top line growth and an even greater contributor to gross margin and bottom line profit. So yes, this is something that we are exploring and developing also.

We have 2 questions about collaboration with Australia on the progress there and also whether or not we are part of their continued growth.

We have a commercial order for the Driveline 600 is the name, which we signed in 2022. This is the driveline that we are now certifying according to aviation processes. It's the certification of the actual technology, but also certification of PowerCell where we will have an audit at in-house facility a couple of weeks from now to be able to be certified according to AS9100, which is a very demanding quality process. So that is progressing well in its emission business. And then of course we have a good dialog with Australia. They are exploring other alternatives as well for their larger installations. But with this good collaboration, we hope to be able to deepen this going forward. But nothing is decided and we fully focus on providing value on the existing business. That is the best way to do the following business as well. So good question, but nothing new to report there.

Let's see if we have something else. One question and this might be the final one because we're running out of time. It seems like the marine segment is growing. How do you see opportunities in this industry?

Well, marine is really important because we now see high market activity from OEM customers designing in our solution into their industrial offering and we see also the market drivers. Why? Because the marine industry both needs to decarbonize and electrify part of their operation and they can do it. It's quite easy for them and a rather short lead time to market because you can have hybrid installations. For example in cruise ships, you don't need to electrify the full propulsion. When you do that, that is something that will have long lead time to market, it will have more effect on how you operate your vessels. So if you instead electrify part of the installation, it could be that you use fuel cells for electrification on what they call [indiscernible] level which is an idling state or the internal energy supply of the system of the vessel for air conditioning, elevators, et cetera. And then you can also use it for going in and out of ports, taking out the emissions which we talked about before. The air pollution in urban areas is becoming a focus on society. So if you could have that hybrid installation, then you can start your electrification journey or your energy transition without taking too much risk as a vessel operator. So marine, yes, it is a very interesting segment because they have the perfect application for it, but they also have the logistics in harbor where they are used to having different kinds of fuel from gas used energy to liquid or pressurized energy in form of methanol, et cetera. So it is a really interesting market development that we see and we see the right activity from the right actors in the value chain.

With this, we would like to thank you. As always, reach out if you want to have a dialog. You're always more than welcome to come to Ruskvadersgatan in Goteborg to visit us. Otherwise, I would like to extend my gratitude to Torbjorn for serving along with me for a number of years and we still have some months to continue together, but this will be his last quarter performance with you. So a big thank you and good luck going forward, but you still have some months to join me here. So thank you very much. Enjoy the rest of this report period. And as we said, reach out if you have any questions.