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Qleanair AB
STO:QAIR

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STO:QAIR
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Earnings Call Transcript

Earnings Call Transcript
2020-Q1

from 0
A
Andreas Göth

Thank you very much. This is Andreas Göth, CEO of QleanAir Scandinavia. A warm welcome to all of you. I'm happy to present the first quarter results of QleanAir for 2020.So if we go to Slide 3. I would like to start with giving you a snapshot of QleanAir, for those of you who have -- who are new investors or not too familiar with QleanAir. QleanAir Holding is a global provider of indoor air cleaning solutions. We have more than 2,500 customers around our markets, 8,600 installations. We work within 3 product categories: Facility Solutions, Cabin Solutions and Room Solutions. Our key markets are Germany, Sweden, Japan and the U.S. We also operate in 10 other European countries. And we are a premium full-service provider of indoor air cleaning, and then we went public in December last year. If we look at our future, our financial targets in the midterm is to continue our growth. And the target is to have an organic growth of approximately 10% going forward, with a healthy EBIT margin, 15% to 20%. And our policy is also to pay dividends to our shareholders, and the target is to pay 30% to 50% of our net profit going forward.So if we go to the business update and go directly to Slide 5, and let me give you a start here. We are very happy to launch our best quarter results ever, both in terms of sales, in order intake and in profit. We have established a very strong market position during the last couple of years. And that's a combination of the high-quality and the comprehensive solution that we provide our customers with. We believe that, that is the right way to deliver customer value. We focus on certain niches. So we are a niche leader rather than a one-stop shop. And we continue to invest both in our markets, but also in product development and solution development. So again, very happy to release our best quarter ever. We have a sales increase of 38% compared to first quarter 2019. Organically, that was 29%, so still very, very strong. We reached SEK 145 million in total revenue for the quarter. We saw strong performance from all our product categories, Facility Solutions, Cabins Solutions and Room Solutions, and also all our markets, meaning EMEA, APAC and Americas. We also had a very strong EBIT margin -- EBITDA margin with 26.5% and an EBIT margin of just short of 22%. It's also, I think, important to state that the COVID-19 has, of course, affected us as for most other companies in the world. And we believe that in the longer term, we will see an increased interest in indoor air cleaning solutions due to this corona pandemic. So that's a very positive thing for us in the longer term. In the short term, of course, we also are impacted by the quite strict lockdowns that we have seen in -- especially in the Q2, April and May. So if we go to next slide, the Slide 6. Let me give you some more details about our product category Facility Solutions. So Facility Solutions is all about helping our customers to create a more healthy indoor environment in industrial context, more or less. So we help the customers in the food segments, in automotive, in logistics, but also more and more now in the health care sector, where we see an increased demand, especially now since the start of the corona pandemic. We have a strong European focus on this product category. Our strongest markets are Sweden and Germany. And we saw sales growth here in the quarter of 7%. And we will continue to invest in this product category, both in terms of sales efforts in terms of product and solution development. So very important here to continue to grow this product category going forward. And again, we have seen the last couple of months here and also in Q1 and start of Q2, we have seen an increased demand coming from the health care sector, where we also can -- we have also done some product adjustments to be able to help the health care to create a more healthy indoor environment for patients and for staff. So if we go to next slide, Slide 7, Room Solutions. Room Solutions is mainly about our modular clean rooms. We focus here on the U.S. market, but also more and more on the Swedish market. Our segments here are mostly hospital pharmacists in the U.S. market. And in Sweden, we have a broader market approach. So we focus here also on MedTech companies, laboratories, hospital environments and electronic producing companies. We saw a very strong sales development in the first quarter, 125%, up from last year, and that is mainly coming from the U.S. market and the revenue comes from installations that we have performed during the quarter from orders that we basically received in 2019. And in 2020, we'll -- in addition to the U.S. market, we will continue to increase our sales efforts also in the Swedish and Nordic marketing. So very strong performance in Q1 from Room Solutions. If we go to next slide, Slide 8, Cabin Solutions. And this is the biggest product category. This is where we come from. This is about us protecting people from secondhand smoke. We are eliminating secondhand smoke in workplaces, in public areas, in institutions. Our main markets here are the European markets and Japan.Very strong performance also from Cabin Solutions in the quarter. We have an increase in sales of 34%. And this is mainly driven by the very strong performance in Japan. We have had a long period of very stable and strong growth in Japan. And the last half year, we have seen extra boost in the market due to the legislation that has come to -- into effect 1st of April this year. So very strong performance. We have also have a stable situation in the more mature European markets in the quarter.If we go to next slide, and that's Slide 9. Just to give you a little bit of a big picture of our business model and how we operate. As I said, we are a premium supplier of indoor air cleaning solutions. We are offering our customers long-term contracts where we -- the offer is based on a clean-air-as-a-service concept, meaning that we provide our customers with the hardware, with installation, with preventive service, and we give all our customers a performance guarantee. So the customer, they kind of outsource their problem with their specific problems with indoor air quality or contamination to us, and we take care of that and give them a function guarantee over time. And we believe that, that is the right model to deliver customer value over time. And it's also a way for us to keep control over the quality. We can make sure that we deliver the same high quality, not only Day 1, but every day, as long as we have the customer in our books. Good. If we go to next slide, Slide 10. Again, we are -- as I started with, we are extremely happy with our customers. We have more than 2,500 customers, 8,600 installations around our markets, and we are servicing them every month or every quarter around our markets. We are also very happy to see that we have a very stable and quite high level of recurring revenue. For the quarter, we had 44% of our revenues coming from recurring revenue. And that, of course, gives us a solid platform also in these challenging time as we are in.We are operating in 20 countries, including some distributor markets. And as you can also see from the graphs here, the pie charts is that we have seen now the strong performance in Japan is, of course, increasing the split in terms of geography. So Japan is becoming even more important for us going forward. And we are keeping a very high level of investment in all our markets, also in the U.S. and in our European markets. So if we go to Slide 11, I think it's fair to give some comment of the COVID-19 situation. For a company like QleanAir Scandinavia, I think we are, of course, as many other companies or if not all affected by this. We have seen lower activity since late March in 2020 in most of our markets. We are monitoring this situation very carefully, and we are taking actions as the situation develops, of course. We are tightening our cost and cash discipline, and we are identifying and addressing certain cost saving projects. And of course, the fact that currently, the large part of the world has come to a lockdown in different ways that will affect us, especially in the EMEA and Americas market in the short-term perspective.At the same time, I think it's important to address the opportunities also that this situation gives us. In the longer term, we see already that there will be an increased awareness about air pollution problems and increased interest in high-quality air cleaning solutions. So we believe that, that will be a very strong driver for a company like QleanAir going forward.We also believe that our business model with a rental concept, with a high degree of recurring revenue in our P&L, that gives us a very resilient -- we have a very resilient model, especially in this challenging time. And finally, what we have seen also in the short-term is that we haven't seen an increased demand coming from the health care sector. And we have solutions that can help them provide a more healthy indoor environment. So with that, I hand over to our CFO, Henrik Resmark, to give you some financial details.

H
Henrik Resmark
Chief Financial Officer

Thank you, Andreas. Henrik Resmark, CFO. Moving into financial information, Page 13. As mentioned, the best quarter in QleanAir history. We have an order intake, plus 44% and sales growth of 38%. On sales growth, we have contributions from all product categories and all markets. Moving to Page 14. Still, more than 75% of customer agreements are either renewed or extended. It is clear that QleanAir has a satisfied customer base, and that customer base is growing with an increase in installed units globally. First quarter 2020, we had recurring revenue, 44% of total revenues, up from 41%. And QleanAir recurring revenues have so far proven to be valid also in corona times. We have paying customers. EBITDA is up to SEK 38 million, a margin of 26.5%, and EBIT increased up to SEK 31 million, a margin of 22%.Moving to Page 15. I would like to highlight 2 things here. As end of March 2020, we had a net debt of SEK 242 million, that is down from SEK 266 million in March 2019. We have a clear strategy to reduce the net debt over time. Also on Page 15, you can see that we have a negative cash flow in the first quarter, that is explained by around SEK 30 million in change in working capital, increase in trade receivables due to strong sales in Japan, and we also settled some trade payables in January from the IPO. If adjusted for those items, we have a positive cash flow for the first quarter. Page 16. So in summary, we had a growth of 38%. If we reduce for the currency effects, we had a growth of 29%, 30%. We have a target of approximately 10%, and we reached an EBIT margin of 22%. And here, we have a target of 15% to 20%. And the dividend is proposed to be 0 and that suggested dividend from the beginning was withdrawn due to corona. So over to you again.

A
Andreas Göth

Good. Thank you very much, Henrik. So if we go to next slide then, some final remarks. To sum it up, I think, again, we are very happy to see the strong performance in Q2. We see strong performance from all product categories in all our markets. We see also that the investment that we have made, we continue to make in our markets, in our product categories, especially Facility or Room, they are paying off, and we will see -- we will do whatever we can to continue the growth for these product categories and markets going forward. And we also believe that the business model that we operate with clean-air-as-a-service is not only creating customer value, but also gives us a very resilient model in times, which is more challenging than the normal times. And of course, we think we are geared up for the future and continue to focus on profitable growth going forward.So with that, I think we can open up for any questions that there may be.

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from the line of Anders Roslund from Pareto Securities.

A
Anders Roslund
Analyst

First, I would like to start off with Japan. That was a fantastic sales in order development. How much do you think the legislation is responsible for that strong development? And what will happen now from second quarter when you formally have already introduced that legislation from April 1?

A
Andreas Göth

Anders, thank you for your question. I think it's a very good question. And if we look at Japan, the development in Japan, we've had a long period of very solid and strong growth. And in the last half year, of course, we -- as I said, we have seen an extra boost due to the legislation. So -- but we believe that the growth story in Japan will continue. That's our belief and also that's what we focus on, even though it may be on a slightly lower level than what we've seen in the last half year. So that's the ambition that we have and also the potential we see in the market to continue the growth in Japan. In -- that's a long-term perspective. In general, of course, Japan, as many other countries in the world is, of course, in the short-term, affected by short-term lockdowns, et cetera. But we see growth coming from Japan going forward as well.

A
Anders Roslund
Analyst

Okay. You also mentioned that you had opened up new areas outside Tokyo and also with new client groups here, transportation?

A
Andreas Göth

Correct. What we have seen in the last half year or maybe a year is that we have not only done business in the regular office market, but also in the HORECA segments, meaning a little bit more from high-end restaurants and hotels, but also from, as I said, certain companies in the transportation sector, which also have taken us a little bit more outside of Tokyo in terms of installation. So we have increased a little bit the number of installations outside of the greater Tokyo area. We also have recruited an extra salesperson in Osaka. So we have now 2 salespersons in Osaka. And that's also what we will see going forward that we will increase and not only focus in Tokyo, but also in Osaka and especially in, I would say, Northeastern Japan.

A
Anders Roslund
Analyst

Okay. Looking at cleanrooms, Room Solutions, it seems that you are growing stronger for the area than you're growing in the Americas. Have you increased sales to Sweden and the Nordic area?

A
Andreas Göth

Yes. As you know, and as I mentioned, in cleanroom -- in the cleanroom or Room Solutions product category, we are focusing on the U.S. market, mostly, but also we are now focusing more and more on the Swedish and Nordic market. So we have seen a revenue coming from Sweden this first quarter. And our ambition here is to increase that percentage from Sweden going forward. So Sweden and the U.S. are our prime markets here for our Room Solution efforts.

A
Anders Roslund
Analyst

How will the U.S. be impacted by the COVID-19 in the second quarter, especially in the health care area?

A
Andreas Göth

Well, it's -- of course, the U.S. market is, as you probably know, in the lockdown in many or if not all states. And of course, that is affecting our opportunities in the shorter term. We see that in the longer term, again, we believe that the need for high-efficiency activity solutions such as our cleanrooms will increase. But in the shorter term, yes, it will probably impact our sales, but it's a little bit early to -- too early to tell exactly how and so because it's -- as we all know, it's very, very hard to predict when the lockdown will be open up again, how that will affect the economy and the companies and for us, the hospitals.

A
Anders Roslund
Analyst

Okay. And your overall comment about that COVID-19 is positive for the demand. Could you explain a little bit more in detail why the demand for your progress is supported by COVID-19?

A
Andreas Göth

Yes. Of course. And well, there are certain general reasons to that. And I believe that there are many good reasons to invest in indoor air cleaning as we see it. That's -- sorry to say, but there are a lot of different contaminations and air pollution problems out there. And this corona situation puts just another focus on that. So viruses could also be a threat to health. So that's, in general, we see already that will increase the interest for not only air cleaning solutions in general, but high-quality air cleaning solutions. Because as you probably know, the viruses and bacterias and these kind of pollution, they are very small in particle size. So you need to have very high-efficiency filtration units to be able to handle it. And we believe that we have that in hand. We have always been focused on delivering premium solutions and also reducing even the smallest particles in the air. So that's the general kind of sentiment that we see. And of course, also, we see the -- as we have mentioned also in the report, we have seen an increased demand in the health care sector, also affecting our Facility Solution positively. This is a little bit early days for us. We have been working with this statement before. Now we will have more focus on it, and we will see how it will develop now in the coming quarters, in the coming years.

A
Anders Roslund
Analyst

Yes. Sorry to come back with the same question here. But to be more specific, is it in Facility Solutions you see this supportive growth? Or is it in cleanroom...

A
Andreas Göth

Both. I would say -- yes, correct. Especially Facility Solutions, absolutely, but also in cleanrooms. Because it also put a demand on having high-quality cleanrooms for the companies that need that. So as I would say, mostly Facility but also cleanrooms.

A
Anders Roslund
Analyst

Okay. Coming back then to Europe and the second quarter here, are you afraid of that you see some long-term negative effect from the downturn in the second quarter in Europe that the clients sort of leaving the Cabin Solutions area longer-term as well, not only short-term, but they -- or how do you see the short- and long-term development for Cabin Solutions in Europe?

A
Andreas Göth

Well, in the longer term, we don't see any changes in our previous view. We -- Cabin Solutions in the European markets are -- we are in a mature phase, and that continues. In the short-term, we haven't seen any major effect coming from the corona until today. But of course, we are monitoring the situation very carefully. And of course, as we have a quite broad approach in terms of different segments in European markets, we work with different companies in many different industries. And some of these industries are affecting quite a lot and some not so much. So I think we will -- we just have to wait and see. And we are monitoring and we take actions as we go forward and also keeping close to your customers. I think that's more important than ever. And since we are close to our customers, we have a clean-air-as-a-service concept, I think that makes us coming into a strong position here to understand where -- how customers are thinking and how we can help them going forward as well.

A
Anders Roslund
Analyst

Yes. What I mean is that the shorter development may sort of be also long-term hit that clients just don't renew their contracts and say, we shouldn't have any smoking cabins in the future. You are not afraid of such a development?

A
Andreas Göth

Of course, we need to be ready for any development going forward. It's very hard to see where this whole situation, how it will develop, how long it will take to get over this. So I wouldn't say for certain anything right now in any way. But until today, we haven't seen a big negative effect from that or canceling contracts. But again, the best way we can do is to continue to serve our customers as we always have done and will do and keep close to our customers to understand how we can be there and support them.

A
Anders Roslund
Analyst

And then back to more overall question regarding rental payments. Have you seen any sort of problems from your clients not paying their rents in time? Or how does it look?

H
Henrik Resmark
Chief Financial Officer

Good question, Anders. This is, of course, 100% focus for us in these circumstances. And as Andreas said, we keep very tight context with our customers. And what we have seen so far and the experience so far is that we have good paying customers. So I would like to say that our business model with the recurring revenues and the customers they are paying. Then, of course, we have some customers that due to the -- that specific country, et cetera, they have closed down certain facilities, et cetera. Then, of course, it's more difficult to do service there. So there are some discussions. But I mean, the big picture is that, so far, it looks okay.

A
Anders Roslund
Analyst

Okay. Excellent. And also more forward-looking questions. The Facility Solutions, you mentioned here that you have introduced new models and then you're investing in new models. What do you expect in that respect?

A
Andreas Göth

Yes. Exactly. Again, Facility is one of our newer product categories as Room Solutions, and we continue to invest in the market in sales, in marketing activities and also in product development. And we have launched in -- at the start of Q2, we are launching a food-graded version of the IFRS 17. So we have already an increasing presence in the food producing and distribution sector. We see a high demand going forward. And we believe that the demand from that sector is also -- is a little bit higher than maybe other sectors, which we like. So the food producing and distributing sector, we have a strong belief in the future. We're also working with -- we have actually launched already an adjustment of the existing product to fit the health care sector. We will continue to develop more products for that sector as well going forward. And we're also looking into other new models to be launched later in the year. We will come back to you about that when we have a more certain plan for that. But you will see more product launches from us in 2020 in Facility Solutions.

A
Anders Roslund
Analyst

Is that something that will put pressure on your margins or you will invest more?

A
Andreas Göth

Not really. We have a plan in R&D, and we follow that. Of course, we are making some priorities there as well in these times. But more or less, when it comes to the product launches, we are following our plan for the year. And it's nothing that we, in the short-term, will affect the margin, in general, no.

A
Anders Roslund
Analyst

Okay. And then talking about new markets. No news about the Chinese market and Cabin Solutions?

A
Andreas Göth

No, we have no news there. We've been not very active in the Chinese market in the first quarter or until now. We are, again, in these times that we're focusing on our existing markets, our core markets and our core product categories, and we have to come back to you about that later in the year, maybe.

A
Anders Roslund
Analyst

And yes, you described, finally, the question about the cash flow here. You said excluding those extraordinary effects here you had in the first quarter, but will you restore that quickly? Or is it more over the year?

H
Henrik Resmark
Chief Financial Officer

Yes. Two comments on that. Of course, the balance sheet can differ from quarter-to-quarter. But long term, we are very confident that we will have the strong cash flow-generating profile that we have had. And also, I mean, the buildup in accounts receivables in Japan, those customers, they have paid. So I foresee that we will have positive cash flow going forward as the main plan. But again, from quarter-to-quarter, the balance sheet can go up and down, so to speak.

A
Anders Roslund
Analyst

Okay. And I guess your tax paid will be a little bit higher than you estimated before because you get more of the earnings in Japan?

H
Henrik Resmark
Chief Financial Officer

That's true. That's correct. And that's also why we had high taxes now in the first quarter, primarily from Japan. So yes. But we are also having a strategic work on the total tax position situation for the total group. So that is work in progress to be more efficient on that.

Operator

[Operator Instructions] We have a question from [ Eune Hitne ] from [ Anter Fondo ].

U
Unknown Analyst

So I wonder about the order intake. And if you could perhaps say anything about the schedule for delivery of the pretty strong order intake in the quarter.

A
Andreas Göth

Yes. When it comes to the order, when you look at the order intake, in terms of Europe and Facility Solutions and Cabin Solutions and also in terms of Japan in Cabins. In general, we have a quite short period of time between order intake and installation and thereby, revenue recognition. So that's typically a period of maybe 4 weeks or 5 weeks maximum, so it's -- when it comes to cleanrooms, especially then in the U.S., we have a longer period between order intake until we have finalized -- or we're starting to recognize revenue because we are constructing and building cleanrooms, and that's longer project time. So that's probably -- could be 3 months, sometimes could be even longer, sometimes shorter. So I would say, generally, we see the order intake that we have a certain quarter, of course, it could slide over to the next, but not very much, in general, I would say, except from the U.S. and cleanrooms that could be -- that you look at the order intake from cleanrooms going into basically the next quarter or the coming quarters.

U
Unknown Analyst

Okay. But hearing what you're saying so most of -- so the orders taken in January and February have -- most of them have already been delivered and the ones taken in March will probably end up in Q2?

A
Andreas Göth

Yes. Exactly. Exactly.

U
Unknown Analyst

Okay. And can you say anything about the backlog for Q2 delivery?

A
Andreas Göth

Well, we have a -- we have orders coming from Japan a little bit slide over. Again, we have a very strong sales or order intake from Japan in the quarter and some of that -- that has come in March and will slide over in Q2, absolutely. But it's too early to say how Q2 will end for us. It's -- there are many factors to consider here. So I wouldn't go into the details here at this point in time.

U
Unknown Analyst

Okay. Get it. And then just more hypothetical. If you take the whole installed base that you have and just assume that everyone will renew and business will continue, and everyone will pay of your customers, but you will get no new sales. What type of revenues will you get?

H
Henrik Resmark
Chief Financial Officer

If we have no new sales, you say?

U
Unknown Analyst

Yes. But the ones that you have -- you're selling to, the contacts mature, they just renew. So all the install base you have will continue to generate revenue, but you can't sell anything else.

H
Henrik Resmark
Chief Financial Officer

I understand that -- the question. But then, I mean, we are not guiding that into detail. But as you can see, close to 50% of our total revenues are from the installed base from the current agreements we have that are rental contracts in QleanAir's own book. So I will not go into any number there, specific number, but close to half of our revenues are locked in, you can say, for a long time of period.

U
Unknown Analyst

Okay. Maybe I'm mistaken here, but I thought you also have -- you have solved a lot of the installation, rental agreements to financing companies. And when they run out, you have the opportunity for new sales. Or am I mistaken here?

H
Henrik Resmark
Chief Financial Officer

No. No. No. You're right. When I say 44% recurring, that is not including the finance company agreements. The 44% is only contracts...

U
Unknown Analyst

It includes that as well?

H
Henrik Resmark
Chief Financial Officer

If you includes that as well, and then if we assume that those customers are to sign a new 3-year contract, yes, then the revenue will go up.

U
Unknown Analyst

So if one would include that, wouldn't almost all of your revenues be secured?

H
Henrik Resmark
Chief Financial Officer

Correct. Correct.

A
Andreas Göth

Yes.

U
Unknown Analyst

Good. Then on margins, had a good growth and the margin's stable. If you could probably just say something about the reason for why margins don't increase in spite of strong growth?

H
Henrik Resmark
Chief Financial Officer

Yes. There are primarily 2 reasons for that in the first quarter. We had a larger cleanroom in Sweden that we recognized the revenue. And the gross margin for that specific project was well below average. So we contributed on top line, but we didn't get what we expected on the bottom line, so to speak. And secondly, we have added some more costs, primarily related to the IPO and the new environment that the companies now is in, so to speak. So yes.

A
Andreas Göth

I think also to add to that, I think even though, yes, we saw a slightly lower profit margin compared to last year's first quarter, but still, it's on a high level. If you compare to full year last year, it is still very, very good margin. In general, I think we are on a level for Q1, which we are quite happy with, even though we have such items which we can improve. But having an EBITDA margin of 26.5% and an EBIT margin close to 22%, I think that's well above our midterm targets as well. So yes.

H
Henrik Resmark
Chief Financial Officer

I also would like to say that the margin can jump up a bit or down a bit depending on if we have a larger contract that is up for renewal, and we can sell that to a finance company, that will, of course, affect that quarter's margin. So it will not be the same number each quarter, so to speak. It will -- there would be a reason for why it goes up or down a bit.

U
Unknown Analyst

Okay. Great. And then just the last one on how lockdowns affect you? A lot of your products are installed, they pay rental fee. So in one sense, you could believe that it doesn't affect you at all, but perhaps -- apart from new sales. But is there an impact? Is there anything in the contract that you need to be out and change some filters or something similar for you to be able to get that rental fee?

A
Andreas Göth

That's -- well, of course, we have obligations in our contracts because we are servicing them. We're doing preventive service. We're giving a customer performance guarantee. And as I said, we continue to serve. That's -- I'm extremely proud of our staffers all around the markets, both in sales and in service. We have a fantastic number of staff here in all our markets that we continue to serve. Of course, we keep healthy, we keep safe. We keep -- we have introduced a lot of instructions to protect our own people and our customers and other people from the COVID-19 spreading. But we continue to serve and to fulfill our obligations at our customers, absolutely. In terms of sales, absolutely, we have, as I said, we have seen lower activity in terms of new sales. It's harder to get out there to meet customers in these times, especially in Europe, European markets and in the U.S., where they have a very strict lockdown. But it's a little bit early for us to say exactly how that will affect us going forward. It depends very much on what happens next, how they will open up their economies and how companies will react. So yes.

U
Unknown Analyst

Okay. But there's nothing in the contracts, for example, if you have your equipment in a factory to clean -- in the factory and the factory is closed. There's nothing in the contract that says that if we don't use the factory, we don't need to pay for the rentals?

A
Andreas Göth

In general, no, no, there is not because we are giving our customers a solution for air cleaning. And our obligation is to service them, and we continue to do that. Of course, it can happen that we don't get access to do the service right now in certain parts where they have closed our factories. And then we have a very close dialogue with our customers about that in these specific cases. But there is nothing in our contracts that says that they could be terminated just in a situation like this, no.

U
Unknown Analyst

And so far in the areas where there's been complete lockdown and no personnel has been in the buildings where you have your equipment, have you still -- have you gone into any problem with customers not wanting to pay because they don't use it? Or have all of them paid, if they have the cash flow?

H
Henrik Resmark
Chief Financial Officer

Yes. As I mentioned, most customers have paid. But of course, I mean, we have a tight dialogue with the customers. And it depends on what country the national legislation, so to speak, and what kind of facility and for what reason that is closed. So of course, we have the dialogue. And one way that we just postpone the payments or postpone the agreement. But there are very few cases like that. But of course, we are -- I mean, the customers, they are flexible in these times. And of course, we, as a supplier, we have to be flexible towards the customers. So we handle some cases more diligently.

Operator

The next question is a follow-up question from Anders Roslund from Pareto Securities.

A
Anders Roslund
Analyst

I just wanted to elaborate a little bit or ask a little bit about your split between the sales to finance companies recurring revenues on our balance sheet and product sales. Part of this structure change is due to that you acquired SFS in December, but the very strong increase in product sales to end customer, could you explain a little bit that development?

H
Henrik Resmark
Chief Financial Officer

Yes. You're totally right, Anders. The reason is that we have now acquired SFS Finance. So that's one part of it. And the product sale increase are due to 2 regions, primarily Japan, we have a larger customer in Japan that has -- they have actually acquired the units. And also in the U.S., we -- is more common that the customers in the U.S. are acquiring units. But I would say the increase in the first quarter 2020 is primarily due to Japan.

A
Anders Roslund
Analyst

Is that a long-term effect that you think the clients will gradually start to purchase your equipment instead of renting?

H
Henrik Resmark
Chief Financial Officer

No. In general, no. For clean space, we have seen that earlier. And there, again, it's more common that the customers would like to buy clean space. But for Japan, et cetera, no, we don't foresee any change in that. It's just -- that was just a decision by that specific customer.

A
Anders Roslund
Analyst

Okay. And normally, how is that affecting that equipment that should have been sold to finance companies that you install have on -- as the sales instead?

H
Henrik Resmark
Chief Financial Officer

Yes, then we recognize the revenue when we deliver it. I mean, that's a straight say.

A
Andreas Göth

Yes.

H
Henrik Resmark
Chief Financial Officer

And then also, we have a service agreement -- separate service agreement on that. So there are additional revenues coming also from product sale agreements.

A
Anders Roslund
Analyst

But I mean, should it mean that you could have had a higher sales recognition if you had sold the whole contract as a 36-month contract instead of having it as a sale -- a purchase. Then, you'll only report the revenue from the quarter.

H
Henrik Resmark
Chief Financial Officer

Yes. I would say that the contract value -- a 3-year contract value is more or less equal to a product sale value.

A
Anders Roslund
Analyst

Okay.

H
Henrik Resmark
Chief Financial Officer

Simplified. But -- so if we have an RPG contract, 3 years, that we sell to a finance company, or we have a PPG, it's similar. Similar value we're talking about.

A
Anders Roslund
Analyst

Yes. Yes. But the sales recognition, you will -- you are not selling the 36-month contract?

H
Henrik Resmark
Chief Financial Officer

If we do that to the finance -- if we sell it to a finance company, that will be like a sale, right?

A
Anders Roslund
Analyst

Yes, exactly. But otherwise, if you have a sales agreement, you report, I assume, the monthly or...

H
Henrik Resmark
Chief Financial Officer

No. If we sell a unit, we recognize the full value.

A
Anders Roslund
Analyst

Okay. Okay. And then you add on the service agreement?

A
Andreas Göth

Exactly.

H
Henrik Resmark
Chief Financial Officer

Then we add on the service agreement. And of course, the service component, that is recognized month by month.

A
Anders Roslund
Analyst

Exactly. That is exactly. Okay. Then I understand. And the margins on those specific is not really any major difference?

H
Henrik Resmark
Chief Financial Officer

No. There, we have the average gross margins that we have disclosed earlier.

Operator

There are no further questions registered, so I hand back to the speakers for any closing remarks.

A
Andreas Göth

Okay. Again, thank you very much. I hope you are all as happy as we are with the strong result in Q1. And looking forward to come back to you with Q2 later in the year. So thank you very much from us.