CTEK AB (publ) (CTEK) Earnings Call Transcript

Welcome to CTEK Q2 Report 2026. [Operator Instructions] Now I will hand the conference over to the speakers, CEO, Henrik Fagrenius, and CFO, Thom Mathisen. Please go ahead.

Thank you, operator, and a warm welcome to CTEK's Quarter 2 earnings call. Today, it's me Henrik Fagrenius, CEO, and I also have Thom Mathisen, CFO, as presenter. And as usual, we will start with a short recap of CTEK introduction before we dig into the numbers. So CTEK was founded more than 25 years ago in a small village in Vikmanshyttan in Dalarna by Bengt Wahlqvist. We have mainly 2 technologies and subsegments. The first one and our heritage one is Low Voltage, where we are selling consumer chargers, client brand chargers and professional chargers and also power solution. The other segment is for electrical cars, where we are selling destination chargers, also client brand destination chargers, load balancing and service and support. We are going to the market through 2 different divisions, Consumer division, where we are selling mainly Low Voltage products, and we are selling through a lot of different channels. Some example is Amazon, also retail chains like Clas Ohlson, Jula, GPC, and it's a global market for us. The other one is the Professional division, where we are selling into vehicle manufacturers, our client brand and also to charge point operators and parking operators, our destination chargers, and it's also a global market. We are happy to be chosen by more than 50 of the world's biggest and most prestigious vehicle manufacturers, including Lamborghini, Ferrari, General Motors, Porsche and BMW and a lot of others. I think that speaks a lot about our quality and the trust that these premium brands is putting into CTEK. We have a lot of different products, premium products, and we have a large and very attractive market. With our introduction of boosters and power solutions, we have more than tripled the addressable market for CTEK. And here, you can see the segments where the different divisions are in and also the different products. So coming to the highlights then for the second quarter of 2026. Despite a somewhat weaker sales, we had a very strong quarter when it comes to profitability. The gross margin was up to 65.7%. We had a good EBITDA, a good EBITA, and a strong cash flow. And that all resulted in a very strong financial situation with a net debt ratio of 0.7x, well below our financial target. The somewhat weaker sales was coming from client brand, and it's not that the market for client brand is weakening. It's more of ordering pattern, a change in the ordering pattern from some of our biggest customers in the client brand. And my belief is that this will be -- is of temporary nature, and it will be neutralized in the second half of the year. So it is very strong margins despite lower sales volume and the quarter 2 is seasonally weaker. And as I mentioned before, the order patterns within client brand is also part of the reduction in revenue. But despite this, we have very strong margins and the improvement in gross margin is coming from a huge part of the higher share of consumer sales. And it's also a favorable mix, both when it comes to products in geographies, which are helping the very good gross margin. And together with good cost control, it's also coming down to a higher EBITA percentage. During the first half year, we have introduced more products than we have done during the last 5 years before. So we have a very strong product portfolio and a very good outlook for ahead. We are also happy to share that BMW, a long trusted partner to us, have chosen the CS ONE Generation 2 with Wi-Fi connection for their client brand going forward. We also see a positive cash flow and a very solid financial situation. The net debt of 0.7x gives us a lot of possibilities to grow both organically and through selective acquisitions. As we mentioned last quarter, the strategic review of the EVSE business is ongoing and is proceeding according to plan. And with that, I'll leave it over to you, Thom.

Thank you. So some more digging into the numbers. And as usually, we go through the divisions a little bit more in depth. Starting with Consumer division, which stands for 70% to 75% of our turnover. Here, we managed to have an organic growth, as Henrik mentioned before, driven quite a lot by the new products we have launched the recent half year. Also strengthened EBITDA margin compared to same quarter last year, coming again from both good gross margins with a good product mix, geographical mix, but also continued good cost control. And in the graph, you can see what Henrik also mentioned that the quarter 2 are generally lower than the other quarters, but still keeping up the good margins. Going over to Professional division. Again, it's a new pattern of ordering from our client brand, some of our client brand customers has meant a decrease in net sales on the Low Voltage side of the Professional division, whereas we are at same level in EVSE as we were last year's quarter 2. After a little bit of a dip quarter 1 in the margins, we have regained and are on positive levels again, thanks to also in Professional division, good gross margins and continued good cost control. So some words around cash flow and CapEx. I start with the graph on the below part of the slide. You see that we are down to 4% of revenues now in -- so far this year. We have said before that we should be in the range of 4% to 6%. And we also mentioned during the quarter 1 call that we ended some big development projects at the end of last year, beginning this year, and that meant that it is a little bit low on the new ongoing development projects, they will start to pick up. So you can expect somewhat higher, but within the range of 4% to 6% for the second half of the year. So as Henrik mentioned, then good cash flow continued, SEK 25 million positive in the period, a little bit below last year's quarter. But after the CapEx, we have a net cash flow of SEK 18 million that is actually higher than last year. And again, the net debt ratio is going down now to 0.7x compared to the 1.8x at the end of quarter 2 last year. Worth mentioning also that we have extended our credit facility. So it's now valid until September 2029. So with that, I hand it over back to you, Henrik.

Thank you very much, Thom. And then to summarize the second quarter, as we mentioned, it is a seasonally weaker quarter. And also with the change of ordering patterns from client brand, it was a bit weaker than the comparable quarter. But despite this, we have shown very strong margins and good cost control and delivering a solid result. A lot of new product launches that has been very welcomed by the market make -- and a strong partnership with BMW makes me believe that the second half will look very good. We have positive cash flow and a solid financial position, which creates freedoms to act both in organical growth and M&A-driven growth. And the strategic review of the EVSE business is proceeding according to plan. And with that, operator, I hand over for questions.

[Operator Instructions]

We have had some written questions from Mattias Ehrenborg at Redeye, and I will read the questions and then answer them. So the first question is regarding Professional. What has driven the changed purchasing patterns among larger client brand customers? And what gives you confidence that they will normalize in the second half year? To answer that one, the big client brands are ordering quite large orders when they come, and they can differ between the quarters. Last year, we saw a very strong first half of the year and then a weaker second half of the year. And why we have confidence that it will be opposite this year and normalize on complete year is that we have a bit longer horizon when it comes to order intake for the client brand. So as things look right now, we are certain that it will normalize during the second part of the year. The second question is regarding Power Solutions. How are the recent product launches within Power Solutions performing? And when do you expect them to contribute meaningfully to growth? So far, we have introduced 2 chargers in the Power Solution, our I chargers, and they are part of a bigger project and the more launches in the Power Solution will come in the beginning first half of next year and then is where we will see meaningful growth from the Power Solutions part. The third question from Mattias is BMW CS ONE Gen 2. Did BMW transition to CS ONE Gen 2 contribute meaningfully to Q2 sales? And do you see similar upselling potential with other customers? In Q2, they have transferred, but we didn't see any meaningful growth in Q2 yet because they are also reducing their stock of the old version. But we will see that coming in the rest of the year. And yes, definitely, we see potential with other customers. We have already a lineup with interested parties going for the CS ONE Generation 2. That will help our upsell in the client brand part. Third question is regarding geography. Sweden performed relatively well, while rest of Europe, Luxembourg and the Americas were weaker. What drove these regional differences? If we take Sweden and Nordic, we have put in more resources into these areas, and that is paying off. Luxembourg is mainly driven by Amazon. And Amazon is a bit like the client brand. They have different purchasing patterns, and it can fluctuate between the quarters. What we can see, however, is that our -- the outsell from Amazon and CTEK products are good and stronger than last year. So we think that, that will be a good year with Amazon also this year. Americas is a bit weaker, but we still see a very positive uptake of our new product launches, NXT 5 and NXT 15. And there are a little bit different consumer sentiments across the regions. But I will say we can see where we have put efforts and employed more salespersons, we see also a payoff and a stronger market. So in most of the parts where we have consumer, we have seen an organical growth. If we take Germany and Dutch region, it's lower this quarter, but that is mainly related to the client brand, which is -- have a lot of sales in Germany and Dutch region. The next question is regarding Australia and e-commerce. How significant can Australia and your own e-commerce channels become as growth and margin drivers? The answer to that is that Australia is a more and more important market for us. We have established our own warehouse in Australia, which has made it possible to reach smaller customers directly in Australia, and it's also a prerequisite for our own e-commerce channel. We haven't started our own e-commerce in Australia yet, but that will be done later in the year. And of course, we have hopes for that. But I think Australia will be a more and more important market for us in the coming months and years to come. Last question from EVSE -- from Mattias is regarding EVSE. Could you provide any update on the ongoing strategic review of EVSE and the expected time line for potential outcomes? As we mentioned in quarter 1 report, we have started the strategic overview, and it is proceeding according to plan. We hope to have some conclusions in this calendar year. But with this kind of processes, it's hard to tell exactly how long it will take, but we will keep you updated when we have any updates on that. But as of now, it's proceeding according to plan. And that was all the questions from Mattias Ehrenborg at Redeye. So I leave over to the operator if we have any other questions.