Mips AB (publ) (MIPS) Earnings Call Transcript
October 17, 2022
Earnings Call Speaker Segments
Welcome to the Mips Q3 report 2022. [Operator Instructions] Just to remind you, this conference call is being recorded. Today, I am pleased to present the CEO, Max Strandwitz; and CFO Karin Rosenthal. Please begin your meeting.
Yes. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Mips Q3 results presentation. With me today, I have our CFO, Karin Rosenthal, and my name is Max Strandwitz, and I am the CEO of Mips. And before we go into the numbers and the actual presentation, first, some background on why we are here already today. As you know, we did indicate a soft quarter and did send out a profit warning on the 12th of September. At that point, there was no certainty on the number, and that's why we have accelerated the work to be able to present the financial numbers for Q3 as early as possible, and that's what we are doing today. So important to give you some background before we go into the presentation. So if we start with the key highlights of the quarter. So first of all, we did have a soft quarter, with a net sales decline of 39% in the quarter. Adjusting for currency effects, organic growth was down with 50%. Year-to-date, sales increase is still positive with 11%, and the decline that we saw in the quarter is fully explained by a soft bike end market. Our assumption short term is that the markets will remain challenging. And when we talk about markets, it's the bike end market. Long term, our outlook still remains very positive. If we look at our other 2 categories, Moto and the Safety category, we do remain with a very positive outlook and do not see the same trend as we have seen in the bicycle market. Since we believe in our long-term plan, we continue to invest behind our strategic priorities to be able to deliver on our strategic plan. We haven't experienced any disruptions in supply chain during the quarter, and we remain confident to deliver on our long-term strategy and our financial targets. If you then go to next page, and then we are in Sport. So if we start with the Sport category, challenged bike end market had a negative impact on net sales. We did have a challenging quarter in sport, with a decrease of net sales of 43%. Year-to-date, sales number is positive 9%. Bike is, of course, the main contributor, with a decrease in sales of 47% in the quarter. And the reason behind is that the retail inventory -- bicycle helmet inventory is still unbalanced with very high inventory levels. With high inventory levels, it's difficult for the shops to buy new products, and that's why we see a slowdown in bicycle helmet. Still good customer momentum, with high number of new customer implementation projects. And like we said, we believe that this is short term. Longer view, our outlook is still very positive. We see a couple of very strong trends on the market. First of all, e-bike remains very positive, commuting is higher than ever around the world, and we also think that people want to spend time outside. And of course, these 3 trends are still driving a very positive outlook for the bicycle category also looking forward. If we then turn into next page, and we look at Moto. In Moto, we saw good development. We did grow with 16% in the quarter despite a very strong prior year compared to 117%. Year-to-date growth number is 38%. We have positive momentum in both on- and off-road helmets and good increase of new helmet brands and models in the year. Outlook for this category remains strong. And I'm extra pleased to see that we are gaining traction also in on-road helmets, which have been a struggle in the last couple of years. If we then go into next page. In Safety, still modest sales, pipeline is filling up, and volumes will increase going forward. In total, we signed 10 brands, which is approximately 25% of the key brands in the world. So really good start there. And of course, we see that there is more helmet being launched during the quarter that will ramp up volumes. Our organization in Safety has been established. So we have now people on all the key markets to make sure that we can drive awareness. We have heavy activity plans with fairs and other events to increase awareness in the category. And the focus remains unchanged. We want to drive sell-through to make sure that we generate the volumes. If we then go into the next quarter and look a little bit more into our marketing activities. And Q3 was actually our most active quarter ever. We participated in 3 different fairs during the quarter, which is the highest number we ever did. We went to Eurobike in Frankfurt, which is the world's largest bicycle fair. We went to Spoga in Cologne,, which is the largest equestrian fair in the world. And then we actually participated in our first construction fair, which was NSC in San Diego, U.S. And it's really important to continue these activities to really establish our position as the leader in helmet safety and to continue to increase awareness all over the world. We have 2 important fairs coming up in Q4. The motorcycle fair, EICMA, which is the largest motorcycle fair in the world, in Milan, Italy. And then we also have the big winter sport fair, ISPO, in Munich in Germany during the quarter. So also 2 really important events to really continue to establish our position as the leader in helmet safety. We continue to see a high inflow of new helmet projects from our customers in all the 3 categories. And important to note that we are continuing to invest behind our strategic priorities. The issues that we see, we believe, is short term. And of course, if you are a growth company with a great strategic ambition, you need to invest behind that. If we then go into next slide and supply chain, we didn't experience any major challenges in supply chain during the quarter. So therefore, of course, no financial impact on the numbers. We do, however, expect that supply chain will continue to be unpredictable also coming quarters, especially as COVID-19 unwinds, and it could remain a little bit unpredictable. But limited impact in the quarter. If we then look at the development in the categories. Sport, as I said, we saw a decline of 43% in the quarter. Year-to-date numbers still positive with 9%. In Moto, we are advancing our position. We did see a growth of 16% of the quarter, 38% year-to-date and really impressed with the delivery in the quarter given that we had a 117% prior year growth compared there. And in Safety, it's early days, but now we have the volumes on the market to deliver also volumes in that quarter. And with that, I hand over to our CFO, Karin Rosenthal.
Good morning. I'm Karin Rosenthal, CFO of Mips, and I will take you through the financial part of the presentation. And if we look at the development in the third quarter, we saw a soft development in the quarter, with a decrease in net sales of 39%. Adjusting for FX, due to strong dollar, sales decreased 50% organically, fully explained by the soft bike end market. Gross profit was down 42%. And the gross margin was down 4 percentage points due to volume effects from decrease in net sales and product mix. In OpEx, we continue to invest in our strategic priorities, R&D and marketing, where we participated in 3 fairs in the quarter. EBIT was down 66% to SEK 37 million versus SEK 110 million last year and an EBIT margin of 33%. A strong operating cash flow of SEK 97 million in the quarter compared to SEK 71 million last year. If we look at our financial KPIs, minus 50% organic growth, 33% EBIT margin and SEK 97 million in operating cash flow. If we then turn to next page and look at the development for the first 9 months, net sales increased with 11%. Adjusting for FX due to the strong dollar versus SEK, sales decreased 4% organically. Gross profit was up 9% and a gross margin of 72% versus 73.3% last year. In OpEx, we continue to invest in our strategic priorities, R&D and marketing. EBIT was down 7% to SEK 205 million and an EBIT margin of 45%. Operating cash flow of SEK 189 million compared to SEK 196 million last year. And if we look at the financial KPIs, minus 4% organic growth, 45% EBIT margin and SEK 189 million in operating cash flow. If we then turn to next page, we are now on Page 11, balance sheet and cash flow. We have a strong cash position, with cash and cash equivalents of SEK 493 million. And important to point out that we don't hold any loans. We have been active with our cash flow, and we saw strong cash flow in the quarter, which improved SEK 26 million to SEK 97 million compared to SEK 71 million last year, and an equity ratio of 76%. Over to you, Max.
Thank you, Karin. So if we then summarize the quarter, it was a soft quarter, fully explained by a challenging bike end market. We do have a soft expectation also for the coming quarter, fully driven by a soft end bike market. We continue to invest in our strategic priorities to be able to deliver on the long-term strategic plan. If you are a growth company, you need to invest for growth. We believe that this is a short-term issue. Doesn't have anything to do what we do. Sometimes, the market goes down. Sometimes, there is reaction of the market. We believe that this is very much a COVID unwind. And of course, we don't react to those isolated events. Continue to invest in our business to make sure that we can deliver on our strategic objectives. We continue to see a very high amount of new helmet projects. We haven't seen a customer slowdown. On the contrary, we actually deliver more projects than ever. And we see good momentum in all the 3 categories that we operate in, and we are confident to deliver on our long-term financial targets. With that, I finalize the presentation and open up for questions.
[Operator Instructions] And our first question comes from the line of Carl Deijenberg of Carnegie.
So a couple of questions, if I may. Maybe first on Slide #3, just for clarifying the bike decrease you're talking about of 47% year-on-year in Q3. Is that -- I guess that number also includes the FX effect you see here in Q3. That's not a like-for-like volume figure, right?
That is correct.
Okay. Perfect. And the second question is on if you could give some further granularity of your feeling of the inventory that was in bikes. Do you believe that the sort of the overstocking that you see is isolated to retailers? Or do you say that your customers, i.e. the brands, also have excess inventory levels?
Yes. No, I think -- thank you, Carl, and it's a very good question. So first of all, if we look at what we actually see, helmet inventory levels are higher than expected, of course, but that's not really the key issue. That's not really what is extracting money out of the system, so to say, where the key issue is really among that there is a lot of bicycle inventory in the market. There is a lot of accessories in the market and so on, and a lot of products that consumers don't want to buy at the moment. So that's really where the key issue is. Even if people have more inventory, they would still -- on helmet, so to say, they will still have money to buy more helmets. The issue is that given that all their money is tied up in bicycles and more expensive goods, of course, that absorbs a lot of the cash. When we look at inventory levels, normally, a retailer can sit up to 1 to 2 months of inventory now. They are a bit overweight when it comes to inventory. So it's not too much of the inventory level as such. It's more how long it takes to churn the inventory out from the retailers. We know, of course, if the retailers are not buying anything more, then, of course, our customers get stuck with more inventory that they want to have. So yes, there is more inventory in the channel, but the key issue is more inventory on other goods that is available to buy. Cash is less than it has been in previous periods. So I hope that explains the question.
Yes, that's very clear. And then moving on to another topic, if you could maybe elaborate a bit what you've seen here since the initial press release on the 12th of September. Would you say that sort of the order momentum has deteriorated considerably here in the last month of Q3? Or do you say that the direction here in Q3 has been relatively uniform throughout the quarter? Maybe just to understand sort of the magnitude and the direction.
Yes, I mean we really don't give any, like, trading updates. But I mean what we saw in Q3, we do expect to remain in Q4, so basically the same magnitude.
Okay. And my final question on the OpEx here, it grew by around SEK 10 million here year-on-year in the quarter, which is further much aligned with what you reported in Q1, Q2. And I'm just curious if you could guide a bit what you're expecting for Q4. Is that a similar sort of cost growth assumption going into Q4 and maybe also if you could say anything on '23. It doesn't sound like you're planning to dial down your investments. But yes, if you could give some -- if you're planning to adapt your cost base on what you see in the underlying market.
Yes, so I think -- thank you. That's also a very good question. So we are not planning to dial down on our investments because like we said, we believe that this is temporary issue that we see in one type of our helmets. As you know, our strategic plan is really about delivering growth in motorcycle and safety. I think being a growth company, dialing down on the investments is a very dangerous route to go. As you know, Mips is quite a profitable company. Even with a net sales decline of 39%, we can still deliver an EBIT margin above 30%. So for us, given that we are very confident on our plan, given that we see a lot of traction in the other businesses and so on, we want to continue to invest. And you're right. We did increase our OpEx during the quarter. The key driver of that was actually our marketing spend. If you look at our marketing spend in last year Q3, it was 2%. This year, it was 9%. We did participate in more fairs than ever. We had 3 fairs during the quarter. We will continue to participate in 2 fairs also during the coming 2 months. One is in motorcycle where we see a great progress so far. And of course, we want to harvest on that, the traction that we see there. And also, when it comes to winter sport and snow, there, we are actually at more than 50% growth year-to-date, so also no reason to slow down. It's, of course, a very thin balance on what you do in these difficult things. But for me, investing behind our business that we have great confidence in is something that is key for us.
And our next question comes from the line of Adela Dashian at Jefferies.
A couple of questions from me. The first one is just piggybacking on the weakness that you are experiencing when it comes to the bicycle helmet subcategory. I just want to confirm that this is strictly a direct effect of the pandemic unwind rather than you losing customers or anything else like of that, that could prevent you from this being only short term in nature.
Yes, we haven't lost any customers. So we relate it to the pandemic unwind.
And then how hedged are you in your current contracts that you have with customers when it comes to ordering? I believe you -- before, you said that they placed -- or they have budgets which you set at the beginning of each year. How much headwinds do they have when it comes to those budgets? And how effective will you be if budgets have changed?
Yes. I mean we sit down with our key brands all the time. Of course, we normally have quarterly revisions of the plans. What has really changed in the last couple of months is that normally, you go into quarterly sessions. Now, they are more monthly because monthly, there is a new reality out there and things are changing. So it's not that we lack visibility on their plans. It's just that the reality around us change all the time. And it is quite a challenging environment with everything that is happening around us. So it's more short-term unpredictability of our partners rather than visibility on their longer-term plans. And when we sit down with our key partners, normally, we'd always discuss a 3-year model plan. We, of course, want to see where they are going, and we make joint planning to deliver on those plans. And there, actually, we see a very ambitious plan going forward. Most people in the industry do see this as a very temporary issue and that growth will return to bike as soon as the inventory situation unwinds.
Got it. Okay. And then as it relates to the Sport segment, I believe you said that the bicycle helmets are down by 47% while the category as a whole is down by 43%. Can you give us some more details surrounding the -- those other helmet categories that are within the Sport segment and what type of performance you are seeing there?
Yes, so I mean, if we take the biggest one in the Sport category is, of course, bicycle in Q3 and Q4, the share is somewhere around 70% to 80% of the sales in total Mips, and of course, in Sport, it becomes an even bigger number. So it's a big share, and that, of course, is what we are suffering from. When we look at snow, we actually have really good performance there. We see, like I said, a growth of more than 50% year-to-date, really excited about the snow season. We see very good momentum and a great interest in the snow category. And then when we look at the question, it's, of course, a much smaller category, but there, we also see good momentum. We also have some exciting launches ahead of us. And we have also signed up as the key sponsor at the Gothenburg Horse Show. Last year, we grew at 250% in equestrian, so of course, a very strong number. But we still see a great opportunity to continue to grow also this year. So we do not see the same effect in the other type of helmets in Sport, but they also didn't have the same peak as we saw in bicycle during the pandemic situation.
And correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that the first half of the year is typically more dominated by other helmet categories than bicycle.
Yes. I mean if you look at Q1, then you normally historically have around 60% of bicycle helmet production in the first quarter, and then it goes down following quarters -- quarter because then more snow helmets is normally produced.
Okay. So if this short-term effect is to stay into 2023, then we should expect it to be more of an impact in Q1 rather than for the full first half of the year.
Yes. And we do believe that actually in 2023, we'll return back to growth again.
And our next question comes from the line of Daniel Thorsson of ABG.
Yes, so a question on the bike inventory situation, obviously. Do you see any differences across regions? Or -- and in that case, has it started to improve at all somewhere?
Yes. I think there is some differences. You actually have more inventory in the U.S. market rather than the European market. What we have seen as the key change versus before is that the European consumer are less confident than the U.S. consumer. So more inventory on the U.S. market, less inventory in Europe but also a less confident consumer, of course, hit by all the energy prices and so on. So the outcome is the same. But it's different dynamics on the different markets. And I think like I said, also to Adela before, I mean, a lot of our plans are changing month by month. In 1 month, you see that, wow, this seems to be quicker than we thought. And then the next month, you're hit again. So the whole situation on the bicycle market now is extremely erratic. One month is strong. The next month is not that strong and so on. So it's too difficult to say. And that's also why we say it might go quicker, but for us, we do expect Q4 to be softer because there is a high proportion of our sales in bike helmets. When you go into Q1, you have less impact of bicycle helmets, and you see more of other types of helmets coming out. And I think that's for us. We see the season starts in end Q1 next year, and that's when you will see the loss of the inventory go out to the market and more go back to a normal situation. At least that's the overall view of the industry.
Okay, fair enough. Are you more concerned about the European consumer or the U.S. inventory levels then?
To be fair, it sounds a bit strange, but not that much because there is also some drivers that is actually working in our benefit. So first of all, the penetration for us in the European market is still so low. So even if the market is not growing, we can still grow in a nongrowing market. There is a couple of trends that we see that is very strong. Of course, the whole commuting trend in Europe is extremely strong. All our key brands in Europe are developing commuting helmet, and we see a great interest there. And then, of course, we had a plan that we launched earlier, which was really about making sure that we get Europe to the same level of penetration as we have in the U.S. market, and we are getting there. So of course, our penetration game is far more important than what happens on the market and so on. So yes, it will probably be harder, but I'm still confident that we can continue our penetration journey, continue to gain a lot of market shares. Will it be tougher having a less confident consumer? Yes, it normally is, but I still think that we can deliver on that ambition.
Okay, I see. And then on snow, is there a risk that we will see a decelerated growth amid the weaker consumer, even though we don't have the same inventory situation as in bike?
Yes. So I think, I mean, when you look at what happened in bicycle, it was more that a lot of the inventory is produced during the peak pandemic situation. There were a lot of retailers and also brands that had limited control on when they will actually receive the goods. So they order everything they could. When you look at snow, that has not been the situation. When we went into this season that starts basically now, it was completely clean out of inventory. The winter sports market have had 2 quite tough years with a lot of COVID shutdowns and so on. No one has really invested a lot in inventory. So it was completely clean. So therefore, the inventory levels are not to the same extent as high. You never know what is happening going forward. Of course, it's always difficult to see. But we don't see that situation replicating in -- as in bike because it's not driven by the same pandemic boom. Here, we more see replenishment of normal inventory and not following a backbone.
Okay, I see. And then another one on Safety. It's still at around SEK 1 million per quarter in Q3 as well, and uvex launched their helmets in August, if I understood correctly. Can you say anything about timing when we should see a meaningful pickup from the current levels, given that you have 10 brands on board?
Yes. No, I agree. And the helmet that was launched in -- it was actually beginning of September and August. Those were supposed to be launched a little bit earlier. But normally, when you have certification that they need to go through, that took a little bit more time than we planned and than we expected, of course. These are 2 great helmets that would deliver some volumes. And of course, they are now on the market and can start generate some volumes and so on. It will be a ramp-up. You will see some volume in Q4. And as we go into next year, you will see that the whole Safety category actually can start ramping up.
Okay. That's helpful. And then on Safety, you said on the presentation that you had 25% of the helmet market with your 10 brands. Is that in terms of volumes or just logos?
No, the brands. So if you look at 40% -- or 40 key brands there is in the world when it comes to the Safety category, at least the market that we serve. And if we have 10% -- or 10 of them on board, we have 25% of the logo. So sorry if I was unclear.
Okay. So 25% of the logos. Can you say if that is good approximate of the volumes as well? Or do you have the tail really here, the small brands?
Yes. We have some tail. We have a couple of bigger brands, of course, but we are still early in our journey. So you can expect that there is also bigger brands coming on board.
And our next question comes from the line of Karri Rinta at Handelsbanken.
A few follow-ups on the previous questions. Firstly, about the very short term, the fourth quarter. You mentioned that in Q3 and Q4, bike tends to be 78% of sales. So is it quite typically larger in the fourth quarter than it is in the third quarter? Just so that we can get our numbers straight for the forecast.
So it's similar. So what I said was 70% to 80%, somewhere in between. So they are almost the same. Actually, Q4 is slightly bigger when it comes to bike. But you can assume roughly between 70% to 80% share of the total sales.
Okay. All right. And then if I look at the different import numbers, there's still -- I mean, at least in value, the bike and bike-related imports in the U.S. are up year-to-date. So what's your best guess or sense of how much inventory is there still on its way to retailers, given the long lead times and long shipping times that we have had for most of this year?
Yes. So I mean lead times from factory to the market has increased a lot during COVID. Even though it's going down, normally, talked about 60 to 90 days lead time to get to the market during COVID, you had somewhere around 120 to 150 days. If you assume that and calculate backwards, you should have seen a decrease of the production somewhere around Q1, Q2 this year, and we did see that the production started to go down a little bit. And therefore, we don't see that the market is being flooded with new inventory, more an issue of selling out the inventory that is already in the market and coming in as we speak. So it's not that there is a lot of new helmets being produced as we speak.
All right. And then finally, what should we keep for -- if I understand this correctly, what we need to see is that the inventory correction happens in the next 6 to 9 months, and then the bike retailers will be in a better position to start ordering ahead of the 2024 season. But what should we keep an eye on to get a sense of whether this actually will play out as such? Are we going to see massive discounting now in the next coming months that will then continue next year and then once those -- once that discounting starts to ease, then we maybe can get more positive about the 2024 season? And then based on your experience with bike retailers, they tend to be quite emotional bunch. When things go well, then they -- as we know now, they tend to over-order. And when things start to go -- start to get weaker, then they may be get overly pessimistic about the future. So I guess the question is that what needs to happen that they would get back to normal order rates next year?
No, and I think it's a very good question. And you are right that U.S. retailers can sometimes be a little bit dramatic in terms of when things are good, they are really good. And when they are bad, they are bad. And we saw a little bit on that, that when things did not go in their way, they start pulling back a lot of the sales. What is actually happening -- and this is why this takes a little bit longer than it will happen during the normal season, is now basically the season is over. Early next year, the season will open up again, and you will see the last sell-out of the inventory. When that is done, they can start to reorder. If you have a long view that the bike market will not grow in a lot of years, then, of course, you will remain very pessimistic, and then they will not reorder as much. But if you have a more positive view as we and most in the industry have that the bike market will return back to growth already in 2023, then, of course, we expect the need to have something to sell. So we expect that beginning of the season, you will see the last sell-out of the old goods when it opens up again and then that they will start reordering some to be able to sell actually in 2023. And then, of course, when they go into 2024, they don't have any inventory, and they need to replenish that. And of course, Mips is not directly linked directly to retail sales because for us, we are normally producing and then the lead time to the market, like I explained, can be anything from 3 to 6 months. So if you want to have any goods for coming season, you need to be at least 3 to 6 months upfront. That's why we are a little bit earlier in the curve than a lot of the other that are directly exposed to retailers, if you understand what I mean.
And our next question comes from the line from Emanuel Jansson at Danske Bank.
Yes. Max and Karin, I think basically, all my questions have already been answered to a great extent. But could you -- I guess coming back to destocking and just the consumer behavior and so on, I mean, isn't there a risk that you will experience a destocking effect in other segments such as Moto, snow? I know that you haven't experienced the same trend in 2021 but -- I mean given the low consumer confidence, and I guess it will also turn to that case in the U.S. after a while that we have already seen in the European markets.
No. And of course, it's very difficult to predict consumer behavior long term in terms of the overall consumption. We try to interpret what we see and the consumers we're trying to address. So first of all, when we look at what do we actually see with consumer behavior, we are extremely data-driven. We like data. We are a company based on science, then you like data. So we look at Google Analytics. We look at Google Trends. Has the overall interest for helmet decreased? No, it hasn't. It's still way higher than the start -- before the pandemic situation, not only in bicycle but in all the categories. So we see the interest for helmet-wearing increasing all over the world. If you look at Google Analytics and Google Trends for Mips, it's actually still on peak pandemic levels. So very high interest from the consumer. So we know when we look at the consumer, it's there. We also do a lot of market surveys. We look at are they still prepared to pay a volume premium also for Mips. That, we see. And that, of course, gives us more confidence. When it comes to inventory levels, of course, in the other categories, if you look at the motorcycle category, it's actually much lower than it should be because it hasn't been that easy to source a lot of products during the pandemic situation. So there, you don't see the same effect. If we try to order Mips helmet at the moment, this actually will struggle in some of the sites because they are still low on inventory. So we don't believe that we will see the same effect. Snow, like I said, when we went into this season, there was no inventory. Now they have, of course, filled up inventory and so on. So we don't believe that the type of helmets that we serve will see the same effect. Where we see the main negative impact on bicycle helmets is in the lower price points. And of course, lower price points is not the markets that we serve. We normally go for medium- and high-end levels. If you look at high-end products, there is still actually good demand for those. So we don't see the same trend. We don't hold on to the same trend but actually remain quite confident that we -- the consumer will return quite quickly to us.
Perfect. That's very helpful. And just turning to the Safety segment. And I mean also we have, at least here in the Nordics and Sweden, a slowdown in the construction market. Can you give us some -- can you elaborate somehow what the helmet manufacturers within Safety, what they say to you? Are they prolonging their projects or -- in order to start ramping up their helmet production?
Yes. I mean, as anyone else, I think the overall construction industry see less projects than before. But if you have 0% of the market and the market is not growing, you can still do a lot. So for us, we are so early in our penetration journey. We have actually not seen a slowdown of interest. It might be that we are facing some headwinds, but at least we haven't seen it in our numbers. We have 3 out of the 5 biggest construction companies in the Nordics that have announced that they will have Mips in their helmets and so on. And that's the penetration journey we do. If it's tough on the market, and I'm sure it will be, it will be tough. But for us, the penetration journey has just started. So I will be very disappointed if we don't manage to deliver a growth story in Safety just because some of the projects is not starting when we're so early in the penetration.
Perfect. That's very clear. And a last question from my side regarding the cash flow. We saw that the receivables decreased year-over-year and also sequentially. Have you worked more on that? Or how should we predict it going forward on the receivables side with which there have been quite a lot of questions during the recent quarters?
No, I mean, for us, of course, cash is always king. We have always generated a good cash flow and so on. We saw a deterioration in Q2. And of course, as responsible, we tighten up the cash flow and also our accounts receivable. You see that visible already in Q3. Also in terms of overdues and so on, in uncertain times, you become much more tight in terms of your cash flow management. So you've seen the result of that already, and we will be continuing to be quite tight on the cash management.
And we have one further question in the queue. That's from Adela Dashian at Jefferies.
Yes, just a follow up on all the questions that have already been asked and answered, is it too ambitious to assume that by next year, once the bike season is back in session and inventory levels are better replenished than currently that we will have an opposite effect of what's currently taking place that there won't be as many bicycle helmets on the -- in retailers so your customers will experience the flip side of what they're currently experiencing?
Yes, so of course, I mean, the long-term trend in bike is there. We believe that there is a lot of consumers that will buy helmets going forward. Overall, we believe that helmet-wearing will increase around the world in all the key markets. And of course, we expect that we can gain market shares on those markets. So yes, at one point, if you haven't ordered enough helmet, it will be an effect the other way around, but exactly when that happens, it's too early to say. But there is not a lot of inventory being produced at the moment. So of course, at one point, they need to start reacting if they want to sell helmets.
And just on those inventory levels that you currently have visibility for on a retailer level, is there a lot of Mips helmet sites -- sorry, Mips helmets in stores right now? Or is there a lot of those bicycle brands that may not be as attractive in Q2?
Yes. I mean, of course, it depends on where you are. But I think when it comes to -- the key issue on the inventory levels in the bicycle category as such doesn't have anything to do with helmets. But during the pandemic, there were very -- or great difficulties in sourcing product. The more complex products you have, the more difficult it was to source because you were lacking components in one way or the other. So you ordered a lot of low-complexity products. So really cheap bikes, a lot of kid bikes and also a lot of cheap baby carriers and so on. Now when the consumers are getting much more picky, they don't want to have those products. So those products is what is really filled up the channel, and those products are the ones that get -- are difficult to get rid of. So no, we don't believe that there is an overweight of Mips product or more premium products. The issue is the contrary. It's low-end products that is blocking the channel and that consumer has gone away and are not that interesting in buying new products because they are prioritizing other types of things in life. If you look at the more premium customer and premium bike, if you still today go and order a high-end bike, there is a big likelihood that you will need to wait at least another 6 months before you get the bike you want. So it is much more a low-end problem rather than a typical Mips issue or an overproportion of Mips helmet out there.
And as there are no further questions, I'll hand the floor back to our speakers for the closing comments.
So thank you, operator. Thank you, everyone, to listening in on the Q3 results presentation and hope to speak to you again during the Q4 results presentation. Take care, everyone. Bye.
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