Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson (publ) Q1 2023 Earnings Call
Speaker 1: And se.
Speaker 2: Hello everyone and welcome to today's presentation of the first quarter in 2023.
Speaker 2: With me today here in the studio I have Carl Melander our Chief Financial Officer and with me on a link from North America I have Borir Hacom our President and CEO
Speaker 2: So as usual we will start this session with a presentation and then we will end the hour with a Q&A session.
Speaker 2: Then in order to ask questions, you have to join this conference by phone.
Speaker 2: Details on that can be found in today's press release as well as on our website, ericson.com slash investors.
Speaker 2: Please also be advised that today's conference call is...
Speaker 2: conference call is recorded.
Speaker 2: Before handing over to Burian call, I would like to say the following.
Speaker 2: During today's presentation we will be making forward-looking statements.
Speaker 2: These statements are based on our current expectations and certain planning assumptions.
Speaker 2: which are subject to risk and uncertainties that actually results in a difference material due to factor mentioned in today's press list and discussed in this conference call.
Speaker 2: We encourage you all to read about these risks and uncertainties in the earnings report published today as well as in our annual report.
Speaker 2: With that I would like to hand over to you, Borean. So please Borean.
Speaker 3: Okay, thank you Peter and good morning everyone and a big thank you for joining us today. So we're excited to present a quarter in which we're executing on our strategy and we're making progress on our strategic goals while at the same time delivering on what we set out as expectations.
Speaker 3: executive team and 25 years with Ericsson. Carl will actually be leading our company.
Speaker 3: And it's no exaggeration to say that Carl has been critical in the turnaround of Ericsson and in laying the foundation for the next chapter of our strategy.
Speaker 3: And he's also been a great colleague and of course a great friend.
Speaker 3: Now we have come to a mutual agreement that it's a good time, or as good as any, for a change at Ericsson as we continue, I call it the next chapter in our strategic journey. But I'm of course very happy that he will stay on in his role until the end of Q1 next year.
Speaker 3: And of course that will ensure that we can execute on our cost savings, but also a smooth transition.
Speaker 3: So really a big thank you to Karl for all his achievements and contributions here at Ericsson. You will be truly missed not only by me but all my colleagues at Ericsson. So big thank you.
Speaker 3: And anything Carl at this point you would like to comment on? Thanks a lot to Burya and thanks very kind words also as you said I mean there's not really a good time to leave a fantastic company like Ericsson or a position like the one I've had a privilege of having now for almost seven years, but
Speaker 3: We find it's the right time now and let's see what the future brings. It's been an incredible journey and a fantastic privilege to work with all the great people in Ericsson and of course outside our company with partners, customers and the investors and analysts as well on this call. Thanks a lot.
Speaker 3: Luckily I will be here for almost another year, so we shall see each other again.
Speaker 4: Thank you, Brian .
Speaker 3: Thank you Carl. So back to Q1. So the quarter developed in line with what we communicated during our Q4 report. As we expected, Q1 has been a challenging quarter due to slower deployment pace in some early 5G markets. But this have of course been compounded with the fact that customers...
Speaker 3: in those markets are lowering their inventories.
Speaker 3: That's the reason the impact on our sales is bigger than the slowdown in the underlying deployment phase.
Speaker 3: We will continue to see inventory adjustments during Q2, but we expect less impact after that, but there could be some smaller effect during Q3.
Speaker 3: As the inventory adjustments will be completed, we also expect the recovery during the second half, but the second half will also be supported by our cost savings initiatives clearly.
Speaker 3: So this development impacts growth in networks negatively. As we saw the early 5G market slow down, we now see a build-up of the next wave of markets. And here margins are a bit lower due to large service content.
Speaker 3: We could see that growth in other segments offset the lower sales in networks, but all in all in line with our expectations and what we communicated during the Q4 report. Let me start now by giving some highlights from the quarter.
Speaker 3: So we're making progress on our strategy to strengthen our leadership in mobile networks, grow our enterprise business and drive a continued cultural transformation.
Speaker 3: As you saw and as you all know, in the quarter we reached a resolution with the DOJ regarding contractual non-criminal breaches of our 2019 Deferred Prosecution Agreement.
Speaker 3: This was of course a critical step for us, allowing us to move forward and we can now continue to make great, great progress on our compliance programme.
Speaker 3: Overall financial performance was in line with what we expected and what we communicated.
Speaker 3: So while overall sales were flat, we saw an organic growth of 5% in cloud software and services and 19% in enterprise.
Speaker 3: And notably now the enterprise segment now represents almost 10% of sales.
Speaker 3: So we completed also the divestiture of our IoT platform business. This will reduce quarterly losses by about 250 million kroner going forward.
Speaker 3: As expected in networks, we saw strong growth in India where we continue to roll out 5G at pace.
Speaker 3: This growth, however, did not fully offset the slower deployment pace compounded by the inventory adjustments in the early 5G markets.
Speaker 3: We see that some customers are reducing the rollout pace somewhat, but the big effect really comes from the ongoing inventory adjustments.
Speaker 3: And that comes because they built up large inventories when supply chain was tight and those inventory levels are now normalizing.
Speaker 3: We expect this adjustments to be completed during Q2 but some could slip into Q3 clearly.
Speaker 3: In cloud software and services, we continue to execute on our revised strategy and reduce our losses a bit ahead of our plan.
Speaker 3: So while results will vary between quarters, we are on track to reach our targets or break even in 2023.
Speaker 3: We're also making good progress on our cost efficiency initiatives and we have identified additional savings opportunities of about 2 billion kroner and now we plan to reduce cost run rate by 11 billion by year end.
Speaker 3: The best indicator of cost savings is that we get external and internal headcount down. During the first quarter, overall workforce fell by about 800, but if we adjust for investment in enterprise as well as India.
Speaker 3: The reduction was about 1700 internal and external headcount. But of course this is something that we continue to work on and we expect to accelerate during the coming quarters. In a situation with a choppy outlook, we need of course to focus on what we can impact. And cost efficiency is crucial to manage.
Speaker 3: The uncertainty is during 2023. But I will also say cost efficiency is critical for our long-term competitiveness. We will continue to track our development on the cost savings and we report on our progress as we move along.
Speaker 3: Carl will cover more of the financial performance shortly, but let me touch upon some of the critical steps we took in our strategic ambitions in enterprise.
Speaker 3: We are in the midst of a journey where we're leveraging our capabilities in mobile networks to shape the future industry landscape by creating network API platform, which will redefine our addressable market and actually redefine our industry.
Speaker 3: In Q1, it was exciting to see a couple of tangible steps in this ambition.
Speaker 3: So last year you all know we tested Ericsson Dynamic End User Boost with Smart Tone in Hong Kong, which gave indications of it can be done and it gave indicate or showed that it can be done and gave indications of users willingness to pay for Network API. And at this year's Mobile World Congress in Barcelona,
Speaker 3: we showcase the world's first multi-operator quality of service network API.
Speaker 3: together with Telefónica Orange and Vodafone on their commercial networks.
Speaker 3: This allowed us to demonstrate how advanced mobile network functionality can be exposed to and easily consumed by the global developer community. This was truly a critical step showcasing our ability to drive the evolution of this market. And we actually see a great interest.
Speaker 3: from enterprises as well as operators.
Speaker 3: So network APIs were really a big topic at the Mobile World Congress and we are at the forefront of this new market which we are defining together with our customers and especially front-runner customers. The winners in this evolution will be those that are able to first scale their platform.
Speaker 3: We anticipate the first revenues late this year, which will position us for a revenue ramp and growth during 2024 and 2025 as our transformation into a platform company accelerates.
Speaker 3: Like all new markets, it will take some time to build this new market as well.
Speaker 3: But we believe it can actually develop faster and grow bigger than the market for traditional communication APIs. And it will position Ericsson for long term growth and profitability.
Speaker 3: Let me now comment a bit on the Enterprise Wireless Solutions as well, which is the other pillar in our Enterprise Strategy.
Speaker 3: Today, all of our losses in the enterprise segment really comes from enterprise wireless solutions. And that's expected for a couple of reasons.
Speaker 3: First of all, Cradlepoint has a subscription business model with upfront payments for an every three-year contract.
Speaker 3: Revenues and gross profits are deferred and recognised monthly over the contract period.
Speaker 3: This leads to an initial negative impact on EBITDA as a large part of the gross profit is deferred, while the absolute majority of OPEX investments are taken directly in the P&L. OPEX being both the offerings cost for R&D as well as the go-to-market organization.
Speaker 3: As we grow, this will basically mean that we will generate the loss for accounting reasons, but long term business area, this business area has a very attractive profitability profile.
Speaker 3: But we're also incurring some investments. We're scaling our go-to-market organization globally. We believe it's critical to establish or dedicate the go-to-market towards enterprises to be successful in this area, but also to leverage the technology we developed.
Speaker 3: in the mobile network business. But we are also investing in new product solutions. And as an example, you saw in this quarter, we acquired Ericon, which we will use to accelerate our security offerings.
Speaker 3: So we now have the capabilities to build a full stack security solution optimized for 5G. We continue to see good traction with Cradlepoint showing good organic growth as we work to fully scale this business.
Speaker 3: And we are starting to see some very interesting use cases for our dedicated networks in manufacturing. But I would still say that's a rather early market and not particularly big yet.
Speaker 3: With that, let me hand over to you, Carl, for drilling down into the numbers.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Børja, and again, very good morning to everyone. Thanks for joining the call. So I thought just to reiterate a couple of the key points regarding the business and the results. We can stay perhaps on this title slide for a second while I do that. First of all, this sales mix.
Speaker 3: shift in networks that we have so clearly guided for continued then in the in the first quarter and customer capex as well as inventory adjustments happened as we forecasted there in some of these early adopter early 5G markets
Speaker 3: At the same time we had strong growth in markets where the massive 5G rollouts have begun more recently. And of course we have a big share of services also in this large rollout project. And when it comes to this inventory adjustment, we saw a big impact in the first quarter. That's clear.
Speaker 3: we expect continued inventory adjustments in the second quarter but now with the visibility we have with customers not least North America we expect this then to flatten out the normalize from Q3 and onwards.
Speaker 3: And then of course the negative impact of this on network's gross margin was as we expected and as we guided for as well.
Speaker 3: I think it's worth noticing the incredible speed of roll-out in India and for us India now is the second largest market for Ericsson in terms of sales numbers. It has grown by 5x year over year, so now almost 7 billion in revenue in India in the first quarter.
Speaker 3: At the same time, North America decreased by 4 billion. So there you can clearly see the shift in the business mix.
Speaker 3: Cloud software and services is then better than expectation, that's good, it's really a stepping stone towards the breakeven target for the full year. And then within enterprise, global communication platform, that's where Vonage belongs.
Speaker 3: That delivered sales of 3.9 billion in the quarter and a break-even result of zero EBITDA from that part. And then the other section of enterprise wireless solutions where cradle point is a part grew by 60% in the quarter. That's going well.
Speaker 3: With the loss, as Bury explained, it's 0.8 billion in the quarter for the reasons that Bury said, it's a thoughtful investment both in product and go to market.
Speaker 3: If we go to the next slide and look a little bit at the geographies then we you can very clearly here see See what we're talking about in the shift you see 132% growth in our market area Southeast Asia Oceania and India
Speaker 3: Primarily of course driven by the market check-ins in India but also other project milestone completions in other in Southeast Asian markets there.
Speaker 3: The decline on the other hand and in North America you see was 26% as a consequence of what we just described. And of course coming from elevated investment levels both in 2021 but notably in 2022. Europe declined by 16% organically. Also following high investments in 2022.
Speaker 3: but encouraging to see the growth in Latin America where we grew by 6% driven by 5G deployments across the continent.
Speaker 3: Northeast Asia declined organically then by 19%.
Speaker 3: also compared with elevated 5G investment levels happening this time last year. And then lastly, in Middle East and Africa, a decrease of 8%.
Speaker 3: partly driven by timing of five investments but also by some economic challenges in some parts of the African countries.
Speaker 3: If we look at how this then came out in the group P&L, you see the sales number here 62.6 billion and that's a flat growth organically and with organic now I mean excluding investments, acquisitions and divestments but also adjusted for currency fluctuations. But underneath and a growth of enterprise of 90%.
Speaker 3: a growth in cloud service software services by 5% but then again 2% down in in the networks for the reasons discussed earlier.
Speaker 3: And the impact of this shift is visible also on the Gross Modian. You see down 250 basis points to 39.8% excluding restructuring charges for the same reason. Gross Modian however was positively impacted in the quarter by higher IPR revenues.
Speaker 3: where we have good expectations for the future as well. We can come back to that and also hire software share in the sales mix. In cloud software and services here we had a gross margin, excluding a structuring again, 36.1% that's up from 35 a year ago.
Speaker 3: consolidation of Vonage into the Ericsson books. But sequentially, and I think that's important, gross margin improved in this segment, not least by improving margins in the global communication platform, which again includes Vonage.
Speaker 3: Both R&D and SGA increased year over year, but again key to understand here is the consolidation of Onis into the numbers. Obviously Onis was not here last Q1, so that needs to be understood.
Speaker 3: 70% of the increase you see here on these two OPEX lines comes from the Vonage consolidation. There is also an FX component and the remainder is really as discussed before than the enterprise wireless solution investment we do in future growth of that business. In the first quarter we recorded
Speaker 3: Restructuring charges of material size for the first time in a long time, about 1 billion. Obviously related to the cost actions that we are taking. So all in all this resulted in an ELITA, excluding restructuring at 4.8 billion, which is in line with the guidance and our expectations.
Speaker 3: On the next slide we can have a look at how these earnings then convert into cash flow
Speaker 3: next slide we can have a look at how these earnings then convert into cash flow and
Speaker 3: You all remember in Q4 we had an exceptionally strong free cash flow before M&A. Now as expected Q1 was weaker at minus 8 billion of free cash flow before M&A. A couple of things there that explains this. First of all as a seasonal effect during the first quarter every year we do
Speaker 3: pay out incentives to staff from accrued employee expenses the quarter before.
Speaker 3: But more importantly and more related to business, the business mix shift that we talk about also comes through in working capital.
Speaker 3: Hence in cash flow as well and there are a couple of effects there of course with large roll out projects project inventory goes up But we also have some extended payment terms and that shows up on customer financing line in the balance sheet But and we also have large larger pay payments to suppliers
Speaker 3: related to these contracts than in other places of the world. The mix shift also impacted working capital and therefore cash flow.
Speaker 3: I can mention also just for planning purposes the DOJ payment of 207 million US dollars was made in Q2, it was on April 6th So that's not included in Q1 but in Q2 numbers On a rolling basis though, free cash flow before M&A was 15.8 billion
Speaker 3: But still at 5.7% of net sales versus our target of 9 to 12% for the long term is of course not where we want to be both from a profitability point of view leading into cash flow but also the working capital situation.
Speaker 3: We are working very hard to restore this back to improved levels in line with our target. Our focus on managing working capital continues with full force going forward as well.
Speaker 3: But again with large roll-out projects and these shifts that we talk about, we do build working capital temporarily. We will of course keep the machinery as efficient as we ever can in Ericsson and I think we have proven that before that we can do that.
Speaker 3: If we move now to the outlook for the future, not least second quarter here, and as we have said and Bürij expressed this also, 2023 has some uncertainty. In the second quarter we expect operators to remain cautious with CAPEX, similar to Q1.
Speaker 3: and continue with the inventory adjustment that we have described. On top line we expect this to be offset to a large extent by these large new roll-out projects in 5G, but with a dilutive impact on gross margins short term.
Speaker 3: Enterprise segment is of course a high growth area with a very strong long term trajectory but also that sector is impacted by macroeconomic factors and we see that continuing in Q2 like it did in Q1.
Speaker 3: But to mitigate all of this, of course we are working on what we can control as Buri said, and we have increased the cost out effort and ambition from 9 billion to 11 billion as a run rate as we exit 2023.
Speaker 3: Given now this restructuring program or cost out program we have restructuring charges, 1 billion in the quarter as I said. Looking forward for the full year early estimates are that it could amount to about 7 billion.
Speaker 3: Swedish kroner, of which half or even more than half might be booked in the second quarter in the books but we will come back to that of course. Next year though restructuring charges will normalize around half a percent of all net sales according to the plans.
Speaker 3: The P&L effect of cost-out will take time to see. We know that from experience and that's how it works. So of course we will report on the progress of this every quarter but expect limited impact in the P&L in the beginning and then a gradual impact over time.
Speaker 3: Continuing on this slide and I'll wrap up soon. Average net sales seasonality from Q1 to Q2 is a growth of 12% if you look at the last three years average. This is applicable both for networks and cloud software and services.
Speaker 3: However, this time for networks we expect Q2 sales to be in line with Q1 and for cloud software and services we expect the seasonality to be somewhat lower this year than the normal 12%.
Speaker 3: Next, on gross margin, we are specific in the guidance here for networks. And we say we expect gross margin in networks to be between 37% and 39% in the second quarter.
Speaker 3: mainly as a result of the business mix that we have talked about but we expect a gradual recovery going forward in the second half regarding that gross margin.
Speaker 3: OPEX, the typical increase Q1 to Q2 is 1.5 billion up, large variations between quarters, but that's a reference.
Speaker 3: And then the result of all of this EBITDA excluding restructuring or EBITDA margin I should say for Q2 we expect now when we guide for mid single digit.
Speaker 3: as a result of this declining margins in networks due to the changing business mix.
Speaker 3: To close off I want to end with this slide. This is taken from our Capital Markets Day we had in December . Updated with actuals though.
Speaker 3: And this shows the components in the path towards the 2024 target and a beta mod 15-18%. You're well familiar with that already. So uncertainty on 2023, we've said that, but we do believe that the underlying traffic growth in networks...
Speaker 3: will stimulate and drive continued investments. That's one strong factor here. And therefore we expect this gradual recovery 2023, the second half and into 2024.
Speaker 3: And this path as you see here and know already is also supported by higher IPR revenues.
Speaker 3: And then finally in the other bucket that we have combined a lot of effects both pluses and minuses there But we have of course changing market mix from footprint gains but also counted by improved profitability across all all segments with
Speaker 3: operational leverage from growth etc. So in total we remain steadfast in this target to reach the lower end by 2024 of the target EBITDA margin 15 to 18%.
Speaker 3: With that, thank you so much and I hand back to you, Beria. Thank you, Korn. So our strategy, we continue to implement and we're starting to see the positive signs that it's working. So we're well positioned now to capture the full value of 5G and to create a stronger and more profitable Ericsson.
Speaker 3: with a larger addressable market.
Speaker 3: And it's critical for our long-term success that we build out a profitable enterprise business.
Speaker 3: Executing on our strategy to build technology leadership in mobile networks, establish an Ericsson or an enterprise business for Ericsson, and driving a cultural change are our three main priorities going forward.
Speaker 3: So we are confident in our strategic position, but we also see that 2023 will be a choppy year, as we have earlier said.
Speaker 3: We expect a gradual recovery in the second half as we expect the inventory adjustments at our customers to be completed and that we start to see the benefit of our cost savings initiatives flow through the P&L.
Speaker 3: Longer term, based on historic experiences, we also expect to see investments and network investments recover as the underlying traffic growth continues at a very high rate and more capacity will be needed.
Speaker 3: So if we look beyond 2023, we see that the expected normalization or recovery of the mobile networks market, we see the turnaround of cloud software and services.
Speaker 3: that we can continue to grow our IPR revenues, as well as reap the full benefit of the cost initiatives and the other actions we're driving, puts us on track to reach the lower end of our long-term targets by 2024.
Speaker 3: So with that, I just want to end by thanking all the fantastic people at Ericsson who made this position possible. Big thank you for me.
Speaker 3: So with that I just want to end by thanking all the fantastic people at Ericsson who made this position possible. Big thank you for me. With that over to you Peter.
Speaker 2: Thanks, Borja, and thank you, Carl, for the presentation. So it's now time for the question and answer session. And again, as a reminder, to ask questions, you need to press the star 1 and 1 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced.
Speaker 2: So, and if you are streaming the webcast, please mute the webcast audio whilst asking questions to minimize any audio feedback.
Speaker 2: So, I am now ready for the first question and with that I would like to welcome
Speaker 2: Alexander Paterc. So, Alexander, good morning.
Speaker 2: Good morning, can you hear me? Yes, perfectly. Good morning. Good morning.
Speaker 5: You're on the line, so please... Thank you. Excellent, thank you. I'd just like to first touch upon the growth margin trend in networks. To what extent is that due to any import you probably have to pay in India at the moment, and how advanced are you in the progress?
Speaker 5: with local assembly or parts of manufacturing to minimize these import duty costs. Is that part of the reason why things are going south in the second quarter? That's my first question. Second one, just if you're more specific on restructuring, which areas you're targeting with the new restructuring charges in which businesses and which geography. Thanks a lot.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Burja, should I take this one? I think you take it, Carl. Maybe start with the second one then. When it comes to restructuring, it touches on many if not all parts of our company and many geographies. So it's wide and we have savings targets on the basic, virtually all...
Speaker 3: the OPEC side and there's also some R&D components in there. Of course technology leadership remains our strategy but we still see that there are productivity improvements and things we can do on the R&D side as well.
Speaker 3: On your first question, yes we are advancing when it comes to local production or assembly in India and we're building out there together with a partner. So that's going well. The speed of roll-out is incredible. So we are ramping up very fast as well in the local production there.
Speaker 3: And the import duty side, I would not say it's material when we look at the networks cross-moding but of course it's sizable enough for us to work really actively on trying to reduce that and localize production. Vigya, if you want to add. Thank you very much.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Carl and thank you, Alexander.
Speaker 2: So, we will now take the next question and I think we have the next question from Andrew Gardner from SITU.
Speaker 6: Good morning, Andrew. Good morning, Peter. Good morning, guys. Thanks for taking the question. I have one on your visibility into business for the rest of the year. On one hand, Boyer, you continue to use the word choppy as pertaining to 2023, and you're saying uncertainty remains.
Speaker 6: How broad are these conversations across the key operators? How convinced are you that you've got the right level of visibility into what those customers will need in the second half? Where are inventory levels today? What are the indications in terms of deployment plans? Can you give us any further detail around what you're hearing from the customers that?
Speaker 3: gives you that confidence in an improving second half. Thank you. It's a good question. What gives us the comfort is of course it starts with the the ongoing deployment phase.
Speaker 3: And that's the key driver. And that gives us comfort that we will have seen the inventory adjustments during Q2, a bit of slip into Q3, but most of it done during Q2. And again, the reason for keeping the roll-up pace up.
Speaker 3: It's not maybe it's down somewhat compared to last year. And you have seen the lower indicating numbers that are varying here. I think it's minus seven in the in North America, for example. But that effect is truly compounded by this inventory adjustment. And as long as we see the traffic growth we see today.
Speaker 3: That is ultimately going to require investments in the network to keep the capacity up and keep the user experience up. So based on the discussions we're having, I will preface it, there is a lot of macroeconomic uncertainty facing our customers. Thank you.
Speaker 3: It's inflation, it's a lot of different issues, but it gives us comfort to say that the rollout pace continues and ought to deplete the excess inventory by mid-year or early Q3. So we feel good about it, but it's of course something that impacts us quite dramatically.
Speaker 3: The reason why we're, you know, it's hard to say they need to make their summary. I think we will know in a few weeks time. So let's see what they come out at. But we should remember the big adjustment on our side is actually the inventory adjustment.
Speaker 3: That's the big impact on our sales on one side, and the other side of that is the rapid growth in some of the new 5G markets.
Speaker 3: So we're in the middle of that business mix shift, which of course makes it always a bit difficult to have 100% visibility. But at least we feel quite good about our position.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Bojja. Thank you, Andrew, for that question. So we are now moving into the third question of this session. And I have that question coming from Sebastian Stabernitz from...
Speaker 7: Kieplo, chevre. Good morning, Sebastien. Hello everyone. One question on IPR. You are still forecasting substantially higher IPR revenue going forward. Have you made any kind of progress on your patent monetization strategy? And also a second one on Vonage. It seems they have reported quite good growth.
Speaker 7: talking about 14% in a dollar term despite challenging macro condition. Could you help understand how the demand is building up advantage but more generally speaking the enterprise business has been quite strong in Q1 19% growth and you are talking about a weaker macro condition. Can you help us understand what are the dynamics there?
Speaker 3: device players that will need to come on stream as well and sign up for licenses with us. So we're working on those deals and that's a big part of what is behind our optimism when it comes to IPR revenue and of course we will report back once those agreements are eventually signed. As usual as the same as with the
Speaker 3: the agreement with Samsung and then with Apple. We're not rushing into agreement. It's better to get it right of course with the right price level and that keeps being our strategy. Then the next frontier if that's your question also maybe.
Speaker 3: on the strategy for monetization We see a big opportunity also in in consumer electronics and IOT etc automotive and that's going to be the next frontier for us to capture also license revenue from from those sectors with the billions of connected devices who also that also use our patented technology, so we will report back on the future.
Speaker 3: and communication APIs for Vonit. So it's been a solid quarter. There is a bit of headwind from the general macroeconomic developments. And we should remember when we had the...
Speaker 3: the COVID days in 2022 and before that we had a bit higher growth in the use of communication APIs.
Speaker 3: put them on a bit of, maybe you can call it, extra high level that we're now on the back end of that. But we're still seeing a very good growth and it's developing very strongly.
Speaker 3: Of course, that's something we continue to invest in and drive innovation as well, so we can launch a number of new competitive offerings in the current communication APIs. You see the same thing in Cradlepoint. We've seen good growth during the quarter, but I would also say we are facing a macroeconomic headwind at the bit.
Speaker 3: tougher investment levels in enterprise networking. But it still gives a very good growth rate. So I would not, in that sense, be alarmed. But what it does give is a confidence that the offering we have is very competitive and solving a real customer need.
Thank you, Boryan, and thank you, Sebastian, for those questions. So, we'll move into the next question.
which will come from Peter Cote-Nielsen at AABG.
Peter Koot, can you hear me? I can, Peter. Thank you very much. And thank you for the opportunity. If I could just return a bit to the outlook for, I guess, networks, my identity, to talk about the gradual recovery in the second half, which you also told us that you thought, but it does appear now to be from a somewhat lower, weaker level.
in Q2. Now you've discussed a bit the various components that will enter into this equation, but can you talk a bit about how far into the India ramp up we need to go before we will see what you perhaps could call normalisation of margins.
And I'm asking also because you are maintaining the longer term target 15 to 18 percent lower end of the range for 24, which I guess does imply a significant improvement in also in the growth margin in networks as we approach going into next year. Could you talk a bit about where the recovery is coming from?
What we are so focused on, as you know, is the 2024 financial target, of course. And there are some key components that will start to play in in the second half of 2023 and then onwards into 2024. And of course, your question is on network specifically. We do see that certain rebalancing will start to happen.
The inventory adjustments we talked about will flatten out as Burya described well earlier. The rollout in India will peak around the end of this year but of course continue at a high level later on also. But we still see this rebalancing within the mix.
Then of course we have the cost out program that we talked about which will Generate also an improved profitability also in the networks business side and as you know also I PR has a big part of the sorry networks has a big part of the I PR revenues also in the segment result. So
as soon as we can land some of those deals that will also carry networks forward in terms of gross money. Bori, anything to add? I think you captured it, Carl. It's the, I think we see during Q1, Q2 the inventory adjustments at the maximum.
That we predict will be therefore we expect that to be much less during the second half. And that of course will carry into a better business mix in 2024, which will overall help us on margins. And then you have the cost as Carl said, you have the IP or...
improvements there and that allows us to be within the lower end of our long-term targets next year.
Thanks, Boria, and thank you Peter Kutt for that question. We will move further in this Q&A session.
And the next question will come from Andreas Juhlson at Danzke.
Yes, good morning. One question if I may and that's on networks again but on the top line usually you have a sequential growth between Q1 and Q2 and this year you say flat. Does that mean that the inventory burden will be more or even higher in Q2 or is it something else that we should be...
And when we look into Q2 now we see that the sales network will most likely remain on a rather flat level sequentially. So it's exactly the same factors as we have described here.
sorry Q2 now we see that sales in network will will most likely remain on a rather flat level sequentially so it's exactly the same factors as we have described
Perfect, thanks. Thanks Oh yes, for that question and thank you Carl. We'll move to the next question and we have that one coming from Samdeep at JEEP Morgan. Hi, good morning, Samdeep. Yeah, hi, good morning. Thanks for letting me on. My question...
came. Why do you think that 24 will see a recovery in the same 5G market that is softer this year? The first reason is back to the inventory adjustments.
So the underlying rollout pace continues, so it's an inventory adjustment that's happening. That's going to be through, as we have said during Q2, and possibly slightly into Q3. That gives us confidence about the underlying demand for network equipment.
So that's the most important part. The second one, and this is more of a longer term, but you have to recognize the growing demand for data.
That's continuing at a very high rate and in order to ensure that you can deliver that with a cost-efficient way as an operator as well as deliver it with the...
or the user experience you need, there will be a need to keep on investing in capacity in the network. And that's no doubt in my mind that that will have to happen. You can't really compare here with the previous generations because it's not data driven.
Today the generations are data driven. That's why this is highly likely to look a bit different. So just do the experiment to think, how would we cope with the current traffic level if we wouldn't have 5G? So we basically need 5G in order to...
a leading 5G nation and a leading nation for digitalization. And what we see is that the subscribers on 5G are using even more data than on 4G.
And that's why we're quite comfortable to say that the inventory adjustments will be true and therefore we will see a much more of a normal business mix in 24 and beyond. But still, even though data growth is 20% plus, network capex, that will be what supports a flat-ish market.
That's why it's important to keep in mind that we've guided for an overall flattish development within mobile networks for several years.
So that's not anything new, but what it means is basically the inventory adjustment will normalize next year and then you're on that flattish curve.
Thanks, Perio. So we're not, I think it's important to be clear, it's not that we assume you will enter high growth rate in the networks.
business or in mobile networks at all next year. It's just that the inventory cycle will have normalized.
Thank you for that question Sandeep and we will now move to the next question in this call and that one is coming from Frederick Littel at the Handelsbank. So Frederick you are online.
Yes, thank you. Can you hear me? We can hear you. Thank you. Thank you for taking my questions and I have two if I may, maybe one for Borya and one for Karl. If we start with the first one for Borya, cloud software saw an improvement in Q1, a clear one, so that's good.
I'm thinking about the fact that you're tuning down the seasonal effects into Q2. Was it so that you had
a more positive ending to Q1 and thereby you had also higher software share in that quarter or is it so that you feel you see structural effects from the ongoing changes with the new management are doing in CSS and that's behind the improved earnings in Q1.
What is what there in CSS? That's the question really. And then Karl on you talked about the rolling 12 months free cash flow at 5.7. You have a target of 9 to 12. And you say you're going to do everything you can to improve and what are your levers to.
to accomplish change that will improve or is it so that much will come from change business mix or change your graphical mix and what have you that will improve this.
this pre-cash flow yield. So thank you for that. So we start with Boria. Okay, so if we start with the cloud software and services, yes, they had you know, we're putting in place a strategy to kind of limiting our subscale development. We're focusing on having the right product portfolio.
to make sure that we can win in the market. Those efforts continue and of course putting profitability ahead of growth and we've said that.
Then in Q1 we saw a bit of effect from higher software sales and we saw a bit more IPR revenues than last year. So part of the improvement comes from that. But I would also say there is a lot of changes that's underlying in the way we conduct the business in cloud software and services that should allow us to reach or be beyond the break even for the year.
We're very committed to working hard at improving the underlying business in line with what we did in Q1 and continuing into Q2. Thanks. And Karl on the cash flow development. Yeah, thanks, Friedrich. Yeah, and you know, working capital cash flow management very close to my heart. I think we've.
done a lot during these years also to reduce the working capital to a completely different much lower level. I think we have the levers to do that. What we're looking at now is really you could say two buckets to start with this is partly the cash flow generation as such. It's about terms and conditions also both with customers and suppliers and manage this.
business side and you mentioned it yourself, Fréadéc, that the same logic applies here as with a business mix. When we have a rebalancing back to more of the front runner markets, that is good for our cash flow as well. And the final point to mention also related to business is of course that when we sign IPR deals that's typically a good.
contribution to our cash flow as well. And you know that's normally a retroactive effect also on the cash flow side. So those are some of the levers. We have full focus on this. The entire company is very geared at improving working capital and generates good cash flow going forward.
Thank you Fredrik for those two questions. So we are actually now open for the last question of this session.
And that question will come from Jan-Odann Menon from Jeffries. Good morning Jan-Odann. Hi, good morning Peter. Good morning everyone. My question is really just to narrow down a little bit more on the new communication APIs and asber.
and you will start seeing revenue coming through into 24, 25. Can you give us some idea of what kind of revenue growth you would be, we can expect on the new communication APIs into next year and the year after? And if you can't give us an idea of revenue, can you say?
cradle point side, you alluded to the depressing effect on margins because you have upfront OPEX which you take upfront and the revenue is sort of staggered. When does that effect start reversing? At what point is there on your current modeling, is there a point where the cradle point starts becoming accretive because the upfront cost or the revenue is more than the cost?
I can make an attempt. So on a crazy point, the business model is clear and actually it's of course a very favorable business model because cash up front and a subscription model which creates sustainable and the recurring revenue also. But we had a phenomenon with
Of course the investments related to capturing those contracts in opex coming coming up from exactly when that will turn around we have not gone into and disclosed and talked about but of course This is a this is a balancing game How much do we invest short term for the long term? term gain
and how prudent are we short term as well to manage the P&L. And this is of course a big topic for us in the leadership team and with George who manages this business as well. I'm not able to give you an exact date there but of course at a certain point we will see that being a creative to Ericsson and we have a very strong release. You saw the 60% growth.
delivered in the first quarter in this and of course that comes out of the investments we are making and we see that that will continue. On the Vonnich side I think we will we will come back what I can say now is that we see really great traction among the early adopters and the front runners.
You saw the Mobile World Congress with all the Spanish operators, that's one example, but of course much more is cooking here. And the operator community, I would say, is really eager to work together and collaborate with us on this and developing this as a new business for them. And of course everyone now in the industry can see the potential of...
exposing these 5G capabilities for enterprises and developers. It's happening as we speak, but of course very early stages, and we are not ready to give specific revenue numbers for the future yet, but we'd rather prove that to you when those numbers actually come in. It's going to be limited in the beginning, but with a great potential for the longer term. Anything to add, Gloria? I would only add on the...
say that the platform we could show at Mobile World Congress is not fully industrialized yet, but at least it allows us to get this first feedback from developers, from enterprises, that this is a workable market and actually can make sense.
That's why we're confident that we will start to see revenues during this year. But as Karl said, it's too early to put a number on that for this year and into next in the year after.
but we see a very exciting development. Thank you, Yondan, for that question. I would also like to thank Carl and Böre for good answers throughout the sessions. With that question, we are closing the Q1 2023 conference call. Thank you and have a great day. Thank you all. Thank you.