Bittium Corporation

Bittium Corporation

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Feb 11Next Earn

Q4 FY2025 · Earnings Call TranscriptFebruary 19, 2026

Karoliina Malmi

Good morning everyone and welcome to this webcast on Bittium's financial statements 2025. My name is Karoliina Malmi.

I'm Head of Investor Relations, Marketing and Sustainability at Bittium. With me here today are our CEO Petri Toljamo and CFO Petri Hiljanen.

A few forward-looking statements quickly. Just to mention by their nature they involve risk and uncertainty and may differ from actual results.

About the agenda quickly. We start with some highlights of 2025.

Then CFO will walk you through our numbers from last year. Then we continue with business updates and finally outlook for this year and time for Q&A at the end.

However, you are able to place questions at any time by clicking the button on your screen. We will address them at the end.

Without further ado, I will let our CEO Petri Toljamo to start.

Petri Toljamo

Thank you Karoliina. I'll start with the highlights of the 2025.

Shortly, I think we had a pretty good year. First, I think that we are able to say that on CMD September last year, we defined a new growth strategy where the theme is that accelerate international growth.

I think this is proceeding as planned. Second, our order intake grew to 153 million roughly from 100 million euro from previous year.

As well as the order backlog grew to around the 78 million from the 45 million euro. This is very significant and sizable amount of the orders we managed to secure on the last year.

Then the number three, I would say that the Bittium's market position in defense market strengthened significantly. We have been able to make headway on the international market, and I think that we have very relevant position thanks to our advanced leadership on the technology side.

Fourth, if we summarize the year, the net sales grew 40% year-on-year, while the operating profit was 16.3%, and EBITDA was 32 million euro, which reflects to 27.2% of the net sales. Then I'll hand over to our CFO Petri Hiljanen.

He will go through in the detail the financial part, and I'll get back to then us.

Petri Hiljanen

Thank you Petri. Let's first walk through the Q4 financials, the highlights there.

Our Q4, we delivered record high sales. Our sales reached 54 million and it grew about 63% year-on-year.

This year is clearly a breakthrough for Bittium in international market. We got good new customers, open up new markets.

This is a good result for us in that sense. Also, we need to keep in mind that the Q4, the comparison period '24, was already quite strong, relatively the strengthening has been quite phenomenal here for '25.

Growth was fueled by defense product sales, and at the same time medical and engineering services remained about the same level as last year. As you can see from the graph there, at least for the sales, it's typical for us that the quarterly fluctuations are quite substantial, and this is also the case for '25.

Our operating profit reached 15.4 million. There's an increase of 9.4 million from last year, quarter four '24, and the operating margin was thus 28.6%.

There as mentioned earlier, high volumes and favorable product mix contributed to this increase in profitability. EBITDA reached 23 million, and the last year it was 8.6, it's a hefty increase there at EBITDA level as well.

Full year '25, as Petri mentioned, it was 40% growth in top line sales. It reached 119 million.

As said earlier, the growth was driven by product sales in defense and security segment. Engineering and medical, they remained pretty much at the same level as '24.

Full year operating profit, a key measurable for our business, was 19.4 million at the margin of 16.3 3%. One should keep in mind that there's also close to 1 million euro of one-time costs included in the operating profit.

The structure of sales as we can see, it's heavily driven by the product sales, which is very very much in line with our long-term strategy. Full year EBITDA reached 32.4 million, and it's about 27% of our net sales.

Some words about the R&D investment. We continue to invest in the core technologies.

However, the relative percentage fell a bit from the historical numbers, and also it's a little bit less than the strategic target. It was 12.9%, but it's explained by the high sales in '25.

Anyway, we're committed to the strategic targets to develop our products and offering. Related to the investments, there's also some added higher depreciations that we took on the defense and security business products and then historical development cost, and that's also explaining a bit on the increase of the R&D expenditure.

Some key takeaways from the cash flow. Cash flow was negative for full year.

It was a little bit less than 1 million euro negative. Last year '24 was exceptionally high.

There were one-time items related to historical projects. Now as we go forward with the growth, our gross sales grew so heavily and it also drove the accounts receivable to quite high level, which of course then increases net working capital, decreases our cash flow.

We also took measures to secure inventories for future deliveries. Those are the primary reasons for higher net working capital.

Some words about balance sheet. Bittium's balance sheet is very strong.

Our equity ratio is 71%. Also we are net debt-free.

Those are the key items that are providing us fuel for future growth initiatives. Then again, from business and operations side, there's definitely items related to networking capital that have been increasing.

Then again, they are supporting our short-term business activities as we go forward towards the '26. All right.

I will hand over now to Petri.

Petri Toljamo

Thank you Petri. After this financial part, I cover then the business segments, starting with the defense and security.

On defense and security business side, I think this overall we grew last year 45% year-on-year. Now this year, we managed to grow 65.8% year-on-year.

If we look this overall macroeconomy side, I think these uncertainties and changes in global political environment continued. What we are however seeing now is that after the Ukraine War, there was a kind of peak to purchase the guns and ammos and then of course the vehicles and infrastructure.

Now we are clearly seeing that this investment, defense funds, are being kind of focused more and more in the future in the modernization of the military communication systems. Like mentioned in the highlights, our market position has strengthened to the technological leadership in military communication.

So '25 for the defense and security was the record year for the order intake, 121.8 million euro and order backlog of 70.9 million euro. We received new orders from the Finnish Defence Forces, and Austrian, Croatian and other customers as well.

We signed also frame agreement with Swedish Defence Forces, and also we signed a sizable licensing deal with Indra for our Tough SDR radio technologies. The quarterly development on the fourth quarter, we grew defense segment, defense and security segment 90% year-on-year, and this is a very high number, and even if we had a tough compare on the fourth quarter '24.

Let's look in this our progress on the international market. With Finnish Defence Forces, we have been collaborating since 1989, and we are continuously receiving orders from them.

If you look the other countries as well, 2016 we started collaboration with Estonia, 2019 Austria, and we received a large order from Austria on the fourth quarter last year. It basically proves that this is not just a 1 or 2, 3 year type of the project.

Actually, it will last pretty long while we are continuing to equip that specific country in question. Croatia '22.

'24, we signed frame agreement with BAE Systems, and we opened last year office to the London. '24, we also signed two frame agreements with Lockheed Martin.

Like mentioned, '25 we signed frame agreement with the Swedish Armed Forces. However, there are no POs yet, but naturally we will expect those to arrive at some point.

Then there's this mystery country from the Europe which we have not been able to disclose. We signed that 2025 for the special forces.

Now in December, we signed a licensing agreement with Indra Group for Bittium's SDR technology. Just as a recap for this Indra deal.

We signed in December licensing agreement with Indra, and based on the current forecast, the total value of the agreement is estimated to be over 120 million euro. Out of that, 50 million euro first purchase order was received last year, and that caused a positive effect on our financial outlook for '25.

In January this year, we received second purchase order valued at 20 million euro, and this is related to technology and production transfer projects. Now with this licensing, we will help Indra to develop and manufacture different kind of handheld, vehicular and manpack radios with the main focus on Spain, with the potential to expand that to select its countries as well.

The key point here however is that Bittium will continue developing and supplying its own tactical communication products and radios for its customers globally. Few words about the medical.

At CMD last year, part of this strategic change, we decided to focus on the medical side. We had a four product lines.

Now we are going to focus on two, namely Cardiac and the Sleep. This what we have been now strengthening after this change, and we have clarified the roles and responsibilities within the organization.

If you look the numbers, revenue remained flat year-on-year, but overall operating results for '25 was positive when excluding the nonrecurring items we had on the second quarter. Since the second quarter, the second half was positive on the operating result point of view.

Then with our key customer, Boston Scientific from the US, we continued the collaboration and we signed a new agreement in June with them for the next 3 years period. Also this Cardiac side, sales outside of the US remained moderate due to fragmented market.

With the Sleep, Apnea product family, we have been working with the multiple pilots in different countries, and the focus is now to find and sign agreements with the strategic partners for sales. On the fourth quarter, medical business grew 4.3%.

Then on the engineering service. In general, I think that ongoing customer projects are proceeding well.

However, many customers are postponing their product development investments due to uncertainties in the market. What is positive for us is that roughly half of our revenue comes abroad, outside of Finland.

That has helped us to overcome the maybe the kind of challenges especially in the Finland. In 2025, from the numbers point of view, we were flat, 0.5% year-on-year.

We have said that the profitability was affected by the investments what we are doing as we are renewing the focus based on the latest strategic change towards embedded AI and defense market. In order to prove that point, '24 '25, gross margin levels were at the same level.

This is what we have been investing kind of purposely to make sure that we are able to shift the focus more embedded AI and defense market. Our cooperation with Terrestar continued well for the satellite terminal concept, and also with this embedded AI, we launched the cooperation with the Qualcomm company called Edge Impulse, and also as the Bittium made an investment to Marshall AI, which is serving also the other business segment as well, they are also proceeding well with the engineering services as well.

Now the main focus for this business is to grow the defense business market, and they are in the funnel multiple opportunities we are trying to close at the moment. Let's then look the shares and the shareholders.

Share price last year grew 371% year-on-year. This is really remarkable.

The number of the shareholders has also increased. We have now total 27,895 shareholders.

Fund ownership is 6.9%, and by the end of the last year, foreign owners was 6.7%. What we can basically now say, we are at the 10% level.

This is seems to be clearly growing. Just to recap what we set for the strategy.

Our main theme is to accelerate international growth. We have defined four pillars to support the growth strategy.

First is accelerating international sales and developing strategic partnerships for growth, and this is applying for all our business segments. Second, we really want to be the technological forerunner to seek competitive advantage from the technology, and we have said that we are going to strengthen the software AI capabilities, and our investments to the Marshall AI is one proof point there.

Third, we plan to expand to new markets in the verticals, especially in the defense and security, exploring also these inorganic growth opportunities. This is where we have been pretty active, nothing to be announced yet at this point.

Fourth, we want to make sure when we are scaling our operations and our tools and the systems, we don't want to double the cost while we are growing with. That's why we have to really transform ourselves to data-driven, scalable product operational mode, and this is also proceeding well.

To go for the outlook for '26. We estimate that the net sales in '26 will be from 140 million euro to 155 million euros, while we were at 119.3 million in '25.

Then on the operating profit side, we estimate our operating profit in '26 will be from 26 to 32 million euros, while in '25 we were at 19.4%. What we have also said here that operating results will be affected by the depreciations related to the license income from on the defense and security business side, which will be received in '26.

Also, we are saying that the net sales and operating profits are expected to be weighted towards the second half of '26, like it has been in the previous years as well. Also, the timing of net sales and operating profit between quarters may significantly be influenced by individual orders or deliveries.

Just to remind the long-term financial targets. On September, we revised and upgraded our long-term financial targets.

On the revenue growth side, we plan to grow from 20 to 30%. Of course, if we look '25, we managed to grow 14.1%, exceeding our long-term financial targets.

Operating profit level, we have said that our long-term target is to be at from 10 to 20%, and we were within that frame in '25, receiving 16.3%. This update is driven by the strong growth in defense markets, which has accelerated the development of the Bittium's defense and security business.

Then let's look the investor calendar. What we are doing this year, we will have the AGM in Helsinki on 22nd of April.

Also, the first quarter results will be published on the 29th of April, second quarter and first half on the 7th of August, and third quarter 29th of October. Just to summarize where Bittium is now, if we look what we have been able to achieve and what is our position in the market.

First, we are seeing that significant short- and long-term growth potential in all of our business segments. We have strong megatrends driving market expansion, and we are presence in large, rapidly growing markets in all of our business segments.

Like we heard from our CFO Petri Hiljanen, we have strong balance sheet and we have had very consistent financial development, which will provide further fuel for us to continue the growth. We have world-class next generation products and services, technological leadership in next generation software-defined defense communication, and we are working with a very solid and diversified tier one blue-chip customer base.

We have very committed and highly skilled people, which is putting us in an excellent position to accelerate the international growth, as is our strategies based on. I would say that now it's the time for the Q&A, and I'd like to invite the CFO Petri Hiljanen with me to provide the answers.

Karoliina Malmi

Thank you, Petri and Petri. Here are a few questions.

Current Q4 '24 report says that Bittium is now in active discussions with more than 10 different countries about various tactical communication modernization needs, and the potential for projects varies from fews tens of millions to several hundreds of millions euros. What is included in the current financial guidance?

The current customers, their potential, extra orders, or is it also based on new customers and their orders?

Petri Toljamo

That's a good question. I would say that I think the start for this year is different than the start of the previous year because we have very strong backlog that we've able to start this year.

There are assumption that the existing customers, in addition to the backlog, will provide further orders for us. We have said that we will target one new customer for the defense and security market per year.

Of course, this is something that we have assumed, and while there are multiple opportunities, those are more upside than just a kind of assumption that it would be included in the normal forecast. I feel pretty confident for this year's revenue targets.

Karoliina Malmi

That sounds good. Thank you.

Can you clarify the logic and magnitude of these license income-related depreciations which you expect to affect this year's result?

Petri Toljamo

Okay. I think that in overall the EBITDA level for us were excellent for '25 and also what we plan to do the '26.

We have done some discretionary depreciations which are related on the licensing income for the defense and security market. For beyond that, we have not opened that in the detail.

Karoliina Malmi

Okay. Thank you.

Then there is a question about the Indra 50 million order from last year. How much of that was recorded for last year and activated for the future?

Petri Toljamo

We have not opened the exact numbers from '25. What we can say that there some portion of that has been recorded for '25 and it will be also recorded for the '26 and also most likely for '27 as well.

Karoliina Malmi

Okay. Then can you talk about UK tender of SDR radios or what it is all about?

Petri Toljamo

Yeah. This UK is just one of those many tenders we are going to participate, and actually we did submit our answers for this tender.

We opened up the new office in London last year. We hired a senior kind of a salesperson there, and naturally this UK is in high in priority focus for us.

I'm not sure if I have any detailed information because I think there will be many other companies guilty in that as well. This is just one of those many top priorities for us trying to close this year.

Karoliina Malmi

Yes. You mentioned now this year because here is another question about the timing and schedule of the tender.

Is there anything you could share about that?

Petri Toljamo

I don't know all these details, but I would say that we hope that some decision will be done during this year.

Karoliina Malmi

Okay. Thank you.

Then coming back to depreciations and EBITDA, actually. Can you comment on the level '26, regarding the EBITDA also?

Is there a big difference?

Petri Toljamo

We have not provided a guidance for the EBITDA. '25 EBITDA was excellent, and we are of course seeing growth in EBITDA, but so far we are setting the guidance for the operating profit level.

Karoliina Malmi

Okay. Thank you.

Quite many similar questions here. Also about any potential wins such as deals related to Bittium on BAE framework or gaining new countries as defense customers included in the '26 forecast, or is it just the base level?

Basically, did you answer this already?

Petri Toljamo

Of course we are trying to win new countries to get upside. Of course, they are quite long kind of sales cycles still in this business, even if those have shortened.

Even if we would able to close more than we expect in order point of view, I think the revenue might still be recorded for the '27 and not just for the '26.

Karoliina Malmi

Yes, of course. Detailed question: how much revenue do you expect from Indra in your '26 guidance?

Petri Toljamo

We have not disclosed that number, but like said, there will be some portion recorded from this licensing part, as well as we got this 20 million PO for multiple years, which is covering the support to transfer the technology and the production technology to Indra. There will be some revenue recognized for '26, but we have not disclosed the exact numbers.

Karoliina Malmi

Yes. Thank you.

The amount of new orders is €153.3 million, and the revenue expected value for '26 is €140, €155 million. The orders necessary to achieve the expectations have already been placed.

Are there any expectations for the year '26 a bit low?

Petri Toljamo

I would say that this 155 million, what we have in order book, is not everything for the deliveries to happen in '26. Some of those will go '20 '27 and beyond.

Like said, I would say that we have moderate assumptions what we need to achieve for this year.

Karoliina Malmi

Good. Thank you.

Far the final question goes to Bittium Tough Mobile 3. The launch plan was postponed to 2027.

How come?

Petri Toljamo

That's correct. There has been some delays as it is typically with this kind of new technology cases.

There are some delays on the program which will impact, and that's why we have said that most likely that we plan for the '27 launch for this Tough Mobile 3.

Karoliina Malmi

Okay. One more question.

How large deal would you expect from Sweden based on this framework?

Petri Toljamo

I think it's a very difficult to estimate any numbers for that. Of course, typically these kind of new countries start first with the smaller orders, and if this pilots or trials are going well, of course then there's a tendency that they will order in the bigger amounts.

Karoliina Malmi

Yes. Then a question for medical segment.

Can you provide any new information regarding clinical studies you're doing or new products in the development?

Petri Toljamo

First, I would say on this new product development, I mentioned this frame agreement with Boston Scientific, that includes a development of a new products for the Boston Scientific. What we have also said that we have started the development of next generation cardiac products, and this is something which is still in our plans.

We have said that we have to strengthen our kind of competencies and knowledge on both regulatory and the clinical side, and we have strengthened the organization by bringing people which have a knowledge on those side. Yes, they are, in addition to the R&D development, they are some kind of programs ongoing where we are investing both the regulatory and also the clinical side of our products.

Karoliina Malmi

Thank you for these answers. Seems that that was the last one for today.

Petri Toljamo

Okay. Thank you.

Good questions.

Petri Hiljanen

Thanks.

Karoliina Malmi

From my behalf, thank you for the audience as well, good questions, and have a nice day.

Petri Toljamo

Thank you.

Petri Hiljanen

Thanks.