Operator
Welcome to Netcompany's interim report for the first three months of 2026. Today's call is being recorded.
If you have any objections, please disconnect at this time. For the first part of this call, all participants will be in a listen-only mode.
Afterwards, there will be a question and answer session. I would like to introduce CEO André Rogaczewski and CFO Thomas Johansen.
You may please begin.
André Rogaczewski
Good day and welcome to this presentation of Netcompany's results for Q1 2026. My name is André Rogaczewski and I'm the CEO and co-founder of Netcompany and I'm joined today by our CFO, Thomas Johansen.
Before we get going, there are some important disclosures that I need you to read through, could we please have slide number two. I will pause for 30 seconds here and let you all have a read-through of these important disclosures.
With that, can we please go to slide number three. The topic of today's presentation is our performance for Q1 2026.
I start by walking you through the business highlights for the first quarter, and once I'm done, Thomas will go through the financial performance of the quarter before we can open the call up for questions. Can we have the next slide, please.
The first quarter of '26 marks the beginning of a new and very exciting era for Netcompany. Here, I'm not only referring to the recently announced AI partnership with INEOS Grenadiers, which I promise I will give you some more comments on later in this presentation, but also to the potential we believe we can help customers unleash with our AI-embedded products and platforms.
Since the introduction of our go-to-market strategy 3 years ago, our market-leading products and platforms combined with embedded AI capabilities have given us a truly unique position in the market, a position visible in our results for the first quarter of this year where we delivered growth of more than 38%, of which 13% was organic. One of the highlights of the quarter is our performance in the UK, the largest market for IT services in Europe.
Here, we saw very strong demand for our product and platform offerings, leading to more than 50% growth in top line, and in Q1, we also finally got to announce our partnership with Heathrow Airport. In the end of March, we lifted our EBITDA margin guidance for 2026 as a result of the promising output we see from our investments in embedding AI into our products and platforms with Fenix AI.
Can I have the next slide, please. Today, we launch a white paper on Fenix AI focusing on Fenix Build and the specific benefits it allows organizations to harvest when applied in combination with our products and platforms.
Agentic AI is fundamentally changing the way software is delivered. In complex and regulated environments, AI only creates value when it's combined with control, security, and deep domain expertise.
With Fenix Build, we are providing this balance and making it possible as the first of its kind in Europe. With accelerated investments into Fenix AI, we enable sovereign and secure agentic AI delivery across some of Europe's most demanding enterprise and government projects, reducing IT development time by up to 45% when using Netcompany products and platforms.
While the potential of implementing agentic AI is significant, unregulated use of AI introduces substantial risks, especially in large enterprises and public sector systems where control, stability, and quality is crucial. What we see in such scenarios with unregulated use of AI is that AI generates code in vacuum, what does not account for the many non-functional requirements essential in complex systems.
While this may work well for smaller applications, in mission-critical systems, it creates serious challenges without the proper governance as solutions risk to be poorly constructed and not optimized, and therefore, very difficult to maintain over time. For both private and public solutions, scalability, performance, stability, security, interoperability, and data protection are essential.
When using agentic AI, they do not emerge automatically. The implementation of agentic AI and AI in general, therefore, requires a structured approach where AI is guided through clear frameworks and governance to allow for the benefits to be fully realized.
As a part of the Fenix AI framework, the Fenix Build approach guardrails the AI. It enables organizations to capture efficiency gains without taking unacceptable risks.
At Netcompany, we help organizations embrace AI in a way that is not only faster, but also safer, smarter, and better aligned with the realities of mission-critical delivery. As you can hear, I'm excited about the opportunities ahead and Netcompany's crucial role in building European sovereignty in the age of AI.
Can we have the next slide, please. Another exciting news took place last week as we announced the AI partnership with INEOS Grenadiers.
The establishment of Netcompany-INEOS cycling team showcases our Pulse AI technology by enabling world-class athletes to perform at their best, a high-performance environment where precision, performance, and continuous improvements are essential for winning. Our Pulse platform is already implemented in airports around Europe under the name AIRHART, where raw operational data is orchestrated in real-time data platform, helping to predict and optimize decision-taking using AI.
Through three dimensions of data, the platform will unify rider conditions, logistics around the team, and tactics into one AI platform, optimizing planning and predictions around the team. The partnership with the most successful cycling team ever, based in the UK with the ambition to continue to deliver extraordinary results, strengthens the awareness of Netcompany not only in the UK, but in all of Europe, and it reinforces our position as the best-in-class AI partner and supports our ambition to drive European digitization and competitiveness.
I look forward to follow the team to the Giro d'Italia start on Friday where the team officially will ride under the name Netcompany-INEOS. With that, I will now pass on the word to Thomas who will go through the numbers.
Please go ahead, Thomas.
Thomas Johansen
Thank you for that, André. I will now go through our financial performance for Q1 2026 and our guidance for 2026, too.
If we move past the breaker slide number seven and straight into slide number eight in one go, please. As already mentioned by André, we've had a strong start to the year with organic revenue growth of 13.1% in constant currencies compared to Q1 2025.
Currencies impacted revenue growth negatively by 0.3 percentage point in the quarter, resulting in reported organic revenue growth of 12.8%. Organic growth was driven by 10.1% growth in the public sector and 19.5% growth in the private sector.
Revenue growth was driven by a combination of new wins related to our products and platforms and from existing customers buying additional services, with all segments contributing to the growth, most significantly in Netcompany UK and in Netcompany CEU. Group revenue grew by 38.7%, of which 25.6 percentage points were non-organic, related to the inclusion of Netcompany Banking Services.
Netcompany Denmark increased revenue 1.6% compared to Q1 2025, driven by 16% growth in the private sector, with contribution from multiple different verticals. Netcompany CEU grew revenue 18.6% compared to the same period last year, which was actually a tough comparable as Q1 2025 included close to DKK 42 million in license revenue, and the growth was driven by both the public sector, including the EU, and the private sector, which grew 15% and 32.6%, respectively.
Netcompany UK continued its strong growth path from last year and grew revenue by a staggering 51.4% compared to Q1 2025. The growth was driven by both the public and the private sector as a result of increased engagements with both existing and new customers adopting our products and platforms.
In particular, the TSS win from December 2025 and continued increase in the utilization of the DALLAS framework supported this strong growth. In Netcompany Banking Services, revenue increased 10.1% compared to pro forma revenue in SDC in Q1 2025.
In Netcompany Norway, revenue increased by 2.1%, and in Netcompany Netherlands, revenue increased by 21.5% compared to the same period last year. Can we move to the next slide, please.
In Q1 2026, organic adjusted EBITDA before allocated headquarter cost was 16.4%, a decrease of 2.1 percentage points to the same quarter last year, all in constant currencies. The decrease was a result of lower license revenue, which had a dilutive impact on margin of 1.7 percentage points, and investments into our product development unit to accelerate the adoption of agentic AI in all of our offerings, which had a dilutive impact on margin of 2.1%, split between increased cost impacting margin 0.7 percentage point and foregone revenue impacted organic margin 1.4 percentage points.
Hence, in a quote, unquote like-for-like scenario, margin in Q1 2026 increased from 18.5% last year to 20.2% in Q1 2026. Group adjusted EBITDA before allocated headquarter cost increased 12.1% to DKK 362 million in Q1 2026.
In Netcompany Denmark, adjusted EBITDA margin decreased 4.7% to 17.4% in Q1 2026. The decrease was a result of the transfer of 150 client-facing FTEs into product development that led to higher cost related hereto and foregone revenue, which in total had a dilutive impact on margin in Q1 2026 of 3.5 percentage points, and hence, on a quote, unquote like-for-like basis, margin in Denmark was 20.9% compared to 22.1% in Q1 2025.
In Netcompany CEU, adjusted EBITDA margin was 16.3% in Q1 2026 compared to 17.5% same quarter last year. The decrease in margin was a result of lower license revenue income recognized this quarter compared to the same period last year.
On a like-for-like basis, adjusting for the lower license revenue in Q1 2026, margins would have been 4.5 percentage points higher and yielding a 20.8% margin in CEU for Q1 2026. In Netcompany UK, adjusted EBITDA margin increased by 5.5 percentage points to 16.5% in the quarter.
An improvement reflected by improved utilization, larger projects delivered on Netcompany fixed-fee basis, and better project execution. In Netcompany Norway, adjusted EBITDA margin was 4.1% in Q1 2026, and Netcompany Netherlands margin increased 2 percentage points to 23.3%.
In Netcompany Banking Services, the adjusted EBITDA margin was 8.8% in the quarter compared to pro forma adjusted EBITDA margin of 3.2% in SDC in the same quarter last year. The integration of Netcompany Banking Services is progressing as anticipated, and we are starting to see the impact from synergies materializing.
Can we have the next slide, please. In Q1 2026, we employed an average of 9,845 FTEs, equal to an increase of 1,695 FTEs or 20.8% compared to Q1 2025, of which around half was non-organic, related to the inclusion of Netcompany Banking Services in the numbers.
To enhance and streamline our product and platform offerings and to further embed AI capabilities into these, all efforts around product and platform development as well as all AI initiatives previously anchored with business segments in Denmark and Southeast Europe was moved into one central unit, Product Development, as of January 1st, 2026. During the first quarter, an additional 52 FTEs were transferred to Product Development to accelerate the adoption of agentic AI.
At the end of Q1, the total amount of resources working within Product Development totaled 459 FTEs compared to 302 FTEs in the first quarter last year, an increase of 51.8%, underpinning our commitment to invest in this area. Most of the increase in FTEs are reallocated resources from the Danish business segment.
Non-client-facing employees amounted to 545 for the entire group in Q1 2026, an increase of 13 compared to the same period last year. This means that the proportion of admin and support staff declined from 6.5% of all employees last year to 5.5% in Q1 2026, a relative reduction of 15%.
The attrition rate for the last 12 months was 16.4% for the group compared to 18% in the same period last year. Can we go to the next slide, please.
Free cash flow was negative DKK 305 million in Q1 '26 compared to DKK 67.9 million in Q1 2025. The negative free cash flow in Q1 '26 was driven by two main factors in our working capital: development in trade receivables and work in progress.
The increased trade receivables were impacted by the timing of more than DKK 200 million in payments, which were expected to be paid on 31st of March, but was not received until the beginning of April. Further, work in progress increased as a number of the large ongoing projects under the so-called Recovery and Resilience Facility will not reach payment milestones until Q2 and Q3 in connection with their ongoing completion.
Such lumpiness in the process from work in progress to accounts receivables to cash received occur from time to time, and it is indeed a pattern we have experienced before with the large and complex multi-year fixed-fee contracts. The funding for the projects are guaranteed by the EU under the special RRF program, and there are no counterparty risk associated with the buildup of work in progress experienced in Q1 2026 that is expected to normalize throughout the year.
Can we have the next slide, please. Revenue visibility at the end of Q1 '26 for the group, excluding Netcompany Banking Services, amounts to DKK 6.190 billion, an improvement of 10% compared to Q1 2025, with an improvement in visibility in the public sector of more than 13% compared to last year.
Revenue visibility for Netcompany Banking Services amounts to DKK 1.024 billion and are solely related to the private sector. Can we move to the next slide, please.
On March 26, we updated our financial margin guidance for the full year, and we now expect an adjusted EBITDA margin, excluding Netcompany Banking Services, between 17% and 20%, previously 16% to 19%. The announced AI partnership with INEOS Grenadiers creating Netcompany-INEOS cycling team will not lead to diluted margin expectations in 2026 or in subsequent years, for that matter.
We maintain our full-year guidance for revenue growth of between 15% and 20%, including Netcompany Banking Services, and revenue growth of between 5% and 10%, excluding Netcompany Banking Services, based on realized revenue in the first quarter, current backlog, and the revenue visibility. With that, the presentation of the detailed financial performance is concluded, and we'll open up the call for Q&A.
If you move to the Q&A slide, please, and open up the call. Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. To ask a question, please press 5* on your telephone keypad.
To withdraw your question, you may do so by pressing 5* again. We will have a brief pause while questions are being registered.
The first question is from the line of George Webb. Please go ahead, your line will now be unmuted.
George White
Hi, morning, André and Thomas. Hope you're both well.
I've got a few questions, please. Firstly, starting with the growth outlook for the year.
As you mentioned, Thomas, the kind of revenue visibility ex the banking services is tracking near 10%. The organic Q1 growth was clearly double digits.
The organic full-year guide, 5% to 10%. Is there anything in the mix for Q1, particularly on the UK or SEC and EUI side, that's less sustainable as you look through the rest of the year?
Secondly, on the cycling partnership, could you share any details around how that deal is being structured? You mentioned no impact on the financial aspirations you've set out, and there are press reports out there it's a relatively significant cost item.
I guess it's a little bit difficult to decipher the magnitude from within the guidance range for 2026, given it's a fairly wide margin guidance range. Anything you can do with kind of understanding the bridge within the mix of how that's coming through both in '26 and beyond would be very helpful.
Then, just lastly, just on the free cash flow. Cash conversion wasn't great last year, soft start to Q1.
Appreciate those swing factors you talked about, Thomas. Is there anything you can give us with regards to how we should be thinking about a very broad picture for free cash flow conversion for 2026 as a whole?
Thank you.
Thomas Johansen
Thanks, George. I'll start with the growth outlook, and André will take the cycling, and then I'll follow up with the cash flow.
As you indeed rightfully say, 13% organic revenue growth, second to none in the industry, and also 10% growth in revenue visibility, and what does then leaves us for the 5% to 10% revenue growth guidance for the organic part of the business. What we can say at this point in time is that it's still early on in the year, and we feel very comfortable with the top-line guidance that we have given.
We're not seeing any deterioration in our pipeline. On the contrary, especially with the launch that we've done, and we will talk more about that with Fenix Build.
At this point in time, we feel very comfortable with the outlook. It's still early days in the year, and I'll leave it at that.
Then André, maybe a couple of words on INEOS, Netcompany-INEOS?
André Rogaczewski
Yes, of course it's a significant deal, but it's not that we didn't plan with such a thing. We assembled and gathered many of our branding and marketing costs into this.
That's why we also 3 months ago came out with an even better margin prediction for this year. It's been planned from the beginning, and it's actually just a better concentration of our efforts in the area and to get our name out there so that when we are, which we are, in some of the big European countries, we are contenders, now we also are of much more known in the boardrooms.
There's also a license fee for the product. The team is going to use Pulse AI, and that is also a part of the deal.
It will not affect our margins.
Thomas Johansen
Then on cash flow, as you rightfully state, George, that to the soft side in Q1, mainly as we are seeing some timing differences in working capital. Receivables just dropping into April have been collected, so that will normalize.
If you look at the accounts receivables, they were building up, and that will normalize during the year. The same goes for working progress.
Working progress increased net by close to DKK 400 million, mainly driven by RRF projects. Now we've seen that build-up a couple of years ago before, and at that point in time, if you want to go back and look and check, the conversion of working progress did indeed happen to receivables that were then subsequently collected, and it has to do with the stipulated milestone payments that are in the fixed-fee contracts under the RRF, and that means that we are currently building up in working progress.
Long answer basically to say that we expect to see a normalization of cash conversion during the year. It's going to be gradual into Q2, Q3, and the rest of the year.
George White
That's very clear. Thank you.
If I just speak about the mid-term target to be above 20% on EBITDA, I guess since you've set that, you've obviously given us the agentic benefit or the AI benefit, which you talked about with that pre-release in March. I guess on a multi-year view, you'd expect that to still be there.
It wouldn't be competed away. Then maybe there's an offset within that mix from the cycling deal.
Is that the right way to think about that?
Thomas Johansen
There's no doubt that we're going to see substantial benefit in our mid-term and long-term margin from all the investments that we are putting into our business. We're going to see the benefit in twofold.
First, we believe that we can serve our customers much better with better solutions, faster, secure, and there's a value to that. Of course, there's also a benefit to Netcompany, which will help fund the increased investment into Netcompany-INEOS and then also have a net positive impact on margin even after those costs being accounted for.
George White
Cool. That's clear.
Thank you, Thomas. Thanks, André.
Thomas Johansen
Thanks, George.
Operator
The next question comes from the line of Mads Quistgaard from BNP Carnegie. Please go ahead, Mads.
Your line will now be unmuted.
Mads Quistgaard
Thank you. Also a couple of questions from my side.
I will start on Denmark. Can you maybe elaborate on whether the reuse of product development workload will translate into revenue growth in future quarters?
Because I guess right now there's a double whammy effect in the first quarter.
Thomas Johansen
It's true that there is a double whammy effect, both in terms of increased cost, but also in terms of quote, unquote foregone revenue with those people being allocated from the Danish market unit into product division. When you look at the overall visibility for the public sector, and I know that that's in all the markets and we don't give that per se by individual markets, but the overall visibility in public sector is 13% up compared to the same period last year.
We do expect some revenue to pick up during the year, and whether that then is going to be Q2, Q3, we'll be able to tell you more about when we report Q2 and Q3, but we do expect it to pick up during 2026.
Mads Quistgaard
Perfect. Makes sense.
Then a question on FTE growth, because I can see FTE growth overall was up 1% Q-o-Q, while client-facing FTEs declined by 3%. This AI strategy, does this imply that overall FTE growth will eventually align with client-facing FTE trends?
André Rogaczewski
It's a good question, Mads. There's no doubt that it's affecting the entire industry.
Agentic AI is affecting the entire industry, and actually in 45 minutes or less than that, we're going to issue a white paper where we describe how you can actually deliver parts of the development process 45% up to 45% faster to clients and without compromising on security, on compliance, and even the EU Act. This is what we're investing into, and everything we see right now is suggesting that we can do more with less resources.
Everything we do is also suggesting that the customers with the great part of legacy renovation and old systems that need to have access to agentic AI, they're really, really interested in this. It's actually extremely promising and also a very exciting development within our industry.
Mads Quistgaard
Perfect. Then my final question on this Pulse platform.
Is this applicable in other sports areas? Because, as I recall, this has been designed in the Formula 1 industry.
If so, would this require additional investments into sponsorships or can you build anything organic here? Finally, maybe also here, how do you measure return on investment when you've spent, let's say, press is right, DKK 750 million?
Thank you.
André Rogaczewski
It's true that Formula 1 is even more adequate as a sport in terms of online AI platforms, but I think the investment we've made is in regards to our European strategy and not being bound to any particular other sports teams. I think what is most important here is that it's an international investment.
We have riders from every country, and the team comes from the UK, and with this investment, we are positioned right in Europe at the moment. We don't have other plans in that regards.
Thomas Johansen
When we talk about ROIs on an investment like this, Mads, we clearly have an expectation that this will increase the awareness of Netcompany and the Netcompany brand, particularly in the UK, which is the biggest market for IT services in Europe and where we see 51% growth. To stand even stronger in the UK, we are certain will support our continued growth in the UK, but it will also build awareness of Netcompany throughout Europe, which is where we will have to see our significant growth in the years to come.
We do expect that the investment will lead to better name recognition and that in itself will lead to better growth opportunities for Netcompany in Europe, without giving you a specific ROI number, but this is how we think about it. The investment is in our view also a financially sound decision to do, and you'll be able to see that in our continued long-term growth and our commitment to the markets on that.
Mads Quistgaard
Perfect. Thank you.
Maybe just one bookkeeping question. The provision you have in NBS of DKK 62 million, is that part of COGS, which also triggers a higher COGS in NBS in the quarter?
Thomas Johansen
Part of what did you say?
Mads Quistgaard
The provision. I think you have a provision in NBS of DKK 62 million.
Is that included in your cost of sales in the quarter?
Thomas Johansen
No, it's from last year's. So From
Mads Quistgaard
last year, okay. Sorry.
Thomas Johansen
When we took over SDC, as you very well will recall, we made a special item adjustment of DKK 352 million for both severance payments, but also adjustment to value on different assets in SDC. That's part of last year's special item sitting in the balance sheet.
Mads Quistgaard
The project provision you have of DKK 62 million is included in the special items. I'm referring to note 8 in the report.
Thomas Johansen
Yes.
Mads Quistgaard
Yes. Good.
Clear.
Thomas Johansen
Correct. Yeah.
Operator
The next question is from the line of Poul Jessen from Danske Bank. Please go ahead, your line will now be unmuted.
Poul Jessen
Yes, thank you. A few questions.
First, on the INEOS, when you say that it's not impacting long-term aspirations, I'm just wondering if you could give indication if that's because you expect a higher growth rate in revenue 2 1, 2, 3 years out in the future than without the contract, or if it's because it's being funded by reallocation of internal costs, maybe? That's number one.
Number two is on public sector Denmark. Does it have any impact now that we've been waiting for a government for 6 weeks, and it might take quite a long time and then we go into the summer period, and then it's soon out to be August before it's normal business?
Will that have a negative versus the thought you had when you started the year? Then, finally, on the UK, the strong growth in Q1, does that include any one-time payments or revenue recognition?
Thomas Johansen
Thanks for that, Poul. I'll take the first and the last question, and André will talk to the public sector in the middle.
Now on the long-term guidance and the implication of Netcompany-INEOS, we maintain our long-term growth targets of 5% to 10%. That's also what's still said.
Would we like to see increased awareness leading to increased opportunities for Netcompany? Yes.
Do we think that that will also happen? Yes.
As with the question from George in terms of our full-year guidance of 5% to 10% and trying to square that with 13% organic and 10% increase in visibility, where I answered it was early days, it's even more early days to have an opinion on the long-term growth trajectory for Netcompany with the impact of Netcompany-INEOS. We do this because we are absolutely certain that it will increase the awareness of Netcompany.
Now with the investment and the stand we take later on today in agentic, we think that that will accelerate even further. What that then means on long-term growth rates, we'll come back to later on.
André Rogaczewski
Yes, and when it comes to the government public sector in Denmark, it's mostly because some of the larger tenders moved a bit to the right side, some of our largest clients are a little delayed. Many of the budgets have been given already before the election.
The election is not really having a profound effect. Obviously, you can find small customers where the farming is a bit slower because of the election, but it's not what we see.
We're not too worried about it. There's a lot of digitization going on in many of our largest clients.
Overall, we expect that the visibility we have will be materialized over the year.
Thomas Johansen
Yes. Then you had one more question on one-offs
Poul Jessen
in
Thomas Johansen
UK Q1. Was the question whether there was any one-offs in Q1?
Poul Jessen
Is there any revenue recognition which has been delivered over time, and then you take it as a one-off in the quarter as you have No.
Thomas Johansen
No, not in the UK. No, it's none of that.
It's good old traditional, classic Netcompany-style revenue-generated activity. That means it's really a very, very, very rapid ramp-up on TSS.
The big contract we won in the UK in December, that is ramping up extremely fast and probably one of the quickest ramps that we've seen, also being helped by good colleagues from both Denmark and Greece, since this is on Hermes. Then also Dallas is serving up.
When we won the Dallas framework a couple of years ago, we were very excited, and I think a lot of the investor base was excited, too, and then nothing happened for a year or a year and a half. HMRC have now found out how to really utilize the Dallas framework, so that is ramping up very fast also.
Then, of course, finally, the ramp-up on Heathrow. There's no special one-offs, there's no licenses in the UK, and that's also why we are so excited about the growth and the 600 basis points margin improvement in Q1 compared to last year.
We've been in the UK for many years, and a lot of you have been with us since the IPO, and we have had many discussions about when is things happening in the UK, and we think we are at a true inflection point right now that we can also back with performance and the numbers.
Poul Jessen
It's fair to assume that the Q1 revenue number is a good base for predicting the rest of the year?
Thomas Johansen
I didn't hear that was the question, I think you are making your own assumptions now on my answer, Poul, I'm not going to comment further on that.
Poul Jessen
Okay. A short, final one.
I can see that the number of FTEs in NBS is increasing sequentially. I would have assumed that you were taking out costs.
Thomas Johansen
We are, but
Poul Jessen
Why are they increasing?
Thomas Johansen
We are, but sometimes you have to invest a little bit to really reap the benefits, and there are specific areas in NBS that we needed to strengthen very much around the operations. We've strengthened them to be able to really accelerate the synergies that we've put forward.
Then there's also some timing in terms of when the collective bargaining agreement was concluded and when we will then see the reduction in headcounts. That is a temporary timing, and you'll see headcount coming down in the quarters to come.
Yeah.
André Rogaczewski
Building more automation.
Poul Jessen
Yeah.
Thomas Johansen
Building more. As André is saying, that's an important part.
There's a lot of automation to be built, for sure. Thank you.
Operator
As a reminder, please press 5* to ask a question. For the next question, comes from the line of Claus Almer from Nordea.
Please go ahead, your line will now be open.
Claus Almer
Thank you. I will also do a few questions.
The first goes to these AI investments, and first of all, thanks for the improved clarity about these investments. Going forward, should we expect this level to increase further, decrease, stay stable?
How should we think about that? That would be the first one.
André Rogaczewski
Thank you, Claus, and it's true that we have been providing more clarity about it, and I think it's more important than ever. We have, I can say, some of the best people working on this, and we're doing true progress.
I don't think we will see large investments, but we will also be investing on the same level going forward, because there's so much interesting potential. I think what we're seeing at the moment is the right level.
Claus Almer
In absolute terms or relative to the revenue? I know this is more a analyst question, but more trying to figure out.
Thomas Johansen
If anything that we say is true, then there can only be one answer to that, right? That means that it would be an absolute number.
André Rogaczewski
Absolute number.
Claus Almer
Perfect. All right.
The second question goes to Denmark and the private sector. Do you start to see more of these AI-driven projects, and how does the pipeline look like?
André Rogaczewski
This is actually what we see, but we also see a very good interest in our platforms because they guardrail the AI and actually give benefits. We see even further interest in renovating older systems.
A very interesting pipeline, strategic partnerships emerging, both on our Pulse and Amplify offerings and using AI.
Claus Almer
Okay. Thank you so much.
That was all for me.
Operator
The next question comes from the line of Daniel Djurberg from Handelsbanken. Go ahead, Daniel, your line will now be open.
Um.
Thomas Johansen
Are you there, Daniel? We cannot hear you.
Operator
Daniel, it seems Daniel dropped out of the line. Daniel, please feel free to press 5 on your telephone keypad to join the line again.
We will continue to the next question from Poul Jessen from Danske Bank. Please, your line will now be unmuted.
Poul Jessen
Yes, thank you. Just a small one on smarter airports, now that you have taken full control of the unit.
Should we see any operational differences on smarter airports that you accelerate or invest in more go-to-market, or is more or less business as usual just with you as a full owner?
André Rogaczewski
It's not business as usual, because with the Heathrow win, we have more interest than ever, but we're not going to change the approach. We have a mature offering, and what we need to do now is to accelerate the selling and scaling this business, and we believe that Netcompany is the adequate owner to do so.
Thomas Johansen
Further to what André is saying, what we also believe we can do is to add better efficiency by owning Smarter Airports 100%. It is inherently easier to manage when you own it 100% than when it is in a full 50/50 joint venture.
Expect to see accelerated the top line and also better efficiency, i.e. margins, in Smarter Airports.
Poul Jessen
Thank you.
Operator
The next question comes from Daniel Djurberg from Handelsbanken. Go ahead, Daniel, your line will now be unmuted.
Daniel Djurberg
That's amazing. Thank you so much.
It was the third time actually what I tried to do this, but I got muted and then unmuted again, but nevertheless, now I'm here. Hi, André and Thomas, and I was like to start with the banking services as you have this OBOS deal and you are going to develop this credit solution development.
Can you comment a little bit on this project and how it is developing so far and if it's impacting margin profile in any so far in it? Thanks.
Thomas Johansen
It's true that we are working with OBOS up in Norway, an exciting project that we announced I think to the back end of last year. That project is progressing as planned.
We are, together with OBOS, fleshing out and making sure that the capabilities specifically for the credit process is being optimized. The credit process in Norway is different from the credit process in Denmark, believe it or not, but it is.
There are some functionalities that will be added to the solution, which we believe will make Netcompany Banking Services even more competitive in a market that is really dominated by one big player in Norway, which is our peer up there, Tieto. We believe that we will have something pretty soon that is much more appealing to the Norwegian market, too, and that will accelerate the continued success of Netcompany Banking Services under our ownership.
Daniel Djurberg
Perfect. May I also ask you on the quite nice increase in organic growth despite that you moved so much people over to the R&D side in Denmark.
For how long should we expect this internal development phase to continue? Will it come back or normalize in 12 months, or and also on that topic, last time you used internal consultants for platform R&D work, you swiftly brought them back and got a good utilization rate in Denmark.
Could you see that these internal R&D is also some kind of, they get educational or also that it's an investment and that could also support the attractiveness of these consultants in the market after these projects? Thanks.
André Rogaczewski
Yes, thank you for that, Daniel.
Daniel Djurberg
Long question.
André Rogaczewski
No, no, it's okay. It's and you're absolutely right.
Obviously, we're building up a great set of both platforms, products in AI, but also competencies. These people are obviously also could also be pivotal in many of our projects.
It's an investment into that as well, definitely.
Thomas Johansen
Yes. As we answered on one of the questions before, we've increased the headcount in product division to 450, and that's going to stay most likely at that level for some time.
That's not the same to say that there cannot be efficiencies to be had other places, but we have seen really, really interesting results as of now with our investment into agentic, and André will talk a little more about that. The results are staggering, and we're quite sure that with the head start we have and with our products and platforms, we are in a truly unique position in the market, and we want to make sure that we capitalize on that and make the gap to our peers even further, and that's exactly what we will say more about in the white paper that's coming out here in what, 15 minutes.
Daniel Djurberg
Perfect. May I also take a last question here on the Smart Airport and the AIRHART.
Now you have Munich and Heathrow and is it fair to assume that you will need to finalize these large projects before you can continue, or do you have more potential in this, if you speak?
André Rogaczewski
We don't need to finalize these projects, and actually, I think many of these projects will run for long, long time because they kind of continue to add more and more sources. They never really finish.
What we will do in parallel, of course, is we need to materialize their pipeline, which is growing rapidly with other airports. That's the short answer to that.
We can.
Daniel Djurberg
Super. Thank you, and good luck, you two.
Thomas Johansen
Thanks, Daniel, and thanks for being persistent, even though it took three times.
Daniel Djurberg
Yeah. Always.
Thomas Johansen
Yeah.
Operator
Thank you for the patience. For the next questioner, please state your name and company before asking your question.
Your line will now be unmuted.
Aditya Buddhavarapu
Hi, André, Thomas. This is Aditya from Macquarie.
Thanks for taking my question. It's a bit of follow-up on the product development unit which you did discuss a bit of that earlier, but if you look at last year as well, you had some FTEs which were moved from client-facing roles into more of product development and a mix of, of course, some M&A work related to SDC, but you're again sort of moving people from client-facing into product development this year.
Curious to know what incrementally was different. Is this more specifically focused on that agentic AI tools and that's why you're having to do this again in some sense?
Then again, I think sort of relating to that going forward, do you see some part of that 450 eventually also being billable or client-facing as well to some degree, or is that going to be strictly sort of internal R&D?
André Rogaczewski
No, no, no. What is happening in agentic AI, we started with the Fenix thing 1 and a half year ago, but what is happening to agentic AI now empowers our platforms even more.
We've decided to invest further into these agentic capabilities into our platforms and the toolsets that we have, and that comes in lumps. I think it's been a great investment, and with the launch of Fenix Build today and the white paper, we have something that is truly differentiating us from competitors.
I don't think we need, in absolute numbers, to invest further into this, and I also believe that many of the competencies we've been building just by setting this up can be used crucially in some of our projects and client-facing activities.
Thomas Johansen
To elaborate further on what André is saying here, of course, we are putting all the learnings we can get from agentic into our products and platforms. The reason why we have gathered everybody in the same unit now under the same leader is that we want to take our products and platforms also to a level where they are commercially ready to be sold and where we can then, in a greater way than what we've done previously, start to charge licenses for our products and platforms, including our services on AI.
That is, of course, why we make this investment also, to be able to commercialize and capitalize on these products and platforms that we, in all humbleness, feel are quite unique in the market space. With the added investment, we are very close to be able to accelerate our capitalization and monetization of these products and platforms, i.e.
to start to see meaningful license revenue coming from these. Got it.
Aditya Buddhavarapu
Thanks, Thomas. Maybe a quick follow-up on that last point, then.
In terms of that monetization, because that is something that you talked about at the Capital Markets Day last year as well. How should we think about the timeline for that, the opportunity for that in terms of when that becomes maybe a bit more meaningful?
Thomas Johansen
We believe that you'll start to see some numbers already for 2026, but clearly accelerating in '27 and onwards. It all ties into Fenix Build, it all ties into Fenix Learn, it all ties into the capabilities of the products, platforms now being much more mature.
Then there is a little bit of lead time, of course, to make sure that we then also get that monetized with our clients, but we think we have a great opportunity to do that. We'll start to see some of that this year, but more meaningfully in '27 and accelerating from there.
Aditya Buddhavarapu
Understood. Thank you.
Operator
The next question comes from the line of Mads Quistgaard from BNP Carnegie. Go ahead, your line will now be unmuted.
Mads Quistgaard
Yes, thank you. Two follow-up questions from my side.
First, on CEE giving you don't book any, well, insignificant license fees in the quarter, you managed to grow the segment 15% sorry, 18%, 19%. Public sector in here is up 15% year-over-year.
Can you clarify whether this is sustainable throughout the year?
Thomas Johansen
Without giving specific guidance on a country-by-country, Mads, clearly when we look at the revenue visibility for the remaining part of the year increasing by 10% and the magnitude of the CEU business to the group for the Q1 in terms of how much revenue is generated there, you would need to see a continued strong performance to get to a 10% growth, and that's as far as I can go.
Mads Quistgaard
Fair enough. Thank you.
Then maybe on license contribution, because I guess there will be some from INEOS in Q2 and that the margins will come significantly on below based on license fees. Do you see any potential license projects with the remaining part of the year?
I know in the past, license fees has accounted for around close to 1% of group sales for the year.
Thomas Johansen
It's true that the INEOS license would hit our books in a positive way, of course, right? It's going to be over Q2, Q3, and Q4, it's not going to be a one big lump sum.
There are also other projects that we're working on that have an element of license in different parts of our product suite. We would expect that to materialize also.
Whether that's then going to equate to 1% or 0.8% or 1.2% or 1.5%, I'll be silent on at this point in time, but we do have a good pipeline of projects, including licenses, for the remaining part of the year.
André Rogaczewski
Maybe if I can add to that, not giving any numbers away or anything, but with Fenix and with platforms we have, in order to benefit and get the efficiencies that we're talking about, up to 45% faster deliveries, the customers have to choose our platforms, products, or Fenix, right? It's not that we have a magic pill, and now you can get anything cheaper or faster.
Here, in order to get the benefits, you need to go in and buy our platforms, products, and a Fenix framework. Obviously, that's a benefit for the customer, but it's also a benefit for us.
In that sense, I think we will see systematically, we'll see more and more projects being a mixture of licenses and consultancy.
Mads Quistgaard
Makes sense. Thank you.
Finally, from my side, on Netcompany Banking Services, 10.1% pro forma growth, is that the result or how much impact do you see for the launch of the two new AI products you did in Q1?
Thomas Johansen
We've launched a couple of AI agents into NBS. That's absolutely true, Mads.
That is not really what's driving it, but there is a huge potential in AI. I think André can elude more to that.
André Rogaczewski
Again, like with everything else we do with our client side, we need to get access to the systems, and then we can start building the AI. We're already doing so.
We are investing into automation at NBS, but we're also investing into AI, and we're doing that in combination with also client projects from our bank. It looks promising, but it's a combination of renovating, automating, and investing into AI.
Mads Quistgaard
Good, perfect. Thank you.
Operator
As there are no further questions, I will hand it back to André for any closing remarks.
André Rogaczewski
Thank you so much for joining in today, and don't forget to read that white paper and watch the video because we're issuing it in 5 minutes. Thank you.
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