PROFOTO HOLDING AB Financial summary July–September 2023
• Net sales totaled
• EBIT totaled
• Profit for the period totaled
• Return on operating capital totaled 56.5 percent (81.1).
• Cash flow from operating activities amounted to
• Earnings per share (before and after dilution) totaled
Financial summary January–September 2023
• Net sales totaled
• EBIT totaled
• Profit for the period totaled
• Cash flow from operating activities totaled
• Earnings per share (before and after dilution) totaled
Financial summary October 2022–September 2023
• Net sales totaled
• EBIT totaled
• Profit for the period totaled
• Cash flow from operating activities totaled
• Earnings per share (before and after dilution) totaled
| Key ratios, Group | Jul- | Jul- | Jan- | Jan- | Oct 2022-Sep 2023 | Full year 2022 |
| Net sales, SEKm | 172 | 235 | 583 | 618 | 813 | 848 |
| Net sales pro forma, SEKm | – | – | – | 642 | – | 872 |
| Organic growth, % | -28.7 | 6.5 | -12.8 | 5.1 | -12.9 | -0.8 |
| EBITA, SEKm | 48 | 80 | 195 | 205 | 290 | 299 |
| EBITA margin, % | 28.0 | 34.0 | 33.4 | 33.1 | 35.6 | 35.3 |
| EBIT, SEKm | 35 | 66 | 153 | 169 | 234 | 249 |
| EBIT pro forma, SEKm | – | – | – | 169 | – | 249 |
| EBIT margin, % | 20.2 | 28.0 | 26.3 | 27.3 | 28.8 | 29.3 |
| EBIT margin pro forma, % | – | – | – | 26.3 | – | 28.6 |
| Adjusted EBIT, SEKm | 35 | 66 | 153 | 17 7 | 234 | 257 |
| Adjusted EBIT margin, % | 20.2 | 28.0 | 26.3 | 28.6 | 28.8 | 30.3 |
| Profit/loss for the period, SEKm | 27 | 54 | 119 | 130 | 183 | 194 |
| Cash flow from operating activities | 29 | 64 | 147 | 157 | 226 | 236 |
| Net debt, SEKm | 88 | 65 | 88 | 65 | 88 | 4 |
| Net debt/EBITDA LTM | 0.28 | 0.21 | 0.28 | 0.21 | 0.28 | 0.01 |
| Return on capital employed, % | 47.9 | 59.1 | 47.9 | 59.1 | 47.9 | 52.5 |
| Return on operating capital, % | 56.5 | 81.1 | 56.5 | 81.1 | 56.5 | 84.1 |
| Earnings per share, SEK | 0.67 | 1.34 | 2.96 | 3.24 | 4.58 | 4.85 |
Investing in new products to drive demand
During the last 12 months, we have had a turnover of
Cautious market and few product launches
Naturally, we face a tough market. Our customers primarily create visual content for the sale of consumer goods, and inflation, higher interest rates and geopolitical uncertainty affect the willingness to invest among both consumers and our customers. In the dialogue with our customers and retailers, it is clear that both professional photographers and e-com studios are cautious with their investments in these uncertain times.
My conviction is that our fate is in our own hands and my experience is that we always need to give our customers strong reasons to buy our products today, and not wait until tomorrow, to get business in uncertain times. Profoto’s success has always been based on our ability to introduce new, innovative products that meet our customers’ needs. For the past 20 years, we have had one or two major product launches per year, driving annual growth of over 10 percent in a market that has grown 3-5 percent.
Over the past year, we have unfortunately not succeeded in this. We have not had a major product introduction in five quarters, which means that sales from new products have decreased. Looking back over the past three years, I can conclude that our reduced rate of investment in product development during the pandemic has caused the ”hole” in our product launch pipeline that we are now seeing the consequences of.
High sales activity and continued investments in product development
To create demand in the medium term, our clear ambition is to get back to, and preferably exceed, our historical rate of one to two major product launches per year. We expect to reach that level already in the next 12-36 months. Anyone who has followed us since the listing in 2021 can see that, after the pandemic, we have continuously increased our investments in product development and I feel confident in our ability to translate these investments into new exciting products and solutions for our customers in the three areas that will drive our future growth: Light for professional photographers, workflow solutions for e-commerce and light for moving images.
We are a sales-driven company and to create demand in the shorter term, our global sales team, led by Patrik Bluhme, has worked hard to increase our level of activity in the market. This has led us to increase the number of profitable sales and marketing activities, which has already yielded results during this quarter.
Innovation for our customers
To get a better sense of what’s happening in the market and to confirm that we are putting our energy and resources into the right things, I have prioritized spending extra time with our customers. I’ve been traveling around and meeting some of our biggest retailers and studio customers in the world. It was also important for me to take the opportunity to work at our booth at a trade show in
I am therefore convinced that we are focusing on the right things to create more demand for our products: sales activities and product development. I also see that the whole organization at
Even though it is difficult to predict when the macroeconomic conditions will improve, I feel very confident about the future as our customers are creating more and more visual content and our innovation is unique.
Sundbyberg,
Anders Hedebark
President and CEO
© Modular Finance, source
