Interim report, January - June 2021
In Q2 2021 net sales increased by 36.7% compared to Q2 2020. Consolidated net sales ended at 53,397 (SEK 000s). EBITDA totaled to -4,570 (SEK 000s). Operating profit, EBIT, was -19,306 (SEK 000s). Profit after tax was -43,025 (SEK 000s). Earnings per share was SEK -0.64.
For 1H 2021 net sales increased by 25.8% compared to 1H 2020. Consolidated net sales ended at 101,919 (SEK 000s). EBITDA totaled to -3,733 (SEK 000s). Operating profit, EBIT, was -21,760 (SEK 000s). Profit after tax was -41,796 (SEK 000s). Earnings per share was SEK -0.62.
CEO's comments
The 24SevenOffice team continued to show tremendous effort in the second quarter of 2021. Thanks to the technology-oriented culture and experience of remote working over a number of years, the 24SevenOffice team achieved a lot from their home offices during the pandemic this quarter.Despite the fact that we are still in a pandemic, revenue grew by 26% in the first half of 2021 with revenues of 101.9 MSEK, and 36% in the second quarter with revenues of 53.4 MSEK. We now see that the adjustments that we made at the beginning and during the pandemic like reduced marketing, etc have had negative effects on growth figures and we have also experienced that Covid-19 has resulted in longer sales cycles. We believe recent initiatives will reduce the negative consequences in future quarters.The large accounting firms in Norway are now first movers and are going all-in on AI automation with 24SevenOffice. In the second quarter we added to the existing list of leading Norwegian accounting firms by signing both PwC Accounting AS and BDO Norway AS. Revenue from the signed contracts in the first half of 2021 are dependent on onboarding pace and roll-out of the AI module to the customers. However, we expect substantial revenue from these customers to be added on throughout the next two to three quarters.
Substantial revenue opportunity from Fintech
Our important Fintech investment and focus was at risk when Optin Bank went into public administration. We invested in a minority share of less than 10% of the total shares Optin Bank a year ago to get access to their technology to deliver Fintech products as an integrated solution within 24SevenOffice and at the same time we got a partner with a banking licence. Unfortunately, the bank was placed in public administration by the Financial Supervisory Authority of Norway. As a consequence the second quarter is affected heavily by the write-off of the whole investment in Optin even though we have claims in the public administrator where we might receive some dividend at the end to reduce the loss. The EBITDA has also been affected negatively due to several one time costs in the quarter.
This situation has, however, turned out to be an even bigger opportunity since we were able to acquire this important technological solution and products from the public administration, and at a fraction of the cost it would have been to develop it ourselves. 24SevenOffice now controls the technology and we have successfully re-launched the payment technology in production as Pay by 24SevenOffice. We are also in the process of securing a partner bank so we can continue the strategy to deliver finance services to our customers in the future. The situation has delayed our original fintech launch plans, but at the same time strengthened it for the future.
Continuous development of our technology
During the first six months of this year our tech-team has launched several new features and modules. Our payroll system which we soft launched in Q1 is further developed and is planned to be rolled out in the second half of the year. The feedback from customers is positive and this is one of the new modules that will drive users and revenue. In addition to all this we have launched a new CRM system, new flexible and customizable dashboard solution to present a company’s KPIs, asset register, new and upgraded nominal ledger and several new features in our banking module.
Increased focus on sales and marketing
As we informed last quarter there were some signs that the pandemic had affected the business short term more than the previous quarters. Combined with the sales department having been without a dedicated sales director and our focus on closing large AI contracts in the enterprise market where the contractual revenue will be booked revenue after the roll-out we will need 3-4 quarters to transfer the business.
In the second quarter, we hired an experienced Chief Sales Director with extensive management experience from the enterprise ERP space. The Sales Director will be starting October 1st and will be leading the continued transformation to enterprise sales and strengthen our sales team. With the new sales director in place and positive signs of willingness from companies post covid to invest more in digitalization and automation, we will further increase marketing spend in the next 2-3 quarters to get the growth rate back to previous levels. This will, however, have an effect on EBITDA in this period and we are waiving the profitability target for the next 9-12 months, expecting it to be in line with this quarter.
The traction we have in the enterprise AI market with a substantial contractual revenue from signed deals being rolled out this year, revenue from new modules, and effects from the increased investments in sales and marketing, puts us in a good position to deliver long term growth and profitability in the future.
This disclosure contains information that 24SevenOffice Scandinavia AB is obliged to make public pursuant to the EU Market Abuse Regulation (EU nr 596/2014). The information was submitted for publication, through the agency of the contact person, on 26-08-2021 07:15 CET.
