ETTEPLAN Interim Report January-March 2021 published: Back to growth with good profitability

Etteplan News release May 5, 2021

Etteplan’s Interim Report January-March 2021 has been published. You can find the Report and the related presentation materials at https://www.etteplan.com/investors/reports-presentations.

Join our webcast today May 5, 2021 at 2.30 P.M. EEST here: https://etteplan.videosync.fi/2021-q1-results. A recording of the webcast can be found through the same link after the live event.

More information can be found here: https://www.etteplan.com/releases/etteplans-january-march-2021-interim-report-be-published-may-5-2021

President and CEO Juha Näkki:

“The year 2021 started well even though we began the year at a disadvantage compared to the relatively normal comparison period. In the beginning of January 2021 we had 165 temporary laid off employees and the number of employees was approximately 5 per cent lower than a year ago. Nevertheless, we were able to turn our revenue back to growth and our profitability exceeded again our target level, improving clearly compared to the comparison period.

The market situation continued to improve in all of our operating countries and service areas as COVID-19 vaccinations progressed. The pandemic and the related restrictions are still reflected in demand to some extent, but orders received by our customers are growing and investments in product development and production increased. The clearest difference to the market situation in the comparison period was in China, where the worst stage of the pandemic took place during the comparison period. The demand situation in China is very good at the moment. The number of hours sold grew by 121 per cent year-on-year.      

Our business developed well in all of our service areas and profitability exceeded our target level in all three service areas due to good operational efficiency. The demand for our service solutions was at a good level. In the Engineering Solutions and Technical Documentation Solutions service areas, we performed particularly well in outsourcing solutions as customers sought flexibility and efficiency in their operations. We signed several outsourcing agreements. In the Software and Embedded Solutions service areas, some projects were slightly slow to get started after the turn of the year, but the demand for digitalization solutions was strong in general. At the beginning of the year, we also started our business in Denmark in this service area by acquiring the software company TekPartner. TekPartner’s partner-focused business model is an excellent fit with Etteplan’s solution-oriented strategy. It provides a good foundation for growth and selling all of Etteplan’s services in the Danish market in the future.

As the market situation has improved, we have resumed our investments in the implementation of our strategy and the development of our service offering. For example, during the review period, we introduced Etteplan HowTo, a digital solution for the creation and interactive distribution of documentation for e.g. mobile devices. The solution has attracted widespread interest among our customers. The service has already been sold to the first customer and we have several POC (proof of concept) projects under way. We also work continuously on developing other new service solutions to increase the value we can create for our customers in the future.

While the pandemic will still influence our business at least in the second quarter, we believe that business will gradually settle into a new normal thereafter. We estimate that the market situation will improve throughout the year. This means that the strong first quarter puts us in a good position for the remainder of the year, and we are increasing our financial guidance accordingly.”

Additional information:
Juha Näkki, President and CEO, tel. +358 10 307 2077
Outi Torniainen, SVP, Marketing and Communications, tel. +358 10 307 3302