ETTEPLAN Half Year Financial Report January-June 2022 published: Strong growth in spite of uncertainty

Etteplan News release August 10, 2022

Etteplan’s Half Year Financial Report January-June 2022 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 August 10, 2022 at 2.30 p.m. EEST here: https://etteplan.videosync.fi/2022-q2

A recording of the webcast can be found through the same link after the live event.

More information about the webcast can be found here: https://www.etteplan.com/releases/etteplans-january-june-2022-half-year-financial-report-be-published-august-10-2022

President and CEO Juha Näkki:

“Our strong growth continued in the second quarter. Also the number or personnel grew reaching a new level and exceeding 4, 000 soon after the end of the review period. Acquisitions supported growth but also organic growth was on a good level despite the market uncertainties.

We continued to develop our service offering and capabilities through two acquisitions. We strengthened our sustainability know-how and acquired LCA Consulting Oy in Finland. The acquisition of DDCOM B.V. in the Netherlands widened our capabilities in 3D content-based animation and visualization services related to technical documentation. After the review period we made a strategic investment in Swedish start-up company Ekkono Solutions AB, a developer of machine learning and artificial intelligence technology. We see great potential for utilizing the technology as part of our service solutions

Once the pandemic related restriction were halted in Europe, we were finally able to organize different types of personnel events. A backlog of employee training and social events accumulated during the pandemic, and took measures to release the backlog during the review period. This increased personnel, training and travel expenses in the review period and affected profitability. Going forward, we expect these costs to normalize at a level that corresponds to the new hybrid work model. In addition, profitability was affected by sickness-related absences, more holidays falling in the second quarter, and organizational restructuring costs in the software business due to which our profitability fell slightly short of our target level.

During the review period, the demand situation remained good but there were fluctuations in the demand. The war Russia started in Ukraine accelerates inflation and increases uncertainty. This affects our customers’ willingness to invest in some industries, and postponed the start of development projects to some extent. The demand fluctuations were visible especially in Software and Embedded Solutions and Technical Documentation Solutions service areas. Operational efficiency was cut short from our expectations in Software and Embedded Solutions service area, and during the review period we implemented actions to fix the situation. In Engineering Solutions service area good level of demand was maintained by Engineering-to-Order services related to customer projects and operational efficiency was on good level.

Despite the uncertainty and fluctuations in demand we will start the second half of the year with a relatively good demand situation. Though investments in some customer industries have been postponed, investments in defense industry and accelerating the green transition are growing and our customers’ orderbooks have continued to develop mainly positively. Therefore, we estimate that growth and positive development will continue also in the latter part of the year and keep our financial guidance intact.”

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