Earnings call transcript: Akva Group Q2 2025 misses earnings expectations

Akva Group’s second-quarter earnings report revealed a notable miss on both earnings per share (EPS) and revenue forecasts, causing a significant positive shift in the company’s stock price. According to InvestingPro data, the company maintains a perfect Piotroski Score of 9, indicating strong financial health and operational efficiency despite the earnings miss. The company reported an actual EPS of 1.33 NOK, falling short of the forecasted 1.77 NOK, a surprise of -24.86%. Revenue also came in below expectations at 1.17 billion NOK, compared to the forecasted 1.22 billion NOK. Despite these misses, the market reacted positively, with Akva Group’s stock price rising by 8.62% to 95.8 NOK during trading.

Key Takeaways

• Akva Group reported a 15% year-over-year increase in Q2 revenue.
• EPS and revenue both missed forecasts by significant margins.
• Stock price surged by 8.62% following the earnings announcement.
• The company maintains a strong outlook for 2025, targeting a minimum revenue of 4 billion NOK.

Company Performance

Akva Group demonstrated robust year-over-year growth in the second quarter, with revenue increasing by 15% to 1.167 billion NOK. The company reported an EBIT of 89 million NOK, which was 26 million NOK higher than the same period last year. InvestingPro analysis shows the company maintains a "GREAT" Financial Health Score of 3.58, suggesting strong operational fundamentals. Subscribers to InvestingPro can access 6 additional exclusive insights about Akva Group’s financial health and growth potential. The first half of 2025 saw a 20% increase in revenue, reaching 2.2 billion NOK. Despite these positive growth metrics, the company’s performance was overshadowed by the failure to meet EPS and revenue forecasts.

Financial Highlights

• Revenue: 1.167 billion NOK, a 15% increase YoY
• EBIT: 89 million NOK, 26 million NOK higher than Q2 2024
• First Half Revenue: 2.2 billion NOK, a 20% increase YoY
• EBIT Margin: 6.7%, aligning with the full-year guidance

Earnings vs. Forecast

Akva Group’s actual EPS of 1.33 NOK fell short of the forecasted 1.77 NOK, resulting in a surprise of -24.86%. Revenue also missed expectations, coming in at 1.17 billion NOK compared to the forecasted 1.22 billion NOK. This marks a significant deviation from projected figures, which could have been driven by various operational factors.

Market Reaction

Despite the earnings miss, Akva Group’s stock price rose sharply by 8.62% to 95.8 NOK. This increase aligns with InvestingPro data showing significant returns over the last week and strong performance over the last three months. The company has been profitable over the last twelve months, contributing to investor confidence in its long-term growth strategies. For detailed analysis of Akva Group’s valuation and growth prospects, investors can access the comprehensive Pro Research Report, available exclusively to InvestingPro subscribers. The stock’s movement places it closer to its 52-week high of 106 NOK.

Outlook & Guidance

Akva Group remains optimistic about its future, setting a revenue target of at least 4 billion NOK for 2025. The company aims for a 6% EBIT margin and projects further growth in its sea-based, land-based, and digital platforms. The company is also focusing on expanding its deep farming capabilities, which could significantly impact global salmon production.

Executive Commentary

CEO Knut Ness expressed confidence in the company’s growth trajectory, stating, "We are positioned for growing and see profitable growth across three business models." CFO Ronny emphasized the importance of expanding digital offerings, noting, "The key focus in digital is to further grow the top line."

Risks and Challenges

• Potential market saturation in key geographical areas.
• Fluctuating global salmon production impacting demand.
• Competitive pressures in digital camera technology.
• Economic uncertainties affecting investment and expansion plans.
• Regulatory changes in aquaculture practices.

Q&A

During the earnings call, analysts inquired about the competitive landscape for digital camera technology and the company’s strategies for shielding aquaculture technologies. The management highlighted their focus on deep farming as a primary growth strategy and reassured stakeholders of their continued investment in technology-driven growth.

Full transcript - Akva Group (AKVA) Q2 2025:

Knut Ness, CEO, Aqua Group: Welcome to this second quarter financial presentation for Aqua Group. My name is Knut Ness, and I’m the CEO of the company. So I will do the introduction. Normally, I will focus on the financial for the quarter and what happened. But since we are now presenting at Akva Nord, I will take the bigger picture and leave the financials aside and talk about the long term salmon story.

But just thirty seconds about the numbers for the second quarter. They are good, so we are very pleased. We had a record high quarterly revenue and EBIT, revenue of 1,167,000,000 and EBIT of NOK 89,000,000. So very, very pleased with that. So thanks to customers for trust trusting us and our own employees for being part of the contribution there.

Very much appreciated. Acceptable order intake of a bit more than NOK 1,000,000,000, 1,052,000,000.000, supported by the award of the 20,000,000 Lax A contract land based contract from Lax A. Also we got another one from Lax A in July, which is not part of the order intake for the second quarter. And that was EUR 8,500,000.0. And overall, we have a full focus, sharp focus on driving the implementation and development of deep farming.

Okay. So I’d like to spend my time on the long term salmon opportunities since we have people from the industry here today. So first, a few words about Aqua Group. The recent statement of Aqua Group is pioneering a better future. We have been driving innovation for more than fifty years.

If you look at the picture there to the left, you see Hans Bethe Mellon in Borden in 1973. That was with the model and the pilot of the very first plastic cage. Before that, they tried different type of technologies including wooden cages. But I decided to try plastic and work together with Helgeland Plus, which is part of Aker Group today. And in the picture to the middle, from 1974, you see there Stein Olaisen being part of mounting the first plastic cage at the Island Lohen.

So that was the very beginning of the plastic cage, which seems a bit basic to say today, but it was one of the more important innovations to modernize and industrialize the salmon farming industry. All the way to fifty years later, we are now busy with deep farming, which is a bit of a more advanced solution in all fairness. So we have been a technology innovator over the years in different areas like automated feeding from 1980s. Feeding is in the DNA of Aqua Group. Deep farming, as I already mentioned, over the last five, ten years.

And we have been also one of the pioneers within Smolt and RAS solutions, starting with FlowTrue and all the way a full land based solution today for ongoing. That’s the next one. And also digital, we have been really part of being pioneers there all the way back since 1918. Okay. So if you take the high level picture, the big picture of our industry, salmon farming industry, over the last fifty years, It took thirty years to come to the first 1,000,000 tonnes of salmon produced globally.

So that was in 02/2001, so thirty years. Then it took another eleven years till 2012 to add another NOK 1,000,000. And then another ten years or so, 9,000,000 to be exact, to 2021 to get to the NOK 3,000,000. And then prior to this year, we have seen some sort of stagnation. And there have been some sort of industry barriers, we call it, like fish health challenges.

There have been issues with regards to regulation. And now I’m talking about Norway and Chile, not at least Canada, and basically all the salmon farming regions. And the industry, we have had some issues with the social license. And at the end of the day, you need to accept from society in large, including the political community in order to be allowed to grow your industry. So there have been some issues.

A little side remark, we are utilizing some of the biological potential better this year because of lower mortality, better production and higher level of superior. So that is good for this year. But if we continue to look at the big picture, I think growth is still fundamental. And it took, as mentioned, fifty years to get to 3,000,000 tonne. But there is still appetite for salmon.

And at least we believe that it should be possible to do 5% annual growth on a sustainable way with sustainable pricing from consumers on the back of salmon still being megatrend. So the question is how to double salmon production by 2,040? How can we add another 3,000,000 tonnes in just fifteen years? We think that, that is possible, but that needs to happen on the back of new technology like deep farming, post smolt and grow out. And that’s to overcome the industry barriers.

Just diving a little bit more into that, the way we see the world. So the base is that as of last year, we had 3,000,000 tonnes of production from traditional fish farming. We believe that deep farming holds the potential globally to add another 15% capacity then by reducing the lice and lowering mortality. Post malt, we have many big proof of concepts there. Post malt comes with the potential to grow your capacity with 30% to 35% volumes.

So that is adding, in principle, 1,000,000 tonne on the base of 3,000,000. And then also land based has the potential with maybe roughly 500,000 tonne until 02/1940. That’s at least what we believe. And then there are some other emerging technologies like new vaccines and others, which will add some as well. So those and there are other emerging technologies, of course.

It’s not easy today to know what is working in 2030 and 02/2005. But fundamentally, we think those are the key building blocks, the way we see it today. Then moving a little bit more into deep farming. As mentioned, potential to unlock 15%, we believe. And the positive driver is that the submerged cages are improving and then by reducing the number of sea lice treatments with up to 80%, 85%.

So that is proven. We have a lot of data because we have delivered more than 200 cages in the marketplace. So on top of the direct growth as such, because you make improvements, we believe there is also an indirect potential there because some of the criticisms towards the industry has to do with mortality, etcetera, etcetera. So when you solve that problem, we think you will have a better agreement, a better social license and then you have more possibilities to grow your industry. So that’s the more indirect consequence of solving some of the core issues.

So that’s why we believe that a number of 15% on the base the base is $3,000,000 is doable over the next fifteen years. On deep farming, Aqua Group, we have we are the market leaders. We were the first mover when it comes to driving deep farming. We did the pioneering and the pilot together with the customer Zinkerbug. But today, we have a more big customer portfolio, five, six customers, and more customers are interested in this concept.

So I will say we have a strong pipeline there. And as mentioned, 200 kgs are already delivered. So there is a lot of real production data out there. We believe going forward until the year 02/1930, we believe it’s roughly a 6,000,000,000 total market opportunity. And that is on the basis of roughly 600 active sites at the point in time in Norway.

And we believe that based on the depth required for this technology and current and other local conditions, we believe that 50% to 60% of the sites are suitable for this technology. That means that if you do the math, then you can probably drive 50 to 70 sites a year. And ballpark a 1,000,000,000 market per year until 02/1930. So we are the market leader and we want to drive this development and capture value there. Then moving on to post smalt.

Post smalt is today a proven concept producing a salmon for instance up to one kilo and then go to the sea and by then reducing the production time in the sea down to seven to nine months, it depends. So the shorter production time in the sea gives more reduced exposure in the sea. And it comes with fewer sea lice treatments, reduced mortality and not at least better capacity utilization of your license. So we have very good documentation from many farming regions. Faroe Island went first and then followed by the Rugaland region.

Turklandsvik was one of the first movers there. And they have very solid production data both on how to produce the post malt up to one kilo, but not at least the performance of the smalt in the sea. That is well documented by So we think it’s a potential to unlock 30% to 35% volume growth. Muvi, they had their Capital Market Day September.

Reduces mortality with fifty percent. And the treatments mainly the sea lice treatments with forty percent because of the fewer months in the sea. So and 5% faster growth. So those are amazing numbers. And you could add the fifth KPI as well, and that’s the additional growth in terms of better license utilization.

So it is, in my view, a very solid business case to drive Postmalt. Aqua’s position within this segment, Postmalt, is that we are the only true global rust supplier. I’m talking now the salmon farming industry. So we have a footprint, big organizations, of course, in Norway, in Denmark, in Chile. We are actually the only RAS supplier with presence in Chile.

And we have also now built the last few years, we have built presence in China to serve Nordic Aqua partner. So this segment, the Post Malte segment has been through a kind of development. You can see it as a stepwise evolution over the last thirty years, starting with the very basic flow through solutions and then with small recirculation units from the 2,000 and then the 2010s, driving technology into full recirculation, reuse and then the post smolt. And it took some time with quite some challenges to start with. But we believe over the last years that we have more fully documented and proven technology base.

And the aim for the next five years is to have a fully automated and intelligent fish farming. So that’s the next level of development. So we think we are now ready to capitalize in what we consider to be a growth phase. I said it came with some challenges. So we had to spend over the last five years, we have not been earning money in land based.

We earned some money last year, and we are doing fine this year. But before that, we actually spent NOK 300,000,000 in different type of action, 300,000,000, which was more about improving the technology platform, having R and D in place, having documentation and data behind. So it was a big effort, big investment, but now it seems that it will be rewarded. Last year, we had a turnover of roughly NOK 600,000,000. And this year, we will be closer to 1,000,000,000.

We have two fifty skilled employees and a pretty solid order backlog. Okay. On top of Post Malte, we also are participating in the development related to full cycle on land, and that’s the land based growth. So that has been it has been a tough birth in that segment as well over the last five, eight years. But last year, more companies started to handle this in a better way.

So it was produced 25,000 tonnes of salmon large salmon on land. So this is now starting to work. We are very pleased to work together with the Nordic Aqua partner in China, and they were able and they are able now they have 4,000 tonne installed capacity based on Aqua technology, and they are able to produce a large salmon of seven kilo with extremely low mortality, less than two percent, healthy FCR and good superior and also no maturation or extremely low maturation. So we think we are getting very close and have, in principle, a proof of concept in place there Then moving on to the third business platform, talking about sea based, land based and now digital.

So also, we believe very much in the digital business. I will explain in a few minutes what it is about. But also there, we have made considerable investments in the last years. Actually, we have invested as much as 500,000,000, which is a lot of money for Aqua Group in building the digital platform. Majority of the money was to acquire the AI company, automated feeding company, Observe.

I’ll come back to that. So today, we have four different solutions there, and I will explain them in a few seconds. And we are present in all the major salmon farming markets. So we consider ourselves to have a complete platform there. To the left, you have a fish talk, which is the leading ERP system.

It’s about biological control, planning and control. Six out of 10 salmon in the world will be on our And then have same same customers we we have the same number intelligent or smart camera and together with Observe. That’s about short term decision making. Smart data, online data, which has been developing a lot over the who working on the And half And we automated feeding. So we acquired 100% of the shares mid last year.

We have been invested in the company for several years. But now we are we have 100% of the shares, which was an important decision for us. They have today more than 100 sites salmon sites in the world on their system, which is about moving towards automated feeding. So we have done the investments. So it’s a very scalable solution there.

Investments are done, overhead in place. So in financial terms, it’s very beneficial when we scale this business. And we see our major growth opportunity also in Norway here. Then coming to an end, we see the position and the profile of Assagwa as a global leader and a trusted partner. We have the three platforms.

I mentioned sea based, which is roughly close to 80%, 77% of our turnover last year, to be exact Land based, 17,000,000,000 last year, but that’s the fast growing business this year. It represents the majority of the step up from 3,500,000,000.0 turnover last year to NOK 4,000,000,000. A lot is coming from land based together with deep farming. And then digital, which is lower in volume, but the strategic importance is very, very high. So this is just a graph showing the investments done by the salmon farmers in the last eight years from 2015 to 2023.

And it shows and those are official public data from the Norwegian data. And it shows that the annual growth and the CAGR in investments in technology from the side of the Sam Pharma is 12% year on year. So it’s important to note is that, that is very much higher than the growth in the number of heads in the production volume because that’s more like 3% in the same period. So there is a kind of overinvestment in technology versus growth in volume. And the other graph here is then showing the growth of Aqua Group over the same eight years, and that happened to also be 12%.

So we are kind of growing in line with the industry. So we are growing technology space is growing faster than the growth in production volume. That’s the key message. And that’s basically what we expect to continue now. And we have been through a few years of turnaround.

Until last year, we were pleased with the performance of last year, not the previous years. But now we turn the page. And this year, we will see a pretty good step up from last year on the top line from NOK 3,500,000,000.0 to NOK 4,000,000,000. And also our EBIT will also improve from roughly 180,000,000 last year, a bit more, and then to a minimum 6% out of the NOK 4,000,000,000 this year. So we are pleased with that development.

We expect the 12% ballpark to continue. So the target for 2027 is NOK 5,000,000,000 turnover. And a lot of our business, like in particular, land based and digital, but also to some extent, sea based, that is a very scalable business. So we have done the investments. We have the people we need in principle, and that’s why we expect to see a pretty much higher EBIT on the back of a higher turnover into 2027.

So concluding with the key investment highlights. We are as already mentioned, we are fully invested. We have fully invested business platforms. I already mentioned we invested GBP 300,000,000 in upgrading the land based and 500,000,000 digital. Also, we make considerable investments in new innovation in sea based.

So the way I see it, it’s a kind of harvest time. We are positioned for growing and see profitable growth across the three business model. So we have an attractive business model. And also financially, we are strong. And we have stability in our management team.

So it should be some good years ahead. That’s our expectation. So okay, I leave it there. And then Roni, the CFO, he will talk you through the financials for the second quarter. So, so far, thank you very much for your attention.

Ronny, CFO, Aqua Group: Good. Okay. Thank you, Knut. Let’s continue with the hard financials hard financial numbers. So overall, we are satisfied with the financial performance in the second quarter, both a record high quarterly revenue and also a record high quarterly profit.

So the revenue of approximately 1,200,000,000.0 is 15% higher than last year, and the increase in revenue is primarily related to our land based business. EBITDA came in at million, which is million higher than last year, and EBIT of NOK89 million is NOK26 million higher than in 2024. So the improved profitability is mainly related to the higher revenue level, which provides strong economies of scale. And for the first half year, we can report revenue close to 2,200,000,000.0, which is 20% higher than in 2024. And we are on track with regards to our guiding, which is a revenue of minimum 4,000,000,000 in 2025.

And profitability has improved significantly this year. We have an EBITDA of $258,000,000 and an EBIT of NOK 146,000,000. So we have guided an EBIT margin this year of 6%. The first six months ended at 6.7%, so it’s comforting with regards to our full year guiding. And the order intake was also acceptable in this second quarter.

Total order intake just above 1,000,000,000 and approximately 20% higher than in 2024. We have SEK 81,000,000 in digital. Land based with SEK $316,000,000 is supported by the new contract from Luxe of SEK 20,000,000. And then we have sea based with $655,000,000 in order intake, which is approximately 15% lower than in Q2 last year. So we still see high interest for Deep Farming Concepts.

However, we also see a seasonal profile with regards to this order intake with high tender activity in Q4 and Q1. And we also expect to see the same pattern this year with high tenders in the fourth quarter of this year and also in Q1 into 2026. So we have a solid order backlog of NOK 2,700,000,000.0, 1,600,000,000.0 in land based and NOK 900,000,000.0 in sea based. So on this basis, we expect the Q3 revenue and also the financial performance in Q3 to be a repeat of the strong numbers we delivered in the second quarter. Some more details on the consolidated income statement, strong revenue in the quarter 153 million NOK higher than Q2 last year.

For the first half year, 20% higher than in 2024, total revenue of NOK2.2 billion. We see improved profitability. We have an EBIT margin of 7.7% in the second quarter. And for the first half year, the NOK146 million in EBIT is million higher than a year ago. Have net financial costs of 33,000,000 in the quarter, which is also NOK 45,000,000 for the first half year.

And we are also satisfied with the profit before tax of NOK 57,000,000 in the second quarter and NOK 102,000,000 for the first six months of twenty twenty five. So the book to bill ratio the last twelve months is good with 106%. We have an order intake of 4,100,000,000.0 and a revenue of NOK 3,900,000,000.0. And for the second quarter, we have a book to bill ratio of 90%, positively impacted by this new contract from Luxai, the EUR 20,000,000 contract. And we were also awarded a new contract from Luxai mid July with an estimated contract value of EUR 8,500,000.0.

So obviously, we have a good momentum and progress with Luxai on Iceland, and we are, of course, very pleased with this strong collaboration. We continue to see a strong market in Nordic. Revenue was 22% higher in Q2 this year compared to last year. We also see strong increase in Australasia driven by the NOAH project in China. The revenue was reduced both in Europe and Americas by 723% respectively.

So our SeaPase business represented 74% of the total revenue in the quarter and the increase in the overall revenue is more or less all related to land based with a 92% increase in revenue in Q2 this year compared to 2024. We consider the EBITDA margin, the 12.4% in the second quarter to be respectable. It’s an increase from the 10.8% in Q2 last year, driven by increased revenue and also economies of scale. So we have a strong EBITDA margin in Sea based of 14.3%, supported by a very strong product mix. And also we see improved profitability in land based, first and foremost related to the higher revenue but also to healthy project margins.

At the end of the quarter, we had available cash, including unused credit facilities of $473,000,000, that’s a reduction of NOK 27,000,000 compared to the first quarter. So net working capital increased a bit from 8.9% to 9.4% in the second quarter. And we are satisfied that we have managed to stabilize the net working capital below the 10% level the last last four quarters. And on the leverage ratio, we continue to improve in the second quarter. The net EBITDA ratio was reduced from 2.47 to 2.3 in the second quarter, which, of course, is very comforting.

Net interest bearing debt is more or less unchanged during the quarter. We paid a dividend of 36,000,000 in April. And year to date, we see a reduction in net interest bearing debt of approximately 130,000,000, which is driven by the net proceeds from the sale of our shares in Aberskrit back in March in Q1. On CapEx, we had total CapEx of 34,000,000 in the second quarter, 50% of this is related to our three innovation agendas, one for sea based, one for land based and one for digital. And year to date, we have total CapEx of 73,000,000.

On dividend, we paid NOK 1 in dividend on April 15 related to the first half year, and the Board in Aqua has decided to pay another NOK 1 per share for the second half year, bringing the total dividend in 2025 up to NOK 2 per share. I’ll continue with some more details on the financial performance in the three business segments, starting with the sea based technology. So the revenue of $868,000,000 in the quarter was more or less at the same level as last year. We have a reduction in order intake of approximately 15%. Strong EBITDA margin, 14.3, driven by this high revenue, which provides strong economies of scale.

And we also have this very favorable product mix. So the Nordic Region experienced increase in revenue of 12%. Order intake was down by 6% compared to last year. In Americas, both revenue and order intake was reduced by 2726% respectively. And last, we have Europe, Middle East.

Revenue was down by 7%, but we have a decent increase in order intake of 35% compared to last year. And looking at the twelve months order intake and revenue trend for SeaPaste, we are pleased. We have seen a positive uplift in the past few quarters. The order backlog of NOK900 million is acceptable, acceptable, million higher than in last year, which forms a basis for a very decent revenue level in this third quarter. With regards to the OpEx based revenue in Sea based, which is a very important part of our Sea based business was at the same level as in last year and represented 33% of the total Sea based revenue.

And please also note that the main part of this OpEx based revenue is not reflected in our order backlog, meaning this revenue will come on top of the million in order backlog. For Land Based, we talked about the order intake, the $316,000,000, main part is the new contract with Laxe. And we have the strong increase in revenue in the quarter, 92% compared to last year and revenue ended at $264,000,000. So on the back of this higher revenue, improved project margins, we improved the EBITDA by 14,000,000 compared to last year and EBITDA margin ended at 5.5%. For Land Based, we continue to see positive development both with regards to the order intake trend and revenue trend.

Order backlog is solid 1,600,000,000.0, which is comforting for the revenue level in the 2025 and also into 2026. And last, we have digital, which had an order intake of million in the quarter, which was NOK55 million higher than last year. And approximately million of this order intake is related to a contract awarded from an international customers regarding Observe. So this customer had already installed the recommendation module, which is the step one with Observe and has now decided to upgrade to the copilot module for automated feeding. So this contract was an important milestone to Aqua, a commercial breakthrough also for the co pilot module.

And the rest of the order intake in digital, approximately 55,000,000 is largely related to extension of contracts for Fishtalk and not to new sales as such. So the revenue was at the same level as last year. EBITDA margin improved from 14% to close to 22%. And as we have talked about several times, the key focus in digital is to further grow the top line. We strongly believe that top line growth will have a significant scaling effect to the bottom line.

So we see this positive shift in digital, the order intake, the revenue still remains a flatliner. We have an order backlog of 188,000,000 end of the second quarter, which is NOK 38,000,000 higher than last year. So that was my financial update. So I will give it back to Juukhnu to do the outlook and the Q and A.

Knut Ness, CEO, Aqua Group: Okay. Thank you very much, Ronny. So in terms of outlook, we expect to see still a good focus and commercial momentum on deep farming. As Roni mentioned, there is some certain seasonality when it comes to the order intake. So we expect during the next sales season, Q4 and Q1, to see some positive order intake from deep farming.

Also with regards to the post smelt market, we are rather hopeful to sign a few contracts there before the end of the year, so positive there as well. And in general, we have a full focus on innovation for on the three platforms, both for digital land based and sea based. And as already mentioned by Roni, we are aiming for a revenue above the NOK 4,000,000,000 mark for this year and with a corresponding EBIT of 6%. And we have a high visibility on that and a good comfort level. So we expect to deliver in line with this guidance.

So I think we leave it there and want to move to the Q and A. So we have some people in the call. So we take, of course, a question from the call, but also from you being here, the audience. So if you want to ask a question, you can raise your hand and you will be a mic will be brought to you. Any questions?

Please. It’s more encouraging with questions. Any questions from the cold staller? All the analysts are busy this morning. Too many.

We have one. Good,

Carl, Analyst: Carl. One on the digital. We see that there is a lot of competition, especially on this, what you call, very decision making cameras. Can you say something about how you view the competition there and how you position yourself compared to the rest of the space?

Knut Ness, CEO, Aqua Group: So you are absolutely right. Smart Karma has been growing very rapidly over the last five years. Aqua was probably a bit late to focus on that segment because we have been the traditional feeding company with the feeding cameras, which, by the way, is working extremely well for us this year, the feeding cameras. We decided a year ago, we decided to acquire a start up company, Submerge, which had the same kind of AI capabilities like the two leading ones being OptoScale and Aquabyte. So we are clearly behind those two.

But we believe from a technology standpoint because we have validated the technology of Submerge, the company we acquired a year ago. So from a technology standpoint, we think we are now at a ballpark equal level. Our biomass estimation is validated at a very high level, 98%, 99%. And also, the sea lice counting is working, and we are now busy with developing the so called fish health KPI dashboard. So we hope and we expect to see positive momentum with our solutions.

But in that very specific space, we are the up runner. But a very interesting segment. Please, one more.

Carl, Analyst: And maybe one more on, I would say, shielded technologies. You’re big in the submultiple cages, but there are also a lot of things going on, on more shielded technologies. Are you doing any work there?

Knut Ness, CEO, Aqua Group: And what’s your stand on those technologies? We have a strategy to monitor. In the last five, ten years, following this the award of all the development licenses in Norway, there have been, I will say, between twenty and thirty different technologies being developed. Each and one of them, they have been investing a lot. So we have decided not to go into that development race ourselves, but just monitor who will be the successful one.

We still believe it’s a bit hard to pick the winner. But our idea will be when we see someone with proven technology, with real true proof of concept, more than three customers, not only one believer, but a little portfolio, then we will be prepared to consider to acquire this technology because we think the strength of Akva will be the scalability, dealing with supply chain contract management, our footprint on services. So we think we can be a good home for one of those technologies. But so far, we have not decided to invest in any of them. So we still believe that the biggest potential in the next three, five years, we believe, is from deep farming.

So but we are monitoring. Any other? That’s a bit too much light. Okay. Anyone from the call?

If no more questions, thank you very much for showing up early in the morning. I’ll talk to Anhul. So thank you very much.

Ronny, CFO, Aqua Group: Thank you.

Knut Ness, CEO, Aqua Group: Thank you for your attention.

This article was generated with the support of AI and reviewed by an editor. For more information see our T&C.