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Kitron ASA reported robust financial performance in Q3 2025, with revenue rising 15% year-over-year to €168 million and a significant 36% increase in EBIT to €14.6 million. The company’s stock responded positively, gaining 5.11% to close at €64.85. Kitron’s strategic expansion in the defense aerospace sector and improved operational efficiency were key contributors to its success. The company also raised its full-year revenue and EBIT guidance, reflecting confidence in sustained growth.
Key Takeaways
- Q3 revenue increased by 15% year-over-year.
- EBIT surged by 36%, reflecting operational improvements.
- Stock rose by 5.11% following the earnings release.
- Full-year revenue and EBIT guidance were both raised.
- Strong growth in the defense aerospace sector.
Company Performance
Kitron ASA demonstrated impressive performance in Q3 2025, driven by strategic expansions and robust demand in key sectors. InvestingPro analysis reveals the company maintains a strong financial health score of 2.64 (labeled as "GOOD") and has achieved a remarkable 14% revenue CAGR over the past five years. The company has successfully capitalized on its strengths in defense aerospace, contributing to a 15% increase in revenue compared to the same quarter last year. This growth is part of a broader trend of rising demand in the defense sector, which Kitron has effectively tapped into. For deeper insights into Kitron’s growth metrics and 8 additional ProTips, consider exploring the comprehensive Pro Research Report available on InvestingPro.
Financial Highlights
- Revenue: €168 million, up 15% year-over-year
- EBIT: €14.6 million, up 36%
- Earnings per share: €0.13
- Operating cash flow: €44 million, compared to €2 million last year
- Net gearing reduced from 0.60 to 0.27
Outlook & Guidance
Kitron has raised its full-year revenue guidance to €700-750 million, up from previous estimates, and increased its EBIT guidance to €59-66 million. This optimistic outlook is underpinned by a strong order backlog and continued expansion in the defense sector. Analysts tracked by InvestingPro share this optimism, with consensus recommendations leaning positive and price targets suggesting further upside potential. The company remains focused on strategic mergers and acquisitions, particularly in defense and risk-spread sectors, supported by its moderate debt levels and healthy current ratio of 1.65.
Executive Commentary
CEO Peter Nilsson emphasized the strategic nature of Kitron’s growth, stating, "We’re not just about bolt-on businesses and turning into some sort of private equity owner. It has to be part of Kitron." CFO Cathrin Nylander highlighted operational efficiency, noting, "We haven’t just grown revenue, we’ve grown smarter."
Risks and Challenges
- Supply chain disruptions could impact production timelines.
- Market saturation in the electrification sector may slow growth.
- Geopolitical tensions could affect defense contracts.
- Currency fluctuations pose a risk to international earnings.
- Regulatory changes in key markets may introduce compliance challenges.
Q&A
During the earnings call, analysts inquired about potential M&A opportunities, with management outlining plans for strategic acquisitions. Questions also focused on the temporary dip in the electrification sector and Kitron’s capacity expansion plans in defense production. The company reassured investors of its rigorous customer vetting process for defense contracts, ensuring quality and compliance.
Full transcript - Kitron ASA (KIT) Q3 2025:
Peter Nilsson, CEO, Kitron Group: Welcome, everyone, and thank you for joining the Q3 2025 presentation for the Kitron Group. I’m Peter Nilsson, CEO of Kitron, and presenting along with me today is Cathrin Nylander, CFO. This quarter marks a continuation of the momentum we built through the first half of the year. We’ll review the highlights of our performance, key growth drivers, and what’s ahead for the rest of 2025. Next slide, please. Quarter highlights. Q3 was another strong quarter. Operationally, we’ve maintained solid execution across customer ramp-ups and new contracts. Profitability remained resilient. All regions delivered EBIT margins above 9%, even in the face of some local headwinds. Performance has been solid in the quarter, driven to a large extent by defense aerospace revenue, which grows 82% year over year. This is also visible in the order backlog, which grows 100% for defense aerospace and 31% in total, closing in on €600 million.
Our success with new defense tech continues with a €100 million order from a new customer signed. Next slide, please. Operations and growth. Our order intake in Q3 reached €257 million, with a very healthy book-to-bill ratio of 1.53. Given this momentum and our strong execution, we’re raising our outlook for 2025. We now expect revenues between €700 million and €750 million, and an EBIT between €59 million and €66 million. While we do see some uncertainty globally, the fundamentals for growth remain strong. Next slide, please. Let’s take a look at some of the revenue trends by sector. Our connectivity remains mixed. Legacy product declines are offset by growth in next-generation communication and control equipment. Electrification is stabilizing with the new U.S. customers driving energy storage and transmission growth. Industry showed strong momentum.
Automation and subsea oil and gas were standout performers, whilst infrastructure and construction suffer from lower market demand. Medical devices were weaker overall, but life support and surgical equipment grew solidly. Finally, defense aerospace, our clear growth engine, up 82% year over year. Next slide, please. Let’s review the order backlog. The order backlog now stands at €598 million, up 31% year over year and 18% sequentially, quarter over quarter. Defense aerospace doubled its backlog, driven by strong demand in surveillance, UAV, and encryption systems. Connectivity grew 24%. Industry is stable, whilst electrification saw a temporary pause as some customers expanded capacity. This strong order backlog and order visibility give us a solid footing for the next two quarters. Now, Cathrin will take us through some financials. Next slide, please.
Cathrin Nylander, CFO, Kitron Group: Thank you, Peter. Q3 highlights. Financially, Q3 was excellent. Revenue came in at close to $168 million, up over 15%. EBIT reached $14.6 million, up 36%. Operating cash flow was particularly strong at $44 million compared to just $2 million last year. Return on operating capital improved to 26%, and our order backlog grew to nearly $600 million, again up 31%. Next slide, please. Third quarter year-to-date highlights. For the first nine months of 2025, revenue reached $505 million, up 3.7% year over year. EBIT increased to $42 million with a margin of 8.3%. Operating cash flow tripled compared to the same period last year. EPS also improved to $0.13. We’re seeing profitable cash-generating growth, a solid foundation as we enter the final stretch of the year. Next slide, please. Business sectors. All regions contributed positively. The Nordics and North America grew 15%, driven by strong industrial and defense programs.
CEE was up 30%, showing strong capacity utilization. Asia remains slightly lower due to a few customer transitions. Our workforce grew to 2,781 employees, up 307 from last year, and in line with our ongoing scaling efforts. All sites and market sectors here delivered over 9%. Cash flow and net working capital. One of the real highlights this quarter was our cash flow performance. Our operating cash flow reached $44 million, supported by more efficient use of working capital and higher customer deposits. Net working capital is down 18% year on year, and 20% quarter on quarter, a major improvement. We’re managing inventory and receivables tightly while ensuring that we can still support ramp-ups. Next slide, please. Ratios. Our financial ratios reflect a much stronger balance sheet. Net gearing is now 0.27, down from 0.60 last year. Net interest-bearing debt has improved to 0.8 from 1.6.
Our cash conversion cycle dropped significantly to 78 days from 123. This performance reflects the great teamwork across Kitron. We are stronger, faster, and more focused, positioned with the agility and capacity needed to scale for future growth now. Now, back to you, Peter, for some key takeaways and wrap-up. Next.
Peter Nilsson, CEO, Kitron Group: Thank you, Cathrin. To sum up Q3, revenue and profitability are up solidly. Defense aerospace continues to surge with the 82% increase year over year in revenue and a doubling of the backlog. Non-defense sectors remain stable, with several strong performers in each sector to drive future growth. We’re scaling now across seven sites to handle new defense programs. With strong customer demand and visibility, we’ve raised our full-year guidance, targeting NOK 740 million in revenue and NOK 66 million in EBIT. Next slide, please. I’ll pause here and open the floor for some questions. We’re proud of the progress the team has made. We’re happy to discuss any area in more detail, whether it’s sector dynamics, cash performance, or the updated outlook. Cathrin, that really wraps up Q3. Really strong quarter across the board.
Looking at these numbers again, it’s clear that the whole organization has been firing on all cylinders.
Cathrin Nylander, CFO, Kitron Group: Absolutely, Peter, I think there’s more to go on for sure. What stands out to me is how well the teams managed cash and net working capital this quarter. We haven’t just grown revenue, we’ve grown smarter.
Peter Nilsson, CEO, Kitron Group: That’s a great way to put it, smarter growth. It’s not just about volume, it’s about balancing and agility. This quarter, we’ve really been put to the test on that, and it shows that discipline is paying off.
Cathrin Nylander, CFO, Kitron Group: I agree. We should also remember that Q3 is a vacation quarter in Europe, with many customers taking time off with the reduced demand that follows. I think this lifts our achievements even more.
Peter Nilsson, CEO, Kitron Group: Exactly, right? You know, for the European customers, probably July is half of a normal quarter. From that point of view, I’m extra happy with what we’ve done. With the new contracts now that we’ve landed in defense and other sectors, we’ve got plenty of exciting work ahead. It’s a great feeling heading into Q4 with this kind of momentum.
Cathrin Nylander, CFO, Kitron Group: It really is. The energy across all our sites is fantastic. People are proud, focused, and ready for the next step.
Peter Nilsson, CEO, Kitron Group: Perfect note to end on. I think the line is caught up now, and let’s move on and take some questions. There’s a question from Arild. What are plans for acquisitions, and what sectors are we then looking at? Over the quarter, really over the full year, but with a lot of focus in the third quarter, we’ve looked at a lot of different companies and completed work that we started earlier in the year also. For Kitron, it’s important that, you know, the more we look, the more we also understand that it’s really important that there’s a strategic fit. How does this acquisition plug into Kitron, and how do we help it grow? We’re not just about bolt-on businesses and turning into some sort of private equity owner. It has to be part of Kitron.
When there’s challenges and difficulties in those potential companies you buy, you can grow it as a group. That’s what we’ve proven that we’re really good at across the board here. This latest contract is one of those things where it’s the whole of Kitron working together, not a single site. The sectors we’re looking at, obviously, is the growth sectors. You look at the market in Germany, for example, there’s a lot of struggling companies there. Demand in industry and factory automation, tooling is way down in Germany. There’s a lot of companies suffering from very low demand or low growth outlook. On the other hand, the prices tend to be super high, and that’s off-putting to us. Really, the ideal mix we would see is a strong defense sector, but also a risk spread into other market sectors also. I hope that answers your question. Martina is next.
If not answered during the call, some more color on the net working capital, both short-term and long-term. Why don’t you dive into that? Cathrin also answered the question, how much M&A-related cost was in the quarter?
Cathrin Nylander, CFO, Kitron Group: Yes, I can start with the part that’s the working capital. If you look at the growth now, we will see more slim working capital on, if you say, on the growth level. That’s the extra growth coming into the quarter. I assume that our net working capital will be much closer in the growth part to 20% of revenue. I think that’s something that you can look at. How much M&A-related costs in the quarter? Yes, there are some M&A-related costs in the quarter. I would say it’s around €1 million.
Peter Nilsson, CEO, Kitron Group: What subsegment in defense does the new customer relate to? I think it’s part of what’s also published in the CEO letter in the quarterly report, right? This is the fourth customer in the UAV sector that we signed on. It’s also the largest. It’s within that subsector, UAVs. A couple of more questions. Some competitors have reported on difficulties in supply chain when it comes to delivery of defense projects affecting them. Do you see the same? Which customer segments within defense is this most relevant? In general, I would say no. In specifics, there’s always issues that pop up, right?
Especially if you’re building a defense program that has, you know, in the past operated at lower volumes and now you’re scaling it to higher volumes, it will tend not to be so much electronics as it will be mechanical parts, things like that that go into the product where maybe smaller suppliers have been used to manufacture because of the volume being low. Now when scaling, they don’t really have the process control to deliver the expectation on quality. There are some small delays that happen there. When products come in, usually in some cases, there are delays. When they actually come in, it’s just in time, we’re loaded and ready to go, and it turns out that the product has defects. That’s happened a couple of times here over the quarter, but nothing too serious. Is the €100 million order included in the order backlog?
How much is delivered this year and approximately next? There’s about two-thirds of it in the order backlog of the €100 million. Of that, about 15% or 20% delivered this year? Cathrin, I’m not sure.
Cathrin Nylander, CFO, Kitron Group: Yeah, we did raise the guiding a little bit, and I think you can connect it to this order.
Peter Nilsson, CEO, Kitron Group: The rest would be delivered, you know, in the near term.
Cathrin Nylander, CFO, Kitron Group: Yes.
Peter Nilsson, CEO, Kitron Group: As quickly as possible.
Cathrin Nylander, CFO, Kitron Group: Yes.
Peter Nilsson, CEO, Kitron Group: How should we look at defense sales next year versus this year, given the R6 outlook, which is more tilted into 2026? The R6 is very strong, right? $468 million in the R6. I’m not sure what the question is. How should you look at defense sales next year?
Cathrin Nylander, CFO, Kitron Group: I think we’re planning to talk more about the defense sales next quarter.
Peter Nilsson, CEO, Kitron Group: This is a big order intake period up through November for next year. We’ll have a clearer picture exactly of what the second half of next year looks like. Our capital markets day is December 10th, I believe.
Cathrin Nylander, CFO, Kitron Group: Yeah, I think so.
Peter Nilsson, CEO, Kitron Group: Who’s next here? Olaf. Can you provide more color and development electrification? What gives you the confidence that the dip is temporary? What signals are you getting from customers for 2026? We signed a new customer in the U.S., and that’s ramping up. Really, you know, we went from basically zero last year to a few hundred thousand euros in the first half of the year to €5 million this last quarter. It’s a big ramp-up. The market there is driven to a very large extent by data centers. This customer provides energy storage backup and transmission solutions. The other large customer we have is, as you know, they’ve been talking about really scaling their own production and hiring thousands of employees to their main factory. From what I see and hear, the ramp-up hasn’t gone as quickly as expected for them.
Kitron, of course, has performed, so they need to sort of take their foot off the gas for a few months here and also to be able to catch up and not overfill every warehouse with product from Kitron. This is long-term growth. It’s energy transmission, so they have long-term contracts for the next five years. Also, in that area, we’ve won the next generation from that customer, also to be started to be ramped up sometime next year in Poland. I think the expectation from the customer is first quarter, so that shows that they’re optimistic, but we know that these tend to drag out in time, so sometime in the second half of the year, I would expect. Could you give more color on your defense production capacity for 2026 in relation to where your backlog now stands?
We’re looking to expand in the Swedish facility, just took into operation this week the new factory that they have, which extends capacity 50%. All of the systems integration and final assembly will be moved to that site, then opening up the existing site for more investment in automation and electronics production. From Sweden’s point of view, we’re fairly safe. From Norway, it’s a continued struggle with capacity and footprint. We do have some extra space outside the factory we’re also using. The new site is slated to be inaugurated mid-Q2 next year, as I think the timeline right now. There’s a bit of struggle there. In Lithuania and Poland, we’re looking to add new facilities, actually. We’ve added a new facility in Poland. We signed up about another 5,000 square meters or so in a facility not far from our existing site. That is being used right now.
We took it into operation here in October. We’re also looking to start our planning process to be able to put a new site in place in Poland. If you recall, we bought some 80,000 square meters of land adjacent to our facility there. We’re looking for new construction and a decision on that sometime, probably Q2, mid-Q2, mid-year next year.
Cathrin Nylander, CFO, Kitron Group: Yeah, earliest, I think.
Peter Nilsson, CEO, Kitron Group: To decide to build, we’ll have that in mid-2027, up and running that site.
Cathrin Nylander, CFO, Kitron Group: I think there is ample footprint now to cater for what we see.
Peter Nilsson, CEO, Kitron Group: Okay, let’s move on. Yes. What is going to drive the growth mostly in Q4, fourth quarter? Under the latest guidance, I see revenues will reach a minimum of $185 million. It would be the highest figure this year. That’s why Q4 is a pretty good quarter. Usually, it’s the highest quarter we have also every year, competing with Q1 nowadays. There is running six days a week, 24/7, not 24/7, but 24/6, basically, in Sweden. There’s a lot to be delivered in Q4.
Cathrin Nylander, CFO, Kitron Group: Yeah, to drive the growth, it’s going to be defense in Q4 compared to.
Peter Nilsson, CEO, Kitron Group: The outlook for Q4, you know, the outlook for the full year, which is what we guide on, is NOK 700 million to NOK 740 million.
Cathrin Nylander, CFO, Kitron Group: Yes, we had NOK 504 million year to date, so you can do the math, Kristina.
Peter Nilsson, CEO, Kitron Group: Yeah, so there’s a question of who’s the customer for the €100 million order and which site will be produced, and we cannot comment on either one of those. Congrats, good results from Sindre. Can you elaborate on the discontinued M&A process and what you’re now looking at? Cathrin, why don’t I throw this one over to you?
Cathrin Nylander, CFO, Kitron Group: No, I mean, we are looking at several sites, and when you are in an auction process, in some situations you win, and in some situations you don’t. Some people are willing to pay higher multiples maybe than you are. It might be the fact that you are looking into certain sites. You have a target, you look at it, and at the end you figure out you don’t want it anyhow. That has been some certain discussions here now during the first three quarters.
Peter Nilsson, CEO, Kitron Group: You have to be brave enough to walk away.
Cathrin Nylander, CFO, Kitron Group: Yeah, basically, that’s what’s going on. Now we’re looking at mostly defense, I would say.
Peter Nilsson, CEO, Kitron Group: Karim has a question here. You mentioned local headwinds in some regions. Could you elaborate on the regions and the nature of these headwinds? Nothing really specifically. Nothing serious, right? There’s always, you know, some supply chain delays. You lose a shift or a day here or there, things like that, things of that nature. I think if you look more regionally, right, and we’ll probably get back to that on the Capital Markets Day, is what the development is in China and what’s going to happen there. Our sites are performing tremendously well, but we have no growth. Yes, we’re winning new business, but then, you know, the other business tapers off also. When do you expect it to start production in the long-term Arendal facility from Vladimir? At some point in Q2 next year. And to Christian, thanks.
You have high focus on, you know, know your customer, KYC, to ensure that your technology does not end up in countries that represent risks for you. Do you have high focus? Yes, we do have high focus.
Cathrin Nylander, CFO, Kitron Group: Very high focus. The whole defense business is very.
Peter Nilsson, CEO, Kitron Group: A lot of due diligence going on when we sign a new customer, who’s behind it, and so forth. This is not just us doing that, but we have professionals that work with us. Sorry for asking for clarification, but did you say that the new defense customer relates to UAVs, and this is the fourth customer within this product category? Yes. Yes to both. That is what we have on the question front. Very good. I think we’ll wrap up there. Cathrin and I’ll be heading off for one-on-one and investor meetings now for the rest of the day. Perhaps we’ll see some of you there. Any specific last question came in here, or a couple of more came in. My last one. Any specific areas of competencies, capabilities that are challenged? Wire harnesses. I don’t know if we have wire harness production.
We have it in our Lithuanian facility. We are ramping tremendously on that again for a defense product. It’s not really a capability, but it’s a capacity issue. We have some partners we work with that can take some overflow out of us.
Cathrin Nylander, CFO, Kitron Group: Yeah, we’re sorting from several and I think that’s a sensible thing to do.
Peter Nilsson, CEO, Kitron Group: Very good. Thanks, guys. We’ll see you at the Capital Markets Day in December.
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