Earnings call transcript: Planisware Q1 2025 revenue grows 16%, stock rises

Planisware SAS reported a robust financial performance for Q1 2025, with revenue reaching €47.5 million, marking a 16% year-on-year growth. The company’s stock reacted positively, rising by 5.77% to €23.85, reflecting investor confidence in its strategic initiatives and strong market positioning. The growth was driven by increased adoption of its SaaS model and a significant uptick in recurring revenue. According to InvestingPro data, the company maintains strong fundamentals with a GREAT financial health score and an impressive gross profit margin of 72.5%.

Key Takeaways

• Revenue grew by 16% year-on-year to €47.5 million.
• SaaS model now represents 82% of total revenue.
• Stock price increased by 5.77% following the earnings report.
• New AI-powered platform launched to strengthen competitive position.
• Expanded regional presence with new offices in Brussels and Seoul.

Company Performance

Planisware demonstrated significant growth in Q1 2025, buoyed by its strategic focus on SaaS and hosting services, which saw an 18.5% increase. The company has successfully leveraged its recurring revenue model, which now constitutes 92% of total revenue. This growth trajectory aligns with broader industry trends of digitization and automation, positioning Planisware as a leader in project portfolio management.

Financial Highlights

• Revenue: €47.5 million, up 16% year-on-year.
• SaaS and hosting revenue: up 18.5%.
• Recurring revenue: 92% of total revenue, up by 150 basis points year-on-year.
• TAP model revenue increased by €6 million, an 18% growth.

Market Reaction

Following the earnings announcement, Planisware’s stock rose by 5.77% to €23.85. This increase reflects investor optimism surrounding the company’s growth prospects and strategic initiatives. While the stock trades at a relatively high P/E ratio of 48.9x, InvestingPro analysis shows strong fundamentals, with the company holding more cash than debt and maintaining robust cash flows. The stock’s current price is still below its 52-week high of €31.2, suggesting potential room for further growth as the company continues to execute its strategy. InvestingPro subscribers have access to 10+ additional ProTips and comprehensive valuation metrics for deeper analysis.

Outlook & Guidance

Planisware reaffirmed its 2025 objectives, targeting mid to high teens revenue growth and an adjusted EBITDA margin of approximately 35%. The company also aims for a cash conversion rate of around 80%. Management expressed confidence in maintaining this growth trajectory despite potential elongation of sales cycles. InvestingPro data reveals analyst consensus remains positive, with price targets ranging from €25.03 to €37.54, while the company maintains a healthy current ratio of 2.55x, indicating strong liquidity. Discover detailed analyst forecasts and 1,400+ comprehensive Pro Research Reports available on InvestingPro.

Executive Commentary

CEO Jose Sokol emphasized the company’s strategic role in helping clients adapt to changing market conditions, stating, "We help our customers to reposition themselves strategically to a changing world." He also highlighted the importance of their solutions during economic downturns, noting, "Our solutions are mission critical for our clients even more in times of downturn."

Risks and Challenges

• Potential elongation of sales cycles could impact revenue recognition.
• Increased competition in the SaaS market may pressure pricing strategies.
• Economic uncertainties could affect client investment in new projects.
• Dependence on key sectors like semiconductors and automotive may pose risks if these industries face downturns.

Q&A

During the earnings call, analysts focused on the potential elongation of sales cycles and the company’s strategies for new logo acquisition. Management reiterated their strong commercial pipeline and flexible approach, highlighting continued demand for their strategic solutions across various vertical markets.

Full transcript - Planisware SAS (PLNW) Q1 2025:

Jose Sokol, CEO, Planisware: Good morning, and thank you for attending our call on Q1 twenty twenty five revenue of Planisware. This is Jose Sokol speaking. And as usual, I will share the presentation with Stephanie Pardo, our CFO. Well, I would like to start with the key highlights of this publication. First, Q1 revenue reached €47,500,000 It represents a robust sixteen year on year growth and 14.3% in constant currency.

This growth is totally within the range of our expectation for Q1 and aligned with our planned trajectory for the year aiming towards our mid to high teen growth rate objective for 2025. Our revenue growth continues to be driven by the success of our SaaS operation. This includes both our existing clients, who will support closely with our Ability Support practice, and new clients who are joining us. Both our clients and prospects are expressing a greater need for advanced solutions to manage our portfolio of strategic projects. More than ever, they seek better visibility and agility to navigate and adapt their operations, supply chain and strategic priorities in this particularly uncertain and challenging environment for them.

In this context, although we are not directly impacted by tariffs, we are still observing elongated customer decision making processes. So we continue to leverage our close connection with our existing customers while also initiating new commercial relationships. At this time of the year and given the current environment, we acknowledge a high level of percentages that may drive further elongation of sales cycles and delays in the start of new contracts. However, we remain confident in confirming our mid- high teens revenue growth objective for the year, along with our profitability and cash conversion targets. On the next slide, let me present some of our key recent achievements.

First, I’m happy to announce the opening of two new offices, the first in Brussels and the second in Seoul. Well, Planisware has been present in the Benelux region for several years with projects for customers such as Galapagos, KLM or UCB, and now consolidating its position in the strategic fast growing market. In particular, the group has recorded a significant increase in its business with sales doubling over the last four years. The goal with this new location is to be close to our customers and leverage a dynamic market with almost 1,200 target companies, nearly half of which have sales in excess of €1,000,000,000 particularly in high stakes sectors such as manufacturing with chemicals, agri food and industrial equipment, as well as retail and financial services. Against this backdrop, Planisware’s new sites strengthen its proximity to customers and its understanding of local issues.

Alongside an enhanced visibility, Planetware will be able to accelerate the signing of new logos and sustain the group’s growth in the region. As for South Korea, its advanced economy, strategic industry alignment and open net to digital transformation make it an ideal market for PlanetSwares growth in Asia. With a GDP exceeding $1,700,000,000,000 and strong sectors like semiconductor, automotive and electronic, South Korea offers a favorable environment for Planisware project and portfolio management solution. The presence of multinational clients using Planisware in their Korean subsidiaries and the proximity to Japan further enhance business prospects. Planisware’s regional experience, robust growth in Asia Pacific, and commitment to local expertise provides a solid foundation for success in South Korea.

Point number two is about our annual user conference, Xchange, that we hold in each of our key geographies. This event is very well named, as it truly embodies the spirit of Xchange, a platform for sharing knowledge, experiences, innovation. Every year, we gather the key project portfolio stakeholders from our clients to foster a collaborative environment. This is not just an opportunity for us to connect with our customers, but it’s also for our customers to connect with each other. Our clients, our best and best adults, spreading the word-of-mouth and sharing their incredible success stories.

This year, the North American twenty twenty five edition took place in San Francisco at the March. It was a tremendous success with incredible attendance of two sixteen of our clients represented. The energy, the enthusiasm was so high as we came together to share best practices, celebrate successes and discuss emerging market trends. Once again, this year’s sessions provided an hands on experience, allowing our clients to see firsthand the innovative solution that we are developing to meet their needs. And one of the highlights of the conference was the live demos showcasing our latest features, and in particular, of our AI powered unified platform that I presented to you in February, and that generated a lot of interest.

As a quick reminder, this new version of our platform, which is set to shape the future of strategic portfolio management. By staying at the forefront of innovation, we aim to deliver a next generation experience with the latest version of our platform, keeping us one step ahead of the competition. Now looking ahead, we believe that within the next five years, up to 80% of our users will interact with applications like Bladeysware through voice or chats. To prepare for this revolution, we have developed a semantic metadata model. This model abstracts and modify physical database objects into logical dimensions, making our platform future proof for increased AI usage.

The deployment of AI agents, which rely on the cemented model, will enhance our platform performance and create a significant barrier to entry for competitors in our business. Now before letting Stephanie discuss the revenue performance that we have, I would like to illustrate the commercial dynamic of Q1 with a few notable wins. Now, despite sales cycles remaining longer than a year before, clients and prospects expressed greater needs for advanced solution to manage a portfolio of strategic projects and gain better visibility and agility to navigate in the current uncertain environment. Planisware continued to support its existing customers in adapting and reorganizing themselves to a rapidly changing environment while maintaining or enhancing their operational efficiency. As a result, key clients such as Philips or Boston Scientific expanded their usage of Planisware solution and support practices.

This was partly the case in the automotive industry with clients such as Foc Factory in The US in PDNI, Continental in Germany, or Forvia in France. Now, Forvia is a typical scope extension following an acquisition made by our client. After the merger between Faurecia and Ella, Ella wondered whether to stay with SAP PPM or switch to Planisware. They carried out a comparative study of the two solutions, and Planisware advanced and spot on functionalities made the difference. The relevance of Planisware multi specialist approach has been demonstrated in many sectors, from retail in Australia with Kohl’s, or the pharmaceutical industry in Japan with Takeda, to automotive in The US and Sweden with Dana and HADV Group, which now uses Orchestra to manage its product development portfolio.

Dana is emblematic of the new logos that came much later than initially planned. This global leader in drivetrain and e propulsion systems has selected Planisware Enterprise as its program wide PPM solution. At a time when automotive suppliers are under pressure to accelerate innovation and improve efficiency, Benisware is a valuable partner in driving their successes by ensuring consistency and visibility and serve as the backbone for embedding global launch processes and centralized program tracking, providing a unified platform to streamline communication and foster collaboration. Dana also implements Planisware to manage cost buildup and business case analysis, enabling faster, more informed, strategic decision making. Now, Stephanie, let’s take a deeper dive into our revenue building blocks.

Stephanie Pardo, CFO, Planisware: Thank you, Loic, and good morning to all. I will start my presentation with revenue evolution by revenue stream for the first quarter. As usual, in order to reflect underlying performance of the company independently from exchange rate situation, I will focus my comments on revenue evolution in constant currencies, which means applying Q1 twenty twenty four exchange rate to Q1 twenty twenty five figures. FX effect was fully related to the U. S.

Dollar year on year appreciation versus Europe. As usual, the key driver of the revenue performance was our TAP model, which represented 82% of the total revenue and grew by almost $6,000,000 or plus 18%, fueled by new customer wins as well as continued expansion with our launch and sale base. Our SaaS model is made of SaaS and hosting revenue, up by 18.5%, support activities, which grew together by 16.7%, including a healthy plus 20% in evolutive support, particularly important in this time where our clients further rely on Planisware to adapt fast to the upturn context. Still in the recurring part of the revenue profile, management grew by 4.4% in Q1, a bit faster than its usual run rate, thanks to the licenses sold in 2024. And I’ll move to the nonrecurring part of the revenue, which represented in Q1 ’8 percent of the total revenue and declined by minus 4.5% or 200,000.0 Although decline came from TARPAFA licenses, which faced a high demand effect.

As you may remember, we have a strong demand early in 2024 from customers with specific compromise needs, in particular, in the defense sector. Oppositely, the plus the plus 4.4% revenue growth in instrumentation translates as dynamic activity in Q1 twenty twenty five led by the implementation of several large class contracts signed end of twenty twenty four. I move to the next slide. As usual, we would like to present how this revenue performance translates to the evolution of a revenue mix towards more and more recurring. In Q1, recurring revenue made of SaaS operations and maintenance of perpetual licenses represented 92% of the total revenue, which is 150 basis points higher than from the SaaS period last year.

The SaaS model itself represents 82% of total revenue, while it was 80% in 2023. Thanks for your attention. And I will let Louis to conclude.

Jose Sokol, CEO, Planisware: Thank you, Stephanie. Well, before concluding, I like to share with you why we consider the Planet Square book is fully geared to cope with any potential economic slowdown. First and foremost, we operate in a double digit growing market fueled by powerful megatrends, digitization, innovation, automation and energy transition. These trends are driving significant long term growth and providing us with numerous business expansion opportunities. The solutions proposed by Planetware are mission critical for our clients even more in time of downturn.

They provide the necessary visibility and agility, enabling the organizations to adapt and reorganize themselves to fast changing environment and to preserve or improve operational efficiencies. In addition, we enter long term relationships with our clients. These kind of partnerships are the backbone of our business built on trust and mutual benefits, ensuring sustained successes for all parties involved. This translates in a recurring revenue profile that is largely diversified in terms of geography and industry exposure, ensuring that our revenue is extremely resilient, especially in challenging times. We deliver high profitability and cash generation, which translated over the year in a particularly strong balance sheet.

This financial strength is a testament to our prudent financial management and allows us to reinvest in our business, drive innovation and deliver value to our stakeholders. At the end, it provides us with the flexibility to navigate economic uncertainties and save the new opportunities Of course, I will not be competitive here without mentioning our talented, engaged and loyal employee base, which is our greatest asset. Their dedication and expertise for our success enable us to achieve our strategic goal. I am so thankful to have the privilege to work with such an outstanding team every day.

All in all, we remain guided by a long term vision and sustainable investment policy. This ensures that we are not only focused on immediate gain, but also on creating long term value for all of our stakeholders. I mentioned during the introduction, while acknowledging a high level of uncertainty that may drive further allocation of sales cycles and delays in the start of new contract, we consider our high commercial pipeline and we remain confident and we so confirm all of our objectives for 2025. A mid- twenty eighteen revenue growth, circa 35% adjusted EBITDA margin and circa 80% cash conversion rate. This concludes our presentation.

Thank you for your attention. We are now ready to answer your questions.

Moderator: Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask the questions, kindly unmute your line and state your name and company you’re calling from. We will take one question at a time. Thank you.

You. Yes. Please go ahead.

Ingas, Analyst, BNP Paribas: Hello. This is Ingas from BNP Paribas. Thank you, Leighton and Stefanie, for this update. I just have a quick question. Given the moderate acceleration in H2 to reach the guidance, what would be needed to underwrite H2 acceleration?

Would it be more an improvement in deal win rates or just a mix effect of the SaaS in the revenue mix? Thank you.

Jose Sokol, CEO, Planisware: For H2?

Ingas, Analyst, BNP Paribas: Yes.

Jose Sokol, CEO, Planisware: Yeah. Well, for H2, we have more favorable comps that favor an acceleration.

Ingas, Analyst, BNP Paribas: And would you have any sense, any color to give us in this type of environment, how have q one deal win rates trended versus q four? And do you lose anything starting in April as it won’t be reflected in Q1?

Jose Sokol, CEO, Planisware: No. As we stated, we really have a continue to have a very, very strong pipeline, very dynamic. The need for the solution that we provide in some uncertain times are here more than ever. We help our customers to reposition themselves strategically to a changing world and a changing environment, to take the right strategic decision to respond to some of those changes. It continues to be very, very dynamic for us.

Sometimes there are a few delays that are coming from some announcements as people reposition themselves, but it is not a major impact for us.

Ingas, Analyst, BNP Paribas: Okay. So nothing to notice starting in April versus q one so far in the dividend rates, if I understand well?

Jose Sokol, CEO, Planisware: Yeah. That’s correct. So that’s correct. As I said, but maybe the few days of delay that people scrambled to understand some of how the situation was evolving. But at the end of the day, they get back to work and they need the right solution to reposition themselves strategically, and we provide this solution.

Ingas, Analyst, BNP Paribas: Okay. Thank you, Lloyd.

Moderator: Thank you. If you would like to ask questions, your line is open. Kindly state your name and company name.

Jose Sokol, CEO, Planisware: Can you hear me?

Moderator: Yes, please go ahead.

Victor Chang, Analyst, Bank of America: Hi, it’s Victor Chang from Bank of America. If I think about the guidance you have for the full year, what assumptions do you have on the underlying macro assumptions on both the high end and the low end of your guidance on top line? What are your thoughts into it? Maybe on the high end, is it a more benign macro situation that you have in mind or just internally driven by the pipeline conversion rate or the sales cycle, whether it’s more elongated or shortened? Thank you.

Jose Sokol, CEO, Planisware: Yes, absolutely. Well, if you look at the building block of our top line, a lot of this top line come from recurrence. And with the net retention rate that we had, take the one from 2024, ’1 hundred and ’20 ’1 percent, a very low churn rate that we have, 2.2% in 2024. Our top line was take that in. Now you’re right that the range that we have given is primarily driven essentially by new logos.

And the changes come from the timing. A new logo sooner has a direct impact to this variation the growth of the top line growth as opposed to a new logo later in the year, which is why we have such a wide range because that’s factored in some of the uncertainties that we see in the decision cycle, primarily for new logos, which is just a portion of our top line growth.

Victor Chang, Analyst, Bank of America: Thank

Moderator: Thank you for the questions. All lines are open. If you’d like to ask questions, please state your name and company name.

Jose Sokol, CEO, Planisware: Hello. Can you hear me?

Moderator: Yes, we can hear you.

Pavan Deswani, Analyst, Citi: Sorry. Pavan Deswani here from Citi. Thanks for taking my questions. Just a quick one on some of the trends you’re seeing by vertical potentially. You called out some macro elongation of sales cycles.

Where are you kind of seeing that appear more than others? And last quarter, you called out defense as being a potential area of focus. Is there any upside that you started to see come through? Appreciate there’s a bit of a time lag of when the sales cycle has come through.

Jose Sokol, CEO, Planisware: Yeah, wouldn’t say specifically that there is an industry where we see the elongation more than it’s more like across the board that we see the elongation of sales cycle. The need to justify spending is definitely here, but it’s really across the board.

Pavan Deswani, Analyst, Citi: Thanks. And on defense?

Jose Sokol, CEO, Planisware: On defense, well, I mean, fairly defensive, extremely active at the moment. We our pipeline, commercial pipeline is very, very active, both on new logos as well as existing clients that we have. We have a single client that operate in the defense industry. And they expand their usage of PlentySquare. Clearly, their market is expanding.

They need to deliver more projects. They need to deliver more projects faster. They need to position their resources on those projects properly. And there is a very large increase of credit score usage there that translates to some good expansion policy in this industry.

Moderator: Thank you for the questions. If you like to ask question, you may go ahead. State your name and company name.

Victor Chang, Analyst, Bank of America: Right. It’s from Bank of America again, assuming that, well, that’s just one more question I want to squeeze in. Obviously, talk about depending on the timing of winning new logos, but given the current elongated sales cycle and the current macro environment, are you doing anything different maybe to get the new logos either in the form of landing a bit smaller and looking to expanding later or any other kind of different ways to go to market that you are looking at?

Jose Sokol, CEO, Planisware: Yeah, it has always been the case for us that we don’t necessarily seek to land big from the get go. Now don’t get me wrong, if it is the case, we are pleased to see that. But it’s true that once our customers stop using Planning Square, they clearly get the value. They clearly get the value. It’s very sticky.

So it’s who that we start with some new logos, sometimes quite small, because we know that by providing the right solution, by bringing to our customers the specialist approach that we have, We know how to solve the issues that they are currently facing. We know that this is expanding. And that’s why a lot of our top line growth comes from revenue expansion, because we don’t necessarily want to land big. So we we definitely enter the customer this way. It’s not necessarily something new to us.

But clearly, it is a direction that it Got it.

Moderator: Thank you for the questions. As a reminder, to ask questions, you may just go ahead and state your name and company name. We appear to have no question at this time. I’ll hand it back to management for closing.

Jose Sokol, CEO, Planisware: Well, thank you very much for attending this call and for your attention. Please feel free to reach out to Bernard Amicrou if you have any additional questions. We’ll be very happy to answer them. Thank you.

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