Matti Mujunen, CEO, in the Half-year report 1 January–30 June 2024:
“Netum’s business continued its positive development during the second quarter of 2024. Our revenue increased to EUR 11.3 million, or by 31 per cent year-on-year. Organically, revenue grew by 4.9 per cent. The growth in revenue was supported by acquisitions completed last year, strong demand from existing customers and an increase in invoicing rates.
Revenue developed strongly, especially in Studyo Ltd’s and Buutti Ltd’s businesses and Netum Ltd’s Digital services. During the review period, we acquired approximately 40 new customers. Profitability also continued to develop positively. EBITA for the second quarter was EUR 0.9 million (7.9 % of revenue), compared to EUR 0.1 million (1.6 %) in the comparison period. In addition to revenue growth, the strengthening of profitability was attributable to the changes to our cost structure and measures to reduce overheads we implemented in 2023.
We have continued to develop our sales operations by, for example, enhancing the sales cooperation of our subsidiaries, deepening our customer and industry knowledge and systematising the use of our partner network. Our customers’ satisfaction with our services and operations is high; the NPS was 68 at the end of June.
During the first half of the year, we updated our medium-term financial targets and strategy, which were published in late May. We want to be the most trusted partner in our industry and the most sought-after work community in responsible and safe digital transformation. We will continue on the path of profitable growth; our goal is to grow our revenue organically by 30 % in the strategy period 2025–2027 and achieve an annual EBITA level of at least 12 %. In particular, we will seek additional growth from public service efficiency improvement projects and the business sector. In developing our service offering, we will be investing heavily in the use of artificial intelligence in the services we offer our customers. We recognise the potential of AI to create significant added value for our customers, improve our operational efficiency and support our growth. The deeper integration of AI into our business operations is, therefore, a central part of our strategy and will be an essential part of our culture in the future. In our sustainability work, we have prepared for CSRD reporting by conducting a double materiality assessment, which defines the areas of responsibility that are important to us.
There is still demand for IT development services in public services, but the outlook is twofold. While the numerous digitalisation projects in the Government Programme create positive expectations, the austerity measures already initiated will slow down customers’ decision-making and will have a negative impact on demand in the near future. In the social welfare and healthcare market, the organisation of service financing continues to pose challenges, which is reflected in delays in the progress of projects. We are seeing a slight recovery in demand in the corporate sector.
Although we are well employed by our current customers and have gained a record number of new customers, the planned savings in public services will create uncertainty for the rest of the year. We expect our revenue to continue to grow both organically and inorganically and our profitability development to remain strong. In 2024, we still estimate revenue to be EUR 45–49 million and comparable EBITA to be approximately 8–11 per cent of revenue.
I would like to extend my warmest thanks to all of our employees, customers, partners and investors for a successful first half of the year.”