Basware Interim Report January-March 2021: Net sales in line with expectations, positive development in profitability and order intake impacted by continued uncertainty in the business environment

Basware Corporation, stock exchange release, April 20, 2021 at 8.45 a.m. EEST

January-March 2021

• Cloud ARR order intake amounted to EUR 2.9 million (EUR 3.6 million)
• Net sales decreased 1.3 percent to EUR 37,742 thousand (EUR 38,245 thousand), which amounted to 0.0 percent organic growth at constant currencies
• Cloud revenue increased 4.6 percent to EUR 29,043 thousand (EUR 27,774 thousand), which amounted to 6.0 percent organic growth at constant currencies
• EBIT amounted to EUR 1,380 thousand (EUR 100 thousand)
• Earnings per share (diluted) were EUR -0.10 (EUR -0.25)

Key figures

¹ At the end of the period.

The interim report is unaudited.

Guidance for 2021

Basware expects uncertainty in the business environment to continue in the first half of 2021 and keeps the guidance for the full year 2021 unchanged:

• Modest positive Net sales growth on an organic constant currency basis

• EBIT approximately at the same level or better than the previous year

CEO Klaus Andersen:

“Basware’s profitability and cash position continued to develop positively during the first quarter of the year with net sales developing in line with expectations. Total net sales were EUR 37.7 million, which amounted to flat organic growth at constant currencies. The expected accelerated reduction in maintenance revenues were compensated by the Cloud revenue growth of 6% and Consulting revenue growth of 12% organic at constant currencies in Q1. EBIT amounted to EUR 1.4 million for the quarter, a substantial improvement of EUR 1.3 million compared to the corresponding period last year, Cash from operating activities delivered EUR 6.4 million.

Order intake continued to be impacted by uncertainty in the business environment primarily caused by the pandemic. The cautiousness, especially among large enterprises, seen during the crisis continued into the first quarter and impacted sales activities. Cloud order intake amounted to EUR 2.9 million.

Nevertheless, we welcomed several, important new customers in Q1 and continued to expand our business relationships with many of our existing customers. Among others, Jeld-Wen Inc., a global manufacturing company based in North America, joined as a new customer in Q1 and we increased our cloud business with existing customers such as GKN Automotive and Valmet.

Our partner and co-exist strategy reached an important milestone as we signed a contract with Harbour Energy Plc, a leading independent North Sea oil and gas group, enabled by a partner led joint bid together with a global procurement focused competitor of ours. In March, PwC Germany, a leading auditing and consultancy firm, also became a member of our partner ecosystem, with Basware cloud solutions now being used by PwC Germany to deliver finance transformations to their customers.   

We were pleased to receive a Leader category recognition from IDC MarketScape 2020-2021 report in February. We also continued to develop and expand our solutions further with the new and fully integrated Shopping Experience in Basware Purchase to Pay being completed. Global Statutory compliance remains a key element within our network services and our journey continued by adding a new E-Invoice Receiving Solution compliant with China Fapiao Regulations allowing customers to quickly and easily detect non-compliant invoices.

In March, we announced that Chief Revenue Officer, Paul Taylor stepped down from the Basware Executive Team to take on the role of Country Manager for United Kingdom and Ireland leading one of Basware's key growth markets. The search for a new Chief Revenue Officer has now commenced and, in the interim, I will act as the Chief Revenue Officer.

Our full year guidance remains unchanged and we continue to expect a gradual normalization of the business environment towards the second half of the year.“

Results conference call

Time: Tuesday, April 20, 2021 at 2 p.m. EEST / 12 p.m. GMT
Place: Basware HQ, Linnoitustie 2, Cello-building, Espoo, Finland
Video webcast and teleconference registration: https://basware.videosync.fi/2021-q1-results

Teleconference numbers:

Finland: +358 981 710 310
Sweden: +46 856 642 651
United Kingdom: +44 3 333 000 804
United States: +1 6 319 131 422 

PIN: 87272028#

To join in analysts and press briefing, please contact ir@basware.com.

Basware Corporation

Klaus Andersen
CEO

For more information, please contact:
Martti Nurminen, CFO, Basware Corporation
Tel. +358 (0)40 751 7194, martti.nurminen@basware.com

Distribution:
Nasdaq Helsinki
Main media
investors.basware.com/en

About Basware:
Basware offers the largest open business network in the world and is the global leader in providing networked purchase-to-pay solutions and e-invoicing services. Our technology empowers organisations with 100% spend visibility by enabling the capture of all financial data across procurement, finance, accounts payable and accounts receivable functions. Basware is a global company doing business in more than 100 countries and is traded on the Helsinki exchange (BAS1V: HE). Find out more at https://investors.basware.com/en.