ADS-TEC Energy - H1 2024

Transcript

Dennis Müller (SVP of Product Marketing Communication)

Hello and welcome, everybody, to this event. My name is Dennis Müller, SVP Product Marketing Communication from ADS-TEC Energy. ADS-TEC will today announce the financial highlights and results of the first half of this year, 2024. This period ended at the June 30th, 2024. May I have your attention to the forward-looking statements? This slide deck will contain forward-looking statements. You can read them in detail on slide number two. You will be able to download the presentation afterwards on the company's website. Before I hand over to our speakers, I will guide you through the agenda. We will start with a short summarization of the half year one. Then we will talk about market trends and challenges. After that, we will talk about our strategy and USPs.

After that, we will show you the financial highlights, and we will end up with a Q&A session, where you will be able to send us your questions, we will answer them. You can send these questions during this event via the web portal of the webcast you are logged in. With that, I will hand over now to our CEO, Mr. Thomas Speidel.

Thomas Speidel (CEO)

Thank you, Dennis. Welcome, dear ladies and gentlemen, investors. Thank you for taking your time, and I'm pleased to walk you through the first part before I will hand over to my colleague, the CFO, Wolfgang Breme. A few bullet points at the beginning, the revenue of the first half of 2024. We have been able to increase our revenues by 107% compared to last year, same period in 2023, so about 107% more, but the numbers will be explained by Wolfgang later. The Adjusted EBITDA is positive in the first half year, 2024. We have, and that is important, a significant amount of more customers. I will come to that later.

It turns out that our platform strategy and the concept of a multi-revenue business model is the right way, and I will give a little bit more input on that later on. We have meanwhile more than 2,500 high power charging points produced and delivered. Let me say a few words, please, about the market trends and challenges. I think we all are aware of the news and everything, what's going through the channels, E-Mobility, renewables, and I want to give a little bit an overview about the challenge and the volatile energy system. Who knows ADS-TEC knows that we are dedicated to the transition of, let's say, the existing energy system to a decentralized sector-crossing energy system, including also the mobility sector and transportation.

We come from a decentralized, let's call it the old world, centralized power supply, and we are heading, or we are already in the middle of that transformation to, we call it the new world, so decentralized, intelligent, renewable world. And that is exactly where ADS-TEC is dedicated to. So we are not a charging company, we are not a utility company. We are providing intelligent, decentralized flexibility platforms, which also can be used for supercharging, for energy trading and many things more, which we will see later on during this presentation as our strategy and the business model of our customers and future customers. Let me just explain a little bit about the volatile generation and consumption, which is the heart of the transformation.

So we know that the wind and also solar and all the renewables, that the energy is produced on a location and time base, which is not exactly adjusted or aligned with the consumption. And if we deduct from the generation, the consumption, then there is a difference between these two parameters, and we see that on the consumption side, we have new participants, such as the E-Mobility, electric vehicles, and they want to be slow or fast charged. We see the sectors heating are coming in, which is also part of the generation of new peaks and new consumption patterns. And we see even more in the future, such as electrolyzer, the sector coupling to gas and many others.

On the left side, the generation side is basically driven by volatility, and of course, we generate a higher amount of wind and energy on an offshore wind park than on an onshore smaller park. And also solar is on our rooftops or solar parks, and it's generated over the daytime and not at night. So the difference, we know that, that's the flexibility. And the best case, generation minus consumption is zero. That's not the case. And we call that the flexibility. And ADS-TEC wants to provide flexibility platforms, intelligent ones, and we see the flexibility is the twin brother of the regenerative generation. There is no regenerative world, which is our plan, without flexibility. Of course, we need grid expansion.

We never said that grid expansion is not a big part of that transformation, but grid expansion alone will not be able to solve the issue of a very volatile and growing, it's a huge growing market, so we have over-generation in times where it's not needed, and we have a lack of supply in times where electricity or energy is needed, and that's exactly the point where ADS-TEC and our solutions, platforms, and services are kicking in. We also see, and that's just a snapshot, we see that the grid expansion and the upgrade, which is of course necessary, but it's also very expensive.

We see that EUR 300 billion is planned for the transmission grids only over the next years, and another EUR 150 billion for the regional distribution grids, and the same or similar numbers we see in other countries and regions. It's a massive demand of investment, and so there will be a priority. There must be a priority where to spend the money into the grid expansion, take the resources, and upgrade the grid, and where we can do that better by optimization of using the existing grid capacity, and that can be done by flexibility, any kind of flexibility, not just batteries. There are more, but we are in ADS-TEC concentrating on battery buffer systems.

If we look at the grid fees, which is also a driver, then we see over the last years, let's say 2010 up to 2019, in average, we saw on households, consumer-based, and also commercial or industrial, in average between three and, let's say, five, almost 6% annual growth of the price. Now the last years, and this is due to the higher expenses for the grid upgrades, this investment must be distributed to all of us, to the end users, to the customers, to our electricity prices. We see that grid expansion, at the end, will lead to higher costs. Yeah, power prices are going up. In the U.S., we are talking about demand charge.

In Europe or Germany, we see that on our grid expenses, and so power prices are going up as well because somebody has to pay for it. And we think, we believe, we are convinced that with our flexibility and the digital way of using it, we can avoid the peaks. If you can avoid the peaks and the grid upgrade, then you can save a lot of money. Not only the grid upgrade itself, but also the total cost of ownership, because the OpEx will go down. We will not see these additional costs in our own electricity bill if we can avoid the upgrade. Challenge number two is, we call it the investors or the innovator's dilemma, and where we are right now in the segment of E-Mobility.

When we open the news every day, we see E-Mobility is going up, it's going down. Will combustion engines come back again? I just want to explain a little bit how we see it as ADS-TEC. First of all, let's have a look at innovation cycles, and they are usually happening. So we see at the beginning, we have a startup time. Any new technology has a startup. Then we have the early adopters, then we talk about the ramp-up phase. More and more people are taking the technology, and then we have a very strong period of growth. We see the saturation and then the decline. Let's say, you know, if we look at the records in the past, then the records have been taken over by the CD.

The CD has been taken over by MP3, and today we are on the streaming level. So these are the different technologies, and they are replacing each other. And if we look now here on the current business, which is our mobility sector, then we see the ICE, the internal combustion engine, the blue curve, and the green one, which is the pure EV technology. And it's the more efficient way of driving. So from our perspective, there is no other opportunity than on the long run, the EVs, because no gearbox, no exhaust system and so on. The efficiency is much higher. We have 90%+ on the electric motor compared to the combustion engine.

And now we see on this curve, the blue one, we are of course through a very long growth period. Now we are in the saturation, and the new curve has already started. We tried to point out where we think we are. That's the black spot here. And this area is kind of a dilemma zone. So a lot of companies are making their money from the blue curve, and at the same time, you have to invest in the green one. In this dilemma zone, this is what we see right now, and any politicians or would have a good advice if this will be transferred, or we make the transition to the new technology as soon as possible.

We are not hesitating by doing both, because that will lose a lot of money. We expect that now, after a little bit of a hesitation time, we will see that the green curve really gets up very strongly. If we look at the development of the EV market, and we compare Q1 2023 with Q1 2024, then we see in almost, in the majority of the markets, like, such as China, even U.S.A. or Europe, except of Germany and Italy, we see a growth in the EV development. Germany went down 14%, but that's also due to the reduction of the subsidies.

Last year, you got around EUR 6,000 if you have bought an EV, and then all of a sudden, by end of the year, it was canceled, which then led to a reduction in the EV population. And what we see is now that new drivers are coming in, so these are the latest news, some of them at least here from Germany. So we will see tax write-offs. We see that subsidies are kicking in again. And we also see that people realize that the total cost of ownership from EVs is cheaper than running a combustion engine. And over the next years, we will also see that CO2 emission cost will be another driver to invest in electric vehicles.

And one part, which is important, that also the fleets, if we look now, most of the new cars in Germany or also in Europe, are bought by companies. And so now, if you can save a lot of tax, and even people who are having a company car, and they can save tax and have more net income than compared to a combustion engine, then they will go for that. And now it's upgraded, so we can go up to the latest number was EUR 95,000 for. So the sticker price of a car can go up to EUR 95,000, and it has been so far EUR 60,000. So there is now room of development, and we expect that this is a driver of the EV segment as well.

And we also see that the range anxiety is mostly gone. Yeah, people who are driving an EV, they know that that's not the big point anymore. We just have one example. Last week, we had a drive from Venice here to Stuttgart, and with one charge, 25 minutes, that was done, and we had even 18% remaining capacity. So I think this is all done, and more and more people will see that it's more efficient, cheaper, and the way into the future. Based on that, now I cannot move to the next page. What has happened? Now it works. So this will drive with an enormous speed the population of EVs.

Here we are referring to development estimation from P3, and we see in Europe the growth which is expected in the U.S.. If we look at the numbers here on the timeline, then we are at the very beginning. According to the installation of the or the population of the cars, we will also see the demand for charging will grow. As we all know, it's very convenient to charge nearby or where you are, and that will be also a driver for installations on our offices, factories, in the cities, in residential areas, because for people, it's always more convenient to charge where you are. It might be even cheaper because you can use your own generation from solar, for example.

Some few words about the strategy and our USPs. We always talk about the intelligent platform solution, where we manage flexibility, but it's not us. It's always done in the combination with our customers and partners, and we, you know, just want to point that out again. Yes, of course, we have the hardware, and we have to own the hardware. We have to have full control over the hardware. That's the only way how we can provide services over many, many years. The reason that ADS-TEC has its own battery modules, own BMS, inverters, technology, security stacks, backend integration, digital twins, and all that, is that we are able to act over long-term period.

Based on that, we also have the full software stack, whether it's the charge controller, the inverter technology, the battery control system, and also the backend. We want to have full control over the software as well. That makes us, in total, the one partner, one-stop customer for our customers and long-term partners. Based on that, we can offer services, which is, yeah, availability services, remote monitoring, data acquisition, and also spare parts for a long term, and keeping the system up and running for not just five years or eight years, maybe for ten or fifteen. This saves the investment of our customers, so we take care about the total cost of ownership to maximize the outcome, the revenue streams out of your investment.

And in addition to that, and that is now the last part, we are adding software-based services, which may be, you know, digital payment, DC metering, but also apps. We call it also apps or features. Trading electricity back to the grid or to the store, peak shavers in, you know, real-time peak shavers or quarter-hour peak shavers, solar integration. Yes, of course, charging, but also others, such as advertisement on the ChargePost. So that is now the whole stream, yeah? It's not just a component. We are not competing on a component level. It's a platform, it's an ecosystem. And on this ecosystem, we will provide all the basic services and features and apps and data-driven services.

And our customers then are able to use not only the data and the apps. They can use the platforms, for example, to make a swarm out of many and then operate them as a virtual power plant or as a park. So even if no car is showing up for a charge, the investment can be used by other revenues. Here are some examples. We know that from the standard battery systems and then the two combined systems, including supercharging ChargeBox and ChargePost. Just to visualize the idea we see, and I always combine it with the Swiss Army knife. A normal charger might be a knife. Yeah, it can be used to cut something, but you have only one single business case.

A charger can take an electron from the AC grid and can transfer the electron to a DC very highly specified and standardized DC charging inlet of any of these cars. That's the only business model, and the only way to make revenue is that cars are showing up and utilization is high enough, and there is no competitor nearby who is selling the electron cheaper. What we are offering with the flexibility and the platform on the right side is charging is only one tool out of that Swiss Army knife. Yes, of course, you can supercharge. You can supercharge even on the power-limited grid, so you don't even have to have a grid expansion and pay for a higher price for the higher power rates in the future.

You have even more revenue streams out of your investment, which may be energy trading, peak shaving, grid services, advertising. It's depending also on the local regulation. We see that, you know, just in Germany, we have 850 grid operators. In Europe, we have many, many different regulations, whether it's in Austria, Switzerland, in U.K., and also in the U.S., North America. So we will follow all of these changing regulations, and we are the one-stop-shop partner who is able to adjust all these different things to optimize the business models of our customers and partners.

So this is what we call the ability to act, and it's important that you, our customers, and the investors have to know that as well, that there is a secure partnership where we can turn any of the screws which might be necessary. So if there is a new regulation in payment or in DC metering or in a grid code or in whatever else, then we are not depending on any third party. And I think that's a very important message because we have seen in many cases then that investments got stuck because dependencies from others led to the event that then the product was not able to be maintained furthermore, or that certification was lost and the company was not able to solve the problem because of the dependency from third parties.

One of my most important slides is here, how our business develops, and here you see the last years and maybe this gives also a very good insight into the business development. Let's start with the year 2020, and everybody knows that Porsche has been our first big customer, so it was one customer with a very high revenue in numbers, then in 2021, we basically got another six customers and partners into the business, and then in 2022, it went up to 10, then 18, and meanwhile, we are 53. And the base, the customer base has completely changed, and I want to say something about the sales channel and how long it takes.

So if we onboard or if we come together with a, let's say, a startup, then that might be much faster than with a blue-chip customer, because a blue-chip customer, they take the time to do all the evaluation. We know that in the market, many people over the last years have been disappointed, because systems were not running, uptimes have been not as they have been expected, so they want to test it. And we see what we have done over the last years, we brought more and more of these blue-chip customers into our customer base. And on the right side, we see the business cycle, as we call it.

So the first order is, we have more than fifteen customers now coming in from automotive OEMs, gas station, retail destination, charge point operators, fleets and depots, even the e-boat business. And then they start with the rollout, most of them with a small numbers from one, five, ten, maybe fifteen, and they are now. Here we have our second business cycle, where they ramp up their installation, and then we are getting to the recurring services because we can sell also the services, such as availability services or data-driven services. And then in the last part, which is number four, and I just explained it, in the future, we will offer also the digital subscriptions based on data and additional apps which can be operated on our systems by our customers and partners.

I think the most important thing is here, that we grew exponentially from the amount of customers. So, and that was a really hard work because the sales cycle, and this is something I want just to point out with this slide, to onboard or to get onboarded also the other way around, from a blue-chip corporation, one of the well-known companies, that takes between nine and 12 months.

So from the first touch point that the customer gets interested in our technology or platforms, until they really buy the first systems, and we have seen that last year very big corporations they decided to buy one system, then they put it six months into a lab, do all the testing and whether it's according to the specification or to the expectation, and then even then it takes up to six months until the first sites beside the testing labs then are installed. And so it's a step by step, and also the onboarding on the commercial side, yeah, to discuss and to negotiate frame orders. If you want to spread the business over many countries, then it takes time to get all the legal stuff and the financial contractual work done. The same we see in North America or in Canada.

And so we need to see that the timeline to get onboarded into these bigger structures is not days or weeks, but then it ramps up. We just want to point out that we now have more than 50 of these partners and customers onboarded over the last three years, and that is also the basis of the growth in the future. For us, it's important that now the risk also is much more spread to many customers. So it's much more risky if we have one or two or three customers with a high number, compared to a significant amount of customers taking maybe at the beginning a lower number, but then growing with us together into that market.

And we are very happy that more and more people understand that there is a differentiation between just buying a charger as a component, or having the opportunity to run a flexible digital platform and to optimize your own revenue streams on your side in the infrastructure. And we see that more and more people understand that they have a new opportunity to make revenue, because due to the fact that the electricity and the sector coupling now is coming to us on our location, on our premises, on the factory site, on the office building sites, that they can also make money and that they are not depending on a utility anymore, where they just have to accept what they are offering. So you can use now your own photovoltaic.

You can optimize the charge of your fleet, your customers, your visitors, and also then the sector coupling, including heating and the normal consumption of electricity. So with that, a few words about the proven track record, and we see here that we have expanded the business over the last year and also the last half year in further segments. As we see that electric trucks are getting more and more important. ADS-TEC is not focusing on the megawatt charging. We believe that the battery, and that's always our case, so the flexibility must be part of the platform, the ecosystem. But we see that even big trucks that they can use it. Here we have an example from the Netherlands. It's a garbage truck, and they run the garbage trucks the whole day.

And along the route, we have then installed ChargeBoxes, which are able to charge the trucks with 300kW. And we want, over the next years, we can expand that up to maybe 600 or 640kW. But we are not addressing the multi-megawatt charging infrastructure or product, because we believe that here the direct grid connection will be the right solution. We also see that new segments, such as boating, are getting interested more and more, and of course, we have expanded the business, the ChargePost, to much more customers, and also the ChargeBox is now in more OEM solutions integrated. And we see that the business and the demand for ChargePost and ChargeBox will be more.

Just to give you one example. Why should not, for example, the police use EVs? How many thousand tons of CO₂ can be saved every year if just the police here, our state, Baden-Württemberg or Bavaria, or whoever, would replace a part of the combustion cars by pure EVs? They are just driving in average 100 km a day, so that's nothing for EV. If we would equip the infrastructure on all the distributed police stations with, for example, a ChargeBox or a ChargePost, that would be very easy, but it will have a high impact on the CO₂ emission, and that can be all done right now. We see that many of these discussions are coming up.

One last example, one customer, they have invested in an infrastructure for taxi. We call it a taxi platform. So the investors are providing the taxis themselves, pure EVs, including the charging infrastructure, which is fully equipped with ADS-TEC ChargePosts. And they started in one European city. And the taxi driver, they just pay a flat rate per month, and they get charging for free, without unlimited charging. Charge as much as you can, and they pay just one fixed amount per month to the investors, and so they can use the car and the charging infrastructure. And I think these new models, and that shall be spread now to other countries in Europe as well. We think we are at the very beginning of also new business models, which will change the complete setup as well.

Here we see, just to give you some more ideas about where it could be used. On the left here, we see the exhibition in Munich, where E.ON has shown our charger. And also here on Esso gas stations, which, by the way, we have now more brands from the gas stations taking chargers. Why? Because it's kind of a self-obligation that the gas station said, at least here in Germany, that they want to equip their their sites with at least one or two superchargers, and here, it is, in many locations, it is cheaper to not upgrade the grid, and then they just rip out the vacuum cleaner and put a ChargeBox in, and then you have a 300kW charger on that site.

We also see distributed areas here, where you see the Taycan, so it's, I would say it's almost in the middle of nowhere, but even there, people want to charge, and they want to quick charge their cars, so this is also a new segment, and we see on the left an example where, for example, rental cars, sorry. Rental cars are now using more and more EVs and to quick charge the return cars. It's also impossible to equip all the return locations from the rental cars with a grid upgrade or superchargers, so these are just some ideas. On the right side, we see a retail store, and here we have another example for a gas station, which is in Berlin.

So with that overview, I would like to hand it over to you, Wolfgang, and please take over and tell us something about the financial highlights.

Wolfgang Breme (CFO)

Of course. Thank you, Thomas, and good day, everyone. Before giving you more insights into the state of our business from a financial perspective, I'm also, as Thomas, excited to report that ADS-TEC Energy continued its strong financial and operational performance in the first half of 2024, achieving key milestones that underscore the company's ongoing growth trajectory. We are delighted to report that first half of 2024 revenue was EUR 79.3 million. For Q2, revenue reached EUR 42.4 million. This reaffirms our confidence in the strength of our business model, robust customer demand, and the overall market opportunity. We remain committed to driving sustainable growth and long-term shareholder value. We are excited about the ongoing growth of our business, the progress we have made in the last years, and the opportunities that lie ahead.

Before giving you an outlook for fiscal year 2024, let me go back to our H1 2024 numbers in more detail. You will find all the details in the appendix to this presentation, where you'll find P&L, balance sheet, cash flow statement in detail. We are very excited to report strong performance year to date. Our revenue grew more than 107% compared to last year's period, which was EUR 38.3 million. From a product perspective, most of our sales, like in previous reporting periods, was generated by charging products, which we have seen before, ChargeBox and ChargePost, which accounted for the majority of total revenues. Commercial and industrial products, service, and others were also contributing. From a geographic perspective, most of the revenue originates from Europe.

This underlines that Europe is ahead of the United States in terms of EV adoption at this stage. ADS-TEC Energy, with its strong European footprint in service and production, is well positioned to cope with the expected strong growth in that geographical market. Important to mention is that European markets outside Germany and also the United States markets are growing and prove our growing international footprint. From a customer perspective, we saw a significant broadening of our customer base, as Thomas explained, with significant players entering the market, but also increasing investments from financial institutions in the charging business. This accelerates our growth potential as we go forward. Turning to gross profit, we saw improvements quarter on quarter. Q2 of 2024 was the third quarter in a row with positive gross margins.

For H1, gross profit came in at EUR 15.7 million and gross margin of 19.8%, compared to a break-even gross profit in the first half of 2023. Improving purchasing environments, optimized production processes, and finally, economies of scale and volume impacts turned the gross margin into the black numbers we saw for the first half. Coming to operational expenses below gross margin, which amounted to EUR 20 million, this means sales, general, and admin expenses, as well as research and development expenses. The increase compared to H1 of 2023 is only 11.7%, which indicates better efficiency in our sales and administrative functions. The levels we have reached here allow to support the business going forward, but both geographical expansion and an increasing service component may require more investments.

Needless to say, that listing expenses, including insurance costs, contributed here also, as well as increased general warranty provisions because of the growing top line. R&D expenses grew significantly because of increased costs in that area and also lower capitalization of development expenses as our product lines offer and offerings mature. Other income and expenses in the first half of 2024 and previous year are driven by operational currency exchange gains and losses, which are not substantial to the business. Our operating result came in at -EUR 5 million in H1 2024, compared to -EUR 20 million in H1 2023, so a strong improvement here. Our EBITDA came in at -EUR 1.4 million for H1 2024, compared to -EUR 17.6 million in the period last year.

Adjusted EBITDA, adjusted for share-based payments and inventory adjustments for the first six months, is EUR 3.6 million, compared to -EUR 14.3 million in the previous period last year. More importantly, Q2 2024 marks the third profitable quarter on an EBITDA-adjusted base since the IPO de-SPAC process, as I said, on an adjusted EBITDA basis. Looking at the balance sheets, we further reduced our inventory. Trade receivables were up in comparison to last year because of the increase in revenues. We ended the second quarter with a solid cash position of EUR 23.7 million. The proceeds of the exercise of warrants arising from the December capital raise were used to repay portions of our shareholder loan facilities we entered into in 2023. Now, let me come back to the outlook for full year 2024.

We anticipate continued positive momentum in the second half of the year, with expectations for increased sales revenue compared to the first half of the year. The company remains on track to be Adjusted EBITDA positive for the full year, reinforcing its position as a leader in the ultra-fast charging market. On those revenue levels, which will be the highest in the company's history, we are expecting, again, a positive EBITDA for the year. For 2024 and beyond, with at least doubling our revenues, we anticipate substantial growth, driven by a very strong customer dynamics and market trends. Let me summarize the key takeaways from our presentation. First, ADS-TEC Energy technology, best-in-class. We have installed more than two and a half thousand battery-based DCFC charging points shipped and delivered.

ChargeBox and ChargePost have been proven by real operating data from our clients, exceeding customer expectations at very high utilization levels at the sites where we have our installed base, and our technology, not to forget, has been developed for more than a decade. Secondly, fulfillment and growth. We have achieved a target of more than EUR 100 million in 2023 in terms of revenues. Our revenues in the first half of this year are exceeding EUR 79 million, reflecting a growth of EUR 107 million compared to last year, and we see a significant increasing number of blue-chip clients. Thirdly, margin improvements, Adjusted EBITDA positive in H1 of this year. We expect to be EBITDA positive for the whole of this fiscal year, 2024. We see incremental margin improvements by adding high added value for our clients.

Service revenue growth started in following our platform strategy. With that, thank you very much, and I return to Dennis.

Dennis Müller (SVP of Product Marketing Communication)

Yeah. Thank you, Thomas. Thank you, Wolfgang. Now it's time for our Q&A sessions. Currently, there are no incoming questions in the chat. I would say we are waiting some seconds. If you will have further more questions, send in, please, via the web chat. But one question maybe for Thomas: What will be the biggest challenge for ADS-TEC and the competition, I would say, in the next one or two days, two years?

Thomas Speidel (CEO)

As I tried to point out, we are in the middle of this huge transformation, and that is something which is. I would say it's a once in a century. We will see this hesitating period for maybe some more months or years, but then it will be very, very clear that the future will be based on decentralized energy, also on the renewable side, as well as on the consumption side, and so we need flexibility. I also want to emphasize again that the E-Mobility will come, there is no doubt.

And then I expect that the politics will be more clearer, because if it's without any doubt that this is the future, we may take down the hurdles and the investments in many things in parallel, and that will be an acceleration for our business and also the business of all our competitors and everybody who is in that market. But politics and regulations, and to answer your question, will play a big role.

Dennis Müller (SVP of Product Marketing Communication)

Thank you very much. Now there are coming questions in, a lot of questions. Thank you for that. Next question: What percentage of revenue in the first half of the year came from Germany, and how will that change in the second half? Maybe Wolfgang.

Wolfgang Breme (CFO)

So, as I said in my presentation, the majority of our revenue comes from a strong customer base here that accounted for approximately three quarters of our revenue in the first half of the year.

Dennis Müller (SVP of Product Marketing Communication)

Thank you. Next question: Could you describe your capacity to fulfill demand growth the next two to three years?

Thomas Speidel (CEO)

I guess we have pointed out that last time, maybe we should have implemented it in this presentation again, so first of all, the production capacity in our factory in Dresden is high. Now, we can produce 5,000 systems, 10,000 dispensers a year. This is not the amount we can sell today, unfortunately, so we have spare capacity here. I would say, for the next one or two years, which has been the question at least, and we are prepared in North America to logistics within, let's say, one or one and a half year. We pointed that out during the last presentations, and that's still. I would say we are fully set for what we can expect over the next years.

Dennis Müller (SVP of Product Marketing Communication)

Thank you very much, Thomas. Next question: how does ADS-TEC expect to finance growth?

Wolfgang Breme (CFO)

I think that's maybe for me. First of all, you have seen that also, if you take our cash flow statement, that. As a public company we use the capital markets with a private placement of the Norwegian investor exercise, which gave us additional flexibility in financing to pay back the shareholder loans. For those of you who follow the company, we've also entered into new shareholder loan facilities, again, a few days and weeks ago, which is also public information.

So you can see that we are seeing continuous support of our shareholders and of course, we are looking forward to making the company bankable, because we, as a startup scale-up company business right now, we have to work on our bank rating, which we actively do, so that we then can also leverage the not only equity finance our business. So going forward, the first step as a startup scale-up will be going with shareholder support, existing shareholder support. Secondly, going to the capital markets, and then number three, as the company matures, setting up the credit side of the balance sheet with the equity and debt, of course.

Dennis Müller (SVP of Product Marketing Communication)

... Thank you very much. Maybe another question for Thomas: Can we get an update on your business development efforts in the U.S. market? Or maybe what will be there, the next steps?

Thomas Speidel (CEO)

We still are convinced that North America will be a huge market. So even as Wolfgang said so far, it might be a little bit, Europe ahead, but, the U.S. and also North America in total is such a huge, huge, area that we believe it will be a strong EV market. We have started in the U.S., and, you have seen our projects in Marina Palms, which is private charging, but also now other OEMs. We have, deployed the first units to another OEM, which is Ford. We have, started the direct sales, but we also do it on a very, solid and careful way.

We have seen others who, from our perspective, have invested very early also in build in America and made in America, which we are prepared to do, but we need to see the market to really catch up and ramp up. We are working on some specific projects also with numbers, which would allow us to do so. So it's kind of, yeah, being there, working on all of the opportunities, preparing the Made in America structure. But stepping into that and also doing the final or investments, which are pretty high, this will be done, and we explained that several times. If the business is affording to, then the production we will set up, and so it's a step-by-step approach, which we have always said, and that's still the same strategy.

Dennis Müller (SVP of Product Marketing Communication)

Thank you very much, Thomas. Another question for Wolfgang, I guess. Finance expense was very high in H1 of year one, where there are some one-off items in that. How should we think about interest expense on a normalized basis?

Wolfgang Breme (CFO)

Yeah, very good question. So this is why I also tend to work more for communication purposes with operating expense, operating income or EBITDA. The finance expense, which you see in the first half of the year, are driven by the fair value valuation of the warrants we have issued to our warrant holders. And when the stock price does what it thankfully did in the last six months, is when the stock price increases, the fair value of the warrants increases as well. And the counter entry in accounting, logically, is finance expense, which we have to show there. So it's not an interest expense, it's a non-cash item. If you go to our cash flow statement, it's simply driven by the fair valuation of the warrants, which we have outstanding.

It's in the range of public warrants of around 11 million and another 5 million of private warrants.

Dennis Müller (SVP of Product Marketing Communication)

Thank you very much, Wolfgang. Next question, I think that's for Thomas. How do you intend to mitigate against an increasingly volatile EV market, in particular in Germany, impacting ADS-TEC's business, and how do you intend to ensure the outlined further growth for ADS-TEC?

Thomas Speidel (CEO)

Yeah, I guess that, that exactly comes to the core of our business strategy. So, as I said, we are not selling chargers, and, so it's not a charging component. You can also charge, and if you look at the big picture, then it is flexibility. And as I tried to explain, even if no car will show up, we will integrate and implement more and more business cases, such as trading, such as peak shaving, such as solar integration. And that, gives a little bit of independence from the charging business. But nevertheless, I guess all of us, we expect that the EV fleets are going up.

But I always said, and I did that over the last three years, that just relying on charging and the utilization of charging and selling electrons on a level which finances the whole infrastructure and business may not be the only opportunity, and this is, I guess, something we have to consider and see if there are more revenue streams paying into one investment. This is interesting, and that's something where our customers can mitigate the risks, so it's not about us. It's more that we are helping investors and infrastructure operators to mitigate their risk just coming from utilization of EV charging rather than adding other revenue streams.

Dennis Müller (SVP of Product Marketing Communication)

Thank you very much, Thomas. Wolfgang, I guess that's for you. Could you expand on the decrease in SG&A year over year and your expectations for that going forward?

Wolfgang Breme (CFO)

When I say correctly, we haven't decreased. We have relatively decreased the SG&A. And what I said before, for the current setup, the company is well-equipped, and the efficiency in those areas, which is selling general and admin, is improving. But we talked about expansion in the U.S., we talked about expansion in service, we talk about expansion in especially in our sales force, both in North America and in Europe, in the European countries as well. So we can expect an increase, but the increase will be significantly under the growth trajectory of our revenue growth. So it's definitely growing. But as I said, what you said, we doubled our revenues, more than doubled the revenues in H1, and the SG&A increase was around 11%-12%.

This is something I would also model into going forward.

Dennis Müller (SVP of Product Marketing Communication)

... Thank you very much, Wolfgang. Another question, I guess, for Thomas. Can you give some more outlook and guidance concerning your energy storage business? That means the C&I business, I guess. What are the updates on the expansion towards the residential segment?

Thomas Speidel (CEO)

Yeah, I guess we already talked about that at the beginning of the year, but I want to say that again and explain. So first of all, the residential area. The residential market has basically been taken over by products coming from Far East. We see that, so the deployment, we have now more than a million, you know, battery buffered systems in the residential area. We know that from the Battery Storage Association, these numbers are public, and we have decided that it makes no sense for us to go into that residential market. We rather want to keep the flexibility strategy as explained, and therefore, we see now over the last years, the size has changed. So it's from the investment and also from the physical impact, much better to have higher power and higher capacities.

We have the fully combined Swiss Army knife with the chargers, which is ChargePost, ChargeBox, and then we stick to the C&I business. Yes, we have been, over the last years, more focused on charging because that was the biggest project in our company. Now we are also increasing the efforts in C&I, which means flexibility, which does not integrate the charging in one product, but it will be a battery buffered system within inverter. But all the software and the services, again, comes from ADS-TEC. If you look at our references, you see over the last more than 10 years now, we have many hundred megawatt hours of C&I chargers, battery systems out in the field, up and running, and we plan to increase that now in the next level.

We are working here as well on new battery technologies so that we can also, you know, be on the competitive side of the business, because we all know that this is under a great pressure also in the market. We must be careful that we are not dropping into the naked component business, which, as I said, is always a difficult place to be, and that's not our target.

Dennis Müller (SVP of Product Marketing Communication)

Thank you, Thomas. Then with respect to the timing, I would propose last question for Wolfgang. How about your cash needs in the next two years? Will you need further investments slash capital? Do you expect the need for a capital increase?

Wolfgang Breme (CFO)

This is a very good question. We discussed about the expansion in the United States, which is very clear. If we want to go into the United States with our own production to cope with Buy America, Build America, we definitely need to look for further financing, because that's, of course, something which we cannot finance out of our operational cash flow. On the other side, if we take just the ongoing business or the charging business as it stands today, if you take a look into our cash flow statement, you will see that we are approaching the break-even cash flow line and operating cash flows. So this is something which we finance out of our operating cash flow, but the expansion of the business would need further financing measures.

As I said before, currently, we are supported by existing shareholders, and we will not exclude that we will also look for additional funding in the future, whether it's equity or whether it's also credits.

Dennis Müller (SVP of Product Marketing Communication)

Thank you very much, Wolfgang. Thank you, Thomas. Thank you to the audience for your time and attention. As I mentioned in the beginning, you will be able to download the presentation on the company's website after this event, and yeah, that's it from my side.

Thomas Speidel (CEO)

Thank you very much for attending and listening.