Wallbox - Earnings Call - Q2 2025

Transcript

Speaker 5

Hello everyone, and welcome to Wallbox's second quarter 2025 earnings conference call and webcast. At this time, all participant lines have been placed in listen-only mode to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. Analysts who wish to ask a question can place themselves into the queue by pressing star one. I would now like to turn the call over to Michael Wilhelm from Wallbox. Michael, please go ahead.

Speaker 3

Thank you, and good morning and good afternoon to everyone listening in. Thank you for joining today's webcast to discuss Wallbox's second quarter 2025 results. This event is being broadcast over the web and can be accessed from the investor section of our website at investors.wallbox.com. I am joined today by Enric Asunción, Wallbox CEO, and Luis Boada, Wallbox CFO. Earlier today, we issued our press release announcing results from the second quarter ended June 30, 2025, which can also be found on our website. Before we begin, I would like to remind everyone that certain statements made on today's call are forward-looking, that may be subject to risks and uncertainties relating to future events and/or the future financial performance of the company. Actual results could differ materially from those anticipated.

The risk factors that may affect results are detailed in the company's most recent public filings with the SEC, including in the annual report on Form 20-F for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2024, filed on May 6, 2025. We will be presenting unaudited financial statements in IFRS format that reflect management's best assessment of actual results. Also, please note that we use certain non-IFRS financial measures on this call, and reconciliations of these measures are included in the presentation posted on the investor section of our website. Also, a copy of these prepared remarks can be obtained from the investor relations website under the quarterly results section, so you can more easily follow along with us today. With that out of the way, I will turn it over to Enric.

Speaker 0

Thank you, Michael, and thanks everyone for joining us today. We will start today's call reviewing highlights from the second quarter 2025 and spend time discussing commercial wins, strategic achievements, and the EV market. Luis will offer a closer look at our financial results and our key financial metrics before I close the conversation to highlight what we are focused on for the second half of the year. Q2 revenue was €38.3 million, within our €37-39 million guidance range, up 2% compared to last quarter, but down 22% from a record high Q2 last year. The different revenue lines contributed similarly as the previous quarter, with the growth resulting from increased AC sales and software. Sales in Europe incrementally improved compared to last quarter, with countries such as Spain and Italy showing strong growth.

Considering the solid EV market growth in the region, we are looking forward to improvements and further growth ahead. We are seeing sales accelerating with larger partners, and we have decided to selectively invest in parts of our sales structure to capture the renewed market growth with smaller customers. North America has remained a strong contributor as we continue to develop our position in this region with existing and new partners. DC sales have been flat quarter over quarter, but we signed new partnerships and already see the results in orders for the second half of the year. In total, during the second quarter, we delivered over 39,000 AC units and more than 140 DC units. Most importantly, we built a significant backlog for both AC and DC, which increased by more than €5 million.

We aim to continue building our backlog to increase sales visibility and, as a result, improve our operational efficiency. Gross margin was 37.8% in the second quarter, which is within the 37% to 39% guided range. Compared to last quarter, the gross margin was stable as the revenue mix was similar as well. The additional gross margin improvements we are working on are not visible yet in the results. As we have been able to significantly reduce our inventory, which Luis will comment on later, this gives us an opportunity to improve gross margin in the future. On top of that, we continue to review our bill of material costs and are increasing our prices in certain regions. Improving the operational efficiency by right-sizing the organization remains on track.

For the second quarter of 2025, labor costs and operating expenses are down 3% compared to last quarter and declined 25% compared to the same period last year. In the case of cash costs, which is defined as labor costs and OpEx, excluding R&D activation, non-cash items, and one-off expenses, the result is even more impressive as we achieve a 35% year-over-year reduction. It is great to see our efficiency improve each quarter as we edge closer towards profitability. We are achieving this expanded efficiency, meanwhile consciously taking care of how our setup is best serving our markets, business units, and allowing us to capture maximum growth. If this means we need to selectively invest in the sales structure or customer support, we are doing so, but always with a profitability and return on investment mindset.

The second quarter 2025 adjusted EBITDA is within our guided range, landing at minus $7.5 million and reflecting a small improvement compared to last quarter. If we compare to the same period last year, adjusted EBITDA improved 33%. Our improvements towards operational breakeven are consistent. However, our Q2 results will have been on the higher end of our guidance range. The main reason for this relative softness is a slower than expected decrease in operating expenses, which Luis will comment on. We are confident about our potential for the coming quarters. Overall, in the last couple of quarters, we have consistently been achieving our guidance, reflecting our ability to control the business. This control is crucial as the European EV market resumes strong growth, allowing us to leverage the Wallbox platform.

Wallbox has a leading setup with a full product portfolio, geographically diversified position with a targeted market approach and strong commercial partnerships. We believe the combination of these elements sets us up for success. For the second quarter of 2025, Europe contributed €26.1 million of consolidated revenue, or 68% of total top line. The European EV market has continued to recover well and shows 30% growth year over year for the second quarter. We have seen this growth trend reflected in our performance in certain countries, but not across the board. We recognize the importance of focusing on capturing the growth now that the market improves. With our strategic positioning across Europe, with a complete product portfolio, we expect there are incremental growth opportunities in this region for the upcoming quarters.

North America continued to be a cornerstone of our business performance and contributed €11.4 million, or 30% of the total revenue, same as last quarter. The EV market growth has slowed down in this region, decreased 5% compared to last year, but we continue to build out our position with our main partners such as Stellantis, Florida Power & Light, Ensol, and Generac. In parallel, we aim to replicate this type of partnerships with new partners and new regions. Both APAC and LATAM remain small regions for Wallbox, now contributing approximately €260,000 or 1% and €550,000 or 1% respectively for the quarter. These regions continue to have significant future potential. However, considering our efficiency efforts and refocus, are not our top priorities.

AC sales of €26.6 million, including ABF and QUATER, represented approximately 69% of our global consolidated revenue, with a 4% improvement compared to last quarter and down 18% year over year. Compared to the record high quarter last year, the results in Europe have been weak, but with positive outliers in certain countries and a stronger outlook. For example, we have announced a collaboration with PowerGo to deploy EV charging solutions across hotels in the Netherlands. The installations will feature Wallbox EM4 and the Supernova DC fast charger. This collaboration brings together Wallbox Advanced Charging Technology and PowerGo's renewable energy power infrastructure to support the growing demand for sustainable mobility in the Netherlands. Besides, we are working on ramping up sales with new products such as the Pulsar Pro Socket and the Pulsar Max Socket, with orders from Rexel, Sonepar, Libra, and others.

AC sales in North America remain strong, growing 9% year over year. As mentioned before, we have continued to expand the scope of activities with our commercial partners in the region. In addition, we delivered the first units of QUATER 2, contributing more than €100,000 in this quarter. This is a very exciting step for Wallbox and our partners as we spearhead bidirectional charging, allowing us to create more value beyond driving your EV. Shortly, I will provide more about this milestone. DC has been the weakest link in our results compared to the same quarter last year. After a weak performance in the second half of last year, we believe it has now stabilized and we expect that its performance will improve in the upcoming quarters.

DC sales in the second quarter landed at €4.2 million or 11% of sales, the same contribution to our total result as last quarter. After a period with a conservative approach from CPO customers regarding the rollout of their infrastructure, we see opportunities to grow again with our existing partners and new partners, and we saw our backlog for the second half of the year grow accordingly. Recently, we announced the expansion of our partnership with Ensol, which provides EV charging infrastructure in Texas, Florida, and Georgia. Initially, this partnership was focused on installing Wallbox Pulsar Plus line of AC chargers at residential and commercial sites. The new phase extends our partnership into DC fast charging for the first time, centered around Wallbox Supernova charger, now certified under both CTEP and NTEP standards.

Overall, the upward trend we see in the DC sales compared to the last quarter is exciting, both for top line growth and margin improvement. Software, services, and others have been the best performing business activities compared to the same period last year, growing 27% year over year. These activities generated €7.6 million or 20% of the total revenue. Especially software shows strong performance compared to last quarter, mainly driven by ElectroMaps, our EMSP service. The growing European EV market is creating more demand for public charging, which we can see in the increase of charging sessions managed by our software. Installation services continue to be the largest contributor of this category, but less than last quarter. Overall, we are happy to see that the category software, services, and others is performing well and is contributing significantly to the overall business performance.

On our last earnings call, we commented on the pre-orders opening for QUATER 2 and the importance of this product as part of our smart energy solutions. Now, the first units have been installed in Manatee, California. This groundbreaking project in collaboration with Wallbox, Kia, and the University of California, Irvine has the goal of accelerating EV infrastructure and enabling fully electric energy-resilient communities. We are very excited about these developments as our mission is to be the ultimate energy player, and we believe these developments bring us closer to that reality. The QUATER 2 puts our customers in charge of their energy choices and offers innovative solutions such as backup power and smart charging to create value.

Bringing this product to life requires significant research and development efforts internally, but also in collaboration with automotive partners to develop the product standards and protocols we know today, lowering the threshold and investment for widescreen application in the future. After all these efforts, we are happy that the product is being installed and is already delivering real value to customers and communities across the U.S. In addition, as part of our smart energy solutions, we have launched virtual power plants in California and New York through our partnership with LEED. The initiative is part of Wallbox Rewards and even launched a smart charging program that enables Wallbox users to earn incentives by contributing to flexibility through their EV home chargers.

We are going to leverage our install base by connecting an aggregated pool of thousands of residential chargers with local energy programs, which will help utilities manage demand peaks, balance the variability of renewable generation, and improve overall grid stability. On top of the financial incentives to contribute to grid stability, users will enjoy the benefit of charging when electricity is cleaner and more affordable. The EV sales in our addressable market, which we define as all regions except China, continue to show growth in the second quarter and strengthen our belief that the future is electric. Promotion reported 1.9 million EVs sold in Europe, North America, and the rest of the world combined, which represents a 23% increase compared to last year.

The rest of the world and Europe both show approximately 30% growth compared to the same period last year, while the North American market contributed negatively with a 5% decrease year over year. Europe is showing a strong recovery due to a large range of more affordable vehicles and government support in certain countries. We are excited to see this turnaround, and we believe it will provide us with tailwinds as Europe remains our largest market. While this recovery does differ per country and is not across the board, we see strong growth in countries that historically had low adoption of EVs such as Spain. In the second quarter of 2025, more than 66,000 EVs were sold in Spain, which is more than EVs leading countries such as Norway, Belgium, and the Netherlands.

This is reflecting how quick the EV transition can accelerate in terms of absolute numbers once large car markets in our addressable scope are becoming electric. For the North American region, in the U.S., the EV market is about to lose key subsidies such as the 30(d) tax credit and is facing changing emission policies. In 2025, approximately 50% of EVs sold in the U.S. have been eligible for the 30(d) tax credit according to road motion. The removal of this credit and the changing sentiment under the new administration are expected to have an impact on the EV market. Nevertheless, we are confident regarding our capabilities to continue growing in the U.S. this year due to our strategic partners and the visibility on sales. However, we recognize the volatility and its potential impacts for future growth. Historically, Europe was the initial frontrunner of the EV adoption.

The North American market proved to be the largest growth opportunity, and now Europe is recovering fast. These market dynamics are another proof point of the importance of being geographically diversified and the reason why we focus and redistribute our resources to cope with regional EV market volatility. If we look at our total addressable market, the EV market has been consistently growing, and we believe the EV transition is on an irreversible path. However, adapting to the market dynamics with a flexible and resilient organizational structure is key until markets become more mature. Our objective is to have the right organization set up, capture growth where it takes place, and achieve profitability. Luis, I'll turn it over to you to comment further on our financial details.

Speaker 2

Thank you, Enric. Good morning and good afternoon to everyone. The second quarter revenue landed within our guided range with €38.3 million, reflecting a quarter-over-quarter improvement of 2%, but down compared to the record high quarter last year. Europe was soft, but did improve quarter-over-quarter, and we expect further growth ahead. North America is consistent compared to last quarter and remains a large contributor to the overall business, growing nicely. DC sales have stabilized and show an upward trend with backlog buildup. Gross margin was within our guided range and remained relatively stable quarter-over-quarter, reaching 37.8%. The product mix was similar, with higher bill of material costs and freight marginally reducing gross margin. As mentioned by Enric, we see opportunities to improve gross margins as we increase our shipments of new inventories with more efficient bill of materials and increased prices in certain regions.

Q2 labor costs and OpEx total €24.3 million, representing a 25% improvement compared to the same period last year. We continue to optimize the organization while revenue levels remain consistent, and we believe there is opportunity to grow significantly with this cost structure, especially as we focus our investments towards sales to capture the current EV market uplift in Europe. Cash costs, which is defined as labor costs and OpEx, excluding R&D capitalization, non-cash items, and one-off expenses, declined even further, down 35% year over year. Even though we're making progress on the combined labor cost and OpEx result, this quarter showed a slight increase in OpEx due to additional freight, duty, and tariff costs. This was unexpected as we had to react to the consistent high demand in the U.S. Going forward, we see opportunities to better manage and mitigate these variances for greater margin read-through.

Consolidated adjusted EBITDA loss for the quarter was €7.5 million, on the lower side of the guided range. This was due to lower gross margin and limited quarter-over-quarter improvement in OpEx. However, when the result is compared with the second quarter of 2023, the adjusted EBITDA improved 33% year over year. Overall, we show continuous organizational efficiency improvements, which, combined with the expected revenue improvements in the quarters to come, will help us achieve our goal of becoming adjusted EBITDA break-even. We ended the quarter with approximately €32.4 million of cash, cash equivalents, and financial instruments. During the quarter, we closed another investment round of approximately $50 million, with more than $9 million from the government of Spain through the Spanish Society for Technological Transformation and $5 million from existing investors, including Iberdrola and Orilla Asset Management.

We appreciate the continued support of our investors and their alignment regarding the future potential of the company and welcome the strong addition of Seth to our cap table. Loans and borrowings totaled approximately €182 million at the end of the quarter, comprising €80 million in long-term debt and €102 million in short-term debt. Total debt decreased €18 million, 9% compared to last quarter. The main reason for the decline was a lower use of our working capital facilities, combined with repayments of small portions of debt that were due. For the majority of our loans and borrowings, we have an 18-month interest-only period with our primary lenders, as commented in our previous earnings call. CapEx remained light and totaled €1 million, of which €0.4 million was related to investments in property, plant, and equipment.

This reflects an already expected increase compared to last quarter, as mentioned in the Q1 earnings call. If we compare to the same period last year, CapEx investment decreased 62%. On inventory, we have made better-than-expected progress and continue to release cash. At the end of Q2, inventory landed at €56.6 million, reflecting a 33% decrease year over year and 11% compared to last quarter, or €7 million. Another proof point that operationally, on the items we can control, we are making solid progress. Enric, I'll turn it back to you to provide some closing commentary.

Speaker 0

Thank you, Luis. Our second quarter 2025 results were in line with our guidance. The consistent improvement on the items we can control and the stable results give us confidence in our ability to accelerate improvements. As the EV market in Europe, our largest region, is recovering and our growth in the North American market remains, we believe we may print a stronger second half of the year. I can't stress enough that I strongly believe that the global platform we have built with an innovative product portfolio is leading the industry. As we start to leverage this platform and, in parallel, continue to work on the right organizational setup, we believe profitability is within reach. With that, I would like to discuss next quarter's guidance.

For the third quarter of 2025, we have the following expectation: revenue in the €38 million to €41 million range, gross margin between 37% and 39%, and negative adjusted EBITDA between €6 million and €4 million. With that, we arrange the questions from our analysts.

Welcome back, everyone. To our analysts, we ask that you pose one question with a follow-up if needed, then re-enter the queue if there is more. This will allow each of you to ask your questions upfront, and we'll get to as many additional questions as time allows. Paul, I think you have some instructions for our analysts.

Speaker 5

Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star two if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. One moment, please, while we pull for questions. The first question today is coming from John Windham from UBS. John, your line is live.

Hey, perfect. Thanks for taking the questions. I just wanted to level set. It's been almost two years since the Generac investment. If just any color or commentary you have around the status of progress with that relationship, thank you.

Speaker 0

Hi, John. This is Enric. Good morning. Yes, you're right. It's two years since the first investment of Generac is going to be at the end of this year. Since then, we have started to commercialize our home chargers with them in North America. Today, one of the product lines of Generac is EV chargers, home EV chargers, and that's our winning product, the Wallbox Pulsar Plus, that they resell under the Generac brand to their different dealers. Another thing we've been doing for these last two years has been integrating our apps and platforms in the Generac ecosystem and the products also in the Generac ecosystem. It's not only that we have today a wall, they have a Wallbox charger, they also have an app that can manage the Wallbox charger.

I think the solution we're offering to Generac dealers and customers is the number one solution you can get in North America. In that regard, we already have traction in terms of revenue, and several thousands of units have been already delivered to Generac to resell to their customers. Another important topic is our commercial sales, you know, the Supernova sales. This is something we are working on not only in North America, but also in Europe because Generac internationally has another brand, it's called Pramac in Europe. We are very happy here because together we have launched a new solution for fast charging. One of the main challenges of charge point operators when they install fast chargers is the availability of power. You might have maybe 100 kilowatts in a given location, but you want to be able to offer to your customers more power than that.

A good solution is to add an industrial battery that when paired with a Supernova and our software, you know, Sirius controller, it can help to bring high power, more than 200 kilowatts or 300 kilowatts. When there's no one charging, you recharge back that battery. That's something we already launched a couple of one quarter ago, if I'm not wrong, with Pramac, and we are already starting to see some customers interested in the first pilots to test this technology. I will say the partnership is going well. We would like maybe to go a little bit faster, but obviously there's a lot of integrations and products we are developing together.

Perfect. Appreciate it. If you'll allow me as a follow-up, slightly different question, can you talk a little bit more about the QUATER 2, what that project is, and just if you could just provide some details about the uptake size, who the partners are. Thank you so much.

Yeah. This is very exciting, and this is, you know, for me, one of the most innovative projects that have ever been done in the EV charging world. We are the first CCS bidirectional charger being certified and delivered in North America, and I think we are several months, if not years, ahead of competition. What this product does, and I think I commented in the past, but I think it's good to remind everyone, it's not only a charger, it's also a bidirectional charger. It allows you to discharge the battery of your electric car, and that means that in case of a blackout, it can behave as a backup generator. You can power your home with the battery of your electric car. An electric car battery is a massive battery.

It's a 100 kilowatt-hour battery in the case of the Kia EV9, which is the car that we are starting to sell this product. We have partnered with Kia, and we are doing the first deliveries to Kia EV9 owners. You know, 100 kilowatt-hours allows you to power a home for more than a day or even almost three days, depending on your power consumption. Even if you don't have the car fully charged, you still will be able to use it as a backup generator. It's not only a backup generator, it also gives you the opportunity that if you have solar panels or the pricing of the energy changes by the hour, you can charge when energy is cheaper and discharge when energy is more expensive.

After lots of months and more than a year of working on this project, we have delivered the first units to Kia EV9 users. That's something we are doing slowly because we are slowly ramping up. We want to make sure that everything goes smooth and well because we have more pre-orders and more demand than we are delivering today. This last quarter, we delivered a few tens of units, but this is something we'll start to ramp up. At the end of the year in Q4, we believe we can exceed the 100 units or more per quarter and continue growing. I think this is a very important potential revenue growth for the company. Just to repeat about the opportunity here, it's not only a charger, it's something that can power your home.

To give you an idea, 100 kilowatt-hours, which I was referring to, is the equivalent of seven Tesla Powerwalls. It's a massive battery that you have basically for free because when you buy your electric car, you already have an electric car. Tesla enables this potential. QUATER enables this potential, sorry.

Great. Thank you so much.

Speaker 5

Thank you. The next question will be from George Gianarikas from Canaccord Genuity. Please proceed with your question, George.

Speaker 6

Hi, good morning. Good afternoon, everyone. You have Matt on here for George. Thank you for taking my questions. Just to start off, it seems like the Supernova backlog is growing nicely. What kind of cadence should we expect for deployments going into the back half of this year and into 2026? What does that look like from a geographic standpoint?

Speaker 0

Yeah, so hi, Matt. This is Enric Asunción. Morning. In terms of backlog, I understand you were asking about the backlog. The good thing here is that we generally look at the increase of backlog more than the... We always have backlog as we move forward. For us, it's very relevant the fact that this last quarter, our backlog has increased more than €5 million, actually close to €6 million. This is coming mostly from AC sales, coming from Europe, but also in North America. We are seeing very good traction in North America, but also in fast charging. Fast charging, we've been, the last couple of quarters, focusing our business more in a specific part of the value chain of fast charging. We are focusing between 80 kilowatts and 400 kilowatts.

We believe that that's where the biggest volume and the biggest profitability can be achieved for a company like us and for CPOs. While we've been doing this focus in terms of product and service solutions and offering, we've been capturing more backlog for fast charging. When I look at the second half, one, we take this almost €6 million of increase of backlog. That's something that we should be able to convert in the first couple of quarters of Q3. That's an increased potential that we are very excited to. Also in fast charging, we need to start seeing again the growth. We are seeing it. We are seeing it with the increase of backlog. There will be more orders in Q3 coming into Q4. Our main focus on backlog growth is going to be in the fast charging part of the business.

Great. Thank you. I guess just as a follow-up, could you give us the latest updates on the ABL acquisition? How's momentum tracking in Germany and kind of the other key markets for that?

I think in terms of profitability, we are very, very excited on the efforts we've done here. We've been able to integrate the company and make sure that there were no redundancies in terms of cost. We have undertaken, like in general in the whole company, at least a 40% personnel cost and OpEx cost reduction during the last year, while we've been able to maintain the revenue levels and the sales of the previous year. Now, the focus, since we have done the integration and we have been able to obtain these synergies, is the growth, basically. Germany is a market that is back to growth. Actually, for the year to date, the growth is more than 40% on EV sales and plug-in hybrid sales. This is great news because Spain and Germany are our home European markets.

Spain, because it's Wallbox home European market, and Germany because it's ABL, and both are growing more than 40%. In the case of Spain, yes, we are seeing this growth and the company is expanding at that rate or even more. In Germany, I believe we need to invest more in the sales side of the business. We are planning and we are actually working on hiring more salespeople. We have been working also on changing the leadership for the German ABL sales organization. Finally, an opportunity that I think we already are seeing, but there's even more growth potentially, is the cross-selling. When we acquired ABL at Wallbox, we were not selling double socket commercial chargers. That's a product we didn't have.

Today, quarterly, sales of this product outside Germany, so these are sales that we do in France or the Netherlands or other markets, amount for more than €1 million a quarter. This is just three quarters since we started this cross-selling process. I believe that as we move forward, we are adding more opportunities. I actually commented in the last earnings call about these opportunities that the AM4 was bringing. There is especially growth potential there. In general, ABL, we are very satisfied with what we've done so far. I believe that the opportunity here is on growing the sales organization and the support organization in Germany.

Great. Thank you so much.

Okay, that was our last question. Thank you all for joining us today. We hope you found today's call a good use of your time. Let us know if we can help you in any way.