Short term outlook

Outlook for 2024

DC charging market demand has been lower than Kempower has earlier anticipated. After COVID-19, there was a component shortage which created higher than normal demand for charging solutions. Also charger rollouts have been slower than earlier anticipated due to limited grid connection availability. Both of these factors have created excess inventory on customers’ side.  Several customers are also waiting for the full availability of our next generation charging portfolio in H2 2024.

Kempower estimates the value of the excess stock of Kempower charging equipment that company’s customers have in stock to be approximately EUR 100 million and to decline slowly during the second half of the year. This has a major negative impact on purchases by the customers.

The effect of excess inventories is clearly seen in our order intake actuals as the difference between the orders from our largest clients in H1 2024 and H1 2023 is approximately 75 million euros. Kempower’s new customer acquisition has continued to develop positively but has not yet been able to offset the declined orders from existing customers.  

To improve profitability, Kempower is evaluating significant short-term and mid-term cost base adjustments to optimize the organizational effectiveness.

Kempower expects:

• 2024 revenue; between EUR 220 million and EUR 260 million, assuming no major impact from foreign currency exchange rates (revenue 2023: EUR 283.6 million),
• 2024 operative EBIT margin % will be negative. However, the profitability is expected to improve towards the end of the year and be at break-even in Q4 2024.