Xplora Technologies: A setback, but long-term potential intact - ABG
* We cut '26e EBIT by 15% and '27e by 32% * Long-term potential still intact, but likely to take more time * EV/EBIT drops from 12.0x in '26e to 5.7x in '28e
ANNONS
Lower volumes and slow retail roll-out...
Xplora delivered a disappointing Q2 report, with revenues down 9% y-o-y and a flat adj. EBITDA of NOK 61m, which led to a 30% share price drop. There were two main disappointments: first, senior device volumes declined 17% y-o-y on tough comps from last year's 2G shutdown boost. This was bound to normalise at some point, but the share reaction shows the market had extrapolated the strong 2025 performance. Second, the Doro Connect rollout has taken longer than the market expected. At the November '25 CMD, Xplora guided for a 900-store rollout from January '26. The result so far is one store pilot complete, with a rollout to ~135 Norwegian Power stores starting in September. The company had clearly underestimated the necessary preparations, including building a new POS system for SIM activation.
...lead us to cut estimates materially
In our view, the long-term potential remains, but with a delayed retail roll-out the ramp-up in conversion rate will be slower than initially anticipated. We do a complete reset, cutting '26e, '27e and '28e EBIT by 15%, 32% and 34%, respectively. We still expect a 12% senior conversion rate long term, but we do not expect this to be reached until '29e, rising gradually from ~1% at YE'26e to 3% in '27e and 7% in '28e. We expect the first milestone of 10k senior subscriptions in Q1'27, and forecast 126k senior subscriptions at YE'28e. Combined with NOK 50m in cost synergies we forecast EBIT to increase by ~80% from NOK 144m in '26e to NOK 263m in '28e. For '27e we forecast an EBIT of NOK 187m vs. FactSet consensus of NOK 170m.
But long-term potential still exciting
Xplora is now trading at 12.0x '26e EV/EBIT, but when senior subscriptions start to have a meaningful impact in '28e this drops to 5.7x. Our DCF points to NOK 39-101/share.
