Zytronic (ZYT) — Interim Results

0:00 Good morning, and welcome to the ZYTRONIC PLC Interim Results Investor Presentation. Throughout this recorded presentation, investors will be in listen only mode. Questions are encouraged and they can be submitted at any time using the Q and A tab situated in the right hand corner of your screen. Simply type in your questions and press send. The company may not be in a position to answer every question or receives during the meeting itself. However, the company can review all questions submitted today and publish responses whereas it's appropriate to do so. Before we begin, I would like to submit the following poll. And I would

0:32 now like to hand you over to CEO, Mark Cambridge. Good morning to you. Thank you, Alex. Thank you for handing over. Good morning, everybody. I'd just like to thank all participants that have have come on to listen to the presentation as we as we go through it. I'll start by just moving us through to, firstly, the overview page. I think most people have obviously seen the interim results as we as we release them. This is just a basic snapshot of the situation that we found ourselves in. Obviously, we recognize that we've seen weakness in this first half, and obviously, we'll be covering that through the financials and giving some flavor onto the the reasons behind that.

1:18 I would say that we pretty much did indicate this at the prelim announcement that we made in January and the IMC that we did in January saying that we did expect weakness through this first half and improvement through the second half of the year and accelerating into '25. So I will hand over to Claire now, who'll take us through the financials and the financial slides. Good morning, everybody. Thanks for listening to the ZYTRONIC PLC IMC presentation. I'd like to start by discussing the financials for the half year in comparison to the previous half year for the fiscal year 2023. As indicated to the market last week, our revenue for the first half period was CHF 3,300,000, which was a decline of CHF 1,400,000 over the same time last year.

2:10 This was as a result of the lower order intake experienced at the end of financial year 2023, which turns into orders in H1 of twenty twenty four and we previously flagged this up at the time of the preliminary announcements in January, as Mark indicated just before there. One of the reasons for this was we saw a decline in orders for our larger format sensors, particularly into the gaming market, as the gaming market had gone through a period of turbulence last year with the situation that arose with the bankruptcy situation with one of our customers being a Roozy. This had an impact into H2 last year but also H1 this year.

2:58 This obviously impacted into margin as we sold a lower volume of the larger format sensors. However, our gross margin did improve over the period A benefit from that was of 6.5 basis points was due to the write back in almost full of previously impaired stock of GBP 200,000. The previous year we impaired stock because of the Arouzi bankruptcy situation, however as we entered into H1, towards the end of it, did actually sell some of the stock that we had previously impaired to the company that bought the assets of Arruzey Gaming.

3:43 So we were able to recognize GBP 300,000 of revenue on the back of that and also release the GBP 200,000 of the stock impairment. We had reduced labor costs over the period compared to last year, which also gave us a slight benefit and that was as a result of the restructuring exercise that we undertook towards the end of the prior year. Admin expenses reported at CHF1.5 million. There was an exceptional item benefit of CHF0.1 million because one of our customers whereby we had impaired the debt at the same time last year, had repaid some of that debt and we recognized an extra CHF 100,000 of income on the back of that. We are hopeful that for that particular customer, we'll receive the rest of the payment in full. However, we continue to pursue the other customer through legal matters to try to recover the remaining bad debt.

4:43 Like for like costs are similar with last year at CHF1.6 million as we continue to prioritize cost management throughout the business while we're still in the situation of decreased revenue.

4:56 Our EBITDA at the end of half one was CHF0.5 million compared to CHF0.6 million at the same time in FY twenty twenty three and this resulted in a loss before tax of 600,000. Our tax rate is estimated at 20%, which gives us a credit on the income statement of CHF 100,000 at the half year. We continue to make claims for all the reliefs that are available. As the business is currently loss making, we won't be able to claim for patent box relief as that's not allowed under the rules, So that increases the corporation tax rate that is applied, albeit by a small percentage.

5:42 Our loss per share resulted in a 4.8p and as we previously announced to the market, while we are in a loss making position, we will not be paying or proposing any dividends.

6:00 Moving on to the statement of financial position and the cash flow. The situation is that we're still in a strong place despite the results over the half one period. We have good cash levels of CHF3.7 million. This has decreased from the full year end September 2023 from CHF4.7 million, most of which was as a result of the operating loss, which has impacted on the cash and we've also increased our working capital over the first half period predominantly in inventories as they increased by 300,000 and this was as a result of having to receive in the semiconductor raw material stock for the orders that had to have been placed a year ago due to the nature of the supply chain arrangements.

7:00 We did flag this up at the end of the financial year to indicate that this was going to happen over this period. It's at the end now whereby we've had all the orders in and we're not expecting any more. So as we move into H2 and thereafter, we should see an unwind in working capital, particularly around stocks. Trade and other receivables increased by GBP 200,000, that was as a result of the sales that were achieved just at the end of March, which were better than the previous months. So we're hopeful that as the business continues to recover that the debtor position will pick up.

7:47 We continue to invest in CapEx over the period, most of which was in R and D spend. Mark will cover the development work that's been going on in the business in his side of this presentation. We see continued investment into R and D is very important so we can drive new product innovation. We've earned 100,000 of cash through our deposits. We obtained very favorable rates on liquid deposits. We've averaged over 4.6% on all our cash deposits so that helps to increase the cash in the business. Because of the loss situation, we haven't paid or received any tax.

8:33 Obviously, this helps cash and there's been no dividend payments over the first half. So I'll now hand you back to Mark to continue the presentation.

8:45 Thanks, Claire. The the information that we present over the the following few slides is is pretty much a continuation of, the information that's normally provided in the presentations and follows on really looking at the markets, the sales into those markets, the movement in the in the markets themselves, and the effect of that on on the touch sensors. So as Claire sort of commented, you know, we... The operational trends observed really continued from h two of twenty three into h two... Into h one of of twenty four. This was pretty much driven by a continuation of low order intake that we received through the q four period of '23 and into the q one period of '24.

9:33 I mean, we've often sort of indicated that we're we're very short visibility. We turn around orders fairly quickly within sort of a sort of six weeks depending upon the, the mix of the products. If it's if it's curved, it maybe runs out to about twelve weeks of delivery time. So the the orders that were coming in on the low order intake that was coming in over that time, was was always going to be giving us an impact into into h one. The order intake in... Across those those two periods was really 2,600,000. And the the indicators that we're obviously moving forward through into h two is a is a... An improvement through the q two q two period of order intake where alone that was 2,100,000.

10:24 Claire talked talked about the mitigation steps that we took through September to reduce the cost in anticipation, and this was a move that we did because we we fully intended to move the business away from what we were doing in a in a four day working week and the sort of the ZYTRONIC furlough scheme that we're running with our employees to moving us back to a full five days operational from the beginning of October, which we've maintained through the through the period. I've given an indication in the graph of the movement really from h... Comparison of h one twenty three, but also have indicated the the the h two period as well, and and then obviously h one of this financial year. So we can see that in balance, there was a... The, you know, the majority of the movement in most of the markets was very similar to h two, slightly improving.

11:20 But, obviously, the big impact that we got was really coming through gaming and and vending, which, again, we were indicating as a consequence of the the movements that we saw coming out of the changes in the marketplace with the gaming market and the Ruzain in particular, and the the the vending market with the the change that we were seeing in that own brand vending machine, drinks... The drinks vending machine. We captured some of this in commentary on the next slide. As we say, we saw some vending pretty much impacted by a sort of a weakness in demand of EV charging from our Spanish channel partner. This had been very strong through f y twenty three, but dropped in the first half of f y twenty four. We are now starting to see a a return of some of that business coming back through.

12:16 The unbranded drinks fountain in The US, we saw weak demand... Comparable weak demand between the two periods. But again, as we're moving into h two, we're starting to see some of that returning. And a reduced demand for fuel fuel dispensing in South Korea, which again has been a reasonable good mainstay for the last several years. But again, we're expecting to see some of that return. On a positive note, we we did mention, I believe, a year ago that we've we've lost a pizza pro... A pizza oven a pizza oven project where it's a it's a vending machine system that the the manufacturer decided to put a lower cost touch solution in. I'm pleased to say that, as I fully expected, that the performance of that lower cost solution hasn't actually been very good for them. They've now returned background masters to start supplying the original product back into them, but we're working on what we can actually do to improve that situation for them and make the integration that much easier.

13:22 Gaming, really, it was net neutral sales to old new entities of Aruze in in comparison to the first half. So, obviously, in the second half, was dramatically reduced in f y twenty three. But as moving forward, I believe the new entity, Erusiv, are starting to question what have they actually bought and rightly so are now starting to look at sick... What sort of significant cost reductions they can bring across the whole machine build. We're obviously very active in still trying to entice the movement of of the use of our touch screen. Industrial has pretty much been a mainstay of the business because of the robustness, USP, durability of the touch sensor system. We obviously saw an increase in the the number of accounts that we were dealing with, but we did observe a slight decrease in the revenue generated per account.

14:18 Financial, we pretty much saw a reduction in the sales into EMEA, but this was mostly on the non touch display filter laminates rather than touch. Industrial, very much... Sorry. Signage, very much like industrial. Again, we saw an increase in the number of customers that we were dealing with over the period if we compare it with the h one period of f y twenty three, but a drop in the the the value of of the per account that was being generated. Other... That sort of... So we saw a reasonable growth coming through the other. This was being driven by the initiation of a new medical device project, which account for 100,000. I will pick this up as we move through with looking at the the opportunities log because it's a good reference point of of what we say and an example of the movement of long long maturation periods in in the log system.

15:21 Again, information that we normally indicate showing the sort of the variances in in the actual size variances of the sensors that we do in the various markets. As we can see, we have just slowly seen a drop over the period of week from the the value... The the volume in h one twenty three, h two, 23 to to sort of being the lowest in h one twenty four. As as we normally would see in this... The impact on the markets and Claire picked it up really on the game in which a large format curved, we've seen the impact really coming through in the larger format sizes, which is where we get the impact position of. So, the kind of the graph is showing a comparison of of the the h one, h two, h one mix.

16:10 And we can see generally across nearly all of the sort of the size ranges, we're slightly down on nearly all of them, but significantly down comparing h one h one in the large format.

16:24 Move... Moving on to the the opportunities log. The graph that we've normally been showing, and that it would be in the annual report from last year, really was showing the the movement really as far out as 2019 all the way through the period. I think everybody's up to speed really that we bottomed out round about July 21. And therefore, I've just graphed the system up to date, taking the low point in January and in July 21 and moving us through. I think in in it, we also indicated that with the the new sales director coming on board in the middle of October that ultimately the the PLC board requested the operational team to have a very hard close look at the CRM system to determine what the validity of everything that was in there.

17:20 We had a number of things that was looked at. That concluded, roundabout November when we had complete feedback from all the channel partners that we have, and this ended up with, a 124 opportunities closed over that period, with a customer projected lifetime value of about 8,500,000,

17:40 of which a 111 and 7,200,000 were removed directly as a consequence of the review. As we say, it's a dynamic system with... We're reviewing things as we go along. There's going to be movements occurring all the time, so not all a 124 was a consequence of the review system itself. Of the active open opportunities that still exist by the March 31, a 119 of them, with a 10,200,000 value, were entries during that h one period of '24. The table's indicating the the variance that we're seeing between the end of March and the end of September last year to show the movements in it. Obviously, we've got sort of fairly significant movement occurring in both in financial and gaming.

18:32 And some of this in in is coming really from some of the movements that we've saw from the long maturation periods. I've given two examples in in in this in this presentation. The positive one was obviously the movement that we saw and the one I mentioned with the medical device. This was an entry that came into into the CRM system during fiscal year eighteen, but we didn't really do a conversion of it as a one prem opportunity until q one of twenty four. At the moment in the value, this has contributed 100,000 to h one revenues of a CPL value of 1,100,000.

19:19 The 1,100,000 is a consequence of it being a multiyear expected project. Now another example and and one that I think is pretty relevant to to the data that's on the graph and the data that's in the table is a gaming opportunity that we had that we brought into the CRM system in f y twenty two. We... And that had a carrying value of 6,700,000 of a CPL.

19:47 And this was a this was a a a development that we were doing with a gaming... One of the gaming company entities where we had a multi sensor design proposal. So we were doing not only the the the gaming system, the video button deck, and a mechanical system that was all part of the game that was to be produced, which we developed a a unique bespoke touch interface for. And we were working diligently with the the manufacturer and the design team over the period. But, unfortunately, by q two of twenty four, the customer decided they weren't going to be taking this particular project forward.

20:32 And therefore, we almost immediately had a a reduction of 6,700,000 and and the project removal from the system.

20:40 So, you know, there's things that we're constantly working on that that ultimately take time whether they eventually come to fruition or they don't come to fruition, which is the the means and methods that the business continues to sort of drive its drive forward and evaluate its future performance. Moving on to the next slide and picking up really on sort of the marketing activities that's going on.

21:07 You know, in in the chairman statement at the end, we we made commentary that, you know, the the business development side of it and... Which really is is... In... Includes marketing is really back fully fully flowing and fully participating now. And we still constantly are using the participation at expos as the primary lead generation as part of the marketing strategy. It's necessary for us to interface face to face with protect... Prospective customers and indicate the developments that we've been working on and getting them in front of not only customers, but OEM builders and potential channel partners.

21:55 And these include things like the the floating button concepts, which we show... We showed at g two e in October and the ICE Expo in London in February. New sensor configurations and product launches for the full interactive tables, which we did at the ISE Expo in January in Barcelona, and the new hybrid concepts that we've been working on, which is a a combination of a number of surface... Interactive surface components. So things like doing a a touch display, interactive soft buttons, providing a touch pad area, and even doing a full QWERTY keyboard, as a touch interface all on one panel, all driven by one controller.

22:45 So looking at, you know, bringing a lot of things together where individual things would would be primary in a in a in a system and that providing cost reductions for the the equipment builders. That was shown in an Italian expo in Bologna in March, I believe. We've continued with the design of the the the new website, and that's progressing well, albeit probably a little bit slower than we were we were first anticipating. We expect that really over the next sort of two months to to come to fruition where we'll have been combining both the the trade website with the the the convert... The investment website. We've commissioned several new video promo videos around particular market sectors and an overarching company video that we'll be bringing bringing into the new website on on launch.

23:47 And we're continuing really to drive the b to b digital engagement through the LinkedIn platform, which we identified again and talked about in the prelim release. And we've now initiated pay pay per click at LinkedIn ads to target sort of technical roles and certain business entities in applicable markets in both Europe and The US. And that's been running roughly for about a month and a half. So we're now just garnering the the information, which is going to sort of start dictating what we do better, what we sort of remove from what our original thoughts are as we're as we're going forward.

24:34 I've put several photographs onto the slide really showing the the first couple really being around what was shown at the the expos. The first ones... The first two being g two e, the second two being ISE, and the final photograph on the right top was really what I was talking about about the hybrid surface system.

24:58 As we move on really looking to... At developments, I think this is really the key that's driving, you know, what we're intending to do going forward, how h two is going to sort of shape it up and as we move into fiscal year twenty five. We're very much a technically... A technical innovation driven business and providing solutions to our customer base. But equally looking at whether or not as a consequence of the years of experience that we have is the things that we can bring to the fore ourselves and parcel up as a ZYTRONIC released product. So the first thing we really wanted to cover was ElectroGlass.

25:44 We've obviously been developing that product now for a number of years, evaluating sort of market presence, best positioning for for this recognition that really it needs to be a product rather than a component. Certainly, in the lighting industry and it has a support structure for lights, it needed engagement with commercially available industry driven lighting systems. So as a consequence of that, we've now engaged with two primary lighting companies in the museum display cabinet world, of which we've now had both of them exhibiting this particular product at two key expos.

26:34 It was last last week, it was the museum and heritage show or two weeks ago, the museum and heritage show in London. And one of the one of the entities was showing a a shelf unit with their their light system on it. This week, we've got one of the other suppliers showing the product at the Clerk and Well design design week in London, and again, with a a sort of a shelving unit system with their lights on it. We're also... But when working on trying to develop a a cabinet system for displaying whereas ourselves, where we've built the whole system using electric glass as a as a a lighting system for the cabinet.

27:24 We've obviously undertook... We've we've seeded several demo units of the table system now to engage in the market and and and get feedback to determine what was right, what is wrong, what do we need to ultimately take forward. In one of the systems, we've we've done more of the software development, so the GUI interface around what was gonna be displayed on the on the table itself. And we're we're ultimately working with a local restaurant system... Local restaurant entity in the Newcastle area to develop a table to ultimately show their menu system on it. So that's something that we're working on taking forward at this moment in time.

28:12 So the development of software is also now following from the the hardware that we've we've ultimately been known for. We've talked really about touch algorithm developments now over a number of years. And I think the best way I can describe why this is important both in in terms of firmware development, but electronic hardware development for the for the the company is I would often describe... I would look to describe the controller electronics as basically being the engine that drives everything. The sensor is like the shell of a car, whereas the controller is the engine that's powering it. And as we are all aware, we can we can change the shells of cars, but ultimately, you need the performance of the engine no matter no matter what you're doing. So we're ultimately continuing to sort of develop the the engine system and what we can ultimately do with the engine system and what we can incorporate with the engine system to improve the the premise of the solutions that we can offer into the marketplace.

29:16 So part part of all of this is is working really and trying to drive the shelf forward a little bit. So we're we're looking at really moving from a gen one metal mesh sort of solution, which I would describe as what we've always done with our with our filament sensing system now to a more succinct, high, faster volume printing solution. And we're working significantly on the developments of that side of it. A lot of the products that we showed at the expos were utilizing this product, rather than the the the gen one system. We are working with, UK based company, in the in the development of a physical dial that can be incorporated onto a touch solution.

30:06 But the dial itself is not using traditional systems... Mechanical systems to to do the rotary. It's actually you... Utilizing a new new developments that's actually interfacing with the touch technology itself and and interfacing with the control electronics and the algorithms that we're developing. The floating button tech, we're continuing to advance that system and have moved really from not only looking at the the commercialization of buttons that may be out there that is already utilized in the marketplace by some companies and incorporating with with them with our touch product. But even looking to further develop buttons that we are developing ourselves that we can we can integrate onto the surface of this touch solution to give different form and function and fit for use in various marketplaces, not not just looking at the gaming marketplace.

31:06 So, again, we're expecting that we'll be advancing some of these things and showing them at the g two e expo in October, this October in in Las Vegas to to the gaming community.

31:19 And as part of the developments that we're working on in looking at even larger sizes than where we're at at this moment in time. So the the combination of really the the design of ultra large format, p cap sensors, and looking at control electronics that's gonna provide them with the the best the best in class performance if we're looking at things like 86 inches,

31:45 90 inches, 95 inches, which is really where the the the the corporate world is is looking at or even the educational world is looking at. In combination with that, we know that annotation is a primary driver of interfacing with with this display... Interactive display units of that size even on video walls. And the... And as part of that, we're now actively working on integrating the potential of active stylus pens into the technology itself and and developing the algorithms to drive that. So you're getting high accuracy, high resolution annotation on the panels as well. I I guess this is pretty much a continuation of the drive of what people are now doing with tablets and taking it into the much larger display size work... Working space.

32:39 One of the things that we touched on at the preliminaries was looking at the future development of our ASICs to determine whether or not there's there's a scope to improve and develop further the ASIC that we have to improve the functionality of the engine, to improve the performance of the engine, and maybe look at where it may well be... Provide market positioning regarding the necessity. Could we provide the engine to other people, not just necessarily looking at using the engine for our own builds? So we're continuing with the scoping exercise of that, and we'll be looking really at determining the premise of whether or not this is something that we we feel is necessary to take forward over the over the next several months.

33:27 We continue to invest in the IP of the business. We have been informed of two further patents which will now be granted or have been granted over the six... Over that six month period. Although, we haven't physically received the the official paperwork for them, but one is in China, which is regarding what we've done with hybrid touch screens. And one is in Europe, which is what we're really doing around the button supply or the floating buttons. What we've also done on top of that is looked with what we're doing with the new buttons and how we can incorporate them on the touch in form and factor and feature. And I've taken out UK design registrations, and we filed eight of those to protect sort of the the design concept that we've been working on.

34:21 All this is underpinned by the the executive team within the business having a cold, hard look and undertaking a big business strategy review and operational review to to really look at,

34:39 you know, all the things that we've got at play at this moment in time and to try and work towards defining a definitive direction and concentration of of areas that that ought to be providing sort of significant future growth for the business going forward. So that process is initiated. We've had the first meetings with the facilitator, and we expect that over the next month to two months, we'll, we'll be run through and conclude this strategy review and be able to sort of give a better indication,

35:17 of pulling everything together, to provide details of the future direction of the of the operational business. And, really, we move now towards the end of the the presentation itself. We obviously have got to the point of looking at summarizing and providing an outlook for the for the for the direction of the business through h two and then f y twenty five. I think the key really point really is is the indications of the order intake now starting to provide some level of acceleration away from where it was in the low points. I believe, ultimately, if we if we were mapping the the the intake levels that we've been seeing and was to overlay it of low point against low point against the opportunities log, we'd see a pretty good correlation, which is really, I guess, where I've been talking about the the the the return of the longer maturation period of... And the return that we get from the opportunities log as as it was growing forward.

36:27 You know, the business risks of of associate with global events have significantly now improving, but, you know, we've got a we've got a general election coming up and and still issues around the world. So we're obviously looking at how how, you know, the things that may or may not happen as we move forward. We've obviously got the new sales director in place now, and ultimately, he's driving forward in in moving the the needle in the right direction. We've got a new business development manager starting in the middle of June after a recruitment process. The r and d is significantly driving and advancing the the pickup innovations that we've got and working more and more with directly with customers to get our our new developments, hopefully, designed into the solutions that they're they're looking to bring to the market in the future.

37:21 And, obviously, we we expect to report on the the strategy review as things move forward. Perfect. Mark, Claire, thank you very much indeed for your presentation. Ladies and gentlemen, please do continue to submit your questions using the q and a tab situated on the top right corner of your screen. While the company take a few moments to review those questions submitted today, I would like to remind you that a recording of this presentation along with a copy of the slides and the published q and a can be accessed via our investor dashboard. Mark Claire, as you can see, we have received a number of questions throughout today's presentation. If I may now hand back to you and kindly ask you to read out the questions, give responses where appropriate to do so, and I'll pick up from you both at the end. Okay. Thanks very much, Alice. I'll I'll just try and move through the questions as they they are laid out and try and hit some of the pre submitted ones or the pre submitted ones first. If if there's ones that I feel Claire should answer, I'll immediately pass over to Claire to to sort of provide a response.

38:23 I mean, the first... I mean, rather than reading the questions out as as sort of a bit them, I'll try and just pick out some of the the key points of them. The first one that really came in was around the external external strategy facilitator. And I guess, really, the question that's being asked here is, you know, why are we actually paying somebody to do this when we've we've got... As the person's put thirty years of experience within the business. I think in in reality, the... You know, we do have thirty years of experience in the business. We have a... An executive... Operational executive team that that combined, you know, has been together really for about thirteen years plus as as a as a as a group of entity. And, you know, we we are constantly reviewing, constantly looking, constantly driving things forward.

39:14 But it... It's nice to sometimes just sit back and and have somebody take and work with us to take a cold, hard look at what we're doing, how we're doing it, how we intend to do it, what is the things that we we we can do that we haven't really thought of. And that's really where springing an external, strategy facilitator to to bear, or to be providing us, with some benefit going forward. So I think the cost is not as exorbitant as people may think, but it's a very valid practice that we're now undertaking to take things forward. Yeah. The next question really was around current levels of activity and, you know, bear in mind what we've seen for q. I believe it meant h one rather than q one estimate for full year revenues.

40:06 In reality, it's not really a businesses... A business position in this form to to be giving indicators of year end positioning. That's really where the analysts and the brokers come to bear in this. It's them that are informing the marketplace of a view on the business rather than the business itself providing data. What I can probably add is that with things that was was presented, things that were said at the prelims and the information that's now we're presenting at the h one, the view of the analyst with our with our broker was pretty much an expectation of a a fiscal year twenty four very much in a very mirrored version of fiscal year twenty twenty three.

41:04 I think the next question really again is around the sort of strategic plan and why does it take over twelve months to come up with a strategic plan. You know, the strategic strategic plans run all of the time within the business. You know, we... What we're talking about here is is having an external person working with us to just try and try and work towards pulling a a finalized document together that basically provides dire... You know, direction that we can re... We can re... Report on. So it it... You know, it's it's... We've also... You know, we've just really had a a new chair that's come in that's been in now ten ten months and really felt that he needed a good time to to have a have bed down, have a good look at everything that was as we could then work as a as a team and a group to to bring everything to to bear with him having a good understanding of of the business.

42:07 Product launches is another one that's been spoken about, and I think we sort of touched on that when we got to... When we were speaking really about the marketing side of it and what we've done really about launching the table systems that we've now developed, launching really the the lighting system as far as electric glass and importantly, the the floating button tech into the gaming marketplace, which we we think is is something that's key key and will will basically reposition us as as a as a key supplier into the gaming marketplace as things have moved forward now from the large format curved screens. Claire, there's a there's a... The next question really is about acreage and and and potential of residential. I don't know if you want to pick that one up.

42:56 Yeah. Thanks, Mark. In in terms of acreage, I'm not a 100% sure of the the number. However, we do own three factories with a little bit of car parking space on an industrial site. I don't believe that it would be any sort of site that would be suitable for residential use given the proximity to the the other factories around us. Thanks, Claire. Question again, when can we expect the new ASIC to be available and be a key part in winning new orders?

43:39 As we said during the presentation, we're scoping it at this moment in time. I guess the evaluation of a scope will not only rest around how long that may take, and we certainly have historical information that's going to tell us that we would be at least two years in in in working on this if we were to press a button. But importantly, what would be the cost of doing what we would be intending to do, and we're... That's part and parcel of of what the scope exercise will will be informing us of. And at that point, when we've understood more cost, timing, and benefit, we'll be able to make a decision on whether or not there's a viability of of basically doing a new ASIC or just continuing with the ASIC and the developments that we've got working on at this moment in time.

44:31 Again, question on electric glass. Has has that come up to expectations and winning orders? I think the honest answer in that at this moment in time is is no. This is taking a lot longer than than we were we were expecting. I think we went through the first stages of would it be a componentry sale where all we were doing was producing the glass and then selling it to somebody to do something with it. That... We've we've moved away from that now in a recognition that, again, it needs to be some sort of product... Final product format that will be be taken. So now we're in a form where we understand more about what that format might be in forms of lighting shells, charging shelves, header units with lights built in, you know, the possibility of of being systems where floating displays are put in, ceiling systems with cameras.

45:23 So we we we we understand now what what it can be, and we're very much more active as a consequence of the... Working with the lighting company systems, which is key really to a product. Yeah. There's a question really about how much did we roughly need to decrease prices to achieve the increase in order intake. I think, you know, the answer to that one is we're commercially always looking at the the level of business and what would be necessary to win revenue. We certainly are not going marginal on on things. We're still... Know, the premise of the business is it's still a premium solution provision that's needed out there.

46:14 And we would... We we obviously are looking at the costs within the business, the overhead recoveries that we may ultimately be having to determine where we're pricing individual products and solutions to to to market for customers. So we're not... You know, it's done on an individual basis, not just under the car blanched reduction. I mean, there's a question really on the elaboration of feedback and potential opportunities generated for participation in major trade shows. And I think I I... Again, I would say that we've we've covered... We... Hopefully, I covered that when we were talking about the marketing slide.

47:01 The... You know, a lot of the participation is is around presenting, you know, physically the the the... And showing to the marketplace what we're ultimately able to do with the technology and then drive to engagement with the customers, which may take formats of what we're presenting rather than the whole entity because we're not... We're producing potential solutions, not the final solutions because the final solutions is always the customer's direct requirements. And this is really what we'll be focusing on when we put the new website out. It's much more a focus on the application areas, the potential customers within those areas, and ultimately the solutions that we can bring to bear, which is is not only what we may be able to do with the the the engine being the controller, what we can do with the configuration of the sensors or bits that we can add to it, or or even, you know, how we may well be able to process materials

48:04 effectively and efficiently with with... Within the business. I think the question here is do we do we see any Chinese players backing out of their aggressive pricing strategies?

48:16 I think the plain and simple answer to that at this moment in time is no. We're we're not. We're we're continuing to see very aggressive positioning from Chinese suppliers to to ultimately win win business. As I say, I've I've often described this as a bit of a circular exercise that seems to go through. You know, people will be... I guess, generally, with the way the world is at this moment in time, people are more driven on price than than anything else, but price does not continue to be the primary driver of consideration as things move forward. Because once you put something in on price, you then are assessing its return on the investment, durability, usability.

49:03 And what we're seeing more and more is is people circling back around to have the conversations around the technology that we're offering as a consequence of the durability, accessibility, the usability of what we're offering into the into the into the solutions. And the the the Peter oven system that I... Peter oven vending system that I mentioned, I I believe is a prime example of that.

49:37 Yeah. There's a question really around... A comment really saying that a is seeking cost reductions. Am I right to say that they will be tougher negotiating? I think the quick simple answer to that one is no doubt. Yeah. You mentioned... One question here again. You mentioned the loss of the potential gaming business in q two. You had clearly invested time and money on this. Do I assume that this was not funded by the end customer? I think circling back on all of that and really covering most of what we're about here is that we we don't get a lot of contribution from the customers in the development work that we're doing because we ultimately want ownership of that development to ensure that we can utilize it over a broader breadth of customer base and different markets rather...

50:43 You know, if a cost... If somebody's particularly paying for a development, they actually own the development. So that's one of the reasons why we we don't we don't charge really development work other than some tooling costs if there's things like printing required on the actual design of a product that they're ultimately wanting. There's a question again about is there a is there a segment that you think ZYTRONIC can dominate in both price and quality? You know, that is obviously the goal. And, you know, that is something that the strategy review will ultimately be, you know, significantly looking at and and seeing if there's a direction of travel that will take us towards that. Up to now, that has not been the case.

51:28 We're pretty much in in in working with customers across across a broad breadth of application, a broad breadth of volumes and and, you know, different price points for different customers in different different conditions. I think from what I can see regarding sort of the questions that are that are there,

52:13 Yeah. There's a... Just looking through the questions. Last year, 35% of revenues came from three customers, and five years ago, it was 48%.

52:22 Are they the same customers? Claire, do you want to pick up on that one? Because that's usually something we cover in the annual report, isn't it? It is. Yes. I can say that at the the half two for this final... Sorry. Half one for financial year 2024, there there is one customer who contributes significantly to the revenue line in that period that was the same customer this time last year. However, the other two customers that are significantly contributing are new projects and products that we're we're working on with those. So it's... While it's it's often seen as having two or three big customers that dominate a lot of the revenue line, it is important to know that with customers, it's not just one project that we're working on with them. So one customer could be for a number of different projects as projects start and stop at at different life cycles.

53:18 Okay. Thanks, Claire. Yeah. A question is, have the new product developments that we've been showing at sort of these trade shows, how how they've been received by potential customers? You know, I think to to date with the ones that we've been speaking around really well, you know, it has moved us really on the... On sort of... Certainly, the g two e floating button concepts. We've we've now actively sort of done a couple of defined designs for consideration by a couple of people. What I would say regarding the gaming marketplace, I think we've talked about it in the past and it's it's pretty conservative.

54:03 It doesn't necessarily move quickly. But once it has moved, you know, there's a... There's there's there's time and development and return in there over a over a reasonable period of time. But I think if I'm looking at timing of these type of things now, I would expect some showcasing of things, but probably backroom in the G 2 E Of 24. This will probably then morph over the time period to being front of house showcasing at G 2 E 25. And then normally, if it's following a a normal process, we would probably then start to see some form of orders coming through

54:51 into the sort of first half of sort of '26, I I I would think is what we're we're ultimately seeing. Yeah. I think I think from what I can see, we've we've pretty much covered a broad breadth of the of of the questions.

55:38 Majority of that are on sim... Very similar themes that we've already spoken about. So if there's if there's more that really comes in, I think what... We'll obviously then answer them as part and parcel of the sort of review process after the event. Yeah. That's correct, Mark. Thank you very much indeed for addressing all those questions for investors today. And as Mark said, the company will review all questions, and we'll publish those responses on the investment company platform where appropriate. But before we direct investors to provide you with their feedback, which one is particularly important to the company, Mark, could I please ask you for a few closing comments?

56:16 Yeah. I'd just like to... I started off by sort of thanking everybody to to that was was honest participants. And I just like to conclude by, again, thanking everybody for participating and listening to what Claire and I have to say about the interim positioning for the fiscal year twenty four and the questions that obviously was being asked, which are always very well structured and inquisitive. And, hopefully, we've provided good answers to to the... To those questions. And thanks again for IMC for for hosting this event. It's it's always a pleasure to be presenting to everybody using this platform. Fantastic. Mark, Claire, thank you once again for updating investors today. Could I please ask investors not to close this session as you will now be automatically redirected to provide a feedback in order that the board can better understand your views and expectations?

57:13 This will only take a few moments to complete, and I'm sure will be greatly valued by the company. On behalf of the management team of ZYTRONIC PLC, we'd like to thank you for attending today's presentation, and good morning to you all. Thank you, Alex. Thank you. Thank