Group-level sales and EBITA were SEK2,005m and SEK162m relative to our SEK1,997m and SEK199m forecasts. Organic growth was 11%, better than our forecast of 9%. While sales largely matched our expectations, the deviation in EBITA was primarily due to softer margins in DM and PLM. The relatively soft margins in DM (although a rebound from last year’s weak number) despite the solid organic growth were due to a high share of 3-party software in the sales mix. Regarding PLM, the Nordic market remained solid while the UK, US, and Germany experienced lower sales y/y due to less license sales in the automotive industry.

Autodesk’s change to an agent model was implemented in June for the US market and will be implemented in Europe in late September. Following the change, our sales forecasts in Design Management (and thus also at the Group level) are incomparable to our previous forecasts as we incorporate Autodesk’s new transaction model into our forecasts, resulting in lower sales, higher EBITA margins and unchanged gross profit and EBITA. Thus, from now on, we will focus on gross profit and EBITA in DM.

Based on the reduced forecasts, we decreased our Base Case to SEK 112 (117). Excluding the technical estimate changes related to Autodesk’s new transaction model, we somewhat lower our overall sales growth and reduce our EBITA assumptions by 6% for 2024 and 1% for 2025.