Acuvi Revenue Falls to 47.4 Million Kronor in Third Quarter as Company Posts Operating Loss

Key Facts

Swedish precision motion technology company Acuvi's revenue fell to 47.4 million Swedish kronor in the third quarter of 2026, from 57.8 million kronor a year earlier, according to the company's earnings statement. The group posted an operating loss of 7.1 million kronor, compared with an operating profit of 1.2 million kronor in the same period a year earlier. Revenue for the first nine months totalled 148.7 million kronor, compared with 150.6 million kronor in the corresponding period. Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation swung to a loss of 1.3 million kronor over those months. The company had reported a profit of 26.4 million kronor on that basis in the corresponding period a year earlier.

The quarterly loss before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation was 0.3 million kronor, compared with a profit of 6.7 million kronor a year earlier, according to the earnings statement. Management said adjusted profit on that basis was 6.4 million kronor, excluding the items it discussed relating to inventory valuation and prior periods. Acuvi had corrected its third-quarter 2025 results, revising revenue to about 57.8 million kronor and earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation to about 6.7 million kronor. In the second quarter of 2026, the company's revenue was 50.1 million kronor, compared with 47.2 million kronor a year earlier. It posted a loss before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation of 4.3 million kronor in that quarter, compared with a profit of 12 million kronor in the corresponding period.

On liquidity, free cash flow for the first nine months turned positive at 10.2 million kronor, compared with negative 27.5 million kronor a year earlier. The chief executive said in the earnings statement that "the value of inventory is declining" as part of efforts to improve cash generation and reduce purchases. The chief financial officer said in an earnings interview transcribed by Investing that the improvement in cash flow benefited from the sell-down of remaining inventory from the discontinued U.S. distribution business. He said the company sold that inventory without purchasing replacement materials because the business those purchases had served had ended. The chief financial officer cautioned against expecting the same exceptional level of cash flow to recur, linking this aspect of the improvement to the circumstances of the business's inventory liquidation.

The distribution business had ended after the supplier decided to take over the customer relationship directly, according to an earlier Acuvi statement on the business concerned. The company said in that statement that the supplier had informed it of plans to manage the relationship itself in future. It estimated the negative impact of ending the business on earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation at about 4 million kronor in 2026. When announcing first-half results, management had forecast an improvement in performance in the subsequent period. But it said at the time that the improvement would not be sufficient to achieve the earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation target announced at the start of the year.

In the group's proprietary technology operations, management identified semiconductors and aerospace as demand drivers for the PiezoMotor unit. Acuvi had announced in its first-half results, published in August, that the unit's sales had doubled from the same period a year earlier. Geographically, management said sales in Asia reached their highest monthly level in two years in September. This followed activities including participation in trade shows, customer visits and meetings with distributors, according to the third-quarter earnings statement. Management described September's performance in the region as "our highest monthly sales in two years".

Acuvi signed an exclusive global cooperation agreement with a Japanese manufacturer of precision positioning systems, according to its statement on the industrial collaboration. The agreement aims to expand PiezoMotor's product offering in this field. The company expects the collaboration to have a more pronounced impact on sales in 2027. Elsewhere in the group, the Sensapex unit continues to develop prototypes of instruments used in assisted fertilisation, according to management. Management said this business could begin contributing to revenue in 2027, while keeping that timing tentative.