Hello,
Thank you for your question. The company’s Board of Directors provided the following comment on this matter:
The Board of Directors and the CEO have jointly agreed not to comment on the reasons related to the change of CEO. The Board is convinced that the decision made is the best solution for the company’s future.
The Board of Directors of Bittium Corporation
Hi, when will we get more information about the tenders together with BAE?
And when are other important tenders due? (Newsworthy)
@Karoliina_Malmi can you clarify whether Bittium Sat Companion receives royalties or other revenue streams tied to the product’s sales?
The stock is soaring for the second consecutive day! Can Bittium accept defence orders if eager buyers are now coming in droves? What is the production capacity?
It remains to be seen if Bittium can secure Defence deals. No actual deals have been widely reported, other than with the Finnish Defence Forces.
In itself, the required electronics assembly capacity is quite negligible, as long as the tester capacity and other dedicated production equipment are sufficient.
But, it was only a few years ago that even small volumes of Medical products couldn’t be brought into line due to component shortages; it took a couple of years.
@Karoliina_Malmi probably knows how component availability for the Defence sector has been considered, taking into account, for example
-the presumably ‘exploding’ demand for MIL-spec components
-limited suppliers of MIL-spec components
-complexity of technical approvals
-do technical approvals need to be approved or even tested by customers?
-etc.
‘No problems ‘right now’’ - level answers should be left to politicians; a company must foresee future problems…
@Juha_Kinnunen, would you mind calling Oulu and inquiring if this is just more unnecessary hype, or if something is finally going to happen?
It’s always good to remember to distinguish between the buzz around a stock and the buzz related to the business. These are two completely different things, although especially the latter often generates the former.
Hello! For now, in my understanding, these are politicians’ speeches and plans, especially since Bittium’s products are not something that could be quickly bought and deployed. That is, the company does not make weapons, ammunition, or tanks, but rather tactical communication products. The procurement processes for these have traditionally been very long, and I don’t know if they can be sped up now. So, I would be surprised if new orders for Bittium were to come from this in the short term, at least from processes that haven’t already been in the works for a long time.
If one tries to grasp the overall picture, it seems now that the United States is withdrawing from supporting Ukraine and Europe is taking the main role. And I say “seems” because Trump is anything but a long-term planner, and on the other hand, Europe is traditionally rigid and generally slow in its decision-making. But if Europe now starts making strong defense investments (better late than never), then it is an excellent thing for the local defense sector (as has been seen from the stock rally in recent days). The United States has naturally favored its own vast industry, and Europe will certainly do the same in this situation. Naturally, Bittium’s focus has been and still is in Europe, so if things progress here, the probabilities for “breakthroughs” improve. However, there are also relevant competitors in Europe (such as Thales, Rohde \u0026 Schwarz, and Leonardo), so the company’s success is certainly not guaranteed. But the probabilities are much better with Europe investing than with Bittium achieving a major breakthrough in the United States. L3 Harris and its partners probably dominate there, even with their own waveform.
The current development certainly improves Bittium’s long-term outlook and potential, but how this translates into concrete action – that is a more difficult question. At what stage are tactical communication investments generally considered, and is this new “urgency” ultimately a good thing for them, when in a hurry, the focus easily shifts to what can be done right now. However, it fundamentally takes years for new systems to be deployed from the beginning of the process. But it could be that the situation cuts through the bureaucracy of procurement processes and decisions are actually made – an optimist would certainly want to think this way. At least a budget seems to be coming, but no official decisions have really been made about that either.
In summary: I would be surprised if the talks quickly turned into action, at least in this market segment represented by Bittium, but I’d be happy to be wrong. I will call Oulu at the latest next week, if by then more is known and perhaps some concrete details can be obtained.
The order books of the entire European defense industry are already full. Capacity has certainly been increased and will continue to be increased. Whether it’s about tanks or SDR radios, delivery times are long before the customer receives them. If I were a Bittium customer now, I would accelerate orders immediately. If it’s not done now, someone else will get there first.
I don’t see the matter as pessimistically; instead, there is huge potential for accelerated procurements. If the cycles are long, many negotiations and tests have already been conducted a long time ago, and decisions may have been delayed only due to budgets and the political situation. Now that defense budgets are being increased and decision-making can accelerate, Bittium genuinely has the opportunity to benefit from this development. When large investments get underway, the market can open up surprisingly quickly.
Speculation in general is not an easy task, especially when considering that the driving force behind the current situation is the defense and armament of one’s own country. When it comes to a common crisis, the voice of reason is usually discarded. The COVID-19 pandemic already demonstrated this. In your text, I believe you were still thinking rationally, and didn’t consider the situation for what is actually happening. Similarly, those tanks must also be manufactured, etc. There probably isn’t time anymore to make annual investment plans. I believe that the procurement windows for communication connections no longer differ from the procurement window for other material. They will be seen as part of the whole, signed “Now and Immediately.”
Oh my god, this Bittium forum. An analyst states their opinion, which is even very logical, and things will probably happen exactly like that. Radios probably won’t be the first acquisitions now, but rather ammunition and cannons and all that sort of thing - even though the long-term potential has grown with the overall market growth. Naturally, this information doesn’t please those who probably expected the price to multiply without any sense or connection to fundamentals. Fantastic!
If the company itself expects that the guidance given recently for 2025 is no longer valid, it must immediately issue new guidance. I’m not holding my breath regarding this.
The Bittium thread is one of the forum’s most peculiar. And not in a good way. The finger of blame primarily points to the company’s communication or analyst views. Analyzing the company’s business operations or the drivers of its operating environment remains considerably less. Discussion related to business matters would provide the most added value.
But to the point. In my opinion, evaluating Bittium in exactly the same basket as the demand drivers of large defense industry companies is somewhat misleading. Investing in a communication system is, however, very different from so-called “consumables.” It is logical to assume that investments in equipment and devices consumed in warfare will grow with a lower threshold, as in a real situation, such material is consumed, and building up stocks is very logical. A communication system and the devices utilized in it are not the same kind of material to be hoarded in inventories. Of course, it is logical that demand will grow, but indeed, it is not entirely identical. Bittium’s strong earnings growth also requires investments from elsewhere in Europe. These will surely come, but surely ammunition, ordnance, soldier’s equipment, and other consumable materials are at the top of the investment prioritization list.
Edit. @Lexus managed to write about this a bit faster, but let’s not let repetition hinder us 
At least part of the early week boom is due to cooperation with Terrestar Solution on satellite phones, which was heavily discussed on Kauppalehti’s forum throughout the weekend.
Bittium commented at some previous event that interesting projects related to satellite phones are underway.
Is there more information available about this project?
Well, sometimes criticism comes this way. Oh well, a change is refreshing.
To my knowledge, Bittium is not capacity-constrained. In Q4 alone, they achieved over EUR 33 million in revenue, so that has at least demonstrably been delivered. Annualized, that would be over EUR 132 million. Bittium guided for 2025 revenue to be EUR 95-105 million, so it doesn’t seem to be about capacity even on the defense side yet. There may certainly be bottlenecks, but I believe these limit revenue growth on a general level. In general, it’s good to understand that these are a slightly different scale than, say, Rheinmetall or similar.
Still, your final conclusion could very well be possible 
I truly hope I am pessimistic about Europe’s actions. But as far as I understand, we don’t have any decisions yet. The cycles are certainly long, but it’s possible that decision-making has been stalled by that, and now things are starting to happen. How much can that process, which normally takes years, be shortened? A lot is certainly possible, but will it now turn into weeks when something is expected immediately? I maintain that if orders come in now, those processes have been ongoing for a long time and diligently. Could this be the final push that brings the decision to fruition? Of course. And the market has been open for years, and demand has been strong, so there are certainly projects at various stages.
Speculation is not an easy task, which is why I wrote cautiously without any major conclusions. You have come to a different conclusion, a strong one, and I respect that.
That’s exactly right, thank you. Tactical communication is a so-called strategic investment. In the early stages of the war in Ukraine, these long-term projects were put on hold as the focus had to be on shorter-term matters. Now I don’t believe this will happen; instead, I consider it more likely that everything will proceed in parallel. It’s sad, in a way, that major investments weren’t made in Europe earlier. It would be significantly easier to react now. But progress has been made here too.
Interesting if that product launch sent the stock soaring. Bittium has, however, been in satellite phones forever, or does no one remember Mexsat anymore? Let’s take from the company’s own pages:
That could indeed become a big deal, but in my opinion, Bittium’s problem has never been technological expertise, and it’s not surprising to me that they are involved in interesting projects. But perhaps now I would put a bit of a damper on expectations for now and see how that develops. And now there will probably be more mudslinging from that forum.
More information, if we are talking about the same thing:
Was that all? Some reply directed at me was apparently deleted in between.
“The plan, named ”ReArm Europe”, aims to raise up to 800 billion euros in funding. Its most important part is a 150 billion euro support package, from which the EU would offer loans to member states for joint defense procurements.”
“Europe’s own defense industry capacity is limited. Most procurements have so far been made from outside the EU, especially from the United States.”
“According to the goal published by the Commission last year, by 2030, EU countries should make at least 50 percent of their defense procurements from within the EU, and 40 percent of member states’ procurements should be joint procurements. By 2035, the target rises to 60 percent of intra-EU procurements.”
“Finland has taken an active role in both developing domestic production and Nordic cooperation. Critical areas of expertise include command, control, and network-centric systems, as well as intelligence, surveillance, and target acquisition systems.”
There would be plenty of money available, will Bittium be able to sell its command systems?
Hi @Osakesaastaja1
This is a product development agreement for our customer Terrestar Solutions.
Hi @Opa,
and thanks for the questions. Bittium continuously assesses the quantities and schedules of future product and system deliveries - both for Finnish and international deliveries. We are talking about a so-called “12 months rolling forecast”, which aims to prepare for future deliveries in terms of product capacity - including preparation for components. This is now also part of the readiness planning, which is carried out together with the Finnish Defence Forces in accordance with the process defined by the partnership agreement. All deliveries are always approved by customers according to the existing process. Here we are talking about the so-called production FAT (Factory Acceptance Tests).
Hi @Takamettien_mekataht
Thank you for your question. Unfortunately, we cannot provide more information on this schedule matter at this time. Tenders are usually confidential until they are concluded. If we were to win a significant tender, the communication about it would be handled in accordance with the regulations concerning communication by a listed company.