Ekinops reported €117.7 million in revenue for fiscal year 2024, reflecting a 9% decline compared to 2023. The downturn was largely attributed to a sharp 30% drop in Optical Transport sales, particularly during the first half of the year, while Access solutions surged by 11%, driven by strong demand in France and parts of Europe. The company highlighted ongoing macroeconomic challenges, including a global slowdown, high interest rates, and declining internet traffic growth as factors limiting investment by telecom operators. However, the second half showed signs of recovery with a 4% revenue increase compared to the previous year, bolstered by the first shipments of its new 800G Optical Transport platform.
Geographically, France was a bright spot, delivering 18% revenue growth due to strong Access solution sales, while international revenue fell 21%. North America, where Optical Transport plays a key role, saw a 26% decline due to delayed infrastructure investments. The EMEA region also struggled, reporting an 18% drop in revenue, though second-half sales rebounded. CEO Didier Brédy expressed cautious optimism, emphasizing continued investments in next-gen technologies like cloud architecture, AI, and cybersecurity, with a new strategic plan set for March 2025.
• Total Revenue: €117.7 million, down 9% year-over-year.
• Access Solutions: Up 11%, led by France and parts of Europe.
• Optical Transport: Declined 30% due to reduced operator investments.
• France: Revenue up 18%, now contributing 41% of total revenue.
• International: Sales down 21%, with North America declining 26%.
• Software & Services: Grew to 18% of total revenue, driven by SD-WAN.
Didier Brédy, Chairman and CEO of Ekinops, said:
“2024 was marked by multiple challenges for Ekinops, in a particularly complex global economic climate. Our sector contracted significantly, with our main competitors reporting between -6% and -25% year-on-year revenue declines.
After strong growth in 2023, our sales of Optical Transport solutions decreased sharply. Several factors explain this trend: massive investment by operators and businesses post-pandemic leading to overcapacity, a slowdown in Internet traffic growth, a rise in the cost of money adversely affecting the financing of investment plans, delay on large orders, etc.
On the other hand, we are very satisfied with the performance of Access in 2024, which significantly outperformed the market,achieving double-digit sales growth (+11%).
Despite this adverse economic climate, we have continued to invest to take advantage of a new wave of massive investment by operators in new applications such as the large-scale deployment of Cloud architecture, AI, which will generate huge traffic, as well as virtual and augmented reality and cybersecurity (TLS 1.3 protocols, IPv6, etc.).
At the release of our annual results in early March 2025, we will unveil a new strategic plan, to be implemented starting 2025, which will allow us to penetrate very-fast growing market segments.”
