I have not seen a Finnish stock almost double in a month in this market capital bracket (over 1 billion euros) – maybe ever – then it happened again.
The Qt Group (Nasdaq Helsinki: QTCOM) software developer had already had the best year in the history of its brief public trading record since 2016. It is a spin-off from Digia Oyj on May 2nd 2016 (both ex-Nokia companies) which has been quietly trading for years with a 52-week range between ATH €171.4 – €32.3. The stock closed at €159 with a market cap of almost €4 billion on September 15th 2021 at the time of writing this report.
Finnish analysts’ target prices are at the €160 level. The CEO Juha Varelius confirmed that Q2 was excellent, but Q3/21 is always weak and Q4/21 will be great again. I would wait for another pull back to commit new money on this stock.
Qt Group is a global software company with a strong presence in more than 70 industries and is the leading independent technology behind millions of devices and applications. Major global companies and developers use Qt worldwide, and the technology enables its customers to deliver exceptional user experiences and advance their digital transformation initiatives.
Qt achieves this through its cross-platform software framework for the development of apps and devices, under both commercial and open source licenses.
This a stock where I myself would use any pullbacks to get in. Especially now in the autumn, I would start buying at levels below 150 all the way to 100.
The Qt Group is thinking about listing in the USA after it has established itself at a 4-6 billion market cap level. The stock is up 360% in 1-year and 176% YTD.
Q4/20 & Q2/21 reports exceeded all expectations even after positive warnings
The Qt Group was also able to guide full 2021 results with close to 40-50% topline/bottom line growth. All five Finnish analysts raised their targets to around 160 AGAIN after the fact. Inderes CEO and Head Analyst Mikael Rautanen was so “bullish” on the company that he had problems keeping calm. Maybe the best Finnish growth company of his generation since Nokia, in his view, the Qt Group was added to the Eurostoxx 600 index and Nasdaq OMX25 Finland index. Foreign ownership has risen from 20% Q4/20 to Q2/21 to 31%.
Why? What happened in Q4/2020 & Q2/21?
Qt Group launched its new version 6.0 to Qt Group developers in October 2020. The license sales will force the developers to activate version 6.0 in a few years, which means 40-50% topline/bottom line growth for more than a few years to come. The growth is almost 90% guaranteed with this upgrade.
What is Qt for us non-IT developers? It is like MS Office for developers – you use Qt to create almost everything you code!
Approximately one million developers use Qt technology worldwide. Qt enables a single software code across all operating systems, platforms and screen types, from desktops and embedded systems to business-critical applications, in-vehicle systems, wearable’s and mobile devices connected to the Internet of Things.
The world’s best companies use Qt Group’s software to make the products you love
The corporate client list is full of S&P 500 companies: Cars (Mercedes-Benz, Peugeot etc.…), Rockwell Automation, Sky and LG to name but a few. CEO Juha Varelius has said many S&P 500 companies do not want to disclose that they use the Qt software.
