Surgical Science beats the Intuitive drag: license revenue shock beats MoU loss fears
A quarter that flips the narrative
Tom Englund opened the Q2 2026 call with an uncharacteristic, declarative tone: “Quarter 2 was a strong quarter, and I want to say that clearly upfront. We exceeded our financial targets on growth.” — Tom Englund, CEO · 2026-08-19 The revenue and margin numbers back him up. Sales rose 22% reported (25% in local currencies) to SEK 255 million, while adjusted EBIT margin hit 15% — exactly the target level the company set for itself after the 2025 disruption. The simulator business is recovering, and the mix shift toward licensing is doing heavy lifting: gross margin improved to 69% from 65% a year ago.
The real story, though, is what changed on the Intuitive front. Surgical Science's largest customer, Intuitive, cancelled its Memorandum of Understanding in late 2025, which had guaranteed simulation on every dV5. That forced the company to guide license revenue down SEK 60–90 million for 2026. But this quarter the company revealed that the actual attach rate has been far better than feared. As Tom explained: “Given this continued positive response from end customers for simulation, we estimate that the revenue loss for '26 that was part of the changed commercial terms with Intuitive will be less than the SEK 60 million to SEK 90 million that we initially estimated.” — Tom Englund, CEO · 2026-08-19 The attachment rate for dV5 has exceeded internal expectations, and the first renewals of dV5 digital packages came in at 100% retention — all customers renewed.
This is a sharp reversal from the tone of the prior two calls. In May, management explicitly declined to narrow the range: “We want to refrain from making any sort of more specific predictions, but rather stick to the SEK 60 million to SEK 90 million that we have said.” — Tom Englund, CEO · 2026-05-20 Even in February, the message was cautious: “We believe then will have a negative effect of SEK 60 million to SEK 90 million during the entire 2026 compared to 2025.” — Tom Englund, CEO · 2026-02-19 Now the tone is confident, and the company is signaling that the revenue loss will land at the low end or below.
Beyond Intuitive: the market is broadening
Intuitive remains the anchor, but the company is no longer betting on a single customer. License revenues rose 44% year-over-year, and management was explicit that the growth was “a healthy mix of revenues from different customers” — Tom Englund, CEO · 2026-08-19 — no single package deal beyond the core. The robotic surgery companies universe is expanding: Johnson & Johnson's OTTAVA received FDA clearance for general surgery, and Medtronic started marketing Hugo in the U.S. Tom framed this as a structural tailwind: “More robots means more training needs and more licenses for Surgical Science.” — Tom Englund, CEO · 2026-08-19 The company is also repositioning for growth in Asia, opening an APAC service hub in Hong Kong to get closer to customers despite the headwind in China.
The margin story is not just about license mix. Excluding licenses, gross margin improved several percentage points, driven by operational improvements and price increases. Anna Ahlberg noted the first refund on U.S. customs duties, and management expects more price benefit to flow through in H2. The company ended the quarter with SEK 658 million in cash and no debt, giving it ample dry powder for M&A — a recurring item in the Q&A.
Surgical Science's pivot from a hardware-led simulator business to a software/license-led model is now demonstrably working. The prior year's fear that the Intuitive MoU cancellation would cripple the license stream appears overblown, and the company is now guiding that the impact will be smaller than initially feared. The product development pipeline is the largest it has ever been, and the company is confident in its competitive moat. This is a classic case of the market overreacting to customer concentration risk, and the Q2 print is a powerful corrective.