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Operator
Good day. Thank you for standing by. Welcome to Materialise Fourth Quarter 2021 Financial Results Conference Call. (Operator Instructions)
And now I would like to turn the conference over to Ms. Harriet Fried. You may go ahead, ma'am.
Harriet C. Fried - SVP
Thank you for joining us today for Materialise's quarterly conference call. With us on the call are Fried Vancraen, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Materialise; Peter Leys, Executive Chairman; and Johan Albrecht, Chief Financial Officer.
Today's call and webcast are being accompanied by a slide presentation that reviews Materialise's strategic, financial and operational performance for the fourth quarter of 2021. To access the slides if you haven't already done so, please go to the Investor Relations section of the company's website at www.materialise.com. The earnings release that was issued earlier today can also be found on that page.
Before we get started, I'd like to remind you that management may make forward-looking statements regarding the company's plans, expectations and growth prospects, among other things. These forward-looking statements are subject to known and unknown uncertainties and risks that could cause actual results to differ materially from the expectations expressed, including competitive dynamics and industry change. Any forward-looking statements, including those related to the company's future results and activities, represent management's estimates as of today and should not be relied upon as representing their estimates as of any subsequent date. Management disclaims any duty to update or revise any forward-looking statements to reflect future events or changes in expectations.
A more detailed description of the risks and uncertainties and other factors that could impact the company's future business or financial results can be found in the company's most recent annual report on Form 20-F filed with the SEC.
Finally, management will discuss certain non-IFRS measures on today's call. A reconciliation table is contained in the earnings release and at the end of the slide presentation.
With that introduction, I'd like to turn the call over to Peter Leys. Go ahead, please, Peter.
Peter E. Leys - Executive Chairman
Thank you, Harriet, and good morning, and good afternoon, everybody. Before turning to Slide 4, which summarizes the highlights of our Q4 and 2021 full year financial results, I would like to emphasize that our thoughts and actions today are focused on the safety and well-being of our Ukrainian collaborators. Their lives and security are of utmost importance to us. Fried will address the actions we are taking to assist them during his remarks.
Now turning to our 2021 results. As some of you may remember, in the third quarter of 2021, Materialise posted all-time quarterly records, both in terms of revenues and in terms of EBITDA. Today, we can announce that none of the Q3 records are still on the books for the simple reason that they have been surpassed by the all-time high revenues and adjusted EBITDA that we posted in the fourth quarter.
Driven by a very robust revenue growth in each of our segments, our consolidated Q4 revenues increased by more than 25% to a quarterly all-time high of close to EUR 57 million. Our adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was EUR 10.5 million, representing a margin of 18.4%. And our net profit for the quarter was almost EUR 4.8 million.
In particular, our Software and Medical segments realized very strong EBITDA margins in the fourth quarter, Software more than 45%; and Medical, more than 30%. For completeness sake, I should add that also for the full year 2021, our revenue, adjusted EBITDA and net profit are all-time records. Johan will fill you in on those numbers later.
These results show that our strategy of continuing to invest throughout the COVID-19 pandemic in our people in general and in the research and development in particular was the right choice and is already paying off in the short term.
I would like to now pass the floor to Fried, who will walk you through some of the key operational achievements of Materialise in 2021. Fried?
Wilfried Vancraen - Founder, CEO & Director
Good morning, and good afternoon, everyone. Before turning to our operational achievements in 2021, I want to reiterate what Peter just said with respect to Ukraine. I am, together with other members of our Executive Committee, in daily contact with the leadership of our Ukrainian office. And we are trying to help our team members there as much as we can through a variety of different avenues. The assistance we offer includes providing alternative housing and office space, both within and outside Ukraine.
In spite of the hostilities they are facing, many of our collaborators continue to contribute to the projects they are working on by making maximum use of the flexible working conditions we installed during the corona crisis. Simultaneously, many of our people around the globe are adjusting their activities and priorities and stepping in to assist wherever they can. We want to express deep admiration and respect for the courage, dedication and professionalism that our collaborators in Ukraine are showing in circumstances where their safety and the safety of their beloved ones is constantly at stake.
In 2021, a year that was still dominated by COVID restrictions and impacted by supply chain issues, I'm very proud of the collective performance of all Materialise employees. As Peter already outlined, we delivered a record performance, both in terms of revenue and profitability and this for the second quarter in a row. In a world with many restrictions and tight budgets, we grew our top and bottom compared to own -- not only to 2020, but also to 2019, while also reducing our carbon footprint drastically in all our segments.
Our global operations performed well in the new digital and work-from-home context. Our production lines were all shown to provide safe and effective work environment for our workforce during the different ways of COVID infections. Most importantly, we did all this while maintaining our R&D spending in order to secure our future. Most of the new products that will ensure the company's future growth would not be possible without sustained research and development efforts.
Overall, we believe our consistent performance during the crisis period has strengthened our position in the markets we serve and has demonstrated to our customers and partners that Materialise is a sustainable company, one they can rely on for their long-term future.
Let's look at some of the specific achievements at the level of our 3 segments. Our medical software for engineering on anatomy, the Mimics Innovation Suite, realized revenues of almost EUR 23 million in 2021. That proves that the Mimics Innovation Suite is the workhorse for many engineers that want to develop or produce medical devices based on medical image data. The growth was driven by new models that aim and make use of artificial intelligence [than ourselves] or that enable users to link with their own artificial intelligence developments.
Similarly, the Mimics Innovation Suite has also become an engine to explore and develop new augmented reality and virtual reality applications in the medical field. This has led to growth in both the medical device company and the hospital markets, where we will be able to help support the medical treatments of the future.
Our Medical Device activity had very strong growth, especially in cranio-maxillofacial surgery and in an extremely volatile environment with hospitals making sudden shifts in prioritization. Due to COVID, our design and production teams succeeded in providing constant service. In addition, in the middle of the challenging COVID-related circumstances, we were one of the first companies to bring our mass customization of medical guides and implants fully in line with the new European medical device directive. This significantly increased the hurdles for new medical product introductions in the European market. On top of that, we managed to clear several CMF products in our subsidiary engine plant for the European market.
Finally, Engimplan itself became a 100% daughter company of Materialise, fully focused on CMF and osteosynthesis as we spun out the spine line of the business to the former owners. Increased focus and stronger offering should enable us to capture additional market share, both in Brazil and in Europe.
Our manufacturing is back on track with the highest growth numbers of all our segments. Despite the production limitations in the civil aerospace on which we focused, we are seeing healthy growth, thanks to the promising segment of eVTOL as explained during our Q3 call.
But the key driver in the recovery is the segment of business systems, where we focus a lot on health care equipment. There, we have been seeing a structural increase in the use of additive manufacturing for small production series. Thanks to our wide offering with engineering support and multiple AM technologies, Materialise is well placed to support the companies in those markets for which we expect healthy growth and development in the near future.
Finally, also important to the Manufacturing segment's growth is a considerable growth in the eyewear and motion business. For motion, we integrated RSscan and RSPrint into Materialise motion and did a preparatory work to launch new product clients during 2022.
Our Software segment has launched a series of very impactful innovation initiatives from a strong base. The strong base is Magics, which consistently grew its user community during 2021. Even after being on the market for 30 years, Magics was chosen by the readers of 3DPrint.com and the AM software of 2021. And we are confident that the R&D initiatives we executed in 2021 are going to make it even stronger. We will launch Magics 26 in '22 with a fully integrated parasolid CAD-Kernel from Siemens.
This will enable it to integrate even better with design and post-processing workflows. The new Magics will also be compatible with the Link3D MES system, and it is now in beta testing.
The beta test for Process Tuner and workflow automation are also running successfully. And as we speak, the beta testing of store front is being launched. In short, after the serious development efforts of 2021, 2022 will be the year when multiple releases of new products fitting in our broader cloud strategy will take place. During our next earnings call, with the official releases at AMUG and RAPID, I will provide further details on our growth strategy.
Johan Albrecht - Executive VP & CFO
Thank you, Fried. I'll begin with a brief review of our consolidated revenue on Slide 6 now. As a reminder, when we refer to sales in our presentation, we mean revenues plus deferred revenues. Also, please note that unless otherwise stated, all comparisons in this call are against our results for the fourth quarter of 2020 and full year 2020.
For the quarter, revenue increased 25.8% to EUR 57 million. The growth took place in all 3 segments. Our Software segment grew by 19%; Materialise Medical increased 20%; and revenue in Manufacturing grew by 35%. For the quarter, Materialise Software accounted for 22% of our total revenue; Materialise Medical for 36%; and Materialise Manufacturing for 42%.
For the full year, revenue grew EUR 35 million or 20.5% to EUR 205.5 million. The EUR 4 million increase of our deferred revenue from software license and maintenance fees compared to December 2020, and that underscores the strong license sales performance of our Software and Medical segment. Cross-segment revenue from software products represented 32% of our total revenue for both the quarter and the full year.
Moving to Slide 7, you will see our consolidated adjusted EBITDA numbers for the fourth quarter. Consolidated adjusted EBITDA increased EUR 3.1 million to EUR 10,490,000 compared to Q4 last year and a new quarterly record. Our EBITDA margin grew to 18.4%, 2 percentage points above last year's 16.3%.
Full year EBITDA grew 59% from EUR 20.4 million in 2020 to EUR 32.5 million in 2021. EBITDA margin for the full year reached 15.8% compared to 12% last year. This increase was the result of a variety of positive factors: our strong revenue growth, improved gross margin treated by increased in-sourcing and continuous productivity improvements and disciplined spending, in particular with respect to overhead. Importantly, our EBITDA increase did not come at the expense of our R&D spending. In addition, the initiatives we previously described to enhance our internal business application platform continued and are on track.
Slide 8 summarizes the results of our Materialise Software segment. Software revenue increased 19.3% to EUR 12.2 million. While recurring revenue was flat, nonrecurring revenue grew 33.6% driven by new perpetual license fees.
EBITDA increased 43% to EUR 5,518,000. The adjusted EBITDA margin grew to 45% as a result of the solid revenue growth and our operating expenses kept well under control even as our digital transformation project continued.
Moving now to Slide 9, you will see that total revenue in our Materialise Medical segment increased 20.3%, and for the first time, broke EUR 20 million barrier. Revenue from medical software sales grew 25% while revenue from medical devices and services increased 18% compared to last year. Revenue from medical software sales accounted for 31% of the segment revenue.
Adjusted EBITDA grew 31% to EUR 6.358 million compared to EUR 4.8 million. The segment's adjusted EBITDA margin was 30.7% compared to 28.2% last year.
Now let's turn to Slide 10 for an overview of the Q4 performance of our Materialise Manufacturing segment. Revenue increased 34.9% to EUR 24.1 million. Importantly, revenue was approximately EUR 5 million higher than in the first quarter of 2021 when we first noted the positive signs from the industrial goods and other business lines.
Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was EUR 1.2 million. EBITDA margin was only 5%, negatively impacted by temporary higher production variables in our additive manufacturing business lines. Full year adjusted EBITDA increased EUR 3.9 million to EUR 6.4 million, while EBITDA margin increased to 7.2% from 3.7% as a result of the revenue growth, optimized capacity usage and improved production efficiencies.
Slide 11 provides the highlights of our income statement for the fourth quarter and the full year 2021. For the quarter, revenue increased EUR 11.7 million or 25.8%, and gross profit increased EUR 7 million or 26.9%.
Gross profit was positively impacted by efficiency gains and the growing software and service portion in our revenue sales mix. As a result, gross profit margin increased 0.5 percentage points to 58.3%. For the full year, this margin even increased 1.9 percentage points.
Operating expenses increased 5.9% compared to last year's quarter. Our sales and marketing spending increased 22.7% as sales and marketing projects were revised. G&A expenditures increased 11.3%, an increase due to the rollout of the ongoing internal digital transformation project that we discussed in our previous earnings calls.
In line with our strategy, research and development expenses increased 12.2% compared to Q4, if we exclude last year's EUR 2.1 million impairment cost of our tracheal splint program. This quarter, net operating income was EUR 1,260,000.
As a result of these elements, the group's operating profit amounted to EUR 4.976 million compared to a loss of almost EUR 2 million in last year's period. For the full year, operating profit rose to EUR 12,217,000 from the loss of EUR 4,639,000.
Net financial income was EUR 275,000 compared to a loss of EUR 596,000 last year. Income tax expense amounted to EUR 490,000 compared to the Q4 2020 positive tax income of EUR 531,000. Net profit for the fourth quarter was EUR 4,762,000 compared to a net loss of EUR 2,039,000 for the 2020 period. For the full year, net profit rose to EUR 13,145,000, resulting in EUR 0.23 per share from a net loss of EUR 7.2 million or minus EUR 0.13 per share.
Now please turn to Slide 12 for a recap of balance sheet and cash flow highlights. This fourth quarter, our balance sheet remains strong. Cash amounted to EUR 196 million compared to EUR 111.5 million at December 31, 2020. But over the same period, our borrowings decreased by EUR 16 million to EUR 99.1 million. Only EUR 21.3 million of our debt is short term at December 31.
Equity increased EUR 99.4 million to EUR 232.6 million as a combined result of the year-to-date net profit amounting to EUR 13.1 million, income from the June and July follow-on net capital increase of EUR 85.8 million, the exercise of stock options for EUR 2.4 million, the impairment of financial assets in assumption of EUR 3.4 billion over the year '21 and positive conversion differences of EUR 1 million mainly from the strong British pound and U.S. dollar against euro.
Total deferred revenue increased to EUR 38.3 million compared to EUR 34.9 million as of December 31, 2020. Of the EUR 38.3 million, EUR 34.3 million were related to annual software sales and maintenance contracts versus EUR 30.2 million as of December 31, 2020.
Cash flow from operating activities for the full year amounted to EUR 25.8 million compared to EUR 30 million last year. The increased operating result was partly offset by unfavorable working capital requirements as a result of the strong activity growth.
Capital expenditures for the quarter amounted to EUR 4.5 million and to EUR 11.7 million for the year. And they were not financed. Our financial reports are excluding Link3D, of which we acquired 100% of the shares on January 4, '22. As a reference, in 2021, Link3D realized revenue of approximately USD 2.3 million and a negative EBITDA of approximately USD 4.6 million.
Peter?
Peter E. Leys - Executive Chairman
Thank you, Johan. If you could kindly turn to Slide 13. Encouraged by our very strong results in the second half of 2021, we believe our more mature business lines, in particular, our Magics Software Suite, our Mimics Innovation Suite and our personalized medical device business lines, all have the potential of continuing to scale solidly with a healthy margin. And we plan to support these businesses accordingly in 2022.
Simultaneously, we have the ambition to significantly increase our spending in 2022, especially in R&D and sales and marketing with a view to accelerating the development of our new growth businesses, which includes our software cloud platform, including the newly acquired Link3D solutions and our medical and wearable verticals.
We believe that the combined growth of our more mature and our newer business lines, including Link3D, will generate consolidated revenue growth in 2022 of at least 10% compared to the previous year. As we will be allocating significant portions of the expanding EBITDA margins of some of our more mature business lines towards increased investments in our newer growth businesses, in particular, the Link3D product portfolio, we expect our consolidated adjusted EBITDA to decrease by approximately 10% compared to last year.
This outlook for 2022 does not take into account the very recent events in Ukraine. As a reminder, we had no meaningful sales in Ukraine or in Russia. Our 430 collaborators in Ukraine are mainly active in engineering, software development and supporting IT and staff functions.
As Fried explained earlier, we believe that the impact of the war in Ukraine for our customers and for the continuity of our business will be minimal because many of our people in Ukraine continue to work whenever they can. And Materialise colleagues with similar skills and competencies elsewhere in the world are stepping in to assist them whenever that is needed.
Nonetheless, the recent onset of hostilities in Ukraine does add a level of complexity to our outlook for 2022 as we currently cannot assess how long they will last or how the global economy will react to the sanctions that are being imposed upon Russia. We hope to have more visibility on these events, which are very disturbing to all of us and the potential short-term impact on our business when we release our first quarter results.
And on this note, I would now like to open the floor for questions. Operator, please go ahead.
Operator
(Operator Instructions) Our first question comes from the line of Troy Jensen from Lake Street Capital.
Troy Donavon Jensen - Senior Research Analyst
Congrats on the great fourth quarter.
Peter E. Leys - Executive Chairman
Thank you, Troy.
Troy Donavon Jensen - Senior Research Analyst
Peter, I just want to start out with software. I guess I was happy to see that up nicely. It had been stuck kind of at about a $10 million quarterly level. It sounds like Mimics grew faster. I think even I read in the press -- or in the slides, it was 25% growth, but the segment was up 19%. But I guess I just want to confirm that Magics and Streamics is still growing kind of high teens. Is that correct?
Peter E. Leys - Executive Chairman
Well, actually, the Magics growth is not high teens, but close to 10%. The Streamics is actually being replaced by Link3D in the future. But we see a healthy growth in the sales, and we expect that the new cloud platform will really become a growth driver in the future.
Troy Donavon Jensen - Senior Research Analyst
Great. Understood. Hope so. How about just specifically to like Q1 and the health care segment, I think of you guys as fairly exposed to elective surgeries. And obviously, with COVID kind of spiking back in kind of January, February, just the thought that Q1 may be seasonally weaker than we've historically seen?
Peter E. Leys - Executive Chairman
Troy, we had that experience of elective surgeries being postponed for COVID-related treatments earlier. But frankly, the impact, as our numbers show, of COVID on businesses on surgeries that we support being, again, picked up is minimal.
Troy Donavon Jensen - Senior Research Analyst
Understood. All right. Okay. Assuming Omicron spiking might have slowed that down. How about that Peter, too, or Fried, medical point of care. I guess I hear more point-of-care applications for medical. Is that something that you guys favor? Or do you guys prefer more centralized? Or I guess, to me, it's good for Mimics sales, but just thoughts on the implants and stuff like that?
Wilfried Vancraen - Founder, CEO & Director
Well, we have a balanced view. We favor point-of-care solutions, especially with respect to visualization models and yes, surgery planning models and the like. We do believe that on the other side, on the implant side, a more centralized approach is the only, yes, feasible one if you want to comply with all regulatory requirements. And we have proven that we can, yes, elaborate high-volume patient-specific solutions of implants with a quality level that is similar to standardized implants. And I think this is very difficult if you do this in a very distributed way of working.
Troy Donavon Jensen - Senior Research Analyst
Great. I'd agree with that. Okay. Last question for me, Manufacturing has been a great segment here recently. Could you just call it again? I thought I heard you say maybe European auto was weak, but what was strong in the quarter for you guys on the Manufacturing side?
Wilfried Vancraen - Founder, CEO & Director
Well, we see in the segment of what we call, yes, industrial and healthcare equipment a strong use of 3D printing. And we believe this is a quite structural change that for a small series of complex pieces of equipment, 3D printing is more and more considered. This is what we believe one of the areas where, yes, additive manufacturing has a serious growth potential and in a sustainable way.
Troy Donavon Jensen - Senior Research Analyst
Great. Okay. That sounds like it's more end-part production applications driving the business in, correct?
Wilfried Vancraen - Founder, CEO & Director
Yes, yes.
Operator
Your next question is from Jason Celino from KeyBanc Capital Markets.
Devin Au - Associate
This is actually Devin on for Jason. First question I have is around your 2022 guidance. I know that there's a lot of near-term geopolitical uncertainty. But in terms of other macro factors like supply chain disruptions that you and your customers, particularly within auto and for the aerospace I've been working with during the past couple of years, what is your expectation of kind of this macro challenge to trend in 2022? Do you expect some sort of improvement? Any color you can provide on that?
Peter E. Leys - Executive Chairman
As you -- I mean, as Fried explained earlier, we have -- I mean, the strong growth in manufacturing has been realized, I mean, to some extent, by us being able to focus on other sectors than just the automotive. The business systems in general and then the healthcare applications, in particular, is something that we have focused on. And that has helped us in restoring the growth.
And so, I mean, that shift to some extent allows us to already show strong growth now. If automotive picks up in the course of 2022, we've been saying this for a couple of years now. But if it does pick up, that should only further foster strong performance of our manufacturing in 2022. Let's wait and see.
Devin Au - Associate
Got it. Got it. That's helpful. And then maybe one more on gross margin. It's a nice step up to 57% in 2021. Just maybe any color you can provide on how we should think about that margin for 2022? I know manufacturing rebounded nicely in 2021. Should we continue to expect a kind of gradual step-up in margin as that segment grows and benefit from leverage?
Johan Albrecht - Executive VP & CFO
Yes. We expect quite a gradual improvement of the margins in manufacturing. We had temporary lesser margin in the fourth quarter, but we counted in the next quarter that it will improve the guidance gradually.
Devin Au - Associate
Got it. Congrats on the good results.
Peter E. Leys - Executive Chairman
Thank you.
Wilfried Vancraen - Founder, CEO & Director
Thank you.
Operator
We have a question from Noelle Dilts from Stifel.
Noelle Christine Dilts - VP & Analyst
Congrats again on the strong quarter. I really only had one major question, which is I think the investments that you're talking about making in R&D and sales and marketing makes a lot of sense for 2022. But I was hoping you could discuss sort of how we should think about the returns on those investments. Are you expecting to maintain higher levels of investment going into 2023 and 2024? How should we just think about this from a longer-term business model perspective?
Peter E. Leys - Executive Chairman
The -- Noelle, the -- just for 2022 to begin with, I think you can expect an uptake of those investments more in the second half than in the first half of the year as we are ramping up recruitment of the developers that we are currently looking for. These investments will not stop in 2023.
We do expect that sales and in particular of the Link3D and more in general, the Magics Cloud platform, we expect those to actually start showing up in our P&L more in 2023 than in 2022. So 2022 will really be a year where it will be a significant investment with not that much additional revenue coming from these investments.
So hitting our P&L significantly as of 2023 and more importantly, the years thereafter, we expect that our investments in the Link3D platform will actually show the recurring revenue that we are aiming for.
Operator
(Operator Instructions) Next question is from Gregory Ramirez from Bryan Garnier.
Gregory K. Ramirez - Analyst
Just a few on my side. First of all, on the Software division in Q4, how do we have to interpret the surge in Software revenues, not only on the product side, Magics, et cetera? But I would say, as it is, it looks to be driven by new licenses. Is it related to specific orders on the side of 3D printing manufacturers? Do we have to consider it as a one-off because it was the end of the year, and maybe the 3D printing manufacturers had some orders? Or is it some upgrades on existing machines?
I have another question regarding the structure of the growth, which is expected for 2022, the 10% plus. So you mentioned that Software and Medical will continue to generate solid trends. What is, I would say, the specific situation of Manufacturing? Is it relate -- what I understand is that it is partly maybe related to the situation in the automotive sector. But is there any specific reason which can make us believe that the growth will be significantly lower in the Manufacturing division in 2022?
And my third and last question is regarding the adjusted EBITDA guidance for '22. What do we have to expect from the potentially negative contribution to EBITDA from Link3D because it looks to be that most of the decline, the EBITDA decline in '22 is specifically explained by the Link3D acquisition.
Peter E. Leys - Executive Chairman
Yes. Thank you, Gregory. Many questions. I hope we took good notes. If not, please interrupt us. In short, your first question on the Software growth, close to 20% in Q4. Yes, I mean, Q4 is always a strong quarter for Software sales as you know. So that is definitely -- the 20% growth that we posted in the last quarter is definitely, to some extent, linked to the fact that the quarter that we're reporting on is -- Q4 is the last quarter of the year. Your second question relating to the growth that we expect in manufacturing?
Gregory K. Ramirez - Analyst
Yes.
Peter E. Leys - Executive Chairman
Well, I mean, Manufacturing posted a spectacular 35%-plus growth this quarter. It's basically a significant growth because of the comparison with a previous quarter that was significantly weak because of the COVID-19 crisis. So we're basically filling our capacity again.
And our -- I mean, we will continue to fill our capacity in 2022. Once we get to that level, the focus will be on making the right choices and making sure we fill our capacity with products that generate the best possible margin. And there, we believe that some of the healthcare applications that Fried alluded to earlier should help us in improving the margin of manufacturing. It's basically a rebound is what manufacturing is currently doing.
That being said, as part of our Manufacturing segment, we are reporting also our wearables businesses, our eyewear and our motion business. And they will -- we believe they will contribute to some of the continued growth that we will intend to continue to report in 2022.
Gregory K. Ramirez - Analyst
Okay.
Peter E. Leys - Executive Chairman
Your last question related to the EBITDA profile for 2022 and the role that Link3D will play there. The short answer to your question is yes. The bulk of the negative investments contributing negatively to our EBITDA in 2022 will be linked to the development of our software cloud platform. And that obviously includes continued investments also in the product portfolio that we acquired from Link3D.
Gregory K. Ramirez - Analyst
Okay. And just to come back on the first question. So do you confirm there is, I would say, no specific one-off in the almost 20% growth in software in Q4?
Wilfried Vancraen - Founder, CEO & Director
There is no specific one-off. It's well-distributed. But again, here, we also have a bit the effect that Peter mentioned for manufacturing that the reference year of 2020 was, of course, a weak year.
Peter E. Leys - Executive Chairman
It's -- the normal good Q4 compared -- which is Q4 is good compared to a not-so-good Q4 last -- the year before.
Operator
And our last question is from Prerna Advani with JPMorgan.
Prerna Deepak Advani - Research Analyst
This is Prerna on for Paul Chung from JPMorgan. I have a couple of questions. So on the EBITDA margin, just going back, can you talk a little bit about where you see that going in '23? Do you see some of the return on investments on top line? And kind of how can you look at the margin outlook?
Peter E. Leys - Executive Chairman
Yes. We try to guide for the year, so guide for 2022. We're not really guiding for 2023. But as I said earlier, while 2022 will be hit significantly with lots of investments and not that much additional revenue, we expect to still in 2023 to continue the level of investments. But we do expect already some revenue compensating those revenues in 2023. But the bulk of the return, I mean, it's more likely to come in the years thereafter.
Johan Albrecht - Executive VP & CFO
And as our core businesses will also continue to grow, that's as we said, we will be having expanding margins and realizing scale effects. So we should go back to the higher margins that we realized this year and on the longer term, continue evolving positively.
Peter E. Leys - Executive Chairman
Yes. Thank you, Johan. My comment only related to basically investments in the software cloud platform and not on a consolidated basis in general. Yes, thank you.
Prerna Deepak Advani - Research Analyst
I see. And then kind of going to the revenue contribution, can you speak at all about what you expect Link3D to bring in, in 2022, both on sales and also OpEx?
Peter E. Leys - Executive Chairman
Okay. We do not -- as it is not a material acquisition, we do not intend to continue to give separate numbers of Link3D also because we will be very quickly integrating the product. But roughly, we gave you the numbers of the revenue that Link3D generated in 2021. In terms of contribution by Link3D to revenue in 2022, we do not expect significant increases there.
Prerna Deepak Advani - Research Analyst
Got it. Those were all my questions. Congrats on a great quarter.
Peter E. Leys - Executive Chairman
We do expect an increase. I mean, it was a negative EUR 4.6 million. We expect just to be sure to increase the "negative EBITDA" coming from that product line.
Operator
There are no further questions at this time. I would now like to turn the conference back to Mr. Peter Leys.
Peter E. Leys - Executive Chairman
Thank you, operator. And thank you again all for joining us today. We also want to thank our employees around the globe for their dedication and contributions. On behalf of all members of the Materialise family, I would like to convey the following closing message to our colleagues and friends in Ukraine. Dear colleagues, we admire your courage. You are an inspiration to all of us. We stand behind each and every one of you. Please take good care of yourselves. Thank you.
Operator
This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for all joining. You may now disconnect.