Good day, and welcome to the ADNOC Distribution Q4 2025 earnings call. Today's conference is being recorded. At this time, I'd like to turn the conference over to Athmane Benzerroug. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to ADNOC Distribution 2025 results conference call. My name is Athmane Benzerroug, Chief Strategy, Transformation, and Sustainability Officer. It's a pleasure to have you with us today. I'm joined on the call by Bader Al Lamki, our Chief Executive Officer, and Ali Siddiqi, Acting Chief Financial Officer. In today's call, our CEO will start with key achievements and speak about the company's outlook.
I will discuss progress on our growth strategy. Then Ali will take you through operating and financial results. After the presentation, we turn to Q&A. This presentation includes forward-looking statements relating to our business. Such statements involve a number of factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from our expectations. For more information, please refer to the International Offering Memorandum relating to our IPO and to other investor communications, all of which are available on our website. I will now hand over to Bader, who will highlight our key achievements and discuss the company's outlook. Over to you, Bader.
Thank you, Athmane. Let me start with our HSE performance. At ADNOC Distribution, health, safety, and environment are fundamental values embedded in how we operate and how decisions are made across the organization. In 2025, we once again delivered a strong safety performance, reinforcing our long-standing track record and demonstrating the consistency of our approach.
Our unwavering commitment to HSE ensures the protection of our people, contractors, and communities, while reinforcing operational reliability and supporting long-term sustainable growth. It is my pleasure to present to you today our key 2025 achievements. Following double-digit growth, ADNOC Distribution delivered record EBITDA and net profit. This was supported by the highest fuel volumes sold ever, significant growth in non-fuel retail, and growing contributions from international operations, including Saudi Arabia and Egypt. The company generated record 32.7% return on capital employed.
This was driven by efficient capital allocation and demonstrates our continued focus on operational excellence and value creation. We continue making progress towards our five-year strategy, leveraging 2024 and 2025 momentum to drive growth through key initiatives. Number one, non-fuel transactions increased by 20%, on track to our goal of doubling the transactions in 2030 versus 2023.
Number two, we expanded our network to over 1,000 stations and exceeded 2028 target that was communicated during Capital Market Day two years ago. At Investor Majlis in October, we increased this target to 1,150 stations by 2028. Number three, our network of over 400 fast and super-fast chargers is now eight times bigger compared to the 2023 baseline. We are on track to grow it by 10-15 times by 2028.
This is a strategic move, ensuring the right infrastructure for EV drivers and meet rising demand in the UAE. Number four, finally, we've achieved $25 million like-for-like OpEx saving over the past two years, progressing well towards our $50 million five years savings goal. Our non-fuel retail strategy is gaining momentum with the ongoing impact of the new initiatives, including new food and beverage offerings, car wash upgrades.
Today, non-fuel retail is growing faster than fuel business, and we expect this strong momentum to sustain. We aim to unlock the potential and further grow non-fuel contribution to our earnings and cash flows in the coming years. ADNOC Rewards is a strategic growth engine for ADNOC Distribution. It is designed to transform our service station into vibrant, high-traffic destinations and to accelerate non-fuel retail growth.
Today, the program connects over 2.6 million members, representing more than half of the UAE's vehicle car parc. Over the past year alone, membership increased by 16%, adding more than 350,000 new loyal members. More importantly, ADNOC Rewards gives us a deep insight into customers' behaviors. When customers feel recognized and rewarded, they spend more, both on fuel and within our NFR offering, and we see it with our rewards members, supported by targeted upsell campaigns and hyper-personalized offers tailored to individuals' preferences and purchasing patterns.
Personalization is the cornerstone of modern loyalty programs. By leveraging data and analytics, ADNOC Rewards delivers relevant offers that resonate with each customer. We believe that this combination of scale, insight, and customer engagement make ADNOC Rewards a powerful driver of long-term value creation. Last year, we delivered above our initial and updated 2025 targets.
Looking ahead, we expect this momentum to continue into 2026 and beyond, supported by higher fuel and non-fuel retail contributions, growing international exposure, and continued efficiency gains. For 2026, our priorities are clear. First, we plan to expand our network, opening 60-70 new stations across the three markets. Two, we will also scale our EV infrastructure, adding 50-60 charging points at strategic locations, in line with adaptation trends and on-the-go charging demand.
Thirdly, in terms of investment, we expect a CapEx of $250 million-$300 million, focused on sustainable growth, non-fuel retail upgrade, technology, and EV charging. I will now hand over to Athmane, who will walk you through the delivery of our growing strategy.
Thank you, Bader. We have been leveraging on sustained regional economic growth and strong mobility trends to deliver record-high volumes to our customers. Thanks to efficient network expansion and enhanced customer engagement, last year, we increased total volumes by 5% to around 16 billion liters. Following 7% growth in 2024, UAE and KSA fuel volumes accelerated further, reaching nearly 8.5% growth in 2025.
This was supported by the opening of 20 new stations, of which 17 are in our core UAE markets, as well as a higher number of operational DOCO stations in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Beyond GCC, our aviation business in Egypt, which is fully dollar-denominated and represents 70% of Egypt EBITDA, continued to perform exceptionally well. Last year, volumes surged by more than 20%, supported by strong tourism demand.
These results underline the resilience and scalability of our platform. On the EV side, EV charging is a key pillar of how we are future-proofing our network. We are preparing for growth of electric vehicles by delivering the same convenience and speed that customers enjoy today from traditional fueling. We continue to expand in a disciplined manner and have identified eight inter-emirate highways, where we plan to build dedicated EV charging hubs.
We are addressing two main concerns of EV drivers: range anxiety and charger availability. Our network has expanded to more than 400 fast and super-fast charging points, strategically located across our sites. For us, EV charging represents a high margin, high potential business for three reasons. First of all, we operate in a supportive regulatory environment with clear tariffs and utility costs, providing strong visibility on returns.
Secondly, our chargers are located on a company-owned land or long-term leases, giving us long-term control over our assets. Thirdly, EV customers spend more time on site, increasing engagement with our convenience retail, food and beverage, and car care offerings. By combining disciplined deployments, premium locations, and integration with our ADNOC Rewards ecosystem, EV charging will become a higher contributor to our growth and value creation.
I will now share insights on our non-fuel retail business, which remains a strategic element of our growth ambition. This includes convenience stores, car wash, lube change, property management, and vehicle inspection centers. In 2025, non-fuel transactions increased by 9% or growing almost two times faster than the fuel transactions. This performance reflects strong execution focus and our ability to capture more value from every customer visit across our network.
We will continue to enhance our retail offerings to attract more customers in our stores, to drive higher footfall, stronger conversion rate, and improved margins. Let me now turn to our convenience store segment... the second key customer touchpoint after fuel and a core driver of the non-fuel retail growth. Today, we operate under a refreshed ADNOC Oasis brand, a high margin, high growth convenience store platform that accounts for more than 40% of our non-fuel retail gross profit.
The Oasis rebranding, which we launched last September, contributed to higher footfall and transactions. Food categories more than doubling during the launch campaign and remain the fastest growing today. In 2025, Oasis delivered a strong double-digit increase in gross profit, driven by higher conversion, improved mix, and disciplined execution. Also, margins expanded through product mix optimization, faster innovation cycles, and stronger execution, reflecting the strength of the Oasis platform.
Food and beverage remains our highest margin category, with coffee and barista-prepared drinks leading the growth. Digital marketing and cross-selling have been further enhanced, with greater app engagement driving more frequent convenience stores visits. We saw conversion from fuel to convenience stores reaching around 27%, the highest level in six years, supported by better station level assortment, AI-driven stores clustering, and cluster-based assortment.
Non-fuel retail outlook remains exciting. Similar to 2025, we expect non-fuel retail to grow at a double-digit pace, significantly outpacing fuel, with Oasis at the center of that growth story. We are actually building on this momentum with, first of all, new long-term supply contracts that will start delivering benefits to improve the availability, supported by tighter supply chain visibility. And secondly, we will also launch our Oasis private label in Q2, strengthening our food and FMCG proposition and reinforcing our brand promise to customers.
Let me now turn to our car care services, which includes car wash, lube change, and vehicle inspection services, which all of them are growing, bringing recurring traffic across the network and delivering high margins. Specifically, car wash business is one of the fastest growing non-fuel verticals, expanding at a double-digit rate and faster than overall non-fuel retail gross profit. This growth has been driven by three initiatives.
First of all, higher customer engagement with the ADNOC Rewards program, supported by digitalization, loyalty, and targeted promotions, including bundled offers to drive repeat usage and wallet share. Secondly, we have upgraded around half of our automatic car washes with a clear focus on Tier 1 best-performing locations. At this site, we introduce new tiered menu with a broader range of car wash options, including premium wax and shine offerings.
Thirdly, we have launched seven high-capacity car wash tunnels in the past two years, offering significantly higher throughput, faster service, and a superior customer experience compared to the traditional formats. Another business under non-fuel retail segment is property management, which has been growing at double-digit. Property management plays an instrumental role in our real estate optimization and vision to transform our stations into destinations of choice.
End of last year, we unveiled a new concept, The Hub by ADNOC, on unused land. Plan to scale this to 30 by 2030 and generate $30 million EBITDA run rate, with 90% coming from secured rental income. This is a destination and a community anchor that is designed to meet evolving expectations of our customers for convenience, speed, and lifestyle. In fact, The Hub is a one-stop destination.
Whether you are grabbing a quick meal, enjoying a coffee break, servicing your car, picking up groceries, or spending quality time with family, The Hub delivers it all. On the AI and digital strategy, we are deploying AI to unlock new revenue streams and optimize, enhance operational efficiency, and deliver exceptional customer experience. On the revenue side, we have introduced AI-forward personalization across our loyalty program.
We analyze customer data and tailor offers and bundles that resonate with individual preferences and push them when they are relevant. For example, high-value customers now receive personalized convenience stores offers, which has led to higher spend per visit and retention. On the efficiency side, we are using AI to transform our operations from reactive to predictive, reducing downtime and costs.
Finally, on the customer experience side, we are focusing on using AI models to optimize staffing staff levels, ensure high service availability, and maintain the right inventory at the right time across our network. We are also deploying AI chat agents that manage customer inquiries and complaints with speed and accuracy. We are also using computer vision for faster self-checkout experience at our C stores.
These innovations build trust and loyalty in every interaction as we build an AI-native future. Let me conclude with our continued focus on sustainability, which is embedded in our day-to-day operations. We are actively decarbonizing our operations and aligning our financing strategy with our sustainability goals. I'm also pleased to share that in 2025, we successfully met our sustainability linked loan KPIs, demonstrating tangible progress against our environmental commitments. Our target is clear, a 25% reduction in carbon intensity by 2030.
To get there, we are executing a focused set of initiatives, ranging from deploying solar panels, reducing energy consumption, and optimizing the routes for our fuel supply chains. We'll publish details of our 2025 ESG performance in our integrated report, externally assured by March. I will now hand over to Ali to present the highlights of our financial performance. Over to you, Ali.
Thanks, Athmane. Good morning, and good afternoon, everyone. I'm delighted to announce that the execution of a five-year strategy and robust operating performance resulted in a double-digit growth across all the key financial metrics. We set new records for EBITDA and net profit, driven by volume growth, margin improvement, and prudent control over the costs. Net profit increased by 15%, further supported by a positive impact of lower interest rates on our finance costs.
2025 return on capital employed exceeded 32%, a testament to efficient capital allocation, and the fact that all our investments are underpinned by a rigorous screening process. Let's now turn to the key highlights of our operating performance. We delivered record high fuel volume, supported by more than 8% retail fuel segment growth in the UAE and KSA.
This was driven by network expansion, higher mobility, and sustained momentum in the region's economic growth. Our non-fuels retail business continued to deliver a standout performance with a 9% growth in transactions, which was nearly double the growth in fuels transactions. This demonstrates and reaffirms the strength of our customer value proposition, the continued appeal of our products portfolio, and the growing impact of the ADNOC Rewards loyalty program.
Let's now look at the financial performance across the key operating segments. They all delivered double-digit gross profit growth. Retail fuels gross profit increased by 10%, driven by the strong volume growth and further supported by $13 million of higher inventory gains. Commercial fuels delivered 14% growth in gross profit, attributable to proactive margin management and high grading of our customer portfolio. Non-fuels retail continued to outpace retail fuels growth.
Non-fuels retail gross profit increased by 14%, supported by higher number of transactions, stronger convenience store conversion rates, increased focus on our food and beverage offering, upgraded car wash services, and new property management initiatives. Now, turning to operating expenditure. In 2025, the revenue and profit accretive expansion of our fuels and non-fuels assets led to a 6% increase in absolute cash OpEx. We remain committed to achieve cost efficiency and excellence across all our verticals and cost buckets. After delivering $18 million of like-for-like OpEx savings in 2024, we achieved additional savings of $7 million in 2025, and we are firmly on track to deliver $50 million of savings by 2028. As a result, our unit OpEx, excluding one-off items, remain unchanged, benefiting from efficiency enhancement initiatives. Let's now look at the segment-wide EBITDA performance.
As mentioned before, our 2025 EBITDA was 11% higher, while underlying EBITDA, excluding inventory movements and one-off items, increased by 10%. It is remarkable to see all the verticals contributing to the EBITDA growth, showcasing the resilience and scalability of our platform. Now turning to cash generation. We converted strong EBITDA into cash in 2025. Free cash flow of $741 million remained strong and well in excess of our dividend commitment.
Timing of payable settlement boosted 2024 cash flow and reduced Q1 2025 cash flows, with some of those adverse working capital effects normalizing during 2025. Excluding the working capital changes, we generated $820 million of cash, and this happened despite inaugural UAE corporate income tax payment of approximately $70 million made in Q3 of 2025.
Cash CapEx spending during the period was $327 million. On an accruals basis, it amounted to $286 million, which compares to our guidance of $250 million-$300 million per year. Finally, net debt to EBITDA ratio of 0.7 x underscores our strong financial standing and favorably positions the company for future growth and shareholder value creation. Let me hand it back over to Bader for closing remarks.
Thank you, Ali. Before the Q&A, let me highlight our key priorities. One, driving growth. We are growing faster and ahead of expectation. Our strong 2025 results reinforce the track record of delivery, and we expect this growth momentum to continue in 2026 and beyond. Secondly, accelerating expansion. In 2026, we aim to add 50-60 new stations to our network, further develop EV infrastructure. Thirdly, disciplined growth and OpEx optimization. We will leverage strong cash flows and a solid balance sheet to fund value-driven organic and inorganic opportunities while ensuring financial discipline, maximizing returns, and optimizing OpEx. Fourth, enhancing shareholders' value. To provide long-term visibility of shareholders' distribution, the board has recommended to extend our attractive dividend policy till 2030, and paying dividends on a quarterly basis.
This move reflects our confidence in sustainable value creation and cash flow generation, and offers an upside from the future earnings growth. The recommendation will be submitted at our AGM in March. That concludes our presentation. We are happy to take your queries.
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Good day. Hopefully, you can hear me. It's Anna Kishmariya from UBS. I have a couple of questions. First, around the impaired receivables, if you can provide a bit more color around who were the clients, what is the situation? Do you still expect to recover part of this receivables, and or should we expect more impairments in future? Also a couple of questions around DOCO model. So you already have 31 stations operational as of fourth quarter. Can you compare what is the throughput per station in the DOCO station and the usual Saudi station that you have? Like, is it similar levels, or does DOCO has a little bit of less volumes? And finally, maybe you can provide a little bit color around initial hub performance. Does it meet your first expectations? Thank you.
Okay, thanks for the question. I'll start. I will take the one on receivables and provisions first. Firstly, this is a general provision mainly covering the B2B sector. The increase in this general provision reflects a deliberate conservative judgment and definitely not a deterioration in the underlying business. We have taken a forward-looking and prudent approach on our receivables. Importantly, cash generation remains solid, operating performance is sound, and customer demand and margins and liquidity, there is absolutely no issue with any of them. So these provisions are, of course, non-cash in nature and do not impact our ability to invest, pay dividends, or execute our strategy.
Just, Ali, if you can just, if I can just complement what Ali was just saying, on the reporting. So the underlying EBITDA under the definition that we have only takes into account inventory movements and cash OpEx, one-off items. So provisions are not cash of one-off items for the purpose of the underlying EBITDA calculation. So the EBITDA and the underlying EBITDA would have been much higher, excluding the impact of the provisions. So if you look just at EBITDA Q4 2025. It is up 8.1% year-on-year. If you add back the $53 million of provisions, the growth would have been roughly 30%, okay?
Correct.
To roughly $334 million. So this is just what I want to add to what Ali was saying.
Thank you, Athmane. And we just did not want to alter the definition of underlying a nd this is certainly not a recurring or a repetitive provisioning. Hard to basically say that there won't be any payments on provisions, but given in the current reference conditions where we are today, we do not anticipate any abnormal provisioning going forward. On DOCO, I hand over to Athmane.
Yeah, on the DOCO. So, we have added last year 99 DOCOs. We have doubled the network versus 2024. We have roughly 30 stations, 30+ stations that are actually operational. And it takes, of course, a couple of months to get the remaining, and we expect by this year, beginning of next year, depending on the approvals. Difficult to give the throughput per station at this stage. What we can tell you is that on the earlier one, actually, what we saw versus the base case was an increase of 20% of the volumes versus the station that was not branded ADNOC Distribution. The last question is on the hub, and I leave the floor to our CEO.
The hub has been a successful undertaking by ADNOC Distribution. The scheme is well received by our customers. We've seen a significant increase in the footfall to the station. All the ecosystem that we've created is resonating well. As a reminder, the hub is there to cement that ADNOC Distribution is not running service station, but rather running destinations.
Destination that provides array of offerings for the families to have fun, to have food, to fuel, to future fuel with EV charges that we have and much more. We've opened six last year. They are quite encouraging. As you recall, our ambition is to continue to expand further. We are targeting 30 hubs and by 2030, and we remain bullish behind this ambition, and we see, we'll see through. I believe, just a correction of it, we've opened five.
Six last year.
Yeah, six last year and five this year. Hopefully, that addresses the question. Thank you.
Thank you very much. Maybe if I may ask, one quick follow-up regarding the DOCO models. How many do you plan to open this year from the guidance for total number of stations? Thank you.
Oh, the case with DOCO is actually, again, it will depend on the approvals. What we, the assumptions that we have is, in the course of this year, beginning of next year, and again, it depends on the construction, but then more importantly, on the revamping, sorry, but more importantly, on the regulatory approvals.
Thank you.
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Thank you, and good afternoon, good evening. Two questions. Sorry, it's Lydia from Barclays here. Two questions, if I could. The first one, can I come back to the convenience store conversion rate? I mean, that's clearly the mid-20s is good, but it doesn't look like it's really changed in the past year. So I'm just wondering, what do you think drives it to the next level? What do you see as best in class for you? And, and when I think about it, is the hub where it really starts to push that up to 35%-40%. So really, just where that convenience store conversion rate is going. And then secondly, on AI, and thank you for the examples you gave.
Can you just talk to us through a little bit more in terms of numbers about how, how are you adapting to what are rapidly changing models? Are you finding that some things work better than others? And just really your experience of it, because I, I go from thinking it's amazing to being overwhelmed and back and forward quite regularly, just as, as so, just how you're thinking about deploying that. Thank you.
Okay, I'm going to take the question on the C stores, and thanks again for the great question. C store has been, as you can notice with this strong numbers, success story so far, and we have reached the highest conversion from fuel to C store transactions in our history. Okay? And this has been mainly driven by the effect of revamping our network with new assortments, introducing F&B and also some FMCG products. Now, the great question is, what's next? Again, we do believe that this business will continue to grow much faster than the fuel business.
A couple of things that we are leveraging on, which is one, the ADNOC Rewards app, actually, and it's all about loyalty. It's all about how we can crystallize the value and increase the contribution from the ADNOC Rewards customers. Today, roughly more than 50% of the cars actually in the UAE, actually drivers have the ADNOC Rewards app, and we're gonna push further. And again, the ADNOC Rewards app, the most important is how we're gonna tailor personalization, and this is where we see also upside. The third element on the upside is pushing more FMCG again and fresh food. What you're gonna see also is that we're gonna come with a private label during H 1 of this year, beginning of H 2, which clearly will drive higher profitability, we hope. So these are the key drivers.
To the question of AI, just to build on what Athmane have elaborated on, under the conversion discussion. I mean, this personalization that is being framed here, that is only possible by the use of AI, because we have nearly 250 million transactions per annum, whereby we analyze them, we drive dedicated offerings that are personalized to the customers. That means, the customers are happy or happier, and as such, they continue to transact with us. We've seen the benefit of AI in the NFR growth, particularly in the C store. We use AI to revisit our shelves, the assortments that we provide, the SKUs on our shelves.
We try to be relevant to our customers at all times, throughout the 365 days per year, day and night. The patterns change, and the habits change, winter to summer, and as such, with the use of AI and computation capabilities that we have, we are able to remain relevant to our customers. So the application of AI is something that is embedded in our DNA. We have some 21 use cases under different stages of development. The end game for us is to enhance customer experience, drive cost avoidance and cost savings, and definitely achieve the highest customer satisfaction. So, that's where AI, and we'll continue to evolve and grow and adopt more and more, the application of AI, and leveraging the data, the wealth of data that we have. Thank you for the question.
Amazing. Thank you.
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Hi, Giuseppe from Morgan Stanley here. We have two questions, if we may. The first one is on GCC volumes, growth that have been very strong in 2020. Think that this level of growth is sustainable going into 2026, could you give a, a range of expectations that you, that you have also, seeing what the trend has been the in the past few months? And then secondly, in terms of your target for station openings, can you give us the breakdown out of the 60-70 stations you're guiding for? What's the breakdown between, DOCO stations, stations in the UAE? That would be great. Thank you very much.
Okay. So I will start with the GCC volume. So as you rightly said, we have seen a quite strong volume growth last year, which was driven, one, by higher mobility. So clearly the economic conditions were good. But more importantly, and I guess I want to stress this out, is all the efforts that, and the great job that the teams have done to attract more footfall in our stations and to choose ADNOC Distribution for fuel, EV, and the non-fuel retail business. So this is where we... And on the top of that, the new number of stations, okay, that have been bringing incremental growth to the business.
Going forward, we are, as mentioned by our CEO, confident on the growth of the of another growth for this year. I would say that, without giving any guidance, but that single digits growth is, and above the GDP, is what we have been seeing, for a while, and this is where we want to demonstrate that we are gaining market share. For the targeted station, 60-70 this year, it will be mainly UAE, KSA, by order, I would say UAE and KSA. In Egypt, as you have seen, we are adding and closing stations, so it's not really where we are focusing on increasing the number of stations. The focus in Egypt is more on the retail network optimization, rather than adding more stations.
Okay, clear. Thank you very much.
We'll move to our next question. Your line is open.
Yes, hi. I have a question about the payable to the parent company, which was, at about $3.7 billion as of, end of last year. Can you tell us, please, whether there is a schedule of repayments? What kind of payments do you expect going forward, in 2026, specifically? I noticed that you have been repaying this payable since about mid-2024. Thank you.
Yeah. Thank you for the question. I think your question is definitely stemming from the movement you saw between 2024 year-end, Q1 2025 and then now. So it was the timing indeed, which drove it. But our payment terms, we expect payments to remain stable, the payable balances to remain stable. Of course, they are a function of oil price. So when the price of product goes up or down, that does impact the end balance of the payable because it's, it's fully, it's, it's a formula-based calculation when it comes to the cost of that product. So to answer your question, we do not expect material structural change in that balance going forward. Only change possible is potentially the price.
Understood. Thank you.
Okay.
We'll move to our next question. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Hi, it's Avishay Mehra from Jefferies. Thank you for the presentation. I just wanted to ask a couple of questions. So for the 2026 outlook, you're planning on 60-70 new stations and new hubs, but you've also mentioned that you might look at some inorganic growth opportunities. I just wanted to understand what is the priority for you in terms of targeting those strategic elements? And secondly, the like-for-like savings that you've achieved, you're on track for the $ 50 million target for 2028. As you integrate more AI and any logistic improvements, do you feel there's room to exceed that $ 50 million level?
Yes. At this stage, we are fully committed to deliver the $ 50 million, and we are well on course to do so. Of course, as the opportunities come in, we will, we will definitely explore. Current deployment of AI, we can clearly see the differences coming in our customer experience, as mentioned by our CEO and by Athmane earlier. But of course, if the opportunities open themselves on the cost side, they will definitely come through. We have seen cost opportunities, which were more around in terms of avoidable costs, but in terms of structural cost reduction, that will unfold as we go forward.
Thank you.
Regarding growth,
Thank you.
Regarding growth, the principle remains the same. We are seeking smart growth, growth that would add value, will be EPS and DPS accretive, growth that we can be comfortable with in the execution and delivery of the same. So we take off from the UAE, and the UAE remain cornerstone of our growth ambition, and we are today the market leader with more than 65% market share in the retail sector here in the UAE, and we'll continue to push forward and further. After that, it's opportunistic, we definitely want to cement our position in Egypt and KSA and grow within the same lens, value accretive growth.
And opportunistically beyond that, as long as it's EPS, DPS, we'll be looking at other opportunities. We do have the balance sheet, we do have the discipline, and we've been delivering results, and it's a company and management that you can trust, and we'll continue to deliver value to our shareholders.
Great. Thank you very much.
There are no other questions in queue at this time. I'll turn the conference back over to our speakers for web questions.
We will take questions from the webcast. The question is about the non-fuel. Non-fuel retail grow at a double-digit rate in 2025. How should we think about 2026? Do you have, like, do you see any room, similar growth, or should we expect to slow down here?
Okay, I'm going to take this one, Huda. Thank you very much. So, the non-fuel retail, which comprises the convenience store, car wash, lube change, property management, and vehicle inspection, has been a key focus for us for the past years. We have been able to demonstrate a double-digit growth and acceleration recently with all the initiatives that I was stating before and also all the initiatives that we are working on with one of the key driver being the C store, but also the car wash business and lube change and property management. So answering your question about what kind of growth do we expect, we have a target to reach the double digits. High single, double digits is clearly the aim that we have for the non-fuel retail business in this year.
A nother question is about the aviation segment. What kind of opportunity do you see from the aviation segment in the UAE and Egypt?
Okay. So I'm going to start with the UAE, and for, as everyone knows, in the UAE, we do not provide the molecules to the commercial aviation. This is done by ADNOC Main. We provide actually strategic customers. In the commercial business, we provide services with a margin, a cost-plus margin. Okay? In case in Egypt, sorry, the situation is completely different, where we provide actually through several airports the fuel to the commercial airlines. We have seen a 20% increase last year, and we are chasing more volumes, more airports, which is part of our growth strategy in Egypt.
Right. There's also a question about the commercial margins. Commercial margins continue to remain very strong despite lower volumes. What's driving this trend, and what can we expect, and can we expect the level to continue?
Yeah. Let me take a step back, as your question is about corporate business, which accounts for 80% of the commercial segment gross profit. We are talking about gas oil sold to B2B, which is not regulated in UAE, compared to retail gasoline and gas oil business. This means that the margins per liter can be volatile and are influenced by market dynamics. So to answer your question, the margin increased in 2025 year-on-year, due to application of dynamic pricing, our proactive corporate fuel margin management, and lower spot market sales. So fundamentally, we will continue to explore more and more opportunities to upgrade our portfolio as we successfully did in 2025. But again, these are very opportunistic rather than structural in nature, and that must be seen in that way. Thank you.
All right. The last question is about the provisions. It's a follow-up question. Could you clarify whether these clients are UAE-based or overseas? And what measures are you taking to mitigate the risk of a similar situation?
Yes. Thank you for the question. This provision obviously covers the customer portfolio across the B2B sector, across our entire portfolio. Also, we have taken a conservative view of the risk. The risk necessarily hasn't materialized, and it must be seen in that light. We have got a very robust financial controls framework in place, which covers our credit controls and all across our businesses. So fundamentally, this is a conservative assessment of risk, not necessarily a materialization of that. So I think it must be seen in that from that perspective. Thank you.
All right, sir. There's another question here about the hub. Are the land for the hub leased or owned?
The hubs are stationed to our service station, so it's on the plots that we which are empty and developed, and this is part of our strategy to monetize and maximize sweating of the assets that we control and have. Okay, thank you very much. This will end the call. Thanks again for joining the call, and please feel free, if you have any questions, to reach out to the investor relations team. Thanks again. Good afternoon.
This concludes today's call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.