Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the earnings call of Shelly Group SE regarding the Q3 figures of 2026. I would like to welcome the company CEO Wolfgang Kirsch, CEO Dimitar Dimitrov, and CFO Iliyana Krushkova, who will guide you through the presentation in a moment, followed by a Q&A session via audio line and chat. Please note that we will enable the Q&A chat button after the presentation. With that, I hand over to you, Mr. Kirsch.
Yeah, thank you very much, and a warm welcome to Shelly Group's nine month results earning call on November 11th of this year. That means that directly after our call at 11:11 A.M. , the German carnival will start. I hope that at least the Germans among you are already in good mood and are prepared, maybe already a little bit masked and have a glass of wine in front of you after this call to celebrate this important event, at least in some regions of Germany. I am showing always this picture at the beginning to make clear that Shelly is moving in a direction to equip the whole house.
We are not a typical smart home company anymore that is in some segments has some simple plug-and-play devices. We are moving into building automation, energy management. We have some security devices. We are more and more equipping the full house, and we are entering as well in new categories. Some of them, unfortunately, with a bit delay, but we are entering, and we will be a full player in building automation, which is a much bigger market than just the smart home market.
That leads to the highlights of the first nine months. We have once again reached our revenue targets and our EBIT targets. Our gross profit development is very positive, is a little bit above the plan. At the same time, our spendings are as well a little bit above the plan, which is a reason for this, main reason for this is that we are investing a lot in building up new country organizations. We are investing in R&D teams.
We are building up a solid foundation for the future, and this is something that costs a little bit money, but nevertheless, as I said, we are EBIT-wise absolutely on target, and we are as well spending quite some money in marketing activities all over our countries. But still, we are in a very good balance, and Iliyana will show you the results in details later. Our installer network, that's a very important initiative in the last years, is growing very strong and is accelerating. We are every quarter onboarding more installers than in the quarter before.
That builds a very big foundation for our future pro development, which is for the last two years one of our important initiatives. Amazon was an issue for quite a while, and now we, I mentioned already in the last call that we are back on track. We changed from direct business with Amazon to indirect business with Amazon. The sales numbers are quite positive. At the same time, this is causing some trouble with cross-border shipments because this is now done via distributors that ship to Amazon to different marketplaces.
That's something that we have to get better under control. We are onboarding a lot of new distributors. Unfortunately, some of this takes longer than we thought . Obviously, some of the French distributors always promise that we will start now, and they delay one quarter after the other. But one day, this all will happen, and then we will see a very nice development and effects out of this.
Our cloud basis, the cloud user basis is increasing, and this is as well something that we have a very close look at because this is long term a good basis for monetization and for selling more devices to all these customers. At the same time, our Premium service is developing, but is a little bit behind the expectations. We thought that we can do a bit more this year. Part of this is because of the delayed camera launch, because we plan to have five cameras for the full year, and that, of course, is driving paid services that is delayed, so will come more next year. But other reasons as well, I will come back to this at the later stage.
I already said that the installer base is growing, and this is a very important sign and step that Shelly is becoming a very serious player in building automation and no longer just a player in do-it-yourself, although this is our solid foundation that we want to keep. We have end of Q3, we had 7.3 million households. The households is always an estimation.
We don't have a solid number about this, but what is solid is the cloud users. We had 3.4 million cloud users. This is 41% more than one year ago, so we are growing a little bit over proportionally with cloud users. The Premium app users, 45,000, only growing 28%. That's what I just said, that this is a little bit below our expectations. We expect that this catches up next year.
11,300 installers onboarded in our Shelly Installer Portal, most of them already trained and equipped with everything that they need. That is a growth rate of 150% versus last year, and that's a clear sign that we are becoming more and more a professional player in this market. With this, I give to the number part, Iliyana.
Thank you, Wolfgang. Good morning, everyone. In the third quarter of 2026, we had positive traction on the top line in combination with a very stable bottom line and a strong cash flow position. Revenue grew to EUR 112 million compared to previous year. This was a 30% growth rate. Our two-year cumulative growth rate was over 30%. In terms of EBIT, our EBIT was EUR 27.5 million in the first nine months, which was a 25% growth compared to previous year. The EBIT margin was 24.3% compared to last year. It was at the time 25.2%, which was the impact of additional spending this year for the new country ramp-up costs and increased marketing spend. In terms of cash, we finished the quarter with EUR 31.1 million, which was double the amount of cash that we had at the same time last year.
This was an increase of EUR 17.4 million compared to the beginning of 2026. In terms of quarterly revenue development, it was pretty consistent and stable, both year-on-year and from quarter- to- quarter this year. In the first quarter, revenue grew by 26%, in the second quarter by 27%, and in the third quarter, it grew by 35% to EUR 44.5 million. This revenue acceleration in the third quarter was even more notable because the base was already pretty demanding.
Last year, we had revenue growth of 42% in Q3, and this year, we managed to grow by additional 35%. The drivers behind that are the same, the expanding installer network and the consistent execution throughout the channels. In terms of operating profit development, basically, we had consistent growth as well, 29% in the first quarter year-on-year, 65% in the second quarter of the year, and in the third quarter, we were flat at EUR 9.7 million due to the fact that Q3 in last year was abnormally high due to some FX and revenue recognition adjustments.
If we look at the operating profit development of this year, it is much smoother compared to previous years because in each quarter of 2026, our operating profit grew by incremental of at least EUR 500,000 per quarter, which is once again much smoother development and much more predictable trend compared to the fluctuations that we had in the operating profit in previous years.
In terms of cash flow generation, we started the year with EUR 13.7 million in the bank accounts, and we managed to add additional EUR 17.4 million throughout the first nine months of 2026. The cash flow from operations was the main driver, and it generated EUR 26.2 million of cash, which was almost four times better than the same period of last year. This was mostly driven by a good pace in our client collections, which were 42% better than last year, which exceeded the pace of our revenue growth.
In terms of cash flow for investments, this was dominated by our R&D investments. We also acquired the last stake in our Slovenian subsidiary and also had investments in our new facilities in Plovdiv. In terms of financing, the most notable development was our regular annual dividend payout, which took place in Q3. Aside from that, we also had some lease and loan repayments. Our overdraft levels remain relatively consistent at around EUR 3.2 million across all entities in the group, which basically leaves us in a very good net cash position consistently.
We continue to have a small leverage, and our equity level is consistently above 80%. In terms of working capital, its improvement plan has been on the agenda since the beginning of the year, and we see now that we have consistent improvements on a quarterly basis as well. Our days sales outstanding increased slightly to 150 days compared to the previous quarter, but still they are 42 days better than the end of 2025. The inventory days are now stable at around 130 days in anticipation of the sales in Q4.
Our days payables improved by 32 days now, which is very much close to what we are looking to achieve in the long run as a stable level for payables. As a result, the cash conversion cycle improved to 249 days in Q3, which is a six-day improvement compared to the previous quarter and 28 days compared to last year. With this, we are aiming closer to our annual target of cash conversion cycle to be between 220 and 240 days. Of course, working capital remains high on the agenda, and we are looking towards achieving more normal levels in next year as well. Some additional insight on our P&L performance. Once again, with revenue growing 30% year-on-year and with gross profit growing 35% year-on-year. We have seen now that our gross profit improved from 57.6% last year to 60% this year.
This enabled us to direct some of that profit to additional spend in marketing support and in international expansion and organizational scaling for the first nine months of this year. The sales and marketing expenses increased by 55% year-on-year, and half of that nominal amount was related to sales spent in marketing activities, and basically doubled compared to previous years.
In terms of general administrative, which also includes our total payroll costs, these costs increased by 50% year-on-year, where once again, we are seeing the run rate effect of accumulated payroll costs in relation to our international expansion that started intensively in the end of 2025 and continued throughout the entire of 2026. So we expect that this intensive spend will normalize, and we will see the economies of scale effect of that spend throughout 2027.
As a result, EBIT margin once again was 24.3%, slightly less than our medium target of 25%, but nevertheless, very stable and very consistent. Our net income margin was 21.1%. The earnings per share improved by EUR 0.29 -EUR 1.3 per share for the first nine months of the year. In summary, once again, the third quarter saw very positive traction on the top line, combined with a stable bottom line and a very strong liquidity position. This puts us from financial perspective in a very good place to continue to deliver on the strategy. Having said that, I will pass over to Dimitar for the product development.
Th ank you very much. Let's talk about the products and the first nine months development. I will show also some challenges which we have, how we solve them, and where we are going. The first one, this is the original roadmap for the cameras. As you see, we're planning this year to have at least two cameras, the indoor camera for the first half of the year, the Outdoor Camera the second half of the year. The Pro Circuit Breakers, which is released the first half of the year, but also the Mini Circuit Breaker, which is also should be released the first half of the year. Locks, and this is the Loqed, Power Strips, everything that there is related to the different categories where we do the development. It's not only these categories.
This year until now, we released more than 40 additional products, but this is the main categories and how we're moving through them. When we see, for example, this is part of the challenges, for example, the cameras, the indoor camera is released with the delay on the third quarter, but the Outdoor Camera, it's still not released, and it will be released beginning of the next year. What is behind that? We already announced beginning of 2026 that the chip shortage, the big price increase for the memories, it's required to change completely the chipset of the camera and to change our idea and vision about the first camera to make it in an affordable price for the customers and not to be very expensive.
For us, this is the additional exercise and additional time which we need to find a solution to lowering the memory, to make our code and our software optimized, to optimize it, to fit into another memory and to make a camera really affordable and good price for the customers with the minimum disadvantages about the features. So we succeed, and we've seen that the indoor camera is selling very well, but of course, the Outdoor Camera is also going with a little bit delay and will beginning of the next year.
In between, there will be one more model of the camera, which will start, the Window Camera, the indoor Window Camera, which will be released end of the year, end of 2026, but this will be really the very last day of 2026, where we will release the second option of the, some kind of the indoor camera, which is made to monitoring the outdoor environment. The Circuit Breakers, they released, but in the small quantities, is not released in the full capacity, mainly because the timing of the production, and also the challenges that this year, the copper and other materials, also the prices increased. To compensate this one, we need additional time to produce the breakers, to choose the right supplier for all materials. Also, the breakers as a heavy devices, they use the sea transportation, which require additional time to be delivered.
The circuit breakers release delivered, there we have such a product on the market, but the big quantity will come end of this month, not as we are expecting beginning of Q3, because the delayed production and the much more slower transportation. The Mini Circuit Breaker, there is a little bit certification challenges, which is just now it is solved, and they will be on the market with the beginning of 2027. About the Locks, I think the very similar situation. The Pure is released on time, and we are offering on the market already. But for the another option of the Locks, they are postponed, and will be released beginning of 2027. You can see the Plug, which is the very successful. This is one of the most successful products. This is there on the market.
Unfortunately, it is not for the full capacity because the factory which we negotiate and build together with our partners is able to produce more than 1 million Plugs a month. But unfortunately, the chip shortage, and this is not only the chip shortage, but the PCB shortage and everything related to the electronics, because the AI is not able to supply enough components for 1 million pieces per month. For this one, we produce, I think, something like 200,000, 250,000 pieces per month. Looking for maybe beginning of 2027, the full capacity could be reached, and we can increase the production. This is for the Power Strip is the same, and it is there. The Entry is the cheapest version.
It is also postponed because the prices of the components. For everything else, you can see it is ongoing and it is working. What is good, even without some delays, because the market, the challenges from the AI, the challenges from everything which we have seen for the production, we reach the results, which mean the demand is much higher for rest of the products. Usually, this will give us additional results and additional confidence that 2027 will compensate the revenue which now is missed from new products, which is delayed for the development, or production is postponed because the price issues or shortage. Very shortly about the launches. There is a Window Camera, as I say.
There is something which we never discussed before because we keep it secret. We are able to start the complete new line of the lighting products. This is the seven products which will be released just before the Christmas. This is for the home decoration, outside, indoor, and outdoor home decoration. This is the ambient lighting. If you can compare where we are there, you could compare this with our competitor, Govee, and Philips Hue. From this moment, you officially can say, "Yes, we are starting to offering the specialized products for the lighting solution, indoor, outdoor."
This portfolio will be extended in the next year. But seven products will be released in two weeks from now. Also, the TRV, the Entry series, which allow customers make a product much more affordable pricing for the customers, will be released. For 2027, most of the products which I showed you before will be moved and will be released in 2027. But on top of that, we keep our plans to produce at least five more new cameras for different purposes and different use cases.
The new model, the Mini Circuit Breakers, breakers with the power measurement, as you can see on the screen. There is an extensive development for the existing and the new products which will be released beginning of the first half of 2027. Now I think I will switch back to Wolfgang, who can talk about the operations. Thank you.
Yes. Iliyana explained this chart already. All numbers are going in a very good direction constantly, as always in the last years and quarters. We made, as promised, beginning of the year, an important jump in cash, and it looks like that we will reach as well this target by the end of the year. Now, if we look to the regions, we see that we have a more and more balanced situation. I have to say again here what I said at the very beginning. Within Europe, it is complicated to avoid cross-country sales, and we are adjusting as far as we have official numbers and reports from distributors.
If they buy products in one country and ship to another country, we try to adjust this, but this is not 100% possible. Nevertheless, we see that less than 50% of revenue is now coming from the DACH region. A big proportion, 38%, is coming from the rest of Europe, and rest of the world is developing in a very nice way. In 2023, we started with 6%, 7% share in rest of the world, and this is now moving significantly up to 13% of revenue share, and we see that this development is continuing. We have a very good development in Asia, in Australia, in South Africa, as well in the United States and in South America.
We see very positive signs, and we expect, as I mentioned in the last call or the one before, that by 2030, if we look at these three regions, they are completely equal. Each of the regions delivering one-third of the revenue, which gives us a very solid and stable basis.
In case something happens in one of these regions, we are not depending on just one country or one region anymore, and that development is really ongoing and is very, very positive. I already talked about the Premium service development. We are a little bit behind. We planned to reach EUR 2 million revenue this year. Our new estimation is EUR 1.4 million. One of the reasons is cameras, but this is only one.
The other reason is we have definitely to make more in the communication, because in the Shelly Premium, we have a lot of AI functions that I think customers did not 100% understand what is possible with this, because you can set in a very easy way, you can set scenes now just talking to your application, and it does everything in the background, and it really works solid now.
That's something that we have to put more in the front, and this will definitely catch up. I have to say again that we are not depending on this. That's different to a lot of our competitors in this segment, that we have a very solid EBIT margin around 25%, and this is something, if this develops in a nice way, that is the icing on the cake, and it's not something that we desperately need to be in a very solid position. There are a couple of risks, and some of them Dimitar already mentioned. Chip shortage is something where we get new information every day. Sometimes chip suppliers inform us that the delivery time just doubled from one day to another.
Prices are changing every day, and that's a constant work of the R&D and the procurement team to get that balanced. So far, we've managed somehow. It has an influence on new products, but it's a very complicated thing, and we do not know when this will change. There are different information from the market when this might change. That, of course, has an impact on the product roadmap. Dimitar showed you how many products are delayed and product categories that will come next year, partially because of chip shortages, partially because of some other reasons. In new countries, we have started in four countries this year. We see that some of them are performing very well.
They are above expectations. Others are behind expectations. In my initial statement, I said that some of the distributors are telling us all the time that it's great and they will start now, and then they delay one more quarter and one more quarter. That's in some specific countries.
Obviously, this is normal that they just look at their assortments once a year and not every day. We have a challenge in the German market, although you saw a quite positive development in the DACH region. You all know that the German economy in general is not very positive, that people are not building and making new constructions. Renovations are a little bit behind. We are quite happy with the development, but with a more positive German market environment in general, we could have higher numbers here. Onboarding of distributors that we recently signed is going, and that's again, different region by region. The upscaling or the ramp-up takes more time than we expected.
On the positive side, on the opportunity side, our installer network is going in a very positive direction, so we expect that these numbers continue growing. We see that installers are more and more satisfied with what we are doing, with the quality of our products, the features of our products. They are recommending our products to their colleagues, and that shows very positive signs. With some activities that we still have in the planning that will drive revenues in this direction in the next years. We are expanding into new categories.
Dimitar mentioned the lighting category, where we will be a competitor to Philips Hue and to Govee and some others. We think that in the next years, that can have a very big impact on our revenues. At the same time, we are going into the camera business, we are going into smart breakers. We have a lot of complete new categories in the pipeline that we are looking at, and that is positive.
That will not be materializing this year anymore, but 2027, 2028, 2029, that gives a positive outlook. The ramp-up of new products that is as well delayed. Dimitar mentioned the circuit breakers. The first feedback from the market about our Pro Circuit Breakers was very positive, but we only had 1,000 pieces per product. Now we hope that the next delivery will come in December. Still a little bit in question, because they are more or less sold, and we hope that we can book everything this year.
If we look at the guidance, we communicated yesterday evening already that we still keep our guidance. We are positive that we can reach our forecasted numbers, somewhere around EUR 200 million revenue, somewhere around EUR 50 million EBIT. On the cash side, we are almost there. Everything that we promised on cash collection is very close to reaching the end-year targets already. If you see the way to go compared to the last years, it's a similar way to go as we had in last years, as we are very dominant and have high revenues in Q4, that a lot depends on Black Friday. That's what we will wait now, is Black Friday delivering the results that we expect, then everything will be fine. That leads me to the summary.
We had a very good first nine-month period this year, despite some issues that I just mentioned, some product delays, some delays in ramping up the country performance, some delays in increasing the number of distributors or starting with the distributors. We have a very strong development in the improvement of working capital. We have onboarded in Q3 only 2,900 new installers. In Q2, this was 1,900, so you see that this is accelerating, and we expect that this continues accelerating because the word of mouth is really strong, and we get a lot of recommendations from installers.
Our distributor network is expanding everywhere, although I said it's a little bit delayed, but we have more and more distributors. We are in almost all do-it-yourself stores now, although not all of them have put the first orders already.
The development of our regional sales is working towards our plan in the next years to have a balanced level of revenue between all the three big regions. Once again, we are confirming our guidance. We will update this after Black Friday, as we always do beginning of December. We will communicate the Black Friday results. If everything goes fine, this will be as well fine. If not, we have to make some corrections. Do not forget that this guidance, EUR 200 million, was put out four years ago, and I think it's an incredible achievement to reach a four-year guidance or to be close. If this is closely below or closely above, I think this will not change a lot. Cash flow targets almost achieved. The first camera successfully launched. A lot of other products unfortunately delayed.
We cross fingers that, Dimitar just said, some of them are expected in two weeks, some of them are expected closely until the end of the year. Then we will see if we can book that in this year or if this will move to the next year. Black Friday campaigns are planned, are agreed with the distributors. If all goes good and the sellout is good and they will reorder, we will make our numbers. Especially rest of the world with a very good development in the first nine months is supposed to continue.
In most of these regions, we are above what we plan to reach for this year, and we see good signs as well, especially in the United States, which is a market that always was a little bit complicated for us, but we see really a lot of bright light at the end of the tunnel for the next years. We have a very strong foundation after nine months. We expect that Q4 goes well, and if there are no bad surprises, everything will be fine and we will reach our numbers. Thank you very much, and now we are ready for your questions.
Yes, thank you very much for your presentation. Ladies and gentlemen, now it is your turn as we are moving on to the Q&A session. For a dynamic conversation, we kindly ask you to ask questions in the audio line. Please click on the raise your hand button. If you do not see the raise hand button now, please refresh the page. If you are dialing in via phone, please press the star key nine to raise your hand and star key six to unmute yourself. The symbol with the question mark in your toolbar is now there and ready for you to use. You can now post your questions in the chat box. The first hand is up from Niklas Fraas. Niklas, the stage is yours.
Good morning, everyone. Can you hear me?
Yes, hello.
Very good. Thank you very much. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for taking my questions. Just a few ones. First of all, on the marketing spend, I know you have talked a lot about it, but can you give us a little more detail what drove this significantly increase? And for example, in which new countries you want to enter, and should we see this rate now ongoing forward in the next quarters?
You want to answer or I?
Yes. This was in effect a very consistent and conscious effort in order to support sellout in key markets. So, it doubled in nominal terms compared to the same period last year. In terms of revenue, it also increased by a couple of percentage points. We expect this to continue throughout Q4. We have already provided for this additional increase in marketing spend. And we expect that going forward next year, it will still be significant, but will grow more in line with revenue and not exceeding revenue as much as this year. Okay, got it. Thank you. Another question regarding the premium service. I know you've expected a bit more here, but maybe can you share your thoughts on how you can convert more users from the growing Shelly Cloud into the premium service?
I think the first is the camera service, because customers are not used to pay a monthly fee for normal smart home services. I look to Dimitar, but I think there is no successful company charging something on a monthly base for smart home services. We need to add something on top. For cameras, it's completely normal for people to pay a monthly subscription. Not all of the camera users are doing that, but a big proportion. We expect that this moves a lot of customers into the premium service. The second thing is, I mentioned this during my presentation, is we have AI features that are included, and we have to make customers more aware what they can do with these AI features. That is really amazing what is possible.
I mean, you just talk to your application and you say, "Please switch on the light in the kitchen when I'm in the kitchen," and then the system does everything to make the setup. You don't need a complicated setup anymore. This is something that is very valuable and that we think we must communicate more and then customers will move more in this service. But once again, we will not be desperate. We will not force customers in that service. We must make sure that our basic version of the application is good enough or is very good, much better than anyone else on the market offers, because we want people to stay happy in our Shelly ecosystem and not leave it because they are disappointed that we start charging for something that is not worth it.
Dimitar, something to add? I think
No, you're perfect. Clear.
What was the other question?
That is the other question.
That is the question. Thank you. Okay, just one last one from me. I mean, obviously, just quite short regarding the offer by Schneider. Do you know, or maybe you have some insights, when can we expect the FSC approval, and when does the acceptance period start? Do you know something more? That is something that Schneider should answer as the buyer because they are in contact with the FSC. In general, if everything goes as expected, the VTO should start beginning of December. But that is just a guess. So you have to ask Schneider because they are in contact with the FSC and not we.
I think just following the maximum periods of the reactions when Schneider needs to send the updated documents and then the timing when the commission should approve them or ask them for additional changes. This is not clear. Do they ask for something else, or they will be fine with the updates? Then, when they make our calculation, the expected is something between December 5th and 10th, so beginning of December. This could not be exactly clear in the process what, when, and how they will proceed because they can do it a bit faster, but not later than this period.
All right. Thank you very much for your answers.
Thank you, Niklas Fraas, for your questions. Ladies and gentlemen, we are moving on to the Q&A chat box. Why to sell the company at EUR 70 when results are incredible?
Thank you for the results.
I think this question must come from Mark.
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So fine, but yeah, Wolfgang.
No, my answer would be very easy because you did not buy enough shares when the price was EUR 48. No, sorry, serious answer. We think that the offer from Schneider is a serious offer. We bring the company under the roof of a big and solid company. We have an agreement that we can stay as flexible as we have been before. That is important for us, and that is important for Schneider because they have no interest to take Shelly over and then to change everything that would have a negative impact on our development.
We think that this is a good target and a good partner for the future. And of course, there are always a lot of opportunities for the future. And if you just call back what we just presented, we think that we will continue growing. We think as well that that's something that Freitag as well proved and with the fairness opinion that the price is reasonable. And always someone who sells want to have a higher price and someone who buys want to have a lower price. So if we look at everything, we think that overall that's a fair assumption.
Thank you very much. We had similar questions in the chat, which are answered by that. Thank you. Would you share the internal business forecasts that Freitag & Co used in their model to arrive at the fair price
No, something which is important, by the way, Wolfgang doesn't say everybody which make calculation. The price is not about only the price of the company performance, but also the liquidity. I think when you check the real liquidity of the shares, compared with the base of the offer, it's something which for that hour, we think that maybe the price is on the right range. Because just the price is nothing. We go taking care about the all factor, all other factors around the possibilities.
To sell the whole package.
Yeah. This is something which is also important. But yeah, at the end, that's something, as we say many times, we are the one which cannot say yes or no. It's mainly the shareholders in their decision, and this is the idea of the public companies and the VTOs.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Then maybe one more sentence to the internal business plan. Internal business plan is called internal because it is internal.
Yeah.
We said a couple of times that after this long period with the three, four years forecast on the guidance, we will come back to a normal behavior of every normal company. That means we give one-year guidance beginning of the year for the year that just started. Because you never know what will happen, will everything work that we have in the pipeline, will the smart circuit breakers be sold as we expect? Will the cameras work as we expect? There are a lot of questions, it would not be serious on the level that we have today to say, "In three years, we will do this revenue."
That is an internal business case, that, of course, is ambitious and where everyone who looks at such a case makes his haircut and takes some reserve out. So I think that is what Freitag has done. What we should as well not forget in all that is that in the last three years, the average growth rate of our share was 65%. So that is an amazing development of the share. Of course, we can dream and we can say this will continue with the same growth rate in the next years, as long as Dimitar and I do not make crazy things like the NVIDIA CEO and the share price drops significantly because of that. But there are a lot of questions, there are a lot of positive imaginations and a lot of risks, if you look at all of that, we think that is the right way of doing.
Thank you very much. Kindly give an update on the takeover timetable, in particular for the time after Schneider's next submission around November 20th.
I think that's what Dimitar just said. The regulations are that the FSC has given the first answer, and this was positive. They had some additional questions. Now the buyer has two weeks' time to answer them. Then the FSC has two more weeks to review everything and then to approve. That would lead to the start of a VTO beginning of December. Then the VTO would, now I don't know the timeframe, typically be open for 60 days, so two months round about, that's the normal period. Then we talk about end of January, beginning of February for a closing.
Okay.
That's just an estimation. As I said, we are just sitting as the audience there because that's something that happens mainly between the FSE and Schneider. If you want to have more information, you have to ask them.
Do you expect the product delays to affect revenue growth in 2027? Can you give a forecast about the 2027 revenue growth?
No. We will give a forecast about the 2027 revenue growth beginning of 2027, after we finalize the 2026. We still have some questions, that's what we try to say. Will Black Friday work in the expectations? Will the products that we expect in December arrive in December, or will they be delayed? That all has effects, and that's why, as I said a couple of times in other calls already, we will give out a guidance, revenue guidance and EBIT guidance for the following year, always beginning of the year, when we have closed everything and we know from which basis we are developing.
Thank you, that is clear. Can you share about the sales development in Portugal, Spain, Italy, France, and U.K.?
No. We are not disclosing individual countries. I said that in rest of Europe, that is the region rest of Europe, we have some countries that are developing very well, that are over our expectations. We have countries that are below the expectations. That is, for a lot of these countries, it is the first year, because we opened four subsidiaries, or we had, we placed in four countries, we placed people on the ground in the countries. Of course, in the first year, you have a rough estimation, what do we think is the effect of putting a team there? When is the team onboarded? Is the team working from January 1st, or some of them started in February or in March? Is the team complete? So that is all questions that have an impact on that.
We see that in all countries, we have a positive development, some on a very low level. As I said, I would say half of the countries are performing very well, half of the countries are a little bit below. Next year, we have a solid basis for planning that gives us much more visibility on what can we expect and how fast can this go. It would be too early to comment.
Besides the stock exchange approval process, have any antitrust waiver applications already been submitted? What is the timetable for all other closing conditions?
As far as I know, all of the antitrust regulation things have been not only submitted, already approved.
Okay. Could you please tell us who are the top five shareholders at present next to the founders?
No.
And in one of the—
We are not able to or allowed to disclose that.
Okay, thank you. Understood. In one of the press releases, it is stated that Mr. Dimitrov will invest some of the proceeds from a potential Schneider acquisition back in Shelly. How this will be done since Schneider plans to take the company private?
Yeah, this will be after. The idea for this one is not, to be honest, it is not because I want to, it is because I oblige to. For somebody which paying EUR 1.2 billion and more than EUR 1.2 billion for a company need to be sure that the management team will continue perform as before and as they expect for the next couple of years. This is something which they expect from me and from Wolfgang. The only way also to be sure that we have a well-motivated to do that is to keep us also not only as a management team, but also as a shareholder. So, after the deal, they will ask me to reinvest the amount as, let's say, more than security that I will be there and to help the company to continue developing and growing.
Thank you very much for the question. Ladies and gentlemen, that was the last question in our chat box. I will hold the room another moment in case somebody might be typing. This is your possibility now. This doesn't seem to be the case. We therefore come to the end of today's earnings call. Thank you very much for your interest in Shelly Group SE. A big thank you also to the management board for your presentation and your time. If you, ladies and gentlemen, may have questions after the call, you are very welcome to contact investor relations at Shelly Group SE. I wish you all a successful day around the world, and handing back over to the management board for some final remarks.
Oh, thank you very much for the participation. Hope we will keep you updated about us every year about the Black Friday results. End of the year, we will update what happening. Yeah, there is a lots of challenges, which is, I cannot say now is more than before. You know, the company passed through the COVID, and after that, the energy crisis and everything, and even that succeed and develop, continue developing the market. So, this is just next chapter of challenges which we need to. So, that's from my side, and thank you very much.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.