Bang & Olufsen A/S (CPH:BO)
Denmark flag Denmark · Delayed Price · Currency is DKK
8.82
-0.06 (-0.68%)
May 13, 2026, 4:59 PM CET
← View all transcripts

Earnings Call: Q2 2025

Jan 10, 2025

Operator

Welcome to B&O Interim Report for the second quarter of 2024-25 presentation. For the first part of this call, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Afterwards, there will be a question-and-answer session. To ask a question, please press five-star on your telephone keypad. This call is being recorded, and I will now hand the call over to CEO Kristian Teär and CFO Nikolaj Wendelboe. Please begin.

Kristian Teär
CEO, Bang & Olufsen

Hello everyone, and thanks for joining the first Centennial Year Call. With me today is our CFO, Nikolaj Wendelboe. I will start by talking you through our key highlights and business review. Nikolaj will take us through the financials in more detail, and I will conclude before we open up for questions. So please move to slide number four. Let us begin by looking at our Q2 performance. We delivered the second quarter in line with our plans and expectations. While the EMEA region and the Americas generated positive revenue growth year on year, we had a marginal decline in group revenue of 1% due to negative growth in China. In line with our strategic focus, we are pleased to report that our Win Cities generated 24% sell-out growth, and our branded channels generated sell-out growth of 5%.

The gross margin increased to 53.7% and improved by 0.6 percentage points year on year. You may remember that we in Q1 reported a gross margin of 55.2%, which was record high. We did not expect a gross margin of that level for Q2, and we are pleased with a report at 53.7%. The level shows the progress we are making in building a robust financial foundation for the company. In September, we launched our new flagship headphone, H100. These are the best headphones we have ever created. During Q2, we also launched a new generation of our successful earphones, EX, the Eleven. Simultaneously, we have worked on preparing the acceleration of our strategy execution and making value-creating investments to realize our midterm growth plan, which we announced in July. All in all, we are progressing as planned, and we are also maintaining the outlook for the full year.

This is another quarter where we see that the strategy is working. We see positive EBIT margin, and we see positive cash flow, and we grew where we wanted to grow. Please move to the next page. On 27th November 2024, we successfully completed a capital increase as a Directed Issue and Private Placement without Preemptive Rights for existing shareholders. The offering raised gross proceeds of DKK 228 million through the issuance of 24,554,416 new shares at an offer price of DKK 9.27. We are encouraged by the interest from existing shareholders as well as new shareholders who participated in the offering. As we have communicated, the proceeds are intended to fund our acceleration of the strategic execution and drive long-term profitable growth. Please move to the next slide.

As we have communicated, we will focus the investments on building brand awareness, optimizing the retail network, and we will continue to invest in our product portfolio. For the retail network, we have been in the preparation phase for a while with a strong global city focus, and we can now accelerate our expansion plans. For example, in California, where we are rebuilding a strong presence as we have found a new resourceful and experienced partner with whom we will open several flagship stores. We have more initiatives in the pipeline, and we will share with you as we progress. As part of accelerating revenue growth, driving strategy implementation, and enhancing the overall customer experience, we will be making some organizational changes. By mid-January 2025, the three regional sales functions will be consolidated into a single global sales function.

In addition, we are establishing dedicated sales functions for new partnerships and hospitality. We are also adding more local sales and marketing resources into the key cities. These changes will enhance our focus on key cities and enable us to better serve our customers. Please move to the next slide. We have in Q2 continued to improve our store network before we speed up and make the planned investments. In EMEA, we have since Q2 of last year reduced our monobrand network in the region by 28 stores year on year to 270 stores at the quarter end. During the quarter, we expanded our presence in the Middle East with the opening of a monobrand store in Abu Dhabi. In Asia Pacific, the number of monobrand stores was reduced by three.

We collaborate with numerous luxury monobrand partners across all regions to utilize the strength of combining our company-owned stores with the presence of strong partner-driven monobrand stores. Out of our now 13 defined global Win Cities, we are executing in four cities: New York, London, Paris, and Hong Kong. More will come, and we expect cities like Los Angeles and Tokyo most likely to be the next cities in execution as part of our Win City concept. In terms of performance for the ones in execution, the Win Cities collectively reported sell-out growth of 24%, which comprises sell-outs across channels in the cities. All cities reported growth. New York and London reported double-digit growth. Both company-owned stores in New York had good performance. Also, New York was positively impacted by low comparables as one of the stores was closed for relocation in October last year.

London was positively impacted by the opening of the new Bond Street store in December 2023. Paris and Hong Kong reported single-digit growth year on year. We are pleased with the performance of 24% growth of our Win Cities for the quarter. Please move to the next slide. Before I hand over to Nikolaj, let me elaborate on our recent product launches. As I mentioned, we launched our new flagship headphone, H100, in September. It is the first headphone built on our proprietary software platform, the Mozart platform. The higher price point compared to previous headphones not only reflects that H100 is the best headphone we have created to date. It also confirms our strategic direction of further strengthening our position in the luxury audio market. The sales performance of H100 got off to a really good start, with demand exceeding all our expectations.

In November 2024, we launched the Eleven, which is the next generation of the successful EX earphone. The Eleven features improved acoustic performance thanks to enhanced active noise cancellation, more transparency, and voice clarity. We continue to elevate the product experience for our existing products and create new best-in-class products. In terms of product collaborations, we also announced the second special edition Ferrari collection, revealing three new product collaborations, all from our Staged category. With the made-to-order collection, Bang & Olufsen has reimagined its Beolab 50 speaker, Beosound Theatre soundbar, and Beovision Theatre TV solution. The design integrates Ferrari's charcoal Grigio Corsa colorway combined with a striking shade of red to create an unmistakable connection to the motorsport icon and the first Ferrari collection launched in 2023. The first special edition comprised four products from our Flexible Living and On-the-Go category.

This was the Beosound 2 home speaker, the Beoplay H95 headphone, the Beoplay EX earphones, and the portable speaker, Beosound Explorer. The edition was in good demand, and the products were sold out. As I mentioned, we will invest further in our product portfolio. We have a strong product portfolio today, and we will keep on strengthening it across all categories. With this, I will hand over to Nikolaj.

Nikolaj Wendelboe
CFO, Bang & Olufsen

Thank you, Kristian. Now, please move to page 10. Let me start by going through sell-out for Q2. Our like-for-like sell-out was positive for the quarter and grew 1% compared to last year. If we exclude end-of-life deals made last year, sell-out was higher and moved to the mid-single digits. We are pleased to report that like-for-like sell-out in our branded channels grew 5%. In terms of regions, like-for-like sell-out in EMEA was on par with last year. The branded channels grew while multi-brand declined as expected. As Kristian mentioned, we have reduced the number of multi-brand stores primarily in Germany, and for retail, we saw positive traction at the end of the quarter, which generated positive sell-out growth for the quarter. Sell-out in the Americas grew by 8%. Branded channels combined reported a double-digit increase supported by double-digit growth in all channels.

Company-owned stores delivered very satisfactory performance and were, in addition, positively impacted by low comparables as one store was closed for relocation in October last year. For the APAC region, like-for-like sell-out declined by 1%. The branded channels reported growth driven by growth across the channels. Like-for-like sell-out in the retail channel declined as expected as we have changed the setup. For the multi-brand channel, where we have also changed our focus towards travel retail, we saw only a modest decline in sell-out due to positive traction from the travel retail network. Looking at China, like-for-like sell-out declined 7%. The monobrand channel was on par with last year, excluding sell-out from one partner. South Korea and Taiwan reported sell-out growth, and Japan reported sell-out growth in the branded channels. Across regions, our Staged category grew by 9%, while the Flexible Living and On-the-Go categories declined by 10% and 13% respectively.

This reflects the change in channel mix towards our branded channels as end-of-life deals made last year in the Flexible Living and On-the-Go categories. Please go to the next page. Reported revenue for the quarter was DKK 698 million. This was a decline of 1% in local currencies compared to Q2 of last year and in line with our expectations. Overall, product sales had a marginal decline. Breaking revenue down into categories, the Staged category grew by 7%. Flexible living declined 26%, mainly driven by end-of-life deals made last year in APAC and the launch of the Ferrari collection in Q2 of last year. The On-the-Go category increased by 5% and was positively impacted by the successful launch of H100. Our brand partnering and other activities increased by 4% and was on par with last year in local currencies.

The development was mainly driven by growth in license income from automotive, while license income from HP declined in line with our expectations due to the expiry of the agreement as of June 2024. The new partnership with TCL, which we entered into in July, is ramping up as expected. Revenue from co-branded products declined year on year due to ramp-up in Q2 last year. Please turn to the next page. Let me go more into details on product revenue per region. Revenue from the EMEA region grew 3% in local currencies, and growth was reported across all branded channels in the region. The UK market and the German market are still challenged markets. We continued the transformation of the multi-brand distribution channels, thereby improving the underlying quality of revenue. Gross margin was up 0.8 percentage points to 49.3%.

In the Americas, we saw a strong performance across channels, and revenue increased 17% in local currencies to DKK 86 million. The monobrand channel also grew despite having terminated all monobrand stores in California. As Kristian mentioned, we continue with our U.S. expansion and are rebuilding a strong presence in California. Revenue from the multi-brand channel was very limited in absolute value. This is in line with the strategic transformation to reduce our multi-brand presence. At the end of the quarter, we were present in 20 multi-brand stores across the Americas. The change in channel mix also contributed to increased gross margin for the Americas from 42.9%- 48%. Revenue in APAC was DKK 182 million, which was a decrease of 13% in local currencies. Revenue from China declined 12.3% or 14% in local currencies and accounted for approximately 55% of total revenue in APAC.

Revenue from our monobrand channel in China declined year on year. Excluding one partner, revenue from the channel was largely unchanged. As part of our strategic transformation in China, we implemented a structural change in the multi-brand setup and retail network, and we saw increased revenue from both channels year on year. Revenue from Japan and Taiwan grew year on year, while South Korea was temporarily impacted by a planned simplification in the partner setup. Overall, for the APAC region, the gross margin declined to 47.4% from 51.6%. This was mainly due to changes in product mix, but also impacted by the lower revenue level to absorb fixed production costs. Now, please move to the next page. On group level, the gross margin rose to 53.7% and was up 0.6 percentage points compared to last year. Overall, the gross margin for product revenue was largely on par with last year.

We have, in recent quarters, been positively impacted by both channel mix and product mix. We have been on an increasing trajectory for the past several quarters, and in Q1, we reached a record high gross margin of 55.2%. As we said when we announced the Q1 results, we didn't expect that level to continue for the coming quarters, and there will be fluctuations throughout the year. We are pleased with the level of just shy of 54% for Q2, and in general, we expect the gross margin to increase over our midterm period. This quarter, the gross margin for brand partnering rose to 94.4% from 87.9% in Q2 of last year. The margin increased due to the change in mix between license and product sales compared to Q2 of last year. Again, this level will also fluctuate across quarters depending on the underlying mix.

EBIT margin before special items was 1.7% compared to 3% in Q2 last year. The improved gross margin was more than offset by increased development costs. Now, please turn to the next page. Moving on to capacity cost and net working capital. Capacity cost increased by DKK 12 million year on year. Looking at the composition of the capacity cost, development cost increased by DKK 20 million, partly due to an increased level of incurred cost and partly due to less capitalizations. Distribution and marketing costs decreased by DKK 12 million, and our marketing ratio was 9.3% compared to 10.6% last year. Administrative cost increased by DKK 3 million, driven by one-offs. Net working capital decreased by DKK 32 million during the quarter to DKK 250 million. This was mainly driven by a reduction in inventories of DKK 25 million during the quarter to DKK 426 million. Overall, finished goods were improved in terms of composition and aging.

Sales with extended credit were 2% and continued to be at a low level. Payables increased by DKK 61 million, and other short-term liabilities increased by DKK 63 million to DKK 189 million during the quarter, which was primarily driven by employee-related liabilities and VAT. Please turn to the next page. Free cash flow for Q2 was up DKK 6 million to DKK 30 million. The development since last year was driven by the improvement in net working capital. CapEx was at DKK 54 million for Q2 and mainly related to new products and platforms. The level is expected to increase in the second half of the financial year and with more retail-related CapEx in the mix. Capital resources amounted to DKK 390 million at the end of Q2, of which available liquidity was DKK 159 million. This is excluding the capital raise of gross DKK 228 million as we received the funds after closing of the quarter.

Please turn to the next page. To conclude, we maintain the outlook for the full year 2024-25, with revenue growth in local currencies from -3%- +3%, with an EBIT margin before special items from -2%- +1%, and free cash flow is expected from -100 million DKK to 0 million DKK. As we have stated, 2024-25 is a transition year. With the proceeds from the capital raise, we can now initiate the investment programs of our strategic execution according to our mid-term plan. This means that CapEx is expected to increase compared to 2023-24, and capacity costs are expected to increase as well as we will hire the right competencies to help us execute the plan. With those words, I will hand it back to Kristian.

Kristian Teär
CEO, Bang & Olufsen

Thank you, Nikolaj. So, to sum up the quarter, it was in line with our plans and expectations.

While revenue had a margin decline impacted by the challenged economic climate in China, we generated positive growth in EMEA and the Americas, and we had a positive EBIT and a positive cash flow. We are pleased to report a growth of 24% in our Win Cities and 5% sell-out growth in our branded channels. And finally, we are excited about having completed the capital raise and being able to accelerate our strategic execution. Once again, we would like to thank both existing and new investors for the strong support. And with this, we will now open up for Q&As.

Operator

Thank you. If you do wish to ask a question, please press five-star on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question again, you may do so by pressing five-star again. We'll have a brief pause while questions are being registered. The first question is from the line of Poul Jessen from Danske Bank. Please go ahead. Your line will now be unmuted.

Poul Jessen
Analyst, Danske Bank

Yes. Thank you. I have a few questions. Let's start by the changes you do to your sales, global sales on the retailer side. I guess it's a consequence of getting a new head of sales on board. Could you explain more what the actual impacts will be from centralizing and not having a regional base infrastructure?

Kristian Teär
CEO, Bang & Olufsen

Yeah. So, hi, good morning, Poul. Thanks for your question. So, when we look at the Q1, Q2 executions, we see that we are doing well in the cities where we focus on and the strategic cities. We want to get closer to those cities. We want to put more resources into the cities and have more resources on the ground. We have also seen that the operating model that we have in EMEA with more than 200 monobrand stores. We're working really, really well with them. So, we're taking the same operating model and applying that in Asia-Pacific and in the Americas.

We have appointed Jorge Aguiar, who is now running the EMEA region as Head of Global Sales, to implement the same operating model across the globe, but also then help us to focus further on the cities where we have had, as you heard, good results already. In addition to that, we are creating a new partner and distribution sales organization that is also global that will help us to find new partners for the white spots that we have on the map and finding new monobrand partners, in particular for the North American region, but also in other regions, Asia and Latin America. And for that purpose, we have appointed our current North American Head, Rick Costanzo, to run that new sales of partners and distributors. And the third focus area is we have had good success with hospitality, and we will continue to invest in hospitality.

That has currently resided under Christoffer Poulsen, who is also running brand licensing and partnering, but we will put more emphasis on hospitality and put more resources into hospitality as well. Those three changes in the sales organization will help us to further accelerate growth and execute on the midterm plans that we have announced.

Poul Jessen
Analyst, Danske Bank

And then putting that forward to Nikolaj, then how should we look at the cost on distribution marketing into the second half then? Is it also already being ramped up there, or is it mainly an issue for the next financial year? It's a question of how fast the costs are moving up.

Kristian Teär
CEO, Bang & Olufsen

So, there will be an increase in cost also in the second half of the year as we are hiring in people to help us with our strategy execution. Of course, the impact will be bigger when we go into the next financial year because it takes time to get people on board. But we are expecting extra costs also in Q3 and more specifically in Q2 for these extra resources coming in.

Poul Jessen
Analyst, Danske Bank

And then, coming back to your question, and I guess you are commenting on the U.S. and California, you have a quite strong performance in the U.S., and that's despite having those doors open or branded stores open in California right now. Is it installers and hospitality that's driving it, or is it the New York stores? What's the key drivers here? And secondly, you say you have a new franchisee on board for California. When should we expect revenue out of California from branded stores again?

Kristian Teär
CEO, Bang & Olufsen

We have a strong performance across the different channels in the U.S. We're actually growing in all channels. We're doing really well in New York, in our Win City, like I said, but it's across the board. In California, in particular, we have found a new partner, a very resourceful partner that will help us to execute the retail strategy by putting several flagship stores in place in the key cities and also satellite stores in place in the key cities. We expect the first stores to be up and running during this calendar year already. We're very excited about that, and we have a partner who is very, very capable and very resourceful. You will see that by the end of this calendar year.

Poul Jessen
Analyst, Danske Bank

It's the next financial year.

Kristian Teär
CEO, Bang & Olufsen

Financial year, correct.

Poul Jessen
Analyst, Danske Bank

Okay. Does that also mean that you have plans to end the cities where you are not present right now? I'm thinking about the Bay Area.

Kristian Teär
CEO, Bang & Olufsen

We will have a better coverage throughout California. We have already several leases in place in the cities, and we are going to continue with that expansion with the same partner to sign up more leases. So, it will be across California, yes.

Poul Jessen
Analyst, Danske Bank

Okay. And then a question on the back of this CES and the TCL presentations, but when we look at the TVs in general, there's not much question about quality of panels. It's more of the software inside, AI and others being included into the panels. Just want to make certain that changes or the development of TV panels now and going forward, you are more or less fully independent of that because you provide the audio part of it independent of what's happening inside the panels.

Kristian Teär
CEO, Bang & Olufsen

We have a good collaboration and a strong collaboration with LG, and we expect that to continue and us actually also to be strengthened. We expect the business to continue under the same operating model for screens as we currently have.

Poul Jessen
Analyst, Danske Bank

When you mentioned TCL partnership on revenue on wireless, is that material by now? Is it still something ramping up as it gets into more formats? Just how much is there in the Q2 numbers already? More or less nothing?

Kristian Teär
CEO, Bang & Olufsen

It's not material at this point in time. It's a few million, so to speak, but it's according to plan, and it will become more material when we move into the next financial year when we are ramping up and we are also getting into new TCL models. Right now, we are only in one TV, and we are expanding that with the latest announcement also of the X Series at CES.

Poul Jessen
Analyst, Danske Bank

Okay. I'll step back to see if there are others. Otherwise, I have more questions later.

Operator

The next question is from Niels Leth from Carnegie. Please go ahead. Your line will now be unmuted.

Niels Leth
Analyst, Carnegie

Good morning, and thank you for taking my questions. First question is about the ongoing restructuring of your multi-brand network. So, should we expect the reduction in the number of multi-brand doors to continue at the same pace here in the next two, three quarters? Secondly, on your OPEX ramp-up or expected ramp-up, so you recorded 3% growth in quarter two, excuse me. Should we expect OPEX growth to move into the double-digit growth here in the second half? And then just coming back on the question on California, perhaps you could elaborate on the number of stores that you expect to open in California. Thank you.

Kristian Teär
CEO, Bang & Olufsen

Good morning, Niels. And thank you for your questions. On multi-brand, we believe we have the right multi-brand network more or less in place currently. We may tune it down further as we see how we are growing in the other channels that we have long-term. We will continue to be in some selected multi-brands. It's not going to disappear completely, but with a selected assortment and with selected partners. But we don't see a bigger kind of change and shift in that channel for the time being. I'll take the California question as well, and then Nikolaj will take the other question. We will have. I will not give you a specific number, but we will have several stores, and there will most likely be more stores than what we have terminated currently.

Yeah, and in terms of OpEx growth, so we will expect the growth on OpEx to pick up in Q3 and Q4, as I said before. I don't expect it will go into double-digit growth, but it will probably be high single digits if I should give some kind of flavor to that.

Niels Leth
Analyst, Carnegie

Okay, great. And then if I can just follow up on store openings and store acquisitions. As part of your growth plan, you have mentioned that you want to double the number of stores that you own. Could you provide a little bit of timing to this ambition? Should we expect the number of stores that you own to double already within two years, or is that basically spread across all the years in your strategy period spanning to fiscal 2028? That was my question. Thank you.

Kristian Teär
CEO, Bang & Olufsen

Yeah. So the expectation is that the doubling in number of COCO stores is in the midterm period. So that will be towards the end of 2027, 2028. And yeah, the exact timing of that will, of course, be announced as we are opening the doors, but that's the expectation. So it's not something that happens within the first one or two years. It is over the next three and a half years.

Niels Leth
Analyst, Carnegie

Okay, great. And then just finally on your gross margin progression throughout this year. Now you have generated year-on-year progressions in the past few quarters. So I presume that's also what we should expect for quarter three and quarter four. And perhaps you could also give us a few comments on your gross margin progression in the On-the-Go category. It seems like the most recent products that you have launched in this category would be higher priced than what we normally see in this category. Would that have any meaningful effect on the gross margin in the On-the-Go category?

Kristian Teär
CEO, Bang & Olufsen

So overall, we expect gross margin progression year-on-year to continue, but we also expect that the rate of the progression compared to what we've seen in the past year will be lower. So I think when we come into Q3 and Q4, the progression will sort of diminish a little bit for those quarters, sort of short-term, long-term. We are planning with progressing our gross margin over the next three and a half years every year. So we are ending at a level that will probably be five, six percentage points higher than where we are today at the end of the midterm period. But that will also be something that we then do over the next 12-14 quarters. So quarter by quarter, it will be small steps, but all in the right direction. And what was the second question? I forgot that. Sorry, Niels.

Niels Leth
Analyst, Carnegie

That was how we should think of the gross margin progression in your On-the-Go category where you have launched a few rather expensive products here recently.

Kristian Teär
CEO, Bang & Olufsen

Yeah. So we definitely expect the progression in the On-the-Go category from a gross margin perspective as well. There are many factors in that. Of course, when we launch new products, as we have done with H100, it has a significantly higher gross margin than the average in the category. And as we continue to launch more products in that category over the time of our strategy plan, that will all contribute to increased gross margins as well. In addition to that, as we are cleaning up the multi-brand channel and the retail channel, and there's still some work to do on the retail channel, especially in China, that would also help us improve our gross margin in the category as well.

Niels Leth
Analyst, Carnegie

Could you just remind us how much of revenue would come from e-tailing today?

Kristian Teär
CEO, Bang & Olufsen

In total, it's around, yeah, it's probably around 10%-15%, between 10% and 15%.

Niels Leth
Analyst, Carnegie

That would be for pure retailers like Amazon and those kinds of retailers.

Kristian Teär
CEO, Bang & Olufsen

Amazon, CDON.com. So we are taking those. So we are restructuring how we work with those channels in terms of product assortment and pricing strategy. And that has an impact on the category from a revenue perspective, but it's also helping us to improve the margins in the category.

Niels Leth
Analyst, Carnegie

Great. Thank you.

Operator

The next question is a follow-up from Poul Jessen from Danske Bank. Please go ahead. Your line will now be unmuted.

Poul Jessen
Analyst, Danske Bank

Yes. Thank you. I have a few questions here and there. First, H100. I think it's been selling more than we have been able to deliver. Can you tell when you expect your supply to be sufficient to cover demand so that it's available everywhere?

Kristian Teär
CEO, Bang & Olufsen

That's a really good question because we can, of course, not foresee demand out in all future, but right now, we are basically sold out for Q3 from a sell-in perspective, so if you are a retail partner placing an order of H100 right now, you will not get it in this quarter because we're sold out, so we are ramping up production. It takes time because we have components that have a long lead time, and we expect that demand and supply will be more in sync, of course, next year when we have time to readjust our supplier plans, basically.

Poul Jessen
Analyst, Danske Bank

Okay. And then points of sale Europe, the drop of 500 multi-brand points of sale. Is that a partner or two taken out, or is it more optimizing existing partnerships on locations where you want to be present? And if you have closed down specific partners, can you give examples of who and where it's been shut down?

Kristian Teär
CEO, Bang & Olufsen

We're talking about multi-brand, I assume, in Europe.

Poul Jessen
Analyst, Danske Bank

Multi-brand Europe.

Kristian Teär
CEO, Bang & Olufsen

In Europe, yeah. So we closed down a number of stores, especially in Germany, where we had a number of multi-brand chains that were not adding value to the brand or specifically adding value from a revenue perspective either. So they have been closed during the quarter.

Poul Jessen
Analyst, Danske Bank

Or two?

Kristian Teär
CEO, Bang & Olufsen

I don't remember the name, Poul. It's nothing, nobody of significance.

Poul Jessen
Analyst, Danske Bank

Okay, then just have to scroll down here. Guidance for the year, you say that it's based on the current currency range. You also said that when you gave the initial guidance, but the U.S. dollar has moved in the meantime, the British pound as well. So is it based on rates as of today, or is it the same definitions as when you gave it initially in July?

Kristian Teär
CEO, Bang & Olufsen

It's based on rates as of today.

Poul Jessen
Analyst, Danske Bank

So the headwind that you must have because you typically have headwind from a stronger U.S. dollar, is that compensated within the earnings range that you have, or have you other areas which is compensating?

Kristian Teär
CEO, Bang & Olufsen

No. So when we look at the impact from the U.S. dollar and the dollar increase, that is more impacting, of course, the bottom line, right, because we are buying our products in dollar. And that's a big chunk of our cost, whereas most of our OpEx cost is euro-based, right? So there's a headwind to that. But the current headwind, you can say we can keep it within the flexibility of our -2%- +1%. So that's why we're not changing our outlook based on that.

Poul Jessen
Analyst, Danske Bank

Okay. And then we proceed from the capital increase to 28. That's a gross number. Can you, for modeling, give us the net number on how much you're actually receiving?

Kristian Teär
CEO, Bang & Olufsen

We will disclose the net number when we finalized all the costs for the issue with the Q3 report, right? But of course, there is a cost that is in there and is taking the net number down with around DKK 10 million lower, plus minus.

Poul Jessen
Analyst, Danske Bank

Okay. I had one more. Yeah. The net finance is -DKK 12 million. Is there anything special included? I can see that your net debt is coming down. Are there some additional costs or is it underlying just business as usual?

Kristian Teär
CEO, Bang & Olufsen

No, there's no additional cost. It's net financial cost related to the normal running of our business. The net debt is coming down because we are using our repo setup to a lower extent. That will also, of course, over time, have a positive impact on net financials, especially in the coming quarters when we have the proceeds from the Directed Issue as well.

Poul Jessen
Analyst, Danske Bank

So you will use that to reduce the repo also?

Kristian Teär
CEO, Bang & Olufsen

Yes.

Poul Jessen
Analyst, Danske Bank

Okay. And receivables has gone up quite a lot, Q over Q. Is that because Q1 was exceptionally low and then you're more or less normalized now?

Kristian Teär
CEO, Bang & Olufsen

Yeah, exactly. So Q1 is always low and Q2 is always high. So there's always a big swing in receivables between Q1 and Q2 due to the seasonality of sales in the business.

Operator

Thank you. That was all for me.

And just as a reminder, if you have a question, please press five star on your telephone keypad. We have a follow-up from Niels Leth from Carnegie. Please go ahead. Your line will now be unmuted.

Niels Leth
Analyst, Carnegie

Thank you. Just one follow-up question on the U.S. tariff situation. Could you talk about what proportion of your U.S. sales are manufactured outside of China and some considerations around what you are planning to do if tariffs will be imposed on imports from China?

Kristian Teär
CEO, Bang & Olufsen

Yeah. So the biggest portion of the sales by far into the U.S. is not manufactured in China because most of our Staged category is coming from Europe, which has the highest value. So it's mainly On-the-Go products and a few other products. So it's a limited number of products that will be impacted. I would say it's probably two handfuls of products, if I should put it like that. And we have not made specific plans of how to handle it yet because we actually don't know what will happen exactly. And it depends on the level of tariffs that are being imposed towards Chinese products. But we have different handles that we are looking at, which is everything from shipping products into the U.S. before tariffs are coming to handling through price adjustments in the U.S. specifically. But those are basically the handles that we are looking at.

It's basically a cost-benefit analysis between tying up more working capital in the U.S. and shipping more into the U.S. versus having more flexibility. If the level of tariffs is what has been initially sort of talked about, which is an extra 10%, then we will probably carry on business as usual and mitigate this through pricing because that seems to be the most efficient. As I said, until we have more concrete measures implemented or announced, we are being a little bit cautious in doing anything right now.

Niels Leth
Analyst, Carnegie

Okay. Thank you. If there are no further questions in the queue, I will hand it back to the speakers.

Kristian Teär
CEO, Bang & Olufsen

Thank you all very much for joining today and for all your questions. If you have, as always, any additional questions, don't hesitate to reach out to our fantastic IR department. Thank you very much.

Powered by