Welcome to this Bang & Olufsen annual report 2025, 2026. Today's call is being recorded. If you have any objections, please disconnect at this time. All participants will be in a listen-only mode throughout the presentation, and afterwards, there will be a question and answer session. I would now like to introduce Interim CEO and CFO, Nikolaj Wendelboe. Nikolaj, you may now begin.
Hello, everyone, thank you for joining today's webcast. I will start by taking you through the highlights of the past year and provide an overview of the developments across the business. I will then walk through the financial performance with focus on the fourth quarter, as well as our outlook for the coming year before we open the line up for questions. Please move to slide three. Let us begin by looking at our full year performance and how the financial year progressed. In 2025, 2026, we continued to drive transformation, improving our retail network and operating model, while adapting to a challenging macroeconomic environment. The financial year 2025, 2026 marked our centenary, a proud milestone celebrating our legacy and century-long commitment to sound design and craftsmanship while shaping the future as a global leader in luxury audio.
We delivered another record high gross margin and the highest gross profit in eight years, and we advanced in key strategic initiatives. During the first half of the year, we launched three product innovations. The earpieces, Beo Grace, showcased Bang & Olufsen at its best and a strong commercial performance that validated market demand. In parallel, the introduction of the Reloved program reinforced our leadership in circular design, and the sold-out monthly drops confirmed strong client interest. In contrast, the launch of the soundbar Beosound Premiere was challenged and highlighted improvements were needed in the commercial operating model. We ended the year with a clear ambition to continue investing in the development of the business. As the year progressed, external market conditions became more challenging than expected, and that, in combination with sales of Beosound Premiere being significantly lower than anticipated, we adjusted our full-year outlook in March 2026.
At the same time, we withdrew our midterm ambitions through 2028. All in all, revenue for the year was DKK 2.5 billion, corresponding to a decline of 1.6% in local currencies, in line with the adjusted outlook. EBIT margin before special items was negative 0.5%, and free cash flow was negative DKK 141 million. The development in EBIT margin before special items was impacted by the planned strategic investments in retail optimization, development of the product portfolio, and marketing investments. In Q2, we had extraordinary marketing cost of around DKK 38 million for activation across the globe celebrating our centennial. During the second half of the financial year, we adjusted elements of our strategic execution and implemented efficiency and cost measures. This also included an adjustment of the cost base. I will come back to these topics later in the presentation.
Finally, as stated in our annual report, the board expects to announce a permanent CEO during Q1 2026, 2027, and today we will have no further comments regarding this topic. Please move to the next slide. During the year, we launched three product innovations. In November 2025, we launched the Beo Grace earpieces. Beo Grace marks a new expression of Bang & Olufsen in-ear design, crafted from hand-polished aluminum and built on our proprietary Amadeus software platform. The product was well received, and sales performance has been strong, driving double-digit growth in the earphone revenue. In December 2025, we launched Beosound Premiere, adding a soundbar to the portfolio designed for TVs from 42 inches and above and centered on spatial audio and system connectivity.
The sales performance of Beosound Premiere was lower than anticipated, and the product was relaunched in March 2026 with two additional colorways, with improved in-store display and at a revised lower price point. Sales performance improved during Q4, although still at a lower than expected level. In October 2025, we launched a Reloved program offering expected refurbished and certified pre-owned products with a Bang & Olufsen warranty through our own e-commerce channel. The launch was successful. Across eight monthly drops from October to May, all products sold out before the next drop, and some were sold out within 24 hours. In addition to our new product innovations, we also presented our outdoor product in development, the speaker Beosound Haven, expected to launch in 2027. This offering underpins our vision to provide fully integrated solutions for our clients' homes, bringing the Bang & Olufsen experience from indoors to outdoors.
Please move to the next page. In addition to our product innovations, we also engaged in several product collaborations, which, in addition to being revenue drivers, also cements our brand presence in different parts of the world. This year, we engaged with three partners and launched limited editions of selected products. The partners were Tokyo-based design studio Fragment Design, the Korean-based global artist G-Dragon, and the British-based design house, Vollebak. Throughout the year, we cemented our global brand presence through a curated program of marketing activations, collaborations, partnerships, cultural initiatives, and centenary celebrations, reinforcing our brand's positions at the intersection of craftsmanship, innovation, and culture.
The program was activated globally, spanning window takeovers in Harrods in London, digital out-of-home activations in Times Square, New York, and our centennial exhibition, 100 Years & Counting, which premiered in Shanghai and attracted more than 10,000 visitors, alongside activities in Copenhagen, Tokyo, Hong Kong, London, and many other cities worldwide. A reinterpretation of one of our most iconic speakers from 2015, the Beolab 90, was introduced in five Atelier anniversary editions. All featured distinctive materials and color expressions while preserving our signature acoustic excellence. The collection was unveiled through activations across global cities, including London and San Francisco, creating immersive experiences that combine sound design and storytelling to elevate client engagement and emotional connections with our brand. Please move to the next slide. Our Win City concept was implemented in Tokyo, San Francisco, and Los Angeles, increasing the total number of active Win Cities to seven by year-end.
The Win Cities delivered double-digit sell-out growth of 18% while further elevating the brand experience. We are pleased to report double-digit Win City sell-out growth for eight consecutive quarters. Our latest brand equity results also support this. The direction was further supported by flagship openings in Paris, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. We continue our ambitious retail plan in the coming year. In addition to these openings, we expanded our presence with the opening of a new store in Hamburg and by upgrading the first two stores in Asia to a culture store concept. Across our network, we are strengthening our position in high-potential locations by relocating selected stores and opening new sites in key cities and districts, while closing underperforming locations that are not aligned with our brand ambition.
In parallel, we are enhancing our distribution model through closer collaboration with like-minded mono-brand partners, combining the strength of company-owned stores with a strong partner network. We are improving store productivity by driving consistency in retail execution. This includes optimized visual merchandising and store design, focused sales training, and a more structured approach to clienteling. As a result, we aim to deliver increasingly personalized client experiences and drive engagement across our global network through a clearly defined and seamless client journey. To support the client journey throughout the store network, we are implementing a new retail IT platform to replace current systems. In 2026/2027, the platform will be rolled out across all company-owned stores, and the first two stores have been piloted during the last month. In summary, during the year, we made more than 65 retail footprint adjustments, and our ambitions for the coming year are as ambitious.
Now please turn to the next slide. To secure continued investment in the development of the business for future profitable growth, we have in the second half of the financial year adjusted elements of our strategic execution and implemented efficiency and cost measures. In addition to the retail focus I have just outlined on the previous page, the adjustments initiated covers both go-to-market and product development. We are evolving our commercial operating model and have significantly improved the coordination of marketing, planning, and investments, retail execution, and product launches during the second half of the financial year. We expect this to enhance our go-to-market execution across both existing products and new launches. Entering 2026/2027, our operating model is better equipped to support our targeted marketing position.
At the same time, we are reallocating our cultural partnerships towards music, in line with our ambition to deliver beautiful sound and elevating our heritage and brand distinctiveness. I'm pleased that we have recently signed an agreement with a global brand ambassador, which we will announce shortly. We have revised our product development model and have, amongst others, rebalanced the use of external suppliers while sharpening our focus on core strengths and improving speed and cost efficiency. This will enable us to better serve aspirational clients in future offerings without compromising our strong gross margin. The changes made ensure we're able to prioritize continued investments and transformation, and we trust the new ways of working will be effectively led by our newly appointed Chief Product Officer, Janne Jakobsen, and Chief Marketing Officer, Peter Hobolt Jensen.
In the last part of the year, changes have been made to simplify the organization and focus efforts on strategically important areas. Efficiency measures have reduced our underlying cost base and include, amongst many initiatives, a right-sizing of the organization. This has resulted in a workforce reduction across the organization of around 60 people, corresponding to around 5% of the total number of employees. Saying goodbye to dedicated and talented people is certainly not easy, and we do so with gratitude for their valuable contributions. All in all, with the changes introduced during the last six months, we have cleaned up, we have regrouped, and we have put the company in a better position to drive long-term profitable growth. I will now go further into the details on our Q4 numbers. If you move to the following slide.
Starting with sell-out, we delivered positive like-for-like growth of 11% at group level. This led to a full-year like-for-like sell-out growth of 4%. For the quarter, positive sell-out growth was reported across regions, and 13% growth was reported for our branded channels. For both EMEA and Americas, like-for-like sell-out grew by 4%. Branded channels reported growth in both regions driven by company-owned stores. Sell-out reported from the e-tail channel declined in both regions. It is encouraging to see positive like-for-like sell-out, while revenue growth in these two regions was negative. In general, the difference between sell-out and sell-in was caused by inventory depletion among our partners. For APAC, sell-out grew by 28%, and like-for-like sell-out for China grew by 14%.
In addition, double-digit sell-out growth was reported for e-tail and multi-brand in China, as our own operations have delivered improved commercial impact on JD and Tmall. As highlighted earlier, our active Win Cities consisting of New York, London, Paris, Hong Kong and now Tokyo, continue to perform strongly, delivering double-digit sell-out growth for the eighth executive quarter. Please move to the next page. Turning to group performance, revenue decreased by 3.1% in local currencies, while reported revenue declined by 3.8%. While the sales performance of Beosound Premiere improved after the relaunch and price adjustment, its performance continued at a lower-than-expected level and was the primary reason for the decline. In terms of channel performance, the decline was driven by the mono-brand channel in EMEA. Within branded channels, revenue declined by 3.7% in local currencies.
While our company-owned stores delivered double-digit growth, it was more than offset by the performance in the mono-brand channel. E-commerce was largely on par with last year. Gross margin continued its positive trajectory, improving to 58.7% in Q4, up 2.9 percentage points year-on-year. A refund of paid U.S. tariffs had a positive impact of DKK 20 million. Overall, gross margins improved across regions. EBIT margin before special items was 5.7%, reflecting the higher quality of revenue and a positive impact of the mentioned DKK 20 million from tariff refunds. Special items related to EBIT amounted to negative DKK 30 million, mainly comprising the reorganization announced during the quarter. Please turn to the next page. Product revenue declined by 2.7% in local currencies. In EMEA and Americas, revenue declined by 11.9% and 5% in local currencies, respectively.
In APAC, revenue increased by 15.5% in local currencies, driven by strong momentum in China, especially from e-tail, and continued growth across branded channels in the entire region. Gross margin improved across regions. In the Americas, gross margin was 78.5% in the quarter. This reflects the tariff refund of DKK 20 million related to the U.S. tariffs. When excluding the refund, the gross margin was 50.1%, which was an increase of 1.4 percentage points compared to last year. In APAC, we continue to see a positive effect on the gross margin from the direct operation of the Tmall flagship store, which had a positive impact of around one percentage point on the gross margin for the APAC region. Finally, revenue from brand partnering and other activities declined year-on-year. HP license income was discontinued as expected, and TCL revenue declined year-on-year due to quarterly fluctuations.
The TCL partnership is ramping up as planned on a full-year basis. Please move to the next slide. Turning to cash flow and working capital. Free cash flow for the quarter was positive at DKK 5 million, reflecting improved operating performance and a lower level of operational investments, partly offset by working capital developments. Net working capital increased by DKK 78 million to DKK 349 million, driven by lower payables and higher receivables, with the receivables increase related to the U.S. tariff refund and higher sales than in Q3. Inventories ended the quarter at DKK 418 million, down by DKK 33 million compared to the end of Q3.
That decrease reflects our continued focus on inventory management, and it's partly offsetting the effect of payables and receivables on net working capital. Capital resources amounted DKK 294 million at the end of the quarter, compared to DKK 262 million at the end of Q3.
Of the DKK 294 million capital resources, available liquidity was DKK 94 million, which is DKK 18 million lower than at the end of last quarter. While available liquidity decreased, the undrawn portion of our committed credit facility rose by DKK 50 million during the quarter, which led to an increase of DKK 32 million in capital resources. Now, please move to the next page. Before I present the outlook for 2026/2027, I would like to give a bit of detail on how we currently see the memory chip situation impacting our business.
Memory chips, or more specific, DDR4 RAMs, are currently facing critical supply constraints driven by sustained demand growth from AI and data center applications. At the same time, three of our four suppliers have scaled back or ceased DDR4 production to prioritize higher-margin DDR5 capacity. This dynamic is tightening overall memory supply and materially constrain global production capacity.
We are in the process of securing supply to cover production and maintain operations for products where DDR4 RAM are required, and we have initiated the development of an upgraded Mozart hardware platform. The impact on cost is partly mitigated by price adjustments July 1st, reducing the net impact on the gross margin to approximately 0.5% at this point. An expected cash impact of around DKK 35 million-DKK 45 million is included in the outlook for next year. Let's move to the next page. Turning to the outlook for the full financial year. While uncertainty persists in the external environment, our differentiated strategy and ongoing transformation position us well for the future. Our focus remain on executing our strategy through improving our go-to-market operating model, implementing our new product development methods, reshaping our retail execution and footprint, and continuing to focus on prudency on cost, CapEx, and cash management.
Revenue growth is expected to be in the range of 1%-5%. EBIT margin before special items is expected to range from 1%-3%, and the free cash flow is expected to be in the range of DKK 25 million-DKK 100 million. Our recent prioritizations and efficiency measures have allowed us to fund continued investments in the business while managing the overall cost base. In 2026/2027, that investment goes into our retail network, both new openings and the upgrades of existing stores, the rollout of our new IT platform for retail, and our product pipeline. As a result, we expect capital expenditure to increase to around DKK 270 million-DKK 310 million, while capacity costs are expected to remain broadly flat compared to 2025/2026. On retail specifically, we expect a positive contribution next year from openings and upgrades.
The plan we laid out in 2024/2025 is unchanged and remains the right one, though some openings have taken longer to execute than originally planned, and that phasing is reflected in our expectations. At the same time, we continue to be affected by market uncertainty. On tariffs and the outlook for the U.S. market in particular, we are currently seeing some hesitance and caution among our monobrand partners. The broader geopolitical backdrop, including the wars in Ukraine and in the Middle East, adds to that uncertainty. On a related note, the U.S. tariff refund has not yet been received, so there's a cash timing effect still to come. Finally, on products. Within our outlook, we assumed the launch of three or more products during the financial year.
The first, the Recreated Classics, was launched in June, and we expect the remaining product launches no earlier than the fourth quarter, impacting seasonality over the year. With that, I will open up for questions.
Thank you. If you wish to ask a question, please press a five-star on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, you may do so by pressing five-star again. We will have a brief pause while questions are being registered. As a reminder, please press five-star to ask a question. We will have a brief pause while questions are being registered. The first question comes from the line of Poul Jessen. I'm sorry, comes from the line of Poul Jessen from Danske Bank. Please go ahead. Your line will now be unmuted.
Thank you for taking my question. I have a few ones. If you come back to the organizational changes you made in May, can you put a little more color on what you changed, and in what kind of functions that you have taken out the 60 positions?
Yes. Most certainly. If I should take that question immediately. It's fairly broad-based. We've been looking at our strategy and prioritizing to continue to invest and have the right level of capacity in the areas of retail execution, our COCO stores that we're opening more, we'll also see more headcounts coming in. We have reduced across the board in sort of the more back-end related functions. We have reduced also as part of our. That's in administration, of course. We have reduced across some of our product development function as part of our new way of working with the developing products, where we will use our, or have decided to use external suppliers in a different way. We are also reducing the number of headcounts in parts of our product development organization.
We are, as part of reviewing our go-to-market operating model, we also adjusted specifically on the marketing side on a number of positions globally. It's quite broad-based across the company.
A question on product development. You're changing the way you're using external partners. Does it mean that you are doing more external partnerships now than doing in-house development? Why?
It means that we are adjusting on specific product offerings, especially within the Bluetooth category. We are adjusting the split of work between our in-house development functions and the development functions of the partners. We are doing that because we want to achieve a faster development cycle in Bluetooth products, and we want to achieve a lower cost of developing. Our analysis have shown us that if we adjust the split of work between us and our suppliers, we will be able to achieve this.
Has this temporarily meant that you have longer development processes? I'm just thinking about the Haven. I think earlier it was indicated that it would come to the market this year, now you say 2027.
I think Haven is not a particular.
Has it been delayed due to
No. Haven is really not a very good example of that because it's a different type of product. If we look at the Bluetooth category, which includes headphones, earphones, and Bluetooth speakers, here we have seen quite long development cycles in our in-house development model, and this is what we want to shorten in the future.
Is it business as usual what we have seen the last 12 months, or has there been any changes during the last quarter? I can see now you have reduced number of European branded store from 280 to 220 over two years. Where do you see it flattening out before you'll have a net increase or a stable situation?
I expect for the coming years that we will still see a small decrease in the European store network. Net, we will not reduce with as many stores as we have done this year, but it will still be a little bit of a reduction. At the same time, we are also opening next year flagship stores in really key locations across, well, the world, but especially also in Europe. We will have a much stronger network when we are looking one year ahead than we have today.
The market sentiment?
The market sentiment in Europe has been challenging for the most of this financial year. It's still very centered around the sort of Northern, Central European countries. The DACH region, and Germany specifically, have been challenging. The Nordics has not been easy. As I said before, U.K. outside London has also not been easy, where we see better traction in Southern Europe. That has not changed materially in the fourth quarter.
Okay. It's business as usual for the last 12 months.
Broadly, it's business as usual.
Okay. About the new IT platform that you're going to roll out in stores. You say 27, that's COCO stores. You still have more than 300 where it's not to be rolled out. I guess it's not voluntary, when will it be across all stores? Secondly, what is it going to give you of new opportunities?
First of all, on the timing, we will probably roll it out to the most important markets first. We are taking probably a staggered approach to rolling out. We focus on the high potential markets and key partners in rolling it out. We are doing COCO, as I said, this year in 2026/2027, and then we will after that and after having taken our own medicine and make sure that the platform works exactly as it should, we will roll out to the monobrand partners afterwards. What it will give us is one point of sale system across the stores. It will give us one unified CRM system across the stores. It will enhance the operations in the stores, so the store staff will use much less time on admin work and can spend more time on client-facing work.
It will enable proper CRM and clienteling activities in the stores, as we will have a much more unified view on all our clients. It will also enable, when we have it rolled out to the monobrand partners, seamless reporting of the important key metrics that we need to have in order to run a retail and luxury business. For instance, sell-out, inventory data, traffic data, CRM data, client data. It will create a basis for really professionalizing the retail operations of our business.
A final question from my side on the guidance. You say there is still a high uncertainty, but you narrowed the revenue growth range to a spread of four points from earlier 6-10 points in previous years. How should we look at this? You're more certain, or you just take the conservative view and give the range there and then potentially could be better? Or how should we look at you saying that you have continued high uncertainty, but you narrow the range?
Yeah. We felt it was the right thing to be more precise in our information to the market. With the wide range that we had in the past, we also received some feedback on having a very wide range. We have been diligent in doing our estimations for the coming year and would like to be as precise as possible for letting our investors and shareholders know what we're expecting for the next year.
In the recent years, we've seen that your partners have reduced inventories. What kind of assumption do you put in on the difference between sell-in and sell-out in that outlook? Is it stable inventory in the channel, or is it still on low inventory?
Yeah. Our assumptions sort of in the outlook is focusing on the sell-out performance, and with a stable inventory. That's our key assumption in making that assessment.
A final one just for clarification. You say that the RAM impact would be half a percentage point on your gross margin. That's about DKK 12 million. You have a cash flow impact of DKK 35 million-DKK 45 million. What's the difference here?
The difference is that what we are working on right now is to secure enough supply for the next two years at one go. It's a kind of buying an insurance on the supply of RAM. We have ample time to develop a new hardware platform that is not constrained by DDR4 RAMs. That's why the cashflow impact is bigger than the margin impact. Another element to the margin impact is that we will also increase our prices here first of July, which covers around half of the sort of gross impact on the elevated cost for this year in the COGS.
Okay. Thank you.
You're welcome.
The next question comes from the line of Niels Leth from DNB Carnegie. Niels, please go ahead. Your line will now be unmuted.
Hello, can you hear me?
Yeah, now we hear you.
Now we hear you, Niels.
Okay.
Please go ahead.
Okay. Thank you. My first question is on the effect of store closures in fiscal 2027. Can you talk about what is the expected effect of store closures in the coming year? You recorded a negative effect of -1.5 percentage point in fiscal 2026. Also, would you have any material receivables build up in your balance sheet related to the stores that you have closed? I have a few more questions, perhaps we can start here.
We expect the effect from store closures next year to be smaller than the impact that we've seen this year because we are closing fewer stores. Less than the 1.5%, which is an all else equal calculation, assuming that the revenue is not picked up elsewhere. It will be smaller next year. That's our assumptions. We do not have any material provisions for store closures on the balance sheet. We have a pretty good model of how we handle these closures without incurring any kind of losses on bad debtor.
Secondly, can you talk about your assumptions behind tariff payments for fiscal 2027? Have you included any reoccurrence of tariffs to the U.S. in your guidance for 2027? Would you still have tariff refunds that you will book in fiscal 2027 as you did here in quarter four?
Our assumption is that the tariff refund is booked in quarter four and will have a cash effect next year. We have not included any expectations to get additional tariff refunds. It's not impossible that there will be more to come, but the process on next tariff refunds is much more complicated because it's around some rules they have in the U.S. around the timing of when you incur the tariffs, and the longer it dates back, the more complicated it is to get the returns. Our expectation of tariffs for next year is more or less falling back to the expectations or to the tariff situation before Liberation Day in April.
These IEEPA tariffs avoid, but it is still a minor tariff on certain products from China in the area of, and I'll just double-check, but as I recall, it's around 7.5% that we're paying on certain tariff products. We've done that basically since the current president's first presidential term because those tariffs were never removed under Biden. In a way, it's back to business as usual.
Okay. Finally, could you just talk about the phasing of growth and profitability in the year to come? Do you expect normal seasonality or some kind of back-end loading? How does that look like?
We expect back-end loading and maybe to a higher degree than normal. The reason for that, as I said, the product launches that we still have to come are planned for the fourth quarter, so late in the year. That will, of course, have an impact on seasonality.
How about the cost reductions that you have implemented in quarter four? How is that going to feed into fiscal 2027?
Yeah. They are feeding in, well, more or less from the beginning. We will see probably the biggest impact on the distribution cost line, as a lot of the cost reduction lies within sales and marketing, as we have taken a number of initiatives that is beyond the headcount reduction within this area to really optimize our spending in sales and marketing in relation to a new go-to-market operating model.
Great. Thank you.
As no one else has lined up the questions in this call, I will now hand it back to Nikolaj for closing remarks.
Well, thank you all for your interest in Bang & Olufsen and for joining today's webcast. If you have any follow-up questions, please don't hesitate to reach out to our investor relations team. Thank you and have a good day.