Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Schott Pharma conference call for the nine months, 2023 to 2024. At this time, all participants have been placed on a listen-only mode, and the floor will be open for questions following the presentation. Let me now turn the floor over to your host, Jasko Terzic.
Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining Schott Pharma's earnings call for the third quarter of the fiscal year twenty twenty-four. My name is Jasko Terzic, Senior Manager, Investor Relations, and I will be the host of our call today. With me today are our CEO, Andreas Reisse, who joins us remotely, our CFO, Dr. Almuth Steinkühler, and Tobias Erfurth, our new Head of Investor Relations, who joined us only two weeks ago. Andreas will start today's call by providing an update on Schott Pharma's strategy and business development in the third quarter of fiscal twenty twenty-four, followed by Almuth, who will take us through our financials for the period. Finally, Andreas will conclude the presentation before we start the Q&A session. Before we begin, I would like to direct your attention to our disclaimer, which we encourage you to read.
Additionally, please note that when we talk about fiscal 2024, we are referring to the period from 1st October 2023 to 13th September 2024. This means that the third quarter relates to the period from April to June 2024. With this, I would now like to hand it over to our CEO, Andreas Reisse.
Thanks Jasko. Welcome, everyone, and thank you for joining our earnings call for the third quarter of this fiscal year. I'm delighted to share the latest business and financial highlights of Schott Pharma with you. Let's dive right in. Our strong third quarter builds on the foundation we have laid throughout the year. We accelerated our growth. We are benefiting from the market momentum and increased our revenues in the third quarter to EUR 268 million at constant currencies. Compared to last year, this is a remarkable growth of 21%. Our bottom line grew even faster. We increased our already high level of profitability by more than three percentage points year-over-year, achieving an EBITDA margin of 28.2% at constant currencies.
Considering that our margin includes significant ramp-up costs for the extension of our production capacities in Q3 2024, this is a particularly strong achievement. Lastly, we continue to execute our growth strategy. With an HVS revenue share of 53% in the first nine months of this fiscal year, we are well on track to achieve our midterm goal of HVS revenues, accounting for more than 60% of our overall revenues. Based on these excellent results, we are raising our 2024 full year revenue growth guidance from 9%-11% to 11%-13%. Having said that, let's look at the current market environment and our development. On the left-hand side, you can see the major pharma trends, our key growth opportunities that we are addressing with our strategy, and our unique product portfolio.
We are experiencing that these trends are here to stay and that corresponding long-term market dynamics are well intact. That's why we are very confident that our dedicated focus on the injectable market, our strategic approach, which combines trustful cooperation with customers and partners, innovation and expansion, as well as our participation in various industry trends, puts us in the best position to further grow. Let me highlight several recent developments that emphasize this. Demand for GLP-1 therapies remains strong. Of course, this is a relatively new market that is still evolving. We see new players entering the market and new studies arising almost on a weekly basis. In addition to the well-known therapeutic areas such as diabetes and obesity, the studies promise the effectiveness of semaglutide in treating also widespread diseases such as... Oh, sorry, now I made a mistake here.
Such as Alzheimer's or other forms of dementia and Parkinson. Also, GLP-1 weight loss drugs are receiving approval in more and more countries, for example, in China. All of this shows the potential of GLP-1 therapies, new players, new countries, new therapeutic fields. The same applies to mRNA. I've already talked about the recently approved vaccines against the respiratory virus, RSV, which went out for shipping for the first time beginning of August. In addition, COVID flu combination shots are expected to be approved soon, and there's more going on. We are observing a consistent stream of research and development for mRNA treatments, for example, bird flu, which is funded by WHO. These are just a few examples that show that the pharma industry continues to trust in the potential of this technology.
With regards to antibody-drug conjugates or ADCs, latest clinical trials show enormous potential for precise tumor treatments. First, ADCs have received FDA approval for treating a range of cancers independent of their location in the body. Similar to mRNA and GLP-1, this form of therapy has complex requirements to ensure the stability of the drug. Our HVS specialty device addresses exactly these requirements and enable shorter time to market. So we continue to leverage these trends with the broadest portfolio on the market and our partnership approach with the major pharma companies.... On top of that, our strategic pillars, innovation and expansion, are central in profiting from the growing demand for HVS and continuously expanding our HVS revenue share. So I will share the latest developments with you shortly. The quality of our strategy and the execution are already reflected in our recent numbers.
In this regard, we are very well on track to meet our ambitious midterm target of over 60%. As you know, HVS are high-margin products and the driver for our profitable growth. So now I would like to update you on how we have executed our strategy, with deep dives into our innovation highlights and the progress of our expansion projects. Let's start with innovation. So subcutaneous administration of drugs and home care solutions are two of our most important market trends. With the commercial launch of our large volume ready-to-use cartridge, known as cartriQ, we are advancing both trends. This new product can be and will be used in on-body devices to enable and enhance the subcutaneous home care treatment of cancer, genetic disorders, or immunological diseases. These therapies often require recurring high dosages, making a simple administration even more important.
That's why we have developed and marketed our new 10 ml cartridges in close collaboration with Swiss device company, Ypsomed. By combining our products, the fully assembled device is the first prefilled and preloaded on-body device on the market. Through this, we are making subcutaneous self-injections much more convenient for patients and at the same time, help to lower costs for healthcare providers. This innovation will not only have a substantial positive impact on patients and the healthcare system, but also speaks to the powerful partnership approach I have mentioned before. So coming to another exciting innovation from Q3 2024, the SCHOTT TOPPAC nest 160. As the name implies, the new and improved nest holds 160 prefillable syringes instead of 100, while the external dimensions remain the same.
The new design enables pharma companies to increase their efficiency by up to 67% when filling vaccines, diluents or dermal fillers, for example. In turn, it reduces manufacturing costs and total cost of ownership significantly. At the same time, fitting more syringes into one nest saves resources, supporting pharma companies to achieve their sustainability goals by cutting the product carbon footprint significantly. See, the development of the SCHOTT TOPPAC nest 160 has the potential to become a game changer in the industry. Tests with Bausch+Ströbel, one of our trusted partners and a leading producer of machines for high-speed manufacturing lines, have shown that the new nest is compatible with high-tech machines, leading to efficient and reliable fill and finish operations for pharma companies.
I'm also delighted to report that we are receiving very positive feedback from the market, and first customers are already planning to implement the new product. Plus, we just recently won the Stevie Award Gold for this innovation, which is a fantastic testament to the strong engineering power of our team. We are excited to see what's next. Now, let's look at our progress with the expansion pillar of our strategy. As in previous quarters, we continue to execute our plans for the expansion of our production capacities, following the high customer demand for products in both segments, DDS and DCS. Last quarter, we inaugurated our state-of-the-art production facility for prefillable glass syringes in Hungary. Right now, we are running customer qualifications for prefillable glass syringes, which are progressing well.
We are currently planning the next phase of expansion to meet the growing demand for syringes, which are essential for safely storing and protecting GLP-1 drugs, vaccines, and biologics. We've also extended our production capacities for prefillable polymer syringes in Germany, with a new production line, which is already in operation. This new line will support our growth trajectory in the short and midterm, further driving our shift towards HVS. Another example of our expansion efforts is the progress at our best cost manufacturing site for core products in Serbia. We are currently preparing the start of production by installing machinery for the production lines. Additionally, in March, we announced a $371 million investment in a new facility in the U.S., one of our fastest-growing markets.
This new site has the potential to triple our supply of glass and polymer syringes to the U.S. by 2030, and establish a local supply chain for the increasing demand. We just started the planning phase. So collectively, our expansion projects are progressing, and the expanded global capacity will further drive our growth, particularly to meet the high structural demand for HVS. Now, I hand over to Almuth for a detailed review for our second quarter financials.
Thank you, Andreas. I'd also like to welcome all of you from my side. We appreciate you taking the time today. Now, I'm pleased to guide you through our financials for the third quarter and first nine months of this fiscal year in more detail. Before I kick it off, a quick reminder. Many of you are already aware of the fact that we disclose revenues and EBITDA at both reported and constant currency basis. We do this to be more transparent and disclose currency effects, which we do not forecast. As you know, our guidance is based on constant currencies. Let us now look closer at our performance in the third quarter. Overall, we achieved a very strong third quarter result, with record revenues and EBITDA.
We have seen high demand accelerating our revenue growth momentum, and we are very pleased to have increased our profitability even stronger year-over-year. After nine months, we are much stronger on both the top and bottom line, and therefore increase our revenue growth guidance. In the third quarter, we grew our revenues by 21% year-over-year to EUR 268 million at constant currencies. Our EBITDA grew even stronger and increased by 37% year-over-year to EUR 76 million. This led to an improvement in the EBITDA margin of more than three percentage points to 28.2% at constant currencies, the highest margin level in fiscal year 2024. Those numbers are a remarkable achievement, as we were able to increase our profitability while covering ramp-up costs for the continued investments in the expansion of our production.
In addition, it's worthwhile to mention that our strong reported figures represent quarterly record highs as well. Our capital expenditures in the third quarter amounted to EUR 24 million. Our strong results translates into earnings per share of EUR 0.31 in the third quarter. With an increase of 52% year-over-year, this represents the highest quarterly EPS year to date. For further background and a more detailed insight, I want to now guide you through the top and bottom line performances of our two business segments on the next slide. Now, let's dive into our two product segments. Drug Container Solutions, short DCS, in the dark blue bar, and Drug Delivery Systems, short DDS, in the light blue bar. Our DDS segment consists of high-value solutions only.
More precisely, this includes both glass and polymer prefillable syringes, which are used in fast-growing markets such as biologics. The DCS segment includes our core vials, cartridges, and ampoules, but also high-value solutions such as ready-to-use and specialty vials and cartridges. Let's take a closer look at our top-line performance. In Q3 2024, we achieved our highest ever quarterly revenue level, which was supported by a continued strong double-digit growth trajectory in the DDS segment. In total, DDS revenues increased by 39% to EUR 150 million, driven by the ongoing strong demand for prefillable syringes, as well as our continuous expansions of capacities for HVS. DCS revenue grew also strongly, increasing 11% year-over-year to EUR 154 million at constant currencies.
This result reflected a gradual improvement in demand for vials, as well as the ongoing growth in the other product groups. Looking at the first nine months, we see an overall revenue growth of 13%. While the strong performance of DDS was the main driver of this development, DCS also showed a strong performance, taking into account the negative impact of destocking in the first half of fiscal year 2024. On the next slide, let's take a closer look at our EBITDA development. As mentioned before, our EBITDA performed particularly strong and increased by 37% at constant currencies compared to the third quarter of last year. Thereby, the DDS segment contributed EUR 43 million, an increase of 50% at constant currencies.
This led to a strong EBITDA margin of 36.9% in this segment, which was enabled by capacity expansion and the resulting economies of scale. The ramp-up costs in Hungary are included here as well. The EBITDA of the DCS segment amounted to 34 million EUR, representing an EBITDA margin of 22.1% at constant currencies. Thanks to the revenue growth and a strict cost discipline, we were able to compensate the impact of still existing underutilization in vials and ramp-up costs in Serbia. Looking at the first nine months of the fiscal year, our efforts paid off, and we increased our EBITDA by 12.1% at constant currencies, resulting in a strong margin of 27.7%. Finally, I would like to update you briefly on the currency impact on EBITDA.
As announced in our Q2 earnings call, we have taken steps to reduce FX volatility, which are already paying off. In Q3, we experienced only marginal FX headwinds of EUR 1 million. Up next, I would like to give you some details on our cash flow and investments. Our strong operating cash flow more than covered our growth investments into the strategic expansions of our capacities. This means we continue to fully self-fund our growth investments from our operating cash flow. Our investments totaled EUR 81 million in the first nine months of the fiscal year 2024, and were again mainly related to growth investments. In addition, we achieved a strong free cash flow of EUR 68 million in the same period. Lastly, allow me to briefly speak on the seasonality of our CapEx again.
As you know, the majority of our investments typically takes place in the last quarter of the year. We expect the same for this fiscal year. After looking at our results in more detail, I want to conclude the financial part with a summary of our guidance. Our priority remains to be profitable and grow our business sustainably. In this third quarter, we continued our successful track record and achieved record revenue and EBITDA results. With three quarters of the fiscal year in the books, we recorded revenue growth of 13% and EBITDA growth of 12%, and an EBITDA margin of 27.7% at constant currencies. Based on these strong results, we increased our revenue growth guidance for our fiscal year 2024 at constant currencies.
In our last quarterly call, we already indicated that revenues at the upper end of the former guidance range were considered achievable. The strong organic growth in Q3 shifts the range now even further to 11%-13% growth. At the same time, we confirm our EBITDA margin guidance at approximately prior year's level, which was at 26.6%. This takes into account the seasonally weaker fourth quarter due to the annual summer break. We remain confident with regards to our midterm outlook. As Andreas said, the major pharma trends that we are addressing and the corresponding market dynamics are intact and underline our strategy. Therefore, we are reconfirming our midterm guidance of organic revenue growth above 10% CAGR and an EBITDA margin in the low 30% range, both at constant currencies.
Beyond our guidance, we can basically confirm our statements on all additional KPIs given our last quarterly earnings call. Only our expectation for the HVS revenue share has slightly increased. With 53% after nine months, we expect our HVS revenue share to be above 50% for the fiscal year 2024. Before I hand back to Andreas, I would like to give you some insights in what we expect for the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2024. As already mentioned, the annual summer break will impact our fourth quarter as it does every year. We therefore expect to see a slowed down momentum in our revenue growth, as well as a lower margin compared to the first nine months. This is the regular annual cycle and is therefore already reflected in our guidance.
Our annual report, as well as our fourth quarter figures, will be published on December twelfth. This wraps up our financial update. Before we start with the Q&A, I will now hand over back to Andreas.
Okay, thanks, Almuth. To conclude our presentation and before we take your questions, I would like to take a brief look at our priorities for the near future. So as you see, our strategy is paying off. We are continuing our successful equity story by capitalizing on the most important growth drivers in a highly attractive market. We delivered very strong results in the third quarter and the first nine months of the fiscal year. With that, we emphasized our attractive financial profile and demonstrated our ability to size opportunities for further growth. As the pharma market is developing dynamically, we will continue to prioritize and invest in our R&D pipeline in order to stay at the forefront of the pharma mega trends. We do this to enable future growth across our business segments, but most importantly in our HVS products.
We know the worth of understanding the industry and collaborating with customers and partners, which contribute to our innovation power. Our collaboration with Ypsomed, which I briefly mentioned today, is just one example of many. We will continue to focus on similar initiatives to benefit from strong, trusted, and long-term relationships we have built over the years, so we are well on track to achieve our mid-term goal of 60% HVS share. Thus, we further expand our HVS capacities to capitalize on attractive business opportunities that in turn will drive growth and profitability, so sustainability is an integral part of our business success at Schott Pharma. Our ESG initiatives, including promoting a circular economy and progressing towards net carbon neutrality by 2030, are fundamental to our daily operations. This is why we just reiterated our commitment to support limitation of global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
I can confirm that the validation of the Schott Group's climate action roadmap and targets by the Science Based Targets initiative also count for our Schott Pharma business. We are committed to fulfilling these, the same targets as in the scope of our business activities and to reporting transparently on our progress. So with that, I would like to end today's presentation. Thank you all very much for your attention, and we now look forward to your questions.
Thank you very much. I'm taking over for now for the Q&A session. So dear ladies and gentlemen, if you are dialed in on the conference call and have a question for the speakers, please press nine, followed by the star key on your telephone keypad now. Once your name has been announced, you can ask a question, and if you wish to cancel your question again, please press nine, star a second time. The first question comes from James Vane-Tempest of Jefferies International Limited... Please go ahead.
Hi, thanks for taking my questions. Three, if I may please. Firstly, just on 2024, given we're one month away from your fiscal year end, 9%-11% growth does give quite a wide range for Q4. So I'm just curious, you know, why you're not in a position to narrow that further at this stage. And of the 10-15 million ramp-up spend, how much have you completed at nine months? My second question is, earlier this year, you gave full year 2025 guidance of high single digit to low double digit, but that was omitted today. I understand this is based off the prior full year 2024 guidance. So I know you're going to give, you know, full year 2025 guidance a full year.
But should we think that the growth rate is essentially lower given the higher base, so we land roughly in the same place on an absolute basis in full year 2025 at this stage? And then my final question is, Lilly recently announced single-dose vials for Zepbound. I know you can't comment on any individual clients or potential clients, but from a market perspective, how do you think this will impact the GLP-1 market shares or the containment players, given relative competitive strengths? Thank you.
Thank you very much, Mr. Vane-Tempest, for your questions. One moment, please, for the answer. The hosts will be there for you in short. One moment, please. Andreas, please, over to you.
Yeah. Okay, thank you. James, I would start with the third question, as with the Lilly vials update, as Zepbound and vials. So what we see is we believe that's an initiative to just get a bigger piece of market share. Yeah, and it will be also limited, most probably to the U.S. and probably also in time, because we expect more that it will end up in pens and auto injectors like in the past. Now, what we have discussed in the past. And with the vials, to be honest, that is not so super interesting, because if you translate that into money and into turnovers, that is, for us, not so super interesting. We are much more interested in HVS solutions, as you know.
Yeah, and that is, of course, the part we take care about, but it's not super focused. Yeah. And then, Almuth, I would hand over to you.
Yep. So then let me start with this FY guidance. I mean, we delivered a strong growth of 13.1% at constant currencies for the first nine months, and therefore, this puts us in a position to increase the guidance for the full year in comparison to our initial guidance. Regarding the reported sales development, it's worthwhile to mention that after the first nine months, we already saw a currency impact of around six percentage points. And as a result, as you can all expect, the reported sales growth will be lower at the year-end than the one at constant currency basis. In general, as Andreas already laid out, we have seen a very strong development on several of our product groups. The DDS sees a stronger momentum, and DCS also performs very well.
We see, especially for our polymer syringes, a strong demand, but as well for our sterile vials or sterile cartridges, where we've seen for sterile cartridges, the first revenues from the new production, and in general, we see very strong customer interest. Given that one, it puts us in the position to increase our guidance. Nevertheless, we see, given that the ramp-up is included in the fourth quarter, we always have certain impacts of volatility, and therefore we stay with the guidance range of 11%-13% and do not narrow that one down. As you already mentioned, for the next fiscal year, we will give you an indication, or we will provide you the guidance for the next fiscal year with our earnings call in December.
In May, we provided you the indication of our revenue growth for 2025, which was based, as you mentioned, on the initial guidance range at that time. Accordingly, a better absolute revenue performance in the current fiscal year, it will also have an impact on the outlook for next fiscal year.
Thank you.
Thank you very much. Then we are moving on to the next question, and the next question comes from Olivier Calvet of UBS. Please, go ahead.
Yeah, thanks, thank you. Good morning. I have a few questions. So basically starting off with, you know, you mentioned the combination flu and COVID vaccine. You know, obviously not commenting on a specific customer, but I was just curious as to whether you're still optimistic on long-term volumes for these vaccines in particular. I'm curious if you could give us a qualitative sense of, you know, how much of the 700 million cumulated mRNA revenue over 2024 to 2030 discussed at IPO would be, you know, related to these types of vaccines? Secondly, also on the Ypsomed you mentioned in the release that it's the first prefilled and preloaded device on the market.
I just wanted to confirm whether that asset is approved now, and if you have a sense of the potential market for us as well. Thirdly, I just wanted to ask on sort of FX, if you could give us a rough sense of how much of the DCS segments FX headwinds in Q3 was in bulk vials as opposed to high-value solutions. And I know you flagged positive ampoules and cartridges development. If you could break out the growth rates of the bulk vials business in particular, that would be very helpful. I stop here and get in the queue for the rest, yeah.
Thank you very much, Mr. Calvet. One moment please again, for our speakers. Over to you, Andreas. Please go ahead.
Okay, thank you. Olivier, about the combination flu and COVID vaccines, we are. Yes, we are optimistic on that one. We believe that that has potential, a good potential in future, but I cannot tell you how much that will be of the EUR 700 million in total of mRNA revenues now, which we are achieving. Okay, that's number one. The second one-
Yeah, can I just as a short follow-up on this one?
Yeah.
Would you expect some volumes to start next year here or later?
Next year, I would expect that, yes.
Okay, thank you. Yep.
Yeah. Okay, then about the Ypsomed part. That is really—it's really difficult to say because it's just the beginning, yeah. That is now the first product which is approved, and it's approved for commercial supply. So we deliver already, yeah, together with Ypsomed, of course. And what's the total potential? I really cannot tell you, because that is still this bet between pen injectors and wearable devices, and how that will end up, I really don't know. In total, I would assume for us, potentially in the mid- to longer term, perhaps €50 million, something like that. Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, but it's really guessing, as we know that the trend is coming, but like always, yeah, when you are first mover in something and innovative product comes to a market, who knows how fast the change will take place, yeah? And so that is, let's see. I believe there is a big potential behind. We believe in the product. That's the reason we invested in R&D activities and so on. So, but I cannot really not tell you precisely what is the market volume in 2030 or something like that, yeah. But it's significant, as double digit, definitely.
Okay. So then let me answer the last question of you, Olivier. So in terms of DCS headwinds from the currency, we can say that everything is related to the bulk area of DCS and not related to HVS, or let's say, to the very large extent. In terms of the growth of bulk wise individually, we don't disclose growth rates or development or size of our individual product groups. But what I can restate, as Andreas already mentioned, that we, the restocking was only part of the first half of this fiscal year, and we are already in the recovering phase, which we see as a result already included in our Q3 figures.
Okay, thank you.
Thank you very much. We are moving on to the next question. The next question comes from Veronika Dubajova of Citi. Please go ahead.
Hi, guys. Zhang Wei, on behalf of Veronika Dubajova from Citi. Two questions, please. The first one is on the FX hedging impact on EBITDA for the next quarter and into the next fiscal year. We have seen a large fluctuation this year, I think from around EUR 16 million hedging loss that you booked in the first half to a small hedging gain this quarter. Do you have any indication on what your expectation is for FX hedges or gains or losses going forward, and how should we best think about it? So that was my first question. And then the second question is on DCS, specifically on vials. Can you elaborate on the safety stock levels of your customers as we stand, so let's say, in terms of months, and how it compares sequentially versus the previous quarter?
How long do you think they, your customer can keep it lower than the normal levels? And can you also confirm when you are expecting the vial demand to fully recover? Thank you.
Thank you very much for your questions. Again, the host will be ready to answer in short. One moment, please. Please hold. The host will be ready to answer in a moment. So, Almuth, over to you for this question.
Thank you, Veronika, for your question. So I start with the first one, and then I hand over to Andreas. In terms of FX hedging, we have initiated measures to reduce the volatility of the FX impact on our EBITDA significantly, and I think the measures we took already paid off in Q3.... And we want to make sure that the volatility stays at this very small level in Q4 and for next fiscal year. And also, we cannot forecast the impact of FX, but we think that with our strategy adjustment, we are coming very close to this target, and we constantly will review whether further steps are needed to make sure that the FX impact stays at a low limit. And with this one, I hand over to Andreas.
The only second question is, DCS wise, no? But it's also not so easy because we have so many customers which we are serving. First of all, we are concentrating on HVS, as you know, but of course, Y is also play an important role. What we see is a slight recovery, but it's relative. It's a slow recovery, yeah. That is something: when will it be over, and we are really completely back on track? Definitely next year. Beginning of next year, I would say, so we can expect normal growth rates and even a bit better because now then not only these 3-4%, I would expect a little bit more than. Beginning of next year, I would say. Difficult to say now, but slow recovery already.
Thank you.
All right.
Mm-hmm.
Then we are moving on to the next question. The next question comes from Marianne Bulot of Bank of America. Over to you.
Yes, hello. Thank you for taking my questions. I have two. So the first one is, I was wondering if there is any read across from Moderna's recent warning for you guys. Have your conversations changed with the customer, or do you still feel confident on your existing contracts together? And the second question is on Novo and their Q3 sema results. Just wondering if it changed anything on your view versus this opportunity. Thank you.
Thank you very much for your questions. One moment, please. One moment, please. The host will be ready to answer in short. So for the next one, I hand the floor over to Andreas. Please go ahead.
Okay. Moderna warning, but Marianne, what we have reflected in our numbers already is the changes which we have experienced in M&A, yeah, and of course, also Moderna. So that's the first one and the second one, what do you mean with your category semaglutide results? That is something I have not completely understood.
Yes, no, I just wanted to hear on semaglutide, if anything has changed on your view regarding how to supply this product with a dual chamber or another solution?
Dual chamber, we have always been critical. Yeah, also in the past, that was also the reason that we have not started any development. According to our knowledge, that will be a single chamber in future. Yeah, I hope I'm right, yeah, and let's see. Secondly, of course, we are in discussions with the customer about contract extensions. Yeah, to summarize it, for us, it's good. Yeah, so, and now we have the chance to participate the tenders of Novo.
Okay, thank you.
It's normal syringes, no?
Thank you very much. So the next question comes from Curtis Moyes of BNP Paribas Exane. Over to you.
Yes, thank you for taking my questions. I have a few, please. The first one is regarding the summer shutdown in Q4. Can you give us a little bit of color around the magnitude of that impact be the same on DCS and DDS, or would you expect one to be impacted more than the other? And then next on the DDS segment, can you maybe give us an idea of the difference in growth rate between glass and polymer syringes in Q3 and how you see that going forward? And then not least, I think previously there was some commentary that in terms of vial demand, South America and Asia were faring a bit better than North America and EMEA.
I just wanted to see is there a particular reason for that, and maybe are there customers or drug products, that are driving growth in those regions versus other regions? Thank you.
Thanks a lot for your questions. One moment, please. One moment, please. The hosts will be ready in short. So the next one will be answered by Almuth first. Almuth, over to you.
Okay. Thank you for your question, Curtis. So answering on the first one, the summer shutdown has an impact on both of the segments, but on DDS especially, you have to keep in mind that all the maintenance work for the clean room, and because it's an HVS product, well, let's say, it's followed by significant costs associated to that one. So therefore, it is a reasonable assumption that the summer shutdown effect would be slightly higher on DDS than it is on DCS, but both of them will see a weaker Q4 result in comparison to the Q3 result. In terms of the HVS growth dynamics by the two product groups, especially for next year, we always mention that our growth is related to our capacity expansion.
Given that we are currently ramping up the additional glass range capacity in Hungary, we will see glass range as the main growth driver next year for the DDS segment, when more and more of these lines, on the one hand, start being in production and getting the qualifications from the customer and will generate sales in the second half of next fiscal year. With this one, I hand over to Andreas.
Okay, well, so not much, not much to add. South America and Asia, we said that were the two first regions that's recovered from the COVID effects, yeah? But also in North America, we can say that we have reached bottom. Yeah.
Okay, thank you.
You're welcome.
Thank you very much also from my side. We are moving on to the next question. Next question is from Victoria Lambert of Berenberg. Over to you.
Hi, thanks for taking my questions. My first one is just about your treatment of hyperinflation, especially in some of the South American countries. What benefit did this have for constant currency growth during the quarter? And how should we think about that in Q4? And then, was there any contribution during Q3 from the take-or-pay benefit that was expected from the mRNA contract cancellation? And if you didn't get the benefit in Q3, is some benefit expected in Q4, or is this all gonna be paid next year? Thank you.
Thank you very much for your questions. One moment, please. Thank you very much for your patience. One more moment, please, and Almuth, over to you.
Okay. Thank you for your question. I will answer the first one, and Andreas will answer the second question. We see in terms of the currency impact in South America, we have an impact in Q3, which is related to the DCS area, and as already mentioned in previous calls, the Argentine peso has a big impact on the FX on the top line of DCS in Q3. We will expect as well to have an impact on this one in Q4, but you have to keep in mind that this was mainly related to the big, let's say, FX adjustments happening December last year. By the end of this fiscal year, the majority of this impact is digested, and we do not expect similar impact for the next fiscal year. For this one, I can give now the next answer to Andreas.
Okay, take-or-pay, as I cannot disclose any contract details, but of course, we are expecting payments from the customer. But what I can say that is the majority of the payments will take place next financial year. But I cannot tell you to what amount in next, yeah?
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you very much. We are moving on to the next question from Anna Bain of Barclays. The floor is yours. Ms. Anna Bain, Barclays, do you hear us? Can you hear us? Unfortunately, we cannot hear you. I'm very sorry if I mispronounced your name. Anna Bain, please. All right, please try typing in nine and the star key again one more time, and for now, we would move on to the next question. Next question comes from Ed Hall of Stifel. Over to you.
Good morning, guys, and thank you for taking my questions. I just have a couple. I guess firstly on vials, I think you mentioned recovering vials from destocking and normal growth rate definitely next year. I guess my question is, is this a fiscal year or calendar year? I guess just given the lead times of orders placed today are likely to play a role in your fiscal year 2025. So is this an assumption you guys are stating based on ordering patterns you've seen, or is this separate to this? And can you talk on, let's say, ordering patterns for the last couple of months, sequentially versus Q2? So that'd be my first question.
And then the second question would be, sort of, any sense of pricing, mix growth versus volume that you have for the first nine months, and any sort of pricing growth or declines you see for twenty twenty-five? I appreciate it's early, but any color would be great. And then final question would just be sort of the free cash flow profile for Q4. I guess, given the summer shutdowns for EBITDA and sort of a CapEx-weighted Q4, is there a possibility of a negative free cash flow here? How should we look at it? Thanks.
Thank you very much, Mr. Hall, for your questions. One moment, please. One more moment, please, for the answer. Andreas, over to you.
Yeah. Okay, as normal growth for the HVS, we expect for calendar year 2025. Yeah. So when then you ask about if you see that in our or in the ordering and so on and so on, as what we can see is that the order intake, but not in the percentage between Q2 or Q3, we compare always against past years' numbers, so it's slightly increasing, so that gives us the confidence that we will recover.
So, let me then add on the point in terms of what is the impact of price and volume for our growth this fiscal year. It's clearly, as we can say, that our growth driver is our added capacity. You see the growth, especially in HVS. The percentage is increasing, the added capacities we are delivering to our customers, and volume is by far the main driver for the growth this fiscal year. Also, there is a small impact from pricing, but definitely a small one. If you look at our - I just wait for the noise to stop.
If you look at our Q4, considering that we have the significant portion of our CapEx to happen in the last quarter and the weaker quarter in terms of operating performance from the summer shutdown, it could well be that we see a negative free cash flow into Q4 alone. But overall, for the fiscal year, we stay with our strong performance, being able to self-fund our investments.
Perfect. Thank you very much, guys.
Thanks a lot, and next comes a follow-up question from Olivier Calvet of UBS.
Yeah.
Over to you.
Thanks for taking my follow-up. I just, you know, some of this might have been covered, but not sure if I got it acoustically. Could you just clarify whether you have returned to growth in both vials in North America and EMEA? And then I just wanted to get a sense of whether you have exposure in DDS, in South America, as well as in Asia and South Pacific at this point.
Thank you very much. One moment, please. Thank you very much for holding. One more moment, please. Andreas, please, over to you.
Okay, thank you. The only thing what I said, that we have already positive order intake, slightly positive order intake and vials, but we don't disclose every region, everything, and North America, I said, okay, we have touchpoint. That definitely, yeah, Asia, South America, DDS exposure and HVS. South America is really a market for core products. Of course, there are some certain sales and but it's just a little bit, the vast majority is core products, and Asia, of course, it's completely different, but yet it also differs very much from country to country. Interesting countries are definitely countries such as Korea, for example, for HVS products, where we have also bigger sales.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you very much. With that, I would like to close the Q&A session, since there are no more questions in the queue. Over to you.
Thank you, everyone, for your questions. This concludes our call today. As always, our IR team, Tobias and myself, are available if you have any further questions. And also on behalf of Andreas and Almuth, we wish you a great rest of your day. Thank you and goodbye.