Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Beiersdorf H1 Results 2026 conference call. I'm Sergen, the chorus call operator. I would like to remind you that all participants will be in a listen-only mode and the conference is being recorded. The presentation will be followed by a Q&A session. You can register for questions at any time by pressing star and one on your telephone. For operator assistance, please press star and zero. The conference must not be recorded for publication or broadcast. At this time, it's my pleasure to hand over to Christopher Sheldon, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.
Thank you, Sergen. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us for our first half year 2026 conference call. I'm here with our CEO, Vincent Warnery, and our CFO, Astrid Hermann. As always, we will start with the presentation of the results, followed by a Q&A session. With that, I would like to hand over to Vincent.
Thank you, Christopher, and good morning. Welcome to today's conference call. Astrid and I will now present an overview of our financial performance in the first half of 2026 and our full-year and midterm outlook. We'll also update you on the NIVEA rebalancing strategy and explain the next action steps to return the brand to sustainable growth. The performance of our business in the first half year was impacted by a continued volatile market environment. Consumer sentiment and consumption were affected by geopolitical disruptions, particularly the crisis in the Middle East, as well as ongoing economic uncertainty. Despite these challenges, our Derma business continued its outperformance, delivering high single-digit growth in the first half of the year. The retail disruptions that affected La Prairie in the first months of the year have mostly faded, resulting in improved performance supported by solid underlying fundamentals.
NIVEA, on the other hand, is still affecting our performance negatively. Our rebalancing strategy has delivered some initial positive effects as we have shifted our marketing budget and focus from premium face care across other major categories. However, these green shoots remain too isolated to drive NIVEA's growth on the global scale. We have therefore initiated the next phase of the rebalancing, a decisive 18-month turnaround plan to restore NIVEA growth trajectory. Supported by the continued strength of our Derma business, the improving trajectory of La Prairie, and our turnaround plan to restore NIVEA growth, we are laying the foundations for a return to profitable growth from 2028. The challenging dynamics around NIVEA continued to weigh on the second quarter performance, with NIVEA sales declining by 6.7% organically.
Our Derma business with Eucerin and Aquaphor continued its multi-year outperformance with 7.4% net sales growth, driven by innovation and white space expansion. The healthcare business with our brands, Hansaplast and Elastoplast, grew by 6.2% organically, again, driven by a strong innovation pipeline. La Prairie returned to net sales growth of 2.2% in the second quarter as the temporary disruptions in the U.S. and travel retail in China in the first quarter faded as expected. In total, our consumer business declined by 3.3% organically in the second quarter. Tesa returned to growth in the second quarter of 2.5% after a phasing-driven organic net sales decline of 4.3% in the first quarter. This translates into a net sales decline of 2.3% at group level. Let's now review the performance of our brands in more detail, starting with Derma and our brands Eucerin and Aquaphor.
Over the last five years, our Derma business had doubled in size and grew by 7.8% in the first half of 2026. Derma once again significantly outperformed the market in the second quarter, delivering net sales growth of 7.4%, despite a demanding comparable base of 13.3% organic growth in the second quarter of 2025. Our success is driven by two pillars, breakthrough innovations and white space expansion. Looking ahead, we'll continue to build on these strengths by advancing science-based innovation and capturing additional growth opportunities across categories and markets. The success of our strategy is clearly reflected in our performance across regions. In Brazil, our Derma business delivered an impressive growth rate of 71% in the second quarter. Eucerin has assumed the number three position, and the epigenetic serum has become the number one anti-age product in the dermacosmetics market.
In China, we continued to deliver outstanding double-digit growth of 62% in the second quarter. This performance was driven by a focused expansion strategy, strong medical endorsement, and continued innovation momentum. Eucerin has become the number one anti-pigment brand, and our hero product, the Thiamidol Spotless Brightening Serum, maintained its number one position in China's Derma anti-pigment serum market. In North America, our biggest Derma market, our face care business in the U.S. was a clear growth driver with net sales increasing by 40% organically. Eucerin has become the most recommended brand against hyperpigmentation by American dermatologists. North America and Europe also continued to perform strongly across categories despite a high prior year comparable base. Now let's turn to Aquaphor. Over the past years, Aquaphor has consistently delivered double-digit growth in North America, driven by the strong performance of its healing ointment, baby, and lip care franchises.
We are now taking the brand to the next level and unlocking a significant white space opportunity. With the launch of body lotions and creams, the brand is entering a category that represents more than 80% of the U.S. body care market, substantially expanding its growth potential beyond ointments. This is the largest U.S. launch to date and marks an important step in unlocking additional growth opportunities for the brand beyond its traditional categories. With the new daily hydrating range, we are bringing Aquaphor's trusted dermatologic credentials to the daily hydration category and creating a new platform for future growth. The new body care range was launched in July with three leading retail partners and will be rolled out nationwide in retail stores across the U.S. until the end of the year. Let's continue with La Prairie.
The disruptions that negatively affected La Prairie in the U.S. and travel retail in China in the first quarter have mostly faded. As a result, La Prairie returned to growth in the second quarter. Net sales increased by 2.2% organically, following a decline of 14.9% in the first quarter. The domestic China business remained a key growth driver for La Prairie. For the fifth consecutive quarter, China delivered high single digit to double-digit sellout growth. Net sales grew by 12% organically in the second quarter, with sell-in broadly in line with sellout, demonstrating a healthy inventory level in the trade. We have exciting plans for La Prairie in the second half of the year. With the launch of Swiss Pristine in September, we are introducing a more accessible entry-level price point to the brand.
This will help us recruit new consumers while creating a pathway into the broader La Prairie portfolio over time. In parallel, this will allow us to selectively expand our distribution, particularly in North America, into specialty beauty retail. At a price point of between EUR 180 - EUR 300, this launch will broaden access to La Prairie while preserving the luxury brand experience that defines La Prairie. Our Healthcare business continued to perform strongly, delivering organic sales growth of 6.2% in the second quarter and 4% in the first half of the year. With market share gains across all regions and categories, our Healthcare brands have now delivered three consecutive years of market share growth, further strengthening their leadership position in wound care. Growth was primarily driven by innovation.
Building on the success of our second skin protection range, we recently expanded the franchise with a spray plaster and a liquid plaster concentrate. Both innovations performed ahead of expectations and contributed strongly to net sales growth. Let's turn to NIVEA. NIVEA net sales dynamics continued to be challenging in the second quarter, with net sales declining by 6.7% organically. For the first half of the year, net sales declined by 6.8%. Let me put this performance into perspective. The decline reflects both sell-in headwinds and underlying challenges with the brand itself. The sell-in headwinds include ongoing customer conflicts in Europe, sun season phasing, some trade destocking, as well as phasing effect related to our Q4 2025 innovation calendar.
While these factors had a much greater impact on shipments into the trade than on consumer demand, we view this as largely temporary, even if some may remain headwind into the next quarters. NIVEA sellout performance year to date has been more resilient and remains positive, albeit below our expectations. This reflects the ongoing impact of the crisis in the Middle East, as well as the weaker than expected performance of our core portfolio. To address the challenges related to our core portfolio, we initiated our rebalancing strategy in the second half of the year, which has been delivered some positive results. As these results to date are too isolated to improve NIVEA's growth trajectory on a global scale, we have initiated the next phase of our turnaround plan.
Before we dive deeper into actions for the next phase, let me give you an update on the first phase of rebalancing. In the summer half of 2025, we initiated the NIVEA rebalancing to restore the brand competitiveness and create a broader foundation for growth. The strategy is built on three pillars. First, portfolio rebalancing. We expanded our focus beyond premium face care and strengthened investments in body care and deodorants. This included shifting marketing resources, optimizing assortments, and improving in-store execution. Second, accessible face care. We increased our focus on more accessible face care offerings such as NIVEA Facial, helping us recruit new consumers and expand our reach. Building on its success, we are now rolling out the concept in Europe as Face Plus. Third, localization within a frame.
We gave key markets greater flexibility to adapt products and activations to local consumer needs while maintaining the integrity of the NIVEA brand. The adaptation of NIVEA Luminous for emerging markets is one example, combining localized formats and activation to improve consumer relevance and market performance. This strategy has delivered some initial positive results. Our sellout performance has been improving on global level and across key regions. It demonstrates our ability to return to growth as a result of rebalancing marketing investment and optimizing our assortment focus. While encouraging, sellout growth remains below the market level and is not yet broad enough to restore growth sustainably across the entire brand on a global scale. To restore growth globally, we are doubling down on our actions and initiated the next phase of rebalancing, a decisive turnaround plan for the next 18 months.
Our objective is clear, broaden NIVEA's growth drivers and strengthen the brand's competitiveness across markets, categories, and consumer segments. So far, we have distributed investments more evenly across face care, body care, and deodorants. The next phase is about unlocking the growth opportunities created by NIVEA's full portfolio across all categories. We are putting more focus on NIVEA accessibility and value for money propositions as the key drivers of penetration and volume. We'll also fully leverage NIVEA's local relevance. This is already reflected in our innovation pipeline that will respect local specifics and existing stronger franchises. Restoring sustainable growth requires not only the right portfolio, but also strong consumer activation. We'll therefore increase and sharpen our focus on consumer-facing investments even further to achieve the greatest impact on our business. Let's now look at our actions for this next phase in more detail.
NIVEA's strength lies in being a multi-category, multi-generation, and multi-country brand. This breadth has always been one of NIVEA's greatest competitive advantages. As part of our turnaround efforts to date, we broaden our focus beyond premium face care and strengthen investment across face care, body care, and deodorants. We are now taking the next step by unlocking the growth opportunities of our full portfolio. We are identifying opportunities beyond category boundaries by applying the right marketing spend and broad-based innovation. We will not be dogmatic about which categories to endorse, but also leverage strong existing franchises across regions. In Germany, for example, we cannot ignore our strong footprint in showers. In Southern Europe, lip is an essential part of the portfolio. At the same time, we are responding faster to changing consumer needs and market trends through an accelerated innovation pipeline. Reinforcing NIVEA's accessibility remains a strategic priority.
Consumers have long trusted NIVEA to deliver effective skincare that combines quality, affordability, and broad availability. We'll continue to support our existing scale platforms across multiple price tiers and step up our efforts in the mid to lower price ranges, where we see significant opportunities to grow. This approach will help us recruit new consumers, drive volume, increase household penetration, and strengthen NIVEA relevance across income groups, life stages, and markets. We are strengthening our ability to win locally while preserving the consistency and scale advantages of a global brand. First, we are investing behind NIVEA's strongest local franchises through locally relevant innovation. A good example are the line extension of NIVEA Facial in Brazil, or the launch of NIVEA Soft Gel in India, developed specifically to address local consumer preferences and market needs. Second, we are leveraging successful local concepts across markets.
Following the success of NIVEA Facial in Brazil, we're expanding the platform into Europe at the accessible face care line, NIVEA Face Plus, allowing us to benefit from proven consumer propositions across regions. Third, we are accelerating our ability to respond to local trends and specific consumer demand. This includes ingredient-led propositions such as cocoa-based innovations in Africa. Taken together, these initiatives allow us to combine the strengths of a global brand with the relevance of local execution, helping us sharpen consumer relevance, broaden our growth drivers, and strengthen NIVEA competitiveness across markets. Restoring sustainable growth requires not only the right portfolio and innovation pipeline, but also highly effective consumer-facing investment. We are therefore stepping up our marketing activities that drive the greatest business impact, concentrating resources on the touchpoint that most directly influence consumers where they are.
In this context, we'll boost our investment by EUR 100 million in the second half of this year compared to the same period in previous years. Before handing over to Astrid, let me highlight that bringing NIVEA back to growth will require disciplined execution and time. Over the next 18 months, we'll rigorously monitor progress and continuously sharpen our focus to maximize impact. Astrid will now give you an overview on tesa and our financial performance. Over to you, Astrid.
Thank you, Vincent. Now let us review tesa's performance for the quarter. tesa recorded organic sales growth of +2.5% in the second quarter and -0.9% in the first half year. While the electronics business declined against an exceptionally strong first half last year, the broader industry portfolio remained resilient. Excluding electronics, industry delivered solid growth and accelerated in the second quarter. The improvement in Q2 was driven by broad-based momentum across several business units. Industrial, trade, and converting delivered double-digit growth. Printing and packaging solutions accelerated significantly, and the electrical systems continued its strong development despite declining global car production. The automotive business also gained momentum in Q2, supported by increasing penetration in Asia and continued growth in the electric vehicle segment. Within the electronics segment, market conditions became more challenging during the second quarter, particularly in Greater China.
Ongoing distributor and converter destocking, as well as weaker demand in key customer applications weighed on performance. As a result, electronics remained below the strong prior year level and offset the positive momentum in other parts of the portfolio. Looking ahead, potential shortages in the availability of semiconductors may impact the second half of the year negatively, both on sales growth of the electronics business and the corresponding mix effect on tesa's profitability. The consumer business also showed a better trend in Q2, delivering low single-digit growth. Overall, the second quarter demonstrated improving momentum across most of tesa's portfolio, helping to offset the headwinds in electronics. Now let's continue with the detailed financial results. Consumer business net sales declined to EUR 4.113 billion in the first half of 2026 at an organic growth rate of -4.0%. Adverse foreign exchange effects resulted in lower nominal growth of -5.0%.
EBIT declined to EUR 632 million with an EBIT margin of 15.4%. The 60 basis points decline was mainly driven by gross margin pressure, partly offset by cost discipline in overhead costs. Our tesa's business recorded an organic net sales decline of -0.9% in the same period, closing the first half with net sales of EUR 839 million. Due to unfavorable foreign exchange effects, nominal sales declined by -2.1%. tesa's EBIT at EUR 136 million remained below the 2025 level, mainly reflecting the weaker contribution from the electronics business, elevated input costs, and continued investments to support future growth. Looking at our consumer business across regions, while the first half year performance across regions was negatively impacted by NIVEA's softer net sales development, the underlying demand remained more resilient.
In addition, the performance in North America, Western Europe, and Africa, Asia, Australia was affected by several specific factors beyond NIVEA's overall net sales development. North America was negatively impacted by retailer disruptions affecting La Prairie in the first quarter, as well as Coppertone's performance. Excluding these factors, organic net sales growth in North America would have been +2.5%, supported primarily by the strong performance of our Derma business. La Prairie in North America also returned to growth in the second quarter. Western Europe was adversely affected by the disruption of travel retail in China. As you know, we record La Prairie's travel retail business in Western Europe, which represented a 70 basis points headwind to growth in the first half. Beyond this, ongoing customer conflicts affecting NIVEA also weighed materially on the performance in Europe.
Latin America benefited from an improving NIVEA performance in Brazil in the second quarter, supported by key innovations alongside a strong sun and body performance. Derma also continued to accelerate and delivered strong double-digit growth across the region. Lastly, the crisis in the Middle East continues to weigh on the Africa, Asia, and Australia region with 160 basis points headwind on growth. Beyond the impact from the Middle East, the performance was affected by strategic channel shifts in Malaysia and the Philippines, softer consumption, and lower net sales in Indonesia and parts of Africa. Now let's take a look at the development of our consumer gross margin. Our consumer gross margin decreased by 100 basis points from 62.0% in H1 2025 to 61.0% in H1 2026. Pricing contributed moderately, adding 10 basis points. Increased costs driven by higher raw material prices and limited volume growth weighed on our gross margin.
The lower volume development resulted in reduced factory utilization, leading to higher unit costs and creating a headwind for gross margin. Mix effects were flat due to a dilutive effect from the NIVEA rebalancing, offset by the continued outperformance of our Derma business. Lastly, unfavorable foreign exchange effects contributed -60 basis points. Let me conclude our financial overview by highlighting the key elements of our group income statement. Our group's net sales amounted to EUR 4.952 billion in the first half of 2026, representing an organic decline of -3.5%. Our group gross margin decreased by 110 basis points to 58.3%. In addition to the factors outlined for the consumer business, tesa's gross margin was affected by material cost inflation, currency fluctuations, as well as a negative mix effect due to the lower share of the electronics business.
Marketing and selling expenses increased to 34.8% of sales from 34.2% in the prior year. We continued to prioritize consumer-facing investments and maintained working media spending at a stable level. As in previous years, we continued to invest in innovation, with R&D expenses increasing to 3.8% of sales, underlining our commitment to building the foundation for future growth. At the same time, we maintained a disciplined approach to our general and administrative costs, leading to a reduction of these expenses in the first half of 2026. This development reflects our ongoing focus on cost discipline and efficiency, although part of the improvement was driven by phasing effects that are expected to normalize throughout the year. As a result, EBIT excluding special factors amounted to EUR 768 million, corresponding to a margin of 15.5%. Lower growth margins were partly offset by disciplined overhead cost management and an improved other operating result.
Special factors amounted to EUR 8 million, significantly below the prior year level of EUR 20 million. In addition, a substantially improved financial result and a lower effective tax rate supported profitability. Consequently, profit after tax remained broadly stable at EUR 558 million, while earnings per share increased to EUR 2.52, supported by our share buyback program. Back to you, Vincent.
Thank you, Astrid. Now let us turn to our full- year and midterm outlook. Looking ahead to the second half of 2026, we continue to expect a challenging and volatile market environment with geopolitical tensions, particularly in the Middle East, continued to weigh on consumer sentiment and consumption. While we have initiated the next phase of our NIVEA rebalancing strategy with a decisive turnaround plan, the measures will take some time to become fully visible. In addition to the factors affecting our top-line performance, several headwinds will further impact our EBIT margin in the full- year. First, the crisis in the Middle East continues to put pressure on input costs, resulting in higher input costs across our portfolio. Second, the NIVEA rebalancing creates a negative mix effect as we strengthen the accessible core for brands portfolio.
This effect will fade over time, and we expect the higher margin businesses, Derma and La Prairie, to outgrow NIVEA, supporting a more positive mix effect in the midterm. Third, we are deliberately stepping up our consumer-facing investment, especially at the time when NIVEA's growth needs to be reignited. Supporting our brands and executive the NIVEA turnaround plan remain clear priorities. We are increasing investments behind the initiatives that drive long-term growth and value creation. Of course, we are working on various efficiency measures across the organization to mitigate these cost headwinds. This includes efficiencies in supply chain, streamlining overhead costs, and reviewing unprofitable parts of our portfolio. We have realized savings in recent years already and will accelerate our efforts going forward. Overall, we expect consumer EBIT margin to be around 250 basis points below the 2025 level.
As a result, our adjusted guidance for the full- year 2026 is as follows. For the consumer business, we expect a low single-digit organic sales decline from previously flat to slightly growing organic sales. We'd expect an EBIT margin excluding special factors in the consumer segment of at least 11% for 2026, down from 13.6% in 2025. For tesa, we confirm our guidance of flat to slightly growing organic sales and expect an EBIT margin excluding special factors slightly below the prior level. Overall, for the group, we expect a low single-digit organic sales decline and an EBIT margin excluding special factors of at least 11.8%, down from 14% in 2025. Let us turn to our midterm outlook. Our immediate priority is the disciplined execution of our turnaround plan for NIVEA.
Based on the initiatives already underway, we expect to return to net sales growth in 2027 with the stabilization of our EBIT margin. Our ambition to outperform the market in the midterm remains intact. Starting from 2028, we expect to return to profitable growth with net sales growth above market and steady EBIT margin improvements. At the same time, we are committed to improving our cash conversion rate in line with the industry, which translates into a free cash flow of at least 50% of EBITDA in the midterm. The use of cash for inorganic growth remains a core element of our capital allocation strategy as we continue to pursue M&A opportunities to enhance our portfolio. At the same time, we have strengthened our commitment to deliver improved returns to shareholders via share buybacks and dividends. With that, we are happy to answer your questions.
Over to you, Christopher, for the Q&A.
Thank you, Vincent. Now we're ready to go to the Q&A. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your phone and please note that we have a maximum of two questions per caller. This morning we'll start with Jefferies, Molly Wylenzek. Molly, please go ahead. Your line is open.
Good morning, Vincent, Astrid, Christopher. A couple questions from me, please. Why are we not using some of that EUR 100 million investment further up the P&L? How comfortable are you that the price point you have on NIVEA is the right one here? and secondly j ust on Coppertone, I noted that you talked about North America performance, ex retailer disruption for La Prairie and Coppertone. I understand why you'd adjust for La Prairie disruption, given that it was a one-off. Why Coppertone? Are you thinking about doing something different with that brand? Thank you.
Thank you, Molly, for your questions. I will take both of them. On NIVEA, you have to clearly have in mind that we are pretty well priced. As we showed clearly, we have two products which are more expensive, which are Luminous and Epicelline. The majority of our products are between EUR 2 and EUR 10. We don't see any need to reduce those prices. What we believe is the right thing to do is to focus on them, to come with new news on those products, to come also with new proposal, the Face Plus strategy, the Face Plus launch, for example, exactly in this range of product. We believe that our mission is to launch on this product and to support them with the best consumer-facing investment. Which means in the majority of cases, media will increase our investment behind those product, but also in store activity.
Everything which is allowing consumers to get back to NIVEA and to get back to this affordable offer of NIVEA. On Coppertone, we are clearly disappointed by the results. We have been trying over the last years to regain growth. It's true that the brand had been harmed by multiple changes over the years until we bought it. The mission we have given to the team is to focus on sport, and we have an extremely successful partnership with a rugby woman, Ilona Maher, so we are doing well in sport. The second mission we gave to the team is to improve productivity. As you might remember, we moved the production to Mexico. We are on the verge of being profitable with the brand, which is, I think, not the most exciting mission we were hoping to give to the brand.
At least it allows us to focus on the other brands, and you see the launch of Aquaphor, which is for us, extremely promising.
Thank you.
The next question. Thanks, Molly. The next question is from Warren Ackerman of Barclays. Warren, good morning. Please go ahead.
Good morning Vincent, Astrid, Chris, it's Warren here at Barclays. The first one, Vincent, it's a bit of a step back. When you became CEO, NIVEA had a very good 2023 and 2024. 2025 and 2026 have been poor, we're now talking about another 18-month transition. Effectively, it's three to four years. You're doing the pivot. Looking back, I'm still not clear how Beiersdorf misread the market trends so much. I guess the question we're getting is, how can investors be confident that your diagnosis is the right one? The amount of money is the right amount, and the timeframe is right. Is there any risk that you think that NIVEA issues go deeper and it's just lost relevance to consumers, and that's what retailers are seeing in delisting you? The second one is more on the margins for Astrid.
Can you talk a little bit about the phasing of margins into 2027, Astrid, between first half and second half? Thank you.
Your first question is absolutely fair. I'm happy to answer that. If we look a little bit at the history, before becoming CEO, I was in charge of the Derma business. As you remember, this was a small business, absolutely under focus. I took Thiamidol as the extraordinary opportunity to transform the business, and it is today a business which is flying, and we have good hopes also with Aquaphor. This investment into a technology was clearly paying off on Derma. The bet on NIVEA that we took in 2021 was to say, okay, we have this Thiamidol opportunity. We have also lost over the years what was making NIVEA so unique. We were the first face care brand in the world. We were the first brand in history.
We thought that there was an opportunity to focus on Thiamidol, to get back to face care, to propose also something which was more premium. We must admit, it worked. It worked because at the same time, we grew and NIVEA reached level that did never reach in the history without losing ground on the other franchises. We were lucky, I would say, until 2024. Even the last quarter of 2024 was extremely good and growing double digit because we were growing the premium face care category without impacting the other categories. From 2025, things change. Not only some of our competitors were much better, more agile, the local brand, the indie brand, the Korean brands.
We clearly see that this other investment on premium face care was damaging, in a way, the value for money positioning of NIVEA, the fact that we have to be accessible, and this is what we started to change. I think we're pretty quick at changing that. We already, I think, shared the first rebalancing message in May. We were able to shift the media investment. That was the first thing we could do into more affordable categories, you could see the sellout, the fact that we are gaining, we are growing in sellout is something which is pretty positive.
I believe that now, after those months where we test and learn, where we look a little bit how this rebalancing could work without additional launches, we feel more confident that now that we can come with new launches, I think Face Plus for me is the best example. We can not only go back to what has made the strength of NIVEA over the century, also keeping also this balance between being able to offer affordable product, also to be also able to bring skincare technology to consumers with our premium offers. That's the bet we are making out. We feel confident. We will never be overconfident. We have still a lot of work to do, you see that even if we grow in sellout, we are not yet gaining market share.
What we have been looking at over the last six months is making us believe that we have found the right way. We just have to be absolutely brutal in the way we support it, hence the decision to impact the EBIT by increasing dramatically the media investment. This is where we are. No overconfidence, no underconfidence, the feeling that we have learned also from our mistakes, we have learned also from the last six months, we feel that we have found a way to get back to a sustainable growth with NIVEA.
Warren, your question related to 2027 margins, I'm assuming you're referring to how could we keep margins for the full year stable when the back half margins for this year are obviously quite a bit lower. One, I would like to remind you that we have this regularly every year, that our first half margins are substantially higher than the back half. That is also significantly linked to how our business works. We have a very profitable European business a big sun care business, that's really always impacting significantly the first half of the year. We don't see that changing in the new year. Additionally, we are expecting to be phasing our spend quite a bit different next year. We are now to really accelerate the momentum, putting significantly more money in the back half are looking to face that quite differently.
Beyond that, we do see our mix having a positive impact in 2027. We continue to see a good picture for our Derma business, and that's obviously very much helping our margin. Then we do hope, it's probably early hopes, but we do hope for a continued stabilization and growth of our luxury business, which obviously also has a quite positive impact when it then comes. So that's a bit why we do feel we can hold our margins next year at the level of this year, obviously a quite low level. Thank you.
Just quickly to clarify, Astrid, on that, you said mix will be positive. If you're shifting down from facial care and you're taking pricing down, how is mix going to be positive? Secondly, on the marketing spend, EUR 100 million in the second half, should we expect that's a one-time increase, or are you expecting to multiply that by two for 2027? Just trying to understand if it's a kind of one-timer or how we think about the marketing spend next year.
Warren, we're already bringing down the mix for NIVEA this year, given that we're really rebalancing already into those other, let's say, price points and categories. So that's already creating a base that will be easier to compare to in 2027. So we're not expecting NIVEA, in the end, to significantly drop further in 2027, given, again, the other brands' growth, then it should help us to get to a more positive mix picture. So that on that question. Sorry, the second part of your question?
Just the marketing, the EUR 100 million.
No, we are not expecting to double that for the year. This is what I was saying, that we are expecting to more even that out over the year. We will obviously also look to grow in the year to come. With that, also deliver a stronger marketing budget, from that alone.
Okay, thank you.
Thanks, Warren. The next one is JPMorgan, Celine Pannuti. Good morning, Celine. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Good morning. Can you hear me?
Yes, we can hear you.
Excellent. Thank you so much for the question. Two questions. A bit coming back on the fundamental question, Vincent. You've done your due diligence. You decided that you need more innovation, more affordability across the portfolio. I think if we think about NIVEA over maybe the last 15 years, has been problematic. The question is, that's why you are appointed ahead of NIVEA when you became a CEO, the relevance of the brand, and how you managed to rejuvenate it. My question is, when you look at your digital capabilities, marketing capabilities, innovation, and you benchmark that versus your peers, how confident are you that you have done enough in terms of transforming those key skills in the organization to be relevant now, with the consumer first?
Second question, on Q2, can you tell us what impact of sun care has been on the Q2 like for like for consumer? I would like to understand, if I think about the guidance, down low single-digit for the year still would imply quite a better performance in the second half of the year. I think you probably had some benefit from sun care in Q2. What's going to be better in the second half? By region, maybe if you can help us, in terms of maybe having less impact of disruption with sell-in, sell-out or the impact of innovation. Thank you for that.
Thank you, Celine. On your question about the due diligence, you're absolutely using the right word. I think what we are absolutely convinced of is that we are clearly the best in terms of R&D skincare. Then if you think about Hyaluron, if you think about Epicelline, if you think also, we will talk about that next quarter about the launch of SB Medics on acne. We have clearly demonstrated that Beiersdorf is back to being the leading company in skincare research and development. That doesn't make everything, and clearly, you're absolutely right. This is obviously the peak of the pyramid. They are the best things we can propose to consumers. The world of innovation in the world of beauty, it goes beyond just coming with the best molecules.
Here I would say, I think we are pretty good in terms of innovation, the innovation we are proposing. We are not good enough in the rhythm, the time to market between the ideation and the market launch. That is something we are working on in order to improve that dramatically. We are becoming much more pragmatic. For example, we are not hesitating at all using third-party manufacturers when there is a trend coming and we want to seize it. You might have seen, we will come back to sun, but the launch of the NIVEA Sun stick is something we just bought in Korea from the manufacturers in Korea. We put the stamp NIVEA. We put a nice Korean flag, and this is our best-selling SKU in sun care this year. We are much more pragmatic. We are also looking at ways to accelerate all the process.
We are not good enough, we are not bad, but we can improve that. On digital capabilities, frankly, I think we are pretty good. I think we have been accelerating our expertise first in e-commerce, second in digital marketing, then in influencer marketing at an extremely high rhythm. We are not the first one, clearly not, but we are not the last one. We have been able to develop, to recruit a lot of profile, a lot of experts. Today, we are spending 70% of our media investment in digital marketing. 30% of that is with influencer, and we have learned to manage influencer. I think we are pretty good. We have also a global partnership with Publicis. We are getting to being pretty good. Some work to do on the way we drive innovation. I think on digital, we are okay.
We can do even better, we are not bad. I will answer on sun care, then as well, we come back on the more bigger question on Q2, s un care, we are doing well. The good thing, we were a bit worried last month because the sun season started late, and you have all seen that. There was really some rain until May. Clearly instead of starting in May, rather starting in June. We are very happy with the results of June. To give you a perspective, the month of June in selling for sun care is the best ever in our history. It is interesting because June is just customers buying because they have sold out the product. We are also gaining market share in June. We are doing a very good month in July. We already have some good figures from Germany.
I think we are on the verge of doing a pretty good season on sun care, Eucerin is also doing extremely well. Was on sun, Celine, your question about the full Q2?
Yeah, my question was then, sun had clearly an impact.
Yeah
Probably the underlying would not have improved that much. I want to understand H2, you implied to be quite a step up versus H1. What's going to change?
On sun care?
No, at the group consumer.
[inaudible] This is what I saw. No, I mean, H2, simply, we are coming with new products. What we have been doing on the rebalancing in NIVEA until now is just changing the way we're spending media investment. We could not, overnight, develop new products. We are coming with new product in the second semester. We are coming with big global initiatives. I mentioned the launch of Face Plus which is inspired by facial. We are coming with a few renovation. Clearly on NIVEA, we have not only more media, but we have also more opportunities to convince consumers to try the brand, and all our initiatives being into this right price range below EUR 15. We have also other big things.
We have the launch of Aquaphor on Derma, and this is, as we said, the biggest launch ever we've done in the U.S., and we have a fantastic support from retailers, and you see that already. You can find the product at Walmart, Amazon, and Target. We are also coming with a very strong pipeline on Eucerin. The pipeline this year was much more towards the second semester. We are also coming with launch of Swiss Precision in La Prairie. It's not only interesting as it allows us to recruit new consumer, but also we can go back to chains like Sephora, where we're not present before because we are too expensive. We have a pretty good portfolio of launches in the second semester together, as I said, with EUR 100 million consumer-facing investment. That makes us pretty reasonably confident for the second semester.
The next question is from Guillaume Delmas of UBS. Good morning, Guillaume. Please go ahead.
Thank you, Christopher. Good morning, Vincent, Astrid. Two questions for me as well. The first one, Vincent, it's on the changes you've made to the strategy. Do you think the challenges that you've been facing in the last, let's call it couple of years, were mostly down to media spend, its allocation, and maybe the pace of innovation? Or do you actually see a need for a proper adjustment to your operating model? Here I would be thinking level of decentralization, maybe some changes in personnel or changing the incentive structure for Beiersdorf's employee. Also maybe some changes to your portfolio, with some brands like Coppertone or some country category combinations that have been a consistent drag, distraction, and that you could potentially divest or discontinue.
Apologies for the long question here, but what I'm getting to is, do you think it's only a NIVEA brand issue, or do you think it's wider than that, and therefore would require a proper, comprehensive restructuring program, to try and change or at least adapt Beiersdorf's culture, execution, and portfolio? My second question, it's more on Eastern Europe. We've seen four consecutive quarters of organic sales growth decline. It's deteriorating, in fact, quarter after quarter. Here, just wondering what's driving this weakness and looking ahead, how quickly do you think you can fix the various issues in the region and return to what we've been more used to in the past, which is significant organic sales growth? Thank you very much.
Thank you for this question. I think on your first question, I think clearly we made a bet. We made a bet, as I said, which was to focus on premium face care in a way to transform this brand, which was more personal care/body care, into a full skincare brand. Again, it worked until 2024, then we clearly could not continue overspending at the expense of other categories. We are clearly changing the strategy, moving into these lines, which are more affordable, being quicker at bringing the right innovation, being also less dogmatic, accepting the idea that we launch a new range of shower. It works, that's great. It doesn't work, we launch another one. Yes, there is a mix of changing the way we allocate the investment and the launches and pace of innovation.
On the operating model, I wouldn't say there is an issue with the Beiersdorf operating model. Look at the success story of Derma. We were nobody in 2017. We were doing EUR 500 million of sales with Eucerin, and now we are one of the top leaders, and we are growing, gaining market share, invading countries like Brazil, China, and the U.S., which are not easy ones. We are also able, as a company, when we have the right strategy, to go bold and to be successful. The big difference with NIVEA is that NIVEA historically is local, has been always managed locally, and this is where you're absolutely right. One of the changes we are doing is we are more open to decentralization, to freedom in a frame. We are not coming back to the time where everybody could do everything.
There were advertising campaigns for every product in every country. We are saying, yes, it makes sense. Facial in Brazil is something which is special, has to be supported the way Brazil should support it. NIVEA Sun Gel in India, this is different. We are clearly pushing, incentivizing our people in the countries to be bolder, to be more daring, to make mistakes also, and not to expect everything to come from Hamburg. That's what we are doing right now. It's a change of mindset. It's also a bit contradictory to what I've been saying over the last years, we have to accept the reality, and I hope to see some changes. Again, I think the launch of Face Plus is a great opportunity to demonstrate this new mindset. On your question about Eastern Europe, you have a mix of two issues.
Historically, Eastern Europe is a personal care business for us. We sell very small skin care business. Obviously the big prioritization, not only on skin care but also on face care, was not done to support Eastern Europe. Clearly we have changed that. That's the first thing. The second thing also, this is a market where, particularly Poland, 100% of the growth is coming from Korean brands. Here, clearly, we are struggling like all our competitors because we are not a Korean brand. What we have been developing together with our retailers is to come with a much more tailor-made strategy. For example, there is one retailer which owns 50% of skin care category. He will have the exclusivity of all our launches. That's the kind of thing we are doing. What we have also to acknowledge is that Eucerin is also doing extremely well.
That's also the good news. We have Eucerin growing double digit. We are gaining market share. We're also launching in new country. We have this NIVEA struggling, we have to improve, and we have Eucerin doing extremely well. Last but not least, be aware also that in the figures of Eastern Europe, you have also CIS. You have the Russian world where obviously, as you know, we have stopped investing since the start of the war. When you don't launch anything, you don't invest anything, obviously you lose business. That is clearly impacting the second quarter more than in the past.
Thank you very much. Just to follow up, no need to streamline your portfolio. You're happy with your current portfolio and country category combination.
No, we do. No, you're right. I give you example. In China, we are extremely successful with NIVEA, Eucerin, La Prairie, and Shiseido. We decided to divest Maestro. We saw that Maestro, being in the styling category, was not making sense. There are things we are looking at. It's not so much divesting because, as you know, we have a pretty small portfolio. It's more taking the decision to stop investing on a specific category when it's proven not successful. Also, choices we made in the past, we decided not to launch NIVEA in Latin America because we thought that it was making no sense to come with such an expensive product in markets where clearly you have a price limit which is more around EUR 10 than EUR 20. That's the kind of thing we are doing, but we'll continue to do that.
We are looking at each and every opportunity to get rid of non-successful business, non-profitable business, that's something we're going to do even more in the months to come.
Thank you very much.
Thanks, Guillaume. The next question is from Jeremy Fialko from HSBC. Jeremy, please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi there. Morning. A couple of questions from me. I know this came up on the Q1 call as well, but I think the sell-in sell-out dynamics need to be explored a little bit more. I guess the reality is that had you reported NIVEA growth slightly positive in line with what you say your sell-out is, we wouldn't be having quite these sorts of discussions. I think we need to understand why is there this big gap, and why does it persist and when you see the sell-in and sell-out actually being aligned. The second thing which links into that are the retailer disputes. From my perspective, this seems to be one of the biggest, most impactful, longest lasting customer disputes that I can remember.
Could you perhaps give us a bit more clarity on when you think these are actually going to end? Would there be any sort of a restock or repiping once you get the disputes resolved, given that presumably the retailers will actually have quite low inventories of your products by now? Finally, on that point, have you lost any shelf space as a result of the disputes? Thanks.
On your first question about the gap between the sell in and the sell out, I think there are other few elements, and one of them is one you just mentioned, retailer dispute. If I want to simplify a little bit the calculation, 30% of the gap between sell in and sell out is due to the issue with retailer conflicts. I will come back to that. It's partly true for Europe because we were facing retailers who wanted to have deflation, and we did not accept that. We have been discussing a lot with them. The good news, as of today, I think we have a deal with customers covering 92% of the business in Europe. We are close to the end, and we are not expecting any further disruptions. There was no big practices.
We were able to sell our products, of course, with very low stock. We will also be careful with that. We want clearly to finish 2026 with a healthy situation in terms of stock. We are back to normal. The sun care season was a good one. We have the launches coming, but don't expect any strong restocking. Business as usual, just healthy stocking, and that's the way it's going to work. I said 30% is the conflict. 50% is clearly destocking and the Inno and sun phasing. As you know very well, in Q4, we clearly invested a lot in terms of marketing spending, but also in terms of in-store activity on the launch of Derma Control DEO, the launch of Epicelline, and we have to digest these stocks.
This is why in 2026, we didn't come with big initiatives in the first quarter and the second quarter. We just digested all the products we have been putting on shelf. We are happy with Epicelline. Epicelline is the number two anti-age serum in Europe. We are doing okay. Derma Control is under expectations, but with still 1% market share, that's okay also. But clearly, what we had quantified in the sell in the fourth quarter was much bigger than that. Then you have 20%. I said 30% conflicts, 50% destocking Inno and sun phasing. 20%, there are some decisions we took in some countries. We are changing the route to market in Malaysia and Philippines, so these kind of small things. It makes a difference between the sell in and the sell out. The good news, as I said, the sell out is growing every month.
We are growing globally, in Europe, in emerging market. That's also the reason why we feel that now that we are coming with the next launches, with the right launches, we should accelerate this dynamic and not only increase sell out, but also get back to gaining market share on NIVEA.
Maybe just the final follow-up. When do you think your sell in and your sell out would be broadly aligned?
I hope by the end of the year, we should be in this situation.
Thanks very much.
The next question is from Olivier Nicolai of Goldman Sachs. Olivier, please go ahead. Your line is open.
Good morning, Vincent, Astrid, and Chris. Two question, please. First, you're stepping up investment on NIVEA, and you reset the group margins for consumer. First, will you still be able to invest as much as you want in Eucerin, which is growing faster and has a stronger growth margin? Secondly, should the answer be to acquire actually more brands sold at different price points and dilute the group reliance on NIVEA, which is already a very large brand compared to Beiersdorf? Just to follow up on the buyback, I was looking at the rates of share buyback so far. At this pace, you're only going to reach half of the program. I was just wondering if there was any technical aspect here that we are not aware and if we should expect an acceleration in the buyback. Thank you.
Thank you, Olivier. I will take the first two questions, and Astrid will talk about share buyback. Yes, we are absolutely well-founded on Eucerin and Aquaphor. This is clearly something also we have increased versus our initial plan. We have not only the launch of Aquaphor Body, which is extremely important for us in the U.S., but we have also a big launch plan on Eucerin. We have absolutely the money we need to accelerate the growth, and we are pretty optimistic on both Eucerin and Aquaphor. On your second question, absolutely. Absolutely, we need to acquire new brands. Obviously, I would prefer them to come rather late than soon because I think I want absolutely the 22,000 employees of Beiersdorf to focus on the turnaround of NIVEA and the growth of Eucerin and La Prairie.
Yes, we need absolutely to increase the number of brands we have in the portfolio. I'm not sure this is in the category of accessible skincare. We have the number one brand in the world. I think we just have to do a better work with NIVEA. This is perhaps more into categories which are more into luxury and Derma, where we have an extremely limited portfolio. Clearly, we need to increase the portfolio. We need to be less dependent on NIVEA, and that's something we're going to look at. Again, big priority, big focus for everybody, turn around NIVEA. Astrid?
On your second question or third question related to the share buyback. Yes, we have started the program. It's happening, and there is not a decision to do less than what we've committed, which is the EUR 750 million over, let's say, the two-year, 18-month period. There's still commitment to that.
Thank you.
Will have, Tilly Eno from Morgan Stanley. Tilly, please go ahead. Your line is open.
Hi, good morning. Thanks for taking my question. Just one on emerging markets where you've mentioned sellout still running below the market in NIVEA. You've obviously mentioned in Eastern Europe, the impact of Korean brands being very competitive there. In your other emerging markets like LATAM, Southeast Asia, who do you think you are predominantly losing share to? Where's that main pressure coming from? Thanks very much.
You have everywhere we have clearly the development of local brands. It could be local with coming with just one ingredient and a nice support from influencer, but you have also Korean brands everywhere. In LATAM and ASEAN, you have also the good work done by our competitor, Unilever, which is clearly back in the market with their brands, and they are bringing a new incentive to be stronger, to be bolder, to be also more creative. Overall, if I look at ASEAN, I'm pretty happy with the performance of our brands. I mean, the change on Luminous was a game changer. We have been trying since years to establish Luminous as taking the European product, and the moment when we came with Luminous Glow, with a new galenic, like a sachet, like a gel, we are market leader.
That's something which is not only true for Thailand, but is true for the rest of ASEAN. We have also Eucerin, which is flying. Was always very strong in Thailand, but we are extremely happy with the results in Malaysia. Overall, ASEAN is good. On LATAM, we have a different story. We have Eucerin, which is flying. You saw the results of Eucerin. When I took over the brand seven years ago, it was number 18. We are number three today, and we are doubling the sales this quarter. Clearly being number one on Thiamidol and Epicelline. We are struggling more on NIVEA with some good results on body. We have NIVEA Facial doing well. We're struggling on deodorants. The rest of the countries being pretty good, also Mexico, Chile. All in all, very good performance of the Derma and improving on NIVEA.
The thing which is important also to know is that historically, those markets are also much more body and deo market than face care. Obviously, the moment when we started to change dynamics to move the focus from face care into deodorants and body, we are obviously meeting much more the expectations of those countries.
Thank you.
Thank you. That was the last question. This concludes our conference call. Beiersdorf's next investor relations event will be the release of our third quarter sales performance on October 27th, 2026. We appreciate your interest in Beiersdorf and look forward to seeing you back here again in the fall. Thank you very much.