Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and a warm welcome to today's Q3 2026 earnings call of the Bike24 Holding AG. I am delighted to welcome the CEO, Andrés Martin-Birner, and CFO Sylvio Eichhorst, who will give us an update on the results in a moment. Following the presentation, we will move on to your questions in a Q&A session. With no further ado, let's jump straight into the presentation. Andrés Martin-Birner, the stage is yours.
Thank you very much. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining, and welcome to Bike24's Q3 2026 earnings call. We are pleased to present, once again, a very strong development of our third quarter. My name is Andrés Martin-Birner. I am the founder and CEO of Bike24, and on the call today is our CFO, Sylvio Eichhorst.
We will start to take you through the highlights of the third quarter and the first nine months of 2026 before we conclude with your questions. Please also note that the presentation is available on our investor relations website. Today's call is structured in four parts. I will start with an overview of the third quarter and the nine months ending September 30, 2026. Sylvio will then walk you through our operating performance and financial results.
I will follow with our outlook for the full year 2026 before we move to questions and answers. Let us start with the overall picture. Bike24 significantly accelerated its growth in the third quarter, making further progress in revenue, operating earnings, and cash flow. The third quarter also marks an important milestone.
For the first time, we generated more than EUR 100 million in revenue in a single quarter. Group revenue increased by 30% to EUR 107.7 million. At the same time, adjusted EBITDA rose by 14% to EUR 6.1 million. We are therefore not only growing strongly, but also increasing our absolute operating profit.
Our localized markets once again showed particularly strong momentum. Revenue in these markets increased by 53% to EUR 30.9 million. Denmark, Slovenia, and Ireland have expanded our localized offering since the summer and are growing even higher at 57%.
At the same time, our GSA business, comprising Germany, Switzerland, and Austria, remains a strong foundation for further growth and grew by 21% or EUR 12.5 million. We also stepped up our performance in bikes in the third quarter. Revenue in bikes grew by 34% to EUR 23.8 million, translating into around 11,700 bikes, or more than 33% additional bikes assembled and shipped through our workshop than last year.
With inventory of EUR 92.7 million, we have deliberately prepared for the Black Week period and the quarters ahead. Overall, we are seeing broad-based demand across our key European markets and in both product categories. This gives us confidence in the development in the next quarters. Sylvio will now walk you through the operating and financial details.
Thank you very much, Andrés, and a good morning from my side as well. Let me start to give you an overview how broad-based our growth is before I explain to you how this higher business volume translates into earnings, capital employed, and cash flow.
As Andrés already explained, the quarter was characterized by strong demand, high product availability, and continued traction from our localized markets approach. The most relevant point is that growth was not driven by one isolated factor. We saw positive momentum across categories, regions, and customer cohorts.
Let us begin with our product categories. Group revenue increased from EUR 82.8 million- EUR 107.7 million. Both categories contributed to this growth. Parts, accessory, and clothing, PAC for short, remain our largest revenue contributor at EUR 83.9 million.
This represents growth of 29% compared with the prior year quarter and underlines the importance of our broad core assortment. Bike revenue grew even faster by 34% to EUR 23.8 million, p articularly the demand for gravel and road bikes remained very strong. The strong PAC business and the additional momentum in bikes is, for us, a very encouraging combination.
Our growth is therefore not dependent on a single product category. The regional picture also remains broad-based. GSA remains our largest region. Revenue here grew by 22% to EUR 69.6 million. Our core markets therefore make an important contribution to absolute growth.
The localized markets once again set the fastest pace, with revenue up 53% to EUR 30.7 million. Alongside the established countries, this group now includes, since June, Denmark and Slovenia, and since July, Ireland. The remaining European markets also grew strongly by 42% to EUR 6.3 million.
Overall, we are combining a strong GSA foundation with an increasingly broad European reach. This is an important lever of our localization strategy. Our customer KPIs show that our growing reach is supported by a resilient existing customer base. On a last 12 months basis, we reached around 1.34 million active customers, an increase of 23% year-on-year.
On the same 12 months basis, 71.2% of orders came from returning customers, compared with 70.6% a year earlier. Average order value remained at EUR 143. This points to a very stable customer engagement alongside a significantly larger customer base. Looking at the individual quarter, the number of orders increased by 30% to around 762,000, with an average order value of EUR 138.
The regional customer view shows how our expanding customer base supports growth across European markets. In GSA, active customers increased by 20% to 354,000, while revenue grew by 22% to EUR 69.6 million. Revenue per customer stood at EUR 197. Our core markets therefore continue to combine scale with higher customer growth.
In our localized European markets, the momentum was even stronger. Active customers increased by 51% to 172,000, alongside revenue growth of 53% to EUR 30.7 million. Revenue per customer stood at EUR 179. The regional pattern points to customer base expansion as the main growth driver, with our localized markets setting the pace and GSA providing a strong foundation for our business.
Looking at the development of our inventory. Product availability remains a key operational lever. At the end of September, inventory stood at EUR 92.7 million, compared with EUR 71.7 million a year earlier.
This build-up was deliberate. It supports our higher business volume, prepares us for the Black Week period, as well as predicted demand increases, and reflects selected attractive purchasing opportunities. At the same time, the aging profile improved significantly. Stock older than 12 months declined from EUR 9.5 million- EUR 6.7 million, a reduction of around 30%. It now represents approximately 7% of total inventory.
Let us now turn to the income statement. In the first nine months, revenue increased by 24.3% to EUR 274.5 million. Gross profit rose by 22.1% to EUR 72.1 million, as volume growth more than offsets market-driven margin pressure and product mix effects. Contribution profit, defined as gross profit less performance marketing and selling costs, increased by 17.9% to EUR 44.2 million. Higher shipping costs due to carrier surcharges, together with continued investment in growth, weighted on our contribution profit growth.
Adjusted EBITDA nevertheless grew by 25.1% to EUR 13.7 million. In Q3 alone, revenue reached EUR 107.7 million, gross profit EUR 27.8 million, contribution profit EUR 16.9 million, and adjusted EBITDA EUR 6.1 million. Our fixed cost base absorbed 30% more volume, supporting higher absolute profit despite the margin pressure.
The following margin development shows both the market pressure, but also our continued progress. Third quarter gross margin was 25.8% compared with 27% a year earlier. This reflected intense price competition and a changed product mix. Higher shipping costs, particularly fuel charges, and the increased share of international deliveries added further pressure.
At the same time, we continue to invest in customer acquisition and market penetration. Against this backdrop, our cost base is scaling more effectively. The adjusted personnel expense ratio declined from 8%- 7.3% in the quarter.
We were therefore able to process significantly more volume without increasing personnel costs at the same rate. Overall, absolute adjusted EBITDA increased, while the quarterly margin declined from 6.4%- 5.7%. However, for the first nine months, the margin remains stable at 5%. Our customer shipping charges, which we adjusted in September, provide additional support to the gross profit.
Cash flow was particularly encouraging in the third quarter. We generated free cash flow before income taxes of EUR 12 million, compared with EUR 8.2 million in the prior year. This was supported in the third quarter this year by around EUR 6 million of unadjusted EBITDA and positive movements in the trade working capital and other operating items, particularly partly offset by investing cash outflows. Net bank debt stood at approximately EUR 4.3 million at quarter end, compared with EUR 9.7 million a year earlier.
With an increasing, Andrés, may I ask you to help me? With an increasing EBITDA over the last 12 months from EUR 10.6 million- EUR 17.7 million, our net debt leverage improved significantly from 0.9- 0.3, reflecting our regained financial health. At quarter end, we had cash and cash equivalents of EUR 17.5 million. While the strong quarter is encouraging, the seasonal context remains important. Nine months free cash flow was EUR 3.9 million, compared with EUR 10.6 million a year earlier, particularly reflecting the current inventory build-up.
Let me summarize the key points. First, our growth accelerated to 30% in the third quarter. Both product categories and our key European regions contributed. Second, our customer base is growing significantly, while returning customers continue to account for a high share of orders.
Third, external margin pressure remains a challenge, but internally, we are making progress in scaling the business, investing in further growth capabilities, and increasing absolute profit. Fourth, with our improved inventory quality, high product availability, and lower net bank debt, we are well prepared for the year-end trading.
For us, this provides a solid foundation to continue capturing growth opportunities and gaining market shares while maintaining our focus on earnings and capital efficiency. With that said, I will hand back to Andrés for the outlook.
Thank you, Sylvio. Our third quarter performance reinforces our confidence in the direction we are taking. Let me conclude by explaining what this means for our full-year expectations. We confirm our 2026 guidance as adjusted on 16th of September. For the full year, we expect revenue of EUR 345 million-EUR 360 million and an adjusted EBITDA of EUR 16 million-EUR 18 million.
This corresponds with a revenue growth of approximately 19%-25%. We therefore reaffirm the revenue guidance raised in September above the previous range and the narrowed adjusted EBITDA expectation within the previous range. The strong third quarter underlines our growth momentum.
At the same time, we take account of continued price competition, the product and regional mix, and increased shipping costs. The upcoming Black Week and Christmas trading periods offer further opportunities, although uncertainties remain. Our outlook assumes stable macroeconomic and geopolitical conditions.
With our broader European customer base and prepared inventory position, we are confident that we are well-placed to capture the remaining opportunities this year and to drive further growth and gain market share beyond year-end. This brings us to the end of our prepared remarks. Thank you for your attention, and Sylvio and I are now happy to take your questions.
Thank you very much for the presentation. We are now moving on to the Q&A session, and for a dynamic conversation, we ask you to ask your questions in person via audio line. To do so, click on the raise hand button, and should you be dialed in by phone, you can unmute yourself and raise your hand by pressing star key nine and then star key six.
Should you not be able to speak freely today, you can, of course, also place your questions in our chat. We already have two risen hands. Mr. Charles F. Michaels, you should be able to unmute yourself and ask your question now.
Great. Can you hear me?
We can.
Perfect. Hello, Andrés and Sylvio. Congratulations on a very strong quarter again. You've had one after the other. It's great to see that. I just want to talk a little bit, though, about your margins, and there are a lot of moving parts. You mentioned product and regional mix and competitive pressures, so sort of three forces that are putting pressure on your margin.
On top of that, I would say your chosen strategy of growing quickly, maybe 5x as fast as the market. When you look at those different moving parts, region, product mix, regional mix, competitive pressure, and the choice to do a land grab, what would you say, how would you break that up when it looks to what's depressing your margin? And I have a follow-up question on margins too.
Yeah, okay. Maybe I can take your questions and start, and maybe Sylvio can add some points. What I really see when I see the demand on Bike24 is really also the product mix, what you also mentioned. So we had a lot of demand, especially in the category of electronics, and this has naturally low gross margins or product margins. To be honest, this is our core customer group, so we have to handle this issue. This is clear. But this is a big point that we have a little lower gross margin in Q3.
Got it. And if-
And of course-
Yeah, go ahead, please.
Yeah, and of course, we use the opportunities, what we mentioned, that we use the chance for gaining market shares. This is also clear a nd pricing is, yeah, a good opportunity in a, I would say, in a robust market and a good demand, but we use the opportunity today in gaining market shares. Yeah.
Second question on margins is, I have had the pleasure of following you since your IPO. In fact, even before the IPO, we had a chance to meet your company and you, I believe. Looking at what the company looked like, I was reviewing Berenberg, JP Morgan, and Hauck reports from back then. Everyone was forecasting 10% adjusted EBITDA margins for many years, or as far as they could go, and that was sort of the outlook.
My question would be, can you provide us with confidence that you can return to such a margin that you had previously experienced for kind of the life of the company? Could you highlight perhaps what is really the long-term sustainable margin when certain changes stop playing out, like moving into new regions rapidly, selling more electronics, competitive pressures change, and the choice to grow so fast?
When you get back to a more normal world, what is your margin going to be?
Yeah, it's clear. I would say the first point, I think that the industry really changed. It's not the same before Corona and also the year after Corona or also during Corona time. It really changed. We see really, yeah, a big change, what I mentioned with product mix. Electronics, it's core category for enthusiasts.
Electric parts, electric accessories, especially for cranksets, I mean, pedals, the e-bike, also the batteries. It's really changed, and also smart computers, et cetera. This is really driving our business. On the other hand, when we want to drive gross margin, we have to invest a little bit more in apparel. This could be an opportunity for the coming future. The next thing is, yeah, is competition.
The world changed a little bit, and that's why double-digit growth rates, when I had a wish, it's clear that we have the ambition to reach this b ut today, I think it's, yeah, it's a little way to go for that. Yeah.
Well, as you said, not growth rate, but you mean margin, the double-digit margin.
Yeah, correct.
Because you are getting. The double-digit growth rate, I think, remains.
Double-digit.
Yeah. But you did not mention full bikes. The margin on full bikes, what impact on your overall margin does that have?
In bikes, we had increasing margins in Q3 and also in the last months. This is good. But today, bikes have a margin grid or margin level. This is a little bit lower than the overall margin. But on the other hand, we are looking for gross profit. This is what we are looking more and managing more, and that's why we can handle this.
Great. Thank you.
You're welcome.
Thank you very much. Meanwhile, we also received a question in the chat box. It says, "Good morning. You talked about passing the extra carrier surcharge to clients. What should be the gross margin benefit? Also, the warehouse in Barcelona required some investments, as previously mentioned. When extra costs should fade, seeing the ramp-up of it facility? Can you quantify extra costs related to this? Thank you.
Yeah, when we look to the carrier surcharges, we increased our shipping costs. I do not know exactly the number of how high is the benefit. Maybe we have it in our numbers, Sylvio.
Yeah, it is about 0.2-0 .3 percentage point of the total gross margin. Yeah.
Yeah, when we look to Barcelona, the investments we need for Barcelona, it is very low. It is more technical issues, where we have to invest a little bit more in processes. We see more the opportunity when we ramp up more Barcelona and use it for more capacities, then we will see the benefits from shipping more from Barcelona, especially in scale up the shipping costs for carriers. There we see a lot of benefits.
Thank you very much. We have further raised hands. Mr. Ingo Schmidt, you should be able to unmute yourself and ask your question.
Yeah, thanks. Good morning, and thank you for taking my questions. First of all, congratulations on a very strong third quarter, and especially on crossing the EUR 100 million mark for the first time. I have two short questions on the market and competition.
First, how do you see price pressure in the market right now, and what do you expect for Black Week and for the next year? Second question, are you seeing competitors leaving the market or reducing their activity? If so, how does that help Bike24? Thanks.
Maybe I can also start here with your question. The competition was always strong. What I see is nothing changed in the last 10 years, but it's a little bit harder in the last two or three years. This is clear, but it's clear when you have a lower consumer sentiment and higher inflation, and cost driving, so you see also the gas prices. We have, on one hand, we benefit from that, it's clear, but on the other hand, the inflation is, I think, not the best for consumer sentiment.
On the other hand, we see that mega trends are remaining intact, are robust and unbroken, and I think that we also invested significantly, maybe also more than competitors in the last two and three years in SAP and processes, digitalization in our shop, also new features, also in new brands that we now offer, and expanding our shipping capacity.
I think this is now where we see the benefits that we do these investments, and I think we invest a little bit more than our competitors. That is why I think first where we have the chance to use this opportunity and to grow faster than the market, and this is where we see it's very, very good opportunity. This is how we manage today, and I think also in the next quarters, the company.
Okay. Thank you. Good luck for the rest of the year.
Thank you.
Thank you very much. There is a further question in the chat on how long do you plan to pursue the market share capture strategy? What are the measures of success? Are you seeing any exit from the market from the competition as a result of the now prolonged price war?
Yeah, as I mentioned in the last second, it is a part of our strategy to gaining market shares, and we see this opportunity. Yeah, as I also mentioned, we invested a lot. It is more than in tech. It is also in inventory, what we also had in our presentation.
Yeah, we see some competitors leaving the market, and what we see especially is that also that many competitors are focusing more on niche and also many leave the market, especially in the offline world. I would say the sum of so many smaller competitors leaving is the chance for Bike24. This specific offline to online shift is still, yeah, intact and remaining. This is why the online market is growing, I think.
Maybe something to add regarding how we measure this. I mean, we have information, for instance, from the German Bicycle Industry Association about the development of the sale of bikes, yeah? When we compare our share to this number, then we see that from year to year, we are increasing our numbers.
When the sales are stable from the reports that we received, of course, we are increasing our market share. So we see a significant potential just from the size of the market. As you might know, in Germany, we have about 3.7 million- 3.8 million, and our share compared to this is really small.
There we have also with our activities, you might have also noticed from the last reportings that we want to go, and we go already offline, yeah, with handovers, with our partners. We also try to bridge this gap between offline and online. With that initiatives, we also see that there is a lot of potential to come here.
Thank you very much. There is a further raised hand. Mr. Emmanuel [unsure] , you should be able to unmute yourself.
Can you still hear me?
Yes, we can hear you now.
Yeah, perfect. Thank you very much. Congratulations also from my side, and I would like to come back to the person who asked the question before concerning margin. How far you have to go? I mean, you have now invested a lot. You have built a great SAP system. You have local markets.
How important is that? I am a little bit concerned when you announce a decrease of yearly profitability some months ago, that there is not a trend which we have seen in the past. What I want to say that, after all these COVID things, many internet sites went bankrupt, Home24, you can name them all, with very clever bankers who are saying, we have to invest in the client. It means just selling the product cheap because everyone jumps around.
I would like to understand that you have created a great company. You are local everywhere. How important is it really to reduce prices?
Yeah. To be honest, we try to balance it out, yeah? We see opportunities, price increasing opportunities. We see also opportunities in better gross margins. To be honest, we balance this out. We have some, when you see into the quarter, we have some weeks and some months where we have better gross margins than the year before.
Overall, yeah, we balance this out. A good growth and a good gross profit, yeah, and a good EBITDA in absolute numbers. This is how we manage this today. To be honest, we see that competitors, some of them, they have lower gross margins. What we see in our results, that it is possible to have higher gross margins than competitors, but the gap has not to be too big, yeah? We cannot outprice the market, yeah?
This is what we are trying, yeah, with our services. We are looking more for a good price in our basket, yeah, and not always the cheapest price. This is not what we are looking for, yeah? As a company, of course, we are also interested in higher, I would say, higher priced levels in our industry.
When you have too many clearance deals in the market and too many pressures also from manufacturers, I would say, and some of them are weak, so you have a lot of Accel case, you know it. This is also a pressure for the whole market. This is where we cannot, on a specific point, we cannot avoid this little pressure, I would say. On the other hand, we are, of course, interested and we are also managing for higher gross margins, if it is possible.
Today, to be honest, we are feeling very well with that situation because these opportunities we are using now and try to accelerate the business and to scale up the business. That is why we are looking very, very positive also for the coming years. We do not see that the gross margin is really a negative point for us. We see really the product mix change is a point, and the costs, we have to focus this and to scale up the business. This is how we manage this today.
Yeah, thank you very much.
Today, really, we do not see the gross margin as a big negative point.
Mm-hmm. Thank you.
Thank you very much. There are some further questions in the chat. A participant asks, why does your full year midpoint guidance imply a slowdown in year-over-year growth rate for the fourth quarter? What explains why the strong growth rate seen year to date will slow down into Q4 despite your positive comments on the upcoming intense Black Week season? Thank you.
Maybe I can also start here. The fourth quarter, what we see in our numbers, October is over, so we started very well, and we see our number, they are very promising, also with double-digit growth. But the Black Friday period, these two weeks, is a really major sales driver in this fourth quarter.
This peak in demand is still ahead of us. We mentioned this in our presentation. We feel very well prepared b ut to be honest, it's a little bit too early to make there more specific statements on that. That's why this Black Friday period is ahead of us, and this is the, I would say, the answer for your specific question.
And of course, we remain with ambitious targets.
Yeah.
We have a guidance, but of course, we're aiming for the best.
Yeah, we are aiming for. We see a good opportunity or good. Maybe it's also possible when we see our guidance, that we will have a very positive ending. So it's a good chance, but in one week, we know more.
Thank you. The next question in the chat is, can you quantify the negative impact on gross margin from the negative product mix? Should we assume the gross margin pressure to be less important from Q4 onwards?
Maybe I just want to do a step back. We are focusing on a wide range, a good assortment. This is something of our key driver. Also, we continue to have this. We don't sell goods just because they have a lower margin. We're also focusing on what is the absolute contribution.
You can imagine if you have a high-value electronic product with a lower margin, but a high contribution, you also sell this. You would not stop. So this is one of our, I would say, DNA, that we offer our customers a wide range of products in regards to bikes, and we will continue like this.
Yeah, correct.
Thank you very much. We have a further raised hand. Mr. Charles F. Michaels, I will ask you, or you should be able to unmute yourself already.
Sorry, can you hear me now?
We can hear you.
All right. Yeah. Sorry, coming back to you on a couple more questions. One on your improved working capital. Could you comment on accounts payable and whether you are paying suppliers late intentionally, or there was any accounts payable impact in your working capital?
We don't intentionally pay late. That's not how we act.
I meant pay later. Sorry about that.
We, of course, want to have a good relationship with our suppliers. But of course, we are continuously aiming to increase also the payment terms, so that we pay a little bit later than maybe the year before.
This is something when we discuss new terms and conditions with our suppliers, it's definitely in our focus a nd also, we gain very often deals where we have also longer periods to pay. This is definitely in our focus. We started this, well, last year, but we continued this year- over- year. Slightly, we also see there a good progress. This is definitely in our focus, so that we can use the money that we gain from this to support our growth, again.
Got you. Then on the localized markets, is there a gross margin impact coming from your localized markets, and overall adjusted EBITDA margin impact if you were to separate out localized markets and their margins?
Yeah, definitely. I want to jump in. Our localized markets are a little bit below the margin or the contribution of our DACH region or GSA region. That is for sure. As we can more and more deliver also from different warehouses, we can optimize this. This is definitely in our focus.
This is what Andrés already mentioned today. Currently, we invest maybe a little bit more in these localized markets. You cannot say in all localized markets. We have in some areas, like in Benelux or in Poland, Finland, we have very good contributions or good margins. In France, Spain, there we are a little bit more under pressure maybe than other markets.
It depends a little bit on the market, and also the competition in the market. If you have a competitor, and they have the full assortment, I would say, then it is a little bit harder for us. You have always to take the customer view on that and to see why they should go to Bike24 when you have a very good local competitor.
That is why they are looking more maybe for the products or the brands they did not get, or where it is not possible to ship, or where the price is better. That is clear. That is why it is a little bit way to go for nearly, I would say, similar or comparable gross margin level. On the other hand, on the long-term trend, we see there not a negative impact to our gross margin.
Got you. On full bikes, historically, am I correct that your margin on bikes was about the same as the overall group margin? If that is the case, now it is lower, do you expect to regain the margin back on full bikes?
Yes, of course. I see the competition there is very hard, and I do not see there a big, I would say, for me personally, the price pressure from competitors is not the problem. It is more the pressure from the industry, that you have so many manufacturers, they are weak, they are in trouble.
That is why you see clearance deals, and they are pushing their bikes to the market. This is, of course, a pressure to the profits. Then you see, I would say, the P&L of offline stores. They have also a lower gross margin level than all the years before, and not especially the Corona time. These 2%, 3%, 4%, this is the same what we, I would say, lost in the last years b ut when we have , I would say, healthier market, and we see this in the near future, then the gross margins are coming back.
Good to hear that. Thank you.
Thank you very much. A quick reminder to all the participants to seize the opportunity and ask your questions now, either by placing them in the chat box or by clicking on the raise hand button. Since we seem to have received no further questions, we come to the end of today's earnings call.
Thank you all for your attendance and your participation. Should further questions arise at a later time, you can always contact investor relations. A big thank you also to Andrés and Sylvio for your presentation and the time you took to answer the questions. I wish you all a lovely remaining week. With this, I hand over again to Andrés for some final remarks.
Yeah. Again, thank you for joining us today, for your questions, also for your interest in Bike24. We are looking forward to keeping you updated on our continued progress. We wish you and your family a joyful start of the winter season. Yeah, have a wonderful day. Thank you, and bye-bye from Dresden.
Thank you.