Welcome to all those colleagues out there online in the broadcasting system. With this warm welcome, I don't want to set too much of the stage, but leave it to for Yvonne to declare the whole thing open. Yvonne, please.
Thank you very much. Thank you, Olaf. Good morning, everyone, a warm welcome at CEWE. We are looking forward to guide you through the morning, we can say. You know, if we remember and if you look back two years ago, we were standing here together, it was my first press conference, it was my first analyst conference, CEWE was in turbulent times. Today, two years later, I think we can say proudly that since then we have delivered very good results. As well I'm very happy to present to you today very good results alongside with my colleague, Olaf Holzkämper. Let's get started, let's see what we brought around. Very good results in challenging times.
You as analysts, you as journalists, for you it might be very, I would say, common, and you have to deal with it every day. If you look a little bit wider, what does it mean as well for us? All of us know that we are living in a time of transformation, and this transformation gives us a couple of opportunities. We can be followers, we can, you know, see what is happening, and we can then adapt the best possible, or we can be leaders, shaping the future ourself and focusing on the things we can influence. I, and as well the CEWE Group, prefers the second option. We want to shape and we want to attack and we want to make the difference, and we want to make the difference personally, because, you know, we can do things personally.
We can support, we can elect, and we can do a lot of things. Economically, as a group, we have as well responsibility, providing more than 4,000 working places, paying our taxes to finance all the ambitions which are planned for the new election, after the new election period. We are a social citizen as well. That means if we take this part, we have a responsibility, which we take happily, and we have a great business model which as well contributes in challenging times, because at the end, you know this picture, we make consumer happy. This is even more important in challenging times, because then the families are tightening together, the loved ones tightening together. They are presenting themself, cocooning, et cetera. We are in the middle of this movement.
You know, and this has not changed, we follow our mission, which is inspiring people to create and share personalized photo print product at the highest quality. We achieve this by providing a user experience alongside the entire customer journey. Innovations are key, and this enables us to stay ahead to build our position as a undisputed market leader. For this, there are more than 4,000 people, dedicated in 21 countries to make this mission happening, to make it alive, to bring it alive. At the end, it is important that we evolve this smile, with all of us. Together we head for a financial target. We have, given out that, in the midterm we want to grow up to EUR 1 billion as the total turnover for the group.
The EUR 1 billion is a number, but as well it's a mindset, and this mindset is important for us behind. Strive for growth and continue the success story of CEWE. Let's have a look how the year 2024 contributed to this growth mindset and to this ambition. What we see is that we had another record year in top line and in bottom line. We reported a turnover landing at EUR 832.8 million, and this is a growth of 6.7%. If you say this, 6.7%, that means it's the reported number. In operational, we were growing by 5.1%.
The ones of you who accompany us for longer term understand that we had transferred a huge customer into a provision model, which is changing the turnover relation but is not impacting the EBIT. That means growth on the top line and we are more than happy as well, because it was a difficult year in terms of, you know, economics for the consumer. Some of them had to think twice to spend their euro. If you look the bottom line, what we managed there in terms of group EBIT, we increased up to EUR 86.1 million. This is at the upper end of the target range we had given. We were planning between EUR 82 million and EUR 87 million in EBIT.
Again, this was not a walk in the park, because all of us know, we had to fight against some of the market conditions, the macroeconomics. If you think about cost increases, if you think about regulations, you know, one of them we will talk about as well. You will find the new CSRD reporting, you know, which we published as well this morning, but this requires costs and efforts as well, just to give one example. There's as well market challenges. If we take one example, we have a market which is very competitive, which is the handy cases, the mobile cases market, which is flooded of Asian products and cheap ones. We had as well revised our plans, and we have occurred an impairment on DeinDesign for more than EUR 3 million.
This is included in this results. This, on the top line figures, let's have a look how the divisions and the legs are contributed to this. The main leg, Photo finishing, with EUR 714 million, this is important, and this is the most important and the most growing with +8.4%, and it weighs 86%. Commercial Online Print with EUR 90 million, slightly negative versus last year. I will explain this in a minute. Retail with EUR 31 million -1.5%. Let's start with the biggest leg, Photo finishing. On Photo finishing, it is important we see that the market has still potential. We believe in our strengths, and we have a clear strategy which we follow. You know this one.
It's our principles which carry us and which will carry us alongside as well for this EUR 1 billion idea. The consumer will stay at the center, it doesn't matter where the teams are working, whether it's internationally, whether it's in DACH. Everyone has to have the consumer in their mind. We are a branded company, a branded company, we became a house of brands. CEWE is one of the brands, but there are many more if you talk about Pixum, if you talk about CEWE, if you talk about WhiteWall, if you talk about SAXOPRINT. There, in fact, with these house of brands, it is important that we develop these brands, and that means we invest. We invest into awareness. We invest, and we challenge the differentiation between these brands, having the lowest overlap and covering the widest target group.
Of course, it is important to make them emotional and attaching. We are committed to become more sustainable. We had 14 reports of sustainability and a long list of measurements and achievements, what we have achieved since these years. In 2025, we have to say that our focus had to lie on the reporting, which was, I would say, a herculean task, to jump on this new reporting. We look forward in 2025 to focus again on the measurements, on the improvement of sustainability itself. Innovation and efficiency are two things which I would like to deeper dive with you. Before we deeper dive, consumer happiness has a KPI in CEWE, and this is the Net Promoter Score.
Here we can report that the Net Promoter Score has on a high level raised again. One of the initiatives and the investments into the brand, but as well into the category, into the market, is the Photo Award. There is one Photo Award running right now, which is concluding in May this year, and we have 400,000 hand-ins, so rightly on track with our target to get above 0.5 million hand-ins. These are passionate people who can be photographers, who can be amateurs across the world. With this, we are the biggest, we host the biggest photo competition worldwide. We have, you know, good named jury as well of very famous photographers in this jury.
Far to the brand, at the end as well, we have to look at efficiency. Efficiency as well makes consumer happy, because if we can be more cost efficient, if we can be quicker, especially during Christmas time, then as well we can make the consumer happy. We had two extensions of our production sites last year. The first one in Koszalin, Poland, which went fully live, and this enabled us to insource end of 2023 already more photo gifts. We do produce 99% of the products we offer ourself, and this is rightly on the strategic site. If we look here as well, it is now the biggest production site outside of Germany. Another one, we as well are committed to Germany, so we extended the facilities in Freiburg.
In Freiburg, it's strategic important for us because it's on the so-called Dreiländereck. This is an important place for the international growth where we invested. Next to extensions in terms of facilities and place and production capacity, of course, we invest as well in print technology, and as well in a technology of assembling especially to manage the last peak, the last week of the year of before Christmas, because then it's when we have the highest pressure on our machines. You are aware that innovation is one of the most important things which we are driving. Innovation is part of our strategy , is a strategic priority, and it's part of our cultural mindset. It's everywhere. It's as well our DNA, and it's integrational.
We have a lot of things what we are doing there, from collaborative work with experts like universities and external partners. We as well do the grassroot initiatives, and we foster innovation at all levels. This year, our innovation days just hosted 1,200 team members in Oldenburg for the innovation days for a fair where everyone exchanged ideas. Some of them presented ideas. Other ones, I would say, commented and advised on these ideas, and the best ones get on the roadmap as well for realization for products. Internally, we push innovation, and important for us that this is externally as well, valued. Here we had shared with you throughout last year the TIPA awards. We were given three of them for the different brands, for CEWE, Pixum, and WhiteWall.
This was in April last year, and since then we continued, of course, to have more innovation. This year WhiteWall is going to apply with a special frame, which is called a Basel Frame, which is a very elegant, very thin frame for galleries, following the minimalistic trend. Some of the photographers already use it, and there's a bigger potential for this one, and we are going to build on this. There is one big thing as well on our major product, the CEWE PHOTOBOOK. The CEWE PHOTOBOOK has a new edition. The photo book you know, and now within the photo book, in the panoramic size, in the XL format, you can open up, and you have a special added double-sided page.
It's four pages you can create individually, or you can do it as a panoramic. When you do your panoramic photographs with your mobile, for instance, or with your cameras, you can print it there. If you remember, you know, it looks easy, but if you look at it in terms of production, a consumer can choose where to place it and how to place it, if you think of the software, what you need in order to create all of these pages. For us, it's an important one, it's appreciated, and it shows as well the superiority we want to have for the photo book. There are more elements and more things we have brought onto the market on the photo book, on the traditional photo book, like, you know, pockets.
You can as well at the end, put your receipts in, your flying tickets, whatever. There are a lot of more things to discover, but you will be able to discover it around here. There is one more thing which is important, the product you hold in your hands, but as well the way you get there, and the combination of those is going to be decisive. Important for us, and we had a focus last year on our mobile editor. Mobile, strategically important, we talk about mobile acceleration, has added the biggest growth in terms of percentage, but there is much more potential. If we look forward as well into the, you know, into the development, into the future, mobile will play an important role. Please have a look.
How we implemented or what we changed in our mobile edit. There are a lot of new elements in it, ways of designing and easiness and as well creativity. On top of this, we thought of another idea. On the first look, you don't think that it works, you know, for the smile, 'cause we say we bring the consumer the smile and the happiness. Usually if you look at the CEWE Passport Photo, you don't look so happy. You're not allowed to look happy, in fact. It makes you happy if this, you know, you can do wherever you want at your ease and if it's very easy to apply and to get on it. We implemented this in December last year. We launched it in DACH.
The idea here is it's an app where you can download, you can take your picture at home. Especially if it's interesting for kids who are not always making the right face when they are at the photographer's seat. You can do it whenever you want. You can in fact print it, or you can directly use the digital asset, or you can go to the photo station and print it. Have a look how this looks like to give you an impression. You can do it yourself, or it's better if your partner is doing it. You have the digital asset. You go with a code to the photo station, and you can have the print asset, and you can go to the, to the embassy, wherever you need to go.
This is out in several. It's a technology, and it's out in several versions. This market is transforming, and we saw a potential here with this. This opens a lot of new ideas as well for the future. Pass Photo. We ask as well, you know, I could only bring a couple of things. We ask as well our teams what they are proud of 2024, and we are happy to give you a look behind the scenes at what our teams have handed in.
Far to the initiatives and the things where we stepped forward, let's see the numbers. Photo finishing. In photo finishing, we can say that we successfully converted the increase of number of photos into photo products, and we had a good financial year. + 8.4% in top line, which is important for us. We had, without this shift of the commission-based model, it was 6.4%, still a good number. In photo finishing, the EBIT improves by EUR 3.4 million, up to EUR 83.4 million. Here's included already this write-off of the impairment of DeinDesign. It's in the category of photo finishing where you'll find it. Without this, in operational terms, the EBIT would increase by EUR 6.5 million.
If we look further, it's important for us as well because the one thing is to create a turnover. The other thing is to create the EBIT. Here, the consumer bought into the higher quality of the products. We say premiumization of the product. As well, we had some price increases where it was needed, but we were more carefully than in the previous years. With this, the photo finishing margin developed further. We stay at 12.8%, which I share as an information. Here you look at the quarterly evolution. The green tick means that we are each quarter landed within the targeted frame.
Of course, if we look at the last quarter, we had an increase, there is the impact shown as well of DeinDesign. In terms of turnover, you know, you saw the increase, and here you see the EBIT impact. And here as well, you see the green ranks with higher ambition and the explanation in the Q4. Next to the top line and the bottom line for us, KPIs and indicators are the number of prints, which somehow shows as well our quantitative evolution. Here we can say in the total number of prints, we are increasing by 2.9%, slightly above the targeted range.
Most important, the value per photo increased, which is again, that the consumer buy into the premiumization with +5.4%, which leads together to the 8.4%. CEWE FOTOBUCH, another important number for us. Yes, we could increase the number of FOTOBUCHs now to 6.1 million, and this is important. It's a +0.9%. You know, we could do better. Yes, it's going to be a priority as well for this year to increase in terms of volumes. What is good, that in terms of value in the FOTOBUCH, we increased by 8% in turnover. All this, you know, leads us to the number one.
The number one is a position we have, we hold today in Europe and, it's one thing to hold it's another thing to continue to build it and to extend it and to stay it. There it needs more than the smile of the consumer. It needs the clear strategy, and it needs clear priorities. These priorities we have set beginning of last year, and that means developing strong and differentiated brands, drive international growth with a focus on Europe, each of the regions driving their special role, 'cause we are not yet in each country or in each region, number one, so there is potential. Develop continuous product and technology innovation. Some of them I shared, and there's more in the pipeline. Develop B2C as a focus, and for CEWE, it's the combination of B2B and B2C alongside with our partners.
Out of this, at CEWE, combination B2B and B2C, there are new opportunities coming up, which we put as a strategic priority, which is omni-channel. We drive across all channels. That means whether it's mobile, whether it's the software, whether it's the photo station, each of them we develop, we continue to develop. The biggest acceleration potential we see in mobile. In retail, we turn more and more towards the direction that the retail, in the reporting you see it as the hardware retail. We turn the retail more and more into photo finishing, you know, visit cards, flagship stores where a consumer can experience the full assortment and the brand. In operations, there are a lot of things behind the curtains.
You have seen that we invest and continue to invest in technology, in sites, but as well, there are things like customer service and things which we structure newly. All this, you know, behind these strategic priorities, there are business plans and projects to trigger and to fulfill. Two of them I thought could be interesting for you to make a deeper dive. Let's talk about omni-channel. Omni-channel is a word which is in the consumer industry everywhere. The question was for us, you know, we have a lot of things. We have different sales channels, we have different channels, ordering channels as well. The question is, what can we do out of the combination?
We defined a clear approach how we want to use it and what does it mean for the consumer, 'cause the consumer stays at the center of our dedication. We can see that we want to enable the consumer to create and experience photo products and turning into photo products seamlessly whenever and wherever. Today we have, you know, elements and we are combining these elements, and there are a lot of things what you can touch. Important is to focus. Two things we see a special potential is, like, how to win the consumers which are using our photo stations today for our family. There, you know, we have far more than 20,000 photo stations around.
On all these photo stations, when you go along and you go along our trade partners, you see there are young consumers printing. They have an interest for print, this is a good start. Most of them we don't know. Our idea is identify, authenticate, welcome, and inspire. This is a way of consumer centricity, but as well, being analysts, it's important because it will as well realize in lower costs for consumer recruit. If you look the other way around, you know, there are a lot of things what consumers can do. They can start with, for instance, starting a project on mobile, then they can continue it in the software. This as well is omni-channel.
Here we would focus on saying our first focus is how we can trigger from our mobile phone and serve the different channels. Can I prepare all my printings at home on the mobile phone, and then I go to the store and just print? I am more efficient as a consumer. I have a better connection and as well the idea with omni-channel is as well that the consumer stays in the family and has more contact throughout the year with our brands and our services. Yes, you know, if you think this idea further, there are a lot of potential behind using it as in German I would say Schaltzentrale. You may find a nice English word for that one. If you trigger everything from your mobile.
For this there are a lot of things needed behind as well because, and we are on it, you know that you have the same way of navigating, the same appearance across the different channels. You find as well that you can authenticate, you know, with a customer ID for instance, that you can as well having deep links in between. There is a whole technological side behind it, but with a huge potential. A second thing where we would like to give an update is on AI, which triggers the innovation part, the number two. On AI we were talking already and we were presenting the approach we are thinking of for CEWE. Today, I think all of us know that it's something which is going to stay.
It's not just a hype. It will change, it will change our lives, but as well it will change our approach and it will in fact impact the whole value chain of CEWE. Not only the whole value chain, but as well it will create news for the three stakeholder groups. We identified for us important AI as a co-creator for the consumer, AI as a co-worker for our employees, and AI as a co-pilot for our company. You know, there are a lot of things going on. I brought a couple of examples which we are happy to share and to inspire. As a co-creator, what does it mean? Imagine yourself, you want to create something, you want to create a photo product.
You might think all of the time, you know, that you can save some time in order with AI, which if AI is doing it for you. Time is one dimension, but some people really want to invest a lot of time because it's part of their gift. You know, it's like, "I invested this time for you, and this makes this gift special." What AI will help on all for these different target groups is in fact, it can be time, but as well as creativity. Everyone, whether talented or less talented, can make a real good photo book, a real good CEWE Photo Book, and this is the idea behind the co-creation.
There are things like, you know, first of all finding your way throughout your thousands of pictures you have on your mobile phone, detecting the events, clustering the images, putting them into smart layouts, what we have seen as well partially in the mobile editor, and then of course the aesthetics around it. If you think further of this one, you know, detecting the events, having it detected, then the software can as well offer, like here for Pixum, on these occasions, special edit elements. It can be pictograms, it can be text or b ackground removal.
We have talked about PassPhoto, one of the technology behind PassPhoto is, you know, if you do the picture in front of a wooden wall, that the technology has to remove the background that you can hand in your PassPhoto at the end. This you can use for a lot of other things, it's an interesting technology for us. Upscaling the high-resolution images, that means when you send your pictures around in WhatsApp, you want afterwards to make a nice photo book or a wall art, it's important that you have a good quality of the pictures. AI is helping us to increase and improve the resolution. There are more things behind.
You know, if you think of the interface, we talked about mobile, we talked about the different order channels. If you think further on the interfaces and simplification and as your co-creator, then you can imagine as well you don't even have to open something, you just tell or you just write what you want to have. You know, with all the large language models which we are used to work with now, the way is not far to this one. Of course these are interesting things that you can afterwards think of to improve further. These are studying projects we are on. Looking at the co-worker. AI as a co-worker. What can we think of that one? We talked about innovation, and this is the picture of the innovation days of this year.
On these innovation days there is AI, a core focus, where we exchange and where we create, but as well challenge new ideas. This is only one thing because there is a lot of more things going on throughout the company. You have the whole crowd, you have MAIC, the Mobile Artificial Intelligence Campus as a research. They are really on artificial intelligence researching. You have the corporations with externals. We lifted up the topic onto a group level. That means here we have identified and created an expert group of AI, where you have representatives of HR, of finance, of all the business departments, production of course, and they are exchanging on these platforms, triggering elements that everyone can contribute and that we get fast.
This is one thing which is the mindset, because we want to create this AI momentum to embark with everyone. If you want to embark with everyone, that means as well we have to train them. Here we work on-. This is already live. We make, for instance, an example, AI training with AI. We have created. This is the head of Mike.
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... created his avatar, and, you know, that makes us, it makes it simple for us to go throughout the group with this type of trainings to translate in different languages and make it accessible for everyone. I have my own avatar as well. It's great, but sometimes frightening as well. If he's getting, you know, a bit into the wrong direction. As well, it was somehow frightening in a way how quick, you know, you invest 15 minutes and afterwards you have an avatar, which is pretty close to yourself, where you think, you know, the opportunity but as well the risks we have to think of. Here, of course, this is something for internal use, where we use these avatars for our employees, and it's very much appreciated.
Another idea is as well on customer service. You know, the idea of co-worker is to liberate our people from routine tasks. If you take the example of customer service, all the questions which are coming like, "When is my delivery arriving?" This we can, in fact, solve already automatically with a preempted text. Let's look at the third stakeholder.
Here we start as well with something which is important for us. We have developed and we are live as last year with a CEWE GPT, and this is the idea behind as well to embark with everyone and to allow people in a safe environment to test and learn with AI. There is large language models behind. You can as well test the new ones like DeepSeek and things. You know, there's a choice, a selection where people can train. The first step is, of course, that using the large language models for research and things, we are now on further steps where we integrate internal software, internal systems that the search is as well making sense for internal works.
An example here, a precise example, you know, example of Pixum, where you have guidebooks, where you have things available, don't have to search anymore throughout the different systems, but you can target it directly. On a corporate level as well, we look into production. We are a production company and here one of the things we see is that quality control can be eased with AI. Here, an example of the calendar production. You know, if you think of the high season, peak in December, and you have to check that all the, I don't know, all the things are standing in the right way, it is quite challenging. Here we can have some ease detecting this with AI.
In another world as well, there's as well an idea where we are testing on the mobile case production. Dust is a very important thing in terms of the quality. We can check with AI, is it dust-free that we can print on it in a good way and with a good quality. There are a couple of examples which should show that, you know, we are on it. We are driving it, and we brought it to the next experts we have for development to a higher level. So far to Photo finishing, and let's come to the next category, to the Commercial Online Print. For the Commercial Online Print, we are having our three prints covered with the lion's share for SAXOPRINT.
We have as well here defined our clear strategic priorities, best price strategy, expand our production portfolio, which we had done in last year with the large format printing, which is promising, you know, better margins, but as well is fitting to our assortment, and then potentialize the synergies between Photo Finishing and Commercial Online Print. In terms of results, the year for Commercial Online Print was more challenging. The market is more challenging as well, if we can say so. The macroeconomics hit here harder. If the companies have to save, as well they save on printing products, and the printing market itself is declining as well.
We are focusing on the Commercial Online Print. We worked against this trend with a - 2.4% in turnover. We could deliver clearly a positive result with EUR 3.4 million on this EUR 90 million, which, you know, is much better. We have worked a lot on efficiency throughout the last years, if you remember as well throughout Corona. You see there are all the efficiencies in place today. We could deliver the EUR 3.4 million. It is clearly behind last year's profit. Some of you might have seen the analytical data as well. Q4 looked challenging for Commercial Online Print. This is a correction.
In fact, we have discovered something in Q4 in terms of turnover reporting, which we then corrected in Q4. It is an effect which is normally for the whole year. That is why we look on the whole year. The third segment, retail. This is the retail segment where we look at hardware, so cameras, photo albums, everything which has nothing to do with photo finishing directly. On retail, we have retail in three countries, stable at around 100 stores. There are some opening, but some closing. It's important for us to have the right network to attack. We go more and more towards photo finishing, and the photo finishing numbers are not reported in this part.
They are included in the Photo F inishing, which we have seen before. In Photo finishing, in retail, I'm sorry, we are - EUR 1.5 million. We are more or less here on plan because the hardware business is estimated to go further down. Important for us that we use it as a platform for Photo finishing, and we hold it profitable that it's contributing. That means, with the EUR 0.7 million we are satisfied. In terms of other, this has changed versus last year, because we have, you know, we have no turnover anymore on others. It's focusing on the costs.
Here the costs were higher in terms. This is mainly due to the rental income decrease we had because some of the sites as well we used ourself with the expansion of Commercial Online Print. If you sum up this to the group results, you can see in terms of total turnover, you know, the lion's share is photo finishing, growing and driving the whole group contribution from retail and Commercial Online Print, as well to this EUR 832.8 million. In terms of EBIT, we had, you know, the picture becomes even clearer. Photo finishing as well is the EBIT driver and the EBIT generator, which is in fact needed for our investment and for our future setup.
Important for us is that the year 2024 continued on the growth range. It's another year which is adding to the line of increases. Here you see as well the EUR 832.8 million. We had targeted EUR 820 million in turnover. We are clearly overachieved here. As well it's important that this growth is profitable. That means as well that the profit line is increasing continuously. This last year, up to EUR 86.1 million. We put together one chart for you in terms of the targets we had set ourself, this is good that we can say that we have achieved all of them. Of course, you know, there are the number of photos, photo books, investments, other things what we have discussed before.
This is the overview of everything. What is important as well is that the growth is driven by a wide base. You know, it's not one business which is especially or one cluster, I would say, one business unit. It's driven by a wide base. This means as well it is sustainable, and this is important for us. More details, I'm happy to hand over to all the financials to Olaf.
Thank you very much, Yvonne. You have seen many financial details actually already now. You have seen many strategic details. You have seen many marketing details. There's even more financial details, and I'm happy to present them now to you. As a start, as always, we have a look into the P&L structure. To those people online, I'm pretty sure that you can't read what's on the screen right now. If you go to the website, I think there's a chance you can have a look at the details there, so. Sorry?
In a few hours it'll be online.
In a few hours. The details we have here are in the annual report to be followed there. Let's look the P&L first. Looking at the P&L, what we always do here is we explained the long-term trend that we have there, which means a structural trend in the sense of, since many years, in the sense of looking at less cost of materials and looking at more personal costs, personal expenses, and more other operating expenses. Because we have a change into more value-added product, which means we have more photo finishing, and even within photo finishing, we are moving away from the simple pictures into the more complex products, where we are buying less material, but we do more manually.
Our colleagues in production are actually creating the value. That's why there is a general trend in the P&L structure since more than 10 years already, and that is exactly what we are finding here as well. The only change we have this time is that, Yvonne was talking about that already, there is an increase in revenue by EUR 12.8 million due to the change to a commission-based model for one retail partner. This change in the revenue means we have the increase up to EUR 832.8 million revenue. Without that change, it would be obviously EUR 820 million, just flat EUR 820 million.
If you look at the structural change, it's sometimes important to look at, okay, what does it actually mean if you take out this change in the commission-based model, if you take out this out of the revenue, what does it mean for the percent of revenue structure for the P&L structure? I'm going to refer to that as we move along once in a while. Bear in mind, the EUR 832.8 million at the very top in revenue last year, if you remove the change, it's an EUR 820 million flat. Now from there, from revenue, which is obviously increased nicely, driven by photo finishing, EUR 52.5 million more photo finishing revenue, EUR 12.8 out of that due to the change.
Nevertheless, photo finishing has driven the revenue very nicely to a higher level again. If we move further down, increased decrease unfinished goods, basically no change really. Also other work, other own work capitalized and other operating income. If you look at percent of revenue, there's no change really. It's just growing a little bit with the general structure of the revenue, and it doesn't change if you reduce revenue due to EUR 820 million, there's no big change. The first thing in our long-term revenue structure, our long-term P&L structural change, is looking at the line cost of materials.
Bear in mind, generally, we tend to see it coming down in terms of less cost of materials, and this is exactly what you see here as well, because you see we are pretty much on the same level in terms of cost of materials. It used to be EUR 187.4 million last year, it is EUR 188 million this year. That is pretty much exactly the same number. The reason for that, although the revenue has been growing, the reason for that is that we have a move again into photo finishing.
Photo finishing is gaining more of a revenue, so we have more revenue in the business where we have the value creation, where we are creating the value ourself, where the cost is further down in personal expenses and operating expenses, not so much in material. This is exactly what you see here. You see in percent of revenue, you see actually a decrease here from 24% of revenue last year, 2023, to 22.6% of revenue in 2024. If you take out the EUR 12.8 million out of the revenue and calculate percent of revenue based on the revised revenue of EUR 820, it is again a 22.9%, so very, very close to the 22.6% we are seeing there. No big difference there.
Structural trend is still visible on the side of cost of materials. Cost of materials in terms of percent of revenue is still on the decrease because we are creating the value. The value is created on the, on the personal and on the operating expenses level, and that is exactly where we do see the increase here. The personal cost has been increased from EUR 218.9 million to EUR 236 million. There is things behind in the sense of, we have wage and salary adjustments. We have paid the inflation premium that was possible last year. We've had many new hires in our photo finishing segment in order to manage the business increase we have seen there.
That is the reason why the personal cost obviously needed to increase. Also in percent of revenue, although the revenue is increasing, yes, it increased, but not so drastically. It's from 28%, 28.1% last year, to 28.4% in the reporting year. It's a slight increase there. Even if we take out the revenue or the commission-based revenue driver and look at the EUR 820 million in revenue, it is not a 28.4%, but a 28.8%. Okay. Not a big deal. There, you see that we have a very stable trend. Personal expenses are increasing, but are increasing modestly in due to the structural change we are seeing there. That is personal expenses.
Moving on to the other operating expenses, also there same trend. You see the increase to EUR 299.2 million, and also there we have an increase in terms of percent of revenue here, from 34.1% to 35.9%. Here you might say, "Whoa, that is a big increase there, from 34.1% to 35.9%." This is due to the fact that this change is driven not only by the decreased revenue that we should look at, but with the other adjustment we have to make is that the increased revenue we are seeing due to the commission-based model is also driving an increase in other operating expenses. That's the reason why the change to commission-based model doesn't change the bottom line. Yes, with this retail partner, we are doing the revenue with the end consumers.
That is why we have a higher revenue. We are also paying the commission. In this line of the P&L, we are also paying the commission to the retail partner. That is why this cost, this item here, other operating expenses, is increased there. For that reason, if you take out this change out of the revenue, higher revenue, you decrease to EUR 820 million, and you also decrease the other operating expenses by this factor. The other operating expenses would not be at EUR 35.9 million, but EUR 34.9 million. It is compared to EUR 34.1 million, it is a very normal trend, a very operational development. We have seen there that the cost line of other operating expenses is increasing over time due to the structural change. CEWE is adding value by creating more value, by doing more value creation themselves.
The value is generated not by trading and buying material and sending it out, but the value is generated by buying material, simple material, not very developed material, and developing the value ourselves through the personnel and through the other operating expenses. That is the structural change, which is intact, which we are seeing here as well in terms of amortization. You can see a slight increase there from EUR 53.8 million to EUR 55.6 million. In percent of revenue, you can see there is not a big change. Quite frankly, this line also covers for the more than EUR 3 million impairment we have had due to DeinDesign. If you take out the EUR 3 million impairment we have seen there, then we would even see a slight decrease in terms of depreciation number.
Depreciation is more or less stable as we have seen it over time. Right. I think those were the details I wanted to highlight to you. Again, the trend is still valid that CEWE is generating more value, and you can actually follow this trend in the P&L structure. We have seen the increase of revenue increase by EUR 6.7 million. Let's have a look at what does it do to the balance sheet. On the balance sheet, we do see pretty much the same increase. The EUR 50.9 million in terms of more balance sheet length is actually an increase of 7.6%. It's pretty much in line what we are seeing on the revenue side.
Obviously, the very nice number we tend to have a look at is the equity ratio here on the right-hand top, and you can see that it was increased to 59.1%. Again, an increase from 58.4%. The balance sheet of CEWE is rock solid and remains that way. If you look at what has driven the increase of the balance sheet, quite frankly, the biggest share of the EUR 50 million we see as an increase there is in the cash position. The way to look at that, you know that we love this way to look at things in terms of management balance sheet. This is where you see on the left-hand side the increase of more than EUR 30 million in the cash position there.
That's the main driver of the balance sheet we have seen before. Also the only driver, if you wish that way, of the management balance sheet, because capital employed is just increasing by the EUR 30 million that you can actually envision in the cash position there. The two other positions, non-current assets and working capital actually counterbalance each other pretty much. The non-current assets are increasing by EUR 15 million. If you look at the box on top, we don't have to go through all that. The most important driver there is obviously the operating non-current assets, and that is mostly real estate project in our production. We need to enlarge production. Yvonne has shown the production in Koszalin to you.
She has shown the production in Freiburg to you, which obviously is non-current assets that can be seen there. The increase in non-current assets can be seen there. On the net working capital side, again, don't have to read through the box at the bottom here, but the most important number that explains the EUR 18 million is the trade payable that you can see down there. There's an EUR 15 million increase, the main driver of this is again, the investments. They were last year, end of last year, a large part of that was still visible in the payables, and that is why we can see the increase there. That's, in short, the capital employed side. On the right-hand side, capital invested.
Yes, the driver, luckily, is obviously the equity position that drives the balance sheet, the equity the capital invested by EUR 34.6 million. This is the development we want to see. This is the reason why we are looking at the nice equity ratio that we have been looking at. Moving to the cash flow, we on a first view, we could see, whoa, the cash flow from operating activities is stable only. You can see that it is EUR 131.9 million after pretty much the same number last year. We want to ask ourselves, what happened there?
If you look into the explanation box on the left-hand side, the number to look at is the second one from the bottom, the EUR 12.8 million higher tax payments we had to deliver last year. The reason was not the tax payments of last year so much, but the tax payments of the year before. Now, I hope this is the last time now we are mentioning Corona effect in our numbers because this large payment we had last year, where we got a very large number back from the tax authorities, was due to the fact that we had a very nice profit in the year 2020.
Our tax prepayments were increased for 2021 and 2022, but in 2023, they realized at the tax authorities, wow, we paid a little bit too much because the huge profit you had in 2020 due to the Corona effect, actually didn't go on like that, we understand. We pay it back to you, anything you have paid, that you didn't have to pay, which means we had a big back payment paid from the authorities in 2023. Now in 2024, we're actually comparing our tax payments against this big payment we had back from the tax authorities in 2023, and that is the reason why we paid a lot more in terms of taxes last year.
That is the big effect that all the other items, and you can see that all the other things were positive. Although we had more for profit and although we had more cash due to non-cash effects, although we had a positive effect in cash flow from operating networking capital, although we had the same from the other networking capital, and so on and so on, all this was just, in inverted commas, able to counterbalance the big tax repayment we had last year. That is the explanation why the operating cash flow from operating activities is just a little bit better than last year, but we still think it's a great cash flow driven that this is now a purely operational topic here.
Investment was a little bit more. Yvonne has shown the investment into real estate already. That was a big driver. Again, a driver is a similar effect like here on the left-hand side. Last year, we had a big payment from our investment into a VC, where we are investing, as you know, to learn things. Sometimes you earn money, although you really want to learn because the VC was one of the ones had invested into this LeanIX startup, where I'm sure as financial people you know that that was a major exit last year, maybe even the exit of the year, the year before in 2023.
We had EUR 5.4 million payment due to this investment, and that was in the reduction of the investment. That's why the investment of 2023 was so low and 2024 is now back to normal again. Again, they're also an effect of the year before. All in all, that leads to just on the first side, having a lower free cash flow this year than last year. If you look one level deeper and take out the one-off effects that we have already talked about now, you come to the conclusion that actually the cash flow of this year is a bit higher, the free cash flow a bit higher than last year.
In the interest of time, I don't do all, through all the details right now, but the point I wanted to make is, the numbers I just have shown to you are the one that are in italics here. Sorry, it was there. The EUR 82 million of last year and the EUR 73 million of this year. Actually if you do these changes of normalization, we had to reuse the free cash flow of that last year to EUR 69.7 million, and we have shown that number to you last year already. Now if we do the changes, we are up to EUR 86 million free cash flow if you adjust the two numbers.
That means also in terms of free cash flow, if you take off the one-offs, we see the increase that one would expect to see just looking at the operational numbers. Over time, that means that this adjusted free cash flow has moved up quite nicely. You know that, there's always a lot of one-offs in there, and that's why the numbers reported are the gray points you can see on this chart here. With the dotted line, you can see how many adjustments one has to make to somehow bring it to a normal number. If we look at the way these adjustments actually go, you can see that in the end of the day. There is a pretty high stability in the normalized free cash flow, and the general trend is nicely into the upward direction.
Moving to the ROCE point, you can imagine that obviously the EUR 86.1 million EBIT applied to the average capital employed of the last four quarters leads to a nice development here. We show a 18.3% of ROCE, which is a little bit lower than last year. If we look back and say, "Okay, the increase of the capital employed is only due to cash." If we take out only this cash increase, not taking out all the cash out of the balance sheet, but just taking out the EUR 30 million cash increase, this 18.3% becomes a 19.7%. Also there we can see ROCE is well on track, and CEWE is clearly generating value. The best is yet to come.
This is the chart I like most out of that. As it was communicated yesterday again, the supervisory board also followed the idea of having a dividend level of EUR 2.85 per dividend, that means we would have, if the AGM decides on that this way in June, a 16-year of increasing dividend, which is really a great track record for us to have. With this increase, would lead us to remain number two, if you rank all the 611 listed companies in Germany by how many years, one after the other, did they increase their dividend, with the 60 increases, we are number two in this ranking. Given that we increase again, we will stay there.
That is more financial details. Again, as I just said, the best is still yet to come because it's Yvonne.
Thank you, Olaf. My pleasure is to finish today with the outlook. First of all, we can say that in terms of strategy, we will follow the strategy we have defined. Even there are some personal changes. We are committed to this strategy. Clear as well is that the total market macroeconomics are not going to be easier than last year. Yes, there is still inflation. Yes, there is still cost increases. We might have a bit of backwind in terms of the travel industry. That people, the consumer treasures travel, and you read a lot of articles as well, where it's becoming the, you know, the cocooning, the escape from the everyday life that if people can afford something that they would like to escape.
When they escape, they make pictures, so we are a part of this escape again. This could be a bit of backwind for us. We feel well-equipped and we are confident as well to continue the story, the growth story in 2025. If you look at the plan, which is 2025 first on the revenue side, here we would like, we have achieved EUR 832.8 million. We would give out a new range in 2025 to EUR 865 million. Between EUR 835 million and EUR 865 million, that's the target range we are targeting for. The revenue will be projected from photo finishing. Photo finishing is supposed to continue its upwards trend.
In retail business, we actively continue actively to manage the hardware slightly down, as for the last couple of years. Commercial Online Print should achieve slight revenue growth in most markets. If you look at the EBIT, as well here, we would like to continue the trajectory of growth. We had achieved EUR 86.1 million, and the new range is going to be between EUR 84 million and EUR 92 million. The ones of us who know us know as well that we target the upper end of the range and the lower end of the ranges we have given. If there is like things we cannot influence, COVID was mentioned again, which was a positive for us, but, you know, which are macroeconomic things we cannot influence. That is the bottom line for it.
If you look in the EBIT, that means as well EUR 84 million-EUR 92 million, means an EBT between EUR 83.5 million and EUR 91.5 million, and after tax, EUR 58 million-EUR 63 million. It's clear that we follow the strategy and that the strategy has, you know, is as well going to be completed and further developed in 2025. What we have not yet talked about is the outer ring, you know, because all these things, first of all, the results of 2024, but as well the commitment for 2025, for this we have a team and we can be very proud of the team who delivered on the 2024.
You know, with the full commitment, the passion, the drive and, you know, when you go through the Christmas production site where you feel like in the middle of the Christmas dreams because there are the calendars filled and the things are there in order to be in time under the Christmas tree, you see the dedication which is there and this we can really proud of and there as well a huge thank you to my team for this achievement in 2024. As well they are the driver for 2025 and the driver for 2025 means they are committed. We have one team.
We have as well created the CEWE Group which means as well that, you know, all the teams, the business units grow more together, exchanging and supporting each other and as well to be prepared for the next level, for the growth mindset we have, you know, talked about the midterm target of the EUR 1 billion. You will need as well a team which is committed but as well a team which is going into the same direction across the group and following the same values and that is why I wanted to talk as well to conclude with my presentation today about our values and about our cultural mindset and this cultural mindset is very important especially as well in changing times because for the people it gives something to rely on.
It's like, you know, when they ask, when you get asked the questions, "How is it to work for CEWE?" That we can create together. There's as well some aspiration in it because not all of these elements are true for us today. It's an aspiration where we want to be and where we think with this aspiration it can carry us alongside to the business. Let's have a look. You know, in terms of cultural mindset, what we put for you might think it's for the people. Some of you might even say, you know, it's marketing, but it's more than this because it has as well a business relevancy.
Business relevancy for us because, you know, if you think about the employer brand, the place to be to recruit new people which is more and more challenging but as well to retain the best talents within our group. At the end if we have a common mindset, if we have a certain approach how we deal with each other our consumer will notice this as well and, you know, happy consumer we can only achieve as well by happy teams. Let's have a look. We put together for you the cultural mindset. Have a look what is behind it.
Corporate culture is based on shared values, norms and attitudes that shape the company's collective identity. That's why we created something that reflects the essence of the CEWE Group. This is the We in CEWE, guides our passion and inspires us to achieve excellence because together we are more than the sum of our parts. This is our cultural mindset. This is the We in CEWE.
With this together we are more than the part for each of us. This is the approach of the group and it's very important because it was developed bottom up. It took two years bottom up and as well embedded with into our strategy. That is why we feel confident going forward. We have it rolled out. We have implemented in 2024 and 2025 the focus is going to be to make everyone, you know, live it and discover, live it, fill it with values and what is about cultural mindset it's not something what we give to our employees but everyone has to fill it themself as well and will contribute and that is why we think there is two approaches.
There is the approach from the company but there is as well an individual approach. We call it internally as well the We in CEWE and the We Me. What can everyone contribute to achieve this aspiration? There you see the seven cultural elements out of which the cultural mindset consists. Let me give. You know, we have talked about innovation, we have talked about a lot of things, customer focus. Let me give you two examples to fill it a bit with life. One example could be that we talk about team and collaboration.
That means the across brand collaboration, the together the development of new ideas and new things across brands, which is behind the curtains, which we trigger. There is the entrepreneurship and ownership, which is very important for us, that everyone feels that he's able to contribute, but as well able to drive and being in a driving seat. We have in our company a history out of this. You know, we have as well acquisitions with entrepreneurs which are still in the company today. You know, we came out of an entrepreneurial spirit in the past, and this spirit is something which we would like to treasure as well in the future, that everyone feels, like, in the driving seat.
At the end, all of this, you know, it has the impact of where we say we see a business value in it, we see an emotional and personal value in it, and we see as well a value for our consumer. Happy teams will be able to make consumer happy as well. With this, I would like to close and thank for your attention today, for your visit or online. We would then hand over and going into the Q&A session. Thanks a lot.
Exactly. Thank you very much, Yvonne. As Yvonne just mentioned, we are open for the Q&A session, and big change this time. Actually, there is two changes. One change is, we are keeping the online broadcasting open. For all of you online, we will keep it open this time, and you will attend the Q&A as well. You will be able to attend the Q&A as well. The second point, you are even able to ask questions through the chat, I was told. I see a nodding yes, and apparently it seems to work, so we are able to take questions there as well through the chat. Anyway, let's look into the room first, and are there any questions from your side? Please, yes.
Firstly, congrats. Once again, congrats on the impressing figures, especially in these times. I've got three questions. First, comparing to the Photo Finishing business, could you probably tell us how much of the growth results from price effects and how much results from volume effects?
Shall I go on? Yeah, I can answer to that one.
We have seen that in terms of the volume impact is lower, the CEWE PHOTOBOOK + 0.9% on the total year. It is a valorization. Part of this valorization is the premiumization that people buy more pages, thicker CEWE PHOTOBOOKs, for instance. More premium CEWE PHOTOBOOKs with embossing, with extra services behind. There is as well price increase in it, which was slow, I would say, depending on product category between 2% and 3%.
Okay. A quick housekeeping point. One point, I should repeat the questions first, this first point, so sorry to those online. Second point, a quick question to the online people, if you can't hear Yvonne answering the question, please.
Better stand there, yeah.
The answer seems to be there already. Yvonne, please join me. Here's the microphone, so we have a chance to listen to you. Okay. Please, second one.
Second one, referring to the Commercial Online Print business, you told us that you're expecting slight growth for the current year. What are your expectations regarding profit view, profit capability? Sorry for the image.
Third one?
The third one. Well, I know you don't like it. The figures for Q1 will be published in the middle of May. Could you probably give us a line, a little impression about the development in 2024?
Okay. The last one I can answer easily and quickly. Let me pick it first, which is, yes, exactly as you alluded already, we can't talk about that right now. Even though it's a bigger group here right now, and there's a bigger group online as well, but nevertheless, it's not the public, and that's why all we can say is, the sun is shining, people are taking pictures, people are ordering photos, and things are going into the right direction. That's the quick answer to your third question. On .....
Repeat the question.
Sorry. The question was, what we can say about the current trading, how that is looking like. Thanks again . The second question was, what does Commercial Online Print look like in terms of growth this year and results?
It won't be an easy cake as well for this year to grow Commercial Online Print in the environment. We are confident that we are able to do it, and if we grow, it should be in a profitable way. Continuing our, you know, efficiency efforts behind the scenes, and this is the target.
Thank you.
Perfect. Other questions? Pablo.
Yes . Good morning. Two questions from my side. The first one is on DeinDesign. Maybe you can give there some more detail. If I understand it correctly, it's mainly a result of margin pressure coming from competition that you're that trigger these impairment. Is it still an interesting business for you? Or do you have some restructuring work there? What is the future of DeinDesign?
My second question is regarding the Net Promoter Score. You started the presentation. Is it a number for the overall brand group in photo finishing? Is it just for CEWE? Is it just for CEWE in Germany?
Probably you also, as it is important KPI, you also take that Promoter Score for CEWE and for Pixum and then so maybe there's a difference between the brands you can highlight here, and then what is your, what is your reading from this development?
The first question was regarding DeinDesign, our mobile case manufacturing function, company. What's the details behind development we have seen there last year? What were the drivers of this development, and what is the future? What could the future look like?
Okay. For DeinDesign, what we are facing here is that the market is flooded with Asian product and design cases. In terms of, I would say, prices, consumer prices, it became a challenging market. For us it's still a huge segment, we have to say. As well strategically it's quite interesting because, you know, we talked about the role of the mobile phone, which is your camera, which is your companion you have always in your pocket. Strategically as well it's for us interesting to be part of this device and being there. What we see...
In fact it's an important category, which faces some changes and that is why we have adjusted our, I would say our evaluation of the segment and with the impairment. We are working on further concepts on valorization. How can the consumer perceive the added value we can give? There is like a added value in terms of, I would say, this design and printing, which is our specialty. As well added value in terms of communication and the protection of the cases. It's a marketing and production idea behind which we are working on.
All right. The second question was about the Net Promoter Score. What is the definition behind? Obviously you could. We are measuring it by in very great detail. If you don't have the exact definition of this number here, I think. What we can be looking at here is at least the biggest part of the business. I can't define it very exactly, but it should be the biggest part of the business. In that sense, it's anything with under the brand of CEWE.
In photo finishing, yes. A brand of CEWE in there. What we do though, actually, use it for very operationally, and that is what you are alluding to, is that we are measuring the Net Promoter Score really in great detail for each retail partner and for each product. We can see there's deviations that are become visible in a Net Promoter Score, and these developments are very important for us to look at the operational details. What could be the drivers for the positive or sometimes negative development is here? Is there something we can learn from? Is there something we need to fix? Net Promoter Score is very important for us.
It's not just a number. It's in fact like triggers a whole process. Cowork with customer service to identify logistics and all the chain, the value chain we can read and influence with this way.
Yeah. Exactly. Thank you. Any further questions? Christian is raising the hand because there's something in the chat.
I have two online questions.
Yeah.
Oh.
No, no, it's fine. It's fine. Go ahead.
First question is sort of answered already. Refers to the top-line margin in Q4 decreasing from 25% in last year to 23% in 2024. I think the answer goes back to what you just talked about with DeinDesign, right? You know, the special effects of DeinDesign in Q4. I mean.
In top line?
Oh, no. It's just margin, sorry. Bottom line.
Okay.
The margin in photo finishing in Q4 decreased to 23%, from 25%.
Yeah
... last year to 2023 for this year.
Yeah. That's why what you were just alluding to is the right driver there. Yeah.
Yeah. The second question is about possible catalysts as CEWE is trading at a historical discount. What are your options regarding strategic M&A, a possible sale of partial online printing or even a larger part of the business?
I think the first question you answered yourself. We put a check mark there. Thank you very much. If we didn't make it clear, the answer was DeinDesign, this, that, Christian gave. The second question about the share price discount, I would say, I mean, first of all, it's up to you in the room to explain the share price rise than to you online. Yeah, that's point one.
Point two is the discount, if you look at the share price in terms of even with the high dividend that we are paying this year, we have a dividend return that is 2.9% at the current share price, which is completely in the normal range for the companies we have in the SDAX or even in other indices. On the dividend return, there's no discount visible. If you look at the price-earnings ratio though, we are a little bit behind now, but the reason for that and reason for the discrepancy in these two is that our payout ratio is not huge.
That's the very simple calculation for the development we have there, just mathematics-wise, in terms of how we can use, and that's more alluding to the strength we have, certainly in the balance sheet, how we can use that for further growth. I mean there is, there's a whole effort in the company working on how we can put the money to work that we have on the balance sheet, and we have been talking about that in many discussions already. This process goes on and is going to be resolved.
Yes, we want to put the money to work that we have, and even with the money in the balance sheet and with the strength in the balance sheet that we have today, we yet have great growth in numbers and others. I think the company is in a very solid position to grow from there. You had one.
I have two questions.
Yeah.
First one, with the adoption of various AI technologies, how much increase to expect in terms of CapEx? I mean percentage.
We can understand Christian has hit in the age of Rockstack. Here we go. We got the first one, AI and the investment going forward.
Yeah. Second question is the capital investment in the hardware retail segment, justifying the revenue projections?
This one I did not get.
The capital is spent in the hardware segment of the retail. Shall I answer?
The first one, the AI spend, there has been a lot developed by the colleagues in the last years. You could see many of the of the steps that have been taken by the episodes that Yvonne was presenting, and that is just episodes of many, many things that are mushrooming there right now. AI is getting into being part of the normal work of what we do internally and what we want to offer to our consumers. That is really a great development. We can see there's traction right now. There's starting traction in terms of AI really happening. Has there ever been a special investment for that? No. We have always said that this is a normal development.
It's like, oh, the world has detected there's not only hammers but screwdrivers as well, so let's test with what to do with the screwdrivers. This is now next to the hammer and the screwdriver, we have AI. Those people, those engineers working with the tools have embraced AI and are now working with the AI thing. Maybe you would find a little more cost here and there, but so far it has been very much in the operation doing, which means buy less hammers and buy more AI. It was more or less flat. In the point of capital spend, so, how much capital is spent in the, in the hardware retail business and how is that evolving?
The important point about that is, as Yvonne also has said, it's hardware is what is done on those websites and in those 100 shops we have in Northern Europe, but not only hardware. There's also photo finishing sold. Reporting of photo finishing is in the Photo Finishing segment, not in the Hardware segment. The finishing we are seeing there actually in terms of revenue is more than the hardware revenue. That is the part we are really interested in. The hardware piece we are seeing separately. The investment always and it's certainly put into value by the photo finishing we're generating there. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Any question, please.
More questions online.
Online. Here we go.
I'm told you're going through those well, but otherwise they can't be heard.
Do you have a mic? Okay, sorry.
Posting the dividend does not bring down level of cash and this is the risk we choose. Can we expect the company to put that excess cash on the balance sheet in 2025, given that the investments needed for real machinery are mostly covered by new depreciation? That's question number one.
Yeah.
Can you summarize that? Do you want to take the question for the first?
I take the first one. Okay, first question is on the dividend that we gained this year, the EUR 2.85, summing up to close to EUR 20 million. Obviously, EUR 20 million is not reducing the cash on the balance sheet of EUR 150 million dramatically, but it's just an inverted prolong the dividend spend we have had in the last years increased a little bit. What is going to happen with the cash on the balance sheet?
That's why we question right now. Yes, as I just tried to explain, there is the willingness, and not only willingness, but the will o f the board, to help all people at CEWE put the money we have on balance sheet to work. Yes, the idea of things we want, and there have always been discussions here, and they're going on into be it M&A, be it other investments. These kind of discussions are continuing. Those we had so far mostly were closed without any decision or decision not to do it, if you want. Nevertheless, yes, we will put money to work, but there is the clear thinking of how do we this for strict terms. We are thinking with the perspective of shareholders, and the money somehow has to bring new business, has to develop the company in a way that it should develop.
I love that Warren Buffett is piling up $325 billion, what is the number right now? We are not even close to that. So far, please just think about how to put the money to work wisely.
There's a second question. It's longer, I'm gonna try to summarize it. Basically someone points out that post EBIT for 2025 is a relatively moderate increase, especially considering special write-offs. It was a market of 2.8%. What are the reasons for this small increase in profit, as far as the goals for 2025?
Okay.
Repeat the question?
Yeah. Yeah. The question is that the, that the EBIT increase of 2025 could be kind of moderate, and especially given that the EBIT we have this year, the EUR 86.1 million, obviously took the hit of the special depreciation we have been seeing for the DeinDesign case. Now the answer to that is these things like DeinDesign, a company of our size, they happen one or the other year or pretty much every year because if you have how many profit centers do we have? 28 or something. We're thinking also into not only segments, but the next level underneath. You always have some profit center where things are getting tough and where you have to work on. These things are something where we are not saying, "Oh, that's a one-off.
That will never happen again." We have to bear in mind that might as well happen again. That's one thing to think of. And if we take the growth as we can see it right now into consideration, I mean, we are looking just taking the upper end of the, of the ranges that Yvonne present. The upper range of the revenue remains the growth of 4% or 3.9%, if you're looking at that exactly. The upper range of the EBIT increase gives you a 6.9% EBIT increase. 4% in revenue, 6.9% in EBIT is a little bit increase. It's a solid increase we have there. I feel there's enough effort, there's enough will to increase the EBIT in the number we plan.
Included in this as well is, you know, the ability to premiumize further versus the quantity growth. To increase prices, we consider as more challenging as well in 2025. It has to be very smartly that we don't outprice ourselves out of the market.
Right. Any other questions?
What are the shares of Pixum and WhiteWall, turnover and the earnings through the entire division?
Yeah, yeah. The question is, sort of what the contributions made by Pixum and WhiteWall are to our group numbers. The simple answer is they are interesting in a positive sense. They are becoming significant. They are delivering good numbers. They are delivering strong profitabilities, but we are not disclosing the numbers by brands. I have to say, sorry for that, because we are the only listed company in this segment, the only bigger one. We know that all the competitors would love to read those numbers, that's the reason why we can't disclose them. Sorry for that. I know that would be interesting, we can't do it. Nevertheless, thumbs up for those brands absolutely into the right direction.
Any other questions?
Yes, the kitchen is entering the room.
I just want to. We can't see from here, but all of you have seen the reason why he just gave a thumb up into that direction there. The reason is that the kitchen was looking through the door saying that there is a lunch that has been prepared right now, and that is entering the room. Thank you.
Thank you very much to all of you. Do you wanna close it?
You go first.
I go first. Thank you very much to all of you for the interest in CEWE. Thank you very much, especially to you online. I hope that you could follow at least kind of. I hope the perspective was okay and the tone, the voices were also okay for you to follow this one. Thanks for your interest, and thanks for following CEWE, and stay tuned for the news we are delivering in May Q1.