Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the earnings call Q3 financial statement. I am Valentina, the Chorus Call operator. I would like to remind you that all participants will be in listen-only mode and the conference is being recorded. The presentation will be followed by a Q&A session. You can register for questions at any time by pressing star and one on your telephone. For operator assistance, please press star and zero. The conference must not be recorded for publication or broadcast. At this time, it's my pleasure to hand over to Stefanie Zimmermann. Please go ahead.
Thank you, operator. Hello everyone and a warm welcome. Thanks for joining our earnings call today to discuss the results for the third quarter and the first nine months 2025 with us. With me today are our CEO, Yves Padrines, and our CFO, Louise Öfverström. Today's conference call is being recorded. A replay of the call will be available at our website after the call. Additionally, you will find the quarterly report, the presentation, and the press release on our investor relations website as well. But now, let's get started. I would like to turn over to our CEO, Yves. Go ahead.
Thank you, Stefanie. Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to our Q3 and nine months 2025 earnings call. As usual, we have prepared a short slide deck that our Chief Financial Officer, Louise Öfverström, and I will briefly walk you through so that we have sufficient time for your questions afterwards. As usual, I would like to begin the presentation with our key messages on page number three. Q3 2025 was another very successful quarter for our company. Success, once again, highlights the resilience and strengths of our business model and strategy. Growth remained very strong, mainly driven by our two largest segments, Design and Build. The Build segment continued with its extremely strong development in the third quarter, even despite the expected moderation of growth due to the fading temporary transition effect, the subscription transition of Bluebeam, and the higher associated comparison base.
The design segment also delivered another very good quarter. In addition to a healthy underlying demand, the segment continued to benefit from very strong momentum in its subscription transition. Including an additional tailwind from multi-year contracts. As we communicated previously, these contracts are used strategically and only temporarily to accelerate the transition of existing maintenance customers to a subscription-based model, mainly at our Graphisoft brand. Reflecting on our performance over the first nine months of the year, we are proud of what we have achieved. Our main growth driver was once again the recurring portion of our business. In particular, the very strong increase in subscription and SaaS revenues, which is clearly reflected across all our key performance indicators.
When looking at the development of our EBITDA margin, it's important to keep in mind that the profitability in the first half of the year was impacted by an extraordinary non-operating effect in the low teens million euro range, resulting from the unexpected insolvency of a service and payment provider. The foundation for this strong operational performance is the continued progress we have made across our key strategic focus areas. Whether that is in AI. The successful transition to subscription and SaaS, or the ongoing internationalization of our business. These investments are not only paying off already today, they are also making sure the Nemetschek Group is able to show a high and profitable growth in the future. Lastly, as a result of the very strong development in the first nine months, we fully confirm our already increased guidance and outlook for the financial year 2025.
On page number four, you see how this key message translates into the development of our most important key financial indicators. In a nutshell, we continued the great momentum from the first half of the year also into the third quarter. The result, and in line with our key strategic priority, the transition to a subscription and SaaS-centric business model, or reported annual recurring revenue, recorded an increase of + 22%. If we adjust for the strong FX headwind we had in the third quarter, mainly stemmed from the weaker U.S. dollar, our ARR even increased by + 26.4%. Thanks to this substantial growth in our recurring revenue base, we were able to strongly increase our revenue in Q3 by + 15.8% on a reported basis, and even by + 20% on an FX-adjusted basis.
We also delivered a compromised increase in profitability, + 25% on a reported and + 34% on an FX-adjusted basis. The EBITDA growth clearly outpaced our revenue growth in the third quarter. The corresponding EBITDA margin reached a high, 32.5%. Despite the ongoing transition to subscription and SaaS model in the Design segment. Last but not least, our earnings per share for the quarter increased by a very strong + 40.7%. Despite the acquisition-related effects of GoCanvas. Coming to page number five. Before I hand over to Louise, who will provide a deeper dive into our financial result, I would like to take a moment to address what is currently one of, if not the most important topic for us. I'm, of course, talking about the rapid evolution of artificial intelligence. Let me state this very clearly upfront.
At the Nemetschek Group, we are deeply convinced that AI represents a tremendous opportunity for us as a vertical software company. That is deeply embedded in the processes and workflows of our customers. We have, as you know, over 7 million users of our different portfolios of products across the globe. There's many data. Of course, artificial intelligence also plays a key role in optimizing our internal operations. For example, in software development services and support. However, today I want to focus on the three main levers through which we are continuously enhancing and expanding our product portfolio with AI-driven functionality to capture this huge opportunity. Starting with our R&D and product development activities in-house, the Nemetschek Group has been working with and developing AI technologies for several years already. However, over the past year, we have clearly doubled down and significantly increased our investment in AI.
To further accelerate our pace of innovation. Our deep domain expertise and close customer relationship enable us to develop cutting-edge AI products and features. At the same time, it is equally important to us that all AI activities are grounded in ethical and worthwhile principles that place the human, our customers, our fans at the center. We are here to help them to become an augmented architect, an augmented engineer, and augmented program managers. As a result, we have already introduced several truly value-adding AI features across all our segments over the past quarters. In our Design segment, for example, we launched new features such as the AI Visualizer and our groundbreaking [gentic] Nemetschek AI Assistant, one of the first of its kind in our industry. Also, across all other segments, we are making strong progress. For example, in the Build segment.
Recently announced Bluebeam Max Unbound, where we had over 1,200 Bluebeam fans in Washington, DC. Bluebeam Max is combining the AI developments from Bluebeam with the innovative technology of our latest acquisition, Firmus AI. Integration of Firmus AI's AI-based platform into Bluebeam's PDF workflows enables early risk detection during pre-construction design reviews, increasing efficiency and helping to minimize costly rework. In addition to our strong internal R&D capabilities, we are also accelerating our AI roadmap through targeted M&A and venture investments. The already mentioned Firmus AI acquisition, along with Manufacton, are strong examples of how we are using technology-driven M&A to further strengthen our position in AI-driven innovation and to complement our portfolio with leading-edge capabilities. To our venture approach, we are also investing in highly innovative and potentially disruptive startups, for example, Handoff, Reconstruct, or Document Crunch, and many more, as you know.
These investments give us early access to emerging technologies and also help foster a broader innovation ecosystem around the Nemetschek . Our ambitious AI roadmap is further strengthened with strategic partnerships, both on the commercial and also the academic sides. On the commercial side, for example, we are partnering with Google Cloud to further enhance Nemetschek's position as an AI-first industry leader and to create a strong platform for continued market expansion. On the academic side, we have already been collaborating for many years with the Georg Nemetschek Institute for Artificial Intelligence for the Built World, the Technical University of Munich, TUM. We are very pleased that we announced recently, in addition, we have signed a strong partnership with prestigious universities such as Stanford University in the U.S. and also with NTU in Singapore.
The goal of these partnerships is to jointly advance R&D and innovation in the field of AI and to strengthen knowledge transfer between research and practice, thereby also helping to define international standards for our industry. You see, a lot has already happened, and this is just the beginning. We will continue to use all available levers to position the Nemetschek Group to benefit maximally from this major opportunity. With that, I will now hand it over to Louise.
Thank you, Yves. A warm welcome to our earnings call for the third quarter, as well as for the first nine months of the financial year 2025 from my side as well. Yves has already briefly touched on some of our key financial figures. I would therefore now like to look in more detail at the most important financial aspects of our Q3 and nine months results, as well as at the underlying drivers. As usual, we will begin with an overview of the key financial highlights of the first nine months of our financial year 2025 on page number seven. I would really like to underline Yves' assessment that we had a very successful first three quarters of this year with continued strong and profitable growth.
This is especially encouraging and mentionable, given our ongoing transition to a subscription and SaaS-centric business model in the Design segment and the associated short-term accounting burden on our financial results of this during the transition. Let me start with our accumulated revenue for the period from January to September, which grew by 22.9% on a reported and even 25% on an FX-adjusted basis to EUR 866 million. Apart from the inorganic contribution from our GoCanvas acquisition in the first half of the year, the recurring part of our business once again proved to be the main growth driver. This clearly demonstrates the strong progress we are making in executing our strategic roadmap towards a subscription and SaaS-based business model. Consequently, the revenues in this category increased by an impressive 61.3% to EUR 614.7 million. Our reported EBITDA increased by 28.4% to EUR 264.3 million.
That is corresponding to a reported EBITDA margin of 30.5%. Please allow me to emphasize here that if we adjust for the extraordinary non-operating effect due to the unexpected insolvency of a payment and service provider from the first half of the year, the underlying profitability would have been at a high 31.8%. On the right-hand side of this slide, you can also see our strong cash generation with a high cash generation of 111%. As well as the continued very high quality of our balance sheet. If we turn to the next slide, page number eight, you'll find an overview of the development of our four segments in the first nine months of 2025. Let me start with our Design segment, which primarily serves architectural and engineering customers throughout the globe. In Q3, the segment continues its strong growth momentum from the first half of the year.
This is driven by a very strong increase in the segment's subscription and SaaS revenues due to the continued successful ramp-up of the subscription transition at our Graphisoft brand. In addition to this, growth was also partly supported by three-year contracts, though at a slightly lower level compared to recent quarters. These contracts are being used strategically and only temporarily to accelerate the migration of existing maintenance customers to a subscription-based model, mainly at our Graphisoft brand. For the first nine months of the year, revenues accumulated to EUR 389.3 million, a plus of 13.1% year-on-year. The reported EBITDA margin of 27.5% remained stable year-over-year despite the associated short-term accounting-related dampening effects of the subscription transition and the extraordinary non-operating effect from the insolvency of the service and payment provider in the first quarter.
When adjusting for the extraordinary service and payment provider effect only, the underlying EBITDA margin would have been above the prior year level despite the ongoing transition to subscription. Let's continue with the development of our Build segment, which once again delivered a stellar performance in the third quarter. This was driven by sustained strong customer demand, particularly at Bluebeam. In addition to this, GoCanvas, which has now been fully consolidated into our Build segment since Q3 2024, continued to deliver as planned. As expected, we saw slight moderation in growth, reflecting the fading temporary elevated effect after Bluebeam's successful subscription transition and the resulting higher comparison base. After the first nine months of the year, reported growth stands at 47.2%. Adjusting for the quite strong FX headwind in the third quarter that stems from the weaker U.S. dollar, growth even reached 51.1% on a constant currency basis.
Their EBITDA margin on the reported level came in at a strong 35.7%. This is an increase of around 350 basis points year-on-year. Despite the dilutive effect of the GoCanvas acquisition, as well as our continued investments to support the future growth of this highly dynamic segment, amongst others, as Yves said, the acquisition of the Firmus AI. Let's move on to our Manage segment, which recorded only a modest growth in the first half of the year. Now we saw a clear re-acceleration of growth momentum in the third quarter with a plus of 7.3%. Growth in Q3 was driven by a positive momentum in new large customer orders and is clearly an effect of the measures taken to refocus and re-strengthen this segment. Year-to-date, the cumulative growth now stands at 3%. Importantly, despite continued investments into this segment's product portfolio and future growth opportunities, the margin expanded significantly.
To 10.5%, up from just 7.3% in the prior year. Last but not least, our Media segment, which continued to be impacted by mixed market dynamics, particularly in the important U.S. market, including somewhat cautious customer spending in some areas. The segment is also still feeling the effects of the missing subscription sales in the first half of the year following the insolvency of a payment and service provider, as we alluded to earlier in this year as well. In total, revenue in the Media segment therefore increased only moderately by 1.3% to EUR 89.8 million during the first nine months of the year. However, when adjusting for the special one-off effect of the service and payment provider, the revenue growth in the first nine months would have been in the mid to higher single-digit percentage range.
Thanks to very good cost control in addition, the margin in the third quarter remained at a very high level of 37% and in line with last year. However, due to the extraordinary non-operating effect in the first half, the reported EBITDA margin after nine months remains below the prior year level at 31.1%. Without this extraordinary non-operating effect in the first half, the EBITDA margin would have been at the prior year level. Let's turn to slide nine that comprehensively summarizes the financial results of one of our key strategic priorities, which is, of course, the transition to a subscription and SaaS-centric business model. I already alluded to the fact that our recurring revenues were once again the main growth driver in the first nine months of 2025.
That is really confirming the good progress of the transition we see from a license-based model to a fully recurring and therefore subscription-based model. As you can see on the right-hand side, this exceptional development continued also in the third quarter with an ARR growth of 26.4% and a subscription and SaaS growth of 46.4% on a currency-adjusted basis. Therefore, and fully in line with our strategy, license revenues declined by 38% year-over-year in Q3, and that is reflecting the continued shift from perpetual licenses to subscription models. As expected, this more volatile and less predictable revenue stream now accounts only for approximately 5% of our group revenues. When looking at the longer-term picture at the left-hand slide of the slide here, you can clearly see the speed and the scale of our progress in building up our recurring revenue base.
Over the last four years, we have seen an almost seven-fold increase in subscription and SaaS revenues, representing an impressive CAGR of over 60%. As a result, the recurring revenues now represent 92% of total revenues. This is a new record high for the Nemetschek Group after the first nine months of the year. To conclude our review of the results for the first nine months of 2025, we provide a more comprehensive overview, as you're used to, of our key P&L and cash flow items on page number 10.
As we have already discussed during the H1 call, the effects from the GoCanvas acquisition and the insolvency of a payment and service provider were clearly visible in our reported results for the first half of this year, not only in our key KPIs such as revenue growth and the EBITDA margin, but also, of course, across the main OpEx categories. In the third quarter, there is no longer any bad debt impact from the service and payment provider insolvency, and the effect from the GoCanvas acquisition is now starting to normalize as we have fully consolidated the GoCanvas business for a year. That is, of course, resulting in a more comparable base. As a result, we're now seeing a clear normalization across our main OpEx categories in Q3. Let me start with the largest components of our overall cost base, which is the personnel cost.
We saw a reported year-on-year increase of 24% of this category in the first half of the year, and that was mainly driven by the GoCanvas addition and, of course, smaller effects, as we alluded to also in the H1 call, such as re-evaluation of stock appreciation rights, etc. As announced already in our last earnings call, we began to see a normalization in the growth rate of personnel cost in the third quarter with an increase of only around 10%. This underlying run rate, despite our continued high top-line growth, reflects our healthy operational leverage and our consistent focus on operational excellence, even as we continue to invest strongly in strategic and organizational resources for our future strong growth.
The non-operating effect was also the main reason behind the strong increase in other operating expenses in the first half of the year, which is clearly well above a normal level of our business. With the growth in the mid-teens only in Q3, the growth rate came down materially versus the first half. Without the aforementioned negative payment and service provider effect and on a more comparable base in terms of additional amortization charges related to the GoCanvas acquisition, as well as reduced inquest cost due to our very strong deleverage after the acquisition, our earnings per share grew clearly overproportionally in the third quarter by almost 41%. Our underlying cash flow generation in the third quarter was again very strong and additionally supported by favorable tax cash flows resulting from changes in the U.S. tax regime that eliminated the mandatory capitalization of development expenses for tax purposes.
Looking at the development over the last nine months of the first nine months of the year, the very strong increase of 44.5% in our free cash flow before M&A once again underlines the very high quality of our earnings. Finally, and thanks to our very strong operating performance, Nemetschek maintains a strong balance sheet with an equity ratio of 44.1% and a net debt to EBITDA ratio again below one time. This gives us the flexibility to both continue to deliver quickly but also to retain significant financial headroom for future M&A and continued investments in our business and into our innovative startups, etc. With that, I'd hand it back to you, Yves.
Thank you, Louise. To wrap up our presentation. Let's turn to page number 12 and to take a look at our outlook for the financial year 2025. As a result of the very strong foundation we have laid over the last three quarters, we continue to be very confident to again achieve all our financial targets for the current financial year. We therefore fully confirm our financial outlook for the year 2025, which we already increased with our Q2 reporting in July. In particular, that means that from today's perspective, the executive board expects a currency-adjusted revenue growth for the Nemetschek Group in a range between 20% and 22% for the year 2025, including an M&A-related revenue contribution from the acquisition of GoCanvas of around 400 basis points. We therefore also clearly are targeting the upper end of this range for 2025.
The EBITDA margin, including the dilution effect from GoCanvas, is expected to be around 31%. Reflecting, among other things, the extraordinary non-operating effect from the unexpected insolvency of a service and payment provider. Based on our very strong fundamentals, we expect to continue our very strong path with a very attractive strong growth at a high profitability this year as well, even despite last year's high comparison base and the ongoing subscription and SaaS transition of our business model. In the coming years, we are very confident to continue to deliver a very attractive average organic revenue growth in the mid-teens. With that said, I would like to thank you for your attention, and we are now ready to take your questions. So, operator, please, back to you.
We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on the touchstone telephone. You will hear a tone to confirm that you have entered the queue. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use only handsets while asking a question. Anyone who has a question may press star and one at this time. The first question comes from Nicolas David from ODDO BHF. Please go ahead.
Yes, good afternoon, Yves. Louise, thank you for taking my question. I have two. The first one is relating to the Media segment. Just trying to understand better the Q3 performance. Was it still impacted by the insolvency of your supplier, which is behind us, and now it's just a tough underlying market environment, which is affecting the business? What do you see for Q4, and do you have an action plan to revive the growth of this segment? Maybe more broadly, could you consider a strategic review for this asset, including maybe a disposal as it's not really 100% core business for you? My second question is regarding the U.S. construction sector, construction market.
As we see a deterioration of some leading indicators there, should we expect that it can affect your business and the Design segment in the U.S. in the coming quarters, or are you still very confident? Thank you.
Thank you, Nicolas. First of all, regarding Media, clearly, yes, Q3 had a tough recovery in the second half. The growth, as said, without the insolvency of the payment service provider, would have been year to date more in the higher single digits. Clearly, what we see in the market is that there is an ongoing mixed market dynamic in Q3 and also the last quarters, including cautious customer spending. What is very interesting is that the revenue that we are doing, our business, which is direct with larger customers or also with channel partners, we are in strong double-digit growth with this type of customers.
We are even close to mid-teens potentially in some area, especially outside the U.S. Where we have more issues is clearly with our tailwind of customers, which are coming from the web store. The revenue in Q3 is still impacted also by the missing subscription sales in the first two quarters of the year, and this will continue at least until the beginning of next year. With Maxon, for Media in Q4, we expect a slight recovery next quarter or this quarter. Clearly, we see more low double-digit growth next year. We should come back to double-digit or around low double-digit growth for Media next year. We are not planning any disposal for the moment of this business. Your second question regarding the U.S. construction market. Clearly, we do not see any slowness there in the market.
In fact, it is still very, very strong when you look at Q3, especially with our U.S. brands such as GoCanvas and Bluebeam, but also others. So far, in October, we do not see any deceleration for these businesses in the U.S., and they are still very good and strong growth.
All right, that's very clear. Just on the Media segment, no action plan specifically. You just believe that you are going to recover with the market, or do you want to put more focus on those large customers and vast distributors to mitigate the weaker part of the market?
We are clearly working more internationally, and we have very, very strong growth, for example, in Asia-Pacific, including in India, of course, coming from a lower base. Here, we're working mainly with distributors and channel partners internationally for Maxon. When I say internationally, it's more in high-growth region, especially in Asia. We have still very strong business with large customers, but also these larger customers are cautious, but we have a strong double-digit growth with them, as I said. What we have done also is that we have turned our dynamic in terms of digital lead generation. We are adding more resources and more expertise in our online marketing power, etc. Clearly, we see that overall in the media market, the customers are very cautious, and they are very cautious, especially on spendings overall.
I think maybe just in addition, of course, we also continuously, also in the Media segment, as you have seen, we have very strong products here in this segment, and of course, we are continuing to enhance our product offerings as well to the market and expanding that as well. I think that's also what you will also see is, of course, remain very attractive to the users in the market, and that will, of course, also as part of, of course, capturing that growth. That's also one of the reasons why Maxon is also our Media segment is growing in general, also with this extraordinary effect at a higher pace than the underlying market.
We launched, for example, some new AI features with, for example, Cinema 4D with an AI search. We are also now planning to launch in the coming weeks a new AI deep depth generation. We are also planning in the coming months to launch further AI compositing capabilities, especially on scene lightning and relighting, etc., etc. We have more and more AI features coming up on our current product line, we are also planning to launch a new iPad version for Cinema 4D. As you know, we launched an iPad version of ZBrush over a year ago. That was in September 2024, which has been a great success.
We even have more, even now more ZBrush iPad users than desktop iPad users, so very successful. In addition to all of that, as we mentioned already, we are going to do a commercial launch of a new rendering solution for architects based on Redshift Maxon solution, which is first deployed with Vectorworks. That will be more towards end of Q1, early Q2 2026 when we launch it commercially. Then we are planning to have the new [ArchViz] rendering solution for architects also deployed with other authoring tools and BIM solutions. First of all, from, of course, the Nemetschek Group, such as Archicad, from Graphisoft, and ALLPLAN, we are also planning to have that deployed with Revit and Autodesk and other authoring solutions and CAD solution from third party.
Thank you for these insightful comments. Thank you.
The next question comes from Alice Jennings from Barclays. Please go ahead.
Hi, good afternoon, and thank you for taking my questions. I've just got a couple of thoughts, okay? Just firstly, you spoke about the mid-teens growth profile in the medium term. If we think about the multi-year deals that have been signed this year, kind of how does that leave us for next year? How should we think about growth in 2026? How are you kind of going to manage these multi-year deals next year? What are the other things that we should think about there? My second question is just on AI. I'm just wondering about the monetization of that. How does that work, or does it really kind of depend on the specific products that you're offering? Is adoption voluntary, or is it included automatically in a subscription? What kind of impact will that have on pricing?
Sure. Thank you, Alice. First of all, regarding our outlook. Of course, we are not yet giving guidance for 2026 and beyond, but clearly, what we are saying is that we are very convinced that we are going to have an average revenue growth in the mid-teens in the coming years. How we are going to manage that next year, for example, is your question. Clearly, yes, we are going to continue to have high growth in the Build segment in 20+ percentage points here for the Build segment. Clearly, in Design, we are expecting to be in the higher high single digit growth. We are expecting Media to be now back to around 10% or to the low double-digit growth, and clearly having operated and managed back to double-digit growth in 2025.
We are very confident that we can therefore reach these mid-teens growth in 2026, despite the fact that, yes, but that has, again, a very, very, very small impact. We are still going to do a little bit with Graphisoft, for example, some of these multi-year deals to support the migration from our existing customers on maintenance to push them to subscription model. This has a very small impact, and it's not going to impact the growth for next year versus this year. We are going to continue to do that temporarily based on specific actions. We are going to continue to do that while we are migrating the Design segment to subscription, especially at Graphisoft and ALLPLAN, and we continue at least for the next probably around two years, more or less.
Clearly, we are highly confident in these mid-teens average growth for the coming few years and definitely also for 2026.
I think just to add to what you said also on the design transition, which is the last part of the business that we are transitioning to subscription, we will be at the year-end already over 50% of all the Design business also already on subscription. We also there, we have a very good amount that is already done. Of course, the blend with Build and the other segments are already on subscription, of course, getting, I would say, getting stronger. The piece of that is also getting smaller, and the traction is very good, as you can see as well. Yeah.
Alice, regarding your second question related to AI and the monetization around it. First of all, AI, well, it's fully part of our roadmap. It's really depending which features we are talking about and which brands. To the extreme, you have products like in energy management where AI is part of the core product. It's de facto there. When you buy a space for energy, for example. Then, if you look at other AI features, especially in our Design brands, they are de facto part of the basic subscription package because we want to force adoption, and we also want to make sure that we have some return on the return of investment and the productivity gain that it has.
And therefore, we need volumes, and we need a lot of data, and we need to make sure that everybody who is on subscription has the capability of having these features. But then, of course, we have then additional other type of AI features, which we are then targeting to have only in higher packages. Therefore, we will use that to increase our average revenue per user. And then, as you may have heard, and as I said earlier in this call, we announced the launch of a Bluebeam Max, which is going to be available commercially sometime in Q1 2026. And Bluebeam Max is a purely new package for Bluebeam purely AI-driven, with new features coming from in-house development that we had at Bluebeam, plus also some features which will be integrated and embedded in Bluebeam Max coming from the acquisition of Firmus AI.
And that will be an additional fee per month or per year that Bluebeam user will have to pay to get Bluebeam Max. Then, in addition to that, that's still a per user type of type of pricing. As we are moving more to agentic AI solution with our Nemetschek AI Assistant and our roadmap, you can see that over time we are going to shift more and more also with the business outcome type of pricing and to really monetize more the agentic piece of our AI as they are going to help a lot on the productivity gain over time and not being necessarily purely user-driven. But for the moment, short term, our AI features and AI monetization is very much user-based. And more mid-term, you will see a shift to business outcome type of pricing model for the agentic piece in particular.
Great. Thank you very much. It's very helpful.
The next question comes from Deepshikha Agarwal from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Hi, thanks for taking my question. First of all, I just wanted to delve a bit deeper on the multi-year deal dynamic. It is indicated that Design is going to be high single digit next year. Can you just. Throw some light on what exactly are the percentages there as in how much is the underlying growth, and then how much is subscription transition, and how much would be the multi-year deal adding to it next year? What does that mean for this segment in terms of when we look at it on a normalized level, once the transition is almost behind in this segment? Second is basically the cost dynamics. Clearly, it seems, as indicated, margins were a bit better than what [Street] was expecting. So, how do you think about. Especially with. Growth improving over the next year?
How should we think about investment versus operating leverage for the business for next year and over the medium term?
Sure. So, as I said. These multi-year contracts are still going on. We are using the three-year contract to bring existing customers from maintenance to subscription. It's mainly driven in Graphisoft and partially also at ALLPLAN. The growth without this three-year contract in Q3 would be for the Design segment. In H1, it was a tailwind of 4%. In Q3, it's slightly lower. It's around 3%. Tailwind for Q3 2025. The impact at the group level is a tailwind of roughly slightly below. 2% year to date. So, I mean, yes, it is slightly below 2% year to date, but it's only slightly 2% year to date where we are expecting to reach the upper range of our new guidance, which is a 22% revenue growth. FX adjusted for 2025.
So, clearly, when you look at Q4, we expect the Design segment to be in the mid to higher single digit growth. This is really depending also on the renewal business that we have at the end of the quarter. Please remember that we have also this higher comparison in mind from Q4 2024. We are expected also to have growth. Including some last-time sales of perpetual license. In. Q4 of 2025. Now, if you look at 2026. Here. Clearly, we are still expecting a growth, which is. Around at least. In. Around. Higher single digits or probably also in the low double digits. After the subscription and three-year contract over time. So, over time, this should be a business design. When we moved and when we finished the move to subscription, it should be a low double digit. Business growth. When we are more normalized. In general.
I'll take your second question on the margins overall, if I understood it. That's what you say. So, yes, we. A very strong. Margin contribution to our business. We should not forget that this is during a time when we are going through the subscription transition. I think that's always also important to bear in mind. I think that's rather unusual. That's also how we build the whole transition to the subscription model in our group as well, that we take it by a stage approach and make sure also to grasp that. It's not only that.
It's also that we are working very, very strongly with our operational excellence and also shifting to say our investments into the priorities that really have a high return investment. That's what you can see here coming through as well. Going forward, so yes, we see a strong growth scenario to continue as well. We will continue also to see the leverage. You have heard us say that before. That is, we will not optimize our revenue growth at the expense. Optimize, let's say, our margin at the expense of our revenue growth, right? We clearly see that there is such a strong revenue growth still to be had in the market, so much opportunities. That's really where the value creation is coming from. That's why you will see very, very attractive margins still going forward, and you will see increased leverage.
We will not optimize the margin at the expense of our revenue growth. Whilst you should also, as I said, we haven't guided for 2026 yet, but yes, with increasing growth, you should also see a part of that. Of course, combined with our operational excellence, that you see a higher leverage, so say a slightly increasing margin, that is net of the investments. As I said before, we are investing strongly into our business, into that future growth, because we don't see that this continued strong growth will end anytime soon, right? That's why we are really investing into the business in all our areas, and especially as well in the very, very strong growth momentum that we also have into our Build segment. That's why. To make a long story short, yes, you should expect net of investments.
Due to also our strong operational excellence, you should expect a little bit of a higher operational leverage there, but you should also not expect us to now just go for margin optimization because that would maybe put more focus on the margin than on the revenue growth, and that's something that we should not do.
Thank you.
The next question comes from Balajee Tirupati from Citi. Please go ahead.
Thank you for taking my questions. Two from my side, if I may. One question. The first one on the U.S., your key peer has sounded quite positive about the momentum from the data center and reshoring of manufacturing into the U.S. Could you remind us your exposure here and how do you see demand evolving? Then second question on the growth in home German market, where the quarter seems to have witnessed one of the strongest growth in years. Could you share how sustainable this return to double-digit growth in Germany is? Thank you.
I'm not sure I understood properly because the sound was not great. But let me try to answer. So, first of all, our exposure to data center building in the U.S., I mean, yes, it's great. I mean, it's not only in the U.S., by the way, the data center exposure. We see great momentum on data center across the globe, everywhere in the world. We have different solutions around that. Clearly, a strong dynamic for dRofus, strong dynamic also for Bluebeam, GoCanvas, strong dynamic also for Design brands. If you look at Archicad, of course, if you see at Solibri. So, clearly here, very positive and strong dynamic for quite some time, and it will continue, as you know. That's not going to stop in the short or even midterm. Clearly, it's a long growth trajectory.
Then, if you look at Germany. I mean, clearly, the debt package in Germany is not yet meaningful. It's too early to say what will exactly be the effect on the demand in Germany, especially in infrastructure. The mood and the sentiment have improved, but we believe that we will not see really any impact even next year. It might be more toward the end next year, potentially, but probably more in 2027. So internationalization clearly for us is a key element. We are continuing to focus a lot also of region outside of Europe, where, of course, Europe is still a very important key market for us.
If you look at the strong development that we had in Germany and Europe this quarter in particular, it was mainly driven by also the Build segment, where Bluebeam had very, very strong traction, but of course, by our Design segment, which has recovered, especially with a strong momentum on the subscription move and the transition from existing customers to subscription.
Yeah. I would maybe just add a little bit to that. So, the third quarter, also as Germany was in focus a little bit on our subscription or SSH subscription move in the third quarter, so you might see a slight effect in those Q3 numbers driven by that. But as Yves also said, that's also in general because you know that we have now for quite some time also expanded our Build segment into Europe as well, especially some special markets, including Germany, and we see good traction there as well. If you look at how sustainable that is, as Yves said, it's also in general, over time, also the effects of the infrastructure and investment packages should also come into the German market, right?
So it's definitely, as I say, going in that direction, but you also have some slight effects in the Q3. That was also due to the push that we are having on that market right now for the subscription transition.
Very clear. Thank you.
The next question comes from Joe George from JP Morgan. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi, guys. Good afternoon. Thanks for taking my questions. I've got two, please, both of which just on the Build division. Firstly, when you acquired GoCanvas, I think you indicated that you took a haircut on some of the acquired deferred revenues. I believe Q3 is the first quarter that this has unwound. Can you talk around how much of a tailwind in millions of euros this was to Build revenues through Q3? I guess going forward, how should this effect evolve? Will it be flat next quarter? Will this increase, reduce, et cetera, over time? Just any color would be great. Then secondly, I just wanted to follow up on the expectation for 20%+ Build growth in FY 2026. The last couple of quarters, you've added about EUR 5 million of revenue sequentially versus the prior quarter in Build.
I guess if we extrapolate that trend out through Q4 and throughout FY 2026, that would imply a year-over-year growth rate closer to mid to high teens. I guess I'm asking, are you expecting an acceleration within the Build revenue growth algorithm anywhere through FY 2026, maybe on pricing, new logos, net customer retention, et cetera? Just any color on the building blocks here of that 20%+ would be great.
Okay. Let me start with the question that you had on the GoCanvas haircut that you're correct on. I'm not sure that I heard because the tone was a little bit bad. If I missed something on that question, please ask again. I understood that your question was that we had a haircut on GoCanvas and how much tailwind did we have in Q3. The majority on that haircut comes into Q1.
That's why it was a very, very small effect in Q3. It was less than a million in our total revenues. Nothing, more or less. No effect, no tailwind due to that. I'm not sure, as I said, did you have an additional question to that? The tone broke a bit there. Or was it the 20% growth?
Yeah, no, that's perfect.
Okay. And then let's go to the 20% Build growth, which is built on, of course, the very strong growth that we see both in the U.S., in the user growth. But also, of course, internationally in the Build segment, right? We see, I think, in general, whilst we now have effect from the subscription transition of Bluebeam, where you have seen very elevated growth levers, if you may, because of the comparatives, et cetera, comparables that are done with Q4 this year, you still see, let's say, the underlying very strong growth in the Build segment, of course, very strongly driven by Bluebeam. But also, of course, expansion of GoCanvas as well. That was also part of the acquisition case. Of course, that's the smaller part, also the NEVARIS brand that is also continuing to grow, right?
That has also been going through subscription this year and will continue into the next one. So, that's why that's really the building blocks are really strong user growth, both in the U.S. and internationally in all parts of the Build business.
Internationally, we see a strong momentum also in Q3. Again, in Europe, very successful growth for Bluebeam in particular in Europe. Also, GoCanvas is having more and more traction, especially in the U.K. now. Of course, now for next year, we are also looking at other regions in addition to Europe, especially in Asia, in the Middle East for the Build segment, especially Bluebeam.
Great. Thanks. Yeah.
We really see that in all channels, right? So, we see that in the channel and web, et cetera. So, we see all the channels showing that growth.
Of course, we've made also the acquisition of Firmus AI. We have Bluebeam Max. All the AI tailwind will come hopefully also next year, but that would be probably even more on the upside.
Yeah. All right. Can I just follow up on that, please? Just on pricing within Build, I think it's been a couple of years now where we've seen material pricing. Used to support growth through FY 2026. Should we expect more pricing growth within Build?
There is absolutely no pricing on Bluebeam, so I don't know where. We had zero price increase on Bluebeam in 2025.
Except for the legacy, so to say, the ones that we took from a very low level that we took back to the subscription pricing. But that's not safe for the.
Yeah. Through 2026, should we expect any change to that? I.e., will you use pricing in 2026 or same as 202 5 where it's flat, basically?
I mean, the pricing will be more not the fact that we are going to have a big price increase, but we are going to have this new package like Bluebeam Max, which is going to be de facto an average increase of average revenue per user. I mean, over time, of course, it might not be materialized very quickly in 2026, as we are only launching that by the end of Q1. Bluebeam Max. But de facto, as we are going to setting a new package. I mean, it's not a price increase, but it's like an additional pricing for people to have access to these new features.
Yep. Okay. Great. Thank you very much.
Remember, I mean, the Bluebeam average price, if you take all our paid users today, it's equivalent to not even the price of a coffee per day. So clearly, if we are able now to sell an extra package with Bluebeam Max, this could have a significant impact over time, probably not necessarily next year. But this could be a very strong tailwind for the growth of the Build segment.
Yeah. I think just to add on that, what you said, due to where we are with pricing, we haven't played this card, and we see that there's such an interesting new user growth to expand this. Incredibly strong mesh and network that we have built with Bluebeam, which really makes this unique, very unique in all segments. So, if your question is if we believe that we would have pricing power, yes, definitely, I think we will have pricing power. But we will continue in the manner as well to add features and add even more functionality to this part of the industry that is in high need of even more functionality. So, that's why I think that's how we look at it, why we are still seeing that the growth is coming from the new users and new features side.
Yeah. Okay. Very clear. Thank you.
The next question comes from Victor Cheng, Bank of America. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thanks for taking my questions. Just going back to Bluebeam again. There are a couple of growth drivers currently. Just thinking going forward, well, can you help us break down kind of what is the mix of growth drivers? Is it further from the user growth in the U.S. versus expansion to other regions versus the maintenance pricing catching up to subscription with the transition? How should we think about the drivers of growth and obviously Bluebeam Max as well going forward? Second question on M&E. Yes, we've talked about this before, but any kind of color on the industry, maybe adopting AI and kind of the use case for it? I think there are talks about Hollywood using it for drafting, using GenAI for drafting. Do you see that happening?
How should we think about demand there going forward? Thank you.
Yeah. So, clearly, if you look at Media M&E, the impact on AI, I mean, we have AI-embedded now features in our product portfolio, as I said. So, we shipped AI search, for example, and other AI features on Cinema 4D. We have this AI depth generation, which is coming up in the next few weeks, and also some new further AI compositing capabilities. So, clearly, we see that our customers who are artists here are really welcoming this type of features, which is helping them to be more productive and to automate more tasks and to be also quicker. Overall, I will say that the fact that market has mixed demand, it's not linked to AI. I'm not saying that there might be in the future some AI impact.
But clearly, for the moment, it's not coming from that. It's mainly coming from the fact that the customers, the media companies are spending less. They are very cautious on their spendings. Some of them are not in a very good economical situation, as you know. Therefore, the impact is mainly on this long range of. Freelancers and artists who are more impacted because there is probably also less job for them. This is a kind of a long tail of customers that we have, especially with our web store, because, as I said, when we look at our direct touch customers, so the bigger type of customer, larger media companies or game developers. Or if we look at our reseller business, it is growing very strongly, double-digit plus.
Yeah. Maybe on the Bluebeam growth again, so the growth driver is clearly now. In this year, it's really the new user growth. So, the impact price, including that maintenance price, let's say, is marginal in our growth in Bluebeam. That's also how we see it to continue. Why you see that, that's also, I think, something, although we have such a huge base in the U.S. for Bluebeam, you could think that that growth at some time should go down a little bit, relative growth, but it's still very, very strong. At some point of time, of course, the absolute basis, it will start to, in absolute figures, it will continue to go, but we will have less relative growth. But it's still very, very strong. But what we really see now, that APAC in Europe is really catching up at the very strong range.
That's why they are growing so much stronger, of course, from a smaller base. The 2025 numbers in the U.S. growth in Bluebeam is, of course, also including GoCanvas. But if you see that, I would say that, yes, APAC and EMEA is growing very, very strongly at equal strong rates as the U.S. and even taking up now stronger. So, your question comes to where does the growth come from? As the base is still so much larger in the U.S., that still has a significant portion still in both 20 25 and 2026 for Bluebeam. But the international growth in both EMEA and APAC is adding to that. That's why it's coming to a very attractive growth. But price remains a marginal piece or the smaller piece of the growth.
Yeah. Again, just to add on the U.S. with the very, very large customers that we have there for Bluebeam. All large construction companies in the U.S. are Bluebeam customers. But as an average, they are not even 40% penetrated. The main reason was that we didn't have so much direct touch with this customer, no key account management. Now, the last couple of quarters or three quarters that we are engaging much more with them, we are signing enterprise license agreement and definitely increasing our penetration with these accounts. But there is still a lot of work to do there because this is something we can do across all. The large customers in the U.S., which, of course, is not representing the majority of the revenue of Bluebeam, but it's still a significant size.
Then you have this long tail of small, medium general contractors or subcontractors, et cetera, where clearly some of them are not using Bluebeam yet, and a lot of them are not using Bluebeam. So, interestingly, the potential growth in the U.S. is still there for some time. Then, as I said, internationally, huge, huge opportunity of growth for Bluebeam.
Yeah. In the U.S., you can really see that Bluebeam is the industry standard. That's why you have this, as I said, the measure, the network effect that we see continue at a very, very high pace. So, to say, U.S. is the industry standard, more and more of the subcontractors and the smaller players need to have a Bluebeam license in order to work with the rest of the network, right? Really see that in all areas. That's, of course, also contributing very, very nicely to our growth. Also, in the U.S., that's something, a pattern that there's no reason why that will not continue then internationally.
Yes, and this network effect, the consequence is that now Bluebeam is even becoming more and more a verb in the U.S. construction market, especially when we're talking about collaboration tools.
Got it. Thank you.
The next question comes from Nay Soe Naing from Berenberg. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thank you for squeezing me in. Apologies if there's a bit of background noise. I'm traveling at the moment. Hopefully, two quick questions for me. Maybe one, the first one for you, Louise, on the multi-year contracts. I just want to understand. How much longer will these contracts be available for customers to purchase? Also, just to confirm. There are no favorable commercial terms on the contract, i.e., that you do not offer discounts for customers to choose these multi-year agreements. The second question is on the maybe one for Yves. I think you had packaged GoCanvas products into Bluebeam as of last quarter or maybe the quarter before that.
So I was wondering if you give an update on the upsell cross opportunity between the two products and how much of the revenue synergy opportunities you have expected in your mid-teens medium term growth outlook, please.
Maybe just quickly on the multi-year contract. As I said, we are planning to use that only for Graphisoft and slightly for ALLPLAN, but only during the transition to subscription for these two brands, which will be probably for the next two, two and a half years around that. Clearly, there is no favorable terms, clearly not. I mean, and there is no discount. That's why you have a big part of the existing maintenance customer who are only moving to a 12-month contract because there is no. Advantage to move to multi-year term of pure pricing.
The only advantage is to have more visibility of what would be the pricing for the next three years because the price increase is very small from one year to another year. It's only linked to some small indexation in some cases. It could give the confidence a bit to customers that, okay, we are not going to increase suddenly the price significantly after one year, so that we're not going to do a + 25% or + 30% price increase suddenly from one year to another. Yeah, so there is no favorable or discount linked to this type of multi-year deals.
Yeah. It's more that type of customer that goes with this contract. That's more maybe the customer who has just bought a license, who is a bit more conservative as well in the way they look at that. It's not to get that's also not the negotiation to get more favorable conditions. It's really, let's say, for them to start to think in a new subscription model, right? You also know that many of these customers, they also sit in Europe, right? The European market, especially in some areas of the European market, has been more conservative into moving into subscription. That's why it's a bigger change for them than it was, for example, in the U.S. or whatever.
That's why it's a little bit more of this conservatism so that they can start to believe in the subscription model. That helps them to have that clarity on what will happen the next three years. That's why it's not even a negotiation about favorable conditions.
Yeah. On Bluebeam and GoCanvas and the synergy, so clearly, as I said, we see very strong synergy on the go-to-market, especially linked to indirect channels. As you know, Bluebeam is working with large resellers, and GoCanvas had only a direct go-to-market business. We have now more and more large Bluebeam resellers who committed to sell GoCanvas, and it's working very well, first of all, in the U.S. Now, also, this is going to help GoCanvas internationalization with some of these very large resellers who have some of them have a real global presence, such as Archons, for example, but also others. Also, if you look at the synergies, there are some cost synergies that we are still working on also too.
I mean, we already had some in 2025, but more to come in 2026, where we are integrating even more and more both company, Bluebeam and GoCanvas, on different functions.
I would really, I think, also say how much of those synergies that have come would be upfront. I think we are very happy with that. We can clearly see that. The trajectory is coming and that we are also that we can see even slightly more than we would have thought. It's definitely confirming the case.
Yes.
Amazing. Thank you very much.
The next question comes from Michael Briest from UBS. Please go ahead.
Thanks. Good afternoon. Just coming back on Bluebeam, I think there are currently three SKUs between Basics, Core, and Complete. Will Bluebeam Max replace Complete or be a further additional one? And can you give a sense of how much higher than the $440 per user per year it might come at? And then more broadly, looking at the Bluebeam user base today, how do they break down between those SKUs? And have you got a program to try and move them up the ladder, if you like? And separately, just on headcount, it was flat quarter on quarter. And given all the comments about investments, that seems a bit odd. Can you maybe talk about what happened in Q3 and plans for the rest of the year? Thank you.
First, on Bluebeam, yes, we have currently three packages. And we still have around a majority of the people are moving to more the Core and the Complete packages. These are clearly the two packages which have the most tractions. One, as you may know, Core is around $330. Complete is at $440. And then you have the Basic package, which is at $260. But when we look at the new users and the new logos, they are really going more to Core and Complete more than Basics. Bluebeam Max will be an additional package. It's not going to be included in Complete. Bluebeam Max is completely new. It will be priced completely differently, and it will be an add-on to what you have. We have not yet disclosed any pricing yet. It's still under work internally. And we will do that in Q1 of 2026.
Yeah. Let me take the question on the headcount. You say, yeah, you're correct with the flat development of the headcount. I think you need to look at this holistically. Whilst we're also investing into new human resources, we're also investing a lot into systems and structures, digital demand generation, etc., etc. We, of course, also get more efficient internally by internal use cases by AI, but not only by AI, by harmonization and alignment of our global processes. Something that we have been working with now quite some time is also to streamline between all the brands, etc., our operational excellence, etc. And with that, we also repurpose a lot of our headcount.
Therefore, we have savings because we had, if you look at the Nemetschek group, how we were run in the past, we would have less systems and optimization and more heads due to the structure that we had. Now, as we have been combining a lot of that, investing into systems and structures, we can repurpose some of that, what you could say maybe would have been excess headcount. In a different model, we can repurpose that into our growth. That's why we really also have a very nice leverage in our numbers as well. So it's not that we are not investing into new headcount. We definitely are, but the investments are also in all other areas of structures, tools, and demand generations, etc. It's not only people.
The people, they are more repurposed into new areas, etc., where we can have savings in one area because we have optimization and also AI support. We repurpose that kind of headcount into where we really need more talents. You should not expect it to take—.
It's a question on GoCanvas. Did it grow faster or slower than Bluebeam this quarter? I mean, the deferred income benefit would have helped, but I'm just curious.
No, Bluebeam is growing stronger than GoCanvas, yes.
Thank you.
The next question comes from Richard Nguyen from Bernstein. Please go ahead.
Can you hear me?
Yes. Yes.
Yes. Thank you. Thank you very much for taking my question. I have a quick follow-up on the GenAI strategy, please. I know that it is still very early days, but have you seen any kind of push to effect with the GenAI availability? Does that incentivize the customer to move faster to the subscription package, or is this not yet the case?
I'm not sure I understood properly your question, but for AI features, as I said, are depending on which one. Some of them, they are included. Basic package subscription. Some others will be or are in a higher-tier type of packages. Some other, they are standalone price or will be standalone price like Bluebeam Max. AI, purely AI packages.
But I was asking about how the customer perception about the availability of those solutions. Are they more incentivized today to acquire the products, etc., because of that, or it's not yet the case?
No, clearly. There is more and more adoption of AI features overall in the market. I mean, if we compare 2024 to 2025. There's been clearly a nice uptake. We just did a survey, for example, recently, and AI is most commonly applied in design, so around 48%, and in planning, around 42%. We see that over 70% of the companies which are using AI allocate up to 25% of their budget more in these types of capabilities. But clearly, it's still very, very early stage. AI-driven collaboration and cross-platform integration is clearly one of the key topics. We are doing a lot of new AI features which are facilitating real-time cloud-based collaboration. As clearly be the fact with Bluebeam and enabling also integrated workflows with other potential third-party platforms.
For construction professionals, Bluebeam AI capabilities is promising to continue to transform the industry, but also enabling smarter decision-making and greater project success in general. So yes, we see an uptake in the usage and adoption. And of course, these users, they need to see a clear ROI, and they use these types of AI features. If not, they are not going to move to a higher package or even pay extra a new AI purely package such as Bluebeam Max. In general, there is clearly more and more usage. And if you look at architects, for example, what they really like are really solutions around generative design and GenAI, which are helping them to optimize more the work and therefore be more productive and to replace all these and automate all these repetitive tasks, for example, that they have to do a lot.
Thank you. That's very clear. Thank you very much.
Ladies and gentlemen, that was the last question. I would now like to turn the conference back over to Stefanie Zimmermann for any closing remarks.
Thank you, operator, and thanks everyone for attending. We are looking forward to catching up with you soon. If you have any follow-up questions, please do not hesitate to contact Patrick or myself. And let's conclude the call for today. Thanks again for joining.
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