Thank you for taking the time to join us today. My name is Friederike Thyssen, Vice President, Investor Relations and Sustainability at NFON, and I'll be your host for the sessions which we are holding together with New Waves. Today's presentation will be led by our management team, Andreas Wesselmann, our CEO, and Alexander Beck, our CFO. They will take you through the key operationals, the strategic and financial development of the first nine months of 2025. As usual, we publish our quarterly financial statement and our full invest presentation earlier this morning. You can find both, as well as the corporate news, on our NFON website under Investor Relations. The presentation will follow a clear structure. We'll start with the business highlights, then move on to the financial review, our outlook and guidance, and finally, we start the Q&A session.
Please note that questions can only be asked live during the Q&A at the end of the presentation. If you would like to ask a question, please use the raise your hand function. Once unmuted, kindly unmute yourself and say your name and your organization before asking your question. Written questions in the chat or Q&A function will not be accepted. Thank you for understanding, and thank you in advance for your contribution. I will hand over to Andreas Wesselmann to start the presentation. Over to you, Andreas.
Yeah, thank you, Friederike. It's a pleasure to be here today for my first quarterly call as CEO of NFON. Many of you know me from my previous role as CTO, where I was already deeply involved in defining the NFON Next 2027 strategy. As a consequence, stepping into the CEO role doesn't mean changing direction, but rather expanding the perspective, bringing strategy, product, technology, and market even closer together to turn the ideas into tangible results faster and more consistently. My focus is clear. We want to accelerate NFON's transformation as an innovative growth company driven by customer value and operational excellence and leveraging the latest AI technology. The course we have set with NFON Next 2027 is the right one, and our task now is to execute it with speed and discipline.
With that, I'm happy to introduce my colleague and our new CFO, Alexander Beck. Rather than me describing his background, I think he can do that best himself. Alexander?
Yes, thank you, Andreas. Also from my side, I'm very happy to join today's call for the first time as part of the NFON team. In the first seven weeks since I have joined, I have had the chance to get to know people, products, and the culture of the company. What impressed me most is the energy and the commitment across the organization. This is really a genuine drive to move things forward together. A few words about myself. I bring around 20 years of international experience across several sectors like retail, like fast-moving consumer goods, like software, and also technology. In previous roles, I have led and developed finance organizations and supported businesses during phases of international expansion, growth, profitable growth, and also transformational infrastructure. From a financial perspective, I see NFON in a solid position.
Profitability has been restored, cash flow is positive, and our financial base is stable. The strategy is clear, well communicated, and is being consistently implemented across the company. What I particularly value is how strongly the teams identify with our strategic priorities and how focused the execution is. At the same time, we are aware of the challenges. Revenue growth has been slower than we would like, and the commercialization of new products takes time. The direction is right, and the fundamentals are strong. Overall, I'm very pleased to be here, and I see a company that combines the right mindset, the right technology, and the right talent to build sustainable value in the years ahead. With this, for the moment, back to you, Andreas.
Yeah, thank you, Alexander. Now let's take a closer look at the key highlights of the last month. The last month showed tangible progress and growing momentum. We strengthened our market presence. We refined our brand positioning and further shaped NFON's perception as an innovative leader in intelligent communication. Let's start with Bits & Pretzels, one of Europe's leading founders' festivals where NFON participated for the first time. We presented the company with a clear technology-driven identity that reflects who we are today: an innovative growth company combining communication expertise with AI-driven intelligence. More than 250 people joined our expert sessions, and over 90 tech leaders took part in our CIO Summit talk, where we explored and explained how AI can make communication more human, efficient, and secure.
Another highlight was our executive dinner in Munich, held under the theme "From Europe with Intelligence." This event brought together decision-makers from business, technology, and media to discuss how AI is reshaping communication and leadership. It also marked the live debut of NIA Front Desk, our newest AI solution, which was received with strong interest and very positive feedback from customers, partners, and analysts. It captured exactly what NFON stands for: turning innovation into real-world value. Finally, we received strong industry recognition. NFON was named Manufacturer of the Year, and our EVP AI and Innovation, Jana Richter, was recognized as IT Woman of the Year. These awards underline our credibility as a European AI-driven technology company, one that combines innovation with responsibility, diversity, and technical excellence. Altogether, these milestones show that we are executing our strategy with focus and consistency.
Under NFON Next 2027, we are positioning NFON as an innovative growth company that drives AI-powered business communication from Europe for Europe, combining innovation, customer value, and efficiency. This brings us directly to one of the most exciting examples of this development: the NFON Intelligent Assistant NIA Front Desk. NIA Front Desk is a practical intelligent assistant for reception and service areas that help organizations manage incoming calls, messages, visitor interactions, et cetera, more efficiently. The solution automates routine tasks such as call routing, scheduling, and information requests, while always allowing a seamless handover to human colleagues with personal contact if it's needed. What makes NIA Front Desk stand out is its combination of NFON's communication platform with conversational AI. It's fully integrated, is GDPR compliant, and built on European infrastructure, which is an increasingly important differentiator for many of our customers who value digital sovereignty and data protection.
The first reactions from partners and customers have been very positive. We see particular interest from sectors such as healthcare, education, and public administration areas with high service intensity and recurring communication needs. These organizations face increasing pressure to improve efficiency while maintaining personal service quality, and NIA Front Desk exactly addresses this. Its ease of use and measurable time savings help improve service availability and customer experience, delivering a clear return on investment. From a business perspective, NIA Front Desk expands our portfolio beyond traditional voice services. It opens new cross and upselling opportunities within our installed base and helps us to enter new customer segments, particularly in sectors with high service intensity. NIA Front Desk is about customer satisfaction and increased productivity. It's about making communication smarter, more human, and more efficient. It shows how innovation, when done right, can improve customer experience, employee satisfaction, and business performance.
For us, NIA Front Desk is more than a product launch. It is a proof point of our innovation strategy. Over the coming quarters, we will continue to extend the AI solution portfolio as we go, always focused on real customer benefit and profitable growth. To walk you through the details of our Q3 financial performance, I will hand over to Alexander.
Yes, thank you, Andreas. Let us turn to the key financial figures for the first nine months of 2025. In this period, we achieved solid top-line growth and stable profitability despite a continued cautious market environment and investment climate, particularly among small and medium-sized enterprises. Our total revenue increased by 2.7% to EUR 66 million, while Adjusted EBITDA amounted to EUR 8.7 million, 3.5% below the prior year level. This performance shows that we are able to maintain profitability while continuing to invest in our strategic priorities, including AI and product innovation, including partner enablement and also sales effectiveness. At the same time, we remain realistic about the challenges. Revenue growth in the core SME business has been slower than anticipated, reflecting both uncertainty and extended decision cycles. The commercialization of new products also takes time, which is normal at this stage. Overall, the fundamentals are solid.
Our cash position remains strong, and our strategy is clear. I'm confident that NFON has the right mindset, the right technology, and the right team to translate these foundations into sustainable growth. Let's now take a closer look to the developments behind these figures in the following slides. In the first nine months of 2025, NFON delivered moderate top-line growth with total revenue of EUR 66 million. This development was mainly supported by the continued strong performance of Potatio, which contributed positively through its project businesses. Our recurring revenues, the backbone of our business, rose by 1.9% to EUR 61.8 million, maintaining a high share of 93.6% of total revenues. Non-recurring revenues developed even stronger, up by 15.3% to EUR 4.2 million, mainly driven by project implementation and, again, service revenues from Potatio.
At the same time, our seat base declined slightly by 2.6% to 648,000, reflecting a still cautious investment sentiment in our core markets. Despite this, our blended RPU remained stable, increased slightly to EUR 9.92, supported by price adjustments and consistent customer usage levels. Overall, this combination underlines a resilient recurring revenue model and the stabilizing effect of portfolio diversification through Potatio. Turning to our profitability and cost structure, material expenses declined by 6.3% to EUR 9.1 million, primarily due to lower hardware volumes and a more favorable cost mix. As a result of this, our gross profit increased by 4.3% to EUR 56.9 million. The material cost ratio improved to 13.8% versus 15.1% the year before, supported by a higher share of margin-accredited project revenues.
At the same time, our operating expenses rose moderately by 4.1% to EUR 22 million, mainly reflecting higher marketing activities, partner commissions, and advisory costs related to strategic initiatives. Overall, the adjusted OPEX ratio remained broadly stable at 33%, demonstrating our ongoing focus on cost discipline and operational efficiency, but also investing into strategic areas. Personnel expenses increased by 9.9% to EUR 28.2 million. This development primarily reflects the integration of Potatio and targeted staffing in product development, sales, and AI-driven innovations. The average number of employees rose to 427 compared to 415 in the prior year. We made adjustments of EUR 0.9 million, mainly related to restructuring costs in management, sales, and marketing. After these adjustments, personnel expenses were in line with expectations, consistent with our strategy to strengthen capabilities for innovation and customer value creation. In terms of profitability, EBITDA decreased slightly to EUR 7.7 million.
After adjustments, EBITDA amounted to EUR 8.7 million, down 3.5% from EUR 9.1 million the year before. This decline was expected and reflects planned operating expense investments in personnel and infrastructure to support our AI-related initiatives and the ongoing execution of our strategy for Next 2027. Adjustments totaled EUR 1.1 million, primarily related to restructuring measures and IT harmonization. As a result, the Adjusted EBITDA margin came in at 3.2%, maintaining a solid profitability level while ensuring we continue to invest in our future growth. Looking at the cash flow and liquidity, operating cash flow came in at EUR 4.9 million compared with EUR 5.1 million in the year before. This slight decline mainly reflects timing effects in receivables and provisions. Investing cash flow amounted to minus EUR 4.7 million, driven by higher capitalized development costs and earn-out payments of EUR 1.9 million related to the Potatio acquisition.
Financing cash flow stood at EUR -1.7 million compared with EUR +4.8 million a year ago, as the prior year period included loan inflows to finance the acquisition. At the end of September, with this, cash and cash equivalents totaled EUR 11.4 million. This underlines our solid liquidity position and provides sufficient flexibility to fund both day-to-day operations and our ongoing strategic initiatives under NFON Next 2027. As already shown in the half-year results, this slide summarizes the broader market environment and our key strategic priorities. It continues to provide the right framework for navigating the current conditions, steering NFON towards sustainable growth. The macroeconomic environment remains challenging. Inflation, geopolitical uncertainty, and budget caution, particularly among SMEs, continue to weigh on investment decisions and prolonged sales cycles, especially in communication infrastructure and digital transformation projects. At the same time, AI-driven innovation is reshaping the markets.
Many companies are still assessing how AI can be embedded into their operations. This extends decision-making, but also creates clear opportunities. Across Europe, stricter compliance standards and the growing debate on data sovereignty continue to drive demand for secure GDPR-compliant solutions. NFON's position as an independent European provider, with development, hosting, and infrastructure entirely in Europe, remains a key differentiator. Building on this foundation, we are executing the measures introduced earlier this year, which directly support our strategic priorities. These are improving operational efficiency, strengthening the channel enablement, maintaining a market growth focus, and driving profitability. We are seeing early signs that our initiatives are taking hold, although the momentum is developing more slowly than we would like. As we progress through the fourth quarter, our focus remains on disciplined execution, cost control, and efficiency gains, while continuing also to invest selectively in growth areas such as agentic AI.
Let's turn to the next slide for the details. As a part of our regular forecast update, we have reviewed our full-year expectations based on the performance in the first nine months. Given the continued investment restraint in part of the market and a revenue trend that remained below expectations in Q3, we have slightly adjusted our guidance for the full year. We now expect total revenue to grow between 1-2.5% and Adjusted EBITDA to range between 11.5-12.5% a year. This outlook already takes into account the ongoing macroeconomic caution, extended decision-making cycles among SMEs, and the delayed recovery in investment activity in our core markets. At the same time, the measures implemented earlier this year, particularly pricing, cost control, channel enablement, are delivering the expected effects and continue to support our profitability. Our midterm ambition for 2027 remains unchanged.
Overall, we focus on innovation and efficiency, keeping our financial discipline strong so that growth remains healthy and sustainable. With this, I will hand back to Friederike to open the Q&A session.
Yeah. Thank you very much, Alexander, and also Andreas for the presentation and the detailed insight. We will now open the line for questions. As a quick reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please use the raise hand function on the platform. I'll then call on you, unmute your microphone, and when asking your question, please say your name and the organization you represent, and please also let us know who you are addressing with your question. Please note that questions via chat or the Q&A tool cannot be considered. We are now looking forward to your questions. First line in row is John Carides. You need to unmute yourself.
I have. Thank you very much. It is John Carides from Deutsche Bank. Thank you very much for taking my question. I know this has been a very tough quarter for NFON. Because of this, I wonder if you would be happy to tell us how many seats you ended the period with in Germany specifically. I know that in the first half, the seat loss was roughly split equally between Germany and the U.K. I would be very interested in the number in Germany and any other additional color you can give us, please, about the areas where you saw the most pressure. Thank you.
Thank you very much, John. Yes, the seat growth, you're right. We lost seats in the first in Q3. Our total seat base declined slightly by 2.6%, around total 648,000, compared to 665,000 in the prior year period. This was mainly the result of a lower order intake compared with last year, while our churn rate, which is also important, remained stable at 0.5% hard churn per month, the same level of quarter three 2024. The stable churn aligns with the high quality our products and services have and the resilience of our recurring revenue base in a challenging environment. However, growth in new seats came in below expectations, that's right, and below last year's increase, reflecting both a more cautious investment climate and the extended decision-making cycles.
The German numbers, I do not have exactly here, but I can tell you roughly in Germany, we have around about 470,000 seats. In the U.K., we are about 73,000 seats.
That's great. Thank you very much.
Thank you, John.
Okay. Next in line, Stefano. Please unmute yourself.
Yes, indeed. Thank you. Good morning. Good morning, all. I've got two or three questions, if that's possible. The first one would be, can you tell us a little more on how many more staff do you plan to hire and when you think you will start to see some stabilization on your staff costs? The second one is a follow-up on the number of clients. I was just wondering whether you are also seeing, let's say, do you think overall it's a market, as you suggest, or also perhaps some competition that is more aggressive in cloud telephony? I was just curious to know if there are any names of competitors you would highlight as being very pushy right now in the market.
Finally, as a third question, if I may, do you think now that it's quite likely that 2026, we should also see, let's say, the impact that we've seen in the third quarter carrying over into 2026, and therefore potentially revenues and EBITDA could be down in 2026? Thank you.
Yeah, thanks a lot, Stefano, for your questions. Let me try to answer them in one shot, and then after that, please let me know if some questions remain open. The first question was about the hiring. There you can see along the numbers that we also adopted our growth in personnel expenses by the reduced top line so that we always stay in the same quote, and this is the same planning as we go forward.
For the number of clients, maybe I just give the example of NIA Front Desk that I outlined and why I think that's so important. It's the first time that we really combined the Potatio AI platform with our core voice platform in a very tight and integrated fashion. Just to share some numbers there with you, for the first four weeks after the launch, we see it as essentially our fastest growing adoption of all products that we saw in the last years. We already have a mid-double-digit number of sold licenses here, and we have very, very positive feedback. That's for us a confirmation of our portfolio. Why is that important also looking forward? Because it shows that we have different revenue streams going forward that we are going to materialize.
The one is that these capabilities integrated in our business telephony, which we call AI Essentials or Front Desk, help us to up and cross-sell existing customers, and it makes our existing offering more attractive. That's one thing. On the other hand side, we see that these voice bots and the agentic AI capabilities, so to speak, get more from the Potatio side of the portfolio, also help us in combined up and cross-sell in the contact center business, and that the Potatio portfolio offers us access to new customers and partners also in enterprise AI projects. Having that said, we are confident that in 2026, we will get back to a growth strategy because in addition to the products, there are two other things I would like to mention.
We also introduced in October a new way how we can sell easily with a new modular license model, which sometimes internally referred to as t-shirt sizes. This makes it easier to sell. Think of that as a kind of a self-service, and it's immediately available for deployment and getting it running. The other important part is that we support our partners also in their transformation. To enable them on the existing solutions, also expand to new partners and expand our solution portfolio with the existing and new partners. Therefore also our partner program, Nexus, which we will unveil in more breadth and depth in January next year, will support us to have that. Overall, and your question was also about how we see the market, we see the market that the core cloud telephony market is essentially more or less stagnating. Why is that the case?
If you take a look, for example, at some numbers in Germany, we had in August the highest number of companies that needed to file insolvency in the last 10 years. If you take a look at the overall economic numbers, Germany and Austria, for example, unfortunately, they rank lowest within Europe, which is plus 85 plus percentage points of our business, as you know. There is another thing that you should not underestimate. This whole AI disruption, as I framed it, causes also some additional uncertainties, which causes a delay in decisions. We do not see that it's a question if you go with us in the solutions or not. It's a question of when do you do that, and you just need some more room to discuss with the partners and explain. That is maybe overall, I hope that answered your question.
It does, if I may just follow up a little bit, and apologies for taking a bit of time here. I was just wondering if you think that adoption of AI could also, in a way, reduce a little bit demand from some of your clients as they may be replacing some of their staff. I'm thinking of call centers, for instance, also and reducing the number of seats potentially.
We see it the other way around. We see it as a strengthening. We see that from the tightly integrated AI capabilities, for example, in the cloud telephony, it makes the offering more attractive. There we have possibilities to increase the output and to expand the number of seats that we have. That is one dimension. We see great and interesting effects in cross-selling opportunities of the contact center solution and the agentic voice bots we have in the Potatio solution, which we can then sell to the same customer. We see it more not as taking away from existing business, but accelerating and strengthening the different pillars of our solution portfolio.
Very good. Thank you.
Okay. Next in line, Maximilian Pascal. Hi. You can speak now, Maximilian. We can hear you. Yeah.
Okay.
Now we can hear you.
Maximilian, thank you. Sorry for this disturbing. I have a two-part question. Do you anticipate normalization customer investment patterns potentially supported by your progress in AI? As a result, could this provide a greater visibility for 2026?
Yeah, maybe I start with that. Your first part of the question was about the investment normalization. This is certainly a trend that we see. We see a delay. As I said before, we do not see that people decide against investment. In that sense, taking the first insights in the fourth quarter and looking forward, we see an investment normalization in the course of the year 2026, despite the not-so-easy overall economic conditions. Exactly what 2026 will mean, we will unveil in the beginning of the year when we then have the forecast for the year 2026.
Does it answer your question, Maximilian?
Yeah. Thank you.
Okay.
Thank you.
Perfect. Thank you. Next in line, Ross Jabber, free to speak. You need to unmute yourself.
Good morning. Can you hear me okay?
Yes.
Yes. Perfect. Morning, gentlemen. I'm interested in the trends over the next year or two in some of the costs, which at the moment are high, but which hopefully are going to fall. Things like consulting costs, IT harmonization costs, and also capitalized development costs. Can you say a little bit more about where you would expect those to go over the next one, two, three years? Thanks.
Yes. Good morning, Ross. Thanks for your question. In general, we are cautious when we talk about cost development. On the other side, we also want to invest into our strategic areas. You mentioned right now a couple of them, like consultancy costs, like other costs. We already tried now in Q3 and Q4 to bring these costs down. On the other side, we are also going to, as I said before, we are also going to invest into growth areas. For next year, in the moment, we are in the process to put our budget together and to finish the plannings, and we will communicate this at the beginning of next year. Overall, I think I can already say, yeah, we will continue our path. We try to eliminate costs which are not necessary any longer.
We try to gain efficiencies, especially in the things you mentioned. On the other side, we try to invest as much as we need, as much as we can, as much as we want in order to grow in our strategic growing areas. This is overall the path for the next years. I hope this.
Thank you very much.
This is not very precise for the next three years, Ross, but I hope this gives you at least a color of where we want to go.
Yeah, absolutely. Thank you very much. Thank you.
Okay. I see Stefano is still raising the hand. No.
Sorry, I'm all right. Thank you.
Yeah, no problem. Ross, you can unmute yourself.
Yeah, sorry. I had got more questions. I just wanted to make way for others.
No.
Can you say whether or not the AI functionality is changing the procurement process amongst customers? I mean, you've talked about uncertainty based on the macroeconomic environment and how maybe it's taking longer for customers to decide whether to buy. Does the fact that you're adding a lot of kind of enhanced customer experience change the sort of people who are getting involved in that procurement decision at your clients? Is that also a factor or not? Thanks.
Yeah, thanks for asking the question. Let me maybe start with we have one part of the solution that, if you want, by a click integrates with existing business telephony. That is important because we want that the same people that currently administer and are responsible for the existing solutions with a very seamless path can activate them. In the example of the NIA Front Desk that I outlined, you can imagine that you go to the administration part you are used to, and then you just choose, "I want this front desk capability. I want this as a language. And this is the content it should be based on," and then you go. This is really important because especially the SME customers can simply not afford to invest big time in AI projects or consultancies or hire people themselves.
I think we are in a unique position by tightly integrating that for the existing market. If you go to the other segment of our offer, if I talk about enterprise AI projects and large customers and large partners, this is then a different approach, and you also meet different buying centers. There the telephony is not the leading capability, but the leading capability is on how you optimize your customer service, how you automate your processes, how do you integrate in existing business processes, and then offer a solution that can cover, if you want, the breadth from voice bots via contact centers to then the underlying cloud telephony. That maybe gives you an overview about how we currently see the variety of the go-to-market activities.
Right. Can I just check one statistic? Am I right in thinking you said that churn for the nine months is unchanged from a year ago at 0.5%? Did I hear that correctly?
Yes.
Yeah. Thank you.
Yes, Ross. That's right.
Great. Thank you.
Okay. No further questions so far. Stefano.
Yeah.
You go ahead.
Thank you. There are no more questions. Let me ask just to follow up. I was just wondering whether you already seeing, let's say, in the fourth quarter, a little bit better commercial momentum or if you think that those impacts will continue into Q4 on your customer base. Thank you.
Yeah. Thanks, Stefano, for asking that question as well. Let me maybe get back to the NIA Front Desk example, which we launched at the mid of October. There, as I outlined, we see already very fast growing adoption in licenses, etc., which makes us very positive. The reality is also that based on our recurring revenue model, this only has minor impact on the fourth quarter and then the total numbers, why also we came to the conclusion as we outlined today.
That makes us confident looking forward to 2026 and beyond that we start with a good foundation in those years and lay the foundation in this year for accelerated growth in the next year. Details to be shared in the first quarter next year. Okay. Thank you. Thank you.
Good. No further questions. Ask a little last time. Are there any final questions from your side? Please raise your hand. If this is not the case, and it seems not to be the case, thank you again for your time, for your interest, also from my side. Now I'll hand back to Andreas for a short closing statement. Andreas, back to you.
Yeah. Thanks, Friederike. A big thank you from my side to all of you joining. The first earnings call in that combination with Alexandra and myself. Thanks for asking questions and the very constructive and right questions. Already looking forward to talking to you soon. Have a nice day. Thank you.
Bye.
Thank you.