I think we can start, we just start with a quick recap and then a few other guys will come. I said good afternoon everybody and thank you for coming to this art talk. Just some, let's say, housekeeping rules or how we call it. I will just start with a quick summary, as said, what we heard or announced last week and then we can go over to Q and A. If you want to ask a question, please raise your hand and then please switch on your camera while asking a question. I think that's always nice if people see you there. One hint, as always, we do not record this call. Just looking back for those who maybe did not follow last week's communication, just a quick summary. Sales revenues grew in the first half year by 4% to EUR 606 million.
In Q2 we even grew by 5.5% as FX turned negative for us in the second quarter. Adjusted for these effects, growth rates would have been at 5.5% for half year one and even 8% for Q2. As already said in the call last week, also the order situation is looking quite promising now so that we are confident to be able to reach the sales guidance that we gave for this year. Margin wise we did not have big impacts for H1, so FX adjusted it would always be around 30 basis points higher. As already said in Q2 this looked a little bit differently already. The impact was rather 130 basis points on the EBIT margin just for Q2 and status as of now we are expecting that the impact will be clearly negative for H2 as well, putting some headwinds for us on the margin guidance.
To what extent of course it's difficult to predict, but we will have this later when we talk about everything influencing the margin then. As said in the top line we will be able to compensate presumably with the good business development. On the bottom line or especially in the EBIT margin guidance, we will see this, we will see them and negative impact here in the end. In addition to the FX movements, we are facing the additional costs for the import tariffs to the U.S. that we estimate at around EUR 10 million for the fiscal year 2025 with already EUR 1 million in H1 and the remainder then of course in H2. The combination of all these facts lead us to more concrete guidance that we were giving last week.
This will cost us presumably between 50 - 100 basis points, so that the margin guidance that we initially had in a bandwidth of 25%- 27%, so around 26% ± 1 percentage point, we are now making more concrete in the range, in the lower part of that range, between 25 %- 26%. Another important topic is a question always coming: What is about pricing? How do you counteract that? There is no pricing decision yet, and even if there will be a pricing decision, I would say in the near future the impact for 2025 will be limited as it of course takes time until this gets effective. It's the same with the 5% additional tariffs for the U.S. imports since August 7. We will also feel this to a lower extent this year, maybe in December.
Of course, one thing, we will not give a guidance for next year before we announce the figures for this year. Of course, you can imagine the guidance will then depend on maybe further tariff decisions or to what extent we are then willing and able to put through these higher costs via higher prices to our dealers and customers. This is just a short recap and I would assume there is maybe one or the other question you want to ask. Please feel free to raise your hands. Olivier, you can unmute yourself.
Hope you can hear me. I had a couple of questions. Firstly, could you come back on the latest competitor moves, particularly at Unox, but not just them. Maybe let's start with that.
Yeah, we got some information that one or the other competitor already increased prices. There is maybe no, let's say, hard price list development that we have, but there are hints from the market that there is a price increase in sales. The major case is somewhere between 5% - 10%. There was one rumor we heard that Unox even was increasing prices a little bit more, up to 15%. That was said even before the tariffs went effective.
Do you expect, I think there were some announcements of competitive price increases already back at Q1. Do you expect any of that to be reversed if there's a China deal?
Difficult to say. Generally, normally there is no, so price increases would not be taken back. Of course, in some cases, it could be happening. We saw it in the inflation period that some competitors, we think they overdid it and then they took prices. On the other hand, if you look at our reaction on the chemical price movements, we reacted with significantly higher cleaner prices. As the input costs for this came down as well, we also were going down with that trend and introduced the cleaner prices. It could happen, but difficult to predict.
Okay. In terms of timing, is there any, you know, is your expectation that we should get an update on pricing by Q3 or that it's still too early, you think?
I would hope so, let's say that way. Of course, it's really a complex decision. From that point of view, yeah, I would hope so. You might know that it always takes some time until you get this effective. We saw it in the inflation period when we announced price increases, they went effective then two, three months later. You need to announce this ahead of a certain time, ahead of the price increases going effective. If we think about early November for the Q3 call, could be. Are you done with your questions, Olivier? Mark. I would go over to Rory.
Yeah, hi. In terms of the timing of the price increases in the U.S. by RATIONAL, is it a case of just when your inventory levels and stock levels in the U.S. run out and you need to raise prices, or is it you need more clarity on both FX and direction of travel there, plus more clarity on tariffs, even though arguably we now have clarity. You may think not, just in terms of also waiting for more clarity in terms of competition and what they are doing. Would this sort of delay, if that's the right word for it, be helpful from a market share point of view and customers looking upon that in a constructive way.
Thank you. Yeah. This is indeed a discussion point for sure. You could imagine, like if you talk from the outside, you say you could do this, you could increase prices by 15% to completely compensate. You could increase prices by 10% maybe to offset the extra cost, but it would be negative for the relative margin. You could maybe take more on your accounts in order to make it more attractive in the market. This is maybe the discussions that are of course also running internally. From that point of view, it is not, let's say, a simple decision to say now we do it that way, but you cannot take it back that easily later on. I think one very simple point is that some guys of our management are on holiday now. Until they are not, let's say, everybody is back, there will not be a decision.
We are looking of course at the competitive landscape. What are they doing? Normally competitors are waiting for us to look. Of course, if you think about big competitors like Unox or so, they have not only to look at the iCombi steamer but maybe on more, and from that point of view maybe they are a little bit ahead of us so we can also look at them. I think I would say it has nothing to do with inventory levels. I think this is a secondary view that we would have here.
Thanks, Stefan.
You're welcome. Next question please. Is it Neil or is Mitchell the first name?
Sorry, it's Neil.
Okay. Hi Neil. Hey.
I guess just following on from that discussion in the U.S., I guess through the more inflationary period, we kind of heard from a lot of people in the market that the industry in general, especially competitors, were pretty egregious or the thought was they were pretty egregious with price increases and that you guys were a bit more conservative. I guess just thinking about where the industry's come from in terms of price increases, it is still a pretty volatile macro as you guys keep talking about. It's not, I guess, the most benign environment for your customer base. How are you guys thinking about the potential impact just to demand from your customers? You've obviously had a pretty good couple of quarters and you're pretty confident there's no pull forward there.
It just feels like it's a pretty precarious position with an industry that's already put up prices pretty, pretty egregiously in the opinion of customers and that the consumer outlook is still pretty kind of uncertain, if you like. Just how you are thinking about demand in the U.S. and the demand environment for your customers or maybe what you're hearing from your customers in terms of their outlooks.
I think we quoted a very, in my eyes, very important study from McKinsey that was done so that the out of home business is still a very, very important part of people's life and that they will not, not safe. Maybe the first step in going out and having food and this is indeed helping of course our customers. With that this going concern thinking is still there. The next problems, or maybe the most important problems right now our customers are facing is indeed the rocketing costs, meaning higher energy costs, labor costs, food, et cetera. To counteract, and this is maybe a good thing in the U.S., we are talking about let's say a penetration level of 10%, 10%- 15%, not more. We are now competing with less energy efficient, less easy to use traditional cooking equipment.
With this we can then help our customers to face or to counteract these problems. From that point of view the argument is good. If you would then talk to market guys, they say, hey, we need to put more feet in the street to inform the people. If they compare the two categories, they say, okay, the cost of ownership is so much lower that this is a no brainer for me and I would buy a iCombi because I learned more about it. If you would maybe compete from iCombi to iCombi , then it's a different story. In this market environment in the U.S. I think this is maybe the most important view that we should take and say, hey, we need more feet on the street.
This is what we are working on right now in order to win over more customers, to substitute older or traditional technology with iCombi and iVario.
Okay, thanks. I guess there's still quite big high ticket items. I just wonder whether any of that, because the economics make very good sense. I'm sure that's reasonably straightforward to educate. It's just whether in this environment that gets pushed out somewhat. Difficult to say at this point, I guess.
Yes, indeed. Indeed.
Okay, thank you.
You're welcome.
Olivier, maybe just another one. I think in your prepared comments you mentioned the expectation that this additional tariff rate applies mostly from December. Can you, in your guidance, you're already incorporating about a month of that higher rate.
Right?
Yeah.
Meaning in turn you can also give us a sort of guidance on what to expect if you don't have a price increase next year.
Right.
So that's.
Yeah, indeed, that's an important question. If we looked, when we talk about just this example that we had for 2024, we had the discussion with around EUR 200 million import value, we would have with the 10%, around EUR 20 million additional costs. With the 15%, then EUR 30 million additional costs. If you would then assume a growth rate of 12%- 13% every year, we then would have maybe EUR 250 million, sorry, EUR 350 million, EUR 35 million additional costs. Sorry, EUR 35 million. Okay. Taking out Canada, which is now direct, maybe we would come out with around EUR 30 million additional costs for tariffs that we would need to think of how we handle that in terms of what part of that we can compensate with price increases or not. There was some noise in the background. Okay, this was no question. Yeah, correct. Olivier, was it? Okay. Yep. Is there more questions?
Fraser, hello.
Hi, Stefan. Good to see you. I was just kind of thinking into next year. Could you maybe just remind me on China and what visibility you have with this slightly lower end product you're launching and how quick the ramp up speed could be? Do you have some indications from customers or could you remind me on how you're looking at that basically? Thank you.
Yes, on China, you mean the new product, I would assume exactly.
Yeah.
Yeah, indeed. There is still, let's say, not a lot new that we can say. There are, of course, some assumptions that we have internally. I am a little bit careful with assumptions, so I would not assume that there will be a big impact on the growth rate for next year. We just start after Chinese New Year. It's, yeah, we need a starting phase for sure. It takes some time, and from that point of view, I would not expect a big impact. Maybe, I don't know, it's difficult to say a number what the contribution would be. As said, we are all over in line with the project. Everything is running as expected, and from that point of view, we would say there would be a ramp-up phase. I don't know if it's three months, six months until everything is running well.
We do not expect big cannibalization so that people are just waiting for the cheaper product and then wait until this. This could also have an influence on growth. There is no negative impact expected on growth coming from some cannibalization effects. For the next year, I would not assume really a big growth contribution from the new China product.
Thank you. Just thinking aloud, maybe a second one. In the U.S., when you look at this whole boiler versus boilerless topic, and I think you've spoken before about having maybe like a 45% or so market share in the U.S., what do you consider your market share to be within the specific product which you make? I kind of have the sense that a lot of your competitors stopped doing that, like Alto-Shaam , etc. Does that kind of support in a way your pricing power, or are you looking at the spread between the lower end product as well?
Yeah, the share of course it's not only in the U.S., it's let's say in all the markets. The share in this boiler unit segment is of course higher because there are not that many competitors that are also producing boiler units. There is really a bigger part of the boiler less because it's the cheaper versions, that's entry level models. With this, more customers are addressable. Of course, as you know this story, the quality of the food, the evenness of cooking, etc., is of course not comparable at all from that point of view. Whether this is then 10%, 15%, 28% higher, difficult to say. We know that one of the, as you said, Unox, they were stopping or thinking of stopping boiler units because they cannot compete here. They start with a different, they are strong in the hot air segment, very, very with good units.
I think on the iCombi side, they maybe go a different way. From that point of view, the price difference is really an important point because it's with everything you would buy. If you think of a price difference that's maybe it's double as expensive, then maybe you say that's okay for me. If it's maybe 3x more expensive, then you would say, oh, let's try out the cheaper one, maybe it's sufficient. If you think of just the example we always like to use, if you think about an investment of EUR 10,000 over a lifetime of 10 years, this means approximately EUR 5 per day, which you initially pay for the unit. In the end, if you pay just maybe 20% less, you save EUR 1 per day. If you just have not a comparable cleaning functionality, then this EUR 1 is not a lot of money.
If people or customers think like that, maybe the price difference is not that important because we're talking about a completely different kind of product.
Thank you.
You're welcome, David.
Good afternoon. Apologies I joined the call a little later, and if I'm duplicating something, please just say. Obviously, with tariffs coming in the U.S., and you'll be seeing that effect from December, how's this changed your thinking in terms of setting up manufacturing in the U.S. as opposed to having the current production from just two facilities in Europe?
Thanks. Yeah, very good question. Thank you for that. Yeah, we are every 2, 2, 3 years or so, we are indeed assessing the option of setting up a production facility in the U.S. and you might laugh if you look back in the IPO prospectus 25 years ago, one of the goals with the IPO was to finance a U.S. production facility. Indeed. Since then the decision was always negative. Basically, it's way more expensive to have the production over there compared to do it in Europe and or in the U.S. In the last assessment we had approximately 25% higher cost level that we were calculating. The good thing is I talked to an investor about this a few months ago and he said another German mid-sized companies or in our approximately in our size, they were also thinking of doing that.
They came out with a little bit more than 20%, the same level approximately. Now with the tariffs this could change maybe, but in the end the tariffs will also influence the cost level in the U.S. so higher wages and higher input costs maybe for other things so that this could be in the end again the same story. We will do this in the near future again and see the output. Yeah, might change indeed the view on that.
I guess there's the.
Yeah.
You can do this calculation based on what the current tariff level is. I guess, you know, since tariffs are being weaponized, that could be moving around the whole time. I guess if this would at least give. I'm not suggesting you should do it.
But.
I guess it would give more certainty if nothing else.
One thing you need to consider as well is that maybe not only the importers of our competitive products, which is that most importers are outside or most competitors are importers from outside of the U.S., they are facing the same problem, but also those who produce in the U.S. are facing tariffs on steel and components coming from China, etc. This is also, from a competitive point of view, maybe not worsening the situation, nor might it be improving the situation, but might be neutral as well because everybody is facing to some extent the same problems. This is also a thing we need to consider here as well. If we then would just import the steel to the U.S.
and do it like in Germany, just one example, steel, and just do it like in Germany, mainly the assembly, then maybe tariffs would be even higher for us than compared to how we do it now. It's not easy to assess this.
Thank you.
Rory.
Yes, Stefan, what is, I know there's no such thing as normal anymore, but what would be a normal split for the U.S. on the one hand and China on the other? When it comes to the street market and the [key account] market, where are we at the moment? What would you consider to be normal?
Thank you. Normally we would say that in the U.S. and in China we have key account shares of close to 50%. Maybe in China it will be different when we look maybe 10, 15 years ahead and maybe we are successful in the field with the cheaper product, which is maybe not including key account customers in this to the same magnitude, but difficult to say. In a normal view right now we would say maybe 50% and right now we are way smaller. We are rather on the, let's say, group level that we see outside of these countries at around 15% or maybe 20%, but not more. In the U.S., since I would say the increases in the interest rate started, there is some hesitation on the investment side.
The daily business, replacing units, etc., is running quite normal, but no bigger projects, meaning that there is maybe a project with 1,000 units or a few hundred units. This is sort of slowing down a little bit. In China we had this huge order from Yum China last year where the share was rocketing up to way beyond the 50%. Now it's down because, let's say, they don't have a bigger project right now and they are not continuing this. This will go up to a normal level again with KFC, I'm sure. In the U.S. it's difficult to predict. There is a pipeline, there are interested key accounts, but right now they are not willing to invest heavily. Maybe the unsecurity now of the tariff situation is also fueling that hesitation a little bit.
Yeah, I was wondering whether the key account customers are more sensitive to tariff uncertainty or confusion or whatever the right word is.
Yeah, let's say they are calculating more sharply. If you have a mom -and- pop restaurant and maybe the guy who's running it is a trained chef and then he's thinking if this is EUR 1 more per day to stay with this example I had before or less, it doesn't matter. If you think of a project of 1,000 units, for example, and then you're talking about a few hundred thousand euros, you are calculating with then that the number is bigger and then you are looking more sharply on that. That's why they are maybe a little bit more driven by financial markets developments and by such figures. Thank you. Back on. If there are no more questions, it seems that maybe we did a good job last week and made with a few misunderstandings about that maybe the guided range a good job. Now I see Olivier came.
Yeah, I think David had his hand raised first. I'm not sure if there was a—sorry, I think David has his hand raised first. Otherwise, I give it a try. I just had—the last one was just on the steel bit. If you could just explain the workings of that implication for you, the steel tariff part, how that applies exactly, just because this might move as well.
For us there is components that are, let's say, the majority of them is steel. For example, the stands that we have for our units, for the tabletop units, there is some accessories that we have that is mainly steel. Here we talk about, let's say, less than 10% of sales. On that we are paying indeed 50% in tariffs, which is, yeah, of course negative. As said, the share is quite, quite low and from that point of view it's not, not influencing it that heavily. The unit business is of course much more important here.
Is there any reason why we should think the non unit business is different than the sort of roughly 30% you have at group level in the U.S. specifically?
Can you repeat it?
Sorry, that was a convoluted way to ask it. Basically, is the non unit business in the U.S. also at the 30% level you see at group or.
Yeah, absolutely. So far for the kitchen, it doesn't matter where you are, you're having the kitchen, it's important that you have your cleaner, your accessories, your spare parts, etc. It's the same. Thank you.
Oh, it's another one.
I don't see your hand coming up. Okay, now Rory. Okay, good.
Justin, going back to that question about Road to China, Stefan, you said it won't have much impact initially, but can we expect at least at some point a bit more insight into your thinking about the opportunity at the time of the nine month results or the full year results for 2025 in a way that you weren't really able to do for the iHexagon, given that the iHexagon is addressing a less kind of defined market. Right, whereas the street market in China is more defined and you're building X amount of capacity with mind to addressing that market. Can we expect more detail at some point on your plans or your ambitions for Road to China and when? The answer would be no and never.
The answer will not be no and never. I would say also the parameters that are important here. It's not that easy to predict that. As said, there will maybe not be that much cannibalization because there are groups of customers that maybe are just able to afford the cheap version and others, they want to have all the functionalities of the more expensive of the iCombi then. How this will then develop in the coming months or quarters is difficult to predict because we had, for example, with the iCombi Classic, we have a cheaper version in the assortment. This is approximately maybe the same price level, but it's not intelligent and nobody wants to have it in China. From that point of view, will this change, to what extent will this change with the new version?
There is a lot of, of course, there are a lot of scenarios we are calculating, but I think maybe I had it in an earlier call, if I would have taken the scenarios we had for connected cooking 10 years ago and we would be at EUR 200 million sales now, or maybe at least EUR 100 million sales, and we are at EUR 2 million. From that point of view, to give out here scenarios to create, let's say, an expectation that is way, maybe too high, I do not want to do that.
Understood.
I would say when there is the start of sales, I'm sure that there will also be more sophisticated calculations and maybe more realistic calculations from our market side that I would then be willing to share with you in order to give you a realistic view on that. Thank you. You're welcome. If there are any more questions later on, just feel free to send an email or to give us a call. David, again.
Sorry to come back again, but just very quickly. You talked about how 15% tariffs could be, say, EUR 30 million, more or less.
Sorry, David, I can hardly understand you.
Sorry, you referred to EUR 30 million as a sort of headline impact, say from the 15% tariffs, if you did nothing.
Yeah.
Have you quantified at all what the steel component would be? Or are you including that within the EUR 30 million?
Yeah.
Because that's presumably something where you're seeing an impact already this year.
Right? Yeah. There are also some products where we think we pay maybe a little bit less. We do some local sourcing, maybe not too much, but overall maybe then it's EUR 2 million more or so. It's even difficult to calculate it really exactly. As you say, as I said, this was just a rough calculation. The EUR 30 million was a rough calculation. Sure, the EUR 8 million could be EUR 32 million, but of course the steel component is a little bit higher. This would lead then maybe to sort of a small difference to that, but this would not be the crucial point in the end. Yeah. Okay.
Thank you.
You're welcome. I would say finally, thank you for your participation. If there is a question coming up after the call, you can always send an email or come through via phone if you want, or maybe even have a call if it's more. Please feel free to approach us. Thank you very much and have a nice day. Take care. Bye bye.