Now let's start. Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for again participating in our IR talk today. A lot of well-known faces and some new persons, quite nice mix. With me is my new colleague, Laura Deininger. Maybe some of you already met her. She just started in January this year at IR, but is not new to RATIONAL. She's there for, I think 13 years now or so. A few hints at the very beginning, as always. This call on the one hand is, you know this maybe, a follow-up on our earnings call that we had two weeks ago. On the other hand, the last call, or some guys would call it pre-close Call for the Q1 2026.
With this call, we are following the ESMA recommendations, meaning we just talk about publicly known information. The call was made accessible to anyone who's interested or via our website and we would not, presumably not share any material, but if we would do so, we would share with anybody. Another hint, the call will not be recorded by us. With this, let's start. We first start to summarize a little bit the most important points of fiscal year 2025. Sales revenues amounted to EUR 1.26 billion in the last year, which corresponds to a growth of 6% and adjusted for the negative FX effects, our organic growth amounted to 8%.
With that, I think that's a very, very important message. We are back on our average historic growth levels that we saw before this crisis years. Sorry, I got an echo. There is somebody not muted. Yeah. From a regional perspective, North America again was one of the major growth drivers with a growth rate of 8%. Organic growth adjusted for the really significant U.S. dollar/euro effects was around 14%. Then again, Europe was quite successful last year with a growth rate of 9%, really with a broad growth we saw over the different countries. From that point of view, very pleasing result in the European markets.
Asia was sort of a negative outlier for 2025 with a decrease of 11%, compared to 2024. From an operating perspective, it is really important to know that in Asia we have a few big customers who have very big shares of the sales volume, and we had very strong years in 2023 and also in 2024 as we had the one-off effects due to the big orders from these bigger accounts. Eliminating these effects plus the negative FX effect, we saw our growth rate was at around 6%. That's what we call the street business with the smaller customers was growing by 6% in Asia.
To be honest, that's still below our midterm expectations we would have there, but at least it's a growth and it's not so far away from the expectations. When we look on the different product groups, again, iVario was very strong or stronger, double as quick in growth as the iCombi segment with around 10% growth. Yeah, this is indeed growth rate we would expect also for the future. 10%+ growth is the midterm expectation for the iVario. When we now come to the gross profit side, we benefited last years indeed from cost for components, for raw materials and logistics that were stabilizing on a lower level. With that, largely compensated for the additional tariff expenses we were facing in 2025.
With that, the gross margin ended up on a level slightly below previous year and better indeed than expected. The operating costs they were growing a little bit over proportional to sales revenues as expected, mainly due to higher investments on the sales-oriented or customer-oriented positions, as we increased numbers of people in sales and invested more in sales-related functions. In the end, with a little bit lower gross margin, with a little bit over proportional costs, operating costs, indeed the help of the positive or less negative FX result we need to say compared to previous year, the EBIT margin was in the end with 26.4% in 2025, slightly higher than we saw it in 2024.
With that a little bit above our expectation, which was at around 26% initially. What is important to say before we start to think about 2026, it is not only the figures that we saw that give us a good feeling and a confident look into the future. It is mainly the foundation of this success, which is the development of the sales organizations. Once we had left the crisis years behind us, approximately by the end of 2023 or so, this means we again started hiring more salespeople. Meaning, we met more customers with these more salespeople. We were triggering more demand with that, and with that also the sales revenue growth came back on a path we think we could manage also for the future.
This means the mid- to high-single-digit growth levels. This is now management focus number one. We will continue on this path of building up the sales capacities, driven of course by the growth potentials we see in the respective markets. Not everybody can increase deliberately what he wants, but it needs to be potential oriented in the markets where we see the biggest growth potential. Of course, we will add more than in more mature markets, like in Germany, for example. For more detailed information, I think there is now plenty of information on the website. Then please go on the website and look there. Closing 2025 now, let me now go over to some thoughts on the fiscal year 2026.
Of course, this is yeah no detailed information on the first quarter. You know, this is something we will not do. To give you some thoughts what might drive the business, what is our thought on the outlook. We announced with the annual report two weeks ago, sales growth guidance in the mid- to high-single-digit percentage area. I think there is no reason after two weeks why we should change that. We know already there will be again a burn this year coming from the currency effects, especially in Q1. If you have a little bit of closer look at the currency movements last year and this year, you see that this should be of a minor importance in Q2, Q3, Q4.
It will go down or be neutral, presumably. From that point of view, this is indeed fading out throughout the year, so that we will be less affected by negative FX result throughout the quarters. There was still a significant impact in Q1, of course, maybe comparable to Q4 or so that we had in the last year. FX rates of course are a burden for us, you know this. But when we look into the last year's developments, we were able to compensate the FX effect with good growth rates. We are confident and with this foundation that we talked about before, with a sales team development.
If we should be or if we could be able to bring this into the new year, then of course we would be able to compensate also the FX effects with the better business development. Again, to go on a regional view, all over we see more or less continued trends as we saw it last year. Of course, there will be some minor changes here and there. The U.S. is our biggest growth market, you know this, and we are expecting continued organic growth, but also significant negative FX impact, at least for the Q1 and then this asset will fade out. I would say looking at our competitors' figures for the last year, this is indeed a good success and also a very positive outlook.
We are, let's say, yeah, good development in a, yeah, weaker market environment. Still the street business is doing well and still looking promising. Also, we had this in the call regarding the key account business. We still see a good pipeline, and we are expecting to be able to grow now maybe from a lower starting position than maybe we would have talked about a few years ago. In the U.S., of course, the tariffs are the most important topic many guys are talking these days. As it looked like more clarity in the end of last year, now there again are a lot of question marks again. After the Supreme Court decision.
As Peter said in the call, we will claim back tariffs as much as possible, but whether we will be successful there, at which amount and when, this is another open question I think we need to look. We do not include, or we did not include these figures into our guidance, into our planning for the next year, which we announced with the earnings call. On the other end, there is a discussion on the calculation base of the steel part of the products, which could lead then to higher tariffs. This would change. Here there is really a big unclarity in which direction it can go.
Europe, after having good development last year with maybe a little bit more dynamic development than initially expected, we also see here continued trends. There is no reason for most markets to think that there might be a significant change, so we will be following this path with hiring more people here as well, and I think we can stay on this successful road here. In Asia right now, the Chinese model is, of course, the most important topic we are talking about. We just launched in I think two weeks ago now. T he Chinese model produced in China for the Chinese market, and we are here expecting support for the sales side. On the other hand, we know that China is still affected by a sort of negative consumer sentiment.
On the other hand, looking at this product launch, we know there is always some hesitation ahead of a new product launch, which might then dilute the situation and the figures to some extent, so that we do not have clear figures after these two weeks on the short-term impact on our sales figures. In the other markets in the region, we see sort of a normalization. We talked about this high volatility due to big orders from bigger customers. I think here we are getting to more normality, but also with some usual fluctuations we have in these markets. Maybe another elephant in the room these days is, of course, Middle East. Of course, our Middle East markets are also suffering sort of from the Iran war effects.
The impact on sales is limited as this is just around 2%-3% of our sales volume. I think the most important for us is that our people there, they are healthy and safe. All over, it's a burden for us, but it's manageable. A look on the margins for next year. What is impacting the margins? Of course, the price increases we introduced in February will of course positively impact sales growth and margins, but they just get effective step by step, beginning in early February because there were some level of pre-ordering. There is longer term contracts, for example, with key accounts, and so step by step the new price level will then trickle in.
From that point of view, we see of course a positive impact on the margin, but to which magnitude, difficult to say in detail now. On the other hand, we are facing now again higher alloy surcharges. We benefited from a lower level last year, but they are going up again. Same is true for logistic costs, and of course, higher tariffs we are facing this year because now it's fully effective. Even if the Supreme Court decision is maybe putting some question marks on the height of the tariffs, but the base tariff of 10% that we know will always stay and the rest is something we need to look at. Still in our planning, as said before, the tariff level, the tariff regime that we had before is valid.
This is in the end, of course, causing higher COGS, and therefore the gross margin will be presumably lower this year compared to 2025. I think the guidance, 25%-26% for the EBIT margin, is mainly coming from the gross margin. This is around 1 percentage point. If we go from the level this year, 1 percentage point plus, minus whatever basis point level will be a negative impact on the gross margin. With the continued investments, especially in the sales and service and the R&D, we are expecting now for this year as well. We continue this. Also the EBIT margin will be lower, and here the guidance was a level between 25%-26%. Yeah.
From that point of view, we think this is still a valid range we are expecting. Overall, we want to keep the costs, let's say in admin areas, everything that's not sales related, stable or at least increase this disproportionately slower than the sales so that we get a positive contribution. Overall, a range of 25%-26% is valid. From that point of view, I think that's now all from my side. I think a quick overview, and now we already have the first question coming from Craig. Please a sk the question.
Yes. Hi, Stefan. Thank you. Let me turn my camera on, sorry about that. Yes. Thank you. Yeah, I just wanna follow up on the U.S. price increases, 4%-5%, going into effect from February. If you could just give us some color on how the customer acceptance of those price increases has been? Thank you.
Overall, I think 4% or 5% is not really a big price increase when we compare it to what competition did. I think the feedbacks, and also when we look into the first figures, I think the price level is well accepted, and there is no big discussion about this price level.
Okay. Thank you.
Olivier.
Hi, Stefan. Thanks for taking my question. Maybe just the first one on, you know, any moves from competitors on U.S. prices after, Supreme Court decision, that you've seen?
No.
Still no?
No, no.
Okay.
No change until I think you had the same question maybe two weeks ago, and I think still no change that we really see.
Yeah. Okay. Then just maybe a follow-up. Yeah. Two weeks ago you mentioned sort of the U.S. share of kitchens running on gas versus electricity. Can you maybe give us a sense of the share of addressable kitchens that work with gas, versus electricity elsewhere, maybe as well?
The U.S. is in terms of share of gas units really the biggest one. There is a, I would say, every second kitchen, approximately 50% or so of our kitchens or of our units are running with gas and the rest with electricity. In other markets, it's way lower. I think in the European markets we are below, so we are on a level of 10%-15% or so. I think the U.K. in Europe is a little bit higher, but the Americas are having the biggest, way bigger than in any other market. All over, when we look at group-wide, we are at some 18% or so, slightly below 20% total share of gas units.
Okay. Maybe just one more on the sales force. You know, is there a target level you're looking to reach in terms of sales people by year-end?
There is a target level. To be honest, I don't have the exact figure now. In general, the rule is if we want to grow by, let's say, let's take the 8%, then I think the rule of thumb is we need to add approximately 8% new sales people, because it's people business. We need to visit the people. We saw this. We need to have the direct contact. That's very important. That's why we then need to approximately add this number of people on the sales side. Yeah.
Yeah. Thanks.
I think the next one is Ope.
Hi, Stefan. Do you mind just sort of talking to investors? Europe seemed quite strong, especially Germany. Quite interesting, obviously, given it's one of your more mature markets. Do you mind giving any color on what's happening there? How much of that we should sort of extrapolate into 2026?
If we look on the growth figures, I think we need to look a little bit more longer term. As we know, I think we pointed out that quite frequently in the last weeks, that sales figures are a function of starting with sales people, activities, contacts, and then with this we trigger more sales. That's true for higher penetrated markets like Germany, where we then need to trigger guys adding a new unit or changing the unit, or for less penetrated markets, where we need to show the potential customers all the advantages. With more people, with more activities, we trigger more sales. In the European markets, I think the building up the sales organizations after this crisis period was quite good.
After a few months, maybe one to two years, this translates into sales. From that point of view, sometimes it's difficult to say whether this measure was successful or was responsible for a development that was one year later, or it comes from another source. It's important for our sales organizations to continuously develop the sales capacities so that they continuously increase their contacts. From that point of view, if you would ask now maybe, and I did it last year in the late when we would ask our U.K. colleagues, they could say, "There is no special reason I could tell you which was causing this good development last year," but it's in general a good, I would say, foundation they were building up in the past years.
Of course, if there would be significant crisis scenarios, then, in the short term, even this would maybe not help. In the long term then it would persist, and after the crisis is gone, we would then be able to continue.
Thank you.
Y ou're muted, yeah. Is there more questions? Christian and then Rory, I think. Huh?
Yes. Hi. Thanks for taking my question. I have two, actually. First of all, you've had a very pronounced increase in the revenue momentum in Q4. To what extent was this possibly driven by pre-buying effects in light of the price increases you announced for February? Is there pre-buying in Q4 and potentially then a softer trend in Q1? That's a question. That's the first question, and the second one, to what extent are you exposed to any possible material shortages that might arise in the context of the Middle East conflict? We hear about aluminum, for instance, and also certain alloys that could be, where supply could be affected short to medium term. Thank you.
First question on the pre-buying effects, there was some pre-buying, but not to a big extent indeed. I think Jörg was talking about around EUR 5 million or so in the course of this, which was really limited. From that point of view, there should not be a significant impact on Q1 coming from that. Maybe rather the other way around, there might be could also be a slight impact that we see some pre-buying that was in January, and so that people ordered, and this will now be delivered, yeah, in the coming weeks after or in the month after. From that point of view, maybe this is compensating for each other a little bit.
Looking on the material supply, up to now, there is no indications that we might be affected. Our purchase department is always quite heavily looking on this, but right now we don't see any potential impacts. You never know, so I think we could not rule out. We saw it in the chip crisis in, yeah, I think two to three years ago. We were affected then as well, and we had then to bypass. I think we were quite yeah, positively reactive on this with these semi-finished goods. I think you followed this, and it was quite managed quite well from our colleagues. Right now we don't see a scenario that this would happen, but we could never rule out, for sure. Who's the next?
Thank you.
Rory, I think you were the next, and then Ope.
Yeah, I raised my hand. There was nobody in the queue, but I'll ask the question anyway. Thank you. You may well have covered this in detail on the results call, so apologies in advance. Can you talk about iCombi One and the product for China in terms of how RATIONAL approaches the ramping of that facility? What is its capacity? I don't think you're gonna answer that question. What's the size of the addressable market? How many people have you hired so far in assembly? Just give us more of an idea, if you can, if you haven't done already, about the speed with which that business will develop, or should we be very patient and this is a long-term approach to the street business in China? Thank you.
I want to start after your "or". F or the time being, we do not talk about these figures because I think it's too early . I would say, everybody needs to be patient. We will closely monitor the market. I think, as always, when you start with a new product line, it might take some time until the customers do their assessment whether this technology is fitting in. Maybe here is even a little bit different. Now they need to compare different groups. They say, okay, the new one, the old one, or the Pro versus the One, and we look what fits better for us in terms of price and performance. From that point of view, we need to monitor closely the market. We will not, for the moment, sorry for that, give out the figures from the first part of your question.
Thank you. Presumably in your guidance for this year, you're not assuming much of a contribution either from the iHexagon or the iCombi One product in China. That's right? It's kind of business as usual, except those two. It's really all about the iVario and the iCombi.
Yes. Not a significant impact from these two product groups. Not so that you would feel it on a group level. I think this is not the case. Yeah. Correct.
Thank you.
I think Ope was the next one.
All right. Just to clarify on the margin piece, to what extent is the pricing this year sort of offset tariffs? Like, do you mind just giving like a rough percentage? I suppose is the reason gross margin is higher, sorry, lower than the sort of main pieces of sort of the FX bets and how much like operating leverage you expect? I'm just trying to understand the different buckets of or like a margin bridge where, how much t ariff headwinds versus pricing, how much FX, how much operating leverage might RATIONAL potentially benefit from?
On the cost side, I would say the biggest burden is coming indeed from the additional tariff bucket. If it stays as it is, as was assumed until these new discussions that were opened. We were talking about, let's say, an incremental increase from 2025 to 2026 of around EUR 12 million-EUR 13 million. Always assuming these potential changes are not included here. From that point of view, this is the major impact. FX, as said, will be a negative impact. Difficult to say the exact magnitude, especially in Q1, but not from Q2 on. There will be an impact. Whether this is EUR 5 million- EUR 10 million, I think that's quite difficult to say now. On the other hand, the price increases in the U.S., you could calculate yourselves.
We are doing around a little bit less than 5% for approximately 90% of the sales volume because we don't increase for cleaning products. This is starting in February or was starting in February, and I would say it gets effective to a level of 100% step by step somewhere during the year. This is always also a difficult calculation now to look forward. From that point of view, you could calculate maybe a little bit the positive impact coming from the price increases. This will help. Then on the other hand, difficult to really forecast is what impact will come from the alloy surcharge, what impact will come from the logistics costs that will go up.
Overall, I would say the guidance that we gave. Let's say we come out with a margin level on the EBIT side, 25%-26%. We come from 26.4%, and I would say if you go down this magnitude approximately, also from the starting point of the gross margin, because the major impact comes from the gross margin, mainly from the material costs. This is then the same level of reduction in the margin. Operational leverage, to be honest, is something. Operational leverage is always helping. You are increasing productivity. On the other hand, you have inflationary effects. If the productivity gains by growing in numbers are compensating for the inflation effects like higher wages or so, then this is something we deem as realistic so that we cover inflationary effects. In the long term, there is not really an operational leverage we are seeing.
Okay. Maybe just one more to p iggyback on Rory's question. I get the main thing in China is then the iCombi One, but sort of what else are you seeing in terms of the expansion into tier two to four cities? Is that something that happens this year, sort of later on therefore into this year or next year?
Sorry, I didn't understand the first part of the question.
Sort of, iCombi One of China in general. I suppose the bigger point is the new offering. The sort of, how should we think of upside from sort of expanding into sort of more cities. I suppose tier two to tier four cities as opposed to just staying in tier one. Is that something that happens this year or n ext year?
You mean the expansion of the market or?
Yes. Yeah.
Okay. Yeah. For right now, for the time being, we are working in the, let's say, existing network that we are having in China. Meaning there is a dealer landscape we are having. We are in the cities. We are going a little bit, of course, that's the major aim of it to go a little bit beyond the big cities, where we see this huge potential with lower purchasing power, but the need for this kind of technology. From that point of view, I think it's a step-by-step approach. We will increase here the footprint, but we will stay within China, as this is really a Chinese product with all the Chinese licenses, all the things you need to fulfill for the Chinese market, but not for other markets.
Okay. Great. Thanks very much.
Lars.
Yes. Thank you very much. Two quick questions, if I may. I mean, we already discussed potential supply chain bottlenecks, but when it comes to memory chips or the chips you need in your iCombis, iVarios, could that threaten your margin and put some pressure on the margin, seeing chip prices having rocketed recently, or is that manageable?
No, I would say in the, let's say, input costs that are going up. This is maybe one of the parts that we are looking at. Indeed, they are going up, and they might have an impact on the margin as well, but difficult to say how much . There will be a negative impact. I think the alloy surcharge might be even more important for us with a really big share in the costs in the COGS.
Okay, understood. Based on all what you said, shall we expect the seasonality of your fiscal year to be as it was last year, i.e., a slightly weaker Q1 with 23%-24% of sales, and then Q2, Q3, I don't know, 24%, 25%-ish, and then 28%- something in Q4? Are you seeing any differences for this year?
Very, very good question. In general, of course, we don't know ahead of a year whether the seasonality will be the same. If there would not be, let's say, a shock event or so that would slow down markets completely, at whatever time, we would say that we are back in the normal seasonality pattern again. Whether this is then 23% or 24% or 23.5%, in detail, we can of course not say, but we say that Q4 will be the strongest Q or the highest level. Q1 will be the lowest level, presumably, and the Q2 and Q3 will be somewhere in between, approximately on the same level. This is a normal pattern that we know, and I think we are expecting this again. Yeah.
Fair enough. Thank you very much.
Maybe Stefan, just a quick follow-up on China. I know it's early days, but how do you manage the sales launch? You know, are you hiring additional folks to cover the additional cities you're targeting? You know, can you talk a bit about that maybe?
Yeah. We hire additional people, that's for sure. We already started this. I think in China, we are in a very difficult phase, let's say that. We said it before, also the Chinese markets are facing sort of a negative consumer sentiment these days, which makes it more difficult maybe to start in such a market. On the other hand, I think maybe it's also a good point to start now with the product. We manage it in a way as we did before. We have big dealers. We invite them to events.
I think two or three weeks ago, there were big events starting in Suzhou and in Shanghai, in our headquarters. Now, I think, is the Hotelex trade show. This is the next step where we show it to the markets. Then we work at first with the existing network, I said before, and then we are increasing this step by step.
Are the salespeople, you know, selling only iCombi One or is that also, you know? Okay.
Both. That's what I meant before. For customers, there is now not only the decision, do I buy an iCombi or do I buy a Combi steamer at all or not? If I decide for a Combi, do I decide for a RATIONAL or for a competitive product? Now I have two RATIONALS where I say, "Okay, this one is fitting better." I need, for example, 300 degrees, then I need the iCombi Pro, or I want to have the intelligence, then I need it. If they say, "You know, for me a simpler one is okay," then they would maybe go for the iCombi One. Here both units are shown to our customers in order to make a decision which one they prefer.
Thanks.
Perfect. If there are no questions anymore, then let's close the call. If there is any question that's maybe related, in case you know, you know our names and our numbers, you know where we are living, yeah. We close this call. We hope to have you on the Q1 call on sixth May. I think we cannot find the link to register right now, but we will add this in the next weeks. If there is any feedbacks that you're having for us, we are always happy to get them. Then I wish you a good time until 6th May, and see you then.
Thanks, Stefan. Thanks, Laura. Thank you. Bye.
Bye-bye. Take care.
Thank you so much.