Hello, everybody out there. Here we are again with your favorite podcast. No, jokes aside, we really have people asking when we plan to publish, so I take it we have reached a certain level of distinction. I'm sitting here in Forchheim, yes, the famous town you know from our Meet the Management in 2023, with Bernd Montag and Jochen Schmitz. Our budget talks take place this week, and most of the meetings happen in person here in Forchheim. We have had an impressive quarterly result and a focused road show. As usual, we try to distill the key points of discussion and deliver to you a compact summary of what we believe you need to know, if you did not get a chance to meet us, or if you simply want to remind yourself ahead of your next discussion involving Siemens Healthineers. So let's kick it off.
How about you, Bernd, again, get us started with your look at the highlights of Q3 2025 reporting?
I mean, first and foremost, we posted very, very strong revenue growth, with 7.6%, driven by growth in all regions. Also, the bottom line was very strong. EPS came in at EUR 0.64, mainly driven by margin expansion of 160 basis points year-over-year. The combination of the two things made us raise the outlook. We raised the midpoints for growth to 5.5%-6% and adjusted EPS to EUR 2.30-EUR 2.45. Looking at orders, again, very healthy equipment book-to-bill of 1.09. And when looking at the segments, I mean, Imaging, a very, very strong exclamation mark with 11.7% growth, a margin of 21%, despite headwinds from tariffs. Yeah.
Varian growth at 8.7% with an exclamation mark on the margin side, almost 19%. And we doubled free cash flow in the first nine months of the year. And for the first time since the Varian acquisition, leverage is now below three.
Obviously, people wondered also in our discussions, what actually has been driving this very strong quarter of imaging in terms of growth?
Well, I mean, one way to look at it is the growth is driven by many of the long-term programs we have been driving. In particular, I want to highlight the strong growth contribution and margin contribution, of photon -counting CT, but also molecular imaging and therein, in particular, PETNET, contributed extremely, well, to this growth. And while MR was not above the 12% imaging growth, it posted also quite some decent growth.
Obviously, as it always is, the logical follow-on question came, so actually, how sustainable is this from our point of view?
So I would say what is definitely sustainable is the strength of the innovations and the position we have developed. Yeah, whether it is photon -counting CT, whether it is our pole position in theranostics, whether it is the strength in MR. And this is why we feel extremely comfortable with the growth target we have set for the midterm of mid- to high-single digits. And of course, we are happy when now and then we even can post double-digit growth.
Great. So, I mean, the follow-on question to these two things that we said, on the one hand, confirming the outlook, on the other hand, the very good, not only Q3, but first nine months, people asked us what basically is the explanation between then the implied deceleration in the fourth quarter in terms of growth? Jochen, maybe that's one for you.
Yeah, thanks, Mark, for the question. I think, when we look at, at Q4, is, really slightly, a bit slightly lower than, than the growth trajectory we have seen so far. This is primarily driven by two reason. Yeah, both are more skewed towards Imaging. Remember, last year, Imaging, posted, the first nine months with about slightly shy of 4% growth, and then it had a very, very strong Q4 with almost 8% growth. So tough comps or different comps is, is the main reason for the, for the first argument. Second factor is that we made a decision at the end of last year to really try to linearize or unburden our Q4, linearize the quarters, unburden Q4, to mainly reduce the cost and friction with having one quarter significantly higher than, than the other three.
We kind of introduced a second sales process with a separate team, which is incentivized only on revenue recognition and making sure that our strong order backlog translates quickly into revenue. By the way, maybe the last topic, you remember last year, we told you three quarters, yeah, "Don't worry, everything will be fine with a strong Q4." I think we felt that not really anybody or everybody believed us, yeah. So another reason why we wanted to linearize it, yeah.
That's actually pretty good because it also helps the life of an IR. So maybe looking into 2026. Obviously quite a few moving parts. Also the ones that we hinted to, people wanted to get a bit of a grip of, what they should expect for 2026.
Yeah, when in terms of underlying margin, we should expect support into next fiscal year. I think we are on a very good track in general. But on the other hand, we know that we will have, so say, exogenous headwinds, yeah, and, they come from, primarily from two reasons. Yeah, one is, tariffs. Tariffs means an additional headwind, of about EUR 0.15 on foreign exchange. The weaker U.S. dollar, we would see another headwind of up to EUR 0.10, yeah. Keep in mind that, we have a hedging regime in place, but it's a rolling hedging regime, therefore, it's rolling off over time. And, maybe on that topic, maybe on both topics, things are still not super stable.
We tend to believe that the tariffs might be more stable now with the 15%, but there are still things out there, which are in the discussions, also to the upside, potentially, yeah. Obviously, foreign exchange, we assumed here a $1.70 to euro relationship. And, this is obviously also volatile when you just look at the last couple of days, yeah? Then maybe one last topic. We had some positives in the net income this year that you cannot plan for next year, and it was around EUR 0.05.
The natural question that we then also got on the road shows: What does that mean for EPS?
Yeah, I mean, at the end of the day, as already mentioned, the question will be, how much can we compensate or overcompensate those exogenous headwinds with our strong underlying or operational performance, yeah? As Marc said, as you said in the beginning, yeah, we are here together in Forchheim, yeah, and we have our budget discussion starting directly after the recording of the podcast. So it's a bit too early to commit to hard numbers then.
So, I mean, one key assumption for this understanding 2026 is obviously what is happening from our point of view in terms of tariffs in our P&L. Can you maybe help the audience a bit to understand the key assumptions that are going into these numbers that we've put out there?
I mean, when we have one hard number out there, which is about the EUR 100 million charge in Q3, the guidance for this fiscal year is net EUR 200 million-EUR 250 million. And for next year, roughly twice the hit, so EUR 400 million-EUR 500 million. And when you look at the first EUR 100 million in Q3, and obviously, we had some early mitigation measures, which per se dry out. It was early shipment of inventories and so on and so on. And the quarter was only at a 10% tariff, EU to United States.
In Q4, we expect then for slightly higher number due to the fact that that we assume for two months now, the 15% instead of the 10%, and also those early mitigation measures are drying out. And in 2026, we obviously also do not have those early mitigation measures. And therefore, I think it's meanwhile more or less realistic under those assumptions of the 50% EU U.S. tax tariff regime, that four to five hundred million will be the charge in 2026.
Okay, so that's quite a lot of headwind in terms of cost and, the question that we obviously got from investors in terms of, the medium term, how we can potentially mitigate this. Bernd, maybe that's one for you.
Yeah, I would draw the analogy here to the inflation shock from 2022, which also affected the entire industry, and it took a while, yeah, until we could restore margins. But I think it also showed that it's possible, and when looking at this quarter with an imaging margin of 21%, which even is already now burdened by tariffs, as Jochen mentioned, it showed, yeah, that we have been extremely successful in recovering margins, even when there are changes to our cost structure. And why I like the analogy is that basically, tariffs and other trade barriers make the cost position of the entire industry more difficult. And because either you pay tariffs or you have a less efficient supply chain than before, yeah.
So we will, like everybody else, work on the other hand, on pricing, but on the other hand, also on changing our value add structure. It is a little bit too early to make final decisions, since there is still a potential upside risk when it comes to the put to the exemptions for MedTech, which have been discussed. We have the plans in the drawer, but the combination of the two topics of pricing plus changing in value add further productivity will bring us back to the margin levels, which we have today. It will take time, yeah, so it will not happen in one year, yeah. But when looking at it, it will look like a stretched one-timer, so to say, where we see over a-...
burden to our overall P&L, which has its biggest impact in the next year. But then over time, we will return to the margin levels, which we are used to.
Speaking of stretched effects, I mean, we've been talking about the situation in China for quite a while, and people are anxiously awaiting the turnaround signal for that market. So, I mean, we saw the 6% growth in Q3, or we showed that also to the market. The question, obviously, that came up to us on the roadshow was, "Is this now the turning point for China growth?
I think we need to be a bit careful when looking at growth rates because they are currently influenced very strongly also by what happened in the last year. In the last year, we were shrinking by 13% in China. Yeah, so that the 6% have definitely happened on the basis of weak comps. We are still when looking at absolute numbers in a period of flattish revenue development over the quarters, so we have not really seen a substantial pickup in the market, which we would see as the clear sign of the light at the end of the tunnel.
And also in China, we've been facing a special, maybe this year also, and a new topic is the VBP in the Diagnostics business, which is not only affecting us, all the other companies are also showing this as quite a substantial effect. So maybe, Jochen, can you tell us a bit how we see the situation there?
Yeah, I mean, the Volume-Based Procurement initiative of the Chinese government is trying to address ultimately the price levels in this industry. I think when we look at it, what they currently do, I think it is a significant step. I mean, when we look at the intention, it maybe puts pressure on our customers, on the business partners, and obviously, on us. Yeah? And how that is all so to say divided over time needs to be seen. Yeah, but it's currently quite a pressure. I mean, there's often the question, will that open up opportunities, for example, from volume because potentially players are moving out of China? We have not seen anything like this. All international players are staying.
Therefore, we can also not bank, so say, currently on a volume upside just because of Volume-Based Procurement, yeah.
Mm-hmm. Maybe then on one, a little, not so positive note of the quarterly results, we got some questions around the performance of Advanced Therapies in Q3. Maybe, Jochen, you could shed some light on what's been the, let's say, key reason for, for the especially margin performance.
Yeah, I mean, just, just to say something up front, I think I'm a big fan of the Advanced Therapies business because it's on a, on a mega trend. Yeah, and as it is the smaller business, it is also a bit more volatile, yeah, because it doesn't have, so say, the law of the big numbers so much behind itself, yeah? Now, coming to the quarter, and also to the effects, I mean, the growth rate in the quarter was different to imaging, not that stellar. It was still very solid with 4.5%, but obviously, if you, if you grow 12% or you grow 4.5% makes a difference from a conversion standpoint.
And, AT is very much exposed to the tariffs because the value add in manufacture, or there is no value add in manufacture and R&D in the United States. Therefore, the effect is the highest, per se, in AT. Secondly, a weaker dollar also affects out of the same reason, AT more pronounced than even imaging, yeah? So AT got hit hard by those two exogenous factors in the quarter at a lower conversion because the growth rate was not up to a significantly high level, yeah.
Well, so the obvious follow-up question that we got on this one was then how and will it improve? Maybe, Bernd.
I mean, definitely. I mean, first and foremost, I mean, it was a bit of an unfortunate quarter from a mix point of view. But overall, I share the excitement of Jochen, yeah, for the AT business. I mean, we recently had a very nice tour also through the where we have been shown the exciting new developments, which are going to be introduced soon to the market, with a lot of exciting novelties as which very often go hand in hand with the innovations which our device partners bring to market. Yeah, and in a way, I mean, AT is about co-innovating procedures, enabling all the great new minimally invasive techniques, which are possible globally.
I am very, very confident, yeah, that we will see a long and sustainable period of good growth and further margin expansion in Advanced Therapies.
Great. On that positive note, save the best for last, they always say, and maybe. But it's clearly the story that people talk about most at the moment, next to some other topics that we are not so much in control about, but this one we are. So photon -counting, Bernd... where do we stand, and how do you feel about the situation?
Yeah, I'm very happy about that our conviction and excitement for the topic is contagious, but also that it shows so nicely in the P&L. Yeah, so the fleet of our photon -counters, which is now three FDA-approved products, is now contributing already between 20% and 30% of our CT equipment orders. As I mentioned several times, yeah, this is also on the gross profit side, these are super attractive products, and there's more to come. And bear in mind, it is just the first year of having that complete fleet, yeah, and the fleet will even grow further in the near future. But the other part of the excitement is the clinical revolution it is triggering.
Yeah, from prevention of cardiac disease to much better surgery planning, to best vascular delineation, to even now a lot of interest in the radiation therapy community for using photon -counting CT for better planning of radiation therapy, yeah? So, we are seeing great numbers, yeah, but the good and the best thing about it is that the best is even still to come.
Thanks, Bernd. That's exciting, as always. Our investors, I guess, will be as excited to hear what we have to say towards the end of the year, for example, at Q4 or at our Capital Market Day, and then at the RSNA. So November will be loaded with news around the company, not to mention the Siemens Capital Market Day in December. For me, it remains to say thank you, Bernd and Jochen, for doing this again with me, and thank you to our listeners for their interest in Siemens Healthineers. Stay safe and healthy, and hopefully, like the three of us, find some time off in the next few weeks. Bye-bye.