Good afternoon, welcome to the Springer Nature Q1 2025 trading update call. My name is Thomas Geisselhart, and I lead investor relations at Springer Nature. Today I'm in our London office together with Frank Peeters, our CEO, and Alexandra Dambeck, our CFO. Today's presentation has two chapters: a business update presented by Frank, and an update on the Q1 2025 financials presented by Alexandra. After the presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. Overall, we have about one hour, so that should allow for sufficient time, including Q&A at the end. Before handing over to Frank and Alexandra, I would like to remind you that for revenues and adjusted operating profit, we present reported numbers and reported changes based on actual currency rates and reflecting the actual portfolio composition during the reporting period.
We also show growth rates on an underlying basis, meaning that currency effects and portfolio changes are excluded for a like-for-like comparison. Please note that our financial guidance for 2025 is based on constant foreign exchange rates and the expected underlying performance of the business, which means that changes in the composition of the portfolio are excluded. With this, I'm handing over to Frank.
Thank you, Thomas, for the handover, and also a warm welcome from my side. Let me start with a brief overview of our key first quarter highlights. As indicated when we shared our 2024 full-year results, we enjoyed a strong start of the year. We achieved 6% underlying revenue growth and 11% underlying adjusted operating profit growth, and this reflects the resilience of our business and the effectiveness of our strategic initiatives. Our research segment was the main driver of our performance, with continued strong momentum in full open access. We also made further progress against our strategic priorities, driving the transition towards open access to enhance visibility of research insights and deploying AI to transform the publication process. Finally, as to guidance to provide greater clarity, we have introduced a range for the adjusted operating profit aligned with the revenue range.
Given the strong start and the underlying momentum in our business, we now expect full-year results, both in terms of revenues and AOP, to come in at the upper end of the respected guidance ranges. As you know, research accounts for the majority of Springer Nature revenues and profits, and in the first quarter, research accounted for approximately 80% of our group revenue and more than 90% of our group's adjusted operating profit. This highlights not only the scale of our research segment, but also its profitability and stability. As a brief reminder, the first quarter is typically a smaller quarter, both in terms of revenue and operating profit. As a reference point, Q1 2024 accounted for approximately 23% of full-year reported revenue and just under 20% of full-year adjusted operating profit. Let me now take you through the performance of our individual business segments, starting with research.
As mentioned, research was the key driver of underlying revenue growth. In Q1, research generated underlying revenue of EUR 351 million and adjusted operating profit of EUR 100 million, resulting in 7% revenue growth and 8% AOP growth. The main growth driver was the continued strong development of our journals portfolio. For instance, by the end of March, we completed about 90% of our 2025 contract renewals, and contracted revenues typically make up about 62% of annual revenues. Our full open access journals were the key driver of growth, with publications at more than 25% and continued strong submission flow. We successfully launched two new Nature titles: Nature Reviews Clean Technology and Nature Reviews Biodiversity. Finally, we signed 14 new transformative agreements, bringing the total to 80 driving growth in the Springer Nature portfolio. Books also contributed positively.
Following the recovery in the last quarter last year, print book revenues now stabilized in the first quarter. E-book fulfillment is also ahead of prior year. To further support e-book growth, we launched two new e-book packages: Artificial Intelligence and Mechanical Engineering. Finally, within services, advertising revenues further stabilized, while growth in promotion and training contributed to revenue growth. We also observed good momentum in database and licensing revenues. Now let's turn to the developments in our other two segments: health and education. Health performed in line with expectations. We generated EUR 41 million in underlying revenue, which represents 4% growth. Like in research services, advertising revenues in health showed signs of stabilization, supported by a strong order book. In addition, growth was driven by solid demand in our international pharma business, particularly in medical affairs, as well as in our Dutch medical book publishing.
Health generated EUR 4.5 million in underlying adjusted operating profit, a 22% increase. On a relatively small base, this strong improvement was mainly due to effective cost management initiatives. Education reported underlying revenue of EUR 53 million, resulting in an underlying revenue decline of 1%. We experienced a strong first half-year adoption cycle across the Southern Hemisphere, and our focus on the open market segment supported positive revenue development. However, revenues were negatively impacted by phasing effects in Southern Africa. With a very low prior year base, Education reported over 200% growth in underlying adjusted operating profit, driven by a more favorable product mix as well as cost phasing compared to the prior year. Now let me conclude with an update on the progress we made against our strategic priorities, and thereafter, Alexandra will give you more details on our financials.
While our businesses enjoyed a strong start of the year, we've also been able to make steady progress against our strategic priorities. First, driving the transition of open access to increase visibility of research findings. Last year, we reached a milestone of publishing more than 50% of our research articles open access, and we are continuing this with more than 50% of primary research articles being open access in the first quarter. This was driven by a combination of strong growth in our full open access journals and 14 new transformative agreements, now more than 80 in total, as already mentioned. We also have a healthy transformative agreement pipeline with 50 agreements under discussion, and about a third of those are actually renewals for 2026. Second, leveraging technology and artificial intelligence to transform the publication process.
With almost a third of staff and research in tech functions and more than 90% digital revenues, we are a technology company. Snap, our in-house developed publishing platform, saw an 80% increase in submissions compared to last year. That, of course, includes new migrated journals. As shared earlier, we have about 90 plus AI initiatives to drive speed, efficiency, and last but not least, integrity of the publication process. For example, in Q1, we launched an AI tool to identify irrelevant citations, and we also donated our in-house developed tool that identifies AI-generated nonsense text, Gepetto, to the STM integrity app. Finally, the launch of our Nature Research Assistant, an AI tool to support researchers in their reading and writing activities, is still on track for a soft launch in the first half of the year.
Third, we are a people's business, as our colleagues have the deep domain expertise and hold key relations within their communities. We are very proud that we were once again recognized as a leading employer in Germany, the U.K., and the U.S. by Leading Employers. Also, our internal engagement survey showed an engagement score of 75%, up 1% from last year, a clear signal that our people-focused initiatives are resonating. These initiatives, these achievements demonstrate that we are not only delivering strong financial results, but also successfully executing our strategy to sustainably grow and create value for our communities. Finally, let me take this opportunity to highlight the societal impact of our work by pointing out a recent report from the U.K. Publishers Association. The report, based on polling by Public First, explored our industry's contribution to knowledge exchange and cultural collaboration.
According to the findings, 80% of international adults believe that British academic research positively contributes to the U.K.'s international reputation, well ahead of music at 73%, sports 72%, and business 57%. I think this clearly demonstrates the relevance of our industry and the strategic importance of what we do every day. With this said, I now hand over to Alexandra for a financial update.
Thank you, Frank. Following the business update, let me take you through the key financials for the first quarter of 2025. As Frank mentioned, we have seen a strong performance in the first three months of the year. Reported revenue reached EUR 450 million, and AOP reached EUR 108 million, which includes scope changes in actual currencies. We delivered strong underlying growth, with revenue increasing by 6% and adjusted operating profit rising by 11%. In addition, we significantly improved our free cash flow by EUR 16 million, reaching a total of EUR 158 million. We also continued to leverage the balance sheet, achieving now two times financial leverage by the end of March. The next slide provides further insights into our segments, covering both reported as well as underlying revenue and adjusted operating profit growth.
As Frank highlighted, we had a strong underlying performance in Q1 in our research segment, while all other segments showed solid momentum and performed in line with expectations. Frank has already commented on the operational performance. I will focus on the variance between underlying and reported figures. Group revenue grew by 6% on an underlying basis and 5% on a reported basis. The reported revenue for research benefited from the favorable $/euro exchange rate during the renewal season for 2025 in Q4 and Q1, which more than offsets the impact of the HEE divestment. Education, however, was particularly affected by hyperinflationary conditions in Zimbabwe and Argentina. For Zimbabwe, we switched to the functional currency $ in Q2 2024. Group AOP increased by 11% on an underlying basis and 9% on a reported basis, as unfavorable effects outweigh the positive portfolio effects.
In Q1, we also delivered strong cash generation. Free cash flow increased by EUR 60 million, supported by improved operating performance and lower tax payments. We also benefited from reduced interest payments, which more than offset higher investments and lease payments. The lease payments included a final EUR 4.5 million installment from a lease surrender, while a similar payment occurred in Q2 last year. This strong cash position enabled us to repay EUR 100 million of our senior debt. Our net financial debt decreased further to EUR 1.4 billion by the end of Q1 and reduced leverage to two times. This confirms the effectiveness of our capital allocation strategy and further strengthens our financial flexibility. Finally, following a strong start to the year and the ongoing business momentum, we feel confident refining our full year 2025 guidance.
We provided for revenue a range of EUR 1.885 billion-EUR 1.935 billion, and we are now confident to land in the upper half of this range. We have listened to you and your feedback on margin guidance. For clarity, we have established an adjusted operating profit range of EUR 523 million-EUR 546 million, aligning it with the revenue range. The lower end, EUR 523 million, corresponds with the previously shared level of 2024, 27.7%. We expect margin expansion as we move up the revenue range. As with our refined revenue guidance, we expect to close the year in the upper half of this AOP range as well. With this, I'm happy to hand back to Frank, who will close today's presentation.
Thank you, Alexandra. To sum it up, we enjoyed a strong start of the year. The first quarter clearly demonstrates the strength of our business, both in terms of financial performance and strategic execution. We've seen solid growth across key financial metrics, a strong contribution from research, especially full open access, as expected performance in health and education with some phasing effects, and continued progress in our strategic focus areas. All in all, we're well positioned, as reflected by our refined guidance for a successful 2025.
Thank you, Frank. Now the call will be open for questions. As a note here, we would like to limit the number of questions to two questions per analyst so that everybody has the opportunity to ask their high-priority questions. In case there is time left at the end, we can do another round of questions.
With this, I'm handing it over to the operator.
Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, we come now to your questions. If you would like to ask a question, please press nine followed by the star key on your telephone keypad. If you wish to cancel your question, please press three followed by the star key. Please press nine star now to state your question. The first question comes from George Webb, Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Yeah, hi, afternoon, Frank and Alexandra. Hope you're both well and congrats on the good start to the year. I'll stick to the two questions. Firstly, just you mentioned the 10% year-over-year published article growth. Could you add any color around what you've been seeing on article submission trends through the first quarter, please? As a second question, just as we think ahead to Q2 dynamics, I think one of the pieces of information we're missing, might be wrong on that, but it's just what the Q1 versus Q2 comparable growth rates were on an underlying basis last year. Was Q1 or Q2 last year notably different from one another? Actually, just tied into that, I guess, as we think about Q2, I'm guessing FX becomes a bit of a reported margin headwind. I just wanted to confirm that's the case. Thank you.
Yeah, thank you, George. Maybe I will start with the first question around article growth. Yes, indeed, we have seen a 10% article growth, 25% in full open access. Actually, if you look at that performance, I think it is a combination of a slightly improved market condition. If you look at overall article growth, it actually came down from 8% last year to about 4% in the first quarter. It is only a quarter, of course. If you look at full open access, last year market growth was about 3%, and this year it is around 5%-7% in the first quarter. I would say in the overall market growth, lower growth, back to normal in a way, 3%-5% is what we typically see as the long-term overall market growth, but a slightly better improved situation for full open access.
However, if you compare that to the growth we have achieved, 10% overall and 25% full open access, I think it's clear that we're taking market share gains as we did last year. I think that's essentially the result of the investments we're making, launching new journals, increasing our footprint in Asia, launching the collections, and of course, also the investments that we're making in AI to transform the publication process, for instance, by increasing the number of transfers and keeping more articles within our ecosystem. That's on the publications. If you look at submission growth, it was actually also pretty strong in the first quarter, well above 30% for the total journal portfolio. Full open access, well above 40%. If you look at the Springer and Nature portfolios, typically between 20% and 30%.
All in all, I would say, yeah, the performance that we had in the first quarter in our journals business is essentially a reflection of the fact that we do a lot of things well.
Thank you. Let me take the second question. George, when I did get that right, I think there are two elements in your question. On one hand side, it was about phasing and the size of each of the quarters, and the second one was related to FX development, and your focus had been on Q2. Am I right on this?
Yeah, exactly. Maybe just on that first point on the phasing, just as we think about the Q1 5.6, just as we think about what you delivered in Q1 and Q2 of last year, was Q1 a tougher comp or an easier comp, that sort of thing?
Yeah, understood. The way I would phase the two years and looking at Q1 last year, and maybe you also recall when we talked about the half-year results last year, we had a strong performance in year-to-date for the first half year, where we were coming in with around about 7% for the group in revenue growth, and we have seen 17% in AOP growth. Where we always reminded people about is that 2023 had been for comparison. In 2023, we had a lower start into the year, and then we have seen a stronger half-year, 2024. That has been one of the reasons why we have seen stronger growth rates last year. In particular, when you think about Q1 last year, this was really the moment when I would say the kind of high submission and full open access kicked in.
At the same time, you have to be in mind that we had a weaker start into the books business in Q1 last year. It is a kind of slightly different composition that we have seen last year in Q1. In terms of sizes of each of the quarters, we would expect also this year a similar size of the quarters than we have seen it last year. There we also provide now in the presentation in the backup, you see the size of each quarters. I would say last year was similar to this year that we had the smaller Q1, which is around 23% in revenue only. The coming quarters will somehow hover around the 25%-26%, with usually being for research Q3 the strongest quarter. Does this give you sufficient color on the topic?
Yeah, that's helpful. Thank you.
Okay. Moving on to FX and our view for the year. Let me first reiterate that the way we provide guidance, it is based on underlying, in particular, based on constant currency. This is unchanged for the year. When you look at Q1, you most probably have noted that we had tailwind from an FX perspective in research. This was related to a stronger US dollar that we have seen in the renewal phases in Q4 and Q1. That provided around $4 million positive impacts from US dollar in our reported numbers. Also important to note is that with Q1, we have now already 50% of our expected full-year US dollar denominated revenue either realized or contracted. This also gives us quite some, I would say, visibility into the topic.
When I would go to full-year perspective on how do we expect, and I think US dollar there is the most important FX rate, how would be more impacted for the rest of the year or the year to go? Using today's FX rate as a kind of reference point of around 1.11, the impact for the year to go on this base would be round about unfavorable EUR 7 million in terms of revenue. Also, our AOP would be impacted by round about EUR 3 million. When you're using this reference point, then for further sensitivity, every US dollar cent change would impact that on the revenue side with round about EUR 3 million. For AOP, the impact would be below EUR 2 million, just to reflect a little bit on the sensitivity of the FX changes. I hope this helps as well.
Yes, great. Thank you very much.
We come to the next question. The next question is from Steve Lichti, Deutsche Bank. Your line is open.
Hi, everybody. Thanks for taking the questions. My two are. In terms of the guidance change, you've moved to the upper half of your 2025 ranges in revenue terms and implicitly in the AOP as well. Just in terms of it's not FX that's changed because it's constant currency. What has changed there? Is it the momentum in research, and is that OA, or is there anything else that I've missed? That is the first question. The second question is, I'm afraid, back to the US and Trump administration. I mean, obviously, lots of noise there.
I just wonder if you could give us any kind of anecdotes or help in terms of US specifics, in terms of article submissions, renewal processes that you've had with academic institutions, or anything that's seen any kind of changes in the period that the noise has really taken off from the Trump administration. Thanks.
Yeah. Steve, thank you very much. I'll take both questions. If you look at us feeling confident about the upper half of the guidance, it's essentially driven by the fact that we're pretty well advanced in the year. As I mentioned earlier, we've seen good publication growth in our journals business and also very good submission growth. And you know that, let's say, the lead time between submissions and publications is on average about 200 days in the Nature portfolio, a little bit longer in the full open access, a little bit shorter. Second, we have seen, as I mentioned earlier, if you look at our transactional part of the business, we have seen actually stable performance versus last year in terms of advertising and print revenues. That gives us the confidence to land in the upper half of the year of both ranges, AOP and revenues.
I think if we look at the US, fundamentally, the story hasn't changed compared to what we said with our full-year results a couple of months ago. Obviously, the US is a key market for us, but it's also fair to say that it's part of a global setup. As I mentioned at the time, US revenues for us at a group level is about a quarter of our total revenues. It's about 11% of the total number of articles that we publish. If you look at, let's say, those 11% of articles, about 6% of our total articles, so just a little bit more than 50% of that 11%, is the result of US government funding, and about half of that is the result of NIH. That gives you a little bit of the perspective of what the US means for us.
Now, we've actually seen pretty good progress in the US so far. If you look at renewals, our US revenues for 70% are contracted revenues, and more than 95% of those have been concluded and invoiced. If you actually look at revenues that we have directly with federal agencies, so essentially federal agencies buying access to our databases, that's less than 1% of our total revenues, and also those have been concluded. If I look at, let's say, submissions and publications, they're actually pretty much in line with historic patterns. In terms of publications, you talk about around 15% submissions, sorry, that's submissions. Submissions about 15% and publications, let's say, a low single-digit number. All in all, I would say, yeah, the picture actually, from what we said earlier, hasn't really dramatically changed.
I think, as we said then, in the short, medium term, we do not expect a significant change, also because our share of contracted revenues is pretty high. I think maybe two elements to point at, of course, is one, federal agencies reducing, let's say, the percentage of overheads that universities can charge on top of research grants. Used to be, let's say, between 15% and 40%, now moving towards 15%. I think with that number, it is important to keep in mind that the APCs are part of the direct cost, not of the indirect cost, so those are not impacted. I think the other important, which is actually a positive development that we have seen, is that the NIH is basically moving forward their public access policy as opposed to doing it by the end of the year.
The 1st of January 2026, they will now implement it by the 1st of July 2025, which we actually see as a positive sign because it means that the new administration is actually also promoting open access, which is pretty much aligned with where we as Springer Nature and agency this industry going. That's my answer. Sorry.
All great. Thank you.
Yep. The next question comes from Aitai Kalilee, Barclays. Your line is open.
Hi. Hello. Thanks a lot for the presentation. I will have three questions. The first one being, can you give us an update on the conversations you have been having with the US universities as they face potential funding pressure from multiple directions? Have they been indicating that at some point, all suppliers will have to feel some negative effects as a result of these changes? Has anyone asked you yet to negotiate a contract which still has some time to run? The second one, on the article retractions in 2024, you said you had about 3,000. Is that running at a lower level in 2025 as far as you can see currently? Finally, in education, Pearson's English language learning revenue line was strong through 2024 in terms of growth, and it seemingly is growing much more than Springer Nature.
Are Pearson just exposed to different geographies, or could they be gaining some share? Thank you.
Yeah, let me start with the first of your three questions. U.S. university renewals, as I just mentioned, we have done more than 95%. Basically, we have not seen a major change there. Obviously, any customer will always use, let's say, pressure or different economic dynamics to use that in negotiations. So far, I have to say that our renewals in the U.S. have moved forward as planned. Your second question was about retractions. Last year, we had about 3,000 retractions. We actually published those retractions on our website, so you could actually follow all the measures that we're doing and what's happening there. In the first quarter, we had around 400. In that sense, it's a little bit lower than the level of 2024 because if you were to extrapolate four times 400, you would get to 1,600.
Again, with retractions, it does not really work that way. We will have to see. I mean, I think we are doing a lot of, yeah, we take the right measures. We work with our competitors to really address the issue of integrity. I think we are on it. Yeah, I can only touch wood, keep my fingers crossed to make sure that we continue to have this well under control. Your last question about education, I think it is important to keep in mind that in the first quarter of this year, our education revenues were impacted by negative phasing. If you look at where we expect education to finish in the first half of the year, we would expect to see positive growth in the first half of the year and an overall growth rate similar to last year for the full year.
Now, it's always important if you compare different, let's say, companies with each other, they're not active in the same regions. Pearson is not active in the same regions as we are. As a result, you will see different adoption cycles. You will see different dynamics. I think it's difficult to compare actually growth rates one versus the other. I think actually Pearson made quite some changes in their portfolio a couple of years ago where they actually sold their presence in a number of geographies where we are actually present.
Thanks a lot.
The next question from Samy Kassab, BNP Paribas.
Yes, good afternoon, everyone. Thank you very much. I have two questions. The first one, you flagged the 90% renewal rate. That also means that 10% of your customers that had a contract expiring in December 2024 as of mid-May had not yet renewed, are finding it difficult to renew for various reasons. Can you elaborate a little bit on whether a 90% renewal rate mid-May is in line with history, is better, is worse than history? Who are the 10% that are struggling to come to an agreement renewing their contracts, please? Secondly, we are halfway through Q2. Can you provide any comments on the quarter-to-date performance across divisions? Is there anything that stands out as different from the Q1 trends? You mentioned education finishing up in H1, so presumably it is up nicely in Q2. Any color you can give on Q2 trends?
Thank you very much.
Yeah. Thank you, Samy. First, maybe coming back on the renewals, 90%, how to interpret, it's pretty much in line with what we have seen in the past. Where we are in a specific, and you really talk about marginal differences. When I talk about marginal differences on a year-to-year basis, we might be 1% or 2% ahead or behind versus the prior year. Keep in mind that when we do our renewals, we work with government institutes, and the bureaucracy sometimes can take time. It also depends a little bit what are active renewals versus passive renewals. Active renewals where we actively need to negotiate a new three-year term. Passive renewals, it's essentially the second or the third year of an existing contract. In principle, I would rate our 90% as a kind of normal year, not better or worse, and quite in line with expectations.
If I look at the renewals still to be done, it's the ones that we know, and we actually make a planning for the renewals. We're actually right on our plan. I would expect us to finish the renewals quite nicely.
Yeah.
Thank you.
Continuing with the outlook for the year, Samy, we had a strong start into the year, and we also expect a strong full year 2025. That's the reason why we find our full year guidance. We do expect to close the year in the upper half of the ranges for revenue and AOP that we also provided today. With regards to the segments, we also see that we have a strong full year for research. We also see the margin expansion in line with our midterm guidance. We also had reiterated on education and health that we see the low single-digit growth, and in particular in education, where we had these phasing effects in Q1. We do expect to recover in Q2, as Frank said before, and we also will see we expect to see a positive growth by the end of H1 for education.
Thank you.
The next question is from Konrad Zuma, ABN AMRO. Your line is open.
Hi, good afternoon. Thanks for taking my questions. I've got two as well. The first one is on your progress on your AI initiatives. You mentioned, similarly to post your full year results, that you're working on more than 90 initiatives. From what we know, it seems that most of them are mainly beneficial for your internal efficiency, your cost base, and your ability to service your clients. When do you think your AI initiatives will lead to more tangible revenue growth, i.e., will start to really benefit the revenue-producing capability of your clients? And my second question, it's a little bit similar to what has already been asked, but I'd like to come back on your guidance. When you reported your full year results, it was, I think, the 18th of March, and it was less than two weeks from the end of Q1.
Was your initial guidance just overly cautious, or has the underlying performance of your business really improved since then?
Yeah. Thank you, Konrad. Let me start with the first one on the AI initiatives. You're right, we have a portfolio of about 90 initiatives across the business and across our different business units. I think you're right in saying that if you look at, for me, the biggest priority, if I look at AI, is basically the opportunity to transform the publication process. I always say researchers, they don't like to write, they don't like to read, they like to do research. That's where I think AI has a big opportunity for us. Now, what it does in the publication process, it really is an opportunity to transform it. That means, indeed, we can reduce costs, become more efficient. ACDC is an example of that, automated type-setting process. It can improve speed, for instance, finding reviewers faster, finding editors faster.
It can also make sure that we actually keep articles within our ecosystem. Essentially, that's the cascading. Just as an example, if I look at the impact of T-Rex, we have seen a 30% growth in successful transfers within the ecosystem. That directly contributes to revenue growth. I would say, yes, AI in our core process is helping to make it more efficient. If it makes it faster, or it allows us to keep more articles in our ecosystem, it's actually contributing to revenue growth as well. That's, I think, what makes AI in our industry unique. Second, we see indeed also, like many other companies, opportunities to use AI to improve the efficiency of our support functions in HR, communications, and others. That's normal business.
It also allows us to enrich our existing offerings, like we do reading recommendations on Springer Link or ADAS, or we did Maya in education. I would say that, let's say, delivering completely new revenue streams is still early days. Although if we look at our licensing revenues, we actually do license our content for AI purposes, not with large tech firms, but we actually do that with corporates. And that's actually a business that is growing quite nicely. So that is actually delivering new revenues. I wouldn't say it doesn't yet move the needle, but it's slowly but steadily growing in the right direction. Then, as I mentioned during the presentation, we're still on track to launch our Nature Research Assistant, which will be a tool to help researchers read and write. Again, there, I don't expect significant revenue impact in, let's say, the first two years.
We're aiming for a penetration strategy. I think ultimately, I think it has the opportunity to contribute to revenues as well. I mean, we did some interesting research. We basically polled about 2,000 researchers about how they use AI. 50% of them actually said that they use AI on a regular basis. Out of that 50%, one out of five was actually already paying for AI services. It just showed that there is a willingness to pay. I think with the right offering, I would expect us to be able to create a new revenue stream in the long term.
Yeah. Konrad, let me then take the guidance question. Let me just revisit the various elements. From my point of view, there is not so much change compared to what we had communicated with the full year results back in March. When you recall, we had confirmed at that time our midterm guidance, and we are doing currently the same. We expect to outperform the research markets by around about 1% every year. We also committed to expand our AOP margin by 100 basis points over the term of three years. That is something that we are confirming with each of the communications. We also had set back at that time our revenue range between EUR 1,885 billion -EUR 1,935 billion. We also had said we usually see when we give our guidance that we will land at the midpoint.
Yes, we have done their kind of refinement now with the tailwind that we are seeing with the good performance on full open access. We have been also talking about the stabilization that we're seeing on books business, stabilization on advertising. There are positive elements in there that we feel confident that we will be above the midpoint. A major change is maybe too strong of a word, but the change that I do see compared to the communication that we had at the time of the full year result is that for clarity, because we clearly had heard the feedback on our margin guidance, we felt we have to provide more clarity on the AOP guidance. That is why we had introduced the range now to reflect also the revenue range to help you to better understand our ambition that we have in terms of AOP growth.
As we have said, we are now more confident, and also we feel now that we could achieve even with that range result in the upper half of the range provided. That is from my perspective, the major change.
Thanks very much. Both answers are very helpful. Thank you. .
Yep. The next question comes from Conrad Ashiyi, Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead.
Yes, thank you. A couple of questions from my side as well. Firstly, on the research business, I wonder if you could give us a little bit more color in terms of the drivers of growth. You call that the growth in full open access journals, but in the Nature journals and the Springer journals, any kind of change in pattern that you're seeing in the first quarter or year-to-date to call out? I wonder if you can give us any sense if there are any regional differences, particularly in the second quarter in terms of article submissions generally. The second question, I wonder if you could just remind us of the sort of typical time lag you would expect between applying and getting funding for article research and submission and publication, particularly in the US market. That's my second question. Thank you.
Okay. Thank you, Konrad. I'll try to answer both questions. If you look at the drivers of growth in our research business, yes, open access is an important driver of growth. I already earlier mentioned, let's say, how market growth is a bit better year-to-date Q1 compared to last year. If you compare our growth versus the market growth, I think it's fair to say that we're beating the market by a mile. That is the result of the strength of our portfolio, but also the investment initiatives that we have taken over the past couple of years and that we're continuing to do, launching new journals, launching collections, establishing our footprint and strengthening our footprint in Asia. That really explains, let's say, the success of our full open access portfolio.
If I look at the Nature portfolio, we're continuing the journey of launching new journals, upselling customers, and that supports, let's say, the continued superior growth in the Nature portfolio. Last but not least, if I look at the Springer portfolio, it's very much driven by the transformation agreements. Again, we had 14 new agreements beginning of this year, one of them in the Nature portfolio, 13 in the Springer portfolio. We have a pipeline of 50, a third of those are renewals. All in all, I would say that our, let's say, direction of travel has not really changed since three months ago. It hasn't really changed since half a year ago. I think I always keep repeating we're a long-term business, these kind of things.
I mean, if you look at the investments we're making in new journals, they typically don't deliver revenues back in one or two years later, but it actually takes a little bit longer. That's why, in a way, this is a long-term business. Now, that definitely is true for the second part of your question. If a researcher gets a grant, does the research, writes the article, and then gets a publication, you talk about lead times of easily three to four years. It depends a little bit what type of research it is. It depends on which area it is. If it's like just, let's say, desk research, of course, it goes faster. If it's like in life sciences and you need to do polling of individuals, etc., it can take a lot longer.
I think it's also fair to say that there's not really regional differences for that kind of research follows the same lead time across the globe.
Okay. Very helpful. Many thanks, Frank.
The next question is from Lisa Yang, Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Yeah, good afternoon. Thanks for taking my questions. Just to come back on the margin, just to confirm the upper half of your operating profit guidance imply basically 28%-28.2% margin for the year. So 30-50 basis points margin improvement. Just to clarify that, and if you could maybe clarify is the main moving part, the top line growth that would drive the margin improvement to 30 or 50 basis points. Actually, related to that question, you did more than 100 basis points of margin improvement in Q1. Was there any major phasing in terms of cost and basically how you expect the margin to develop over the remaining part of the year? If you can talk about, I do not know, which quarter you expect margin to improve more or less than others, I think that would be helpful.
The second question is just on free cash flow as well, very strong in Q1. Could you also again talk about maybe seasonality of the free cash flow? How do you expect that to evolve the next couple of quarters? Was there any one-off or phasing which we should be aware of? Given you already had two times net debt to EBITDA, which is basically the upper end of your midterm leverage target, are you also refining or do you expect to also refine at some point your capital allocation policy? Thank you.
Yeah. Maybe on the margin question, we should split it in half. I'll take the first half, and then Alexandra will take the second half. And I guess, Alexandra, you will also come back on the free cash flow. Yeah. If you look at the margin question as it relates to revenues, yes, we do enjoy operating leverage. As a result, if we grow, our margin will expand. That is why you will see a margin expansion between the midpoint and the AOP range, how it correlates with, let's say, more revenues leading to more margin. The low point of that range was actually the 27.7, which was the same as last year. Across that range, you will see the margin expansion expanding as our revenue expands.
Now, if you look at what drives revenue growth, I think it's fair to say that our, let's say, recurring contracted revenues, they would typically sit in the middle of the range. We can predict them pretty well. It's price increases, it's multi-year contracts with very little attrition. I think what moves the needle, of course, is, let's say, things like full open access, advertising revenues, and print revenues, and to some extent, a little bit of our e-book business, because part of that is transactional as well. That really will move us along that revenue line. We would expect both education and health to probably show a low single-digit growth rate. Given the fact that they are less profitable, they don't contribute that much to AOP.
I think that's maybe explaining a little bit the range and how, in terms of revenues, we would move across that range.
Yeah. I think through the question, I'm just wondering what is the part now to answer. My take was you also had been interested in whether the Q1 is indicative then for the full year. From my perspective, the short answer to that would be Q1 is a very small quarter. Yes, it gives some indication, but definitely it's not the indication for the year. When you think about the margin expansion that we have been seeing for research, it goes back to what Frank just explained, the levers that we have been able to pull there with the product mix to continue driving efficiencies. Again, it is a small quarter with, I would say, the lowest revenue share in research across the year.
We had been positive about or pleased about the development in health that we had been seeing there, primarily driven by the revenue growth, but also by the sustainable cost base that we had been able to establish, helping us also to improve margin. Yes, we do expect margin expansion also for health for the full year. The extent that you have been seeing that in Q1, I would not consider as indicative. The same from my perspective has to be seen for education. That is impacted by, yes, on one hand side, the mix of the countries, of the product mix that we are seeing this quarter in education and some cost saving that will level out. Ultimately, what I also would see for education, similar performance as we had always indicated, round about the growth rates that we had seen for 2024.
We expect a slight margin expansion for this business as well. I would not take the margin expansion also in this business Q1 as an indication. With that, leading over to the second question about the free cash flow. As you rightfully said, we are very pleased about the progress that we are making on free cash flow. In terms of pattern and also the major driver that we have seen with Q1, most probably have noted it is on one hand side, it is the operational performance. Also very positive to see that as we had indicated, we see that our working capital needs are not increasing. That is positive for us. The other major driver is on the interest side. As we are benefiting from the further repayment of our senior debt, the interest rates are in our favor.
Then also with the deleveraging, we see the positive impact also on the margin side. All of that is contributing then also to our deleveraging. With regards to the pattern that we have in the free cash flow, Q1 and Q4 tend to be faster quarters that are the highest in cash generation. That is a kind of typical pattern that you see every year. There can be slight shifts between a quarter depending on the payment. When you just think about the volume of our contracts, there could be slight shifts, but I would say really the kind of spikes in cash generation are in Q1 and Q4. Ultimately, yeah, we are also very pleased when I think about the leverage ratio that we have achieved. Just think about where we as a company are coming from.
Now thinking about a two-times debt to EBITDA ratio is really a great achievement for us. We also had set our target range between a two to one and a half times. We just now achieved, I would say, the upper end, which is a huge success. Also, when you think about where our competitors are, I would say for the time being, it is appropriate for us to further continue to deleverage.
That's good. Thank you.
Now we have a follow-up question from Steve Lichti, Deutsche Bank.
Yeah, hi there. Sorry, one last one. Just in terms of AI deals, you kind of mentioned it in passing. I do not know if I was right, but when I sort of relooked and rethought about the call we had at the full year figures, it kind of felt like you were warming up to doing some bigger licensing deals from your previous stance, which was, "We probably will not do it." Is that a fair comment in terms of you would potentially think about doing a bigger AI deal now? The second part would be we had a whole flurry of those AI deals a while back in 2024, and it has all gone quiet. Are those kind of deals still available in the market as far as you are concerned? Thanks.
Yeah, Steve, thank you. I'm not sure what warming up means. I think what I said is we're not religious on, let's say, AI deals. What it means for me is that if I look at the bigger AI deals, those would have to meet certain conditions. Yeah, we only would do them if they work for us. Yes, we are in discussions. I don't know whether other companies are in discussions as well, hence whether this is cooling up or heating up or cooling down. I'm staying relatively on the same temperature, to be honest. I think, however, I think we always said we do. I mean, just maybe to clarify, if I look at universities, if they have subscriptions from us, they're actually allowed to use our content in AI applications as long as it stays within their environment.
We see that as internal use, and it is part of the license. We also have a business called data and text mining. That is where we also, to, let's say, big corporates, give them our content to be used for AI purposes. That actually is a business that is doing pretty well. Now, if I say pretty well, we are not talking about not even 1% of our revenues in research. It is not huge, but it is nicely growing, and it is helping us to give our, let's say, services segment a little bit of a revenue growth rate, positive revenue growth rate. I would say that our, let's say, position versus the bigger AI deals with large tech, that position has not changed. If it works according to our principles, then we would be happy to do it. We are constantly in discussions, but it is not our first priority.
The first priority is essentially what I answered earlier is how we look at AI and how we actually can use it to the benefit of Springer Nature in providing more value to our research communities. Maybe it was a bit of a long answer, Steve, so hopefully I've nailed it.
No, no, that's exactly what I wanted to hear. No, thank you very much for that.
Body temperature is still the same.
Thanks.
We have no more questions. Back to Springer Nature host.
Thank you. With that, that concludes our today's call. Thank you for dialing in and goodbye.