Good afternoon, and welcome to Nokian Tyres Q4 and full year 2025 results webcast. I am Annukka Angeria from Nokian Tyres Investor Relations. Joining me today are Nokian Tyres President and CEO, Paolo Pompei, and Interim CFO, Jari Huuhtanen. As usual, we will begin with the results presentation, and after that, we will open the line for questions. You may have noticed that in connection with the results, we published also Nokian Tyres' updated strategy and financial targets. These topics will be discussed in detail tomorrow at our Capital Markets Day. In today's call, we will focus on Q4 and 2025 financial performance and the key drivers behind the results. With that, Paolo, please go ahead.
Thank you, Annukka, and, good afternoon also from, my side. Thank you for participating in our quarter four, release, as well as year-end release, and, what we will do now in the next, few minutes, moving to the, agenda. We are, moving to the highlights, then we will discuss about our financial performance. Jari will present the business unit performance, and we will close the presentation together with the assumptions as well as the guidance. Let's move to the highlights. Moving directly to page number four. It was, quite, a good year in terms of improvement. We have been improving a lot our performance, and this was possible due to strong, price and mix improvement, in particular in the passenger car tires.
We've been also very active in releasing new products, mainly related to Central Europe and North American market as new growing areas for our business area. We've been strengthening a lot our premium positioning through pricing, but also through very effective communication and through dedicated marketing and communication activities. We've also completed a major investment in Oradea; we will discuss about that later on. We had also a strong improvement of the cash flow, supported mainly by improved working capital, but also by the reduced CapEx that are now gradually getting back to normal level. Heavy Tyres was performing remained pretty soft, actually, due to the market decline, in particular in the agricultural and forestry tires industry.
Moving to slide five, we completed the first important step of our expansion in Romania with reaching 1 million pieces produced in our facility in December 2025. So this was actually an important milestone for us because now we clearly move from the investment phase to stabilizing our manufacturing platform. At the moment, our team is extremely busy implementing new sizes and developing new products for the Central European market. We also obtained, at the end of December, the first installment of EUR 32.6 million from the Romanian government as state aid. As you may remember, we are entitled up to EUR 100 million to be supported by the Romanian government at the end of the full process. Moving to slide six.
This is also an important highlight when we think about the 2025 development. We've been investing heavily in our brand. We've been investing heavily on our product development. We sign a different partnership. I would like to highlight the one we signed with our brand ambassador, Kimi Räikkönen, that is well reflecting our brand values. And he will be with us also in 2026, supporting our development, being with us during the launch of new products and supporting us in the development of the new products. We also signed an important agreement with the IIHF organization through since we will support the World Cup of Ice Hockey that will take place in May in Switzerland. As I mentioned before, we were very active in delivering new product.
We have developed more than 150 new products in 2025 that will support our future growth in 2026-2028. Of course, we've been focusing a lot in releasing new product in our growing market, like Central Europe as well as North America, to support the demand coming from those markets. Moving to slide number seven, we did also important progresses when we think about our sustainability journey. We are pretty proud about that because we have clearly set a direction that is getting closer to our long-term financial target. Sorry, the long-term targets. We achieve a 28% renewable and recyclable material within our products, moving up from 25% that we had in 2024. So a significant improvement that is supporting us towards our target of 50% by 2030.
Then we reduced by 38% our CO2 emissions. Let me remind you, the baseline is 2022. This was possible for Scope 1 and 2 , also due to the startup of our operation on Oradea, that are, as you remember very well, reflecting zero CO2 emissions in the current setup. We also reduce significantly our accident frequency from 4.6 last year to 3.7 this year. There is still a lot to do. Obviously, having new operation, we are improving day by day also on the new site. But I think also when we look at these kind of KPIs, we are improving significantly compared to previous year. And now let's move to the financial performance. So moving to slide number nine. Well, we have been navigating in a pretty stable market in 2025.
The passenger car tire market was pretty stable, both in Europe as well as in North America. We are less exposed to the truck tire market, who remains stable as well. We are more exposed to the agricultural and forestry tire market. That was down 5% in the replacement channel and 10% in the original equipment segment. So the market was not really supporting our journey, but we have been obviously navigating well in these market conditions. I think we will see that the quarter four 2025 was our best quarter of the last three years, while sales remained pretty flat. And this is also driven by the fact that in quarter four 2024, we were heavily pushing for higher, higher sales.
This year, we fully dedicated our attention to improving term of profitability, and this is quite visible when we look at our EBITDA improvement. In quarter four, we were up by 30%, up to EUR 87.1 million, or 20.9% in relation to sales. Our segment operating profit also increased significantly by 43%, up to EUR 51.5 million, or 12.3% of net sales. This was mainly driven by strong price repositioning in the passenger car tire. Of course, in quarter four, we had also some support from lower raw material cost. We had also, and I would say, a strong improvement in term of operating profit, up to EUR 35.1 million. This is 128% more than previous year, or 8.4% of net sales.
Looking at the same numbers for the full year, moving to slide number 11, we were able to increase sales by 7.2% with comparable currency, and we were able to grow actually in all the regions. Our segment EBITDA was EUR 222.2 million, or +20% compared to previous year. It was 16.2% of net sales. Segment operating profit increased by 28%, up to EUR 91.3 million, or 6.6% of net sales. And again, the same as in quarter four, strong price increases or price repositioning, and of course, in the full year, positive effect obviously coming from the sales volume. The operating profit was EUR 35.8 million at the end, a significant improvement compared to previous year, or 2.6% of net sales.
The Board of Directors has just proposed a dividend of 0.25 EUR per share, 25 cents per share, to be paid in April 2026. Moving to slide number 12. As I mentioned before, we were able to grow actually in all of the geographical areas where we operate. We were able to grow in the Nordics, in Central and Southern Europe, as well as in North America. I would say the growth in North America of 16.6% was really a good performance, in terms of growth, in particular, when we talk about price repositioning in the North American market. Moving to slide 13. I would like to highlight when we talk about this slide about two things, very important development. The first one is the net debt, the interest-bearing net debt.
That was EUR 664 million at the end of 2025. This was actually much better than what we were also estimating at the end of previously at the end of quarter four our ourselves, but that was turning really in the in the right direction. As well as the capital expenditure was of EUR 126.9 million, almost EUR 127 million. We need to remind you, obviously, this all include the EUR 32.6 million state aid from the Romanian government. So we were approximately at EUR 160 million in total. So moving significantly down from previous year. Cash flow also was improving both as well in the quarter as well as year to date. But let's look at the cash flow in more details in the following slide, in slide number 14.
As you can see, we were able to improve the change in cash flow by over EUR 200 million. This was obviously driven by an improvement of the EBITDA, but also an important improvement of the working capital despite the growing sales. Of course, we were investing significantly less than previous year. Financial cost has gone up clearly by EUR 166 million, and then, of course, we paid a dividend at EUR 0.25 during 2025. And our debt has gone up compared to previous year. So I would say also in term of cash development, we are improving significantly our position, and we see actually a better outlook for 2026. Moving to slide number 15, you can clearly see that we have now completed a strong investment phase that was approximately EUR 800 million between 2023-2025.
CapEx now is returning to a normal level in line with the depreciation. We are estimating and anticipating approximately EUR 130 million to be invested in 2026. I now stop here, and I would like to ask Jari to comment the business unit performance.
EUR 44.1 million, and net sales increased by 3.9%. Average sales price with comparable currencies improved, and the sale of higher than 18-inch tires increased significantly. Segment operating profit was EUR 32.3 million, or 13.2% of the net sales, comparing to last year, EUR 13.6 million or 5.7%. Segment operating profit improved due to price increases, favorable product mix, and lower material costs. In the next page, we can see Passenger Car Tyres, net sales and segment operating profit bridges. Net sales in the last quarter increased by EUR 6 million, and again, we can see very positive improvement coming from price mix, +EUR 20 million. On the other hand, sales volume was down by EUR 11 million, and then some headwind mainly from the US dollar, -EUR 3 million.
In segment operating profit bridge, the same positive price mix, plus EUR 20 million. And now, first time in 2025, we had positive contribution coming from the material costs, plus EUR 6 million. Sales volume in operating profit was slightly down as well as SG&A. Otherwise, quite neutral changes comparing to the last year. In page 19, we have Passenger Car Tyres net sales components and quarterly changes. In price mix, we can see that this was now third quarter in a row that we reported quite significant positive change comparing to the last year numbers. In the fourth quarter, price mix positive impact was 8.5%. Volume change was -4.6% and currency -1.4%. Moving to page 20, Heavy Tyres. In the last quarter, lower volume affected net sales.
Net sales was EUR 60 million, and the change in comparable currencies, -2.8%. Net sales decreased, caused by lower volume of forestry tires. Segment operating profit was EUR 6 million or 10% of the sales, and profitability declined mainly due to lower volume, weaker product mix and inventory valuation, which had a positive impact on last year numbers. Vianor, in the last quarter, operating profit was stable. Net sales was EUR 132.4 million, and net sales with comparable currencies decreased by 2.7%. Sales was impacted by the mild winter in our last quarter. Segment operating profit was EUR 11.2 million or 8.5% of the net sales, and segment operating profit was exactly at last year level, EUR 11.2 million. Then handing over back to you, Paolo, with assumptions and the guidance.
Paolo, please unmute yourself.
Thank you, Annukka. Yeah, and before to move to the guidance, as, as I would like to say, first of all, thank you to the whole team. This was, for us, an important year of transformation, moving really from managing a strong transformation to create, start to create value, future value for our own shareholders. This has been well managed by the team, who has been working hard in multiple dimensions, and we'll be happy also tomorrow to talk about our journey and how we will be able actually to improve further our performance for the years to come. But let's move to the assumption and guidance that is also very, very important. We are expecting for 2026 net sales to grow, compared to previous year, and our segment operating profit as a percentage of net sales to be between 8%-10%.
So we are becoming more specific about our guidance because we want to make sure that you will be able to follow our own journey with more information and more precise information now that our journey is becoming more and more reliable, and more and more easy to manage when we look at our future development. The tire demand from the Nokian Tyres market is expected to remain pretty flat in 2026, so we are not expecting the market to grow significantly. Of course, the development of the global economy, as well as the geopolitical situation, or trade tariff, is creating some uncertainty and some volatility. But obviously, the improvement is supported by new high-performing product, price mix, and of course, efficiency improvements that will be still having a strong effect in the years to come.
Before to move to the question and answer, I would like to remind you that we have appointed a new CFO. He will start latest the fifteenth of April, 2026, so we will have the opportunity with Jari to keep working together on the quarter one release. Timo Koponen is the appointed new CFO. He has an extensive experience in the financial operation. He has been in important companies like such as Normet, where he is currently the CFO, Lamor Corporation, but also he had an extensive career in Wärtsilä, Ahlsell, as well as Konecranes at the beginning of his career. So we'll be happy to present Timo as soon he will be able to join us, latest, as I said, by the fifteenth of April.
We remind you that tomorrow we will hold our Capital Markets Day. This will be done in actually here in Helsinki, in the Scandic Grand Central hotel. So you are really welcome to join, and we hope to see you tomorrow at 2:00 P.M. to discuss together our new financial targets, as well as our new journey up to 2029. We can now move to the question and answer, and we look forward to your questions.
If you wish to ask a question, please dial pound key five on your telephone keypad to enter the queue. If you wish to withdraw your question, please dial pound key six on your telephone keypad. The next question comes from Akshat Kacker from JPMorgan. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon, Paolo and Jari. Akshat from JP Morgan. I have three questions, please, and I will take them one by one, if possible. The first one on end markets and what your peers have been saying recently. So Goodyear last evening talked about global tire shipments being down 10% in the first quarter, and I understand they do have exposure to truck business, and there are some weather-related impacts in the U.S. But could you just give us a download on how you are seeing the inventory situation in both Europe and North America, and how do you expect the start of the year in terms of selling volumes, please?
Thank you. Thank you very much for your question. Obviously, comparing Nokian Tyres with Goodyear and other companies, I need to remind you that obviously we are mainly focusing on specific segment, while Goodyear obviously is exposed to a larger scope. In general, we see I would say, a healthy development of the inventory. So we, we believe that from the pure dealer or seller point of view, the inventory were pretty stable during 2025, and we see a pretty stable also consumer, consumer demand. So this is not really affecting our own business. Of course, when we look at the quarter four performance of Nokian Tyres in particular, we should not forget winter came pretty late. So in some way, we were affected by a lower, let's say, a mild winter season in quarter four.
Fortunately, since I would say before Christmas, then winter started to come and started to come heavily in Europe, both in the Nordics as well as in North America. So this is also making us confident about the inventory development of 2026, because obviously a stronger winter for a company like us that is strongly exposed to the winter tire business or all-season business, it's obviously something that is helping the inventory to be released to the end user. And, consequently, it can we can anticipate that, from the inventory point of view, we don't see major issues in 2026.
Thank you. And the second question I have is on your top-line assumptions. When I think about 2026, you're talking about top-line growth. Could you just help us understand that better? What kind of growth assumptions are you working with, either in the passenger car business or for the group overall? And what does that mean in terms of volume growth for the business in 2026? That's the second question, please.
Thank you. Also, this is a very important question. When we say growth, we are expecting one-digit growth. This is the best visibility we have at the moment, and it's also reflecting our strong focus on profitability improvement. What I mean is that we, we are not going to look for market share growth, we are not going to fight for a higher volume as far we don't see those volume will deliver value. This was the journey, as you know very well, that we started in 2025, and we will keep carrying, carrying this journey in 2026. So when we say growth, we are, at the moment, indicating one single digit growth.
Understood. And the last question is on the definition of segment's operating profit. Sorry, I can hear a massive echo. The question is on the IFRS exclusions. I thought the idea was to move away from any excluded costs in the medium term. Could you just tell me your recent view on how you want to tackle these exclusions going forward, and what do you want to book in those one-off costs, please? Thank you.
Yes, we have anticipated several times that we will gradually go away from this exclusions concept. Obviously, we will do it gradually because of last year, we had EUR 70 million exclusions. Sorry, in 2024. In 2025, we had EUR 55 million exclusions, so we will go gradually down. When we are, w e will discuss tomorrow our financial targets. Obviously, our financial targets will be very close to segment operating profit, equal to operating profit. This is obviously a gradual process, so you can expect a gradual reduction. Obviously, a gradual reduction will carry on, obviously, up to 2027, 2028.
Thank you, Paolo. Look forward to seeing you tomorrow.
The next question comes from Thomas Besson from Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead.
Thank you very much. Hi, it's Thomas Besson with Kepler Cheuvreux. So I have a few questions. I'd like to start with just a follow-up on the previous question. It's very difficult for analysts to make a forecast if we don't know what your exclusions are going to be. Can we assume, as you said, that in 2029, it should be almost zero, that you're going to see a 2026 exclusion go down by EUR 15 million or EUR 20 million, the same way as the decline between 2024 or 2025, or is it not going to be a linear decline?
Your assumptions are correct. Obviously, you will I mean, at the moment, we are not planning any exclusion, as well there are no specific project that will come up later on. But at the moment, we are not planning any specific exclusion for 2029, and obviously, we will go down EUR 15 million-EUR 20 million year-on-year to get obviously to zero. So your calculation and your assumptions are pretty correct.
Great. Thank you very much. Second question, I'd like you to discuss about the Heavy Tyres market, and how you see that developing for Nokian in 2026. Of course, you have a specific exposure to forestry and ag in specific markets. Do you see these end markets showing signs of a turning point or not yet? Are you assuming in your 2026 guidance that the end markets in the Heavy segment grow or not?
Thank you, Thomas. This is a very good question. Obviously, you know very well that the agricultural and forestry market has been cyclical since, since I was born, meaning that is up and down. It's been always quite difficult to see when the market was going up and down. Clearly, this cycle is longer than usual, so I'm expecting the market to recover within 6-12 months. Obviously, this is my estimation based on my experience in that industry, and as I said, the last cycle has been pretty long. 2025 was a difficult year for the, particularly for the forestry machinery producers, and as you know very well, we are strongly exposed to those guys.
At this moment, I don't say in the immediate, let's say, in quarter one, any strong improvement, but we should expect that something will improve, starting already from the second half of 2026. Again, this is the best estimate we can do, based mainly on the analysis of the historical cycles.
Thank you. I think you have a very good experience of these markets, so that, that's very helpful. Thank you. Could you also please discuss the timing of the Romanian State aid? I think you had about one third of what was expected in 2025. Should we assume that to be one third, one third, one third over 2026, 2027 as well? Or are you going to get the remainder of the aid, so about EUR 67-68 million in 2026?
Well, it obviously, please remind that these incentive are not fixed. What I mean is up to EUR 100 million, and this will be dependent on the final total investment level. This is very important, we remember. So can be any value close to EUR 100 million, but obviously or lower than EUR 100 million, depending on the final calculation of the investment level. Clearly, we will apply for. We have a routine of applying for those incentives year on year. So we could expect a second payment within 2026. But I will be very careful in giving you a strong estimation about this, because as you know, we are talking about obviously, as I told you, up to the end of last year, we didn't know exactly when those incentives were coming.
Finally, they came in December. The Romanian government was extremely reliable in respecting the deadline of 2025. But again, there is a full, a strong bureaucratic process that we need to run to get those incentives on time. But the best estimation we can do will be that obviously the second part will come based on our investment level in 2026, and eventually the last part in 2027.
Thank you very much. I have last question. Could you comment on the evolution of pricing in Q4 and year to date? Given that raw materials have become finally, as you were saying, after two or three years, a support to tire manufacturers. Do you see any signs of price erosion or because oil prices have picked up again and some of the raw materials are growing, are going up again, pricing have held up very well?
Focusing a lot on repositioning our own product in 2025, and so we are expecting this effect to roll over in 2026. The raw material, I would say at the moment, we see the raw material trend favorable, but also because we have been doing a lot. We've been working hard and really improving our raw material cost, both in term of negotiating new agreements with our suppliers, but also in term of better utilization of the material in our own products, as well as in our own manufacturing facilities. So at the moment, of course, it's very difficult to anticipate in February what will happen for the full year when we talk about raw material, they can go up and down.
But at the moment, we see raw material pretty, pretty stable, and we see obviously a positive rollover in 2025 of the good job done by the team in 2026, rewarding the good job done by the team in 2025.
Great. Thank you very much.
The next question comes from Artem Beletski from SEB. Please go ahead.
Yes, good afternoon, Paolo and Jari. Still two questions from my side. So the first one is relating to passenger car tires and seasonality on that front. How should we think about Q1? Because looking at past years, you have been unprofitable in this business, but I think that those years are not that representative when it comes to 2026 and the Q1 development. So maybe some inputs you can provide on that front. And then the second question is relating to price mix outlook for this year. So it has been really strong also in Q4, up more, almost 9% year-over-year. Some pricing effects are likely to be fading away gradually, but you're also introducing new products. So what is the picture when it comes to price mix outlook for 2026? Those are some of my two questions.
Thank you very much for, for your question. I'll start with the seasonality. Historically, even when I was not working in Nokian Tyres, I was observing Nokian Tyres from outside. Nokian Tyres has been always having a I would call it growing seasonality, meaning that quarter one is normally very slow, quarter two is improving, quarter three and quarter four obviously are improving further. This is mainly reasoned by our strong exposure to the winter tire business, because in quarter one, mainly we produce and in quarter two, quarter three, and quarter four, we start to release all the stock that we have produced to face the new season. We have obviously if you look at the performance of the last two years, we were negative both in 2024 as well as in 2025.
Clearly, we are here to improve day by day and quarter by quarter. This is really, this is really reflecting our long-term plan to improve quarter by quarter compared to previous year. But of course, there will be always some seasonality related to the fact that we want, we are, and we will be strongly exposed to the winter tire seasons. About the pricing, obviously, we did, the team made a very good job in 2025. That was my first priority since the very beginning, to make sure that we were getting back to the level where we should be in term of price positioning, in particular in the new market like Central Europe and North America. And I would say that we will see this carry over.
In 2026, because obviously we should maintain this value within the company. New products that we are going to release, actually, we are very excited about the new product that we are going to release very soon, starting from March, in particular for the Nordic market, will of course present an upgrade. But that is my I would say, so we are expecting an improvement in terms of positioning and mix. Obviously, as you can appreciate, we cannot make any comment about price development from now to the remaining part of the year for competitors' rules.
Yes, that's very clear, but I have for still one follow-up questions relating to the start of this year. So we indeed have seen really snowy or winter weather conditions in Nordics, in Central Europe, and in North America. Should we anticipate any tailwind from this weather picture during the season or basically in Q1, or should it be the impact for, let's say, Q2, Q3, ahead of the season when dealers are taking in new tires?
It will start because obviously this will. At the moment, what we see is probably the inventory of our own customers are going down because obviously the winter has been pretty strong, I would say, everywhere, in Nordics, in Europe, in North America as well. So their inventory are now going down, and this will be a very, I think, is a very good news for us for the new season that will start. So we are talking about really, quarter, quarter three and quarter four of 2026. This is the way I see it, at the moment. So, you should not expect, any, effect today because of, because now, today is the time for our customer really to reduce their inventory.
Right. Great. Thank you. That's all from my end, and see you tomorrow.
Hope to see you tomorrow.
The next question comes from Pasi Väisänen from Nordea. Please go ahead.
Thanks. This is Pasi from Nordea. Well, I would like to start with the regulation and what is the latest information regarding this possible anti-dumping duties against the Chinese tires ? And secondly, what could be the realistic sales volume forecast for your Romanian factory this year and also next year when looking at this ramp-up schedule? Thanks.
Well, thank you. Two very important questions. About regulation, obviously, you read the news as we read the news. At the moment, the anti-dumping investigation is moving on. There will not be apparently any preliminary duties that are coming from the preliminary investigation. So I think the investigation will need to be completed, and then obviously the European Authority will decide based on the findings that they will see during the investigation. There is no effect really now, and we don't expect any effect for the future in Nokian Tyres, because obviously we are mainly now sourcing from different countries than China.
So obviously, the impact on Nokian Tyres, considering the latest news, meaning that there are no duties in the immediate future, will not have an impact on us because in the meantime, we have been obviously moving our sourcing to other countries that are not today under investigation at all. I said very clearly as well that with the ramp-up of Oradea, of course, we have been insourcing a lot of products that before we had, by definition, we had to produce in partnership with other suppliers. Moving to the question about Oradea, clearly, Oradea is set to now increase significantly the production.
This will be strongly dependent on the development of the sales in Central Europe. We should expect anyway Oradea to in some way double the production volume compared to this year. But will be very difficult. We should be more precise during the year to give you an exact estimation of where we are going to land. This all dependent on sales development and the success of the new product that we are expecting will deliver value to the customers.
Thanks. I understand. Maybe still one detail regarding the ramp-up cost. So if I remember right, they were close to EUR 10 million in the third quarter, now roughly EUR 16 million. So which figure of these should be used as estimate for the first quarter or the run rate for the full year?
Before we are expecting, I can guide you for the full year because obviously the ramp-up cost is directly proportional to the ramp-up of the production as well in Romania. As you know, in quarter four, we have been moving from five days to seven days, 24-hour shift. So this is, it's an important step for us in order to get to a normal production level and to increase our production output. So obviously, in quarter four, they were a little bit heavier than in quarter three. We said before that you should expect year-on-year a reduction of our exclusion of a region of EUR 15 million, maximum EUR 20 million, year-on-year, moving forward up to 2020-2028, up to zero. This is more, more or less our best estimate at the moment.
Hmm. Okay, I see. Thanks. That was all from my side. Thanks.
There are no more questions at this time, so I hand the conference back to the speakers.
It seems that there are no further questions, so it is time to conclude this call. Thank you, Paolo and Jari and all, everyone who joined us online. Hopefully, we will meet many of you tomorrow at our Capital Markets Day. For now, goodbye, and enjoy the rest of the day.
Thank you very much. Looking forward to meet you tomorrow.
Thank you.