Welcome, everyone, to Synsam Group's Q&A session as we release the interim report for the third quarter 2026 this morning. My name is Frida Leim , and I am Head of Investor Relations at Synsam Group and the moderator of this Q&A. I am joined by our CFO, Per Hedblom, and our CCO, Jimmy Engström, in the studio. If you are watching the webcast live, you can ask your question on the webcast page. We have our analyst from Citi joining us. I would like to welcome and hand over to Giang Nguyen.
Hello. Good morning. Thanks, Frida, for the introduction, and congrats everyone at Synsam for a very strong quarter. You know how I always like to start these calls, just given all the changing headlines around the world. Can you give us an update on the general trends that you are seeing around consumer health across all of the relevant four markets for you guys, and especially how it has changed versus the last time that we spoke?
Yeah. I mean, the consumer confidence statistics in the Nordic were slightly more positive in the third quarter versus the second quarter in all markets. But as we see it still remains a bit volatile. However, we saw a slight decline in the market growth in the optical market in Sweden in the quarter. But despite that, we grew and continued to take market shares.
Thank you. Is there any reasons behind the slight decline that you saw in Sweden? Anything that you could explain?
In the market in Sweden, not from a consumer confidence perspective, I would say. We know that when the darkness kicks in in the Nordics in the autumn, the demand increases for eyewear because people realize that they need our products. Thing is, this autumn, we have experienced a little bit more sun, better weather basically. Whether that has an impact or not, it is early to say, but that is at least our observation.
Okay. Is this still about the market, but have you seen an improvement, especially in Sweden, in sort of the last two months?
We are talking about the Q3 report, and we just can observe that we have taken market share quite significantly. That is sort of something we focus on. We will see in February how Q4 has developed.
Okay, understood. That was Sweden. Can you talk about your market share momentum in the other three countries in Q3?
Market share, we do not have the data for market share regarding other countries. But when we look at the overall figure, we see indications that we should have taken market share in Nordic in total, including Sweden. But still very tough competition in Denmark and Finland, as always.
Okay. Very good to hear. But you are not seeing any worsening or intensifying of the competitive landscape, is it correct?
We still see very tough competition in Denmark and Finland. We need to repeat that. And whether that is marginally worse or not is difficult to say, but it is-
Okay
a lot of discounts, for example, in Finland.
Okay, got it. Thank you. Maybe just one last question around the consumers. Are you seeing any changes in sort of the trading behavior, i.e., whether people are more willing to trade up because the sentiment is slightly more positive now, or are you still seeing the need for further discounting to get traffic through the stores?
We actually see a tendency that people trade up, actually. Please, Jimmy.
Yeah, exactly. We see a tendency. People choose higher lens qualities. That is something also that we work on all the time to explain different qualities of the lenses, but also a sort of trading up also on the frame side.
Okay. That is very clear. Thank you. I specifically want to focus on Finland top line this time, because all the other three regions came in very strongly versus consensus expectation, and Finland was the only one region to miss. I know you touched upon the competitive landscape, but I was wondering if there was anything else that we should be noting about the performance in Finland?
Finland has a great performance, we believe, overall. We're increasing EBIT, which is totally in line with our plan. Also, I mean, the growth we have in Finland is reasonable, but of course, it's below the group medium-term target, 8%-12%. The thing is, in Finland in Q3, we have focused very much on profitability and reduced discounting. But we still have a reasonable growth in Finland, although lower than previous quarters, of course.
Okay, that's clear. I was also thinking to ask about the very good profitability in Finland, but you have touched upon that. Are you looking to reduce discounting to help with gross margin in any other regions the same way that you're doing in Finland?
Are you talking forward-looking now?
What happened in Q3 and just in general strategy, yeah.
In general, we have not seen a large need for increased discounting in Nordic region. That is the short answer in Q3.
Okay. Okay, got it. Maybe can you talk about the marketing spend in Q3, how it trended versus the previous quarter, and give us some examples of the different kind of marketing initiatives that you are focusing on?
I would like to compare with Q3 last year.
Okay.
As we have communicated before, there has been an increase in market spend in Q3, which was totally according to plan. That has, of course, affected our margin. It is in all channels, I would say, or complement.
No, exactly. It's a mix between the media channels, but we decided to push a little bit harder.
With these marketing spends, when are you expecting to see the top-line benefits?
Yeah, but we always have a mix of tactical and strategic brand-building marketing, so it's a mix, of course. Want to add?
No, I would say that when it comes to marketing, we always follow the current market. Then we sort of adapt to what we see in the landscape in order to assure the right sort of traffic development to the stores.
Okay. Thanks, Jimmy. Maybe just to follow up on that, in general, in a market where consumer sentiment is improving, do you see less need to spend on marketing, or on the other hand, you see that that's a better environment to push for more marketing?
The thing is, we cannot really comment on future market spend. We have to wait to see in Q4 and subsequently our market spend. But, I mean, in Q3, we have increased quite significantly, specifically according to plan.
Okay, that's very clear. Thank you. I also noticed that in the reports, you made a comment about seeing good demand for AI smart glasses, and I know you also said that you will comment more when we get to 2027, but maybe can you give us a little bit more color around how you're seeing these products being sold in your stores?
I mean, smart eyewear has developed well during 2026, and we still see a significant growth potential long term in the category. But we want to repeat that the business is still in early days. I think during next year, we expect to get a more clear picture of sort of how the market penetration will develop, and then, of course, also our smart eyewear business.
Okay. Thanks, Jimmy. My next question is back to Per. Maybe can you give us some comments on the inflationary pressures that you might have seen in the quarter?
Thing is, we have continuous negotiations with our suppliers, so we, of course, try to minimize the impact of inflation. We're not in a 2022 situation at this stage.
If you recall the situation we had then, this is manageable, and we have better processes now.
Thank you. One question on sort of below the operating income line. I noticed that the financial expense was a bit higher this quarter, so maybe you can give us a bit more explanation around that?
Yeah. The biggest impact was from exchange rates, the currency effects, which were slightly above SEK 20 million positive a year ago in Q3 2025.
A little bit more than SEK 40 - this quarter. That was the major difference, and the reason behind that is the worsening exchange rate of Swedish krona versus euro and US dollars, and we have bank loans, and we have vendor invoices in these currencies, so we get an impact. But that is quite volatile. I mean, if you look at year to date, we have - 10. Last year, we ended up at basically zero over the year. We will see what happens in Q4, but, I mean, large fluctuation between a quarter, but we have seen historically that it basically evens out over a long-time period.
Okay, that is helpful, color. Thank you. Is there anything else that you would want to highlight about the Q3 release?
Well, I mean, it is obvious we have an increased EBIT margin, and something we focus on very hard, of course, and it increased somewhat in Q3.
Thank you. Frida, I think I will pass it back to you. Thanks, everyone.
Thank you, Giang. Thank you. We have a question from the web too, and that's, "Which are the major initiatives we have to improve our margin in specifically Finland, Norway, and Denmark?
Well, if you take Finland, I mean, we have improved. To be at that level is, we believe, quite good. We'll see what happens now, given competition and so forth, but it has already improved. Norway has the potential of improving. That's basically what we can say. Regarding EBIT margin, our ambition is to deliver on operating leverage, of course, as we have said.
Thank you. It's time to start wrapping up, but before we close, anything else you would like to add?
I think we can summarize the quarter, that we grew by 10% and strengthened our EBIT. All markets deliver solid growth, and we saw also an encouraging development in Denmark. The subscription business grew by 14% and now reached 793,000 customers. Gross margin also increased, and the EBIT margin increased to 12%. Overall, a good quarter where we continue to strengthen our market positions in the Nordics.
Thank you. Big thank you to Per and Jimmy. Thank you to our analyst, Giang, and thank you to all of you watching this webcast live. If you have a question we have not answered today, please email the question to the email address below, and we will make sure it gets answered. Thank you for joining us, and see you next time.