Good morning, everyone, and Welcome to Datwyler's Capital Markets Day. First of all, it's great to see so many of you here at Zurich today, so it's overwhelming. I'm very happy that you took the road to the circle here at Zurich. Obviously, you're sharing the confidence in the road ahead with us, and that makes me very happy. Some of you may even join us on that journey. Also, a warm welcome to the participants of the live webcast. Ladies and gentlemen, it's a real privilege for me to stand here today, not just as the CEO of the company, but as someone who is genuinely sharing the way forward and who is energized by the journey we're on together. I think it's a really defining time for the company since the end of last year, we have made a deliberate choice.
We have made a choice that we will not only adapt to the changes around that, but we want to drive it. This is what our transformation program Forward Now is all about. Further than that, we have sharpened our strategy, we have strengthened our foundation, and we have proven that focus and discipline drive real results. All of this in a time where the world is simply refusing to stand still, as we all know. This day is not about reporting numbers. It is about showing you the engine behind the numbers, to show you the strategy, the innovation, our culture, and as well the conviction that drives our decisions. Today, you'll see how our efforts have transformed in a real momentum.
We are entering a phase where our opportunities become bigger, our platform really gets stronger, and as well our ambitions are sharper than ever before. We are here because we want you to see what we clearly see, that Datwyler is not waiting for the future to happen, but we are building it with a comprehensive strategy and as well with a credible plan to get there. Thank you for being here. Thank you for dialing in, and thank you for the trust and your partnership. Let's start today an open, dynamic, and forward-looking conversation. Before we dive in, I'd like to take you a moment to walk through how we structured today. We will begin together here in the plenary session with our presentations and a Q&A, both of which will be broadcasted live for those joining us online.
At 11:00 A.M., we'll wrap up the live stream, take a short break, and then we'll move into the breakout sessions, which will start at 11:30 A.M.. There will be two rounds of sessions today, giving everyone a chance to explore different topics in more depth. For all of you here at Zurich, our team will guide you to the assigned room. You may also have a look on your badge where you can find either an A or a B, but we'll get there. I'm sure we'll make that. After the second session, we'll be delighted if you join us for a light lunch just outside the corridor. That's also a perfect opportunity and chance to continue the discussions and exchange ideas.
I'm truly delighted to host this event together with the Datwyler Executive Committee, who will cover the plenary session today: Judith, our CFO; Frank, our CTO; and Michael, our COO for the division Industrial. As well, with leaders from both divisions, as well as from our technology and innovations function, who will give you really a good insight on specific areas that really do matter today in the current times. During the breakout sessions, you will get to know Francesco, Michael, Bram, Claudia, Emil, Carl, and Matthias. Our COO, division Healthcare, Dirk, sends his warm regards as he's not able to attend today due to personal matters. Throughout the day, we are opening the hood for you and giving you deeper insight into our strategy, our progress, and the opportunities ahead.
You will also meet more of our Datwyler leaders and experts during the breaks and at lunch. They are here to share their experience and their perspectives with you. Please take also the opportunity to connect and to ask questions. Yes, you recognize them easily. They are the ones who proudly wear our beautiful Datwyler jackets today. I am also delighted to introduce our future Head of Corporate Communications and Investor Relations, Katharina, who will start at Datwyler tomorrow and is here today to get to know you for the first time. Katharina will take over from Guido Unternährer who will be leaving us at the end of the first quarter 2026 after a seamless transition process. Finally, a big thank you to everyone who worked so hard to make this day possible.
The preparation, the planning, the energy behind this event, it all comes really from a great team. Some of them were among those who greeted you warmly at the reception desk this morning, and some others who take care of the audio and everything around. Thank you very much for making this day possible. There are companies that have significant impact on the lives of millions of people every day without most people really being aware of it. Datwyler is truly one of these companies. You don't see our products. You don't feel them, yet they are really everywhere. They make a car safe, a medicine effective, a machine reliable, and the coffee better. They are small. They are precise. They are inconspicuous. That is exactly why they are so crucial. If our components don't work, systems don't work, a lot of devices do not work either.
This is why whatever we develop and deliver must be reliable, must be safe, must be durable. Truly components for systems that must never fail. Datwyler is a global industrial partner specialized on the joint development and the delivery of system-critical components, primarily based on advanced elastomer materials. We collaborate with leading companies in the industries worldwide and supply also various key markets. With 25 production sites on four continents and 7,500 dedicated employees, we generate over CHF 1.1 billion annually. With over 110 years of history and a strong anchor shareholder, the PEMA Holding, we really combine legacy with a forward-looking approach. Every single day, we deliver more than 100 million components to customers around the world, into every second car on the road, into medical injection systems, into coffee capsules, machines, electronics, into the things that make modern life possible.
We all do that, meeting the toughest regulatory environment and with the highest expectations on function and quality. Our business with system-critical components is organized into two divisions: healthcare and industrial. Over 40% of our revenues come from healthcare, while the industrial division accounts for the remaining share. In healthcare, our portfolio includes components for injectable drugs along with related development and packaging services. In industrial, we offer a broad range of custom-molded seals, grommets, multi-component parts, and, as you know, aluminum capsules for coffee. These two divisions cover four key end markets. For the first half of 2025, around 42% of our revenue came from pharmaceutical and medical applications, 27% from the sector of automotive niche applications, and 20% from the food and beverage industry coffee capsules. The remaining 11% from elastomer-related products from other diversified industrial markets, such as oil and gas and industrial machinery.
In total, this means that nearly 2/3 of our revenue is generated in markets with low cyclicality. This is, for us, a factor of stability, particularly in uncertain times. Especially in those times when the world is becoming more unsettled with trade conflicts, supply chain issues, geopolitical tensions, the strength of our local-for-local approach becomes really evident. We produce where our customers are and need our parts, and we source raw materials regionally wherever it is possible for us. This allows us to remain independent, to remain flexible and resilient, while also contributing to sustainability and regional value creation. More than half of our revenues still comes from Europe, yet our growth centers are increasingly located in the Americas and in Asia. This is where our future markets are emerging. All of our businesses go back to the mastery of three core competencies.
We do really master that in order to develop high-end product solutions for these key end markets. Material expertise, solution design, and product industrialization at scale are key for us. This is the air we breathe. We enter our customers' development process usually very early, often already in the concept phase. Based on the requirements of our customers' applications, we develop materials, we design the components, and then join the customer's journey towards the scaling into a serious production with zero defects, and sometimes with billions of units per year. This combination of material expertise, solution design, and excellent manufacturing is really unique. This is our promise to the market. At the same time, this is the reason why we generate additional value for our customers in their applications. Now, we've talked a lot about system-critical components. What is a system-critical component?
Let me illustrate that with two examples. Our elastomer components are used in prefilled syringes, as you can see on the left side, in direct contact with the medication. These so-called primary packaging components must be absolutely pure, chemically resistant, and functionally reliable. If our components do not work perfect, the medication is not usable. We are the only company, by the way, that masters two possible coating processes: film coating and spray coating. This gives our customers security, flexibility, also for upcoming market regulation. We will have a deep dive later in one of the breakout sessions on that topic because that really matters for us. In electromobility, especially in the high-voltage area of an electric vehicle, such as connectors, charging units, and this wheel drives, every detail must be right. Our components seal, protect, and they insulate.
If they fail, the safety of the vehicle or the main function of the vehicle is at risk. Both examples show clearly that our customers turn to us when there is simply no room for error, when precision, purity, reliability are really system-critical. Our components may represent only a small share of the customer's bill of materials, but they make really a big difference, often the decisive difference in performance, in safety, and in trust. Our customers trust us because we do really understand their business and their needs. We support them throughout the entire value chain, from the initial idea to serious production in zero-defect quality. We listen. We understand the application in depth. We design the product, and we continuously improve it. That is how we create value and build partnerships that really last for many years and decades.
As these principles of generating customer value are similar for all of our end markets across the divisions, we also ensure that the synergies in the organization lead to a constant improvement in material development, in innovation management, in project management, and in industrialization. What's in for the investment? From my point of view, Datwyler focuses on applications where quality, precision, and trust matter, and where we can be the best supplier in the market. This creates high barriers of entry for competition as well as stable margins for us. We deliberately avoid products that quickly become commodities. Instead, we do invest in demanding niches where we can really deliver clear customer benefits. That's sometimes really difficult for the teams to assess while they have customer engagement, while it's at the other side very crucial for our future portfolio.
You will learn more about these entry barriers throughout the day while speaking to the people outside who can explain to you all the products in depth and all the applications in depth, as well throughout the breakout sessions. This way, we really remain focused. We remain differentiated, and we will also become profitable long-term. If you look at that, every time you would consider a new product, perhaps an acquisition or something that perhaps has to leave the portfolio, you have a guideline. You have really something that you can consider to find your way in all of that complexity we have around in our markets. All the activities are specifically aligned with the megatrends of our time. You all know them: demographics, health, technology, geopolitical shifts, as well as sustainability.
I mean, these developments really shape our future markets and, on the other hand, open up great opportunities for us from medical technology to e-mobility to robotics and automation. A lot of these applications you will recognize outside and as well in the breakout sessions. Our local-for-local approach gives us the important resilience in serving our customers worldwide. With the Platinum rating of EcoVadis, we are among the 1% of all rated companies worldwide when it comes to sustainability. This year, we have committed ourselves to the science-based target initiative and are actively working to reduce our resource consumption, lower our CO2 emissions, and make our materials and products more sustainable. We are convinced that the selective approach focusing on attractive niches will help us to overpass the average growth in the four end markets or market sectors we serve.
In healthcare, our PO play strategy opens all customer groups for us: drug manufacturers and system suppliers. There we can succeed with our high-value offering. More later into depth in the sessions of healthcare and in the breakouts. Our focus on automotive niches in that sector and as well on winning customers, which gets more and more difficult for us to assess, but we're mastering well in the respective regions, will help us to navigate the vibrant environment in automotive with products where we can be really the best supplier for our customers. The close collaboration with two leading key partners in the market for single-serve coffee capsules and our focus on aluminum as the material of choice will be also key factors for us to succeed in that sector.
In the industrial sector, we are confident that our profitability will continue to grow because we really, really clearly focus on high-value solutions. This is where we can really make the difference. The targeted alignment of six drivers for us in the strategy, also in leading this cooperation, is the essence of what counts for our business strategy. This ensures a clear focus on what is really important and where we can create value. We will unlock more product production capacity. Still, we have, especially in healthcare, some capacity from the investments from the recent years. We will improve our product mix, especially with the focus that I've outlined before. We also go more and more into the core development, entering early cycles in the customer's development process.
We have a lot of opportunities with the new organizational model, especially in the area of industrial, to do cross-sell of components and services. In the innovation and with everything that is upcoming in terms of new products, we create scalable technology platforms because that is where we have to invest our resources. With that, we will complete our portfolio in a targeted and structured way when it comes to inorganic growth on the long term. What are the growth drivers or some of the growth drivers? We actively focus on applications that enable us to grow faster than the market sector on average. Let's have a look at three of those speed trains, as we call it, that we expect to experience particularly strong growth in the next years. Electromobility here, the electric power train, especially in China.
The high-voltage connector is growing at also more than 10% CAGR for vehicle charging and energy distribution. Last but not least, the components for prefilled syringes in healthcare. Those are just three examples where we always have a clear focus on where we can offer a really, really good product portfolio that meets exactly the requirements to outpace the growth in that sector. In all of these areas, we possess leading technologies. We have a strong customer relationship, and we have also scalable production capacities. At the same time, we also remain disciplined and focused. We consolidate where necessary to pool our strengths and reallocate them accordingly. We all know that profitable growth needs structure. Other than that, you will not win in the mid and the long term. This is why, at the end of 2024, we have launched the transformation program Forward Now.
This is not a cost-cutting program, but a program for the future. It's a strategic initiative that aligns Datwyler for exactly this growth in the target sectors that we're heading to. Four areas of action are at the center: the production network, the commercial excellence, the product portfolio, and the target operating model. We'll talk a little bit about that later when it comes to the divisions. In total, we are implementing over 20 initiatives from these areas. You'll learn more about that and what stands behind these activities throughout the day. Our Head of Corporate Transformation, Marcel, is here as well. Feel free to get in touch with him. After almost one year in a pretty turbulent economy, we are in plan. We are also on a good path to deliver our promise.
We remember cumulative effects of around CHF 52 million and as well as step up in results of at least CHF 24 million per year after the completion of all of these initiatives, latest by end of 2027. Our next generation of products and materials is perfectly aligned with our technology trends that are shaping the future. They can detect pressure. They move. They sense signals from the human body. They withstand chemical elements that will become increasingly important in the years ahead. The goal for us is to build scalable platforms that address customer problems with reliable solutions: smaller, more durable, more cost-effective, and more energy-efficient. You'll also learn more about that from Frank and during the breakout sessions later. Let's have a look at our portfolio from a different perspective. Almost 60% of Datwyler's sales come from the industrial division.
However, the division accounts for less than half of our EBIT contributions. You see that represented by the upper-left diamond in the chart. The healthcare division, on the other hand, contributes more than half of our EBIT while generating just over 40% of sales, illustrated by the lower-right diamond. Now we did an exercise somehow to find our path forward, where to allocate our capital and allocate our focus. The vertical axis shows the cyclicality of the business, while the horizontal axis represents the capital intensity of that business, so basically the pay-to-play in that respective sector. Within the industrial portfolio, the cyclicality varies. The automotive and the industry belonging more to the cyclical parts, whereas the food and beverage tends to be more stable with higher CapEx needs, more in the lower end of the industrial shape.
In healthcare, cyclicality is generally low, but operating in the sector requires a significant structural investment. Overall, more than 60% of our sales, the food and beverage part and the healthcare part, comes from businesses with low cyclicality. At the same time, most of the required structural investments in these areas are already in place for the midterm. Judith will show you later, based on that graph, where we will move financially and when it comes to the capital allocation. When I look at Datwyler today, I see more than numbers. I see more than factories or markets. I see an idea. I see the idea that excellence in small things can achieve great things and represent an attractive investment. Our products may be tiny, but their impact is really enormous. Let's go into it and start with the healthcare division.
In our healthcare division, we see great potential ahead. We are strongly positioned for growth, especially in our high-value offering. This is also why we are confident that we'll outperform the average growth in the sector over the midterm. Today, around 1/3 of our portfolio belongs to the category of high value, including products from first-line, rapid transfer port, and ready-to-use packaging services. What's truly exciting is that roughly 2/3 of the growth we expect in the next years will come from new projects in that area. Emil, we'll give you a deep dive on that calculation later on in the breakout session. In the case of experience in materials and coatings, we work really side by side with our partners on an eye level.
From leading drug manufacturers as well with system suppliers, due to the pure play approach we take, we are really engaged early in co-developments of the next generation primary packaging for injectables. Because we operate first-line facilities in the United States, in Europe, and in Asia, we can guarantee the same standards of quality and safety across every region. Our ambition is to be the partner of choice for new drug delivery solutions in our target markets. To achieve this, we forehold the broadest component portfolio for large molecule solutions and home care application. This is really what matters today. We all know if you do not have it today, when the market is really scaling up, you are five years too late or maybe even a decade.
A global network, and I always call it global to local network of experts, scientific teams, and a state-of-the-art manufacturing technology, a pure play position as a component supplier who is not in competition with system suppliers in the market. A full set of processes and procedures to ensure end-to-end partnership on an eye level with our partner from the idea to the high-volume supply with zero defects quality. You remember the circle before everything is perfectly in shape for that business model of healthcare. Talking about timing, market dynamics, I personally believe that it is now a perfect timing to leverage our position in the markets. We have experienced a destocking phase over many months that we expect to be over now. Our half-year results and our orders on hand for the months ahead give us the confidence that this is clearly the case.
Our components portfolio fits well to the demand we experience in chronic diseases and in home care. That requires more prefilled syringes, more cartridges, and auto injectors. This is exactly the products we have developed over the last years, and they are now available in our portfolio. We do answer already the rising regulatory standards regarding manufacturing practices, so good manufacturing practice Annex 1 with our first-line facilities, and as well the materials such as the PFAS with our solutions already today. Also, on that topic, we'll have a breakout session later on. Our focus is clear. Sorry. We deliver premium products. We offer premium services based on our premium technology. We improve our materials further, stay in the pure play position, and will enter the development cycles of our customers earlier and earlier.
This is how we generate exactly the value and the flexibility that our partners are looking for. Are we already perfect everywhere in healthcare? No. Our transformation program for Forward Now offers opportunities also in the division healthcare and will accelerate our journey. We have uplifted our organization with experienced and proven leaders that prepare the division already today for the challenges in the years ahead. We teach everyone what creates value for our partners and what not. We improve our organization step by step based on a comprehensive target operating model. Our vision is that, for instance, an expert from our European side can support a product launch in another region from the day of arrival without adapting to other routines, other processes, and other standards.
We will further adapt our portfolio for high-value offering based on what we know today from our earlier customer engagement. We will speed up our time to market for these products with clear processes and clear directives. We will improve our manufacturing sites in terms of utilization. Also on that topic, we have a deep dive later on. That is to benefit from our recent investments as long as possible and make our launch routines more flexible and scalable without compromising, for sure, the safety and quality of our components for our customers. I am really proud to see the teams improving every day. I am looking really forward to seeing the outcome of those initiatives in the near future. With that, let me hand over to Michael, who will continue our plenary session with an overview of the industrial division. Thank you very much.
Good morning, everyone, and a warm welcome. My name is Michael Höller, and I joined Datwyler at the beginning of 2025 as the COO of the division Industrial. My professional experience and background over the past around 30 years was mainly in the automotive industry, but also in industrial sectors. Our division Industrial is serving three pretty different markets. One is the automotive niches, which Volker already indicated. The second one is food and beverage, and the third one are the industrial sectors. This market mix gives us resilient demands across market cycles and is a strong base also for continued growth. Our business units, transportation and electronics, food and beverage, and so-called general industry are managed by regional sales organizations, are driven by engineering expertise, which we have embedded in our global product lines, and are operational in a global network, which is shared across the business units.
This product line architecture reduces complexity, but also accelerates development solutions for our customers. In addition, we also leverage global synergies in engineering, but also in operations. We operate a manufacturing network that shares capacities, but also best practices, and we manufacture in a local-for-local approach to mitigate any tax, but also any foreign exchange impacts to be foreseen. Our value focus is deliberate. We target market niches with sustainable growth cycles, and we compete in our core competencies to solve customer challenges. We deliver high quality, but also high performance components. As a preferred innovation partner, we co-develop with our customers with the target to achieve shortest times to market. Shortest time to market also means shortest response times to our customer needs, which becomes more and more a differentiator. Let me give you the example of a customer inquiry in China.
A Chinese local customer is not expecting us as Datwyler to respond to a request for quotation within weeks, but on average in about three working days. This requires us to have accelerated, but also very structured and solid processes being set up. In summary, we have a diversified and market focus, a customer-led innovation model, and a scalable operations platform globally. That is how we target to convert our strategy into high-margin customer solutions. In the next minutes, I would like to outline to you for these three business units our current positioning in the market, the respective market context, but also the way how we will contribute to the profitable growth of the Datwyler Global Group. Let me start with our business unit, transportation and electronics.
Our ambition in this business unit is to be the preferred partner for high-value sealing products, starting in automotive niches, but extending even beyond those niches. What makes that ambition realistic for us is our position across the value chain. We bring material expertise and solution design and take the products all the way through to the industrialization. Remember the wheel which Volker had shown earlier in his presentation. We work hands-on with our customers, embedding into their structures and embedding into their processes. We unlock cross-selling opportunities, which we had created by integrating both former business units, so-called mobility and connectors, to the newly formed business unit, transportation and electronics. We apply a regional sales and application focus, leveraging advanced elastomers, silicones, and hybrid material solutions.
Our business unit, transportation and electronics, strives for high-margin niche applications in all our automotive sectors, building on the automotive and on the electronics strengths and expertise. The products which are displayed on this slide, but also on the following pages, will be shown to you and will be also explained to you by the group during the breaks, during the lunch break and during the coffee breaks in more detail. Looking at the automotive market in specific, the global automotive market is almost stagnating. The pure ICEs, the combustion engines, are projected to rather decline, whereas hybrids are seen to moderately grow in the next years, whereas battery electric vehicles are foreseen to have the highest growth with a rate of approximately 15% CAGR.
In the business unit, transportation and electronics, we are well positioned in components for electrified applications, especially in one of our focus regions, which is China. We approach successful customers in attractive and growing applications such as air suspension, thermal management, or connector modules, and we will become powertrain neutral. In air suspension, for instance, we have recently successfully acquired a new business from a local Chinese customer. We will extend our segments to high-margin niches beyond the classical passenger cars or commercial vehicles to niches such as off-road, railways, or naval applications. Our naming, the new naming of the business unit, transportation and electronics, reflects this shift already. Our business unit will prioritize margin enhancement before pure growth development, and we will avoid becoming commoditized. Moving on to food and beverage. Here, we aim to advance our leading position for premium functional packaging.
We will leverage our expertise for complex, deep-drawn processes, but also for advanced liquid sealed products, which are a clear differentiator to us, for us, excuse me. We are ready to further scale up the opportunities we have based on the long experience and capabilities in high automated clean room manufacturing. Our ability to take design from laboratory to automated mass production reduces the time to market, but also any risk for global brands which we're serving to. We aim also here for solution design on top of our industrialization expertise. Later on, our business unit leader, Kari Frey, will share with you some more details during one of the breakout sessions. In the global coffee capsule market, a continued growth is expected.
The packaging and packaging waste regulations are raising the requirements, promoting recyclability of materials such as aluminum, which has significant advantages with regards to functionality, but also shelf life and the coffee taste in general. The markets have already started to consolidate. During summertime, we got aware that Dr. Keurig Pepper had acquired JDE for the Nespresso compatible systems. In springtime, even earlier this year, Constantia Packaging had acquired Aluflexpack . We see and we evaluate such changes rather as additional opportunities for us to expand our leading position in our classic coffee capsule market while also maintaining our barriers of entry. In addition to the classic coffee capsule business, we aim to explore adjacent market niches and applications for new coffee capsule formats or also for functional beverages such as ready-to-drink closures.
Our food and beverage will strengthen our market position for single-serve coffee capsules while entering new market niches in functional packaging opportunities. Moving on to general industry. Here, we are building the partner of choice for high-performance seals in higher margin niches such as medical, such as energy or also aerospace niches. Applications where failure is not an option and performance and reliability are purchasing decisions. We differentiate by taking customers from our material expertise and solution design to the industrialization of our products. We established here co-developments and also manufacturing already strongly in Europe and also in the United States. We combine speed and proximity and a deep sector know-how. Our industry-specific elastomer and composite portfolio enables sealing solutions that withstand extreme conditions, but also meet stringent industry requirements.
Our business unit industry, our general industry, will grow from its current traditional oil and gas business beyond to penetrate attractive new market niches. In the recent months, the oil price dropped to a level around $60 per barrel. OPEC had recently stated to open a new barrel, excuse me, a new major well in Iraq will be opened quite soon, which will increase also the supply to the global markets. In these market conditions, we're expecting a moderate midterm recovery of the oil and gas market in the range of about 3%. Today's low penetration in Asia, our low penetration in Asia, will offer significant additional potentials for us. The business growth anticipated in aerospace defense and in medical application is more expected in a robust development. Such niche markets will position ourselves stronger to grow together with our customers.
Let me give you an example of medical applications or medical devices we are targeting for. Here we are seeing applications or components, for instance, for diagnostic devices, for dialysis, or also for dental equipment to go for. Scaling these applications of our active materials, which is our next vector for growth, will be another priority to go for. All this will be facilitated by using digital channels to our markets, such as AI-supported web pages to attract our customers. Now, summing it up, the division Industrial becomes an even more sustainable value contributor to the global Datwyler Group, fostered by our transformation program Forward Now. Our new modular organization enables maximum synergies between the business units while generating global operational efficiencies. The merger of the former business units, Mobility and Connectors, enables strengthened customer focus, but also cross-selling opportunities.
With the consolidation of our manufacturing site in Vandalia, Ohio, we have streamlined our manufacturing network in the United States, and we have optimized our fixed cost structure and improved our capital efficiencies. Besides those cost reduction measures realized, we invested in the development of new products and to support our niche-market strategy. One example is today in the high-voltage applications, we have already a pipeline of about 50% of new business wins, which we are bringing to industrialization as we speak. In a nutshell, the division Industrial is a sum of attractive niche market applications. As the preferred partner in co-development, Datwyler Division Industrial sets standards for innovation, responsiveness to market, and for operational excellence. Thank you very much.
Good morning, everybody. Warm welcome from my side. My name is Frank Schön. I'm responsible for technology and innovation.
I'm almost 22 years now with Datwyler in different R&D functions, and it is a pleasure for me to talk about innovation in the next 15 minutes. I want to explain to you how we approach innovation. I will talk about some examples where we already start to be in serial applications, some examples about where we are close to market entry, and also some projects which are in earlier development phases. By the way, on the picture here, you can see a tensile testing machine, which is used to qualify or measure the mechanical properties of our elastomer materials. Our innovation focus is on product, process, and material level, and we support with that profitable growth in high-value applications, as Volker mentioned, as Michael mentioned in their speeches.
Triggered by technology trends, but also from market needs, our innovation funnel is filled with projects in early stages, midterm, and long-term opportunities. How do we prioritize now such innovation projects? We have a stage gate process with decision gates after each phase of the innovation process. Let me be a bit more concrete here. Looking back two years, in the first phase, we called it ideation. We had roughly 320 ideas, which we evaluated, and we concluded to go ahead with 60 of such ideas in a second phase, which is the so-called exploration phase, where we put together a small team and look at the ideas and possibilities, market opportunities in more detail. Out of that 60 exploration processes or projects, we started 21 development projects, and I will give some examples later on.
Once the development is successful, we start customer-specific projects and scale them up for serial production. That happens usually in the business units, or I will talk also about our venture unit approach later on. In technology and innovation, we have three main pillars. The advanced technology team has multiple technology domain knowledge and is focusing on the early and mid-stage projects in development, in technology development. I mean, in this stage, we have also various cooperations with universities. I mean, here in Switzerland, we have a great potential to work with ETH in Zurich, to work with EPFL. We work also with startups and other technology partners to combine our internal knowledge with external knowledge and speed up the development cycles.
In the area of material and surface technology, we build up over many years application-specific knowledge for the different markets, be it for healthcare, be it for division industrial, for the different business units. From an innovation perspective, that is a very interesting aspect because we have kind of cross-industry knowledge and can combine the different perspectives for our innovation projects. Bram Jongen will later explain to you more details in the breakout session. With our venture unit concept, we want to commercialize breakthrough technologies as fast as possible, especially when the scope goes beyond one business unit. Currently, we have two such venture units. One is variable sensors, and the other one is soft sensing and actuation. We have set them up to operate like a startup within Datwyler to strengthen the entrepreneurial mindset of our teams. Matthias will be leading a breakout session.
You can also talk about the venture unit concept with him. The venture units go beyond our existing core, for example, by combining our elastomer components with electronics or software elements, and they feed our divisions with the next generation of products, always with a strong focus on scalability. Our soft pulse products, which are soft and dry elastomer electrodes, have been developed during the last years as a solution for various wearable devices, and we have first serial sales based on that products. We transferred here our material knowledge from the healthcare area, where we are developing very clean materials, to the venture unit where it is relevant that we have, because we have skin contact, that we do not have irritation. Also here, the materials need to be very clean.
The product and process development takes now place in Switzerland with product designs for the different form factors of wearable devices, be it a headset, wristbands, smart glasses, and so on. We started the journey with a focus on brain signal monitoring, EEG signals for long-term monitoring to make that more convenient for patients. However, beyond that medical applications for remote patient monitoring, also lifestyle applications get more and more interesting, be it for fitness, be it for virtual or augmented reality. A lot of startups develop very interesting innovative solutions to improve our concentration level, to monitor our sleep quality, and many more. Even more interesting, big tech companies like Meta, Google, Amazon, all of them are investing in that wearable applications. There, our scalability and global footprint plays a very important role, which sets us, let's say, apart from competition.
All in all, we assume the addressable market to be in the range of CHF 200 million-CHF 300 million. Currently, we see the biggest market traction for in-ear applications for smart glasses and wristbands, where our electrodes enable high-precision body signal monitoring with compact designs. We aim to expand our offering by providing reference solutions for the different form factors for high-quality data acquisition. That should speed up the adoption of our products and, again, increase the entry barrier for competition. The next two product innovations, which are close to market entry, are developed in the venture unit soft sensing and actuation. We complemented our product offering here. We started with the electroactive polymer stacks for actuation, and we added magnetically active polymer-based technology for sensing solutions in order to use synergies in technology as well as in business development.
Let me start here with the EAP-based actuators. You can just imagine a piece of rubber which starts moving when electrical voltage is applied. How is that possible? Well, such an EAP is based on many layers of polymers and electrodes in between. They are contacted, and when you apply the voltage, the stack will contract. When it is discharged, the stack expands again. With this technology, we provide energy-efficient and noise-free actuation solutions, and we can also make the solutions more compact. They operate in a broad temperature range, and we target, for example, lock and valve applications with that. Imagine how annoying it would be when the smart lock in your hotel room does not open anymore because the battery runs out of power. Our solution based on EAP would work without any battery. A very important trend for valves is miniaturization and compact designs.
Here, on the bottom right, you can see a difference, and you can later see it live. You see the size difference between an EAP solution, which is much smaller compared to a solenoid-based solution. Furthermore, we have customer developments ongoing with very thin EAP stacks, and that is for haptic applications, for example, in a glove. We could successfully scale that unique process technology. Others only have it available on lab scale. We have now a pilot line available to scale that up together with our customers. Let's move to the magnetic active polymer sensors. Here, you can imagine a rubber part which measures force or pressure or even gives information on the sealing state.
The sensors are based on a magnetic elastomer, and if you deform that, the magnetic field would change, and you can translate that change of the magnetic field with algorithms into a change of force or pressure and use it, obviously, as a force or pressure sensor. Our solution offers there a very high design flexibility. We can produce basically every shape of such a sensor based on our elastomer technology, and we can use our material expertise to ensure that the sensor is stable against temperatures or even different media, which sets us apart from other sensors. Currently, we see two main application fields. In the field of robotics, there is a growing need for force and pressure sensing for complex and versatile gripping tasks. There, it is, of course, very important that the gripper does not damage the product, and also slippage should be avoided.
Our MAP-based sensors can be designed to fit on the fingertip of a robotic hand to allow sensitive gripping. The second target application would be condition monitoring in order to do predictive maintenance. Imagine seals which are exposed to aggressive liquids or high pressures, for example, in the chemical industry. Today, the seals are replaced in a certain time sequence. When we can monitor the state of a seal, then the customer can replace it when it's really needed. The addressable market here, we estimate to be in the range of CHF 200 million-CHF 300 million. Apart from our activities in the venture units, I would like to highlight some additional important development projects. In healthcare, the patient safety is of utmost importance. In line with that, the regulatory requirements are increasingly stringent.
Our materials and coatings are already today tuned to give lowest levels of extractables and leachables, and the team is working already now on the newest generations of materials and coatings, always with the focus on highest cleanliness and chemical compliance. We run also various developments in cooperation, as I said in the beginning. We can see here in the middle picture a microfluidic chip, which was developed here in Switzerland with the CSEM in a consortium project. This chip is designed for rapid and high-precision analytics. You can see it also later outside. Last but not least, there is a clear trend to use more and more simulation. We do that already since many years in the industrial area.
We transferred the knowledge and apply it also for healthcare applications, and we have set competence centers in Europe, in China, and in the U.S. to be close to our customers, to engage with them in early phases to do co-development projects. We characterize our material properties with special measurement techniques, create our own material models, which locks the customer in onto our material, and based on that models, we can support the customer to optimize the product design. We can also simulate the processability and optimize our molds before we build them. Last but not least, with digital twins, today, full production processes can be simulated. With that, I would like to close my short overview. You will get more information from Bram on the material topics, from Matthias on the venture unit variable sensors, and in the break, please visit us to talk about the applications.
Thank you.
Thanks very much, Frank. As Volker mentioned, we've tried to give you an overview of the engine that is behind our numbers. Even so, we will not forget the numbers, and I will deep dive and give you a financial outlook and overview for the midterm. I would like to say that based on the market trends that we've shared with you, based also on our chosen positioning in these markets, that we're well positioned to reach our midterm financial targets. We're anticipating a higher single-digit growth in our net revenue and an EBIT margin of 17% +. In other words, we are confirming the midterm outlook that we have given and shared with you in February this year. I wouldn't be financed if I wouldn't put a disclaimer in somewhere. We assume normal operating market conditions. Now, this translates into different numbers for our two divisions.
Healthcare will outgrow the market, and you may recall that we set the market growth at 5%-7%. The EBIT margin will be around 22%, so well above the 20%. Industrial, on the other hand, will face single-digit growth more in the mid-range and a strong EBIT margin in the lower single or the lower double-digit range, around 12%. If we look at the next slide, the question then is naturally, from these numbers, you will see that we will and are foreseeing a material increase in our EBIT margin. In 2024, we ended the year at around 10%, corrected for the provision that we booked for our Forward Now transformation program. We are aiming in the midterm to get to that 17%+ . The Forward Now program is critical in this one because it helps us unlock the potential that we have in our organization.
I would like to highlight a few factors that matter in this respect. First of all, as mentioned already, we have significant operational leverage from the fact that we currently still have underutilized facilities. Particularly in healthcare, we have invested in the period 2021 to 2023 in top-notch facilities, and then we were facing a phase of destocking, which basically meant that we could not optimally use our production capacities. However, with destocking being over and growth coming back, what we see is that without major investments in the midterm in new plants, we will actually be able to accommodate for the growth that we are foreseeing. Therefore, the fall-through is high. We have seen this already in our whole-year numbers, and we expect that this will continue in the midterm. Michael highlighted the importance of the optimization of the production network.
This is important in industrial, but I would argue it's equally well important in healthcare. Our Head of Operations, Claudia, will speak to that at a later stage. It allows us to basically take out unnecessary costs to leverage synergies, but most of all, it allows us to place our production in those areas where we need to be able to scale up and to effectively manage that. That is actually only possible if we work in parallel on centralized standards and processes. We're not fully there yet, but we're moving in the right direction, thanks to Forward Now, to ensure that indeed it doesn't matter where you are and that we can basically ensure a higher compatibility and consistency in our production capabilities across the globe. A keyword for me is the streamlining of our product portfolio and with that, our client portfolio.
With our explicit focus on higher value offering, it also means that there are areas where we need to put in our resources and invest, and there are areas where we need to let go and streamline the products and potentially the customers out of that portfolio over time. We have to upscale basically the portfolio that we are currently sitting on, and already over the last year, we've made good progress in that area. That allows for a mixed improvement, a higher margin, and also for value-based pricing. Helping us improve our financial performance will naturally have a positive impact on our operating cash flow. Another factor that is equally important is actually to improve our working capital. With that, I particularly mean the capital that we are currently locking into accounts receivables and our inventories and naturally accounts payable as well.
The actions we've started and where we see the first results coming through in terms of being much more disciplined and focused in terms of our collection processes of accounts receivables, of really looking at the end-to-end stream, value stream, and see where our inventory sits and what do we really need where. A very much strengthening of our procurement organization helps us deliver significant improvements in that area today, but definitely over that three- to five-year time period. Now, why does operating free cash flow matter? It matters because it allows us to reinvest in growth and increase our CapEx as a percentage of sales. If we go to the next slide, I would like to then it then raises the question about where would we invest? Yeah, and I'd like to come back to Volker's diamond slide. As he mentioned, we have two divisions.
One accounts for around 60% of the sales, however, less than 50% of the EBIT, and the other one accounts for around 40% of the sales and has a disproportionately higher EBIT contribution. In industrial, we've learned from Michael that actually the mix offers a lot of interesting potential, provided we focus on those market niches where we have high entry barriers, higher growth, higher margins. Some of those niches, some of the areas where we currently play have a higher cyclicality. Oil and gas is a good example. On the other hand, we also have segments, food and beverage, that deliver sustained high margin in a non-cyclical way. That is where we want to play. We want to play in that area of industrial where we do have those higher margins and yet have less cyclicality.
In the area of healthcare, it is very much about building on what we have, unlocking the capacities and the competencies that we have, and working with our customers in offering those solutions to their problems. Capital intensity plays a role in healthcare, and we've seen that in that period of 2021 to 2023 when we made all those big investments. The sweet spots that we're also looking for in terms of driving our organic growth are very much in the area where we can leverage our competencies and yet not have to make huge capital investments. We will not move in that direction where we would move away from the pure play, for example, in healthcare and focus on system integration, which would also add to the capital intensity that is needed.
A balanced approach in our capital allocation between profitability, finding industries, market segments, niches that are less cyclical, and CapEx intensity will drive our internal investments, our CapEx, and sustain basically the growth that we're looking for. This is also applicable to any inorganic growth that we might be looking for. We have set certain clear guardrails. If we move to the next slide, a few considerations around how we are reflecting our strategic objectives in that capital allocation strategy. Our first focus will be on internal growth. What can we drive from our own facilities, our capabilities, our competencies, our people within Datwyler itself? I would like to highlight in particular two aspects, which is CapEx and which is ROSI. Our CapEx to date, and you have seen that in the half-year results, are around 4% of sales.
We do expect that over the midterm, that percentage of sales will grow, not because we have to, in the five-year time period, put a new plant in place, but because we have to make the additional investments that are needed machine-wise, visual inspection-wise, automation-wise that are needed to support our growth in the various growth areas that we have across both divisions. We do expect that the CapEx ratio will increase, hence the importance of having tight networking capital management and better operating results. Our ROSI is expected to increase in line with what our main competitors are doing, and possibly despite the fact that we have also segments that deliver a lower return on investment. We're aiming there for over 17% return on our capital employed.
While our main focus will be on our internally driven growth, that does not mean that we close doors for inorganic growth. In fact, improving our capabilities and space to allow inorganic growth is very important. We have made great improvements in our leverage over the last two years. We will continue this path to reduce our debt and our net debt and naturally improve our EBITDA so that our leverage will trend over that time period in the direction of the 1.5 multiple or lower. You will see this already coming through to a large extent in the 2025 time period. To the extent that we would do external acquisitions, they would be very targeted. There has to be a strategic fit. They have to follow the guardrails that we have set in that diamond slide and clearly add to our strategic agenda and our overarching goals.
As to shareholder returns, a very important way in which you also can allocate your capital, Datwyler has taken pride in keeping a good earnings or dividend per bearer share over the last years that was not necessarily connected to the underlying earnings that were there. What you can expect from us is that we will stay at that level or above, yet that over time we will link it back to the underlying earnings, which leads to basically the guidance of an over 50% payout ratio. This brings me then to the last topic, and that is a summary of the reasons why one could, should invest in Datwyler. I would actually like to state or start with the item in the middle. In our strategy, we stay truthful to our original purpose of delivering system-critical components.
We take pride in that, and I hope we have been able to share with you how important it is and how important these components are. They may be small, but they have a huge impact. We have, however, sharpened our focus to ensure that we truly put our emphasis, our resources, and our effort on a product portfolio offering that will drive higher value and that will drive growth in the longer term. Our core competencies will be critical for that because without those core competencies, we would not have those entry barriers, but we would also not have that competitive edge that is needed to support our customers and compare favorably against our competitors.
I would like to highlight there in particular that what we can do with our close collaboration and our customer orientation is that we work together with our customers to help them solve their problems. That is where we make a difference for our customers. Thank you very much.
A warm welcome from my side. We have reached the end of our plenary presentations, and I would now ask Volker, Michael, and Frank to join the stage, and we will start our Q&A session. I would like to remind you we have a webcast going on, so also the Q&A session will be broadcasted. I kindly ask you to wait for the microphone until you start asking your question, and please also mention your name before you start your question. Who wants to start? Charlie. Oh, das ist jetzt auch knapp gesagt. Firbach, AWP.
I'm not sure how to read your guidance exactly. You're implementing your Forward Now program until 2027. Does this mean that this 17% + EBIT margin is reachable first time in 2028?
We typically take a three to five-year view on the midterm. I would say it's between three and five years counting from 2025 that we would hit the 17%+ . The «ForwardNow» program is absolutely valid for the three-year time period. When we speak about the CHF 52 million kind of cumulated benefits and the sustained cost-based reduction of CHF 24 million, that is applicable as of 2028 and is one of the factors, not the only one, but one of the factors to drive our financial results.
Good morning, everybody. I have a question about capital allocation in regard to M&A. You said strategic fit.
Strategic fit would be higher growth, higher margin, so you would not invest into industrial solutions. You would only focus on the healthcare solution. Is this correct? Secondly, on that, you said leverage 1.5 times net EBITDA. What does it mean when you make an acquisition? What would be the higher level, or would you stick to these 1.5 x?
Perhaps on your first question, I mean, I would not exclude industrial solutions in general, but as we have explained, we have this bucket of industrial solutions business models, and some of them are less cyclical and some of them are more cyclical. We would not exclude to do that, but our focus is basically in the middle, in between these two diamonds or within the healthcare as such. This is clearly the focus.
When it comes to the 1.5, I mean, depending on the intensity of such a potential inorganic growth, we would take a reasonable time frame to go back to this 1.5 once we would have a spending that would just go, yeah, would just change that ratio massively.
Yeah, to add to that, the absorbability of any potential future acquisition will have to be taken into account both financially as well as in terms of the integration within our organization. However, the target of 1.5 in that time period stays.
When the opportunity window would open again from your perspective to do acquisition? It's hard to assess.
Depends. You now purely refer to when are we financially in a position that we can start considering this, right?
I would say when we get to the level of a multiple of two or below, and I do believe that is within reach.
Maybe I can. Okay, perfect. Thank you very much. Benjamin Thielmann from Berenberg. I would have two questions, if I may. First question is on CapEx. You said it's. Oh, sorry. Now it works. Sorry. Benjamin Thielmann from Berenberg. Thank you for the presentation. You said CapEx is 5%-8% of revenues. Could you maybe split that across the two divisions that you have? You mentioned already there are some investments into automation. There seems to be a couple of machines that need to be replaced. There are necessary investments that you need to do. How much of those 5%-8% can I assume is going to be split into your healthcare division and how much of that goes into the industrial business?
Yeah, so typically we do not provide a split. However, it is fair to say that the CapEx will follow the growth that we are foreseeing. That gives you a good indication of the answer.
Maybe a follow-up question on your 1.5 x EBITDA leverage or slightly below 1.5 x that you are guiding for. You also confirmed your dividend strategy. There is no change on that regard. Do you aim to actively pay down debt in the future, or is that multiple solely coming from the EBITDA recovery that you expect in the next three to five years?
No, it is both. Absolute need to improve and continue to improve our operational result, of course, but we continue to pay down debt.
We have paid off CHF 25 million of our debt to PEMA in the first half of the year, and you can expect that we continue doing so in the second half as well as next year. At some point in time, basically our bond becomes due, and that's also a critical point in time for us.
Okay, perfect. Maybe one follow-up, if I may, just quickly. Maybe it's one for the breakout sessions, but you were mentioning low double-digit growth expectations for the prefilled syringe market. I mean, GLP-1 is a big growth driver, but there is not only the prefilled syringe, right? There is the glass vial, and we see, for example, Eli Lilly is developing a pill, for example, okay, for GLP-1. I was just wondering how would that affect you guys?
I mean, on a net basis, it's probably everything is growing because the market is overall growing pretty strongly on the volumes. Do you see any headwinds that there is a move away from prefilled syringes and glass vials, tarots, pills, and what is the margin difference for you guys? Let's say you sell the plungers for the prefilled syringe, but you're also selling the aluminum cap for the glass vial that then goes into like a shot or a Gerresheimer V ial. Does that make a difference for you if a drug comes in a prefilled syringe or if it comes in a glass vial?
I mean, just to address the first part of your question, how to assess this overall GLP-1 market is, I think, fair to assume that there will be alternative therapies in the market, but would they massively downgrade the growth expectation with injectables?
We believe no because we see what our customers and partners are investing still in facilities and in production to scale that business for the next, let's say, 5- 10 years to come. I mean, in addition to our current deliveries, we are engaged with some of our partners into new medications, all of them injectables that would go into the GLP-1 generics, if you would call it. This is for us still a growth path. It's clearly important to us. On the other hand, as we've proven that we are able to scale and to launch such a product, there are more doors opening with customers that now rely on our capabilities here. This is even more important for us than the sole GLP-1 traction.
It is really proven that we can do that, that we can do that fast, that we can do that reliable, and this serves very much to us now in that field. The last part of your question, for sure, a pre-filled syringe is a little bit more complex when it comes to the development and to the co-engineering with the customers. In some cases, you could argue that there is a higher price for the component, although I have to put it in relative terms, not in every case. I am also still learning in healthcare. It is sometimes really astonishing how the market dynamics is going on. I can underline that Emil will give an overview in the breakout session and some valuable additional information in that segment.
If I could add one thing, what is typically, if there's a new development in the market, we are always checking naturally what does this mean for us, right? Oral drugs right now, at least in the GLP-1 area, are less effective than the injectables. That's a topic that we need to take into account, right? Possibly that threat may not be the most immediate one, but by virtue of us working very, very closely with our system integrators and the pharmaceutical companies themselves, we are very close to where it's happening and what is the likely development, where do we need to take this. I think that makes a big difference.
Thank you.
Miro Zuzak, JMS Invest.
I have a question regarding page 18 of the presentation where you have your assessment of the market growth numbers, which, if I compare them to the numbers that you had published in the past, are in two areas much lower now. The first one is in food and beverage. You used to say 6%-8%, now you say 2%-3%, and in general industry from 6% to 2%-3%. The question is, was there a change in the market or was it like a different assessment of this market that you've changed your view about the markets?
I'll proceed. I think it is the next one. It's 18, right? You're referring to the healthcare market, no, the food and beverage market and the automotive market, yeah?
Actually, the industries and the other ones are just a bit lower, but in food and beverage and industries, it's significant.
I mean, in food and beverage, we for sure see that especially the classic Nespresso system is somehow getting saturated in the market and the growth is getting a little bit less in terms of volumes from our side. This is what we see. Although we have a good market share here, what is something we cannot 100% confirm right now, which might have been taken into consideration, is also a trend. How strong is the trend from plastic into aluminum? We are talking here about aluminum capsules. Perhaps the previous assessment was done on plastics, on aluminum, and every compatible capsule. This is the relevant market for us.
Also here, we'll have a breakout showing the numbers, how we have basically created this assumption here later in the breakout session. On the industries, it is mainly shaping a little bit more the direction as we've laid out the high-value sequence. Where are the segments where we can really make a difference? If you take the whole market, there are some segments that may render into commodity sooner than others. That is why we also sharpened a little bit our targets for the topics where we can really make a difference and where we can then also come across with better margins, with higher margins. That is clearly an influence here on the industry sectors. Positive impact is the part in the connectors that comes from the acquisition of QSR back in 2022.
Another part is that is maybe a little bit less optimistic is the oil and gas market because although we've expected that, we know it's very cyclical, it is depending on the oil price, and there are so many factors where we stay a little bit softer right now in assessing the midterm.
Dominik Feldges from NZZ. Two questions. You've mentioned that the growth in the future will be rather in Asia and in the Americas rather than in Europe. How concerned are you maybe about this de-industrialization in Europe? I mean, is this hurting you maybe? Especially, of course, with regard to the automotive sector, but not only. The second question is, I mean, you've also mentioned that you have seen a turbulent year. What about the transformation program?
Is this really it or will you have to take further measures maybe in order to mayb e cut costs?
Your first question, de-industrialization is clearly impacting the overall sentiment in the industry. When you look at automotive in Europe, when you look at automotive at the industrial in Europe, it's softer than most of us would have expected it to be a couple of years ago. Are we impacted by relocations of products from our customers to China? Yes, this is the case. On the other hand, what we're doing against is clearly we're focusing on the high-value products that we can keep in Europe, in Switzerland, and in our sites in Germany. Now regarding the industrial business, we do believe that this is important as well to feed our innovation cycles with our sites in Europe. This is clearly our target.
The focus on these high-value components will give us a little bit more resilience because the markets here are not so efficient. We need to react on relocations, react on volume versus price and so on. A major part of our portfolio is really in that segment, is really strong. We are confident that we can also keep a part of our business here in the industrial and automotive part. Second part of your question, the timing, I spoke a little bit of the timing in «ForwardNow» . Did we expect in November, October, November, December when we designed the Forward Now program that this would come end of January and February 2025? Obviously not. On the other hand, if you look at the four areas that we are tackling, this had been exactly the right playing field for that.
To your question, do we have to add more measures? Clearly no. We do not see it currently from the market situation we are expecting at the moment. We do strongly believe today that Forward Now has the real, the right answers to the question, also to the additional questions that came across from February 2025.
Can we switch to your innovation section, please? You have provided details on the products that you are developing, and it appears they have been more or less the same that you presented two years ago, but you are progressing towards commercialization. Now, what is a bit missing is the timing. We can see the ambitious targets or the impressive opportunities for those products, but will they already make a difference next year, the following year, or when do we expect significant volumes here to see in the P&L? Thank you.
Yeah, thank you.
Thank you for the question. As I explained, we are already in serial sales with variable sensors. You will hear more from Matthias later. There we expect in the next 12-15 months, seven-digit figures in terms of sales. Let's say on midterm, we assume to go into the mid-million range, single-digit million range in these areas. For the EAP-based products, I mean, we did significant progress in scaling that technology from a lab scale to a pilot line. We have active customer projects. Yes, we are not yet in serial sales, but we have different potentials. We added the magnetic active polymer sensors to it to have a broader base.
Perhaps to add, sometimes it is a little bit unfair when you look only at these advanced and normally we forget what is already in serial applications. NeoFlex had been also an innovation five years ago.
Just to remind, NeoFlex is really kicking in this year with good progress, good traction. I mean, for us, it's very, very important that when we get such a product in the market, such as NeoFlex, there is no room for error. That is why we may take a little bit more steps to make sure that these products are safe, reliable, and that they really add to our promise in the market. That is a little bit balancing that. I am really confident you will enjoy Matthias' insights into the wearables later on in the breakout session. That gives really a good insight on what is possible with these products.
Here, Sebastian Vogel, you are from UBS. I got three questions, a couple of them on the guidance.
With regard to the sales guidance, you mentioned that you aim for sort of a higher single-digit number over the medium term. Can you a little bit elaborate what means higher for you in that regard? It's a bit nitty-gritty, but nonetheless. Second question is on the margin guidance. You have also laid out where you are, where you want to go, and sort of the blocks or the steps to get there essentially. Is there a chance to elaborate also a little bit further how much the individual building blocks are supposed to be contributing to these sort of step-up to a little bit understand what is more relevant and what is less relevant?
The third and last question is, if I compare to a Capital Markets Day, I guess in 2021, a long time ago, but nonetheless, and when I compare the margin ambition in healthcare that was laid out there compared to the one that you laid out today, if I'm not mistaken, it's like 200 basis points below that number. Of course, 2021 is a long time ago. Nonetheless, if you can add a little bit of a comment there, what was driving the delta, that would be appreciated as well.
Yeah, maybe I'll start with the last one. At an earlier Capital Markets Day in 2021 or 2022, clearly a higher range was indicated. That was based on the know-how and knowledge at that point in time. Please take into account that we've had since then COVID, which really changed the perspectives.
It helped us on the one hand side. On the other hand, it has also impacted the overall economic environment and led, for example, to the destocking in the healthcare industry. The second point is naturally what I would call the breakdown of the international trading order and the supply chains, which have particularly impacted the automotive industry, which were set up in a very, very global way. I also strongly believe that even if we may be able, as Datwyler, to manage the implications, for example, of the tariffs right now reasonably well, at the same time, the overarching economic environment is more conservative. This is leading to us going in with what I would call an ambitious midterm target, but one that we also can stand behind.
Now, in terms of the factors that I mentioned that are needed to drive that EBIT margin, it's hard to say what is more important or is there one or two things that are really more important. I will not give a breakdown, Sebastian, between this line means X, that line means Y in our model. What is really essential and what is at the core of what we seek to do is that focus on higher value offering, improve your product mix systematically, and be tough and take the hard decisions on where that is not the case. That guardrail is critical. In parallel, we are ensuring that we take unnecessary cost out, that we leverage our synergies, that we better optimize and use the resources and capabilities we have across the board. It will be end to end.
We can't drive that growth without ensuring also that some of those preconditions for growth that are provided via the «ForwardNow» program are in place. In the last term, we keep that open. We say high single digit for the group. I think you could make a rough estimation if you see the development of healthcare and the growth and what margin we expect there. It gives you probably a fair indication of where we end up. Thank you.
Patrick Appenzeller , Research Partner . I've got two questions, please. The first one is co-development. You were mentioning a couple of times. Is there also co-financing if you co-develop with your client, or do you go in the just the upfront, you pay everything or collaborative?
It depends on the market and to the kind of routines in the market.
In healthcare, the earlier you start with the customer development, the more the customer is willing to have a share of these costs. This is what we experience clearly. It always shows two things. First of all, the customer is serious to bring that product to a serial application or at least to the next stage in the development cycle. Second is that our value that we create is worth something. In healthcare, we have experienced that over the last two years increasingly because we're also stepping up in the high-value segments, also going earlier and earlier with our customers starting the development. In the automotive and general industry, it always depends on the application. I would say in the commodity field in automotive, clearly no. This is also why we will focus that less and less in future. We will focus on high value.
Here, it depends really on the complexity of the application. If it's a standard application and you have your material specified or a special material for that, usually this is an easy pre-financing because this is your receipt, you'll have it, you have the knowledge. Large investments normally get shared.
That is then felt also on the working capital. The question to the CFO, does that help in the future? I have kind of pre-financing a little bit, bringing the working capital into a better shape, or is that not to the extent that that helps the working capital?
I mean, I would say it helps in the sense that you have an additional source of revenue, either under other operating income. In that sense, it helps.
The second question is more on the product portfolio.
I mean, you were mentioning that the product portfolio goes more to the value-add components. And you're going to prune, if I may say, the existing product portfolio. Can you give us a feeling how much of your current product portfolio will be subject to reduction or phase out, or I don't know how to call it? Maybe an additional question to this, do you see in the market a speed-up of products that become commoditized, if I may say, with the point that you have to intensify the R&D development? Maybe the dynamics in this area that would be of help to me.
I mean, your first part or your first question, you usually have three categories that you would tackle if you want to make a portfolio change. The first one is what you really need to get out. So this is not a lot for us.
You have to imagine that we have acquired many, many companies over the last decades. Some of them have started perhaps 20, 25 years ago as a small family-owned business and as well have some remaining parts in their portfolio that go back to that time. We are no more the best supplier for these parts. This is basically the way you find other solutions with your customers. You look at it, can you have an all-time demand just covered by one delivery? This is somehow how we get that solved. Normally, I mean, if you look at our portfolio industry, this is clearly in the one-digit million range. It is not a large amount. The second part of the portfolio, this is something that you would let run out. Also clearly look at your price position.
Your price position does not or is not possible at this price position is strongly diluting your average portfolio. We do not have strategic projects in the case that they would be very, very unprofitable. We have a clear transparency in our portfolio. This is not what we are doing. This is going to run out with a decent price. The third, I think, most important area of that is what are you acquiring as new business that will ramp up in industrial in two to three years and in healthcare where it is not so prominent because we are mainly playing in high value, then in five to seven years. That also covers a little bit the second question.
If you look at the market for battery sealings, battery pack sealings, cell sealings in China, we could really get a lot of business there while competing on price. If you have a huge investment in sealing toolings for battery pack sealings that are very simple and that will be commoditized in two, three years from Chinese local suppliers, this is not where we can compete and this is not where we want to compete. This is why the selective approach, what out of this area of possible applications in the battery, in the connectors, and whatever in the powertrain of an electric vehicle are the ones that really fit to our core competencies. This is exactly what we are focusing. This is what the teams get trained in and exactly the way forward.
In order to stay in time, we can take one more question now in the plenary, and then I invite you to ask your questions during the coffee break to our team. Who would like to? Okay. Charlie made the beginning and he makes the end.
Thank you. I hope it's of common interest. I understand that today you'd like to talk about the midterm future, but I think it would also be a good occasion to give us an indication about your margin and your sales development in the current year. It's end of November almost. You may could say something to that. Thank you.
I mean, during the half-year results, we have indicated that we are positively optimistic, and we can reinforce that statement today. I think we're in line with the expectations that we gave ourselves and that we've communicated that time.
Okay.
This would be the end of our Q&A session here in the plenary. You have now the well-deserved coffee break ahead of you. We will take a 30-minute break outside in the aisle. The coffee should be ready. There is also a wide assortment of products that you can take a look at. There are a lot of colleagues from the business here to be able to explain you those products. Please take the opportunity and talk to our people, talk to our management representatives. After the break, we will split this group into two groups. On your name tag, you have either an A or a B. We have a group A, a group B. We have two additional rooms right next to this room where we have the so-called breakout sessions.
My colleague David Friedman and myself will then take group A to room five and group B to room six. I will remind you after the coffee break again with the micro outside in the aisle. The breakout sessions will start at 11:30. Thank you for your time.