Morning, everybody, to today's presentation of the full year results.
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It's moderated. Good. Good morning, everybody, here in Zurich and at the webcast. It's a pleasure for us to present our full year result, 2025. With me today is Daniel Wüest, our CFO. My name is Walter Hess, I'm CEO. Let's go straight to the highlights of 2025. We delivered on our promises, and we made the financial targets 2025. We achieved 11.1% revenue growth and -48% adjusted EBITDA, and with that we achieved our guidance. The growth of Rx was 33.2% and of non-Rx, 7.1%. The digital services, with a growth of 110%, so a remarkable growth rate again, and a significant profitability contribution. It's a contribution margin three, which is more than 50% already of the total company.
Our AI Health Companion, which we have started to launch in October last year as a beta version in our app, has been adopted really very fast. Already every third app user is utilizing this AI health assistant. With the strong liquidity position of CHF 160 million by end of the year, we are very confident to execute in 2026 and 2027 according to our plans. We are fully aware of the challenging and also critical market environment. However, we today focus on the future, on our successful transition and on our path to breakeven and to cash generation. We do that by giving you an update on our strategy first, followed by a business update, and then the financial update and outlook given by my colleague Daniel, before we come to the Q&A session.
There are some real important mega trends in healthcare which have a big impact on our business, and we see us at the sweet spot of the three major mega trends. One is the demographic change, which gives a structural shift towards prevention and longevity, but mainly also towards a higher chronic care demand. It's the growth of the pharmaceutical market, a market which is not dependent on the business cycles, as we see right now in this difficult environment, worldwide. Last year, the market size in Germany pharmaceuticals reached already EUR 62 billion. It's a huge potential for us being captured with electronic prescriptions. The third mega trend is the digitalization in healthcare, which is even accelerated now by AI. Also there we are at the forefront with our digital and AI health platform.
How our response to these mega trends looks like, we would like to show you with a short video. It's a video about our Health Companion, which is live in the app already since last October.
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As you can see, we are evolving from a transaction-led retail business into a health platform that orchestrates and covers the full customer and patient journey. By merging the online pharmacy with a marketplace, not only for products, but also for health services, digital health services, and telemedicine orchestrated by the AI Health Companion, alongside with a state-of-the-art retail media business, we have created a platform which is unique, and it's a novelty in Europe. This trustworthy and integrated platform with more than 12 million active customers, more than 1,000 marketplace sellers, and more than 6,500 established doctors in Germany allows us to capture the full value of the entire journey. It makes our business fundamentally more defensible and less dependent on linear retail market growth.
With the structural foundation now firmly in place, we are ready to ignite the platform flywheel and accelerate our scale at low marginal cost. With that, let's move to the business update now. Of course, starting with Rx. What you see here is the sustained quarterly growth of our Rx business. I can already confirm now that this will continue in Q1 2026. Last year, we achieved a growth of 33%, which leads to a 1.8 higher revenue in Q4 last year compared to the first quarter in 2024, just when eRx started in the German market. If it comes to the quality of the eRx customers, I have to mention that the Court of Justice of the European Union and the Federal Court of Justice last year, they reconfirmed that we are allowed to give bonus to our customers and patients.
Therefore, we have restarted to do it in July last year with the result of increased retention and higher order frequency of new and of existing customers. This led to a three times higher retention rate and order frequency of customers that are getting now also bonus with eRx compared with the customers, the previous customers, that sent to us the paper prescriptions. Also, the average order value is growing quarter- by- quarter. In Q4 last year, the average order value of an eRx order was already at EUR 128. Just a few days ago, we have waited a long time, the doctors and insurance associations communicated that they have agreed now on a chronic care flat rate for doctors, and they will start 1st of July.
It's limited to a few diseases and to specific customer segment groups. In our view, it's a good start. It's a start in the right direction, in the direction of a more efficient and a more customer-centric healthcare in Germany. It's a start of a catalyst, which is called Repeat Script, which we have already integrated in our product, as we speak, right now. It was important that in the first five to six quarters, we invested in creating awareness for the CardLink solution so that the solution that customers, patients can redeem prescriptions digitally.
We have seen that the incremental cost of new customers that we had to find and to acquire via upper funnel channels like TV, out-of-home or radio were ineconomic with regard to the relation of customer acquisition costs to customer lifetime value. Therefore, we have started to shift, and we have done it in Q4. We have shifted and we have reduced the marketing spend into the Rx acquisition. We have started to prioritize on performance marketing channels to ensure that we remain in the economic zone, which you see on the slide. It's the green zone with our customer acquisition costs in relation to customer lifetime value. In addition, we have a growth lever, which is the direct bonus and the exemption from co-payment, which in combination gives us the right mix to continuously grow with our eRx business.
Let's come to the non-Rx business now. Here, you see we grew by 7.1% last year. If we talk only about the OTC and BPC business, the growth was 4.8%. This growth came with the discontinuation with the Zur Rose brand, which counted for 2%-3%. Effectively, the growth of the OTC and BPC business last year with the remaining brands was between 7% and 8%. It also came with an improved marketing performance, leading to higher customer retention and better customer lifetime value of our OTC and beauty personal care customers. The digital services continued to grow remarkably with 110% on revenue growth, with continuous really attractive margin. Both will go on also this year and beyond.
On slide number 13, you see that our core brand, DocMorris, accelerated really rapidly last year and grew by more than 20%. This shows a clear proof point for the successful execution of our brand strategy that we have defined at the beginning of last year. At the same time, our sub-brands, Medpex and Apotal, were managed well and kept at a slight growth, contributing positively to the overall platform performance. Let's deep dive a little bit in the two parts of the digital services. TeleClinic, the telemedicine platform, and the retail media business. TeleClinic first. The number of treatments in 2025 was 2 million, which is a growth year-over-year of more than 50%. A patient on average had a doctor on the screen in the app within five minutes. That's amazing.
Imagine how long it takes until you have an appointment, and you see a local doctor if you have an emergency. TeleClinic is available 24/7 with GPs and specialists. Almost half of all the treatments have been done outside the opening hours of the doctor practices. That shows the importance of this telemedicine pillar as part of the healthcare, of the standard healthcare in Germany, but also in other countries. As said before, the number of doctors already reached more than 6,500, and is continuously growing. The most important and the key success factor for TeleClinic is the strong partner network, which is secured by long-term contracts. It's with insurers, insurances, digital health providers, and doctor associations.
To expand this partner network is the most important key strategic priority in TeleClinic also for this year and the years after, and also expanding the services they give to this, to these partners, be it insurance companies or doctor associations. In 2025, TeleClinic achieved a revenue of EUR 26 million. But please be aware, this EUR 26 million, that's not comparable with retail revenue. Retail revenue with relatively low margins. Here, we talk about take rate revenue with much higher margins and a complete different value. TeleClinic is the leading platform for statutory and private healthcare in Germany. Telemedicine is a key pillar also for the new ministry in Germany. It's part of the coalition agreement.
As they are preparing the digital, the new digital strategy, TeleClinic is part of the primary care, but also of the emergency care, solution of the future regulation. You see, it's still a huge potential for telemedicine in general. The market penetration of telemedicine is still below 0.5%, so we are still at the very beginning and already now CHF 26 million of take rate, mostly take rate revenue. In 2026, we expect a mid double-digit revenue growth and a further increase of the EBITDA margin. Our retail media business, we started with it three years ago, and we are meanwhile the leading retail media healthcare platform in Germany.
We could prove to the advertisers and their brands, the brands you all know, that by using our retail media platform, they can strongly increase engagement and strongly increase conversion and achieving really attractive ROAS metrics. Last year, with retail media, we generated a double-digit EUR million revenue with really high margin, even higher than with the telemedicine platform. Also in the upcoming years, 2026 and further, we expect continuous strong and profitable growth of our retail media business. Let's come back to the Health Companion, where we have launched our AI health assistant in last October in the app. Right now, we are rolling it out in all our web applications. During March and April, you will see more and more visibility of the assistant also in our web. The health assistant is the central intelligence of our platform.
Here you see on this slide number 17, three specific use cases of our health assistant. In the area of the transactional AI commerce, we integrated conversational intelligence in our search bar in order to give personalized responses and recommendations to every customer and patient using our app. In the center, you see the AI assistant providing AI-generated, advice-oriented insights and becoming more and more the trusted health advisor for our customers and patients. On the right-hand side, the assistant acts as proactive health orchestrator, seamlessly guiding the user, for example, from having a symptom to a doctor, be it a local doctor or a telemedicine doctor from TeleClinic, of course, or guiding them to a skin check service.
There, by the way, within only two months that we have this service live, we could detect already more than 200 skin tumors and melanomas with our service and our digital health assistant. By managing health in one place as we do, the AI assistant helps to maximize the patient and customer lifetime value and accelerates our transition to a digital and AI health platform. On slide number 18, we are really very proud that today, together with Google, we could announce an incredible strategic partnership. We have chosen Google in order to leverage on their cutting-edge AI capabilities and infrastructure. Google has chosen us in order to combine their most advanced technologies with our deep digital healthcare and pharmaceutical expertise.
Together in this partnership, we are defining and delivering new seamless health products in the future in order to make healthcare better and more accessible. One point which was really important for us and which we secured is that we keep the full sovereignty of our data while meeting also the highest requirements for data privacy and security. Let me conclude this first part with the strategy and the business update. We have spent the last few years in building this platform engine. Now we have started to drive it. Our strategy is set, our positioning is unique, and our priority is on relentless execution just to unlock the full value of our DocMorris platform. With that, I would like to hand over to Daniel for the financial update and the outlook.
Thank you, Walter. Also very warm welcome from my side to the people here in the room and the ones on the webcast. First of all, I want to provide you with some further insights on the financial performance of 2025, but then much more important also to provide you with the outlook and the guidance and specifically how we will achieve EBITDA breakeven in the course of 2026 and then subsequently free cash flow breakeven in the following year, meaning in 2027. Let's start with a quick look back on the financial year 2025. As Walter already have mentioned it, we could secure a comfortable and good top line growth of 11.1% in local currency. I'm very proud that all the business lines have contributed to this growth.
Of course, Rx and Digital Services had the lion's share of the growth, with Rx growing more than 33% and Digital Services above 110%. Reported revenues, which are the revenues without the Apotal, showed even a better performance and grew with 12.4% in local currency. There you already see that the growth of Apotal was below the average of the group and also, to a small part, also the growth of the segment EU. I'm very proud also that the gross margin of the group increased by 90 basis points to 22.2%.
Despite the reallocation of marketing expenses from marketing into bonus and co-payment, which had an impact that will be directly deducted from sales and therefore has a negative impact on the gross margin, and therefore the 90 basis points are even more remarkable. As you know, we only started with the co-payment and the bonus basically from Q4 onwards and until Q3 we did a lot of additional upper funnel marketing spend. Let's quickly deep dive into the two segments where I will focus on segment Germany because that's the lion's share of the contribution. You see segment Germany a growth rate excess of the group of 11.7% also fueled by Rx and Digital Services.
Even here, the gross margin has even developed a little bit better, 10 basis points more with 100 basis points in addition, and that also with the reservation that the payment of bonus and the co-payment will have a negative impact on gross margin, but will then be reversed on the CM3 level, contribution margin three level, because it's just a reallocation of direct marketing spend to bonus and co-payment. Segment EU, a modest growth. I think we would have expected a little bit higher growth, but they managed also to improve the gross margin by 40 basis points. Unfortunately, given the low growth and the indirect cost base, that didn't manage then to have a positive effect on the EBITDA level while that's the reason why that segment EU is still slightly EBITDA negative.
With that, let's come to our KPIs, which all look very promising and which are kind of pleasant in our view. Let's start with the active customers. For the first time, we have also included the TeleClinic customers because that's a significant number of customers. Let's first of all stick to the online pharmacy customers, which show the substantial increase of 700,000 from 10.3 to 11 million. You remember Walt told you that the discontinuation of the Zur Rose brand, and you can assume that a few hundred thousand customers have been lost. We have not adjusted for that, and without that the number would even look better. We are very pleased what we see here.
Also, TeleClinic increased the customers on their platform by 300,000, from 0.9 to 1.2 million, and both numbers are on an ongoing basis increasing. Also, in relation to the app downloads, I think there's an active tracking of the app downloads. I think it's an indication, but definitely not the one and only. Also here you see a decent increase of 200,000 app downloads compared to 2024, and we reached 2.1 million app downloads in 2025. Now let's come to the average order values or the basket sizes. First of all, on Rx, you see an increase of EUR 4, which is by itself already a remarkable increase.
You have also seen a few slides before that in Q4, the average order size was EUR 128. You see really that in the first three quarters, the average basket size was much lower compared to Q4, where we really started our efficient and dedicated marketing. That also tells you something about the quality of the newly acquired customers. One remark, please note that our basket size is calculated excluding VAT just for reasons. If you compare other baskets, you always have to make sure that if it's with or without VAT, given that the VAT in Germany is 19%. That makes pretty some difference. If you gross it up, our basket, then it would be much higher than the EUR 114. On OTC, Walter mentioned it.
We focused also on economic and customer lifetime value and the economy of the customers. Therefore, slight decline from 42-41, but basically almost stable and nothing to worry about it. The order frequency also here good development from 3.9 to 4.0 x. OTC remained flat with 2.0 orders per year. The repeat order rate, which was already extremely or very high and decently high at 76, further increased to 77%, which is also a very good value and just all in all shows the quality of our existing but also of our new clients, which we have acquired during the last year. Now, let's quickly talk about a few highlights or perceived lowlights based on the first reactions.
I do not want to take you through line by line the whole P&L. I think the top line and gross margin we have discussed. Let's focus on the different cost pillars. Personnel expenses, there I'm very pleased we could lower the respective ratio by 50 basis points. That's the first positive impacts on our managing the indirect costs, which are basically to 100% personnel costs, but also shows the improved efficiency where we really go through the processes and kind of automatize and also using AI to better allocate resources. That has already a very nice impact in 2025 on the personnel cost ratio, and there will be so much further leverage in the coming years.
Marketing expenses, as mentioned, rose by over CHF 11 million, and there we are talking only direct marketing expenses. We have said we shifted basically from direct marketing, not completely, but partially to indirect marketing, which you see as a decline or lower revenues. Therefore, it's not only the 11 million, but you have to add a small single-digit million to really see the full additional marketing impact which has been done in 2025. Distribution expenses, there the ratio unfortunately went into the wrong direction. On absolute level, that shows the increase of the orders which come with higher distribution costs. But on top of that, we have seen substantial increase of logistics costs, transport costs, given kind of the high demand for logistics services.
We think that should come to an end. Otherwise, if it would be ongoing and we have already started with that, we have to pass it to the clients with different models that either they pay for earlier delivery or other models just to kind of compensate for any potential further distribution and logistics cost increases. I think reported EBITDA was CHF 1.6 million lower than the adjusted EBITDA. Where would the adjustments come from? We have a net restructuring cost with Zur Rose with the closure of. That's net -CHF 1 million because we could also sell the property, and therefore it's only net -CHF 1 million. We also adjusted CHF 2 million + EBITDA contribution through the sale of the Swiss properties.
We made additional provisions for legal cases in the magnitude of CHF 2 million. I think in our business, that's business as usual and nothing to worry because you notice that every second week there's someone kind of putting a claim against the online pharmacies, and therefore we have kind of just for good corporate practice done some legal provisions in the amount of CHF 2 million. On the net financial result, that also seems to be kind of going completely into the wrong direction with CHF 12 million additional net financial result. Just to calm you down, the CHF 12 million are all non-cash. It's CHF 5 million FX impact on our intercompany loans.
You know, we fund those in Swiss francs and give the intercompany loans in euro to our companies. At the end of the year, we have to kind of compare it then with the actual euro value. As you all know, the euro substantially devalued against the Swiss franc. That's CHF 5 million from that side. Last year, we had a positive effect of CHF 4 million. If you add that up, then you're at CHF 9 million. And the other three million, which would add up to the CHF 12 million, and that has a cash effect, but it will level out.
That was the early repayment and repurchase of the 2026 convertible bond, because as you remember, the offer was 103.5%, and we had to take that as a financial expense. On the other hand, we will save more than the 3.5% in this year because we do not have to pay the coupon of 6.875% of the 2026 convertible bond anymore. Therefore, if you deduct the CHF 12 million, basically exactly the same net financial result.
Just for your information, going forward, we have now redeemed the '26 fully, CHF 250 million outstanding, 3% coupon, 7.5, and then you have to add CHF 4 million-CHF 5 million of IFRS 16 financial expenses, and that brings you to roughly CHF 12 million of real cash out interest financial expenses for the coming future. Also on tax, you have seen we have not paid but recorded CHF 12 million tax negative tax burden. Also there, no cash at all. There's zero cash has gone out. It must be also somehow logical because we have recorded this, still a loss. The reason for that is that the deferred tax assets where we have tax loss carryforwards of several hundred million.
Given a little bit the lower growth in Rx and in some of our subsidiaries, that's just a manual thing, and we had to devalue the deferred tax asset, the positive ones, and that was this booking of CHF 12 million. No cash effect at all. Given that was based on a five-year plan, the next year we most likely have to do it the other way around, and then you will see there a positive contribution, but also with no tax effect. Far to the P&L, the balance sheet, I keep it very short. I think as a CFO, I'm very relaxed with this balance sheet.
It has been substantially strengthened in last year with the rights issue in May, but then also with the partial refinancing of the 2026 convertible bond, so that we now have a very strong liquidity base of CHF 160 million. The net debt has been reduced to CHF 138 million, and the equity ratio, which was strong already before, is now even stronger and amounts to 50%. As you may have read, we had redeemed the remaining CHF 22 million of the 2026 convertible bond by beginning of March, and that's what I said as from now on, we only have the CHF 50 million and the CHF 200 million convertible bond outstanding, which are the only financial and interest-bearing debt beside the CHF 4 million-CHF 5 million lease payments, which we have also to pay on an annual basis.
Let's have a quick look on the indirect cost and the net working capital. Indirect cost, everything goes into the right direction. From my view, the arrow is not yet steep enough, but it will definitely steepen. 7.2, that's nothing you can be or I as a CFO can be proud of. But as I said in the past, you can be assured that this ratio will become significantly below 5% in our midterm plan, and you will see on an annual basis further improvement on that area. Net working capital also there, maybe that's because the liquidity position was so comfortable or is so comfortable, maybe not that focused by the end of last year.
We had some overstocking of CHF 11 million, but that was based on a very strong Q4, which already started by the end of Q3, and we had really to overstock, and the flu season also was kind of skewed towards the end of the year. We have done it a little bit too much. I think definitely CHF 5 million could have been less stocking. What I do not like very much is the CHF 9 million accounts receivable there, let's call it sloppiness, and I take it on my part, but that is also a nice asset to reverse in this year and the coming years. So far, everything on the cost side, I think CapEx and indirect cost side on track.
Now let's go into details how we will achieve EBITDA breakeven in 2026, and then subsequently free cash flow breakeven in 2027. We heard some complaints that we have now introduced CM3, contribution margin three. I would say, okay, maybe the analysts have not yet had it in the spreadsheet, but I think it's the highest transparency you can really get there from our end. What is CM3? CM3 is the last line of operating profit. You only have to deduct indirect costs, and then you are at EBITDA. I think that's definitely kind of, in our view, how we steer the company, and how we. That's really the basis and the fundamental of our target and our mission to become EBITDA breakeven, and that's the reason why we want to share that with you.
As you can see in 2025, you see the value of digital services, basically, three-quarter or even more than three-quarter of CM3 contribution came from digital services. While the online pharmacy, that's Rx and OTC/BPC, including EU, are keeping up substantially in the second half. That's the green part of the bar. For 2025, we are very open and nice and even put the number on it, slightly rounded, but nevertheless, very good indication. Then you see where why we are so confident that we will reach EBITDA breakeven. There will be a substantial contribution from digital services. As we know, they grow top line, and as Walter said, it's basically take rate equals gross margin, more or less with slight deduction equals EBITDA. Also the online pharmacy is substantially keeping up in 2026. You see that, the green bar.
They are almost on an equal level, in absolute terms, with digital service, with the CM3 contribution. Okay, they are on top line much bigger, that should not be a surprise. Having said this, in 2026, even Rx, and that's really exceptional, will be CM3 positive. That's due to our very focused and increased marketing efficiency, which has been substantial double-digit negative, or still in 2025. You see the same pattern goes on for the first half in 2027 and the first half of 2022. We will increase the CM3 margin by more than 300 percentage by three percentage points, and more than double the CM3 contribution in absolute terms in 2026. You see, there's not the end.
That will be ongoing also into 2027. I think that's really important because if you now have CM3, you deduct the indirect costs and then your, the EBITDA level. How that looks, we go even further into the detail on the next slide. That's really kind of to the heart of what the CFO usually, not any longer in Excel, but in Sheets, keeps and does not share with anyone. Here you see the phasing of our EBITDA ramp up. The basis is Q4 2025. In Q4 2025, we had still a negative EBITDA, but it was in the area of -CHF 7 million, which is a huge positive development. You know, due to the rights issue, we had to report Q1 2025 EBITDA, which was -CHF 16 million. Q4, we were down at -CHF 7 million.
Q4 is really the run rate for our EBITDA journey in 2026, with Q1 being somewhere in the area of Q4 because we see the same trends, the same patterns, the same dynamics. Improvement in Q2, which is usually the first two quarters are not the best ones. It has some seasonality in our business, but not too much because there is additional measures included. Q3, we are at this point in time confident that we will reach EBITDA breakeven, and Q4 will then be EBITDA positive.
This all together, you will see first half the lion's share of the negative EBITDA contribution, and the second half of the year, there we will hopefully see kind of a positive EBITDA contribution. That leads us. That's a little bit that will come now later to our guidance, but you see that it's CHF -10 - CHF -25 is our guidance for the EBITDA. As I said, it's CM3 that's the bridge, the -CHF 48.2, then the CM3 contribution. I said more than double. That's if you haven't put the numbers there, that you also have something to calculate. Then the indirect costs, where we are really working hard and try to bring them down. That's according to budget, still some negative contribution.
That will lead then us to the EBITDA guidance, which you see on the screen of CHF -10 million - CHF -25 million. I think CM3 is a very important pattern to get there, but also in combination with operational and marketing efficiency. Then we will also very tight CapEx management and also on the indirect costs. You see we have many layers where we can play and really optimize to get to achieve our target. First of all, in 2026 to become EBITDA breakeven in the course of 2026. With the same patterns and instrument, we will become free cash flow positive also in the course of 2027. That brings me now to the guidance for first of all, for 2026, the short-term guidance.
We have pretty broad guidance on the top line, mid-single digit to low teens. Reason for that is that we achieve EBITDA breakeven also with relatively modest growth, which is more the left side of the mid-single digit. We also see patterns that we could even become EBITDA breakeven with accelerated growth. That's the reason why we just want to keep the flexibility to play EBITDA versus growth, especially on the marketing side. That's one explanation for that rather broad guidance. As you know, we try to definitely come out at the right end of the guidance. Given, let's say, the different patterns, we will then have to narrow it during the course of the financial year 2026.
As sort of guidance, how does that translate into kind of the business segments? Rx will be around 20%, which is kind of basically in line with what Walter showed before. We cut the 20% non-economic customers. That comes with kind of little bit lower, but much more profitable growth on Rx. OTC, we stick to the mid-single-digit as we have been before and as we have demonstrated that that's possible. Digital services there we will see mid-double-digit growth as digital services combined with a substantial increase of the EBITDA margin of the already very high EBITDA margin, but there will be further appreciation of the margin. I talked about EBITDA -CHF 10 million to -CHF 25 million.
That's also need to be said, an improvement of 300 basis points or three percentage points of the EBITDA margin. That's coming from the wrong direction, but I think it's still substantial as such kind of relative increase. Then CapEx, roughly CHF 30 million, maybe rather at the high end. We're positive that that could be maybe slightly lower as we have seen in 25 with CHF 27 million. That will lead us to our ultimate goals, EBITDA breakeven and free cash flow breakeven, 26 and 27. With these two years, taking into consideration that we have to really drive profitability, maybe a little bit against growth. The midterm guidance, we are very pleased that we basically can confirm the midterm guidance which we put out ahead of the rights issue.
Of course, it's not 20% CAGR anymore. It's 15% CAGR anymore. I think the most impressive thing in my view is that we can keep the 8%. We can even stay more behind it because given that the relative growth of Rx goes down, and that makes the relative weight of digital service even bigger at the back end, and therefore the business mix is really in favor of us with kind of having OTC, which is very important also for customer acquisition for Rx, but also for our TeleClinic and retail media business.
ORIX, which is decently growing, and then digital services with high EBITDA contribution and high growth, which will have a higher relative share at the back end of our five-year business plan, meaning that this is true for 2030, basically covering five years. CapEx has also been reduced by CHF 5 million. I think we are comfortable with this 30 million average CapEx rate. I think that's basically the guidance what we are aiming for and where we are kind of being measured to. Before I hand over to Walter, because he's already jumping up, just two subsequent events which you have seen on the convertible bond, I've already talked about. The closure of Ludwigshafen, which we announced also today, just some, I cannot say highlights, but some financials to that.
We will have one-time restructuring costs between CHF 3 million-CHF 4 million. If you take the midpoint, then you should be at the right spot. Of these, we are talking euros. Out of this CHF 3 million-CHF 4 million, EUR 2 million have an impact on EBITDA because these are severance payments, and the remaining part is below EBITDA. That's kind of onerous contracts because we have lease agreements which we have to due to IFRS immediately write off. But that will be an impairment between EBITDA and EBIT. We will adjust for that, the roughly EUR 2 million.
I think the very positive effect is that we will have at least from 2027 onwards EUR 2 million, in excess of EUR 2 million annual recurring savings because we are moving the 3.5 million parcels from Ludwigshafen to Heerlen, where we have ample capacity. There will be better capacity utilization in Heerlen. The handling and packaging is two times more efficient than in Ludwigshafen because we are in Heerlen fully automated and therefore I think the EUR 2 million is a baseline annual savings. There is definitely potential for more to come. Then last but not least, current trading. I said we have seen the positive trend from Q3 ongoing in Q4. Everything is according to plan, meaning budget.
Also I think that gives us a lot of comfort to kind of handle and managing this challenging but very exciting times ahead of us until we are free cash flow break even. Thank you very much for your attention. Now happy to hand over to Walter again.
Thank you, Daniel Wüest. Just before we close and open the Q&A session. In the last two years, we have not only built the platform engine, as shown before, we have also built a high-performing leadership team. As you can see here on the slide, a leadership team that bridges the gap between traditional retail excellence and disruptive health tech and AI innovation. I can assure you also in the name of the whole team that we are fully committed to execute the defined goals and to transform our platform into tangible shareholder value. It's not only at the level of the management, it's also a change which is mirrored at the board of directors. Therefore, we have informed that we nominate three new members of the board that we will present to the AGM.
It's Thomas Bucher, a well-known seasoned CFO with a lot of experience in listed and private companies. It's Nicole Formica-Schiller. She's an expert in AI and digital health transformation, but also regulation on a European and a German level. She has also a wide network in Germany in the healthcare sector, and a deep understanding of the regulatory landscape in Germany. It's Thomas Reutter, an experienced corporate and capital markets lawyer. These board nominations, they ensure that management and board is perfectly synchronized with the company's vision and AI-first platform strategy, and also shall provide the necessary stability to the company. With that, we are at the end of the presentation. We had to tell you a lot to give you a lot of information, but now let's immediately move to the Q&A session.
Ladies and gentlemen on the telephone, if you would like to ask a question, please press nine.
Okay. We will share the mic.
Yes. Hello. Here is Laura Pfeifer, Octavian. I have a question on your sales outlook for this year. What is the primary swing factor within your guidance range? Is it mainly driven by uncertainty around Rx growth, or is it rather related to OTC performance? Maybe specifically on OTC, could you elaborate on what you are currently observing in terms of competitive dynamics?
To the first and the, yeah, second part.
No, I think, Laura, the main factor is definitely Rx. I said we have kind of played operating profit against growth and given that the co-payment and the bonus, which have been developing not in the entire group, because we only did kind of a pilot with some selected Rx customers, developed very well in Q4, and we rolled out kind of this concept to the whole DocMorris just recently. That really is kind of the swing factor and also the reason for the wide range of the guidance. I think you can assume that OTC, BPC, that's the mid-single digit, meaning something between 3% and 7%, not much deviation. Also, the absolute volume is high.
The digital services double-digit, the mid-double-digit growth, but on a relatively low absolute revenue level, and the swing factor is really Rx. But that's kind of, let's say, 10 or 40%, but that's not that you take that as just to show you what kind of the volatility could be on Rx.
Yeah, you mentioned the competitive landscape and price pressure. I guess you meant there in the course of last year we have been adapted our pricing strategy, improved our strategy. I've seen the improvement in the gross margin that's a result of it. In general, we don't see now a change on prices or price levels in the market. In our market pricing the pressure is always on, but not now a big change with new market entrants coming in.
Research Partners. Regarding mid-term, is that around 2030? Then, on your mid-term growth targets of 15%, I mean, I still find that a little bit high. If the OTC part is growing at mid-single digit, I guess in your outlook in mid-term, and I guess on the digital service side, I don't know if you can have this mid-double digit range also, percentage range, all the way into mid-term future. That if I then go back to the Rx, that should be higher than 20% Rx growth to reach this 15%. Am I right about that?
Yeah, you are perfectly right, and I think what you need to really consider, given EBITDA breakeven and free cash flow, as said that, we have to limit the growth and really play on our marketing efficiency. That's also why we stated in the guidance, that's the fine print in the release, that it's back-end loaded. In 2026 and 2027 you will definitely see lower Rx growth than what will then come again from 2028 to 2030 onwards. You said it's substantially about 20%, and I can sign on to that. It will be 20% in the first two years, but then we'll substantially be keeping up again.
Where do you take this? How do this belief that it's higher than 20%? It's just that you put in more marketing again then or you see the market growing faster in after 2027 in online Rx?
No, I think it's really kind of the that we then have once we are free cash flow positive, we can then really also not that we fall back in the old patterns that you won't see then kind of us spending all of a sudden CHF 30 million in TV again. I think with the bonus and the co-payment, that's a very strong instrument. As said, at some point in time that you are in balance with growth and profitability, we have for the time being still certain limitations, and there you can definitely kind of play that even more aggressive.
Sorry, what we also will see is platform dynamic kicking in. You have seen the partnership also with Google. Where we have joint development teams also with them, developing new services, adding services to the platform. This will drive traffic, will drive engagement, will drive loyalty. We will see the effects there definitely within even one to two years already.
Midterm is 2030 or?
2030, yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Sibylle Bischofberger, Bank Vontobel . I've two market questions. First, I remember the market share of online pharmacies was about five to six years ago, about 1.3% in Germany. How has it developed? How much is the market share now, and how much growth do you expect in the next couple of years? The other interesting market, telemedicine, you mentioned 0.5% market share.
Where do you expect it to be in the next couple of years? Thank you.
On the Rx, yes, it was 1.35% six years ago. It went down before eRx started to 0.75%. Since eRx was available now also for online pharmacies, it went up to roughly 1.7%. Where will it go? That's the one million question. We have for our assumptions taken a really conservative view in our midterm plans of 5%-6% in five years. Frankly speaking, we think it will be more, it will ramp faster, but in our plans, we did not go now more aggressive than 5%-6%. On telemedicine, the share has shown the penetration is lower than 0.5%.
TeleClinic is roughly at 0.3, so has about 60%. Where will it go? It depends on how fast the digital strategy of the ministry will be defined and will go live and how prominent telemedicine will be in this different kind of future care pillars. It's too early to say where it goes, but anyway, from 0.5 it will definitely go northwards. Definitely.
Yeah.
Remember, we have two kind of businesses. We have a retail business, but we also have a digital service business with completely different metrics, valuation, et cetera. There is a strong growth really already going on and will continue.
I think if you are interested, I recommend you to read page 175 of our financial report where all the details in relation to the goodwill impairment is which we with honor passed. But there you have kind of the assumption, the current market share of telemedicine and Rx and what our underlying assumptions are. It's in Rx 1.7% and in 2030, 5%, 1.7%-5%, and that's the overall market share. I think then, for the whole market and telemedicine it's even more astonishing, 0.5 and, in five years time, the penetration should be 1.6%. That's on what we base our goodwill impairment test. You could also assume that that's basically then somehow reflected in our business plan.
No more questions here in the room in Zurich. Let's move to the webcast and taking questions from there.
Oh, yeah. We have one question from Gian Marco Werro from ZKB.
Yeah. Hi, Gian Marco . Please go ahead.
Hello. Thank you. I hope there's no echo on your side. First question is the growth outlook for TeleClinic. You mentioned mid-double-digit revenue growth. Why not 80% or 90% again this year because the penetration is still so low? Do you not do more marketing also there? Because in my view it's really such a comfortable way to get a doctor appointment in Germany, and there must be a huge demand from the doctor and from the patient side. From a top-down perspective. The profitability of the overall services business, is that still fair to assume that you are meaningfully above the 55% EBITDA margin for this business?
You mentioned you want to increase the margin for TeleClinic, but can you give us a bit more detail about your margin improvement target, also for the whole services business? That would be interesting. Just a third question if I may, if I have the opportunity, the logistics cost is just something, I mean you already elaborated on it, but don't you see risk of patients ordering then less or, if they have to pay really then for even more for the delivery services, especially considering your growth expectations in Rx and OTC. Thank you.
To the first question, the growth rate. You can consider that the growth in absolute values remains at more or less the same level. Then you have to take in consideration that you always have to integrate new network partners, larger ones. Once you integrated them, the growth curve starts to slow down and then you integrate new ones. At the moment, the regulator is just defining the new digital strategy and, for example, the doctor associations. We talked to several of them. They are ready, but they just want to wait until they know now what the regulator regulates. This is the dynamic of the growth that we have predicted for this year. If it comes to the margin, you mentioned 55%.
Some of the services are even higher, some of the services are below this 55. I think, yeah.
I think on the margin, not sure where this 55 are coming from. I think as of currently, the TeleClinic has margins in the low 30s that will substantially increase over the next five years to the figure you mentioned. I would say it's kind of 45-50%. That's kind of a reasonable run rate. On the other hand, the retail media, that's also very highly profitable, that runs already on higher EBITDA margins, but will also in a balanced model be somewhere around the 50% EBITDA margin. I think that's the mix. You will see this year an overproportional increase of EBITDA contribution given that we do not have the triple-digit growth at TeleClinic.
Mm-hmm.
I think it's always kind of one year a little bit less growth, but then substantial improvement of profitability. The next year, strong growth, maybe little less profitability than one year of consolidating everything, increasing margin. I think that's. The overall pattern and growth pattern is very strong. It's not a linear line, it's kind of some years with little bit hold back on the top line, but push the bottom line and therefore even faster.
Your third question about logistics, do you refer to what? To the closing of Ludwigshafen or?
No, to the logistic costs. I think there, Jean-Marc, it's not that we say. I think we do it a little bit more professional, not saying that you have now to pay EUR 2 more. I think you have definitely other measures. First of all, kind of not reducing, let's say, for the order that you can say, "Okay, if you order until five, you get it next day." You can even lower your logistic costs if you say, "Okay, if you order until four, then you get it next day," because that has already another price tag on the with the carrier. You could also play then with the basket size, which is kind of then free of shipping, just to balance this logistic cost.
We see it in the whole market. You see, for example, dm-drogerie markt, there's free delivery if it's EUR 60, our friendly competitor, and thus we are much lower. I think you have many things to play and to optimize your logistics costs. It's not a problem of DocMorris, it's kind of of the whole online, and not even Rx and OTC online, but the online industry. We will just follow the market then to avoid being hit by higher logistics costs.
Okay. Thank you. Very clear.
Thank you. We have one more question from Jan Koch from Deutsche Bank. The floor is yours.
Good afternoon, and thanks for taking my two questions. The first one is on your 2026 RX guidance, which essentially only implies less than 4% sequential growth per quarter. Why is this the case? Given that your group guidance is quite wide this year, is there a scenario where you accelerate RX growth in 2026? Then secondly, you mentioned a strong liquidity position of CHF 160 million. If I take the CHF 160 million at the end of 2025, and consider that you paid back the CHF 20 million convertible and consider a negative free cash flow in probably the mid to high double digits in 2026, you will start 2027 with probably less than CHF 100 million.
The free cash flow is still expected to be negative next year, and you might have to refinance your 2028 convertible next year as well. How do you plan to achieve this? Are you open to sell a minority share in TeleClinic?
Yeah. Let me take the first question and then Daniel, the second one. On the sequential growth, as we have shown before, the guidance we have given us some space, so that we can maneuver between growth and marketing spendings. This is also what we see in the first quarter, that it goes in a really good direction already. If it continues like this, so we can go more to the upper end, but we want to be flexible in reacting. For us, the priority this year is completely on becoming breakeven in the course of the second half year, possibly on the second half year in total. Therefore, we need this flexibility, and we take for us this flexibility.
On the second question?
Yeah. I think just to start, top down, you are right that the CHF 160 million, you have to deduct the CHF 20 million or 22 million, but let's deduct the 20. That makes it easier for calculation. That's 140.
You are also right that you can assume for this year and then next year negative free cash flows, but they will be substantially even already this year lower than last year and in 2027 the indication that in the course of course we aim for as low as possible negative free cash flow, but that should be not kind of the two figures added up should still leave us with a very comfortable remaining cushion of liquidity until we will become then for the full year free cash flow positive in 2028.
In relation to the refinancing of the 2028 maturity, I think once we have demonstrated and shown that we are on the right path, that's then something which we tackle by then. It's clear that we do not fully redeem the CHF 200 million, and it's also clear that it does not make sense. At least that's what I learned at university. Okay, acknowledging that was some time ago, but that the fully debt-financed balance sheet is definitely not an efficient balance sheet. I think let's take it one step after the other, and we have ideas. You referred to, if I'm right, selling a minority stake of TeleClinic.
I think, of course, it's a very valuable asset which we have in our hand, but it's extremely valuable within our platform and therefore definitely not the first priority to monetize TeleClinic at this point in time.
Understood. Thank you. One follow-up, if I may. Are you going to report EBITDA in Q3 and Q4 this year again so that we can track your progress?
Let's see. I think it could well be. Yeah. I think that it would be important. At least we give you a very good indication where we are heading to. I think this nice picture which we draw in our presentation you can basically on the quarter- by- quarter basis track us and see whether the two guys in front of you have not only overpromised, but also deliver on that. But we have to see, but most likely yes. Yeah.
Perfect. Thank you.
Okay. Oh, Ramon. I just want to say that's the benefit of lunchtime.
Last question.
Not going to look. No. On the AI companion digital assistant. As I understand, you're not getting any money for it. Marketing and any plan that on later stage you get some money out, because you mentioned these 100 people they got saved from cancer. At the end, I think somebody is happy to pay something.
Did anybody say we do not get any money out of it? I cannot remember. No, it's... What we see and we measure very carefully, of course, we see an impact, a positive impact on traffic already. We see a positive impact on engagement already. We see the conversion rates going up as soon as we can take someone by the hand and guide through the platform. We see significant increase of conversion rate. This brings us already additional money. As you have seen on the platform, the marketplace, this marketplace is a marketplace also for health services. On a marketplace, you want to earn money. We are filling this marketplace also with health services, and we will get additional margins, revenues and margins from there as well. Okay.
With that, we come to the end. Thanks a lot. It was a little bit long. Sorry for that, but we had a lot of information for you. Thank you for joining, and we wish you all a pleasant and happy day. Bye-bye.
Thank you.
Thank you.