Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to DocMorris AG's conference call on the half year results for 2026. This conference is being recorded. At this time, all participants have been placed on a listen-only mode. The floor will be open for questions following the presentation. If you would like to ask a question, then you could press Star, nine, and Pound key on your telephone keypad, or use the dial-in function in the webcast and raise your hand. Let me now turn the floor over to your host, Walter Hess, CEO.
Yes, thanks a lot. Welcome everybody to our H1 2026 results conference call. Today with me is Daniel, our CFO, and I'm Walter Hess, the CEO. The H1 of 2026 has been a milestone period for DocMorris, marked by accelerated growth and an outstanding operational execution. Our focus remains on scaling our integrated digital and AI-driven healthcare platform to deliver long-term profitable value. Today's agenda foresees the highlights of H1 to start with, followed by the business update, financial update, and the outlook before we move then to the Q&A session. Let's start with our highlights on slide number four. We delivered a 38% Rx growth in H1, accelerating further to 46% in Q2, with an even stronger momentum continuing into July and August. Our active customer base expanded by 1.1 million year-over-year to 12.9 million, with TeleClinic contributing 1.5 million active users.
Digital services grew 71% in H1 and even 80% in Q2, translating directly into a lower proportionate profit increase due to the high margins. The execution of our AI-First strategy is fully on track, expecting a positive earnings contribution in H2 2026 and over CHF 15 million in recurring annual net savings by end of 2027. Therefore, on the back of this strong commercial momentum, we have confidently raised our full year 2026 financial guidance. DocMorris has successfully transitioned into a unique integrated digital and AI health platform serving the 12.9 million active customers. Our high volume online pharmacy remains the core engine, driving the distribution of prescribed medication as well as over-the-counter medication. Our Marketplace extends our reach by offering a comprehensive range of health products and health services through trusted partners.
TeleClinic, our telemedicine platform, represents a fast-growing, highly scalable take rate business model that delivers attractive margins. We are unlocking additional monetization opportunities through Retail Media and driving superior customer engagement and conversion with our AI assistant. Let's move to the assistant on the next slide. We have successfully completed the full rollout of our AI health and shopping assistant across the entire DocMorris desktop, mobile website, and app. The assistant is experiencing a fast adoption with monthly engaged users and total sessions growing very rapidly. Crucially, we are seeing that the AI assistant users demonstrate significantly stronger platform interactions and higher conversion rates. This conversational interface is a critical differentiator, helping customers manage their health, including prescriptions, find products, and receive health advice. We are continuously further deploying new features and value-added services to further enhance retention and customer lifetime value on our platform. Let's move to Rx now.
Our Rx revenue reached a record of EUR 86.9 million in Q2 2026, representing a doubling compared to the eRx start in Q2 2024. This represents a Q2 year-over-year revenue growth of 45.8%, showcasing the speed of eRx adoption. The sequential growth of 17.2%, equal to EUR 12.6 million from Q1 to Q2, reflects a strong momentum that is even further accelerating into the third quarter. Active Rx customers grew by 15.6% year- over- year in Q2, with also strong sequential acceleration of 7.1% quarter- over- quarter. We are highly encouraged by these trends, which confirm that DocMorris is a primary destination for digital prescription redemptions. The eRx redemption via digital channels are driving unprecedented customer loyalty, with latest eRx cohorts showing structurally superior retention and order frequency. Latest cohorts are 4.5x more loyal than legacy paper Rx cohorts, and 2x more loyal than our first eRx cohorts.
Also, our average order value for Rx increased significantly to EUR 120 in Q2 2026, coming from EUR 119 one year ago. On the next slide, Rx customers generate over 10x the revenue of OTC customers, which also translate into significantly higher customer lifetime value. This is why we are prioritizing the acquisition of new Rx customers over new OTC customers. Simultaneously, we have achieved a step-up function reduction in customer acquisition costs, as you can see on this slide, and marketing spend since Q4 2025. This reduction was driven by the removal of high-cost traditional TV ads and out-of-home campaigns, and the shift towards efficient digital channels in combination with the exemption of co-payments. The additional costs from co-payment exemptions compared to the previous bonus model are relatively small and much more than offset by the savings in the marketing expenses.
On slide number 10, you will find an update on the regulatory and pharmacy reform topics. The completed German pharmacy reform provides full regulatory and policy clarity, introducing a step-by-step increase in fixed remuneration per medication from EUR 8.35 to EUR 9 already in place since 1st of July this year, and rising further to EUR 9.50 in January 2027. This is accompanied by an increase in the statutory pharmacy discount, which rises to EUR 2.07 in 2027. Under the newly passed GKV financial reform, patient co-payments will rise by 50% in 2027 to a range of EUR 7.50 to EUR 15, which will further increase, and already does, price sensitivity among publicly insured patients.
While there is a lot of discussions and talk regarding our co-payment exemption, we just want to clarify and underline that European and national courts have fully reconfirmed the legality of our Rx bonuses, establishing that our co-payment coverage preserves principles of statutory health insurance without creating any medical disincentives. Let's move to the non-Rx business now. Our non-Rx segment continues to provide a solid recurring revenue stream, growing 6.6% in H1 2026 to reach EUR 486 million. OTC and BPC products grew by 4% in H1, with growth being actively calibrated by us towards attracting higher margin Rx customers, as shown before on the slide for Rx. We are intentionally managing OTC volumes to focus on margin preservation and profitability rather than low-margin discount volumes. Digital services, including TeleClinic Retail Media and our Marketplace, grew by a significant 71% in H1 and 80% in Q2.
The rapid expansion of high-margin digital services is also successfully shifting the overall group margin upwards. Let us come now to an update about TeleClinic on slide number 12. The revenue of TeleClinic grew by 48% to CHF 17.6 million in H1 2026, driven by increased treatment volumes of 51% year-over-year to 1.3 million, and supported by a further growing number of doctors on the platform who also continuously increase their utilization rates. EBITDA doubled compared to H1 2025, underscoring the powerful operational leverage and inherent scalability of our telemedicine business model. TeleClinic is in addition, maintaining a strong pipeline of new healthcare and insurance partnerships, significantly broadening our strategic reach across the entire healthcare landscape. In addition, they have successfully launched an AI-powered doctor appointment booking system, introducing an additional highly scalable pay-per-booking model.
Last but not least, in the business update, our Retail Media platform, DMR Advertising, has established itself as the undisputed number one healthcare ad network in Germany. In H1 2026, DMR achieved the first time over EUR 10 million in net sales, representing a strong year-over-year growth rate of far more than 100%. This business operates at very high profitability, delivering a robust mid-double-digit EBITDA margin directly to our bottom line. To mention is that during the soccer World Cup, we ran high impact campaigns across digital TV channels, generating over 250 million highly measurable ad impressions. DocMorris also benefited significantly from this, achieving highly attractive ROAS, return on advertising spend, through precise targeting, which allowed us to maximize awareness for Rx redemption with co-payment exemption.
Coincidentally, this happened exactly with the time the regulator decided to increase co-payments starting from 2027, making this a widely discussed topic in Germany. In total, we expect this highly profitable data-driven ad engine to remain a major growth and margin lever for DocMorris in the coming years. With that, I would like to hand over to my colleague, Daniel, now for the financial update and the outlook.
Thank you, Walter, and also from my end, a very warm welcome to everyone on the call. It is my pleasure to present you the numbers of our H1 performance and then followed up by the updated guidance for 2026. If we move to the first slide, which should be known to you, even if there is an addition, because you have added the operating cash flow, since I will come later to that. Let us start with the top line. Revenue delivered double-digit growth of 13.4% in local currency and 10.7% in Swiss francs. External revenue grew a little bit less with 12.5% in local currency and 9.8% in Swiss francs. The growth was driven by Rx, with a healthy growth of close to 40%, exactly 38.3%, and digital services with a growth of over 70% revenue increase year-over-year.
On the gross margin, gross margin remained more or less stable despite a negative impact due to the co-payments. This negative impact in the first half year was approximately 50 basis points. Therefore, the stable gross margin is even more a very good achievement, which comes also from Digital Services, which contributed due to the high sales growth, relatively more to the top-line gross margin. It is also important to say that this roughly 15 basis points negative impact of the co-payments from the Rx side are more than overcompensated at the bottom line on an EBITDA level at the end of the day. Adjusted EBITDA margin expanded strongly by 350 basis points to -1.8% year over year. As mentioned, we have added operating cash flow, which also showed a very remarkable development.
The operating cash flow improved by almost CHF 35 million to now -CHF 21.1 million in the H1 of 2026. With that, let's go to the KPIs. Also here, a very friendly or very nice picture and development. As you can see, customer acquisition accelerated across our business units, mainly in Rx, OTC, but also very strongly in TeleClinic, with 1.1 million new customers year- over- year, bringing the total of active customers to roughly 13 million. In the H1 of the year, the share of new Rx customers increased significantly, and that's very important, whereof the majority were new eRx customers besides a minority of OTC and also pRx customers which have become eRx customers. These are the so-called switchers. Active TeleClinic customers grew to 1.5 million by the end of the semester. Let's move to the average order value, which also developed very nicely.
We saw an increase from EUR 97 to EUR 101. Please bear in mind that that's an average number, and we have clearly seen a further increase by the end of the half year. OTC, very stable over the last periods. They stayed at EUR 33. If we look at the order frequency, which is also an important KPI, we see that Rx, an ongoing further increase to 4.1x , while OTC also remains stable at two times. Repeat order rate, you could argue, or in the first instance, think that's with a slight decline, that that's a bad trend. But it's quite the opposite, given the high share of new Rx customers, by definition, then the repeat orders, because the new cohorts, they all have said the new and could not be in a position to reorder.
That's the reason why, if you would level it out, the repeat order rate would stay at the very high level of high 70s percent. Let me conclude on this slide as follows. The KPIs clearly underline the high-value contribution of our new Rx customers, which basically came in as of March of this year, and translating into increased average order values, higher order frequency, and stable repeat order rates. This is a very good basis for the future and the future business which we can do with these clients. Let's have a deep dive into the P&L. As said, on top line, the revenue growth of 13.4% clearly exceeded our initial expectations, and as mentioned, mainly driven by Rx and Digital Services.
The good thing is that we had the proof that the operational leverage does work. As you have seen, despite the substantial growth, personal expense ratio improved by 80 basis points. The marketing efficiency even translated into 310 basis points improvement of the marketing efficiency ratio. That was backed by a EUR 14 million decrease in marketing expenses year over year. Even distribution expenses, which everyone would expect to increase, given the high fuel prices, we could lower them by 10 basis points. That just shows that we are there, had tailwind from our operational leverage, which we have built on. Adjusted EBITDA improved substantially by almost EUR 18 million year- over- year, while reported EBITDA improved by EUR 7.1 million. But of course, their substantial one-off costs of EUR 9.1 million has to be taken into account here. These EUR 9.1 million adjustments, where do they come from?
In the H1 of the year, we recorded a total of EUR 7.6 million of restructure costs, which were caused by two projects. First of all, the closure of the Ludwigshafen warehouse by the end of March of this year. Secondly, the bigger part of our communicated AI-First strategy in June, which summed up both together at EUR 7.6 million restructuring costs. The finance result looks also, on the first view, a little bit ugly. But keep in mind, and that's also written in the half-year report, that almost EUR 5 million out of the EUR 10.6 million are FX related and as usual, non-cash. It's not a non-cash, has no non-cash impact. Why?
The reason is that's the kind of the FX impact which will occur on our intercompany loans, given that our funds are in Swiss francs and intercompany loans are on euro. Given the weakening euro, that results then always in a non-cash FX loss. Also even not mentioned here on the table because it's a small position, but just to take that off the table. Interest expense, excuse me, taxes have increased by EUR 1 million. I think to pay taxes, that's never ever something which is appreciated. But on the other hand, that just shows that we have already some entities which are generating net profit and revenue. The reason is that we are talking about TeleClinic, which has to pay since last year taxes. Of course, there are a lot of huge tax loss carry forward in Germany.
But please bear in mind that different to Switzerland where you can cover this 100%, in Germany it's a 60/40 ratio. That's the reason why always 40% of taxes you have to pay. But with the benefit that this tax loss carry forward are lasting forever, while in Switzerland they will fall apart after nine years. On the next slide, a quick look at the balance sheet. I think most mentioned, the most important thing to mention is our strong liquidity position of almost CHF 100 million, which provides us with a comfortable liquidity buffer, to reach free cash flow breakeven in the course of 2027 and beyond. I am also worthwhile to mention all the receivables, which increased substantially. I think part of it is due to the high growth and the higher share of the Rx in revenues.
As you know, Rx has the accounts receivables are almost one month, 20-25 days. While on the OTC, you even have kind of a negative networking capital because you pay your suppliers once you have already received the cash from your customers. This has kind of an impact of roughly CHF 8 million in the first half, and the others impacts were one-off effects which won't occur going forward. Net debt increased by CHF 36 million to CHF 174 million, while the group balance sheet remains very solid with a healthy equity ratio of 46%. Overall financial flexibility remains well aligned with our medium-term operational roadmap. The next slide should also be known to you. The two metrics, the indirect cost ratio and the net working capital. Overall, our indirect cost ratio improved by 20 basis points year-over-year.
Very remarkable is that in the online pharmacy, meaning OTC, Rx, the indirect cost ratio could substantially being reduced, being on absolute but also relative levels, while on our digital services, we made some investments into the platform, the fast-growing platform, to cope with the fast growth of especially TeleClinic and Retail Media. Worthwhile to mention is that the implementation of our AI-First strategy will have an additional positive impact on our indirect costs, which is not yet reflected here, and that will happen over the next 18 months as an additional pattern to the ordinary course of business indirect cost management. The net working capital on the right-hand chart, expanded by 40 basis points year-over-year. Which means, as I said, mainly driven by the higher share of Rx revenues, which has kind of an increase of the accounts receivable as a consequence.
I mentioned the negative impact on the net working capital is roughly CHF 8 million. Having said this, we are maintaining active working capital management to optimize ratios as Rx revenues will further scale. Let's have a quick look at our AI-First strategy. As you know, we have by the end of June, announced our AI-First strategy, and we are very pleased to communicate at this point in time that we are fully on track to capture the above CHF 50 million of recurring savings fully phased in by the end of 2027. All savings will directly translate into free cash flow with roughly 75% hitting also the EBITDA level. The 25% balance being lower tech development costs, which is a huge, substantial part of the AI-First strategy, which are capitalized and therefore have a cash impact, but not an impact on EBITDA.
That's the reason why the cash impact is higher than the impact on the EBITDA level. In the course of the announcement, we have executed the layoff of the people, and we have, at this point in time, dismissed over 100 FTEs, which was, as announced, the plan, and that has now been fully executed. By the end of 2027, we assume annual CapEx savings of over CHF 5 million. That's also mainly in the tech area, where we need much less coders, given that the AI tools can do that by themselves much faster and at equal efficiency or even higher efficiency, but also quality level. As a consequence, we have lowered our CapEx guidance for 2026, which was around CHF 30 million to below CHF 30 million.
The one-time restructuring expenses of CHF 4.3 million in relation to the AI-First strategy, which we have booked in Q2, will be largely offset in the H2 of 2026, given with the kind of savings which we can already realize in the H2 of this year. Let's move to the second part of the presentation, to the update of the guidance and especially to the overarching targets of this year to achieve EBITDA breakeven in the course of 2026. Also a chart which should be common to you or known to you. We have added the Q2 EBITDA performance of -CHF 4.6 million, and also refined the common quarters. Funnily, it's more or less exactly the same figures. We had not do any bigger deviations. Therefore, that shows that the planning wasn't that bad at this end.
Having said this, we are even more comfortable that we will reach the EBITDA breakeven. You see that the dark green, that's basically the midpoint, let's say, the safe side. We have some deviation on to the low end and the top end. It's clear that Q4 will be EBITDA positive, and on Q3, we are working to get close to already being EBITDA positive. Where is our confidence coming from? I think, first of all, the achievements which we realized in the H1 , but then also very important that the few weeks since then and up to today show the continuation of the strong trends which we have seen in Q2. Even despite holiday season, some further acceleration, and that's where our confidence is coming from. Thinking already into 2027, where the next milestone is to achieve a free cash flow breakeven.
We have, knowing that operating cash flow does not equal free cash flow, but just to show it's the starting point to come to free cash flow. The operating cash flow development, there you see a remarkable development year-over-year, coming from almost -CHF 56 million to -CHF 33 million in the second half last year, to -CHF 21 million. The same trend will be ongoing, so that we will have a very good and strong starting base into 2027 to tackle then the free cash flow breakeven in the course of the year 2027. Where does this operating cash flow improvements are coming from? First of all, clearly, the EBITDA improvement, but then also driven by lower interest expenses, which helps there to drive the operational cash flow. With that, let's come to the slide with the official guidance.
I provide you also with the soft guidance. Accompanying the soft guidance, which you also can find in our media release of this morning. On the three metrics we put forward in March when we guided for the financial year 2026. Top line, and here we are talking external revenues. We guided mid-single digit to low teens, which is somewhere in the area of 3%-12% in our interpretation. We now narrowed and increased the range to 9%-13%, coming from 12.5% by the end of the H1 of the year.
Adjusted EBITDA, we also substantially narrowed down the range from -CHF 10 million to -CHF 25 million to -CHF 10 million to -CHF 17.5 million, which implies at the best end, basically a positive EBITDA for the H2 , but clearly skewed towards still slightly negative EBITDA for the H2 , if you put the -CHF 10.9 million EBITDA for the H2 into this range. CapEx, I already mentioned, we lowered from around 30, which was rather 30+ , now to below CHF 30 million . I think that also will be something which will stay and will have a positive impact going forward. As mentioned, of course, we reconfirm EBITDA breakeven in the course of 2026 and free cash flow breakeven in the course of 2027. Also our midterm targets remain unchanged, with roughly 15% revenue growth, 8% EBITDA margin, and roughly CHF 30 million CapEx per year.
But you have heard my comments in relation to CapEx, and we will have a close look at it when we look at the midterm guidance the next time. Very important that the soft guidance to the top line growth of 9%-13%. Basically, the same patterns which we provided to you in March. The Rx has developed much more in favor than we thought and is still developing very strongly. That's the reason why we raised the soft guidance from around 20% growth to around 40% growth, which is already underlined with Q2 with over 40% quarterly growth. On OTC, we keep the soft guidance with mid-single digit, based on the comments Walter made, that we are really managing profitability and customer quality. Digital services, we guided before softly mid-double digit, which translated at this time to 40%-60%.
Now we specify to digital services will grow above 50%. With that, thank you very much for your attention, and back to Walter or the team for the coming Q&A.
Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, if you would like to ask a question, please press star nine and pound key on your telephone keypad. If you would like to revoke your question, press star three and pound key. You can also use the dial-in function in the webcast and raise your hand if you would like to ask a question by phone. We already have a few questions in the queue. The first one goes to Jan Koch from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.
Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. I have three, if I may, and I would like to take them one by one if possible. The first question is on your Rx strategy, which seems to be paying off. How much did you spend in H1 to cover co-payments? It also appears that you plan to cover the increased co-payments next year. How do you ensure that this does not result in loss-making orders? For how long do you plan to cover the full co-payment?
Yeah. Thank you, Jan, for this question that everybody is raising who talks to us. As I have explained before, the step from the bonus model before to the co-payment is relatively small. It is not a big traditional step on what we have to spend there. Whereas the optimization of the marketing spend is much, much bigger. Therefore, the approach we have chosen is a very economically reasonable approach, and it shows. On one hand, with the growth, but also on the other hand, with the results that we had with the Rx growth. This is really, for us, the right and the good strategy. Regarding, we have never told to the market that we are going to take over the full co-payment for the whole market, for everything in next year.
You can be assured that what we will do next year will again be economically reasonable. Yeah, we will support the Rx business, but in a way that we also achieve our overall targets, which is becoming next year cash positive and we have the midterm targets that we and to achieve them, that is the overlay of it. This will drive our policy also in the next year, which we will communicate if the time is the right one.
Okay, great. Secondly, on your guidance philosophy, the upgraded guidance still appears somewhat more conservative than your targets in recent years. You are already at the upper end of your sales guidance after H1, and you mentioned Rx growth accelerated further in the first weeks of Q3. Also based on the chart on slide 22, it seems unlikely that you will reach the full year just EBITDA loss of CHF 17.5 million. Are there any potential headwinds worth flagging in H2? Are you just, yeah, simply taking a more conservative approach here?
Yeah. Let me answer that question. I think we are a little bit burned. There's a lesson learned of that. You develop the underpromise and then over-deliver, not the other way around. If you tell me now differently, then we will take it, but it won't change anything. No, I think more on a serious note, I think that the current trading definitely would maybe justify a little stance of more guiding more aggressive. However, as you said, we do not see any headwinds, but, like with thunderstorms or hurricanes, you don't see them come, and all of a sudden they are there. We do not expect anything, but, we also would like to have some buffer to the upper end, to the lower end, because, yeah, now with two years and basically every second week, there's something new is popping up, which looks initially kind of threatening.
But we always get away with it and get around of it, and therefore, I think we are just not in a business which is going straight and smoothly and therefore, we definitely have built in to both ends a little bit of buffer.
Great. That sounds good. Then lastly, did the recent heat wave have any impact on your OTC or your Rx businesses?
Yeah, on the OTC, of course, it had an, let's say, an impact, but, throughout the year, this will be again, compensated. On the Rx, as also mentioned, we see further acceleration in July and August. So, I think the need for medication based on prescribed medication on chronic, there is not, at least not a negative one, if then a positive one, on that angle. But it's nothing that would change our view on the full year.
Okay, great. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you very much. The next question is from Urs Kunz, Research Partners.
Good morning, and thanks for taking my questions. I have also three questions. First question is, again, regarding your guidance on the adjusted EBITDA, this range. Could you elaborate a little bit, is the range dependent on the growth, or are there other things that, yeah, make it more being 10 or EUR 17.5 million? Then the second question is just a short one on the adjustments in H1 were EUR 9.1 million. Is this all for the whole year, or do we have to expect more in H2? And the last question would be on transport costs. You mentioned somewhere in a slide that they are up EUR 0.20. Are you confident that this EUR 0.20 is enough to fulfill all requirements that we see now, yeah?
Okay. Let me start with the first question, EBITDA guidance. I think that's clearly derived on our amended forecast, that the budget will, because we have a rolling forecast there, which has the self-guidance, the top-line growth as underlined components, and that's derived from them. If I think that happens, then I think that's somehow calibrated to the midpoint to the guidance. If we are better or worse, then we have a deviation within the range. But I think it's definitely, it's top line, but it's also the execution of our cost measures that this will run as planned for the time being, that that works out perfectly. I think these are basically the main drivers of the EBITDA guidance. To second question, adjustments in H2, I think, which we already know, because otherwise we would need to disclose it.
No, I think that won't be in that magnitude. I can rule that out, maybe a few hundred thousand or EUR 2 million, but nothing more. Okay, what was the third question?
Transport cost.
Can you repeat?
Oh, transport cost. Yeah.
Yeah, that.
Oh, transport cost. Okay.
They are factored in, transport cost, but this additional EUR 0.20, they were not yet effective in the H1 , therefore. But for the second half, that is fully factored in, and it is taken care of, and there should not be any negative surprises on that end, yeah.
Are you confidential that this is enough for all the requirements, be it temperature things, signatures, and so to cover it?
Yes. That is mainly the signatures that you have to, which and then we have that negotiated with the logistic providers, and that is the reason why we are very confident on the cost.
Okay, thanks a lot.
Next question goes to Sebastian Vogel, UBS.
Hello. I have three questions. I also would ask them one by one. The first one is on the marketing spending. In terms of exit rates, can you give us a little bit of an indication, how was it in the end of the H1 ? What is the sort of, as potential states, the number that is the one that you are aiming for going forward?
I did not get the first part of the question. What is the exit-
The exit marketing spending. In that sense, what you have seen a 5.8 for the full H1 . Was it in June or in May, more like closer to the 5% or was it closer to 4% or was it actually above the 5.8? To have a little bit of an understanding what the 5.8 is worth, essentially.
I think you have to take into consideration that basically January, February, there was no co-payment on the medpex front and therefore, the half year does not show the full half year. It is only four out of six months. But I think you can, therefore, you should maybe slightly keep it as it is or slightly increase it. But I think that for the time being, that seems to be a reasonable runway, also for the second half of the year. From 2027 onwards, as Walter mentioned, we are about to define our Rx co-payment strategy, and therefore any statement here would not be backed. Therefore, let us focus on the H2 of 2026, where you can assume more or less the same marketing ratio.
Got it. Many thanks. My second question would be on the network and capital side. Do you see that as a sort of a headwind or a tailwind in the H2 ?
In the H2 , I see it as a tailwind. Because, of course, if you listen to us, we assume that maybe the relative size could still slightly increase, but we have initiated measures, and we will initiate further measures. And the half year, it is always from a network capital point of view, a little bit worse than at the end of the year. And therefore, I assume neutral to slightly positive trends, but rather neutral.
Got it. Many thanks. My third question would be the contribution margin. You in the past have given some indications where you are aiming for, and therefore to have a bit of a market- to- market, so to say. Can you give us a bit of a sense there, what is the contribution margin after fulfillment cost at the moment, at least on a ballpark for Rx, OTC, digital service, and on a group level, if possible?
I think all of our friendly competitors will be very interested in these details. No, that is something which we would not like to disclose because that is highly relevant from a competition point of view. But we can have kind of a deep dive in a smaller round, and then we can provide you with a little bit of guidance there. Yeah.
Got it. Many thanks. I am happy to go back to the queue.
Thank you very much. The next question is from Ramon Huber, Limmat Capital.
I would have two questions. First is, like you telling that it even accelerated after end of June, the Rx sales. Do you see that as percentage-wise? Because the Q3 last year was compared to Q2 also very strong. So is it percentage-wise even better than what we have seen in Q2?
Yes. As I indicated in Q2, it was the 46%, and it continued to further grow also percentage-wise in July and August so far.
Okay. Coming back to the guidance. What has to happen that at the end you get lower than this EUR 10 million? When you take your [parts bars] , you talked about that you try to work getting closely already in Q3 to EBITDA flat or slightly negative. What had to happen then in Q4 that you get below EUR 10 million in the negative case?
I think basically we will have to find kind of one additional million. I think Q4 is always a good quarter, and I think, let's say that the basis whether we are rather going to the aggressive or the lower or the higher end of the range is definitely Q3. Because Q3, it's extremely difficult to predict. It's holiday season, now we had this heatwave, which had no impact on the digital business and Rx, but let's say OTC could have been better. Let's see how Q3 turns out and because Q4 is much more predictable and manageable, and Q3 will lay the foundation to where we will end up in our EBITDA range.
Okay. But Rx definitely will help then?
Rx always helps. Not only today, but espe-
Yeah, no, but thank you.
What we see is we really have a good momentum, be it in Rx, be it in TeleClinic, be in Retail Media, Marketplace, anyway. The costs are managed extremely tight. We have announced in June the layoffs, which all have already been executed, so we will see also there the results in the H2 of the year. As Daniel mentioned before, the past learned us to be cautious with the guidance, and, of course, we try to be at the good end. But, yeah, as Daniel said, let's now accomplish Q3. We will communicate then after Q3, and then let's accomplish Q4 and talk again then about where we end this year.
Thank you.
Question goes to Guillaume Jaillon from Barclays. Go ahead.
Hi, Walter. Hi, Daniel. I have three questions, if that's fine. The first one is on non-Rx. It feels like it's been growing 4% in Q2 on the OTC side. But we're looking at the end market trends in July, it feels slightly softer. Any color here would be helpful. Also thinking into H2, Q4 has tougher comps. It was a pretty strong quarter for you last year. So shooting something around low single digits in Q4. My second question is around customer acquisition cost. If you could give some color around the trends there, how it improved year-on-year, would be super helpful, and whether it is sustainable into H2. The last one is more on the point side. We're looking at the point convert, it feels it's now well into the money. Should we about the balance sheet today?
Any update on the capital allocation policy? Thank you.
I'm sorry, your connection was quite bad. Could you please repeat the third question?
Yeah. The third question was on the financing and the converts. When looking at the 2028 converts, they're well in the money. I just wanted a quick update on the capital allocation policy and actually think of the balance sheet going forward. Thank you.
Thank you. Let's start with the last question. The 2028 convert, yeah, you're right. I think it trades roughly 150%, 160%, and it's full equity. I think it's not a year ago, I think we launched it, and of course, we evaluate our options, what we can do with it. Unfortunately, it has no soft call in it because the maturity is only three years. I think, first of all, it's extremely comfortable situation because that's basically we consider it as equity, and also provides us with kind of optionality, which we will take into consideration and make our heads around it. The second one regarding customer acquisition cost. As you have seen on slide number nine, we really have optimized and driven down the customer acquisition cost to a really low level.
We continue to further optimize, of course, but we think at that level, in combination with the court payment exemption, we have a very good base to further accelerate growth and also continue the path that has started a few months ago with Rx. The first question, OTC and market trends. Yeah. On the OTC, on the market, this year, the market in the first half year was also around 3.5%- 4%, the overall market growth. So we are at the same level as we steer it to that level. At the end, the reason I explained before, we focus on profitable and the long-term more profitable Rx customers. On OTC, we see a continuation that the overall market continues to grow low single-digit percentage. On telemedicine, you have seen the growth there, and this will definitely continue.
Telemedicine will become more and more important and also in the standard of care in Germany. So there the trend very much goes further, might even increase. Also on the Retail Media, as we are really at the forefront there and in Europe and mainly in Germany, Retail Media is quite a young discipline. Also there we see a strong upward trend, also in the next years. Does this answer your questions, Guillaume?
Yes. Thank you. Thank you very much.
Okay.
Thank you very much. The next question goes to Gian Marco Werro from ZKB. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone. Just two questions left from my side. First, you mentioned in the beginning of mid-March, that you have there also combined the development teams to also improve the traffic, also the customer engagement and customer loyalty on your platform. Besides the Health Companion, is there anything more to come also out of this partnership that you might roll out in the H2 of this year? Then the second question is just a nitty-gritty one on the other operating income. Last half year, you still had a CHF 4.4 million other operating income. Now it is only half a million. Is there any change that more to come the H2 ? Any seasonalities in there, or is the normal run rate on an annual basis roughly CHF 1 million of other operating income that you expect there? Thank you.
I start with the last one just to get that out of the way. I think last year, remember, and that was also an EBITDA adjustment, we had the sale of two non-operational real estate being the facility and the warehouse in Heerlen, and then the property in Steckborn, which accounted for CHF 3.5 million. That went into our operating income. What you see in this year, there is no exceptional operational income and that the half a million or CHF 1 million on a yearly basis is kind of a slightly growing base there, and you can take this CHF 1 million for the full year.
Yeah. The first question about the companion. For us, it is really a very strategic asset that we have built and launched last year, and now we have rolled it out over all the DocMorris platform. We see really that the acceptance of the customer is very good and the engagement of the users making use of the assistant is very good because it is a shopping assistant, it is a health assistant, it is an assistant for customer service, so it is really a 360-degree assistant. We see already now relevant impact on all our main KPIs, and we further develop. So we are preparing to roll out further services, which again, will increase engagement. We are focusing also on specific chronic diseases that we will reinforce via the platform and with the help of the assistant.
So yeah, there is a lot of things being deployed week by week, also in the background, which shows results that are online and which will, yeah, also help in the future. It is for us really also a USP, what we have built here.
Clear. Thank you.
Very much everyone for your participation. With that, we answered all the questions. I would like to hand over back to your host for the closing remarks.
Well, thanks a lot again. Thanks to all of you for joining this call, for taking the time. I hope you got the information that is necessary for your assumptions. On our side, we can just say on our side, the lamps are on green. We are rapidly advancing with our transformation of the whole platform, of the digital and AI health platform in all regards. We are rapidly executing our AI-First strategy. We see a good, even great momentum in Rx, digital services. So we control costs really well. We reduce them month by month. With that, we can just reconfirm we are very confident to achieve also the raised guidance 2026, and we are very confident to become cash positive in the course of 2027. With that, thanks a lot again, and I wish you all a nice day. Bye-bye.