Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Straumann Group Q1 2025 results, conference call, and live webcast. I am Valentina, the Chorus Call operator. I would like to remind you that all participants will be in listen-only mode and the conference is being recorded. The presentation will be followed by a Q&A session. You can register for questions at any time by pressing Star and 1 on your telephone. For operator assistance, please press Star and 0. The conference must not be recorded for publication or broadcast. At this time, it's my pleasure to hand over to Guillaume Daniellot, CEO. Please go ahead.
Thank you, and good morning or afternoon, and thanks a lot to all for joining us for this presentation of Straumann Group's first quarter 2025 results. Please take note of the disclaimer in our media release and on slide two. Through this conference, we will reference the presentation slides that were published on our website earlier this morning. As always, the presentation and discussion will contain forward-looking statements. The conference will follow the usual format. As shown on the agenda on slide three, I will first give you an overview of our strong first quarter performance, and then Yang, our CFO, will share details about the financials. After that, I'll provide you with an update on strategic initiatives and our outlook. As always, we will answer your questions at the end of the presentation. Let's move directly to slide five.
I'm very pleased about our strong start to the year despite the macroeconomic uncertainties that we are all facing. Thanks to the team's relentless customer focus and commitment to innovation, digitalization, and education, we achieved CHF 681 million in revenue, driven by a dynamic demand in all our business segments. This resulted in a strong organic revenue growth of 11%, reflecting resilient performance across a landscape of ongoing varied regional market dynamics. Looking back at the first quarter, I see three major highlights. First and foremost, our continued strong performance in the EMEA and APAC regions. Secondly, our presence at the IDS Dental Fair, which drove massive interest from visitors at our booth, thanks to the launch of many new customer-focused solutions, from innovative products to seamless digital workflow integrations.
Thirdly, our new collaboration with the 3D printing pioneer company, SprintRay, which, combined with Straumann Access cloud-based platform, marks a significant step forward in single-visit chairside restorative dentistry. All these highlights reflect the strength of our business, both in terms of our diversified portfolio and our global market presence. They continue reinforcing the solid foundation we are building to keep delivering sustainable long-term growth. Also, in challenging times like this, our high-performance player-learner culture is critical in navigating fast-changing market dynamics. It enables us to stay agile, adapt quickly, and continue to seize new opportunities as they arise. This leads me to our confirmed outlook for 2025.
Despite an increased uncertainty within our macroeconomic environment, we are confident about our continuing strong performance and aim to achieve organic revenue growth in the high single-digit % range, with 30-60 basis points improvement of the core EBIT margin at constant 2024 currency rates. With this, let's have a look at the regional development on slide six. While we had a strong start into the year despite ongoing macroeconomic uncertainties, we continue to observe significant variation across regional market dynamics, which are reflected in differences in patient flow and consequently in regional performance. I have already highlighted the excellent performance of our largest region, EMEA. Given the high baseline, continuing to deliver strong growth quarter after quarter is a remarkable achievement. Our performance can be attributed to four key factors, one structural and three specific to the Straumann Group.
On the structural side, since the pandemic, people are spending more on their health and well-being. In addition, in the EMEA region in particular, the price gap between a three-unit bridge and an implant treatment has narrowed over the past years. This, combined with improved reimbursement from private insurers over the past years and a growing number of trained dentists offering implant treatments, is supporting continued higher market penetration. Secondly, our multi-price, multi-brand strategy has been instrumental in serving a broad customer base and gaining market share. Thirdly, we have made significant investments in direct go-to-market capabilities in Eastern European and Middle Eastern countries, such as Romania, Poland, and Turkey as an example, rather than focusing solely on more mature markets of Western Europe. Lastly, our adjacent businesses, such as intraoral scanners and clear aligners, are also contributing to boost the overall regional performance.
In the first quarter, we saw broad-based momentum across all business segments in EMEA. In implantology, our challenger brands delivered strong double-digit revenue growth, while the Straumann Premium brand continued to gain share, supported by early successes following the IXL launch in selected markets last year. Orthodontics also made a meaningful double-digit growth, further strengthening the region's performance. Finally, with the EMEA launch of new solutions such as our Straumann Access platform, the IXL implant system, and Unique prosthetic service in the first quarter, we continue to create the conditions to further expand our market position. The second highlight is the performance of the Asia-Pacific region, which achieved a historical high against a strong comparison base. Asia-Pacific outside of China performed very well, with strong double-digit growth in emerging markets like Thailand, India, and Malaysia, while developed markets such as Australia and Japan sustained their growth momentum.
The implantology business remained the primary growth driver, with both premium and challenger brands playing an instrumental role. Furthermore, digital solutions made a meaningful contribution to the overall regional performance, supported by the launch of our entry-level Sirius intraoral scanner across the region. Once more, the growth in China stood out, driven by the long-lasting structural impact of the volume-based procurement initiatives that boosted awareness and made implant treatment more affordable. When it comes to North America, the challenging macroeconomic environment had an impact on consumer sentiment, leading to soft demand during the first quarter. Despite these very volatile market conditions, both our premium and challenger segments delivered positive growth, with Straumann benefiting from the growing traction of the newly launched IXL implant system. On the other side, the orthodontics business remained soft.
Finally, the digital business contributed positively to growth, driven by the successfully launched Unique prosthetic service and intraoral scanners. Looking at Latin America, we are very pleased with the consistent, strong double-digit growth. The implant business, led by our challenger brand, Neodent, remained the main growth driver in its home region, with key markets like Brazil and Mexico delivering strong revenue performance. It is also worth highlighting the accelerated growth in the premium segment, thanks to specifically targeted initiatives. In addition, ClearCorrect delivered an impressive performance, with Brazil and Mexico also being the main contributors. The digital business played a key role as well, particularly with strong demand for Sirius intraoral scanners, further supporting the region's robust growth. I hand over to Yang to provide additional details on the financials.
Thank you, Guillaume, and hello, everyone. I would like to remind you once again that we restated our financials according to IFRS requirements, following our sales of Doctor Smile Business in September 2024. The financials I will walk you through now refer to continuous operations for both 2025 and prior year first quarter numbers. On slide eight, our revenue in the first three months of this fiscal year reached CHF 681 million, which corresponds to an organic growth of 11%. For the first time in several years, the foreign currency impact was rather muted. However, as you have likely noticed, the Swiss franc has recently been strengthening again, and we could face foreign exchange headwinds in the coming quarters. For this quarter, there was also no M&A impact.
Thanks to broad-based share gains, the group grows globally, reflecting the strength of our strategy, the broad tissue of geographical mix, and the diversified portfolio, which helped to balance different regional dynamics. The significant growth in the first quarter was also across all segments: implantology, orthodontics, and digital. Let's move to slide nine and our capital allocation principles. We remain committed to our long-standing and successful capital allocation principles. As a growth company, our top priority remains to reinvest in sustainable growth or in the business. We also aim to maintain a strong balance sheet through economic cycles, as evidenced by our low leverage and strong liquidity management. With heightened macroeconomic uncertainty, we continue to support our customers, leverage our global supply chain network, and ensure sufficient inventories across various markets. Mergers and acquisitions remain a strategic priority to accelerate our strategy.
Two weeks ago, we also paid our dividend, which was 12% higher than the previous years, reflecting our commitment to maintaining or gradually increasing the absolute dividend in line with earnings growth. Today is also my final quarterly results presentation with the Straumann Group. I want to thank you all for the meaningful discussions we've had and look forward to saying goodbye in person during my last roadshow next week. With that, Guillaume, back to you.
Thank you, Yang. Let's move on to slide 11 straight away. In the current environment, with so many uncertainties, we can strongly rely on our key fundamentals. First, we operate in a growing market where we hold approximately a 12.5% share. Secondly, our multi-brand and multi-price portfolio is very well diversified to cater to different customer segments. Thirdly, we benefit from our broad geographical market presence served by a global manufacturing footprint. Looking at the market first, implantology remains the cornerstone of our business, and with a global market share of around 35%, we are clearly the leading company in this business segment. While we have come a long way, there are still very significant growth opportunities ahead of us within and beyond the implantology market.
Moving on to slide 12, I would like to highlight once again the fact that the implantology market remains yet significantly under-penetrated, offering a vast growth potential. Spain, with its large number of surgically trained dentists and a dynamic DSO presence driving increased affordability for patients, serves as a valuable benchmark for evaluating average implant treatment penetration. Using Spain as a reference, we see significant potential for growth in both developed markets, such as France, Germany, and the US, as well as in emerging markets like India. We are confident that market penetration will actually continue to rise. This development is driven by increasing patient awareness of dental implant treatments, a growing number of surgically trained dentists who can place implants in all geographies, and more affordable treatment costs. These factors will further accelerate market expansion, and we are well positioned to capture this opportunity.
A good example is China, where the three elements mentioned above, unlocked by the implementation of the VBP, have significantly increased implant penetration, although overall levels still remain relatively low. Therefore, we believe China, as one strong example, represents a large market with significantly long-term growth. That moves on to slide 13. The second important strength I mentioned is that we have significantly expanded and built a diversified portfolio over the years. Thanks to our multi-brand strategy in implantology, we offer solutions at various price points catering to the different customer segments. In addition, we have successfully diversified beyond implantology and strengthened our global presence, giving us the flexibility to adapt to different customer needs and pricing expectations worldwide. Moving on to our third strength on slide 14, we have significantly expanded our geographical footprint, both in terms of presence and production facilities.
While we operated just six manufacturing sites in 2013, we now run 19 production facilities worldwide, including the Shanghai campus, which we expect to be fully operational in the next coming month. This expanded manufacturing network strengthens our supply chain and significantly improves its agility and resilience to a fast-changing environment. We already leverage local production across several business areas. For instance, in the US, where we have the capability to produce a significant portion of the solutions sold in that market. This applies to premium implants, as well as most other business areas, such as customized prosthetics and orthodontics. Together, these three fundamental strengths form a strong foundation for sustainable growth, allowing us to serve different customer segments in over 100 countries. It is precisely this reach that gives us a decisive advantage in times of economic fluctuation.
Our strategic compass is designed to capture a growing share of our total addressable market of CHF 20 billion. Innovation, digitalization, and education are our three key pillars to unlock these opportunities. I am pleased that we have continued to make significant progress in the first quarter along all those dimensions. Let's start with our approach to innovation and digitalization on slide 16. Innovation is clearly critical to expanding market share, and there are two major elements to it. Firstly, what we call the WAT dimension. It is corresponding to the product and solution side. We constantly innovate there with the goal of helping clinicians to reach clinical excellence and efficiency, always backed by scientific evidence. Secondly, the HOW dimension. This is related to the customer experience side.
As in many industries today, delivering a superior customer experience in terms of simplicity, efficiency, and convenience is what separates successful solutions from those that fall behind. Technology, and especially digital innovation, is a key driver in creating this differentiated experience for clinicians. First, by innovating on both the WHAT and the HOW dimensions, we ensure that we remain ahead of the competition and keep expanding the leadership in our core segment. Now, let's move to slide 17 and talk about how we combine innovation, digitalization, and education at the International Dental Show in Cologne in March. With regard to the WHAT dimension, we pursued our global IXL launch at IDS. This next-generation implant system combines four implant designs in one. With both unique features such as rock-solid material and SLActive surface, it supports minimally invasive treatments and faster osseointegration, and thus drives practice efficiency and high clinical outcome.
We also introduced Unique, our cloud-based prosthetic service that enables labs to outsource the design and production of highly customized restorations. Finally, Falcon, our first compact dynamic navigation system for real-time surgical guidance, generated a very high interest. These innovations reflect the strength of our core implant business and our ability to further expand our market share in this segment in the short and midterm. Now moving to the HOW dimension, which also strongly relates to our key success pillar, digitalization. In today's environment, it is no longer enough to have great products and solutions. We have to make workflows simpler, faster, and more connected, and that's where our digital capabilities come in. Our cloud-based platform, Straumann Access, which we just launched for the EMEA region, connects the entire treatment journey from diagnostics to execution in all one seamless digital ecosystem. Let's move on to slide 18.
At the IDS, we announced our collaboration with SprintRay and launched the Straumann Signature Midas chairside 3D printer. Combined with the Sirius intraoral scanner and a complete integration into our Straumann Access platform, we can now offer a unique chairside workflow solution that allows clinicians to deliver single restorations in under 10 minutes, making efficiency single-visit treatment a reality. Thus, we increase patient benefits by shortening time to tooth while enabling clinicians to treat more patients efficiently. By combining both the WHAT and the HOW dimensions and emphasizing on education events such as IDS, we are delivering meaningful value to our customers and building a foundation for our short, mid, and long-term growth. Now, let's move to slide 19 and talk about how we support our growth journey.
We are investing significantly in innovation and digitalization, as mentioned earlier, but also in education since implantology and orthodontics are not covered in undergraduate clinical education. We, therefore, play an important role in empowering clinicians to be more active in specialty dentistry cases. Now, the largest share of our capital expenditure goes to expanding production capacity and strengthening our supply chain. In China, the volume-based procurement initiative has a long-lasting impact by boosting awareness and making implant treatments more affordable. We see significant growth opportunities ahead, which are supported by the large population and the aging trend. To capture these growth opportunities, we invested in local production. The ramp-up of our Shanghai campus is well on track. Production has already started, and we expect to begin fully approved manufacturing for China VBP commercial products during the second half of 2025.
Another major milestone is the start of construction of our third Neodent factory in Curitiba, Brazil, to support the strong growth of our Challenger brand implant volume. As you can see in the photo, work is already well underway. The site is expected to be operational by the end of 2026. Together with other supply chain enhancements, both investments will enable us to continue delivering high-quality solutions at scale and support our ambitious growth plans. Which brings me to our outlook on slide 20. We have entered 2025 from a position of strength, backed by a diversified portfolio, a strong market presence, and a clear strategic vision. With this foundation, we remain confident in our ability to navigate the complexities of the global landscape and continue expanding our market share, reinforcing our confidence in our long-term ambition for 2030.
Our broad geographical presence provides resilience against regional economic fluctuations, while our worldwide manufacturing footprint supports our supply chain flexibility in times of growing geopolitical complexities. While tariffs will have an impact, we have set up the right measures to manage the consequences. Therefore, we remain confident for 2025 to achieve organic revenue growth in the high single-digit % range, with a 30-60 basis points improvement of the core EBIT margin at constant 2024 currency rates. Before I conclude, I would like to thank Yang for all her contributions. Her dedication, insight, and very positive spirit have made a lasting impact, and we are grateful for everything she has done. Thank you, Yang. With this, we can open the question and answer session. Please press Star and one on your phone to join the queue. Kindly limit yourself to two questions.
This will give all participants a chance to ask a question within the available time. Coach Cole, can we have the first question, please?
The first question comes from Brandon Vazquez from William Blair. Please go ahead.
Hi, good morning, everyone, and thank you for taking the question. First, I just wanted to start on the guidance. You guys put up a good first quarter here, and I hate to harp on it because you actually reiterated guidance on what's an uncertain macro. Just maybe talk a little bit about the dynamics because as you go through the year for guidance, your comps get a little bit easier. You did a double digit to start the year, so it implies a little bit of a deceleration through the year. Perhaps maybe is there just a little conservatism that you're building in for the full year organic growth guidance?
Maybe we can start there.
Yeah, I think we are pleased with our first quarter. In the current environment, we believe that having a high single-digit growth guidance is already quite a very significant objective. We do not know a lot of the kind of macro evolution in the coming quarters, so I think it is still not so easy to predict that the Q1 conditions will remain the same for the remaining quarters of the year. Now, if everything stayed the same, we would be very pleased by the second part of the year to revise guidance if needed. For the time being, we believe the guidance is well placed, and we are really confident in being able to achieve it.
Yep, that makes sense. Maybe one, I am sure others will have questions on macro as well, so maybe I will pivot here and ask.
Guillaume, there's a lot of new products that you guys are launching, a lot that you highlighted from IDS. Maybe spend a minute just talking about the top one or two that you think will be most impactful here to growth in maybe the next 12 to 24 months and why they may be the most impactful to the company growth profile. Thanks.
Yeah, I think thanks for highlighting this. We have to say we are really, really happy with the level of innovation we are bringing to the market on a consistent manner. This is one of the key strengths we have to continue gaining share, even if some, as we see the macro is not very positive, gaining share is the only way to grow, and we are still having or keeping the conditions for this for all our sales team worldwide.
I would say the two major or the three major products that we are going to see impact in the next 24 months are obviously the IXL implant system. This is the way to grow share on our core implant segment on the premium side. The feedback we are hearing from customers using it already is extremely positive. We are really confident there. The second side is considering the digital dimension. We are really excited with our intraoral scanner portfolio. Our entry-level Sirius, especially in markets like Brazil, like China, like South Europe, for example, are already providing significant growth on this side. Of course, the partnership with 3Shape is allowing us to have a complete portfolio. We believe that digital penetration will continue to significantly increase despite the macroeconomic environment.
We believe that efficiency gain is going to be important into the practices, and the price level of scanners have significantly decreased. We are still believing significantly in this growth driver. Lastly, this partnership with Midas and SprintRay, where it could also significantly change the landscape in single-tooth restoration chairside, will be, I would say at the beginning, a slow development because we are then implementing this technology. We believe that in 24 months from now, it could represent something very interesting for us. That is the way we are seeing that. We are very excited about those products that have been launched less than three months ago or four months ago, meaning that a lot of growth potential for us.
The next question comes from David Adlington from JP Morgan. Please go ahead. Thanks for the questions.
Maybe just firstly, if you could point towards the trajectory through the quarter, were you seeing any softness in quarter in either the US or Europe? Then secondly, just on foreign exchange, give you an update in terms of what you think the headwinds will be from here for the rest of the year, top line and margins. Finally, on tariffs, you alluded to it, but is it safe to say that you expect very limited impact from tariffs? Thanks.
Thank you, David. I got the two last questions that I am sure Yang will take. For the first one, I did not capture the first. It is the dynamic within the quarter for the region. That was the question?
Yeah, exactly. I just wondered if you were seeing any softness given the macro headwinds increased through the quarter.
I just wondered if you saw any softness as it came towards the end of the quarter in either Europe or US specifically.
Okay. Yeah, all three interesting questions. Actually, what we have seen in North America while being soft is a very volatile situation from quarter to quarter. We have seen actually customers somewhat responding to the news that they were receiving on a macroeconomical side. There have been fear of potentially stocking themselves a little bit, less patient flow. We have seen up and down from month to month. I would not say that we are seeing worsening during the quarter. We actually ended March better than we were in the middle of the quarter. It is still a very volatile environment. It has been a lot related to the uncertainty, we believe, on the marketplace.
I really believe that in a better and at least in a better and more stable dynamic in the months to come. Thanks, of course, for from our innovation that will keep providing us new customer acquisition opportunity, but also by the fact that I think some clarity will be, I hope, gained when it comes to macro. For the two other questions, Yang, do you want to chime in?
Hey, David, first on the FX question. Yes, we have seen very muted, almost zero impact on the first quarter. However, if we take a snapshot of today or yesterday's spot or forward, it could be as high as 100 basis points on the top line. It depends on if you look at the spot or the forward rate, it could be 20-30 basis points on the bottom.
This is, of course, point in time, and nobody has a crystal ball, so we just have to observe and update the market as we go. The tariff is, of course, we are somewhat insulated from the tariffs thanks to our global network, but we're not immune. The tariff has some bearing in our financials, but it's fully embedded into our confirmed guidance. The reason is we are also diligently putting in place the network optimization in responding to the changing tariff situation. We do have a footprint that is across the globe, including the United States, and that helps us to lessen some of the things.
We, of course, right now, as we speak, as everyone else, are managing the network in the most efficient way so we can respond to the tariffs and be able to absorb some of the negative impact into our full P&L for this year.
The next question comes from Victoria Lambert from Berenberg. Please go ahead.
Hi, thank you for taking my questions. The first one is just on the outlook for the US. Are you guys still expecting patient volumes in 2025 to be ahead of 2024? I think you gave that color in February, so just an update on that would be helpful. My second question is just on ClearCorrect. You had some cost savings from the Doctor Smile exit last year, and you have been reinvesting.
Just wanted to get a sense of if any of this reinvestment has been paying off, what we're seeing in market share. I know that US has been a bit softer, but maybe ex-US, we could get a bit more color. Thank you.
Yes, of course. When it comes to US forward-looking, again, I think it's still very unpredictable in some ways with all the elements that are at play and all the discussion that you guys are hearing as much as we do on the potential impact on tariffs and inflations and then potentially having a lower demand overall. We actually don't see this at the moment. We don't see the situation worsening. We believe still that we are going to have a better 2025 than 2024. This has been our, I would say, our view before starting 2025, and it did not change so far.
It is a slow start based on all the different announcements that have not been planned by anyone. We still believe that we have strong fundamentals that are going to be at play here, once again on the innovation side for market share gain, also by a more stable environment and a strong execution. We will then deliver on a better US from our perspective, and that is what has been included in our guidance. When it comes to ClearCorrect, ex-US, I think double-digit growth. We are very pleased with the feedback we are receiving from customers that are pleased with the improvement we have done in software, with the capability to support them in growing their number of cases. Both Europe and Latin America are really then keeping developing our auto business.
This is what we are looking at also structuring in the same manner for the US when the macro will be more supportive of case growth. That is why the investment that has been done on the one side, feet on the ground, and on the second side on technology, be it software, but also treatment planning expertise, have helped us really to improve our value proposition as we were expecting.
The next question comes from Hassan Al-Wakeel from Barclays. Please go ahead.
Hi, good morning. Thank you for taking my questions. A couple from me, both follow-ups. Firstly, on tariffs, could you talk about what your assumptions are today and whether you're embedding all announced tariffs and if there's a range of impact within the guidance that you're thinking about? To what extent can you cover your manufacturing needs from Andover and what about digital equipment?
Secondly, following up on your US comments, when we met at IDS, Guillaume, you sounded more cautious on this market and the volatility you were observing here. Are you seeing any evolving dynamics between single tooth and full arch? How confident are you in achieving consensus expectations of mid-single digit growth in North America in full year 2025? Thank you.
When it comes to tariffs, we have quite a good coverage of already local manufacturing. We are obviously optimizing our Andover site to be able to produce more finished product locally to the US market. We think we can absorb a significant part of the volume. There, 100% of our customized prosthetic is done in Texas. 100% of our ClearCorrect aligner is manufactured also in Texas for the US market.
A significant part of our biomaterial is done with local partners like LNH in Virginia. I think we have our Challenger brand that is produced in Brazil that is going to, of course, be going through the tariff side. We are looking at solutions for our digital portfolio together with our partner on the 3Shape side and our own manufacturing side as well. I think a large part of our manufacturing is already based in the US. For confirming our guidance, we have taken the situation that has been expressed by the US administration early on when they have announced the liberation day. That is where we stand. We are going to look at what it means from the kind of final discussions or alignments in between countries in the three-month kind of period that has been granted for those kind of international alignments.
That's why we are not taking the easy way, and we are planning for the worst and expect for the best. When it comes to the US, we are normally confident to do better than what we have done in 2024 in the current macro environment. Obviously, if you would have a very strong deterioration of the US, it will be very different. At the moment in time, we do not see signs of this in the market. We are discussing, of course, with all our customers and staying very close to them. They have seen, again, a lot of volatility, but not a worsening trend. That is one of the reasons where we believe we can still achieve the vision tha t we had at the beginning of the year.
Very helpful.
If I could just follow up on the strong ClearCorrect performance OUS are you seeing any difference in performance or the mix between specialists and GPs? I know this is something that you've been working actively on.
No, we have seen strong performance ex-US, but not in the US.
Yes. And my question is how the performance is trending between specialists and GPs.
Okay. I think our portfolio caters more to the GP segment, but you have some countries where clear aligner and orthodontics are done only for specialists, and Brazil is a very good example. I would say that we have, from an overall European standpoint, a much more GP penetration where when it comes to Latin America, it is much more specialist penetration when it comes to regulatory than situation of those two different regions.
That's where we are pleased that our systems can now both be delivering on specialist and GP segments, looking at the performance we have been able to post for the past quarters already.
Perfect. Thank you.
The next question comes from Daniel Jelovcan from ZKB. Please go ahead.
Yeah, good morning. The first question is on Germany and France. You mentioned Germany was again strong. Strong, does that mean like the EMEA region, so close to double-digit? What were the major drivers there? Was it IXL or Premium Challenger and so on? Including to that question is the French market, you did not really mention. On top of my mind, I think you had a certain management change there. How does it look in France? Thanks.
Yes, Daniel, Germany was strong.
The major reason of this very solid performance is the combination of all our businesses that are delivering very well. I've been expressing the fact that in EMEA and I would say Germany also, especially, we have seen more dentists placing implants. We have seen also reimbursement evolving a little bit favorably over the year. The market conditions are positive for supporting implant market penetration. We have significantly increased our capability to serve customers on both Premium and Challenger brands. We were relying mainly on Premium brand in the past, and we are now getting the combination of Premium Challenger brands, some ClearCorrect and some digital, which are bringing our German market performance much above the total market growth that we see. When it comes to France, I think we are, France is not in a period of best performance. It's actually acceptable.
As you can imagine, our expectation is to be significantly above market growth. We have on the one side the need to increase and improve execution, but also the fact that our former leader has been looking for a different experience at the beginning among the group. That is why we had a change of leadership here, and we are trusting our French team to be able to leverage all the innovation that we are giving also as an opportunity of creating more customers and delivering even higher performance than the one we are having right now.
Okay, thanks very much. The next question comes from Vik Chopra from Wells Fargo. Please go ahead.
Hey, good morning, and thanks for taking the question, two for me.
Appreciate the commentary on tariffs, but I'm just wondering if you can quantify the tariff exposure you're facing in 2025 and when you expect those tariffs to hit the P&L. I just had a follow-up, please.
I think the tariff exposure is fluctuating. It has been fluctuating during the whole first quarter, depending on what's going to be applied, what is not applying. We have a different range and different scenario. When it is going to hit, it has already started to hit the company with the 10% that have been implemented for all the different countries. For the time being, this is the first step that we have, like every company submitted to tariffs. We are going to see what's going to be the final results in a couple of months from now.
That is where we stand at the moment by being able to have more clarity on this side. When we look at the worst-case scenario, we are able to manage the consequences by all the preventive measures we have put in place.
Okay, got it. That is very helpful. My follow-up question is, I would just want to get some additional color about the differences in growth this quarter in your value and your premium implant businesses and how we should think about them for the rest of the year. Thank you.
On the global perspective, when we look at our two different brands, Premium and Challenger, Challenger is growing always faster than Premium. Premium is also very, very strong.
We can say that we are almost double-digit on both sides with our Challenger brands being able to, of course, be much more dynamic because of the geographical mix. Once again, having all those emerging markets growing faster from a volume standpoint and all being at 90%-ish in the Challenger side.
The next question comes from Maja Stephanie Pataki from Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead.
Good morning, everyone. Two questions, please. One, could you provide us a bit of an estimate of how much the potential impact from the IDS was on growth in Q1 and also what you think that the Easter impact, the positive Easter impact was in Q1, just to see where the potential underlying growth could have been in Q1? A second question, more broadly speaking.
I fully understand that the visibility on what is going to happen, particularly in the US, is very low. You reflect on the market being very volatile. In case the market would remain very volatile and growth would slow a bit and you would not get to your target, how do you think about costs? Would you consider to adapt on the cost side to match the new environment, or do you think the projects that you've put in place for long-term growth should be continued throughout this challenging time? Thank you.
Yes, good question, Maja, as well. When it comes to IDS, IDS is not really a place where we sell. We are selling to some customers in the German market, but I would say it is limited impact on the total number that you are seeing. This could be excluded as a special effect.
Secondly, the Easter effect is a good one, at least when it comes to EMEA. Last year, it has, I would say, supported a bigger growth or stronger growth in Q1 because Easter is in April this year, and it was in March last year, meaning that we have somewhat extra selling days this year in Q1 that we are not going to have in Q2. We are expecting, of course, this effect in the second quarter for the EMEA region. When it comes to our investment policy and related to our short-term performance, we are, of course, a growth organization, an innovation-based growth organization, and investment in growth for the long term is really critical. Obviously, we are also catering and caring for the short and mid-term perspective. There are significant investments that are planned for our growth project. Some are, of course, committed.
Some are more flexible. If we were having to see significant, I would say, headwind from macro because of a recession in any part of the world or whatsoever, we would have, of course, the ability to take care of our total spending and assess, of course, the criticality of our different investments for the long term. It will be always the balance that we have been able to do. If you look at the COVID time, if you look at the more difficult time in the past, we have been always balancing the short-term then reasons with our long-term growth investments. This is what we would be doing the same way if those kind of scenarios would be coming up.
Thank you.
The next question comes from Oliver Metzger from Oddo BHF. Please go ahead.
Yeah, good morning from my side. Two questions I have.
The first one is about the dynamics in China. Can you make a comment right now about the strong dynamic? Do you see some happening from penetrating the tier-three clinics, or would you regard the current momentum basically as the underlying market dynamic? Second question is on IXL. IXL brings more freedom to the dentist, which comes at a premium. Value contribution should be bigger than the volume contribution. First, can you confirm this? Second, can you make a comment whether IXL has been so far more successful at the conversion of existing Straumann customers or at the approach of new customers? Thank you.
Thank you, Oliver. China question is obviously important, and we see overall in the marketplace still a significant dynamic.
Once again, we believe that the VBP rules have created very significant conditions for then growth because the reservoir that have been unlocked is massive between patients that are having missing teeth and that are able to afford treatment. Now, as always, because of education level, because of information availability, those kind of change are happening first in tier-one, tier-two cities with people being able to invest, to adapt. This is what we have seen in the first 12 to 18 months. We have seen this dynamic being also then now happening in tier-three, four, five cities where we see a lot of dynamic in this part of the country. That is one of the reasons, that is one of the reasons also that our multi-brand portfolio is very critical. We are having three brands in China at three different price points. We are having Straumann Premium.
We are having Oddo G as a value brand, and we are having T+ as our entry-level brand. All three are growing or at least are helping us to increase further not only our top line, but also our market shares. When it comes to IXL, yeah, it creates value at a practice level, I think not only because of simplicity. If you recall something which is important that we might not underline enough, because of the fact that IXL is based on rock-solid material, then you can use an hour implant diameter. It means, for example, in specific macro conditions like today, you can do what we call graftless procedure. It means that in very thin jawbone, you can place an implant without adding bone grafting, which is reducing surgery complexity, which is reducing the total procedure price, and which is increasing speed to treatment.
Those kind of really interesting technical advantage are really supporting practices not only to have a measure inventory management, not only higher kind of clinical outcome, but also having the possibility to increase conversion rate. This is what we are driving with IXL, and it creates increased value within the practice on both their capability to respond to all patient needs, but also their capability, obviously, to have a lower than the inventory. Are we more successful with existing than new customers? I think we have to be successful in both because obviously we have launched this first with a new customer acquisition strategy because you have limited volume to start with, and we want to make sure that we generate growth.
At the same time, all your very good customers want to try it and want to make sure that they are also first in line to be able to leverage your new technology. We are having, I would say, a healthy mix in between new customers and existing customers then using IXL and both with the same level of very positive feedback.
The next question comes from Dylan van Haaften from Stifel. Please go ahead.
Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my questions and wishing you the best, gang. Maybe just to get a clear sort of understanding of ClearCorrect dynamics in the US, could you confirm to us whether it's deteriorated when it comes to the trajectory or not? We understand the OUS growth, but just anything you can tell us there.
My second question would just be on the initial traction with the Midas and the Sirius bundle and how we should think about that over the rest of the year, including the consumable component. Thank you.
We have not seen a deterioration inside the quarter. We have seen up and down once again in between January, February, and March. That is why we have been, again, rather still with staying on our expectations for a better 2025 than a 2024 because of the dynamic of Q1. That is what we are expecting to see in the second quarter. I think the second quarter will tell us a lot about what will be overall NAM for the total year. When it comes to Midas and our Sirius bundle, we are obviously very excited about this and, of course, changing dentistry from that standpoint.
We have just announced this at IDS, and we are currently training the team. The Midas will be commercially available for us starting at summer. I think the impact will be seen more in the second half of 2025. I would say it's going to be a step-by-step development because some people will want to try, and there will be a word of mouth that will, I expect, be positive. I think you will see no effect or limited, a very limited effect in second quarter. We should start to see third quarter, and I think the bigger effect for the year should be in the last quarter.
Awesome. Thank you.
The next question comes from Richard Felton from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Hi there. Thank you. Just two questions for me, please. The first one is on the clear aligners business.
I was wondering if you could give us an update on profitability post the sale of Doctor Smile. The second question, as it relates to your China business and the establishment of your Shanghai campus, can you maybe provide a bit of detail on what that enables your business to do differently in China going forward? Thank you.
On the clear aligner side, as we are on the investment side to reach critical mass, we are not yet at the profitable stage. As we are really still increasing double digit, we are feeling that we are then on the good track and a good path to get there. At the moment, for us, it is really being able to reach size. To reach size on the one side was to ensure that our value proposition was at the right level, which we see now.
is the case with regard to the traction we have. Secondly, speaking the feet on the ground. As we are ramping up our volume and our shares, I think we are going to see profitability along the way. This is not what we are pursuing right now with the fact that as Doctor Smile is out, we need to make sure that we are building up the critical mass of this business. When it comes to Shanghai, I am sorry, I did not hear the question well. Could you help me with your second question again?
Yeah, I was just wondering, as sort of the Shanghai campus is up and running and fully operational, does that have any implications on how you are running the business, either from, I guess, sort of manufacturing, education of your customers, that kind of thing?
Just wondering how it changes your business operations in China.
Yes. On this one, from a pure business operation, it has not changed that much. The thing which is really positive, obviously, it brings three benefits. Okay? The first one is obviously being compliant with what we expect being the VBP 2.0 about having local manufacturing to be able to then participate in the VBP 2.0 volume, especially related to then most of the clinical operation in China. That is the first very significant benefit. The second benefit is then having the opportunity of having a lower manufacturing cost country than Switzerland also, which is a good benefit looking at the profitability and the size of the country. It will help us to then continue to invest in the market, especially on the education side where there is a very, very significant need.
The third one, which is sometimes underestimated, is the fact that China is also growing and developing very fast from a technology standpoint. By local manufacturing here, you get access to also a technology ecosystem and environment, supplier environment of also different and advanced technology that would allow us not only to improve and increase our capability in China, but that would help us also to be smarter and maybe even more innovative for the future. That is what we see as a benefit of the Straumann campus. That is why we are very, very excited to get started officially with the commercially approved product in the second half.
Very helpful. Thank you.
The next question comes from Veronika Dubajova from Citi. Please go ahead.
Hi, Guillaume. How are you? Thank you, guys, for taking my questions. I have two, please.
One is just if you could help us understand the APAC growth rate in the quarter by splitting out China versus the rest of the region. I know you called out strength in some of the emerging markets outside of China, but maybe if you can talk to whether Australia grew double digits, that would be super helpful as well. My second question is a competitive question on the competitive environment in the US market and in particular, as you see this continued volatility, whether you are seeing more pressure from some of your peers on pricing and/or from their value offerings. Thank you so much.
Thank you, Veronika. What we see, and I actually think for highlighting this, we have a very strong growth also from countries outside of China. We have the major market like Australia and Japan.
It's not double-digit growth, but it's still a very, very solid growth that we see in those two countries that are leveraging also all the different parts of the portfolio. The rest of the, I would say, really truly emerging markets are really strong double-digit on markets like India, Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand as well. Those are really, really strongly growing countries at a, yeah, I would say, still low volume in most of the case, but really promising for what's coming in the future and keeping the very strong dynamic of the Asia-Pacific region. When it comes to competitive environment, I think we are still seeing North America as a very competitive market. This is the highest price market in the world. There is a lot of competition with a lot of players because of the lack of innovation or trying to gain share for price.
We have seen that for a long time. This is still happening as we speak. Have we seen increased price competition? Not more than before, still at a very high level, but I would not say that we have seen that more than before.
Excellent. Thank you so much, Guillaume.
The next question comes from Hugo Solvet from BNP Paribas Exane. Please go ahead.
Hi, hello. Thank you for taking my questions, and thank you, Yang, for the insight and discussions in the past couple of years. Wishing you the best. First, on North America, maybe in terms of a quick follow-up on phasing throughout the quarters, you mentioned, I think, Guillaume, that growth in March was stronger than February. Was growth in March also stronger than in January? Have you seen in March any pre-buying or stocking from DSOs?
Second, on phasing, but in China this time, you expect to have the local China plant up and running for commercial production in H2. How long will it take to fully ramp up commercial production there, and when exactly would you expect not to source anymore from Switzerland? Thank you.
To start with the NAM, March without afterwards, we do not want to go too much into detail because I think that this is not giving too much anyway light on what is happening as the market is very volatile and it was reacting to a lot of the news. I would say March was somewhat in comparison with January. It is the same kind of ballpark numbers. Have we seen any stocking effect? No. I think because of the volatility, there is a lack of confidence.
I do not think that there is any kind of a significant stock, whether it is on DSOs or even on the single practices. When it comes to our Shanghai campus, we are going to ramp up over the second half. I think it will take something like six months to be able to deliver a large part of what we are selling in China, being manufactured in China. I would say we should arrive somewhere in December, January to something like 80% of things like this. I would say in between 70-80%. I am saying this because we are manufacturing only what I would say is the standard technology, which is we are manufacturing titanium SLA products, and everything which is the high-end of the portfolio and the latest technology like SLActive and Rock Solid will still be manufactured only in Switzerland.
That's the manufacturing approach that we have taken. When it comes to the Straumann premium brand, we should be around an 80, 20%. That's a little bit the picture that you can have in mind.
Thank you very much.
The next question comes from Julien Dormois from Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Hi, good morning, Guillaume. Good morning, Yang. Thanks for squeezing me in. I have two questions left, please. The first one relates to a comment you made at the start, Guillaume, about the change, the structural change in demand in Europe. I think you highlighted some reimbursement changes and also some of the dentists or more penetration among dentists being trained. Would you have any anecdotal evidence of that and maybe provide a few numbers around this? That would be super helpful.
The second question comes back on tariffs and elaborate on the Ringcast question about price competition in the US. Did I get it right that you're not planning any particular price increase because of tariffs in the US at this point of the year?
Yeah, when it comes to the structural improvement in the market in Europe, and it's what we have seen that over the past, yeah, I would say five to seven years, reimbursement, what was happening in Europe is that in the insurance model, but also in some of the social security systems that are existing in large European countries like France, then the free unit bridge was always reimbursed to a certain level and implant was not at all.
That was obviously driving a significant gap into pricing and especially out-of-pocket pricing for patients where the three-unit bridge will be cheaper than an implant and on top, it will be more reimbursed. If you would like to get some numbers idea, I would say that a three-unit bridge for European pricing was around something like EUR 3,000-EUR 3,500 that went down, yeah, EUR 3,500 that went down to EUR 3,000, I would say, something like this. An implant was EUR 4,000 six, seven years ago. I think on average, we should be around EUR 2,500 now. The difference in between, and I think it will be close to the three-unit bridge that should be around EUR 2,500 or EUR 2,000 now. The price difference in between the implant and the three-unit bridge is much lower.
Especially the reimbursement now, it's almost the same because you have very often systems that say, "I will give you for your implant the same that I would give you for a three unit bridge," because at the end, this is exactly the alternative. It has created an environment for GPs to place implants as well and to be able to sell implant alternatives to three unit bridge in a better reimbursement environment. Is that helpful?
That's very helpful. Thank you very much.
That's one of the differences in market penetration that we have not seen yet where the price of the implant has really stayed at a very high level. This is where DSOs are somewhat helpful to be able to support a bit of a lower treatment cost in order to increase volume.
Exactly what we have seen in Spain where DSO has decreased the price of implant to play the volume gain, and we have seen the penetration going up very significantly. That is why we are confident that our market penetration will continue to rise in the years to come by having those kinds of trends that will also develop geographically. When it comes to tariffs, we are not planning any specific price increase for the time being with regard to the measures that we have been able to take.
That is great. Thank you very much.
The last question comes from Robert Davies from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thanks for squeezing me in. Just a couple of questions for me. One was just on your previous comments around growth expectations for China.
I think you'd mentioned something like 20% growth expected for this year and next year. That was my first question. Is that still true? The second one, just if you could give us a little more color around the pricing dynamics between the premium and challenger segments as well as what you're seeing in clear aligners. That would be great. Thank you.
Yeah, we did not express 20% in China. We expressed that when we were at the beginning of the VBP round where we were saying that we expect 20% growth at least for the next 18 months. This is actually what has happened because of the really strong new customer segment, which is now able to afford.
We said then at the beginning of the year from a guidance standpoint that we still expect double-digit growth in China, which is still what we are believing into as far as we are advanced into the year right now. When it comes to price dynamic, we see then as it has been, and I would say in the past couple of years, quite some price pressure coming from different sides and from competition, from consolidating environments. Again, that's where innovation is really helping us to hold our line and ensuring that we are not seeing any significant deterioration of pricing in the different segments. I would apply the same thinking when it comes to premium, to challenger, and to clear aligners. When it comes to digital, I would say it's a bit different. It's a kind of mixed product.
You have a different, it's not price, but you have some price pressure on the top end of the market where there is a significant price difference into the entry-level scanners with regard to the high-technology scanner that we're offering. That is where we have really always to demonstrate the quality of the technology of, for example, our partner 3Shape versus entry-level scanners to make sure that we are still keeping a healthy ratio between what would be premium technology and intraoral scanner and what would be entry-level. That is what we see not only for us, but for the entire market.
Okay, that's great. Thank you.
Thank you. That concludes our conference today. We look forward to meeting you at one of our upcoming events. Our schedule is actually outlined on slide 22. We wish you all the best and have a nice and great day.
Goodbye from sunny Basel.
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