Thank you and good morning or afternoon to all of you. Thanks for attending this conference call on the Straumann Group's third quarter results, 2025. Please take note of the disclaimer in our media release and on slide two. During this conference call, we are going to refer to the presentation slides that were published on our website this morning. As usual, the discussion will include some forward-looking statements. As shown on slide three, I will start with the highlights for the third quarter. Isabelle will then cover the financial details, and afterwards, I will share strategic updates and our outlook. We will be happy to answer your questions at the end of the presentation. Let's start with our highlights and move directly to slide five.
I'm really proud of our teams globally for the great progress they made this quarter and how they are demonstrating agility to adapt to different market dynamics. In the third quarter, our revenue reached CHF 602 million, representing a strong organic growth of 8.3%. For the first nine months, we achieved CHF 2 billion, which is up 9.6% organically. Building on this strong performance, I'm excited to announce the important steps in our orthodontics strategy, which includes new partnerships that will enable us to transform our clear aligner business and unlock the full potential of our ClearCorrect brand. Later in the presentation, I will explain how we will accelerate innovation, increase profitability, and strengthen ClearCorrect's position for sustainable growth together with our strategic partners, Smarty and Dental Monitoring.
On the digital innovation side, one of the highlights of the third quarter was the launch of our new Sirius X3 intraoral scanner. This marks another major step in strengthening our scanner portfolio across all price segments and our digital ecosystem through its full integration in our Straumann Access cloud-based platform. On the operational side, we are very pleased to announce that our new campus in Shanghai is fully operational by now and delivering first commercial products to the Chinese market. With this, we have significantly strengthened our supply chain resilience ahead of the upcoming VBP 2.0, which is expected to be announced end of this year. These achievements strengthen our foundation and create the opportunity for continued growth, supporting our confirmed full-year 2025 outlook of high single-digit organic revenue growth and a 30 to 60 basis point improvement in the core EBIT margin at constant 2024 currency rates.
Now turning to slide six and the regional development, I would like to start by highlighting that EMEA has once again achieved an excellent organic revenue growth with 11.2%. This success was driven by a strong execution across all businesses, including double-digit growth in orthodontics and strong traction from our recent innovations in our core implant segment. The Straumann brand continued to gain market share, while our challenger brands, Neodent and Anthogyr, also grew strongly, reflecting our ability to serve different customer segments across different price points. In North America, we delivered solid growth in a still volatile environment. Organic growth accelerated to 5.7%, reflecting strong execution and growing adoption of IXL implant system and our digital solutions. From a general perspective, patient flow remained rather stable during the quarter, even if we could witness some initial pocket improvements.
In Asia-Pacific, the significant slowdown compared to the previous quarter reflects two very different dynamics. On the one hand, in China, we have seen a significant slowdown due to the initial effect of VBP 2.0. Some patients have started postponing treatments and distributors reducing inventories. On the other hand, markets outside China continue to grow strongly, especially India, Thailand, Australia, and Japan, driven by robust patient demand and expanded access to care through intensified education activities. Finally, Latin America once again delivered a remarkable performance with 18%, showing double-digit growth across all segments. Our challenger brand, Neodent, remains the key growth driver, while the Straumann premium brand, our orthodontics and digital businesses contributed strongly. Therefore, overall, our regional performance highlights the strength of our strategy and our ability to execute with discipline and agility across markets, with each region contributing with good growth despite varied market conditions.
With this, let me now hand over to Isabelle, who will take you through the financial performance.
Thank you, Guillaume, and hello everyone. Let's move to slide eight, where you can see the revenue bridge for the third quarter. Our reported revenue increased from CHF 586 million to CHF 602 million, which represents a 2.9% growth. The flagging exchange rate effect of CHF 30 million is still very significant, but lower than in the second quarter. Overall organic revenue growth led us to 8.3%. As already mentioned by Guillaume, EMEA, our largest region, was once again the main growth contributor, accounting for roughly half of the total increase in revenue, followed by a strong performance of our Latin America region, which contributed more than 20% to the group's growth.
Despite the currency effects, which we still expect to have a top-line impact of 470 to 490 basis points for the full year, our underlying business remains very strong, reflecting both the strength of our brands and our disciplined execution across regions. Continuing with slide nine, let's talk about our efforts to mitigate tariffs. As you know, new tariff regulations have added cost pressure to the business. To counteract this, we have continuously implemented a set of mitigating measures over the past month. In the short term, we have increased inventory levels in key markets and adjusted logistic flows accordingly to secure continuity of supply chain. Thanks to these mitigating measures, we could sustainably reduce the effects of tariffs to around CHF 20 million to CHF 25 million for the full year, 2025.
For next year, we are increasing the share of locally produced finished products, including local assembly and packaging lines, to reduce tariff exposure and improve supply chain efficiency further. For next year, we currently expect a similar impact from tariffs of around CHF 30 million. With this, we are protecting our margins while maintaining excellent service levels. Finally, a quick reminder on our capital allocation priorities on slide 10. Our first priority remains reinvestment in sustainable business growth, followed by maintaining a strong balance sheet and selective M&A to accelerate strategic execution. With continued earning growth, we also aim to maintain or increase our dividend over time. In short, we invest where the return on capital is highest, also from a shareholder perspective. With that, let me hand back to Guillaume for the strategic update.
Thank you, Isabelle. Let's now look at the key strategic highlights of the quarter. As shown on slide 12, our total addressable market is estimated at around CHF 20 billion, spanning across implantology, orthodontics, digital equipment, prosthetics, and regenerative solutions. We currently hold roughly 12% market share within this market, which leaves us ample room for further growth, especially with new dedicated opportunities now to play in each segment. Moving on to slide 13, I'm very excited to share important strategic developments which will transform our orthodontics business. To reshape our clear aligner franchise and improve performance, we are focusing on three pillars. First, we are building a very competitive and differentiated ClearCorrect value proposition, delivering a superior customer and patient experience. Second, we are strengthening our manufacturing capabilities to increase profitability.
Third, we are prioritizing strategic markets to accelerate future growth and establish a leading position, especially among general practitioners. Innovation remains at the core of our strategy to accelerate growth and improve profitability in this orthodontics segment. To achieve this, we are partnering with Smarty, a global orthodontic leader that will help us bring new solutions to market faster and with greater efficiency. Smarty is a leading clear aligner organization with more than 20 years' experience. Known for its innovation, quality, and clinical excellence, Smarty is the ideal partner for the next phase of our orthodontics growth. It will increase the ClearCorrect value proposition through expanding education and product options. This includes new clinical capabilities such as treatment outcome simulation tools, mandibular advancement functionality, and multiple trim line options to address a broader range of clinical needs and customers.
As part of the partnership, Smarty will also take over full ClearCorrect production for EMEA and Asia-Pacific regions, two of our largest and fastest growing geographies. This transition will enable faster scaling, higher efficiency, and significantly lower manufacturing costs through Smarty's fully automated state-of-the-art production facilities. The production for these regions is currently based in Markkleeberg, Germany, which is planned to be phased out by early 2026. This partnership unites the complementary strength of two industry leaders. By combining ClearCorrect's global commercial reach with Smarty's world-class technology and production capabilities, we will achieve the scale, cost optimization, and margin improvement needed to build a profitable orthodontics business. Moving to slide 14, in addition to the Smarty partnership, we will further strengthen ClearCorrect's value proposition by expanding our longstanding collaboration with Dental Monitoring.
We are partnering on a unique AI-powered remote monitoring technology, which is directly and uniquely integrated with the ClearCorrect Doctor Portal. This innovation enables clinicians to monitor cases more efficiently and helps general practitioners manage treatments with greater confidence and convenience. It enhances the overall experience for both practitioners and patients and supports our ambition to drive broader adoptions of clear line of treatment among general practitioners, our key strategic segment. Building on the foundation of this new value proposition and the more cost-effective manufacturing capabilities from Smarty, we have also implemented a focused go-to-market model designed around the key growth markets. By concentrating resources in high-potential, profitable markets and aligning our orthodontic organization under one integrated structure, we can operate with greater agility, increased efficiency, and better customer focus. This approach strengthens our engagement with general practitioners and DSOs, enhances execution discipline, and supports sustainable growth.
With all these developments, ClearCorrect is becoming more versatile, clinically advanced, and efficient, strengthening our competitiveness and supporting our ambition to achieve a leading position in the global orthodontics market in the future. Let's now move from orthodontics to implantology on slide 15, where innovation, education, and digitalization continue to drive our leadership. Let's start with our premium brand, Straumann, and its latest innovation, IXL. This high-performance implant system is becoming one of the most successful product launches we had in our recent history. IXL combines four implant designs in one system with a unified prosthetic platform, a single connection, and a single surgical kit. This unique offering simplifies workflows, reduces inventory, and especially gives clinicians true intraoperative flexibility, enabling design implant changes on the spot during surgery without changing instruments.
To further differentiate, IXL is also coming with RockSolid and SL Active, two of our unique and most advanced technologies, enabling minimally invasive protocols and faster osseointegration. We are really pleased to report that we have already sold more than 1 million IXL implants, which is a fantastic milestone that shows the strong confidence clinicians place in this system. This success reflects our innovation and execution strength within the Straumann premium brand, which continues to drive market share gains and new customer acquisition. One of the greatest examples of a new customer acquisition with IXL is the Mallow Clinic in Portugal, which recently chose to partner with us and transitioned its portfolio to Straumann. The decision of this highly respected implant-focused DSO highlights how our comprehensive solutions and digital capabilities create real value for clinicians and patients alike.
Together, these achievements demonstrate how our focus on innovation, digital integration, and close customer partnership continues to translate into that tangible market momentum. Let's move to slide 16. Our comprehensive education activities are key to improving market access, building stronger partnerships, and gaining market share. In the third quarter, we continue to expand our partner education network and deliver hands-on courses, particularly in Asia-Pacific. These programs allow clinicians to refine their surgical and restorative skills, gain confidence in immediate protocols, and embrace digital workflows. By investing in education, we not only raise clinical standards but also reach new customers and strengthen our market share, and with this, further reinforce our leadership in implantology.
In addition, we engage with thousands of dental professionals in the third quarter at major events, such as the DSO CEO Summit in Boston, where we held strategic discussions on expanding access to care and driving efficient growth through partnership. In addition, we demonstrated our latest innovation at the EAO Congress in Monaco and the International Aesthetic Days attended by more than 1,400 clinicians. Let's move to slide 17. At these events, we have launched our new Sirius X3 intraoral scanner, which is another very exciting innovation. This new iOS is our new generation wireless scanner that combines exceptional scanning speed, accuracy, and ergonomics in a lightweight, compact design. Positioned in the mid-price segment, Sirius X3 strengthened our IOS portfolio together with the entry-level Sirius and the premium Trios solution by FreeShape, enabling us to serve the different market segments. The first reactions from clinicians have been really, really strong.
Early adopters highlight the ease of use and the effortless integration into our digital platform, Straumann Access. This launch further strengthened our position in digital dentistry and marks another important step in expanding our clinician base connected to our Straumann ecosystem. Moving to slide 18, actually, thanks to our competitive digital portfolio, we are then continuously growing our intraoral scanner user base, who are then benefiting from our simpler, faster workflows through the cloud-based Straumann Access platform, which will further drive growth. A good example is our Fast Molar workflow, which is a streamlined, simple three-step approach that helps to restore a posterior case quicker and easier. The solution uses fewer parts and reduces significantly chair time by removing appointments, helping dentists with more efficiency to deliver highly reliable clinical outcomes. Another one is the latest Straumann Exact innovation, which supports the digital full-arch workflow.
It significantly helps clinicians treat patients who need a full set of new teeth by guiding them through each step, from the first digital scan all the way to the final restoration. It simplifies what is usually a complex process and saves time both for the dentist and most notably for the patient. Turning now to slide 19 and our progress in China. As mentioned before, we have seen a significant slowdown due to the initial effect of VBP 2.0, as some patients have started postponing treatments and distributors are reducing inventories. Despite this early impact, we are well prepared for the implementation of VBP 2.0, and I've taken proactive steps to strengthen our local setup. First, the ramp-up of our Shanghai campus has been completed, and the site has received all necessary licenses for local production.
This milestone allows us to manufacture Straumann and Anthogyr implants in China, reducing lead times and improving cost efficiency. Secondly, as you know, in the past years, our business in China has been driven primarily by our premium brand and supported by Anthogyr in the value segment. Now, to be prepared for the VBP 2.0, we are continuing to broaden our implant portfolio to serve all the different price segments. Therefore, alongside our Straumann and Anthogyr brands, we are developing a new brand for the eco-segment together with a local partner, ensuring we can meet customer needs on the lower price point. In parallel, we continue investing in education and training to support clinicians in adopting digital workflows and building their implantology expertise. These initiatives will help shape a sustainable growing environment in the implantology market in China, built on clinical excellence and patient trust.
With these steps, we are well prepared for VBP 2.0 with the right infrastructure, brand portfolio, and local capabilities to continue growing and supporting our customers in this strategically important growth market despite any VBP 2.0 decisions. Moving to slide 20, we strongly believe that our culture is what truly sets us apart. In an environment that is becoming more complex and volatile, our culture is what enables us to adapt faster, execute better, and stay close to our customers. As a company, our commitment goes beyond business. It was very inspiring to see more than 5,000 colleagues from around the world come together over several months for the Smile Movement, a global employee initiative that unites teams to make a positive impact beyond dentistry. Through local activities, volunteering, and fundraising, the Smile Movement celebrates our shared purpose of unlocking people's lives by creating smiles.
This year, our colleagues turned that purpose into action, raising over half a million Swiss francs for the Straumann Group Foundation through their collective energy, a true reflection of passion and dedication that defines our culture. Let's now move to slide 22 to talk about the outlook for the full year. With our diversified portfolio, strong brands, and continued focus on innovation and execution, we are well positioned to keep delivering sustainable and profitable growth. Despite ongoing macroeconomic uncertainties and the impact of tariffs, we remain confident and confirm our full-year 2025 outlook. High single-digit organic revenue growth and a 30 to 60 basis point improvement in the core EBIT margin at constant 2024 currency rate. Before we close, let me highlight our upcoming Capital Market Day, which will take place on November 25 in Basel, Switzerland.
This event will give us the opportunity to take a deeper look at our market priorities, our innovation roadmap, and our ambitions. I look forward to seeing many of you there, either in person or online, and to engage in inspiring discussions. With this, we are happy to take your questions. As usual, we kindly ask you to limit the number of questions to two in order that each participant can have a chance to pose their questions within the available time. Going slowly, can we have the first question, please?
Sure. The first question comes from Julien Dormois from Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Yes. Hi. Good morning, Guillaume. Good morning, Isabelle. Thanks for taking my questions. I will limit myself to two. Starting with China, it's obviously the key topic investors have been focused on in the past few months. Just wondering if you could try and quantify what's been the magnitude of the decline in China in the quarter and how we should think about Q4 because this will obviously have an influence, probably a starker influence, I guess, on your development in Q4. Interesting to hear your thoughts on that. The second one is on the U.S. Wondering, you have mentioned stable patient flows in the country with some pockets of improvements. How do you see that playing out in the fourth quarter and into 2026? I know you had previously commented that you were expecting maybe stronger growth in 2025 versus 2024.
How do you think about this guidance at this point? Thank you.
Yeah. Thanks, Julien. I would say first, the third quarter in China, I think you have more than two questions, even with Q3, Q4 in 2026, but we'll try to cover this. We have seen a significant slowdown in China due to an early and initial impact of VBP 2.0, as we said, ahead of the potential lower pricing of implant treatment by the Chinese government that will be setting that potentially by the end of the year. We know that patients are starting to postpone treatment and distributors have started reducing inventories, and even a little bit earlier than planned, meaning that in Q3, China has been around flattish. What does it mean for Q4?
It means that as the VBP 2.0 effects will increase, obviously more patients will be postponing treatments and distributors will be continuing the stocking, meaning that obviously China and APAC will be moving in the negative side in the fourth quarter. Now, when you look a little bit further, despite the fact that we will have obviously a bit more in China and APAC, more challenging quarter Q4, Q1 than the VBP will be implemented, we believe that there are quite, for 2026, reasons to be positive about China moving forward. First, because we are the only international premium brand with local manufacturing, all licenses and equivalents obtained for both our Straumann brand, also our Anthogyr brand, and our partner brands, meaning that if there is any aspect of the VBP that will somewhat support local manufacturing, I don't think there is any other company best placed than we are.
Thanks to our four brands positioned also at the different price points, we don't know exactly how the price will be played in the VBP 2.0, but we believe that we will have all the different brands and portfolio to be able to benefit from any of the faster growing segments moving forward. Finally, we also think from the fact that the pent-up demand from Q4, Q1 will also support the rest of 2026 and that China is still something that we need to keep remembering. It's a very, very underpenetrated market, and we still believe that there is a lot of potential growth that needs to be unlocked moving forward, not only by the price effect that the authorities are trying to play, but also through education that we are significantly continuing to invest on.
Obviously, we see China as a future backloaded 2026, but still as being growing moving forward. Now, when it comes to North America, we have been very pleased with what we have seen in the third quarter. I would unpack that in three points. The first one is that the market indeed is remaining stable, even though we see some patient segments that have been willing to go for treatment more than we have seen in the past quarters. One of the aspects is also because, and that's the second point, having the DSO making more investments to create patient traffic, as we have alluded to in the past quarter, driving faster patient flow and faster growth in this customer segment. This is a significant area of development versus the past quarter. We are pretty well positioned on the DSO side in North America.
Thirdly, it is also important to note that we have also improved some aspects of our sales execution, which is delivering continued market share gains. It's a lot about leveraging our strong innovations, such as IXL, where we see higher growth. We have also our differentiated workflow, which is supporting significantly practice efficiency that has been driving new customer acquisition. I would say there is a part of the market which is a little bit coming better, but also some improved execution on our side that we are seeing as sustainable. How is it going to be 2026? I think at this moment in time, obviously, it's not easy to express because we have seen that very volatile. We see two positive things from our side.
The first is that we have innovation that will keep us delivering above market growth, not only on the implant side, but also obviously on the digital side with our Sirius X3 and future capability to scan full arch with a very high precision that I think will be very appealing with the specialist segment. Our IXL will continue to deliver growth, especially because it's going to be supported by additional portfolio line extension, like a BLC 4.0 that has been requested by the North American market. Also, a new prosthetic line with specific laser technology to texture the surface differently that will continue to significantly differentiate IXL as the best-in-class system out there. I would say that finally, as you have heard, everyone expects another 25 rate cuts in the next meeting by the Fed.
While it will not change yet completely the market dynamic because it needs an additional 75 basis point, it will send a positive message that should influence consumer confidence, as we have seen that has been one of the effects that has slowed down the market in the first half. All in all, yeah, we believe that if it continues like this, we have a lot of very good dimensions for expecting a better NAM moving forward. Sorry for the long answer, but I hope it covered all the different points that you were asking for.
Definitely did. Thank you very much.
The next question comes from Susanna Ludwig from Bernstein. Please go ahead.
Great. Thanks. Good morning, and thanks for the questions. I have two, please. I guess just following up on China, could you share whether this is more patients holding off on procedures or whether it's more a reduction in inventories, and then how many months of inventory do the distributors typically hold in China? Second, on the partnerships within orthodontics, could you share more about your thoughts on potential economic impact? You'd previously noted that more scale was needed to get to profitability in that business. With these new partnerships, where do you see sort of the potential for the orthodontic profitability moving?
When it comes to China, I think we have seen both effects playing at the same time. This is what we have seen also in the past VBP 1.0, where you have really this combination of effects. You have at the beginning, it starts by the patient starting to postpone some treatment step by step. Obviously, when the distributors are deciding to reduce inventories, this is where it accelerates significantly because this is where they are obviously stopping ordering at the same rate. This is obviously what is having the biggest impact at the end. This is what we have seen at the end of the quarter of this third quarter. That's what we believe we are going to see increasing in the fourth quarter because this is what we have seen also in 2022 Q4 that has significantly impacted our last quarter of 2022.
The inventory they are carrying, generally speaking, it's a three-month inventory. This is what we had in the channel mid-Q3. This is what will decrease significantly during the fourth quarter. When it comes to our orthodontic partnership, we are obviously very excited by this. We have said a couple of times that we were needing to invest significantly in increasing our value proposition as we are seeing also new competition coming in. We have especially expressed a couple of times that we were needing to reach scale in order to be able to drive sustainable and profitable growth in the future. That's why we are really, really excited to announce the Smarty partnership because it will really help us to progress on both sides that are critical for the future of our orthodontic franchise.
As expressed a little bit in the presentation, the first point of the Smarty partnership is to significantly improve our value proposition. This value proposition is going to be increased through the Smarty technology that will allow us to have new clinical capabilities. I think those new clinical capabilities are really significant. They are major ones. We will have, for example, CBCT integration in our planning. We are going to have different trim line options. We have a flat trim line at the moment, which are high and low, but we are going to have a scallop trim line in the future, which is one of the major expectations of a lot of clinicians we met because this is what they are used to.
We are going to expand indications in the mandibular advancement functionality as an example, which is also going to allow us to go to more advanced users that we were not able to do before. Finally, something which is important to increase conversion rate and supporting GPs to convert patient cases, we are going to have that modern treatment outcome simulator, which is very important, obviously, to present to the patients what should be the clinical outcome. If you put all of this together, we are going to have a very unique, differentiated value proposition that should allow us to really accelerate significantly our shares in this segment. The second aspect that we have really significantly highlighted is that Smarty, with being one of the leaders in this field and especially in the Chinese market, is really helping us to gain scale.
We can then benefit from their scale and their automated manufacturing side in order to significantly lower our manufacturing costs. This is what will help us, obviously, very quickly in the next 12 months to reduce our costs on our existing volume, especially in EMEA and Asia-Pacific, but also for all the different new customers and new business we are going to do. It will be at this new profitability side. That's where, when you combine those two, it's a very kind of exciting transformation of what we do that will bring both top line and bottom line some significant development.
Great. Thanks so much. The next question comes from David Adlington from J.P. Morgan. Please go ahead.
Morning, guys. Thanks for the question. Sorry to focus on China again, but maybe just a slightly bigger picture. There's a lot of moving parts for next year with respect to obviously surprising headwinds, but volumes, you can have some pent-up demand and potentially restocking. Maybe a sort of bigger picture, do you think you can grow both the China business and APAC next year, or do you think it's going to be a year of consolidation? Secondly, just in terms of the impact on margins from the shift to Chinese production, obviously lower cost of production in China, but you are going to be left with some potentially stranded costs at your Swiss facility. Just wondering how we should think about capacity utilization there, whether you can use that capacity in Switzerland to offset that production utilization. Thank you.
Yeah. Thanks, David. Two points. Yes, we believe we will grow in China next year. I think at the moment, this is what is our assumption and our belief. As you know, there is no VBP rule out there yet. It will a lot depend on what VBP 2.0 will be designed and how they will set new price and how they will try to define this new policy. That is the first point. I would say it's still assumptions because as we have seen, the rules of the VBP 1.0 really significantly reshaped the market. We can only talk about what we assume some of the VBP 2.0 could be. From our assumptions, the price cut should not be significant. It has been very significant in the round 1.0.
We don't expect the authorities to do another major cut because it will also significantly challenge the profitability of clinical practices directly, and it would potentially be counterproductive to what the Chinese authorities are trying to achieve, which is more access to implant therapy. The second aspect, if prices are just having a small cut, it's a lot about how volume obviously should grow. We still believe that there is significant market potential in China. There are a lot of patients expecting implant treatment, and there are a lot of dentists that are trained and are able to deliver it.
That is one of the important reasons as well from that very underpenetrated nature of the China market that we believe after the rules have been published, we will see patient flow getting back to a good dynamic and a good level, and that would allow us to grow in China. Based on those assumptions, we believe China and APAC will grow in 2026. When it comes to your questions on our Shanghai manufacturing, our assumptions right now and the calculation is showing that we should have a 20% lower cost on our China campus versus our Switzerland manufacturing site. That would be one of, of course, very good consequences of getting started now with this manufacturing site.
Secondly, something which is obviously important in those days, it's helping us to hedge our Swiss francs exposure by shifting a significant part of those manufacturing costs from Swiss francs in Chinese RMB.
Thank you. Will the Chinese still be just for China, or will you look to export from China elsewhere?
Yeah, that's a good question. For the time being, we are really looking at China for China. In the future, depending on how the different supply chains will play and the different trade deals will be implemented, I think this is also something that we could consider for the future to serve other markets than China.
Got it. Thank you.
The next question comes from Richard Felton from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Good morning. Two questions from me, please. First of all, a more general follow-up on margins. I suppose any early thoughts that you can share on some of the moving parts of margins into 2026? You called out tariffs on the call. We know we've got VBP. Maybe there's some offsets from growth from China manufacturing and the changes to orthodontics that you've announced this morning. Any early thoughts on how you're thinking and planning for margins in FY26, please? The second one is another follow-up on China. Could you just remind us where your market share is in China today and how that's evolved since the first round of VBP being implemented? Thank you.
It is a bit early to talk about 2026. We have our Capital Market Day for this, but we can allude to, I think, the big margin effect has been for us, obviously, the geographical mix. We believe that geographical mix will be a tailwind next year because we expect North America to be better, while China will be more on the lower side when it comes to growth contribution. That would be a positive effect. The second thing is, from a manufacturing standpoint, we are also improving thanks to the manufacturing site in China, which is another positive effect. We are expecting a very positive effect starting with the implementation of our partnership with Smarty on the ortho side, and also the fact that we are going to significantly prioritize the high growth market.
We have significantly, let's say, been weighted on the negative side by our profitability, negative profitability of our ortho business. We are going to start seeing a significant transformation already in 2026, and even better in 2027, as we had a high double-digit million of losses on our ortho business in the past or until now. This is going to change significantly. Finally, we hope also that on the tariff side, we can see some improvement if it could turn on the positive side for us. We know that there is some positive discussion between Brazil and the Trump administration, which would be one of the most important parts of our tariff for next year, as Isabelle expressed, which is around $30 million. I would say something like a big chunk of it is coming from our Neodent import. That would also significantly help.
That is why we believe that 2026 could be really interesting by driving some significant margin development on this side. Isabelle, you want to add anything on this side, or?
No, I think perfectly covered, Guillaume.
The second question was, sorry?
Market share development in China. Since we repeat one-on-one, what market share do we have in China?
Yeah, that's an interesting question. As the market has evolved very, very significantly and there is no official data in China, what we know is that we have very significantly increased our share when we see the different development of many companies around us in China. We are leading by far what we could call the premium segment, and we progressed also on the challenger side. Still, on the value side, we represent a pretty low share. I think Korean companies are still having the lion's share of the challenger segment together with some of the growing Chinese companies. This is one of the ways where we also expect, through this very interesting new portfolio that we are developing with our Chinese partner, the possibility to have a very important inroad in this segment where we are underpenetrated.
Great. Thank you. Very helpful, color. Appreciate it.
The next question comes from Daniel Jelovcan from Zürcher Kantonalbank. Please go ahead.
Yeah, good morning as well. I'm not sure actually if I haven't heard. Has the Smarty collaboration, does that include any financial engagement by you? I'm not sure if I'm fully up to date. The second question, your DSO CEO summit in the U.S., can you put a bit more flesh on the bone for your key takeaways which you have observed? Yeah, basically, that's it.
Yeah, thanks, Daniel. I think actually, yeah, very good question. Yes, this is a strategic partnership. We have taken an undisclosed share, which is, I would still say, a small share on Smarty from an equity standpoint. We want to demonstrate our commitment to this partnership. This is going to be, of course, a very important part of our ongoing strategy on the clear line of business. Yes, this is coming with a financial equity participation in Smarty. The second side, when it comes to our DSO CEO summit, this is a very, very important meeting for us. First, to still be very, very close to this critical target group for dentistry in general and for us in particular, as we believe that we are here trying to be much more than just a solution provider.
We are really wanting to be a true business partner in supporting them achieving their goal. What we can say here on the DSO side is, one, it will significantly continue gaining share from a provider care standpoint. They are continuing investing in technology. They are the target group which is really supporting digitalization of dentistry because they see the significant benefit they can get from an efficient workflow, being able to help their dentists, enlarging their indications, and doing that also in a faster manner, still delivering high-quality outcomes. They are a strong partner for increasing the digital penetration of dentistry. Secondly, they are also one of our strategic partners for growing the pie. They are the ones being convinced about the fact that implant treatment is the gold standard of tooth replacements.
They are doing all the necessary advertising and patient communication that are helping us to still bring implants as the preferred solution and increasing not only patient flow but also treatment acceptance when they are there. We are developing tools to help them in this perspective. Third, I would say this is also, and we see more and more very important customers that are expecting a very high-level B2B service level, meaning that it's all about how we can implement a very connected and interlinked supply chain. They are also expecting very strong cybersecurity capabilities when it comes to being able to link our platforms. DSO will continue to put barriers to entry to small organizations.
When I see the investment you need to do to be a preferred partner to ensure not only high-quality clinical outcomes with clinical evidence, but a lot in the background to support the efficiency of their supply chain, the security of their IT setup, this is really something that small organizations or local or regional organizations cannot do. That's one of the reasons we are close to them developing what it takes to lead the DSO segment and will help us to really be seen as the best potential partner for helping them achieving their goal.
That was very in-depth. The DSO segment in the U.S. is actually growing faster than your mom-and-pop, let's say, dentists. Is that correct?
That's correct.
Thanks so much.
By leaps and.
Ladies and gentlemen, please hold the line. The connection with the speakers has been lost.
What?
Now we can hear you again.
Okay. Next question.
Hello? Next question.
The next question comes from Oliver Metzger from Oddo BHF. Please go ahead.
Good morning. Thanks a lot for taking my questions. The first one is also on North America, also in addition to the previous question. Obviously, we're starting to a better. You also reported some patient flow improvement. You talked a lot about the supply side with the DSO situation is improving. How do you see it from a demand side? Can you see that actually also there is more flow coming from patients demanding single tooth replacement versus more complex procedures? The second question is on your strong performance in Europe. You highlighted the IXL launch and the respective success of that. Can you just give us a comment about how does patient volume have behaved in Europe in your view? Thank you.
Yeah. Good morning, Oliver. As we expressed, the patient demand has been rather stable. I think on all the indication, it has been the same. We see the single cases being done on a regular basis. Once again, not more, not less than the previous quarter. We have seen a little bit more of large indications being done in the third quarter. Once again, nothing that would support that we would say that we see a significant change in patient flow. It's still stable, but it's a little bit improving because I believe that the fear of inflation is reducing among consumers. It's not so much that we see, for the time being, for example, a better eligibility to patient financing. We don't see that yet significantly because the rates are still not changing enough in order to open that yet.
We see a better confidence for patients to engage in the treatments in some areas. That's the only thing that we have witnessed in the third quarter. That's why we are still cautious in saying how it will develop from a pure market standpoint. However, we think that what is sustainable on our side is really improved execution on our side, but also all the significant traction we are getting with our innovation. We see IXL having a very significant higher growth rate than the rest of our portfolio. As we are launching some additional portfolio extensions, we believe it will continue sustaining this very interesting market share gain and new customer acquisition. 20% of the IXL customers are new customers that have never been customers from Straumann. That's one of the aspects that we can really see that it helps delivering over-market performance.
When it comes to Europe, I think Europe has been really still delivering at a very, very remarkable growth rate. When you look at the reason for this, we expressed in the past the fact that there is first, the affordability of implant treatment in Europe is much higher than in North America. The price levels are twice less than the U.S. Again, price for an implant plus crown in the U.S., it's going to be between $4,000 to $5,000, whereas in Europe, it's going to be around EUR 2,000 to EUR 2,500. I think affordability is higher. There is more support from a reimbursement standpoint, from either private insurance or social security, from national public support. That is a lot of explanation to explain why Europe is behaving better than North America in a more kind of a challenging environment.
Additionally, we have to say that IXL is participating also here as gaining superior traction than the market, and all the different businesses are growing very significantly. Orthodontics, clear aligner, through the synergy we have with our core business around GP target group, is also growing double digit. Digital is also growing significantly. We have all the different aspects of our portfolio, which is supporting the Europe performance. Finally, something which is also important to consider, that's why we believe it's a sustainable capability to grow, is all the different geographies are participating to that significant growth. As much as major markets like Scandinavia, Germany, UK, Spain, for example, in the third quarter, but also very significantly Eastern Europe with Poland, Baltics, Romania. I can also list the distributor market that has been also very strong in the third quarter.
It is not only one place which is doing well that may fade, it's the entire geographies which are really supporting this very, very strong development.
Okay. All right. Very helpful. Thank you.
The next question comes from Brandon Vazquez from William Blair. Please go ahead.
Hi, everyone. Thanks for taking the question. I wanted to ask two of them up front here. The first one is just going back to the partnership with Smarty. Guillaume, you had mentioned that you're kind of in the operating losses right now. Can you talk to us, given, of course, this partnership is in part to improve profitability in this segment? What does operating profit or loss look like in 2026 as you flip that business over to Smarty? The second question is maybe a little bit more about North America. Encouragingly, it looks like North America actually improved a little bit despite the fact that consumer sentiment here has been pretty weak still. I know you've talked a lot about investments from DSOs. Maybe I'm curious if you could talk a little bit about what are those investments from DSOs that are improving North America results?
Somewhat cautiously, I would say the problems here are a little bit more macro, less commercial strategy. It sounds like the partnerships that you guys and what you're seeing from the DSOs is that improving commercial strategy alone might improve North America. Thanks for taking the question.
When it comes to the Smarty partnership, and I think something that is to make it clear because we had also one of the questions, we will recognize revenue, obviously, because it's a distribution partnership and a manufacturing partnership because they will do that for two major regions of us, which is then Asia-Pacific and EMEA. We had very significant operational losses because we have been investing very significantly on our technology, but also on the manufacturing side. What we have seen is that with our scale, it's very, very difficult to be able to go to profitability. When we say we had a very significant double-digit million losses from an operational standpoint on our ortho business, we expect this to be divided by two already by 2026.
We expect to be break-even in 2027, which means that, and obviously afterwards, creating very positive profitability moving forward thanks to what we are putting in place, not only in terms of manufacturing, but also on growing demand with technology and having a very sharpened go-to-market approach where we are now very structured in a clear business unit approach that would allow us to have speed but also efficiency. From a profitability standpoint, we expect a significant effect in the next 18 to 24 months. That should be seen on the bottom line as well. When it comes to NAM on the DSO investment side, yes, they are doing, I would say, three kinds of investments. The first one is growing their network. It's still, from a DSO standpoint, a way to grow inorganically. It's creating new practices.
There are some DSOs that are doing that by acquisition, but we see a lot of DSOs that are also creating de novo clinic because it allows you to implement all the processes and all your strategy in exactly the same way than all the rest of the network. You don't lose time to convert the existing clinicians to your own processes that are not used to potentially use this kind of brand of material or whatsoever. You can standardize your approach very efficiently by creating de novo practices. We see a lot of this ongoing, and not only in North America, but also in other geographies. The second investment they do is on the organic growth this time and being able to invest into new patient flow. They are doing advertising.
In North America, we have seen new campaigns that have been launched to create this patient demand that has been much less the case in the first half, not knowing how the U.S. economy will evolve and with a big fear of inflation. That would reduce the capacity for patient to pay. I mean, it seems that the risk of significant inflation is starting to reduce significantly, even though no one knows exactly, but that's the perception that we have. There is an increase in investment done in direct-to-patient communication for bringing them to the office and, of course, being able to drive patient acceptance.
The third investment they do is in standardization and digitalization of the entire network, being able to drive all intraoral scanning, driving workflow that will drive efficiency and especially one way of doing a procedure is helping them to have a very clear perception of the cost of one procedure and being able to have more of an analytical perspective of their performance. We see that the investment in digitalization is now increasing and we believe that we will be able to benefit from this. That is the three kinds of investment we see from DSO in North America, but also in other geographies that could help us making sure that it supports growth moving forward.
The next question comes from Hassan Al-Wakeel from Barclays. Please go ahead.
Morning. Thank you for taking my questions. Two, please. Following up on China and particularly 2026, Guillaume, when we met last month, you commented that you see double-digit growth in revenue in China as possible in 2026, given low penetration. Is this your current base case? How are you thinking about share gains in the mix and what's the current price assumption on the decline? Secondly, can you talk about IXL performance in the U.S. particularly? How much did it contribute to growth given you call out the particular strength in EMEA? I think last quarter you highlighted the IXL was 15% of implant sales. How is this trending overall and by region in Q3, please? Thank you.
Yeah, thanks, Hassan. Once again, I will express that China 2026, I think it will a lot depend on the VBP rules and what we are looking at this. We have different scenarios, obviously, as we have been in then the 2023 to prepare what the VBP can come up with.
One of the positive scenarios is obviously still having low double-digit growth that could come out from China in case we see limited price cut, which is around 5% to 10%, and having obviously significant volume growth with a pent-up demand coming from a low Q4, low Q1 2026, and having afterwards the three quarters of the year that we'll see a healthy patient flow and having the capability for us to keep gaining market share by having our four different brands: Straumann, Anthogyr, T-Plus, and our new Medentica line on the eco-segment that would be able to take share and also potentially being favored by local manufacturing.
We have a lot, again, as options to be able to play what the rules will be from VBP 2.0, but now being able to say we will grow double-digit in China and Asia-Pacific 2026 is too early to say and we will be able to express that in our guidance based on when we will be able to say that early 2026 when the VBP rules will be out and we will have much more visibility on how we are going to play this new regulation. Once again, there are options for us to grow low double-digit. There are options also to have a lower growth rate based on what will be coming.
On the IXL side in North America, yeah, I think what we can say globally and without having a first specific North America prism, this is representing IXL is representing already 20% of our implant green premium sales. This is really a testament on the loyalty, the traction that we are getting with this system and the repurchasing that we're having with this. North America is also around those numbers. We have a very strong penetration about our existing users and our new users that are also being captured in North America. One of the major reasons why we are growing faster than the market is the new customer acquisition that is done through IXL on the premium segment.
We benefit also on new customer acquisition on the Challenger brand with Neodent, but I think we are still growing faster and we see in constant market share gain in North America on the premium side that we can really monitor on a regular basis and that we can confirm once again. The second thing which I think I want to highlight here that will help or that will continue to support the growth of IXL is that all the evolution and innovation on the prosthetic side will be available only with the IXL connection, which is the new TorqueFit.
That means if you would like to benefit from our new angulated screw channel on customized abutment as an example, or if you would like to benefit from our new laser textured value base for easy and efficient restoration, and especially if you would like to benefit on our new workflow, which is the one I presented, the Fast Smaller with an anatomic healing abutment, which is allowing you to do the restoration with one appointment less with the patient, you have to use IXL because it all comes with the new connection. There is a lot of our strategy from future innovation that will also drive the penetration of IXL and making our customers benefiting from the latest technology.
Very helpful. Thank you.
The next question comes from Juliano Duerr, Bank of America. Please go ahead.
Hi, good morning. Thanks a lot for taking my questions. The first one, thanks for all the call on China, but it's just me being picky with my modeling. You mentioned sort of back-end loaded growth for next year. Just wanted to confirm, is it because Q1 2026 is likely to remain negative for the market? I believe the VBP 2.0 implementation at public hospitals may start only in Q2. Also, you talk about the Shanghai campus benefits from local production and this cost advantage probably fully offsetting the price cut for next year. Given the full ramp-up is expected for Q3, could we see some gross margin pressure in H1 and a bit more back-end loaded recovery? Second question is on clear aligner You mentioned the ambition to achieve leading position in these markets. I think today you have 3% market share. Competition is pretty fierce.
What's your mid to long-term ambitions for ClearCorrect? Do you fear aligners are becoming kind of like commodity products and a price war could maybe slow down a little bit the margin expansion target that you just set with the new partnership? Thank you.
Right. That's four questions, but for the VIP to answer, first one, Q1 2026 China. I think here we cannot express phasing in 2026. It's too early from exactly Q1. When we say back-loaded, it's obviously first when you look at comparison base. We are going to have a very high comp base in the first half and a very low comp base in the second half. First, obviously, from a growth rate standpoint, mathematically, you are going to be back-loaded anyway. The second aspect also is that the Q1 will depend a lot about the Chinese authorities' communication about the magnitude of the change and especially when they are going to finally give results, which is not fully clear at the moment. If the VBP results will be given, when I said results, it means that they will present the rules in December.
The companies have to do their bidding about what kind of pricing they want to do, and then afterwards, they are publishing results of who is then selected, who is not selected in the different category. If they are able to express it fast enough and the implementation of the new rules are going to be done during January, then the first quarter can benefit from the pent-up demand directly. If the information about the results of the VBP 2.0 will be done later in the year, which has been done a little bit the case in implementation, it has been done after the Chinese New Year in 2023, meaning that we have started to see everything being executed by the beginning of March. That's where you have a Q1, which is rather weak because still then waiting for all the new price to be available.
I think this is a lot depending on how this is going to be played out. That's why it's difficult to answer exactly your Q1 perspective. We are expecting at the moment from an assumption that Q1 will anyway be weak. We are going to have a Q4 and Q1 that are going to be weak because it's going to be frozen by the VBP effect and that we will benefit from those new rules moving forward. When it comes to the Shanghai campus, I think we don't expect and we'll see the price decrease being bigger than the COGS gains that we are going to do. This is one of the reasons why we believe that the price cut would not then affect significantly profitability of our China business. Thanks for providing everything mainly from China. This needs to be confirmed with the VBP 2.0 rules.
When it comes to clear aligner commodity, I actually don't think so. There is already a very significant competition that we see out there. As we expressed, without scale, it's pretty challenging to play in this environment. What we have seen in the past, we have seen a lot of small companies trying to come in and play in the clear aligner business and actually being wiped out because of the lack of scale and the lack of capability to gain significant market share. Yes, there will be price competition like we are seeing at the moment. Yes, it will continue to become a pretty competitive market. We still believe that I would not go to commoditization because of all the technology which is going to go with it.
We have a mid-term perspective to be able to reach 10% of this market in order that we can really start to become a significant player and be able to deliver the growth that we are looking for.
Perfect. Thank you very much.
The next question comes from Veronika Dubajova from Citi. Please go ahead.
Good morning and thank you for taking my questions. I'm going to try to keep it to two. One, Isabelle, I was hoping to circle back on the tariff commentary that you made at the beginning of the call. I think on this first half conference call, you sort of expressed the hope that tariffs would be mitigated fully this year and then you'd have an impact as you move into fiscal 2026. I know you mentioned the $20 to $25 million number for this year. Should we understand that as you are no longer expecting that to be mitigated fully or at all? Is this something that's appearing in the P&L? I guess that's a pretty meaningful headwind, obviously, in terms of basis points. I'm just curious where you are finding other opportunities to offset this to maintain the margin guidance for the year.
If you can talk through that and then the $30, $35 million number for next year, is there any mitigation or is that including the mitigation effort? If you can talk through that, that would be helpful. I'll ask my second question because it's for Guillaume after that. Maybe we can just get the financial bit out of the way first.
Yeah, for sure. I'm happy to elaborate on that. I think excellent question. Earlier we said we will mitigate all of those tariffs and it will not change our guidance. Given we just reiterated our guidance, we still stand by this. The effect of $22 million to $25 million still to be shown has been mitigated this year. On the one hand, of course, we mitigated the full impact of the tariffs through all of the supply chain rule changes we put into place through transfer of production activities of finished products to the U.S. for especially the Straumann green products. What we're currently preparing for are packaging and finishing lines for Neodent products as well to be prepared for next year.
As you remember from the call we had for the half-year results, we already shipped more or less all of the demand we have for this year in July and August. We have some time to implement those mitigating measures. How are we mitigating? On the one hand, of course, by implementing this, but then on the other hand by looking at different other measures to improve our profitability in terms of production, but then in terms of OpEx savings where we had very strict guidelines and reiterated them for the remainder of the year. All of this impact can be mitigated. Same holds potentially for next year as well. As you can see, the number we are looking at, this $30 million, the ballpark number we gave you, is very similar to the amount we have for this year, although we will see a full-year impact.
This $30 million is, I would say, the worst-case assumption in case everything remains as it currently is. Major factors behind the 50% tariff on all imports from Brazil and the 39% tariff for all imports from Switzerland. Having said this, why is the amount very similar? Because we put all of those mitigating measures into place already. The finishing lines for Neodent plus the acceleration of transferring Straumann-branded products faster than expected to our campus in Andover close to Boston. Having said this, we expect a very similar mitigating result for next year when we'll receive this year.
Okay. The way to think about the $30 million is that's the gross impact, and the net impact in terms of what we have to think about in the P&L is going to be substantially lower.
Yeah, potentially.
Okay, that's very helpful. Thank you for that. My second question is for you, Guillaume, and I guess just your confidence in the China mid-term growth rate. I know you have a ton of uncertainty in the short term, but I'm just curious, once we're through VBP, how are you thinking about that sort of growth rate in China on an underlying volume basis? I think, obviously, we've gone this year from volumes growing double digits to single digits to not growing at all. Are you confident that is just the implementation of VBP? Is this a market that's maturing? I would love to get your thoughts on how you think about China volume growth on a three to five-year basis and what underpins that confidence. Thank you, guys.
The confidence in China is just based on the fact that on the one hand, you have a very underpenetrated market that will continue to grow. I think this is the most important foundation of the growth expectation that we have. The second side is that we believe that we have one of the companies best placed to be able to benefit from that increased market penetration because we are having a strong offer on the premium side that will continue to be, I think, interested in being the only one being localized once again. There are no other premium competitors that will have local manufacturing which received license and equivalents, meaning that if there is a condition in the VBP to support local manufacturing companies, I think we will benefit from this.
The second aspect is that we have set now an additional portfolio for the value segments where we have significantly underpenetrated and where we should be able to also meet some significant demand growth. I would say that's those two aspects. On the one side, I think the market has the significant capability to grow. Secondly, we are well placed to be able to take a fair share of this growth, which is making us confident about that development. It will obviously again depend on the external factor, which are the VBP on the one side, which are the macroeconomic factor on the other side.
If we would like to look more on the mid-term, and we are going to talk now in a three-year timeframe because this is the kind of a VBP period, which is going to happen every third year, we believe that for the 2026-2028 period, we are expecting something which is low double-digit growth, something around 10 to 12%. That's a little bit the perspective on how we are looking at it.
Got it. Thank you so much.
Last question comes from Thyra Lee from UBS. Please go ahead.
Hi, good morning both, and thank you for taking my question. Just turning in for Graham this morning. We have a super quick one. On North America, just given the green shoots that you guys have seen in Q3, would you expect the U.S. to be sequentially better in Q4? Thank you very much.
I think it's very difficult to be very clear or precise on this question. We expect a good growth rate in North America in Q4, first because we see really good development. Second, because we believe that the market conditions are helping a little bit, also macro, at least from a consumer confidence standpoint. Third, we have also comparison base, which are helpful here. I would say we expect North America to be a significant growth provider in the fourth quarter. Is it going to be better than Q3? At least we expect the trend to continue, to be at least equal or better is what we're expecting.
Great. That's very clear. Thank you.
Thank you for joining us today and for your continued interest in Straumann Group. We look forward to seeing you again soon and wish you a pleasant rest of the day. Have a nice day. Goodbye from Basel.
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