Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the SoftwareONE Q1 2026 Trading Update conference call and live webcast. I am Valentina, the call's 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 and A session. You can register for questions at any time by pressing star and one on your telephone. For operator assistance, please press star and zero. The conference must not be recorded for publication or broadcast. At this time, it's my pleasure to hand over to Kjell Arne Hansen, Head of Investor Relations at SoftwareONE. Please go ahead.
Good morning, and thank you for joining SoftwareONE's Q1 2026 presentation. My name is Kjell Arne Hansen, Head of Investor Relations. Joining me today are our Co-CEOs, Raphael Erb and Melissa Mulholland , and our CFO, Hanspeter Schraner . In terms of agenda, Melissa and Raphael will start with the Q1 business performance. Hanspeter will then take us through the detailed financial performance, and finally, Melissa will give her closing remarks. Before handing over, please let me draw your attention to the disclaimer regarding forward-looking statements and non-IFRS measures on slides two and three. With that, I will hand it over to Melissa.
Thank you, Kjell Arne, welcome to our Q1 2026 presentation. Our headline numbers tell a compelling story. On a like-for-like basis, revenue for the quarter was CHF 387.7 million on a constant currency basis, representing growth of 12.9%. This was a strong result, importantly, it was broad-based, with every region and every business line contributing to growth. Adjusted EBITDA grew 32.8% to CHF 79.4 million, with margin increasing by 3.4 percentage points to 20.5%. Even stronger is the growth in our reported EBITDA, which increased to CHF 71 million, up from CHF 61.9 million in the comparable period. These results reflect our consistent execution of a clear strategy, building one stronger, more capable, and more efficient company.
Turning to our business lines, we delivered growth across all three areas, driven by strong customer demand. Software & Cloud Direct grew 5.8% to CHF 153.8 million. We are seeing clear acceleration in our EA to CSP conversion as customers are increasingly moving to cloud-based licensing. Importantly, EA agreements are also positively impacting growth, demonstrating the depth and strength of our customer relationships. In addition, following Broadcom's partner program restructuring for VMware, we remain a pinnacle partner, the highest tier, and the only partner covering the whole of EMEA with this designation. Software & Cloud Channel grew by 37.3% to CHF 40.4 million. Growth was led by APAC, driven by India, while NorAM showed continued momentum. The Google Cloud partnership we announced in Q4 is gaining traction, further strengthening our hyperscaler mix alongside Microsoft and AWS.
The market dynamic in our channel business is becoming increasingly competitive as Microsoft tightens CSP partner authorizations, significantly increasing revenue thresholds and consolidating the partner ecosystem. While this creates near-term pricing and competitive pressure, our scale and capabilities position us well to benefit from when smaller partners exit or are deauthorized. In Software & Cloud Services, we grew 14.9% in the quarter. The primary driver was CSP-related services activities. As customers transition to CSP licensing models, it becomes easier to bundle services with the license and to expand managed services over time. Furthermore, cloud services, data and AI, and cybersecurity all showed strong momentum in the quarter, which tells us that the service portfolio is broadening and customers are increasingly turning to SoftwareONE for a wide set of their technology needs. That gives you a sense of our business line performance.
Raphael will now take you through the regional results in detail.
Thank you very much, Melissa, and a warm welcome to everyone. Turning to our regional performance, I'm very pleased to report that every region delivered growth in Q1 2026. This also reflects the accelerated EA to CSP conversion we are seeing across business lines. I'm especially delighted with the performance in North America, which delivered 10% growth. This reflects the deliberate actions taken over the past year to stabilize and refocus the business. There is still more to do, but the direction is encouraging. 8.4% growth in DACH was driven by the accelerated EA to CSP conversions, especially in Germany and Switzerland. Overall, public sector demand in DACH remains robust. Western Europe grew 11.1%, led by both direct and channel, while we also saw encouraging progress in services.
The Nordics delivered a standout performance with growth of 32.7%. This was driven primarily by the direct business, where multi-vendor also contributed positively, alongside a strong contribution from services. APAC grew 18.4%, with all three business lines contributing. Services were the primary growth engine, reflecting strong demand for cloud, data, AI, and cybersecurity. The direct business also performed well, supported by EA demand in Southeast Asia and Greater China. I'm pleased to confirm that the previously disclosed outstanding receivables from a public sector customer in the Philippines have now been fully collected, bringing this matter to a close. CEE delivered 18.2% growth, a strong result for a region where we continue to build scale and strengthen our platform. I'm also pleased to see LATAM returning to growth with 9.4%.
CSP growth was strong, supported by new customer wins, while services contributed through hybrid managed services. Now, let me share with you a concrete example of how we can deliver tailor-made AI solutions for our customers. The District Office of Waldshut faced a challenge that many public sector organizations recognize. High volumes of citizen inquiries, large amounts of information that was difficult to navigate, and services that tied strictly to office opening hours. As demand continued to grow while resources remained constrained, they needed a smarter, more scalable approach. SoftwareONE implemented a Google AI-powered multilingual chatbot integrated directly into their website. The solution provides 24/7 access to administrative information independent of office hours. It requires no manual maintenance and automatically draws on up-to-date website content. The impact was immediate. Citizens can now access the information they need at any time.
Recurring inquiries are handled automatically, significantly reducing phone and email volumes. The administration has freed up capacity to focus on more complex individual cases rather than routine inquiries. This is just one example, but it illustrates a broader pattern we are seeing across our customer base. AI is not a future opportunity for SoftwareONE. It is something we are delivering for customers today with real measurable impact. With that, I will now hand over to Hanspeter to walk you through the financial update.
Thank you, Raphael, and welcome to everyone. Let me walk you through our financial performance for Q1 2026. For reference, this slide presents IFRS figures. Please note that Crayon was consolidated for the first time in June 2025, and as a result, the Q1 2025 figures reflect SoftwareONE on a standalone basis. As Melissa and Raphael mentioned, we delivered strong on top-line growth. On a reported basis, revenue was CHF 387.7 million, up 67.4% year-over-year, reflecting both Crayon acquisition and organic growth. Our reported EBITDA margin improved significantly, up 6.8 percentage point to 18.3%, driven by revenue growth and operating leverage. Q1 2026 was impacted by a high volume of three year CSP agreements and early renewals ahead of Microsoft's upcoming price increases. Nevertheless, our Q1 2026 underlying growth was very solid.
Turning to the Adjusted EBITDA bridge. We continue to narrow the gap between the reported and Adjusted EBITDA in order to improve the quality of earnings. In Q1 2026, adjustments totaled CHF 8.4 million, primarily relating to Crayon integration expenses. You will notice that while the reported EBITDA margin improved substantially, the increase in Adjusted EBITDA margin was more modest. This is purely a mathematical effect, as EBITDA adjustments in Q1 2026 are CHF 10.9 million lower than in previous year. This slide shows our cost-based development, including third-party delivery cost on a like-for-like basis, quarter-over-quarter. Starting from our Q1 2025 Adjusted OpEx base of CHF 301 million, there are a few moving parts to walk through. We delivered CHF 14 million in cost reductions from our synergy program.
Offsetting this, personal expenses inflation added CHF 11 million, while variable compensation increased by CHF 9 million, reflecting the stronger performance in the quarter versus previous year. Third-party delivery cost added CHF 3 million, driven by growth in our services businesses. We also had CHF 10 million one-offs in the quarter. These primarily related to management consulting strategy support, legal fees, audit fees related to Crayon acquisition, software costs related to the combination of SoftwareONE and Crayon, as well as Pathé. CHF 6 million relates to strategic investments, mainly in IT infrastructure and selective hiring to support our transformation and growth. Finally, FX provided a tailwind of CHF 17 million. Total Adjusted OpEx amounts to CHF 308 million, remaining broadly flat despite inflationary pressures. Given that OpEx adjustments in Q1 2026 are CHF 10.9 million lower than in Q1 2025, unadjusted costs are CHF 5.3 million below the previous year.
Turning to slide 14, which shows our detailed business line P&L on a like-for-like basis. As of this quarter, we reintroduced contribution margin per business line consistent with previous reporting. Starting with direct. Revenue grew 5.8%, ending at CHF 153.8 million. Adjusted EBITDA margin was 44.8%. Revenue in Software & Cloud Channel increased 37.3% in Q1 2026 year-over-year at constant currency, with Adjusted EBITDA growing CHF 8.3 million- CHF 24.3 million, reflecting a margin of 60.1%, an increase of 9.5 percentage points compared to previous year. Software & Cloud Services delivered a strong growth of 14.9% year-over-year at constant currency.
Contribution margin was CHF 80.1 million, reflecting a margin of 41.4% compared to 38.5% in Q1 2025. The Adjusted EBITDA margin increased from 1.5%-5.1%, driven by increase in revenue and operating leverage. With that financial overview, let me hand back to Melissa, who will provide further insights into the 2026 outlook, followed by her closing remarks.
Thank you, Hanspeter. Based on our strong Q1 performance, we raised our 2026 revenue growth outlook from mid-single-digit to mid-to-high single-digit, while margin guidance above 23% remains. Our Q1 growth and 2026 expectations reflect the structural shift from traditional licensing models towards cloud-based subscription and consumption-driven solutions, combined with broader multi-vendor expansion. Growth in services is expected to be driven by customers' increasing need to optimize complex cloud environments, managing software estates more efficiently, and unlock value from data and AI. We remain on track to achieve the CHF 100 million in run rate cost synergies by early May. We have achieved more than CHF 80 million of run rate cost synergies to date. Let me close with three key takeaways from Q1 2026. First, our strategy is delivering. Growth was broad-based, every region, every business line contributing.
This reflects the strength of the combined company we are building. Second, margins are expanding. Growth and operating leverage are driving this expansion while we remain committed to continuous cost control. Third, the integration itself is on track to reach CHF 100 million by year-end. We are executing with discipline, capturing synergies ahead of our plan, and building the foundation of sustained performance. Altogether, Q1 demonstrates progress on our strategy and gives us confidence in the long-term value we are creating. We look forward to sharing more details on our combined strategy, midterm financial targets, and ambitions at our Capital Markets Day in June. Thank you. We'll now transition into questions.
Thank you. We will now begin the question- and- answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star one on their telephone. You will hear a tone to confirm that you've entered the queue. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star two. Questioners on the phone are requested to disable the loudspeaker mode and eventually turn off the volume from the webcast while asking a question. Anyone who has a question may press star one at this time. The first question comes from Nooshin Nejati from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.
Hi, good morning. Congrats on the strong results. Maybe two questions on the services and direct, if I may. Services growth accelerated to 15% and significantly outperformed expectations. How much of this is a structural demand versus linked to CSP-related activity and project timing? How should we think about the momentum for the rest of the year? Services margins improved to 5% this quarter also. Do you see a path for services margin to structurally move higher as the businesses scale? On direct margins decline this quarter despite revenue growth with SG&A cited as the driver. To what extent is this deliberate investment, and how should we think about margins from here? Thank you.
Thank you, Nooshin, for the question. What we're seeing on the services portfolio is structured strong client demand. A significant portion of that is driven, of course, by the strength of our Microsoft business on CSP, but also importantly on the increased growth that we're seeing with data and AI. This reconfirms the fact that we've been doing this for a number of years and are really now seeing this come through with momentum across the business overall. We continue to drive revenue synergies on the combined company, which I think also implies the improved margin overall. We are committed to improving services profitability as a company. Structurally we'd expect this to continuously improve throughout the year. On the direct side, yes, you're correct to point out the, let's say, the margin difference there.
This is a, I'd say, an aspect around SG&A relative to the accounting when we merged Crayon and SoftwareONE together, and I can hand it over to Hanspeter for any further comments on that.
Yes, Melissa, thank you. The SG&A is broadly flat and, as Melissa said, it's an effect of the consolidation of Crayon, and it's also influenced by less EBITDA adjustments, which have an impact here in the direct business.
Understood. How should we think about the margins in both divisions going forward for the rest of the year?
What we see is we see overall positive demand across our business portfolio, and we're really pleased to see growth across all business lines but also of course, across all regions. We would expect that to continue and progress also, hence the adjustment to our guiding.
Understood. Thank you.
The next question comes from Inès Mao from Bank of America. Please go ahead.
Thank you. This is Inès from BNP Paribas. I have two questions. First, can you give us an update on the initial targets? Specifically, does your new full year guidance include any revenue synergies going forward? The second question comes back to services.
Sorry, I think you need to repeat the question. Yeah.
Sorry, you're cutting out unfortunately. Can you repeat from the beginning?
With the strong performance
I'm sorry, your connection is bad. Maybe try again or we can see if your connection improves.
Hello, can you hear me?
Now it's better.
Can you hear me better?
Yes. Unfortunately, we lost you. Maybe we'll try to do a follow-up.
Yeah.
There you are.
Sorry. Yeah, sorry. Let me just repeat my two questions. My first question is about the revenue synergies. Can you give us an update on where they stand today versus your initial targets? Does your new full year guidance include any revenue synergies going forward? My second question comes back to the strong performance in services. Was it mostly related to strong demand for a more complex environment to navigate it, which means not driven by one vendor particularly? Was it primarily wrapped around Microsoft renewals or more demand for Microsoft products? Thank you. I hope it was clear.
Thank you. I appreciate your patience for us on that. In terms of revenue synergies, we don't actually report the full year number or let's say any number around revenue synergies. What we've stated overall is that we expect them to outperform or out succeed the cost synergies. We continue to see improvement, I would say, overall, and that's reflected across our business lines because it's very difficult to quantify the effect of that. Certainly what I can say is the organization is working really well together, as indicated based on the results, which we're very pleased by. Of course, this would naturally be, let's say, pulled into the full year guidance. I think around the services side, we see strong demand across the board.
This is not just with respect to Microsoft, but as mentioned, we're seeing continued delivery around Google as implied through the customer case example, but also AWS. This is extremely important for us as our customers are operating in multi-cloud environments, and we have the capabilities to deliver against that.
Okay. Thank you.
The next question comes from Christian Bader from Zürcher Kantonalbank. Please go ahead.
Yes, good morning. I have a couple of questions. The first one related to your strong performance in Software & Cloud Services. This like-for-like growth of 14.9%, is it possible to break this down into, let's say, a volume effect and a price effect?
We don't necessarily look at it from that perspective between volume and price. I would say that overall it's just improved efficiency as we've brought our organization together, really delivering a stronger capability across our services lines and capturing demand.
All right.
Maybe to add on, we see growth on services in every region, right? Every region is growing on our services line, which of course further helps to contribute to the overall growth.
I remember the last call you mentioned that there's strong demand that you see for, let's say, higher value-added services. I was kind of assuming there's also some sort of price effect maybe included in this strong revenue performance.
I would say that an important part to mention is that the increased services is also related to how we bundle services with CSP. Naturally, we're seeing a strong delivery on the CSP portfolio, and we execute accordingly. That would also play into effect. I think that's another important element to state.
Okay. All right, good. In terms of your, let's say, outlook for the rest of the year, in terms of top line, which you have slightly upgraded. I was just wondering, this different momentum that we saw now in the first quarter with the Direct business being up in mid-single digit territory, Services is up 15% to high teens and Software & Cloud Channel 37% up, by far the highest. Shall we expect a similar momentum for the rest of the year?
I'd say certainly we see the strong demand continuing throughout the rest of the year. It's also important just to remind, in terms of the seasonality of our business, Q1 is our smallest quarter. With that, we wanna make sure that we deliver according to our expectations that we set to the market, but we do not necessarily see demand slowing down.
Okay. Do you expect the Software & Cloud Channel to be the fastest-growing segment, followed by Software & Cloud Services in the full year?
Yes. I think, looking into our forecast, I think Software and Cloud Channel, our channel business.
Yes
We are positive that we see good growth, probably based on the forecast. This is the fastest-growing business line throughout the year.
Mm-hmm. Okay.
yeah. We have indications for this. Yes.
All right. I have two other questions. What will be the full year integration expenses for prior 2026?
Apologies, there was a sound background. You asked what the full year integration expenses would be? Is that correct?
Yeah, that was the question. Yes.
Yeah. What you said is the total integration cost is in line with the synergies.
Okay
Maybe this is a aggressive assumption. We said last quarter, it will be a little bit below. We had integration costs of CHF 25 million in 2025. In the first quarter, we had CHF 7.4, and I would use the CHF 7.4 as a run rate for 2026.
For each quarter, you mean?
Yes.
Okay, I see. All right. My last question is-
Of course, of course it depends on the, on the acceleration and on the steps we do, but. I think as a guidance, I would take it as a run rate.
Okay. CHF 7.1 million quarterly run rate. Good. I assume that there will be no integration expenses in 2027.
Yes.
Okay. All right. My last question is, which corporate tax rate shall we model for this year, please?
That's a good question. Actually, I would model 30%.
All right. Okay, good. That's it for me. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
The next question comes from Christopher Tong from UBS. Please go ahead.
Good morning, everyone. Thank you for taking my question. Just maybe two questions from me. You called out early customer renewals ahead of Microsoft price increases. I was just wondering if you can sort of quantify the impact in Q1. My second question is, at the full year results, you said that profitability would sort of accelerate towards the back half of the year. I was just wondering if that's still the case. Thank you very much.
It's a good question. In terms of the Q1 performance, if we exclude the price impact and pull forward from those specific deals, the growth implied would be approximately 8.5%, still delivering a very solid performance for the quarter. In terms of your comment regarding the full year expectations, that was alluded to the fact that if you look at the seasonality of our business, Q4 being the largest quarter, Q2 being the second-largest quarter, tends to be much more towards the back half in terms of volume of that cycle. Certainly we continue to see a solid demand overall, also with Microsoft just launching Microsoft 365 E7 as a SKU. We see continued business momentum going throughout the year.
Got it. Thank you very much.
The next question comes from Marc Bürgi from Finanz und Wirtschaft. Please go ahead.
Thanks for taking my question. The first question is, was already asked in part by my speaker before. This effect of those renewals, of those price increases. You mentioned something, I didn't understand it correctly acoustically. Maybe you could repeat your answer.
I mean, I would like to understand how much, if you said the momentum will continue, is it not the case that maybe some orders were replaced early in light of coming price increases?
No.
How that. Yes. That's the first question. The second question is, you mentioned those new thresholds that Microsoft imposes on its vendors. I'm interested in how this changes the market. I mean, I assume that you profit from that because you're the biggest partner of Microsoft. Just maybe could you maybe shed some more light on this changing dynamic of the market due to those thresholds that Microsoft imposes on vendors?
Thank you for asking the clarifying question. Regarding the overall price increase, just to start there, what I was referring to is that that price increase really starts in July. With the point of it being that clients, especially in Q1, are taking advantage of that renewal cycle. The overall effect of it, if we exclude that, would be our growth on a standalone would be 8.5% approximately. It's still very good performance, excluding the, let's say, the pull-forward demand that we saw on these agreements. I hope that clarifies.
8.5 compares to what?
To the-
5.9.
To the top point. Yeah.
All right. Okay, thanks.
Hopefully that clarifies. In terms of the thresholds, what I was referring to is that Microsoft is consolidating down the number of CSP providers in the market that are authorized due to volume. To your point, this would imply, let's say, a opportunity for SoftwareOne to capture that as there's more of a consolidation in the market overall.
Okay. You, you're profiting from that?
Yes. Of course, there could always be some competitive aspect in the market, as others are also, certainly taking advantage of this as well.
Right. Thank you.
The next question comes from Andreas Wolf from Berenberg. Please go ahead.
Hi, good morning. Thank you for taking my questions. Congratulations on the strong start to the year. I'm also interested in the pre-buying activity of clients. Should we expect similar momentum in Q2, or might there even be an acceleration given the fact that the price increases will kick in from the middle of the year? Could you also comment on the growth rates within the enterprise agreement contract from Sandvik? My understanding is that enterprise agreements are still expanding. The last question related to the working capital. Apparently there is a massive valuation lever hidden in the receivables. At Crayon the business operated at negative working capital. Do you believe this is also achievable at SoftwareONE, and if so, over what timeframe? Thank you.
Thank you very much, Andreas, for the questions. First of all, related to Q2 and the price increase on Microsoft, I think as we have highlighted, we saw a very good performance in Q1, right? Melissa mentioned before the impact or let's say the normalized growth of 8.5% without this impact. We saw many, you could call it early renewables already in Q1. We maybe don't think that in Q2 it will be that many or that aggressive early renewables like in Q1. Overall, we see the momentum continuing. The demand is there, Q1 was clearly a lot of early renewals already happening.
If we go into the second questions related to the growth on Enterprise Agreement, I think as we always mentioned, Enterprise Agreements are going to continue, especially in our Public Sector segment. We have a very good, robust business in Public Sector. We see continuous good growth in Public Sector, and that's also helping, of course, the overall growth around Enterprise Agreements. On the working capital question, I hand over to you, Hanspeter.
Thank you, Ralphael. The net working capital. I mean, it's a high focus area for us, and we are actively working on specific areas. The topics are time to invoice, credit and reveal and payment terms. We made significant progress in overdue. Overall, you can assume that we will improve our net working capital situation through 2026.
Great. Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, that was the last question. I would now like to turn the conference back over to Kjell Arne Hansen for any closing remarks. Oh, sorry. We have a last-minute question from Christian Bader, Zürcher Kantonalbank. Please go ahead.
Yes, I have a follow-up question. These integration expenses for Crayon, can we assume that those are all included in the corporate costs?
I mean, what do you mean included in the corporate cost?
In terms of segment reporting, segment results, I was just wondering, the integration expenses that you have shown, the CHF 7.1 million, are those allocated on the segment or are they 100% included in the corporate costs item?
We show the Adjusted EBITDA in the segments and, so they're not included in the segments. They're not allocated to segments.
They are in corporate costs completely?
Yes.
Okay. All right. Okay, good. Thanks.
Thank you.
There are no more questions from the phone now.
Thank you everyone for participating in the call. As always, please feel free to reach out to the IR team for any other follow-up questions.
Ladies and gentlemen, the conference is now over. Thank you for choosing Chorus Call, and thank you for participating in the conference. You may now disconnect your lines. Goodbye.