Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and a warm welcome to today's earnings call of the Bajaj Mobility AG, following the publication of the Q3 financial figures of 2026. I am delighted to welcome CEO Gottfried Neumeister and CFO Petra Preining, who will guide us through the presentation shortly, followed by a Q&A session via audio line and chat. With that, we are starting with a short introductory video, after which Gottfried Neumeister starts the presentation, who is joining us live today from EICMA, the world's largest motorcycle show in Milan.
Good evening, everybody in Asia, good afternoon in Europe, and good morning in the U.S. This is Gottfried Neumeister. I am really happy to welcome you to our earnings call of our third quarter, which has been a very strong quarter for us. You have just seen the video of our recent opening in Manaus, in Brazil, which is the first wholly owned assembly plant outside of Austria. For me, it is far more than a plant. It shows that we are not looking backwards anymore, but we are looking ahead. We are actively creating and shaping our future, and therefore, I said, super important to also show you the development, what we have achieved over the last couple of months, and building up, I said, our first assembly, which is wholly owned.
Talking about the key success factors, Petra will lead you through the numbers in detail later, but above all, after the first nine months, we were able to reach a group revenue of more than EUR 1 billion, which is more than in the entire year of 2025. A big success on the top line, but for me, far more important than the top line is our EBIT improvement. After showing a positive EBITDA in Q1, we showed a positive EBIT in Q2, and now in Q3, to be able to improve that positive EBIT by EUR 10 million from one quarter to the other is really a tremendous success for us. It shows that we have done our homework. We have cut our overheads.
We let go everything which did not belong to the core of our business, like the bicycle, the car business, and now we are much leaner and much more efficient than ever before. We managed to bring down our inventory levels back to levels where they are supposed to be, and we have also managed to improve the cash flow from operating activities by more than 120%. A very good development which we had in Q3, and we have continued successes in motorsport, which I will touch upon in a second. If we look to the next slide, it in principle, summarizes what we are trying to achieve after our restructuring, and I really want to express it. For me, the restructuring is behind us. We are growing again. We are really actively shaping the future, also the future of the industry.
We have presented today a complete new off-road generation, which is not a facelift, but really a new motorcycle rethought from ground up, and we will see it later. We presented a world's first today. It is really shifting from the restructuring stages to delivering on one side growth and better profitability, which you have seen with the numbers. We continue to simplify all our structures and work on an even leaner overhead structure. As I said, the inventory levels we are now keeping since a couple of months and quarters at a very healthy level, and now it is about to build again and scale again. As said, the reference with the Brazil factory shows you that we are not only repairing, but building again. Here, on the next one, you see just the development of our headcount.
We are coming from almost 6,200 employees, and we have now cut, as I said, our overheads to 3,631 employees in total. What is important to point out, if you see and look between 2025 and end of September 2026, we built up from 32- 447 temporary workers as of September. This is also very positive news. We are working in a second shift, but we have to be cautious. In the first step, we took temporary workers on board to maintain that second shift. This is the increase you see. If you take those 447 out, then you see how really slim we have shrunk the company so far. Petra Preining will tell you how this translates into our overheads and how big the improvement is from one quarter to the other. 47,391 motorcycles is really a success.
I know the growth rates were always, there were always people picky. Yes, we are coming from a very low base. If you look to, especially our European competitors, we, in the third quarter, outperformed everyone. I am telling you, everyone. No one has sold more motorcycles in the third quarter than we did. Also in relation to our competition, it was a tremendous success to sell those 47,391 motorcycles, which brought us very close to Q2, which is normally the strongest quarter of the year. So Q3 being very close, and we have a huge appetite to continue with this also in Q4. You see the breakdown. Europe up 44%, North America up 30%, and rest of the world up 86%. This is really a very positive development in all regions.
We transparently also wanted to show you the inventory levels that we are now keeping them really some quarters at a very, I would say, healthy levels. Overall, it is a reduction of 51% compared to pre-crisis levels. So coming down from close to 290,000 total stock now to 140,507, where the gray area is the stock which we keep in our warehouses. Most of them, I would say more than half, is only on ships to America, ships to Australia. So we have really almost no inventory in our own warehouses, and the remainder is the inventory which is with our dealers and importers. I mentioned the new product innovation. We, as I told you, presented the start, and it is only the start of a complete new off-road generation with our motocross factory editions.
What you see here on the left is the KTM, the 250, and on the right, the Husqvarna 450. The 250, for both brands, is the strongest 250 engine in the world. Apart of having the record for the strongest one-cylinder engine on the 690, we are now holding the record for having really the strongest 250 engine in the world with more than 50 horses. It is industry first. We have an oval intake. We have a fuel injection, which for the first time in the history of the company is coming from the top. We have an all-new closed cartridge suspension system. Everything from the chassis to the body platform, everything is new. I am really proud that we have managed to push this innovation throughout the last two years, which have been very challenging and one of the most difficult years of the company's history.
But it clearly shows that we are able to push innovation. Talking about innovation, we presented today the world's first electronic off-road suspension, which is really another industry and world's first. We have a short video which shows you how this innovation works. I hope you could see it without interruptions. It is really a breakthrough because you can imagine all the different needs if you ride off-road, different terrains from muddy, to desert, to stones and rocks, and to be able to combine with one button all really demanding necessities from rally to enduro to motocross, will be a game-changer in the industry. Again, very positive news. It was an incredible press conference with super feedback already at our booth.
I told you, and this is what we are really proud to being able to present today, even as the year is not over yet, we have concluded 23 championship titles to date. At the beginning of the year, it was the Dakar win, and I really wanted to mention this. The first title, Dakar title, we won in 2001, which is 25 years ago. There was no Dakar in 2008, so only 24 races over the last 25 years. Out of 24 Dakar races, we won 22. 22. This is really an incredible performance which proves that it is not luck, it is not a coincidence. It is really the reflection of our hard work and the best motorcycles in the world. As you can see, all the titles are really a confirmation of what we are delivering.
I said it before, it is not some romantic feelings from the past that we were good. We are really better than ever before, also in MotoGP. Recently, over the last four races, we managed to increase the performance of all our bikes, not only one rider, which is outstanding, Pedro Acosta, of course, winning the Austrian MotoGP, winning this weekend in Malaysia, the MotoGP Sprint, and finishing second on Sunday. But we had all three bikes in the top 10. This is something which really clearly shows how our technology is performing. These are just images of our incredible win. Now, just touching upon Brazil once again. As I had said, it is a very important landmark for us because we are looking ahead. We invested EUR 3 million. It is our first fully owned CKD assembly outside of Austria.
We are currently having 80 employees, and we have a capacity of 10,000 units annually. You saw in the video how the plant looks like. I would like now to hand over to Petra to lead you through the financials, and then both of us will be available for your questions.
Thanks a lot, Gottfried, and also warm welcome from my side. Indeed, it was a very good Q3 of 2026, and we are happy and proud to introduce our numbers to you. Similarly to what you have already heard from Gottfried, but now more on the financial side, our group revenue rose in Q3 only by 57% to EUR 351 million. In year-to-date numbers, that would be 62.2%. The revenue of KTM, Husqvarna, and GASGAS motorcycles, so to compare like for like, increased by 84% versus Q3 2025, a very, very strong increase in sign. Additionally, the profitability continued to grow. We have an EBITDA margin amounting now to 11.6% in Q3, 7.4% year-to-date in 2026, also translates all our efforts we have already done and executed in profitability. EBIT, sorry, I have an echo now. The EBIT increased to EUR 11.3 million.
We have now 3.2% margin, still single digit, low single digit, but compared to Q2 or Q1 or even the year before, very, very strongly compared to the previous period. Our operating cash flow improved as well. We do, of course, note that our free cash flow is still negative, but compared to the previous period of 2025, also strongly improved. Overheads, one of the big topics we also focused on, roughly or a little shy of EUR 100 million reduction compared to the year-to-date Q3 2025 number. Not only that we have increased the top line, brought down our fixed cost and overheads. We have also, if you have seen, increased our gross margins from starting the year a little above 19%- 25% now in Q3.
Over the page, we have it here graphically presented to you on the left-hand side, the Q3 2025 compared to Q3 2026, and on the right-hand side, the same for the year to date. You can see, similarly to what we have also done the previous quarters, we have excluded the restructuring gain in order to allow us to compare apples- to- apples. I have to say, if you look at the year-to-date numbers in 2025, of course, we still had the bicycle business or the bicycle sell-off included, amounting to EUR 64 million. So, the EUR 649 actually are higher by EUR 64 million of bicycle business, which we do not have this year. So, you can see the increase not only in top line, whether you look at the quarter or the year-to-date number, but more importantly, you can see the huge increase in EBITDA.
Again, excluding the restructuring gain, quarter Q3 2025 versus quarter three 2026 from - 17.2%- 11.6%, or if you like to look at the year-to-date number, - 34.3% versus 7.4%. Over the page, we have also put a slide for you to not only look into the year 2025, but also compare the quarters. So we have Q1, Q2, and Q3 next to each other. Again, always for reference also with 2025 numbers. What you can see, EUR 331 million Q1, EUR 370 million Q2, EUR 351 million Q3. This is nothing to worry about. Q2 is usually our strongest quarter, as our main destinations or main regions is the U.S. and Europe. The moment the weather gets better, people go out and purchase vehicles. So there is not only retail, but also wholesale boost. So this is a normal pattern that we see here.
Even though that the sale, the top line reduced by roughly EUR 20 million compared to Q2 2026, our EBITDA margin increased to 11.6%. So this is a translation of all the restructuring efforts that we have put in place, and we have already announced. You might recall that the 500 headcounts, white-collar headcounts that we had to let go early this year, of course, had been on garden leave for the vast time of the first half. So we see here now also the effects of having them released early this year. If we turn the page, please, same content, but now in a more table form. I would like, similarly to the last quarter, address the box on the bottom of the sheet, where we again have taken the liberty to adjust the numbers by the restructuring gain.
If you look at EBIT adjusted in year-to-date Q3, you can see the increase of -EUR 327 million to - EUR 14 million. Yes, we do know that it's still minus EUR 14 million, but EUR 313 million year-over-year increase in EBIT for nine months. We think it's a very, very strong sign, even though we reckon that we are still negative. Similarly, the numbers, of course, translate to the same result, whether you look at EBITDA or EBIT on Q3 or year to date. Generally, all what we have already stated early this year has now been translated into numbers. Turning the page. One key focus topic that we spent a lot of, or we addressed a lot of our management attention to, is the overhead development.
On the left-hand side, you see the full years 2019- 2025. You can already see from 2024- 2025, -EUR 151 million in overheads.
If you then look at the right-hand side, in the first nine months of this year compared to the reduced 2025 year, we have again decreased the overhead expense by a little shy of EUR 100 million, to be precise, EUR 97 million, in order to resize the company very sustainably for the future. Next page. One topic where we have spent and will spend, and there are more slides to this topic, focus on is the cash flow. A lot of our investors keep, of course, asking on the development on the free cash flow. Me, myself, it's one of the biggest topics we look at. -EUR 26 million compared to last year. The increase definitely come from the operating activities, EUR 29 million positive compared to -EUR 121 million negative in the previous period of 2025.
2025 still had in the investing activity a positive effect of EUR 70 million from asset held for sale. Nevertheless, we clearly focus on the -EUR 26 million year-to-date Q3 2026, and this is the biggest focus topic of the management currently to turn that into a positive number. One graph we always bring to your attention, and we do that deliberately, even though this quarter, there is a counter effect which can be explained. I have told you that my personal focus is to bring that net working capital to last 12 months revenue down to low 20%, not immediately, but over time. Now we see an increase. You can rightfully ask, why is there an increase? We see a strong build-up in inventories due to raw materials we need to be able to execute our off-road production.
You might recall from the slides of Gottfried Neumeister on the headcounts that there is a strong increase on external workers for the shop floor. This goes hand in hand with the increase of raw material. We definitely will focus on that part very, very strongly in Q4 to bring that again down to a respectable number. Our maturity and financial profile, EUR 160 million, a solid number, again being slightly jeopardized by the inventory that we had built up for the production, but a very solid number for Q4. We still have our unused credit line, the working capital line almost at EUR 50 million with a slight usage for bank guarantees, but in general, EUR 50 million unused credit lines, EUR 110 million cash gives us a strong pillar for the months and quarters to come. Last slide from my side, a slide you might recall from the past.
We kept it also in Q3 unchanged because all the buckets are still valid and in place and in execution or executed. The point which we added in Q2 and became even more solid is point seven, the improved profitability and growing EBITDA margin. I've told you we are slightly shy of EUR 80 million EBITDA already in Q3 2026. With this, I've come to an end of my presentation, and as Gottfried has already mentioned, we are happy and ready to take your questions.
Thank you very much, Gottfried and Petra. Ladies and gentlemen, now it's your turn, and we are opening the Q&A session. For a dynamic conversation, we kindly ask you to ask questions in person via the audio line. To do so, please click on the raise hand button. If you are dialing in via phone, please press the key combination star nine to raise your hand and star six to unmute yourself. Otherwise, you're also welcome to place your questions in our chat as already happened. I will begin the Q&A with the questions in the chat, with the first question regarding cash conversion. EBIT was EUR 11.3 million in Q3, but D&A runs at about EUR 29 million a quarter, and interest is still significant. What were free cash flow and net debt at the September 30th?
With the inventory reduction now finished, when do you expect to be free cash flow positive for a full year?
Thank you very much. A very good question, a question which I have already said we put a lot of attention to. Answering your first question, net debt at 30th of September was EUR 841 million, free cash flow -EUR 26 million. Christoph, maybe we can go back to the slide, to display the slide. There is a strong interest of the management and in particular of the CFO to reach a positive free cash flow as soon as possible. We are not guiding yet, but the focus is clearly on that number. Thank you very much. You can see here, -EUR 26 million by end of Q3 2026. Still not good enough. We are also well aware of our maturity profile and about the EUR 48 million that we had to repay.
With the cash pool in place, with all the products we have now again been able to implement, we have a strong cash position to be able to pay back all our debts. Clearly, the -EUR 26 million has to turn into positive soon.
Thank you very much. We are coming to an audio question from Ankur Jain. You should be able to speak now, Ankur. Please unmute yourself and accept the allowance to speak. Also, click on the microphone in the left corner. Yes.
Yeah. Hi. Good evening. Am I audible?
Yes. Hello.
Yeah. Hi. So I have two questions. One is regarding the distribution structure. Could you please share your thoughts on how you plan to sharpen the distribution setup with respect to the reach in terms of number of distributors, or maybe letting go of some of the really small distributors? Also, how do you plan to focus on this distribution? Is it like single brand exclusive outlets only for KTM, Husqvarna, and GASGAS? Or distributors will be having multiple brands as well of other competitors? This is my first question. [inaudible]
I will ask the second question later on.
Yes. Thank you very much for your first question. The distributor setup which we have, and this is, I guess, one of our strengths, that in totality we have 4,000 dealers all over the world. Different to Bajaj, we have also our own subsidiaries. So in countries where usually our sales exceed more than 2,000 units, we are very successful if we translate really all the racing experience directly to our customers, and we really simply save on the importer margin. But it clearly takes some critical volume for that to justify. So that is just as a reminder, we do have some own subsidiaries, first and foremost U.S., which was one of the biggest, and still is the biggest single market which we have. But we are also in Australia, we are also in Japan, and in South Africa.
Going forward, I think the best strategy for us, and this is what we've chosen, is that we want to combine forces also together with Bajaj. Especially when it comes to really selling in the LATAM market, and conquering the LATAM market, we want to join forces and really use distributors which both companies can embark on, number one. Number two, to your question, there is no general answer. Of course, I would wish that we have exclusive outlets, but depending on the regions of the world, in some regions we have exclusive outlets where you get either all three brands or only one or two out of them. But especially in the U.S., it's very common to have more brands under one roof. But we are not shy of competition.
We see that sometimes it's even fruitful that people are coming in for a different brand and then be convinced also towards others. We see a setup of all three cans at the moment.
Right. Yeah. Thanks a lot. The second question to Petra Preining is about the working capital, and you touched upon the topic that this quarter the working capital is above 30%, and all the efforts are there to bring it down to low 20s. The emphasis, as I recall from the previous interactions, the emphasis is on trade payables, right? How do you plan to do it, and what are the targets to bring it down to low 20s? I mean, timeline targets. Will it be like two years or more than that? Or will it be shorter than that?
If you ask me, of course, it's shorter than this. But we have to acknowledge and accept that a lot of our suppliers have lost a lot of money during insolvency. Now we have regained the trust from most of the suppliers, but not from all of them. As we show a very strong improvement in Q1 and a very strong improvement in Q2, and now also very strong improvement in Q3, there are some suppliers who say, "I want to see a full year. I want to see one and a half year steady improvement till I change my payment terms." This has to be accepted even though we are fighting very hard to reach pre-insolvency payment terms again very soon. With a very large number of suppliers, we have managed to do so, but not with all. This is number one.
Number two, the Q4 is a very strong production quarter for KTM Mattighofen. Here, we had to and for some of the suppliers, we had to change from advance payments to payment terms. The payment terms are still very short. We talk 14 days, some we talk 60 days or 30 days. It's still improving, but we are on a lower number. The components that we needed to be able to start production in October already had to be bought already, and with a very short payment term, already paid in September. September was, if you like, an unfortunate cutoff period, but we definitely are working on it to get that better. When will we reach the 20% is a very precise question of yours. You do know that we are not guiding yet.
I would love to give you an answer, but please allow us to finalize our budget and then come back with the guidance for next year, and then we will see more in detail the payment term. The 20% working capital structure is a huge driver for our business sanity forward-looking, and we will be happy to answer all your questions once we have a guidance to share with the capital market. But yes, your point is fully understood, and we are working on it very, very diligently.
Yeah, well understood. Thanks a lot and all the best.
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much, Ankur. We are coming back to the questions in the chat box. Could you explain the brand strategy for Husqvarna versus KTM? How will you differentiate?
I guess that's a question for me. Very clearly, KTM will remain the coolest and edgiest brand of all three. By far the boldest and most performance-driven brand. Husqvarna, on the other hand, I mean, of course, if we talk about only off-road racing, we need to have the same performance with both bikes because whoever is jumping on a Husky, that's what it's called in the U.S., bike, also wants to win. So you will see the same oval throttle bodies in the 250 engine of Husqvarna. So performance-wise, we need to deliver something where people can really win, but the brand itself will be positioned far more relaxed with a touch of Californian riding culture. I think it has great potential, especially to be a little bit broader and wider than KTM.
Also on the street side, for example, a classic bike would not be the perfect fit for KTM, but could be a good fit also for Husqvarna. So a little bit more relaxed than KTM, which should remain the edgiest of all our brands.
Thank you. Regarding the margin bridge, EBITDA rose about EUR 8.5 million from Q2- Q3 on lower revenue. How much came from gross margin and how much from fixed cost cuts? What is your fixed cost run rate today? As more production moves to Bajaj in India, how will the savings be shared between Bajaj Mobility AG and Bajaj Auto?
Thanks for the question. To answer the first part, how much come from gross margin, gross margin in Q2 reached 22.8%. Gross margin in Q3 reached 25%. You can see 2.2 percentage points come out of the gross margin. The rest, obviously, out of fixed cost reduction. The second part of your question is actually, I think, a misunderstanding. There is not more production moving to Bajaj in India. Our street small bikes have been produced by our partner, Bajaj Auto, for the longest time. Everything below 390 cc comes and is a street bike, comes out of India. This is the same. There has been no changes to that. There will be, of course, more volume as we are growing in general, and you can also see that number-wise that we do also very nicely in street small. But there is no shift in production.
What we are working on, and this will also support our profitability forward-looking, it does already slightly, I've spoken about it in the previous quarters, that there is a strong work target to relocate some of the components to best price countries, and therefore also to India, but not only to also to China and other Asian countries where we get a better price without jeopardizing, of course, the quality. This is a work stream we're working on very closely. It takes some time to relocate, actually takes a lot of time to relocate components, up to 24 months, because you have to identify the supplier, you have check the plant, you have to receive the samples, and then only once the samples are tested and qualified, you can go into serial production. It takes some time, but we are on a good path.
But there is no movement of production from Mattighofen or China to India.
Thank you very much. One more question in the chat box before we're moving on to two more risen hands. "What is the path to reduce debt levels? By when can we reduce the debt to EUR 300 million levels from EUR 800 million today?
Yes. Thank you very much. We have the maturity profile in the slide deck. If things go well, you can see the debt, but of course, not the cash that would require guidance. Here you can see the maturity profile. Given all the focus we put on free cash flow, the focus on reducing our fixed cost and relocating components, at the same time increasing our top line, we feel very comfortable to being able to, of course, pay back our debt. The very dedicated question towards the EUR 300 million, I have to owe you that answer, similarly to the colleague before, we have not given a guidance to the market yet, and this, of course, will be one of the biggest indicator of our profitability. Please allow us some more time till we guide the market on future profitability.
Thank you for that question. Johan van den Hooven, the stage is yours.
Yeah, good afternoon. Johan van den Hooven, Edison Group. I have two questions. I will do them one by one. The first one is about the new Brazil plant. It is good to see the video. It adds 10,000 units in capacity. Can you please give us an update about the current total capacity levels within the group? If Brazil, the capacity in Brazil, is that replacing a bit of capacity from other plants?
Thank you very much for your question. Brazil is for sure only covering the Brazilian market. This is especially to get local contribution and to avoid tariffs which are potentially leave on top of products coming either from Europe or from India. The Manaus plant will serve the market, but it is a market with enormous potential for us, and therefore we decided to really own that facility and have it not with someone else in a third party. Overall, that is really a very good but also tricky question, because the good thing about the whole restructuring situation is that we will not need a lot of CapEx if we want to increase our production capacity. Austria had seen, before the crisis, 220,000 units which were produced out of Austria.
As Petra will immediately tell me, I need to be careful as well, but just to give you some feeling, we are now north of 100,000. We have announced that the 100,000 bike left our production facility, and there is really some substantial numbers coming now in the last quarter, because the last quarter is usually our off-road quarter, and all off-roaders, 100% of them are produced in Austria.
What we have managed to do so is instead of 17 production lines, we have now increased to 21, which means a productivity gain from 80 motorcycles per employee to 119. So, a huge productivity gain, which we can also see in the future. I would say Austria is used only half, and all other facilities we could extend literally endlessly, but half means also only working in two shifts in vehicle assembly. We would even have the opportunity to work in a third shift.
Capacity constraints are not an issue. There is no investment backlog. Of course, we think about how can we even be more efficient and effective in Austria. So, that is something which we are evaluating at the moment, because there is a clear commitment to Austria, and as competition is rising, we need to become more efficient. But just the example I gave to you shows how much time we are spending together with our colleagues from Bajaj, who are absolute experts in TPM and who are helpers to constantly really improve our processes. We have already showed significant improvements.
Okay, thank you. Second question is about inventory levels. You said that your levels are back to healthy levels, but what about competition? Is there still some overhang of inventory in the market which might put some pressure on the prices?
I think the pressure for prices are coming from Asian competitors, no matter how their inventory looks like.
Okay.
I am really not aware of that our direct competitors are suffering from inventory issues, why they have to now really then pull them down. I think we were hurting them. It was the other way around the last couple, or let's say in 2025, when we had to clear out our old stock. But as we could show you now, this is over. We are selling more motorcycles for better prices, which means less discounts than before. So, yeah.
All right, clear. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Johan, for your questions. We will move on to the last raised hand for now. Ladies and gentlemen, if you have any questions left, please feel free to place them in the chat box or raise your hand now. Miro Zuzak, the stage is yours. Please unmute yourself again in the left corner on the microphone. Yes.
Hello. Can you hear me?
Yes, hello.
Okay. Hello, everybody. Thanks for taking my question. Congratulations to the numbers, by the way. I have a question regarding the seasonality pattern. I looked at the number of bikes that you sold in the different categories, so off-road, street, mini, and so on. The pattern this year is a bit strange. If I got the numbers correctly, you had a growth of 200% in off-road sports to EUR 175 million, whereas Q1 and Q2 were still muted, while that's in the off-road. But in the street sport segment, you had, let's say, a relatively good growth in Q1 and Q2, and now Q3 was flattish versus previous years. I know that the previous year, there is a lot of distortion because of the comparison which I made now to the previous years.
But maybe you can give us more background on the typical seasonality of these two segments, so off-road and street. Mini, I know, is small, but off-road and street especially, also what the usual pattern is in Q4.
Yes. Thank you, Miro, for your question. We luckily have a different situation than most of our competitors, where they have one big peak, which is usually in March, April, at the beginning of the season, and then it's only this one peak. Because we're active both in street and in off-road, we usually have two peaks, or at least a second one, which is then in the second half of the year. You described it correctly. The first half is very street dominant, and as we are always launching, like everybody else, the off-road, the new models in May and June, those models are then arriving in August, September at the dealers. The off-road season is clearly for the second half of the year, and this is what we will see now also in Q4, a strong peak again in off-road.
Minis, we sell usually at the beginning of the season, but there is also a very good opportunity always around Christmas to have such a bike under the Christmas tree. So, an idea to every one of you for the Christmas. Mini comes twice, like the others, and it is in a very important segment for us, a segment which all our competitors are envying us because it's the future. We have really the largest lineup starting from an SX-E 2, where you can start it with two years, which goes really all the way up to all ages, following by an SX-E 3 and SX-E 5, and then jumping over to the 65s, the 85s, and the 125s.
This is really one of our strengths, and therefore, not only in old days, we sold more than 20,000 of those minis, and this is definitely where we want to keep an eye on and also push it.
Sorry, if I may ask a follow-up on this. Given that, I looked up the models in the past, and of course, we only had the half-yearly reporting. Now going to quarterly, which I very much appreciate, by the way, gives more granularity. Typically, the quarters were quite comparable. Sorry, the semester, so first semester and the second semester. Is it the same this year, or do you expect that Q4 is again like last year? Q4 was very strong, right, with EUR 360 million. Is again, from a seasonality point of view, going to be the strongest quarter?
To give you as much feeling as possible without guiding, I told you that our ambition was to really also outperform the last year, and we are keeping this ambition also for the fourth quarter. We are working on it, and we are pushing to continue to hopefully positively surprise you.
Okay. Last question, I think, from my side. It is like the overall situation, like the big picture question. If I go back also to the years before corona, let us say EUR 1.5 billion in sales, we talk about roughly 300,000 motorbikes, and then obviously 2022, 2023, huge sell-in. Now we had one year with only EUR 1 billion sales, and then now another year, let us say with, I do not know, EUR 1.4 or something, EUR 1.45 illion or so, do not guide. We have looked at the inventory, the slides that you have shown us before.
Now, given the fact that the prices have increased versus six years ago, the same bike now costs 30% more. Is it fair to assume that there is still a lot of potential just to catch up to where you have been in 2019, 2018, that there is still a lot of potential to catch up?
Do you think, no, this catch-up actually already happened in 2026, and let us say, as from now on, 2027 and 2028, it is the usual fighting for market share with customers and more like this organic development?
No, there is definitely room to catch up. I mean, in unit numbers, I think we can be really confident, but as you rightfully said, prices have changed. We lost a lot of market share, and we have not gained back that market share. It was really deliberately a little bit that we did not want to sell in more and give really all our dealers and importers time to work off that old inventory. But now, with new generations, we definitely have a huge appetite to win back market share. We have now also a different setup with LATAM, what we touched upon before. So there is a lot of growth opportunity, especially, we have mentioned it before, that we are trying, or not trying, we are working on a new platform which we have not had before, which also will be hopefully introduced soon.
This brings total new markets, both for our existing ones, even without bringing new innovation or new platforms, there is a lot of room to gain back.
Very clear. Thank you. All the best.
Thank you, Miro.
Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, with that, we will come to the end of today's earnings call. To the two open questions in the chat box, we will come back to that after the call. Thank you very much for your interest in Bajaj Mobility AG. With any further questions, please contact the investor relations department. A big thank you also to you, Gottfried and Petra, for your presentation and your time. I wish you all a successful day around the world, and handing over to you, Gottfried, once again for your closing remarks.
Yep. Thank you very much, everybody, for taking the time and the interest in Bajaj Mobility. Really, I can promise you, both Petra and myself are continuing to push. We are looking forward to speaking to you in the next session, and with that session, we will have our budget, and we will then hopefully also be able to guide you in more detail. Looking forward to it. Thank you very much.