ZEAL Network SE

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the full year 2025 earnings call of Sihl Network SE. The company's CEO, Dr. Stefan Tverase, and CFO, Andrea Behrendt, will guide you through the figures in a moment, followed by a Q&A session via audio line. And with that, I'm handing over to you, Andrea.

Thanks a lot. And good morning, everybody. And welcome to our earnings call for the full year results 2025. We are very happy to have you here. I hope you can all see the presentation. If not, please go on our website in the investor relations section. You will find it there. With me today is Stefan, our CFO, CEO. and together we will present our strong results of 2025. First of all, let me briefly walk you through our agenda of today. So we will start with an overview of our key highlights from 2025, followed by the review of the financial performance And then we will look into 2026 with our strategic priorities and the guidance. Last but not least, we will, of course, share our dividend proposal and the main takeaways before we are opening up for our Q&A session. And with that, let me hand over to Stefan for the summary of our 2025 results.

Thank you, Andrea. And also from my side, a warm welcome to all of you on the call. More than happy to have you. Let me give you a brief summary of what we've achieved in the financial year of 2025, which was defined by a less than exciting market environment, but we've been able to regardless deliver outstanding operational results. Let me highlight four things. First of all, we continued to significantly expand our customer base. And we will dive into the details of that. We have once again improved our gross margin in the fourth quarter of last year. We've achieved a gross margin of 18.5%, a really remarkable result. And we were able to continue growing profitable on the basis of our operational strength. But having achieved all those operational excellence has also allowed us to raise more than 375 million euros for charitable causes, which is a significant driver of what we do here. All of this has been driven by us being able to really deliver on our strategic objectives for 2025. To remind you, we had three things set out for 2025. We wanted to continuously improve the acquisition performance and the profitability of our core business, Lotto24. We wanted to successfully scale Dramas Verlosung and we vowed to accelerate the growth of our games business. In all of those three areas, we've been able to achieve outstanding results. In our core business, we've increased the gross margin to 17.7%, which was supported by both successful pricing measures and an increase of our product and improvement of our product mix towards more profitable and more margin strong products. Despite a less than exciting jackpot situation, we've been still able to acquire customers and the customer acquisition is one of the main strengths of our Lotto24 business. At Amors Verlosung, we've achieved a jaw-dropping growth of buildings of more than 200%, 205% to be exact. We raffled off a total of four houses in 2025, and the performance of 2025 was significantly above our expectations with buildings close to 40%. In terms of the houses, one outstanding performance house was the St. Peter Ording House, which delivered the best performance of our 2025 portfolio. And in the games business, also astonishing growth, more than 40%, 42% to be exact. Our games portfolio today consists of more than 650 games, which is very received by our customers. We have active customers. and our active customer base increasing from 2024 to 2025 from 22k to more than 30k customers and we generated over 40 millions of revenues and a very strong EBITDA contribution of our games business of 6.1 million and in both of these measures we have surpassed our very ambitious targets.

And talking about ambitious targets, we also raised mid-year in September 2025 our guidance. Thanks to the improved lottery gross margin and highly successful businesses, especially calling out also Traumasverlosung and games, as Stefan already explained, we closed the year with delivering 290 million in revenues and 69 million in EBTA. And now let's go in the details for our financials. Before we go into the income statement, let's put the results in context with our jackpot situation that we had in 2025. Just a reminder, jackpots are the key driver for customer acquisition. And on the other side, also the reactivation of existing customers. Last year was a weak jackpot environment. So we saw just four peak jackpots in Euro jackpot. compared to an exceptional 2024 with 13 peak jackpots. In Lotto 6 out of 49, we haven't seen any jackpots in the last two years. Despite this less supportive jackpot environment, we delivered really strong results and are proud of that. And on slide number five, you will see how this translates into our financials. On this slide, let me highlight three numbers to you. So overall, our revenues grew by 16%. That's driven by higher billings and improved gross margin, and I will explain a bit more in detail later. On the other hand, we were able to spend 21% more on marketing and acquired a significant number of new customers. That is a real achievement in such a weak Jackpot environment. And that within our efficiency guardrails that we give out to our teams and therefore this is a really great achievement. And bottom line, we delivered a strong EBITDA with 69 million. And we are continuing delivering efficient growth like we promised. And we are really proud of that. And now let's zoom into our top line growth. Here on the lottery billings, it's a pretty good achievement, especially comparing with 2024. That was an exceptional jackpot year. Despite the weak jackpots, we had 1.6 million customers in average life on our platform, and they spent 59 euros. And this is a normal expectation on the average billings per user that you would expect in a weak jackpot environment. And this overall translates in a billing growth of 2%. As mentioned already, the second driver is the revenue growth. Of the revenue growth is the margin increase. And here you see our underlying lottery gross margin is the 77% significantly higher to previous year. And that's driven by pricing activities and especially the big price increase in 2024. and a steadily improving product margin where we on a daily basis drive improved margins in the products and also improved product market mix. So on top of that, we were really able to double down on our customer growth. That's a relevant driver for the future growth of Zeal and the valuation of Zeal. Despite the weak market environment, we acquired 1.2 million new customers in 2025. And this number really underlines our ability to grow our customer base, even in weak jackpot phases. I want to compare here the numbers with 2023 because this was a weak jackpot environment like this year. And here we actually showed that we were able to acquire 96% more new customers than in previous in this year. And this really is a success of our strategy to diversify our product offering and make the business and the customer acquisition less dependent on jackpots. Overall, the cost per lead was at 46 euros and 47 cents. That is an expected increase as it reflects the weak jackpot environment, higher media prices, and the really strategic marketing tests in reaching new target audiences, especially calling out your traumas for losung and the growth we are generated here. In our core brokerage business, the CPL was at 41.3 euros. And games as well, we gained momentum in 2025 and already in the last quarters, we communicated that with you. We significantly increased our games portfolio, established new partnerships and really implemented new customer facing features that really resonated here. And this progress shows into our numbers. Like Stefan said, we are at 30k mouse in games and these customers spend around 40 euros NGR with us. And as a result, the game's revenues increased by 46% and EBITDA reached 6.1 million. A great achievement. And with that, handing over for the details on Traumhausverlosung to Stefan.

I have the good part of the presentation because Traumhausverlosung It's really a product that delights us, delights our customers, and delights our investors. Since we've launched the product, we have raffled off a total of six houses. And four of those houses have been raffled off in 2025. We even added an international house, which we raffled off in the February of this year, the Mallorca house. And all of these houses... on all of these raffles have received very good feedback from the market. As I mentioned at the beginning of the presentation, the St. Peter Ording House, the house number four, has been the most successful house so far, really driving new active users, driving the image of the product, and also driving the results that we've been able to achieve. As a first glance, the house number five, the Bavarian Forest House, did deliver buildings of 7.5 million users. We deliberately reduced the rate, the time between the draws, so significantly increasing the cadence of the business. We started out with 91 days, now we're at 56 days. So really driving the operational performance of the team and of the houses to drive us to new average buildings and daily performance highlights. All in all, we are very proud to have achieved goals that we set out and overachieved them in the course of 2025. We are well ahead of our original business plan and look forward to the performance of House Raffle in 2026 and beyond. Speaking of 2026, I'll hand over to Andrea to guide you through the priorities of the coming year. Thank you, Stefan.

As in previous years, we translated our strategy into really tangible assets that we want to share with you and that we keep ourselves accountable for. So this year, we continue to focus on our three strategic pillars. First of all, in our core business, we still see potential upside for operational margin, especially in high jackpot phases. At the same time, we continue to scale our efficient marketing and build on the strong progress that we made in 2025. And in parallel, we continue to diversify our product offering. That said, it's really important for us that it's understood that the core business is still a key driver for Ziel's long-term growth. And we see a huge potential there. Secondly, our focus area is Traumhausverlosung, of course. Here we remain in scaling mode, like last year. And we plan in 2026 to run six ruffles compared to four ruffles last year. And we are targeting a billing growth of 50% year over year. And this will be supported by an investment into customer acquisition in the Traumhausverlosung. And the third pillar is games. We will continue to expand our games offering, our portfolio here, and also will invest into user experience. And this will show in significant growth with over 20% year over year. These strategic priorities are reflected in the guidance that we share with you now. We expect for 2026 revenues to be in the range of 250 to 260 million euros and the EBITDA in the range of 70 to 75 million euros. Like always, this guidance is based on an average jackpot development and we will see how this year goes. But we aim also to expand our marketing significantly to 85 to 95 million euros. And this increase of up to 25 million euros compared to last year demonstrates our ambition to further grow. But this always within our efficiency guardrails. Looking beyond 2026, the midterm guidance for the next years, our goals are still valid that we already shared with you. We are targeting double digit growth in the annual revenues in mid-teens. And we really want to hear double down on the growth potential that is there in the German market. and is there for the coming years as well. And at the same time, we are, of course, not only focusing on top line growth, but also committed to deliver strong EBITDAs and with a strong focus on profitability. We want to keep our EBITDA margin over 30%. Let's come to the dividends. Following the strong financial performance in 2025, the management board and the supervisory board have decided yesterday to propose to the AGM a payment of a dividend of €1.40 per share. This reflects a total payout of around €30 million. As in the past, additionally to the dividend, ZIL is looking and allocate capital via share buybacks and also into alternative growth opportunities. And our core focus is always with that in mind to generate value for our shareholders. And with that, back to Stefan for the takeaways.

Thank you, Andrea. So speaking of value to our shareholders, if you take away three messages from what Andrea and I have been able to share with you today, the three messages should be, we've been able to significantly expand our customer base in a less than favorable jackpot environment, but very strongly within customers. the economic guidance that we give our teams for growth we have in addition been able to improve our gross margin driven by both pricing levers and product mix levers and overall have been able to continue to grow profitable based on the operational strength of our business we are super happy that we've been able to share these results with you and i'll hand over to andrea guide you through the questions and answers thank you for your attention

Thanks a lot.

Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen. Now it is your turn. We are opening the Q&A session with questions via audio line. Please click on the raise your hand button. And if you are dialing in by phone, please press star key nine to raise your hand and star key six to unmute yourself. And we already have four hands up. Christian Salis, the stage is yours. You may unmute yourself. Yes.

Hi, good morning, everyone. Christian from Kentor. Thanks for taking my questions. I've got two questions, please. The first one on the sales guidance. Could you talk about the key drivers, again, for the expected 70% sales growth at midpoint year over year? And how many dream houses after the four dream houses in 2025 do you plan in 2026, please? And then second question, On the EBITDA guidance, so at midpoint, the EBITDA guidance implies around three percentage points margin decline. You mentioned the higher marketing investments. Could you maybe talk about the specific areas where you plan to put these marketing investments to? And maybe related to this, could you also talk about the competitive environment in the Dreamhouse Raffle? I saw that Omaze is also pushing their marketing efforts in Germany. So how do you see the competitive landscape evolving in this segment, please? Thank you.

Thanks, Christian, for your question. Let me start with the guidance topic. So on the sales side, like I told about the three strategic pillars, that's reflecting in all these areas significant growth. Like we said, in the core business, we are planning to acquire more customers and growing significantly. We will double down on the Traumhausverlosung ruffles and want to ruffle out six houses in 2026. And additionally, we want to continue to significant double digit growth in the games area. So in all three strategic areas for ZIL, we expect growth to happen in 2026. and on the competition.

Yeah. So on the other two questions that you asked, Christian, and again, thanks for the questions from my side. A, when it comes to the competition of Traumhaus Verlosung, we definitely own the category in Germany. We also don't think that Traumhaus Verlosung or House Raffles are a winner-takes-all market. It's an exciting segment of the market that is continuing to grow. And we have a very clear objective, as Andrea said, to substantially increase the number of houses that we are raffling off, to increase our ability to deliver profits on that product. from our investors. And thus the investments are very targeted within the economic guidelines that we set our teams when it comes to spend per customer and the lifetime value that we generate with these customers. So the investments, as you talked about the increase in marketing spend, the investments are very targeted in terms of strengthening the performance of our products online, but also continue to establishing the brands in the more general public domain.

Thank you.

Thank you very much for your question, Christian. And next in line is Tim Kruse. You may speak now.

Yes, good morning and congratulations on the impressive year once again. Just a quick follow-up on Christian's question on competition. Maybe in the Gewerbliche Spielvermittlung, so in your core business, if you see any changes, we have three other parties who have a license there. It will be interesting to see what the dynamics there are. And then maybe... On the games business, it's still a low base, but impressive growth. So is it the 40% plus something we can expect in this year as well? And then maybe just to follow up on the dream houses, you were at 56 days for the Bavaria house and now you're back at 80 days. So can you tell us what you think about the cadence of of the dream houses. I mean, you said six this year, but how do you expect that to pan out maybe over the next years? What are your plans there? Thank you.

So thanks for the question. On the brokerage business, I mean, yes, there are other providers in the German market, but none of them is anywhere near our scale. So anywhere near our ability to generate customer growth out of the market, not anybody near our ability to benefit from the offline to online market. movement that we see in the German market and nowhere anybody near our ability to establish a brand like Lotto24 in the German market. So obviously we look very closely at these competitors and take them very seriously, but we are convinced that our ability to really drive that business at scale, both from an operational as well from a marketing perspective, really are second to none. So we think that we can definitely get the greatest chunk of the growth in the German market towards our brand.

And on the game side, we expect the games overall billings growth from 20%. Of course, this year was much higher, 25%, but it's still a very ambitious goal to grow and we are proud of that. And on the cadence for the house raffles, we are of course looking into the dates and when it makes sense to raffle out houses based on timeline and so on. But our strategic goal for this year is to raffle out six houses and to increase the cadence over the next years. We think a house a month is a realistic target mid-term.

Okay, thank you. Andre, just a quick follow-up maybe on the games. I mean, you're still very restricted in terms of marketing there. Can you maybe just give a quick update on sort of your regulatory improvements there? I know you are fighting to loosen those restrictions a bit. Is there anything coming up this year that might change this situation?

Yeah, so we don't foresee a significant change in the regulatory environment. Obviously, we are in very close contact with the GGL to make sure that this is really a level playing field, which currently, as you know, it isn't. But given the playing field as it currently is, I think our growth is the perfect balance between being as pushy as we can and, on the other hand, taking player protection and responsible gaming really very seriously. So for the time being, as I said, we don't expect a big change, but we still think that within that environment, we can deliver very, very healthy growth in the games business.

Okay, thanks a lot. All the best.

Thank you for your questions, Tim. And the next one in line is Simon Keller. You should be able to speak now. Yes.

Hi Andrea, hi Stefan. I would love to get a deeper understanding of your marketing efforts. And I guess a good starting point is the difference between your H1 and H2 25 marketing spending. Because despite similar jackpots, there was a marketing step up by approximately 10 million between H1 and H2. And I'm wondering, is it only the marketing spend for Traumhausverlosung basically as the only real explanation here? And in this context, could you please elaborate more on your overall marketing strategy? And any color here would be helpful. Maybe you can share the expected payback profile and how that is changing right now, or explain how much of the marketing spend is strategically necessary for brand building. Thank you.

Thanks, Simon, for your question. So let me... Let's see if I cover all the questions that you asked. So, first of all, I think the marketing increase is not only driven by Traumhaus Verlosung, but also that we are really doubling down on a playbook, how to invest also in low jackpot situations. Our diversification is really targeted towards a more independent customer acquisition setup, also compared to low and high jackpots. And we are in the past invested significantly in this area to be able to really have a proper setup also in low jackpots. And that's a real achievement.

And again, Andrea pointed that out during the presentation. I think the best comparison to judge our marketing efforts and the successes of those is when you compare between 2023 and 2025, which are years with a similar, let's say, unexciting jackpot environment. We've been able to almost more than double the customer acquisition in 2025 compared to 2023. So there are very, very targeted investments in all the digital channels as well as some brand building. But the message is that we've been substantially able to grow our customer base in, as Andrea pointed out, a big jackpot environment.

And on the payback, our goal is continues to be a payback period for all acquired customer within a two to three year horizon. So the profile of our customer didn't change. So we have very healthy lifetimes supported by very strong margins for the customers. and are still targeting on that one. And these are the efficiency guardrails that we are giving our teams on every campaign, every channel.

Thank you. That's very helpful. I have one follow-up question, and that's particularly between H1 and H2 this year. Have you learned something in H1 that allowed you to be basically more efficient with your marketing spend because the jackpot situation was similar and your target by, or your aim at looking at the payback period probably hasn't changed either. So maybe you have become more efficient. That's a fair assumption.

Yeah, what we can definitely point that is that we've been able to extend the scope of our digital marketing efforts. So we have more channels, not just the usual ones, kind of the big Google or Meta channels, but really been able to expand that footprint into the smaller channels very successfully. We've been able to really excel in our approach to partnerships. which has been a significant driver of new customers, both for our existing Lotto24 business as well as for the new businesses. But we cannot rest on these learnings. Also already in the first few months of this year, we've been able to leverage learnings into new channels. So it's an ongoing quest to make sure that we are on the top of the game, not just in the channels, but also in the abilities that we apply to these channels.

Awesome. Thank you very much. I have one more question, if I may, and that's because it's linked to the marketing spend and it's around the midterm margin target with the 30% that you've outlined. Should we see it as a flaw that you are willing or going to achieve irrespective of the growth opportunities and jackpot environments? So basically, will you steer your marketing efforts such that you will be able to achieve the 30% midterm either way?

Yeah, so the EBITDA margin of 30% we see as a floor. We see that in high jackpot phases where we can invest even more than we currently guided you on, we will nevertheless outgrow on the top line. So bottom line, there will be always much more growth available also in this situation. So yes, you can take the 30% as a floor.

Thank you very much.

Thank you for your questions, Simon. And next in line is Abed Jarad. He should be able to speak now. Yes.

Hi, good morning. To be honest, most of my questions regarding marketing spending were already answered. But when do you expect this marketing spend to normalize? I mean, in 2025 and 2026, they grew both expected to grow more than revenue. When do you expect this trend to normalize?

For us, it's really, we are proud when we can grow marketing because that's within our efficiency guardrails and the payback period of two to three years. And as long as we are able to be in these guardrails, we want to spend as much marketing as possible because it pays off and it generates significant shareholder value. So really, we are proud of that. And we still see a lot of potential in the online lottery market that switch from offline to online. So we don't think this will stop.

Fair enough. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Abed. And Lukas Spang, this is the stage for your questions.

Yes, hi, good morning. I would like to follow on also on the marketing topic at first. Maybe you can elaborate a little bit more on your difference between marketing spendings this year and last year in terms of the three or the main products like lottery games and traumas for losing where, but what could we expect in terms of these higher marketing's marketing spend?

Thanks, Lukas.

Maybe you want to allocate these.

Yeah, maybe starting. So in general, the strategy doesn't change there, although you have to see that 2025 was a weak jackpot year. Therefore, we were able to allocate less money than we would in a normal jackpot year. And as our guidance is based on a normal jackpot year, the biggest change is there that we are actually expecting to grow our investments in the core market. because we always give guidance on a normal jackpot year. So marketing in the core business will increase. On the other hand, in Traumhausverlosung, we are investing similar to last year. And on the game side, we are still in the testing phase for custom acquisition. So no significant competition. marketing investments are allocated to games today. That might change during the year, but that's the situation we have today.

And I think if I build on what Andrea just said, three main messages for our marketing. The first one is we really approach this kind of as an open budget situation. As long as the teams are able to spend within our economic guidelines, which are how much do we want to spend per customer and what is the customer lifetime value that we get back so that we can always find the balance in the two to three year payback horizon. That's point number one. Point number two is, given that it's kind of an open budget situation, we push for opportunities in high-jackpot situations, which is kind of the easier environment. But we are also very, very bullish that we've improved our abilities to attract customers in low-jackpot situations. Again, I point to that 2023 to 2025 scenario. comparison, where we've faced a similarly challenging jackpot situation, but have been able to acquire almost double the new customers that we wanted to acquire. And finally, we always push for efficiency in new channels, in new applications of our marketing money to make sure that we really capture all opportunities that are out there. And as Andrea pointed out, test new approaches and really push our teams to make sure that we capture all opportunities that are out there. So bottom line is, and I just can second what Andrea said, the more marketing that we can spend within our economic guidelines, the better for us because it's a strong indicator of customer growth, which is a substantial driver for our business.

Okay, but to make it clear, if I take your marketing guidance of 85 to 90 million and compare it with 2025, it's let's say roughly 16 to 20 million or 21 million that is mainly then going to lottery again.

Lottery is our main driver of the business, our main driver of customer acquisition. And again, the foundation of this guidance is an average checkpoint situation, which would have led to higher marketing spend already in 2025. So would there have been a more, let's say, favorable checkpoint situation in 2025, the overall increase of marketing spend between 2025 and 2026 would not be that high. But again, we are allocating marketing budgets on an average checkbook situation.

And then my second question is concerning the topic of products and new products. I remember in the last meetings that you have also for 2026, the topic of new products on the agenda. Is there anything you can also share today with us?

So when it comes to new products, I think it's good to look into all three elements, all three pillars of our business. In our core business, Lotto24, we are driving product innovation like Team Player that adds a social component to the kind of standard lottery games. And we are very happy with the development process. um in in this area so adding uh exciting opportunities to play lotteries within the lot 24 um uh ryan is is one priority the second priority is that we add additional games and additional entertainment opportunities in the games segment itself we are now at 650 games quite a few of them have been developed in-house the majority obviously is delivered by a partner. And we are continuously expanding that scope to make sure that our slot portfolio is second to none in the German legal market. And then finally, we think that with, especially with Traumhaus Verlosung, but also with Freiheit Plus, we have found products that have a great product market fit that are very well received by the German consumer. And thus, we are not only looking into additional categories of social lotteries, but also are exploring opportunities to look beyond Germany for a product like Traumhaus with a proven product market fit.

But we can still expect that for 2026 or has there anything changed?

No, we are for sure looking in diversification. And as soon as we are able to communicate something, we will.

Okay. And then the third topic is around cash allocation. I think that's maybe the disappointing part of today's release that on the one hand, you have around 60 million of free cash flow generated last year, but only... locate 30 million, so roughly the half of that it in terms of dividend, but what is about the other half? Is there still a progress of thinking about it? Or how should we think about the second part of allocating cash in terms of share buybacks?

Exactly. Like that's what I said. And you have seen that in the past, right? We are looking into share buybacks and we are looking into exciting investment opportunities. So please, I think you shouldn't be disappointed. You should be rather proud. We will find good use of that money to be allocated.

Just to second what Andrea said, consider it to be a very strong war chest that we have. that can be invested into either exciting growth opportunities or very attractive share buybacks. So watch this space and no reason to be disappointed in any shape or form. Okay, thanks.

Thank you very much for your questions, Lukas. And we have a person dialing in from Great Britain with the phone number ending 1610. Please unmute yourself with star key six and you may ask your questions.

Good morning. Thank you for taking my question. So I think my question on the cash has been partially answered, but I just want to maybe give a little bit of a push just to see in terms of timing, is this something we can, could we expect an announcement in the next few quarters or is this something that you think on a more full year basis. Could you give some color around that, please?

Thanks for your question. Could you let us know who you are? Thanks.

Ah, it's Luca Berenberg.

Okay, great. So thanks for the question. So we are looking, like I said, into share buybacks and investment opportunities. As soon as we have something to communicate, we let you know. Hopefully that will happen in 2026.

Perfect. Thank you so much.

Thank you very much for your question. And next in line is Peter Nelson, also dialed in my phone. Please use star key six to unmute yourself. Yes, you should be able to speak now.

Hello, yes, Peter. Good morning, everyone. I have three questions. Which online penetration in the lottery market do you expect in 2026 and the two following years thereafter? In 2025, we have seen 31%. Question two, which online penetration do you expect in the long term? Is it still between 50% and 70% or maybe more? In which year do you expect an online penetration above 50%? Last question, number three. Which total lottery market volume in billion do you expect in the long term? Currently, I have seen that we have a market of approximately 8.3 billion. Thank you very much.

Thanks a lot, Peter, for your question. So on the online penetration, of course, we are not able to give you exact numbers for the next years. But what we see and have seen in the last years is the online penetration increases year over year. It increases more when we have high jackpot phases and it increases a little bit less when we have low jackpot phases. So something in between, but we see an average of 1%, 2 percentage points increase year over year. So yeah, that should answer your first questions, the two of them. And the last one was on... The market volume. Ah, the total market volume. I mean, on the online market, we always communicate that we see long-term ambition of having a market of 5 to 7 billion in online lotteries.

In online, but in the total market?

10 billion. That's quite stable. It's not changing significantly.

But this is based on data which are very old. So no updates? No updates. Okay. Thanks.

Thank you very much, Peter. And some follow-up questions from Tim Kruse.

Yes, just one actually on the Tramhaus Verlosung and the D2C share. It's now, the last one was at 53%. I was just wondering two things, Andrea. So what is your expectations and maybe also reflect of what you thought you could achieve here on the outset when you started this product and how important this D2C share is in terms of profitability for you? Thank you.

Yeah, so we set out the strategic goal to acquire new target audiences with that product. Therefore, the D2C shop is actually a D2C share as a relevant strategic goal for us. And we want to increase that time over time. Here, it's really about audience. audiences who would not join Lotto24 for EJ and Lotto6house49, but rather are interested in a more innovative product. And here we are really seeing that this is a younger audience, maybe a little bit more female, and therefore it's really a strategic goal for us, and we are tracking towards that.

And is there a difference in customer acquisition costs between the channels there, just out of interest?

There is a difference in custom acquisition costs. That's why we also share the two CPLs with you, one for the whole group and one for the core broker, because the costs in the new product, especially Traumasverlosung, is higher. Why is that the case? Because, of course, it's still a category that is building up and a brand that is building up. Therefore, this is a bit less efficient than our core brokerage investments. but with a very healthy lifetime value for our customers, because as you know, it's a high margin product for us.

Exactly. Overall margin profile is better as well, right? Exactly. Thank you.

Thank you, Tim. And also a follow-up and the last hand up for now is from Abed.

Sorry, I forgot to take back my question. Sorry.

Okay, thank you so much. So with that, we have no questions left. Ladies and gentlemen, I will hold the room for a moment if there should be one in the line. And this doesn't seem to be the case. We therefore come to the end of today's earnings call. Thank you very much for your interest in ZL Network SE. A big thank you also to you, Stefan and Andrea, for your presentation and your time. Should you have any further questions at a later date, please feel free to contact Senior Investor Relations Manager Frank Hoffman. I wish you all a successful day around the world and handing over to you, Andrea, once again for your closing remarks.

Yeah, thanks a lot. We are excited that you all joined our call this morning and your interest in Zeal. And we are very excited to deliver a strong 2026.