Sonova Holding AG

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Sonova AG Half-Year Results 2026-2027 Conference Call and Live Webcast. I am Sandra, the Chorus Call Operator. I would like to remind you that all participants have been listened only mode and the conference has been recorded. The presentation will be followed by a Q&A session. You can register for questions at any time by pressing star and 1 on your telephone. For operator assistance, please press star and 0. The conference must not be recorded for publication or broadcast. At this time, it is my pleasure to hand over to Peter Dixon, Senior Director, Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.

Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to Sunova's half-year results presentation for 2026-27. I'm Peter Dixon. The presentation slides are available on our website. Joining me today are our CEO, Eric Bernard, and our CFO, Elodie Karchindari. Eric will begin with the business review and then update on strategy execution. Elodie will then cover the financial results, capital allocation and outlook. Eric will conclude the prepared remarks before we move to your questions. Today's call will last roughly 60 minutes. Those joining by telephone can register a question by pressing star and one. The operator will guide us through the Q&A after the presentation. Before we begin, please review the disclaimer in the presentation. Today's remarks include forward-looking statements which are subject to risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially. This presentation is neither an offer to sell nor a solicitation to buy securities. Let me also mention one important point. Unless otherwise noted, growth rates cited today refer to changes in local currencies and figures refer to continuing operations.

With that, I'll hand over to Eric. Thank you, Peter. Good afternoon or good morning, everyone, and a warm welcome also from my side. So we had a strong first half. Group sales grew 7.5%. Hearing Instruments grew 9%, Wholesale grew 11%, and Core EBIT grew almost 23%. And we continued to gain market share. So, good results. But let me focus on what matters. In March, we laid out where we want to take Sonova. And six months later, we are executing. We are on track. Our innovation is translating into growth. E.ON. is off to a strong start. We are getting share and Asia is accelerating profitably and our operating execution is improving. Against that background, we are accelerating our strategic investments and we are raising our four-year guidance. And we now expect sales growth of 6% to 8% and core EBIT growth of 10% to 13%. And Elodie will take you through the outlook in more detail later. So let me take you through those results one by one. Let's start with hearing instruments. Sales were up 9%. Core EBIT increased 26% and margin expanded by 260 basis points to 22%. That is growth translating into profitability. Let me turn to the products and commercial execution behind it. Wholesale grew 11% in H1. Double-digit growth for 12 months and 11 consecutive quarters of market share gains. So the United States was the largest growth contributor, supported by expanded major customer relationships and increased VA deliveries. Vietor and Infinio Ultra continued to perform strongly. And towards the end of the first half, we added E.ON. For us, innovation always starts with the user. People want to hear well in difficult situations. But they also want a hearing aid that is small, comfortable, easy to use, and well-connected. And that's what drives our product development. Infineosphere and then Ultrasphere made a major step forward but we all know that device size remains a trade-off. EON brings our real-time AI into a device that is 25% smaller with superior acoustics, strong connectivity and significantly improved performance in wind. and the early response has been very strong. A recent external survey data backs that up. Among US audiologists, Phonak ranked number one for the attractiveness of recent product launches. And we all know there were many. It was a busy innovation period. Kion made a healthy contribution, but just in the final weeks of the period. Now if you travel back in time, our Infineon launch wasn't perfect. On time fulfillment was 64%. With E.ON, it was above 95%. Early complaints are down by more than a third. Retail and wholesale. On time, on quality. So the improvement is clear. Now we are in a multi-year transformation and we're still investing to improve our operations. Users are choosing Sphere. Around two-thirds of units sold globally in the first two months were Sphere. We expect the mix to normalize over time, but to remain above Infinio Ultra. Where it settles is a bit too early to say, but this is very encouraging. Then we continue to see strong performance from our IT rechargeable portfolio, including Viato and the Phonak and Insera and the Unitron. We reached our fair share quickly and share is now broadly stable at that level. Despite competitor launches in the meantime, look at the latest VA numbers as a proxy. That gives us a strong position to build from as we continue to innovate in the category. And it shows us something simple. Design matters. Not everyone wants a hearing aid behind the ear. It validates our strategy to expand beyond RAKE. Our opportunity is to make discrete in-the-hearing care easier for more people to adopt. We will have more to say on that soon. Now on to retail. Wholesale gives us broad reach to our customers and retail gives us direct access to users and a direct feedback loop into the organization, back to marketing, back to R&D. So we need both wholesale and retail. Retail sales grew around 7% in the first half. More than 5% was organic with a nice acceleration in the last quarter. Acquisitions contributed slightly, but M&A activity is picking up. Examples, Aura Service Denmark and Haber Audiology. We remain on track with our retail bolt-on ambition and we see multiple opportunities and LOD will come back to the financial discipline behind how we deploy that capital later. Now let me turn to cochlear implants. Sales were down in the first half, although largely in line with our expectations ahead of the Integro launch. Sales declined 10%, systems were down 3%, and upgrades down 27%. We had three main effects. China VBP, lower system sales in the United States, and significantly lower upgrade sales. As we said a year ago, we need to accelerate innovation and make better use of Sonova's technology. And Integro is the first important proof point. Cochlear implant recipients should benefit from the same advances in speech understanding, connectivity, and ease of use that we develop across Sonova, and with the Phonak brand in particular. It is not just hearing a sound. It is knowing where the sound comes from, knowing if that bus is on your left or your right, and INTEGRO brings precisely sound localization, smart speech technology, and phonak connectivity to advanced bionics. Our unique microphone, Roger On Sphere, addresses another challenge. Following a conversation across the table, in a meeting, or a noisy restaurant, It brings the microphone closer to the conversation and puts our real-time AI into the microphone itself. And that extends access to real-time AI processing for advanced Bionics users and for around 90% of the Phonak installed base. So we're talking different use cases, shared technology, Innovating for Adoption, our first strategic pillar. Integro launched in Europe in mid-October. It is now in 18 countries. Germany is ahead of the curve and feedback is strong. Now, it's very early days. About the US, the launch remains subject to regulatory approval. So the technology is exciting, but financial performance is not where it needs to be. and Integro is an important step. Now we need to execute. So overall, a strong first half, strong growth in hearing instruments, continued market share gains in wholesale, a very good start for E.ON and better operational execution. In cochlear implants, we have a new product cycle starting with Integro, but clearly more work to do. And with that, let me hand over to Elodie Elodie will take you through the financials, the broad-based regional growth, including the acceleration in Asia, profitably, and the outlook. Elodie?