Logitech International S.A.

Good afternoon and good evening. Welcome to Logitech's video call to discuss our financial results for this quarter. Joining us today are Hanukkah Faber, our CEO, and Matteo Anversa, our CFO. During this call, we will make forward-looking statements, including with respect to future operating results under the safe harbor of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. We're making these statements based on our views only as of today. Our actual results could differ materially. We undertake no obligation to update or revise any of these statements. We will also discuss non-GAAP financial results. You can find a reconciliation between GAAP and non-GAAP results and information about our use of non-GAAP measures and factors that could impact our financial results and forward-looking statements in our press release and in our filings with the SEC. These materials, as well as the shareholder letter and a webcast of this call, are all available at the investor relations page of our website. We encourage you to review these materials carefully. Unless noted otherwise, references to net sales growth are in constant currency and comparisons between periods are year over year. This call is being recorded and will be available for a replay on our website. I'll now turn the call over to Hanneke.

Thank you, Nate, and welcome everyone. Q1 was a strong start to the fiscal year, with net sales growing 5% in constant currency, marking our 10th consecutive quarter of growth. The business performed well despite tight component sourcing, elevated component and shipping costs, and the ongoing conflict in the Middle East. We were particularly pleased to see an acceleration of growth in gaming and in North America, and continued strong growth in video collaboration and pointing devices. A strong operational performance was driven by our strategic priorities. First, superior products and innovation. The MX Master 4 mouse and the Pro X2 Super Strike gaming mouse have scaled at an exceptional click. These super premium products with unique technologies are both big hits. Just a few quarters from launch, they now both rank amongst the company's absolute top-selling products. This quarter, we also added four new releases to our product portfolio. The Mobi Fold Ultra Portable Mouse, the G512X Gaming Keyboard, the Spotlight 2 Advanced Presenter, and a really fun limited edition Soccer Alto Keys Bundle. Our elevated marketing efforts are supporting the success of our products. In gaming, Our partnerships with iconic brands like NASCAR, McLaren, Call of Duty, and a range of top pro gaming teams helped accelerate growth this quarter. And on the work side, we are investing more in creators and social commerce, anchored by a fast-growing roster of influencers. We will continue to deliver superior innovation at pace. And the incremental growth investments we outlined entering fiscal 27 are now underway, laying the groundwork to fuel a unique product innovation pipeline 40 years ahead. A second driver of growth in the quarter, doubling down on B2B. Video collaboration net sales grew 9% in constant currency this quarter, extending momentum built over the past year. Logitech's video conferencing solutions are now used by more than 70% of Fortune 500 companies. Putting us on a very short list of preferred suppliers as organizations refresh and expand their meeting spaces. Third, excellence across geographies. This quarter, our geographic diversity really paid off, allowing us to balance tough spots like the Middle East with terrific demand-led growth in the Americas, as well as continued strength in China. and in Europe, where the broader market was soft, our teams gained significant market share. Finally, operational excellence once again drove results. This quarter once again demonstrated the power and the consistency of our operational teams, even in a volatile and uncertain macroeconomic environment. While tariff refunds positively impacted our reported numbers, we delivered excellent operating income growth Thanks to the discipline and the precision of our teams. All in all, our Q1 results reinforce our commitment to operational rigor and our belief in our ability to execute on our strategic pillars and position as well for long-term success. Now, as we look ahead, we expect the demand momentum we are creating to continue. But as you may have just seen, A new serious incident at one of our suppliers, which we're working hard to mitigate, is likely to temporarily impact our ability to fully meet demand. Let me hand over to Matteo to provide more details on both our performance and the outlook.

Matteo, over to you. Okay. Thank you, Annika, and thank you all for joining us today. So as Annika mentioned, our teams navigated a difficult operational backdrop. throughout the quarter and delivered very strong results. In addition to delivering a strong quarter, we received 61 million in tariff refunds, and as a result, non-GAAP operating income was 290 million, up 44% year-over-year. If we exclude the tariff refund, non-GAAP operating income was 229 million, up 14% year-over-year, reflecting strong execution from the team. Now let me walk you through the quarter in a little bit more detail. So starting with net sales, net sales were up 1.2 billion, up 7% in U.S. dollars and 5% in constant currency. Pointed devices, video collaboration, and gaming were the key growth drivers in the quarter. More specifically, Pointing devices net sales grew 14% year-over-year, fueled by the continued success of the AMX Master 4. Marking our fifth consecutive quarter of growth, video collaboration net sales increased 9% year-over-year as a result of sustained corporate investment in our workplace solutions. And gaming net sales grew 9% year-over-year, driven by double-digit growth in AMO. Conversely, both webcams and headsets were down, driven by soft end markets in EMEA. At the regional level, AMR led the way, up 11%, with gaming, pointing devices, and keyboard and combos all growing double digits. Asia-Pacific grew 5%, with China ahead of the broader region, and EMEA net sales declined 4%, Due to the Middle East conflict, which impacted the region's net sales by approximately 400 basis points. Now, it is important to note that in Europe, we gained share in a subdued market. Turning now to profitability, our reported non-GAAP gross margin rate, including the 61 million tariff refunds, was 49.8%. Thank you very much. and product cost reduction. Now, product mix played a prominent role in the quarter as we drove double-digit growth on the premium product lines and categories, including the sustained momentum in video collaboration. Now, this growth's margin tailwinds were partially offset by higher promotional spend, particularly in EMEA. Now, looking at operating expenses, Non-GAAP operating expenses were $320 million, or 26.1% of net sales, up about 150 basis points year-over-year. This increase was driven primarily by higher investments in sales and marketing and R&D. G&A was flat as a percentage of sales at 2.8%, as we continue to remain diligent in our G&A spending. As a result, excluding the tariff reimbursement, non-GAAP operating income was $229 million, up 14% year-over-year, and non-GAAP operating income rate was 18.7%, up 110 basis points year-over-year. Our profitability continues to translate into exceptional cash generation, Cash flow from operations increased more than 30% year-over-year, and we ended the quarter with a cash balance of $1.75 billion, while we returned approximately $115 million of cash back to shareholders in the form of share repurchases. Now, as we look forward, we expect the demand momentum from the first quarter to carry into the second quarter Despite the geopolitical and macroeconomic challenges. However, in late June, one of our suppliers of semiconductor components experienced a serious incident in their manufacturing facility, which led to its closure. The facility remains closed today, impacting our ability to effectively meet demand. and the supplier has not yet provided a definitive date for the facility to reopen. Now, our team is working through several mitigation plans and in the near term, our robust balance sheet allows us to maintain a sufficient level of inventory precisely to mitigate this type of supply chain disruptions and as a result, We are able to significantly reduce the impact of this incident in the second quarter. More specifically, we expect second quarter revenue to grow 0-3% in constant currency with a gross margin rate of approximately 44%. This outlook contemplates a net sales impact of approximately 20 million due to the supplier We expect non-GAAP operating income to be between 185 and 210 million down year-over-year, driven by the continued investments in R&D and sales and marketing, as well as prior year austerity measures. Looking ahead for the full year of fiscal year 2027, absent the disruption caused by our supplier, We expect top-line momentum to continue at roughly the first quarter rates throughout the remainder of the year. However, based on our limited information to date, we are estimating the negative impact of our supplier incident to be up to $200 million in revenue in the third quarter, and for the fourth quarter, we estimate the supplier incident to be largely resolved which would mean little to no impact to our fourth quarter results. On profitability, we expect full-year non-gap operating margin to continue to track near the high end of our 15% to 18% long-term target range, helped by the strong underlying operating performance of the business and this quarter's tariff refund. With that, we'll turn it over to Q&A.

Thank you, Matteo. We will now move to the Q&A portion of the call. To ask a question, please click on the raise hand icon at the bottom of your screen. Please be sure to unmute and ensure your camera is on before asking your question. Our first question comes from Jorn Effert from UBS.

Thank you very much, and good evening. Thanks for taking my question. I will start with two questions, okay, and then I go back in the queue. The first one is, can you tell us more about the risk of pulled forward demand that you have potentially seen in Q1? You had a very strong sales route, double digits, and if you exclude the 20 million sales impact from the semi-supplier issue, you would give an outlook of 1.5% to 4.5% sales growth for Q2, quite a material slowdown. Is this pulled forward demand you're seeing in Q1, or how do you explain this slowdown? And the second question would be, please, when you look on the full year outlook and you're still saying you're coming up at the 18% or close to 18%, including the 61 million tariff refund, which would be then if you actually draw on 17%, it's a 200 basis points drop versus last year almost. I mean, how do you explain this? Is this really only SG&A as cross-profit margin seems to hold up quite well, or do you also pencil in some additional costs for the CD component sourcing here. Thank you very much.

Yeah, Jorn, let me take the first question and then I'll let Matteo answer the second question. So we think there was very little to no pull forward in the first quarter. Why do I say that? Pull forward would particularly happen in video conferencing where the memory shortages are well known. and we took pricing but we took pricing in May so if there was any pull forward on the absolute price increase it would have happened in April i.e. in the quarter and in fact what happens when you take price increases in B2B you actually continue to honor the old price for a little bit because you've got deals that are in progress so in the quarter the actual impact of the price increase was not very high we'll see the We continue to be optimistic exit supplier. I think your math is right on what we would have guided for the second quarter. We're always looking at kind of the high end and the low end. On the high end, we need North America to continue to perform as well as it has in the high single or double digits. On the more conservative side, that might come down a little bit. So that's where the original guide came from, but your numbers are about correct.

So if you adjust for the $20 million of the supplier incident as it pertains to the second quarter, you know we would have you know the outlook would have been something between two to five percent we closed the first quarter between four and a half and five so I think we are in the zone and obviously there is as Anneke said a bit of uncertainty in the macroeconomic world today so but overall the numbers is closer to be to what we achieved in the in the first quarter as far as the second question so the If you recall, last quarter, we mentioned that on the backdrop of a very strong fiscal year 2026, where we almost reached 19% of operating income rate, we wanted to take some of these outsized gains in profitability, particularly out of a very strong gross margin, and reinvest this towards the future growth of the company. This is really what we are planning to do. And now we stand in the supplier incident that we just described where we can talk more about it later. So that's the driver. So I would not expect G&A to increase. It's really the focus on investment for the future growth of the company, which would be sales and marketing and R&D. And your point on the gross margin I think is valid. We are very happy on where the gross margin rate has been now for several quarters. and we expect the gross margin to continue to be strong.

Thank you very much for this. If you allow me to zoom in into one thing. When we are just now for the 61 million tariff refund, the underlying non-get even would be more around 850. Is this a new starting point we should look at how you can grow them in 28, 29? Or is this then, okay, look, I mean, you're using the 61 million, you're reinvesting and next year you will play down the investments again. Just a little bit of a feeling from where we can start to model the company for the midterm.

I think it's a little premature to talk about fiscal year 28 and 29, but right now, you know, we are committed to the range that we provided at Investor Day, and that's the commitment with the company, which you can expect the company to deliver.

Thank you very much.

Sure. Our next question comes from Asya Merchant with Citi.

Great. Thank you for the opportunity here. Just if you can, you know, highlight how you guys are thinking about channel inventory here. How is that performing relative to the sell-through was obviously pretty strong here. How should we think about, you know, perhaps some buildup of inventory if there was any? And then if I may, just the supplier incident that you talked about seems like you have pretty good line of sight to it getting resolved in 4Q. and then sort of your revenue growth rate probably accelerating back to what you saw in 1Q. So just if you could peel that off a little bit, why do you feel so confident that that supplier relationship or that supplier issue could be mitigated if there's alternatives there that you're looking at? Thank you.

Yeah, let me start from that one and then we'll go back to inventory with Matteo. So I was expecting quite a few questions. So thanks, Asya, on this incident. and I gotta say we will share transparently what we know because we still have I would say limited info and we also need to protect competitively sensitive information so I'll do my best to give you a bit more color on that but at the very end of June one of our many semiconductor suppliers had a serious incident in its manufacturing site that resulted in a temporary shutdown and and that facility is still shut down and we are now in the early stages of receiving information about the impact of the event. We are confident that the fab will reopen and will be open again certainly in the fourth quarter but the supplier has not yet confirmed definitively when it's going to reopen. So in the meantime, we are working very hard, obviously, on a set of mitigation plans. We do have secondary suppliers for most components, including semiconductors, including this one. But as you will know better than most people, the general supply situation for semiconductors is unusually tight across the industry at the moment. which means that getting significantly more supply at a time where we need a lot ahead of the holidays is particularly challenging. So hence what we told you in Q2, you know, the midpoint of the outlook still shows growth 0 to 3% despite the fact that we'll think we'll be short about 20 million because of this incidence. and that's because in the quarter we can leverage some of our regular inventory that we have and Matteo can give you a bit more detail on that. In Q3, it gets a little trickier and again based on the limited info we have today, the negative impact could be up to $200 million in net sales because of the incident. and, you know, it's going to depend when does the fab reopen, how much supply can we get from our secondary suppliers and other plans that we have in progress. By Q4, we're confident that this will be resolved and, again, this is a temporary supply issue. We're confident that the demand is going to remain strong and that we'll resolve this by Q4.

So, let me address the first question. So, yes, the sell-through, going back to the first quarter, was strong. Remember, though, that the sell-through is a gross number, so it does not include, obviously, it's not in constant currency, so it includes any effects movement, and it does not include the promotions. So, if we spend more dollar year over year on promotional activity. If you take the 11% of growth in sell-through and you try to walk it back to the 5% on net sales, really you have two components. One is the effects, which is about two points. And the second one was primarily higher promotional spend. So the channel inventory was actually in good shape. Nothing happened abnormal in the channel. But we promoted a little bit more than last year, particularly in Europe. We saw the market at the beginning of the quarter being pretty subdued, as we said in our prepared remarks. And perfectly, we took an opportunity to gain share. And we are pretty happy with the outcome because as we, as Anneke alluded to in her prepared remarks, we gained and a few points of share on the majority of the product lines in Europe. So we are happy with the outcome. But that's how you bridge from the sell-through to the net sales in constant currency. As far as the maybe last one comment on the channel, back to the impact of the second quarter of the supplier incident, you know, the beauty is that we have a strong balance sheet. And this is what allows us to maintain a healthy level of inventory of this type of components exactly to withstand this kind of situation that sometimes happens like we are experiencing today with the supplier. So thanks to the inventory that we have on hand and the finished products that we have in the chart, We will be able to serve our customers for the vast majority of the second quarter, and that's why, to Hanneke's point, you see that the impact on the second quarter financials is limited. It will continue to grow. It's about $20 million. Obviously, the situation for the third quarter, to Hanneke's point, is a little bit more challenging, but we are happy where the channel sits and is healthy and in the range in terms of weak on hand that we want it to be.

Our next question comes from Alicia Reese with Wedbush.

Thanks for taking my questions today. I wanted to start with just an overall question on the impact of the supply chain incident. I assume that that impacts predominantly the video conferencing, but wanted to just double check that there is nothing within, you know, gaming and the other segments that is particularly impacted.

No, so thank you for asking that, and hello. But the impact is actually on a portion of both our gaming and our PWS portfolios. So these are not memory chips.

Okay. All right. Thanks for elaborating on that. And you did call out share gains in the Americas and EMEA. I believe that's from the Super Strike predominantly. If there were any other categories or products that drove some of those share gains, if you could call that out. And you did – also call out that Asia-Pacific growth was led by giving, but there were no share gain call-outs there. Can you talk about, you know, the overall strategy there, or if there's any particular products that are leading that growth in China, that would be helpful.

Yeah, sure. So in terms of shares, actually the biggest share growth, fantastic share growth, was in personal workspace. So we gained about 220 basis points of share in the quarter. across personal workspace, which is giant. And that included gains in the Americas, in Europe, and in Asia Pacific, and including in China there. So PWA is really an outstanding performance. Gaining also strong share gains in both the U.S. and in Europe. In Asia Pacific, shares were flattish. But on the premium end of our lineup in gaming, again, thanks to what you already alluded to, to Super Strike Mouth, we also saw share gains. And then video conferencing also, strong share gains in the quarters. So really strong performance across the board that we're really, really pleased with. Thank you.

Our next question comes from Alex Valero with Loop Capital.

I think you've taken the question. My first question is on gross margin. So your gross margin, excluding the refunds, was 44.8%, which is above your 43% to 44% structural range. Which piece of that is durable, the mix, FX, or cost reduction?

Sure. So, Alex, the... Overall, we are obviously extremely pleased with the gross margin results now for quite several quarters. As I alluded in my prepared remarks, we have been printing pretty good gross margin, well above 43%. If you look at the year-over-year walk, so if you go from last year in the first quarter, we were at about 42%, so we expanded about 270 basis points, excluding the tariff reimbursement. There were a couple of drivers. Obviously, one is foreign exchange, like when you look at the year-over-year, because last year the Euro was pretty weak. So that accounted for about 240, 250 basis points of the margin lift. When you look at it operationally, I would highlight a couple of components. One is the overall premiumization of the portfolio, so the positive mix. If you look at the high-end, Look at all the MX, Ergo, Pro, Simulation, they all grew double digit and really solid double digit, okay? And then also video conferencing in total, as you know, we're doubling down on B2B. So as video conferencing outpaces the growth rate of the company, that is good for mix. So it's good for margin. That was another big component. So when you combine a little bit of price and this premiumization of the positive mix, it's about 100 basis points left. year-over-year, and then the continuous tremendous work of the cost reductions that Sree and the team continue to do, notwithstanding the environment where we are of higher commodity cost, higher freight cost, in the first quarter, product cost reduction helped us about 100 basis points. And all these positives, as I alluded in my preferred remarks, were offset partially by higher promotional spend. of these categories that I just mentioned. If you look at at least, you know, the short term, call it the next, you know, quarter, probably the number that will be more challenged is going to be the product cost reduction. We see freight rates increasing, and this is going to be a little bit of a less of a help when you look at the second quarter compared to the first. But overall, you heard in the prepared remarks, we're still going to be around 44% of gross margin rates, so still a good number.

Got it. Thank you for that. Just a quick follow-up, just changing it up a bit. What are your B2B customers telling you about their AI budgets right now?

Obviously, everyone is investing in tokens, so people are spending on tokens. But at the same time, we're seeing a really healthy market for video collaboration. Why is that? I'm sure you guys are all using either Microsoft or Google in your video or Zoom in your video conferencing meetings with their AI note takers, AI assistants, etc. So to use AI properly, you need to enable your people with video conferencing in all of your meeting rooms. And I've said this many times before, but globally, less than 25% of meeting rooms are video conferencing enabled. So there's so much white space in that market. And you see that in the market growth. AI is a tailwind for video conferencing. And beyond the white space, video conferencing equipment tends to last between five and seven years. We're now, you know, about six years post the beginnings of COVID when many companies put in video conferencing for the first time. So that's another tailwind. So all in all, a really healthy market for video conferencing equipment that we're taking advantage of.

Thank you very much. Sure.

Our next question comes from Torsten Sauter with Kepler Chevrolet.

Hi, Thorstein. Hi, guys. I didn't have a question, actually. I mean, sorry, I think there was a misunderstanding here.

It's great to see you anyway.

But, yeah, I go back to the queue, but I, yeah, sorry, I don't know what's happening. No worries.

Our next question comes from Tim Long with Barclays.

Sorry, sorry about that. Perfect, now we can hear you.

Yeah, great. Maybe just to follow up on the B2B question, you covered the video conference, so I'm just curious, last quarter you talked about just the overall B2B doing better than B2C and it's a real focus for the company, so maybe you could just talk more broadly about that. And then second question, at the beginning of the call you mentioned some new releases, just curious kind of feedback there and how you think Those will go into the portfolio, particularly on the gaming and the point and price side.

Yeah, definitely. So maybe starting from B2B, yeah, again, we continue to see a healthy B2B market, also beyond video conferencing. And, you know, about half of our business in the B2B channel is video conferencing, about half is personal workspace. But robust markets, good performance in the first quarter across. And I'd say there's a number of trends. There's clearly the video conferencing trends that I just talked about, which is a lot of white space in terms of meeting rooms and a refresh now post-COVID. But hybrid work in general is also good for the rest of our business. You know, there's a real increase in people working from anywhere. Most companies have decided on some sort of hybrid arrangement. And for some companies, that's four days a week in the office, some three, some something else. But the fact remains that versus pre-COVID, people are working more often in places that are not the office. And that then makes companies want to make sure that their employees don't only have a great mouse or a great webcam in the office, but also in the other places that they're working at. And then AI is another tailwind for our business portfolio, as I just mentioned. So B2B, we continue to be pretty bullish, and we're going to continue to double down. A lot of growth in the years ahead in B2B. In terms of the new products for the quarter, first of all, again, the SuperStrike and the MX Master 4 are the gifts that keep on giving. It's really rare that we see new products within a couple of quarters from launch. end up amongst our absolute top sellers. These two products are really big and are a huge hit. So that's great to see. And then, you know, we have our regular pace. We launch between 30 or 40 to 40 new products every year. In the past quarter, we highlighted four. Maybe I'll talk a little bit. There's the new Mobi mouse, which is a foldable mouse. I should have it here so I can show you, but it's a really super cool product. It's the first time we launched something exclusively first on TikTok Shop. And that was really successful, became the number one seller in the overall electronics category on TikTok Shop before we then expanded it to our full distribution. So off to a really promising start. Also a premium product that sells at $79. So we're excited about that. Then we launched the G512X new gaming keyboard. That is a fabulous gaming keyboard that really has all the bells and whistles you can imagine. And that's off to a really strong start as well. And then there was a couple of other fun things. The remote presenter for meetings, that had not been refreshed in God knows how many years, a lot of years. But we've come out with a really slick new presenter, which leverages the haptic feedback, the technology, which is unique to us, and actually lets you breathe before your presentation, which is pretty cool. And then finally, my personal favorite for the soccer frenzy this summer, we had a special edition soccer keyboard. and Mousepad, which are really, really cool. You can see it on the top of the shareholder letter and that's sold out in 10 days.

Okay, great. Thank you.

Sure.

Our next question comes from Maya Newman with Morgan Stanley.

Hi, thank you. Maybe just to start, you know, I think the biggest debate in the market right now is that risk associated with PC shipments declining by low double digits this year. If these predictions from industry analysts are correct, you know, mid-single-digit revenue growth for Logitech would imply, like, an attach per PC shipment growing over 20% this year and reaching over $14 of attach. That's versus, like, $10 to $11 for the past five years. What initiatives do you guys currently have in place that would drive such a material uplift in that attach per PC shipment? And then I have a follow-up. Thank you.

Yeah, sure. Thanks, Maya. Good to see you. Obviously, we're well aware of the debate. And PC units, in fact, in Q1 were down about 5% in the quarter. Yet our categories and our business were tracking very well. The mice market or pointing device market was actually up 5% globally. And Logitech mice and pointing devices were up 14%. So I think that means that we continue to see that our growth is driven by the installed base, not just new PC shipments. And in terms of initiatives, there's nothing new. We will keep doing what we've always done, which is focusing on the installed base, attaching to that, because less than 50% of PC users, people who already have a PC, use a mouse, and less than 30% use a keyboard. We've had a great track record over the last decade to add about a percentage point to those numbers every year. So that's number one. Number two is, of course, driving share growth, which you've seen us do very effectively in the first quarter, and that's part of that growth algorithm. And the third one is ASP growth. Again, the Superstrike is $180. The MX Master 4 is $130. Some of our other new innovation is also premium. That is very important in order to deliver the growth in peripherals. And again, if this is all about the attached base, it is not about the number of new PCs sold.

Got it. Thank you. And then maybe just on video conferencing, you know, could you give us a bit more detail on what's driving that strength and how sustainable it is? So how much of that is pricing actions? And then as you think about kind of the impact of this significant inflation we're seeing across the tech portfolio, you know, is video conferencing at risk of seeing a delayed refresh or elongated replacement cycles going forward? Or I guess, what are you hearing currently from customers?

Yeah, so the market, again, in video conferencing is growing very robustly, and that's driven by new offices. A lot of companies, both Fortune 500 companies but also smaller companies, updating their workspaces for their new ways of working. So new offices is one. Low category penetration. Again, I've talked about it many times. Less than 25% of global meeting rooms, VC enabled. In the age of AI, you need video conferencing in every meeting room. And then a COVID era refresh. So this is a really good neighborhood, I think, for many years to come. These are not one-off quarterly events. These are long-term trends that we believe will continue to be there. Now, in the quarter, we also took pricing to reflect the increased cost of memory, so we took 13% in May. You don't see the effect of that yet because, again, we honor previous prices of deals that are in progress, but you'll start seeing it from the next quarter. But the 9% that you saw in Q1 did not have a pricing benefit yet in it. That was material.

Maybe just to add, B2B, we started a few times, tends to be lumpy, but we have been growing video conferencing pretty nicely now for a few quarters. And you alluded a little bit in memory supply. I think Sree and the team continue to do a fantastic job in securing memory components for video conferencing. At this point, we are Pretty much secure throughout the full fiscal year 2027. And obviously, as we just did, to mitigate the impact of the cost increase, we just raised the prices, as Anika just mentioned. So we're pretty pleased on where the VC team is right now.

Got it. Thank you very much.

Our next question comes from Lucas Glemzer with Barenburg.

Hi, good evening. Hi. I've just got two questions. So starting with the pointing device, which had a very strong quarter, what drove the acceleration of growth here versus Q4? Is it essentially still all from the MX Master 4? Is it from something else? And then also looking forward over the next few quarters, how sustainable is that or is double-digit growth over the next few quarters? and then the second question is could you talk a little bit about the partnership with Calls Duty as well as some of the others that you mentioned. What are the economics here and what is the goal here in terms of how you expect that to translate into numbers? Thanks.

Great. Thank you. Yeah, indeed, Pointing Devices, again, very good quarter. Market growth of 5% globally and regroup 14% globally. That's very, very healthy. The growth is driven by premium innovation as well as marketing. So premium innovation, the MX Master 4 just continues to go from strength to strength. And then we added the Mobi that I just talked about, which is another premium product, foldable, our first foldable mouse. And that's done very well. Marketing is supporting both those new products as well as our existing product range. And I'm super excited by what the personal workspace team is doing. We're really stepping up on social media and social commerce. We talked about the TikTok shop, our first ever launch that was exclusive on TikTok shop, which went very, very well. And we're really stepping up on our roster of creators. So we now have more than 400 creators on the global roster for a personal workspace. And we're creating better content and content that really converts. So these are not one-quarter pieces. We'll continue to innovate. We'll continue to elevate our marketing quality and quantity. So that's on mice. Partnerships are another important part of our business, both really across all three business groups. But since you specifically refer to gaming, there's some really exciting partnerships there. NASCAR is one, obviously U.S.-specific, but we had some great events at the San Diego NASCAR race in the quarter. McLaren is a Fantastic global partnership, which of course makes a lot of sense. We are a long-term partner of McLaren. Their drivers practice with our simulation gear at their facility in England. We develop products together. That is a wonderful, wonderful long-term partnership. And then, of course, GAINS, so Call of Duty Modern Warfare 4, we have a partnership with them as well. And I think what you'll see from us increasingly is working to make sure that we work with game developers to elevate the experience of a new game when it comes out. So that, for example, in driving games with our True Force technology, which is unique to us, you really feel it when you get into the new Forza game or another new driving game. You feel those turns. You feel the skids. You feel it all. So... And you can think of other ways in which we offer immersion through our products in new games that you wouldn't have with someone else's products. So that's what those collaborations with games are about, and we're excited about the new Call of Duty and other things in the pipeline.

Our next question comes from Torsten Sauter with Kepler Chivalry.

Yes, second try. I actually do have a follow-up question, but a little less shell-shocked now. Can I get back quickly on the supplier situation? Are you aware if the specific supplier of yours that has run into problems is also serving some of your friendly competitors in gaming and PWS? And maybe more generally speaking, Can you remind me of your supply chain strategy after the implementation of this China Plus Buy strategy? Is it getting tighter, or are you able to implement your sourcing everywhere?

I'm not going to comment on the competitive piece, because that's competitively sensitive information, so unfortunately I can't do that. In terms of China Plus Five, that is a little different from this incident. So this incident is at a component supplier, not at one of our China Plus Five manufacturing partners. So we manufacture in China, and we manufacture in five other places. Our components come from all over the world, and there's hundreds of them, not just six. So this is at a component supplier, not at one of our own manufacturing sites or contract manufacturing partners.

Just to maybe add a couple of comments that were made earlier. Obviously, we do have multiple sources for this type of critical components, right? We really consider this as a in a way a rare and unique incident because it happened obviously at an unfortunate time. If you look at all the supply ecosystem around this type of semiconductor components, the ecosystem is very tight. So obviously we are working on a multitude of mitigating plans which includes obviously parallel paths and includes also, you know, working with our diversified supply base but we have obviously a diversified supply base for this type of components.

Thank you.

Our final question comes from Martin Jungfleisch with BNP Paribas.

Yeah, hi. Hi, guys. Good evening. Just two quick ones. First one was really on gaming. Gaming was really strong. Is that sort of growth that you're seeing now kind of steady state and sustainable? And with GTA 6 now being released in November for the console, would you already expect some increase in demand growth, maybe even potentially towards the double digits, also as resellers and distributors are stocking up on tools? That's the first question.

Yeah, you're absolutely right, Martin. It's good to see you. But you're absolutely right. In gaming, the markets were strong and we outperformed. The market globally accelerated to high single-digit growth. That's faster than in previous quarters. And that is before the launch of GTA 6. So we see a good trend in terms of market growth. And in the markets, we're really pleased to see the U.S. back to mid-single-digit growth, which is also a pretty significant acceleration from where that market had been. So that's all great to see. And then what we were obviously even more pleased with is that we outperformed that strong market. with 9% net sales growth, really driven by our premium innovation, the Super Strike, first and foremost, but also that new gaming keyboard, the G512X. The growth, again, the North America market was a piece of news, but our growth was super growth-based. Again, demand, North America, double digits, EU, high single digits, China, double digits. So Again, a good neighborhood driven by premium innovation on our side, and we think there's much more of that great demand momentum to come in the quarters ahead.

That's great. And just to follow up on the Middle East, I think you mentioned You expected 150 bits in the quarter. I think you said you had 400 bits now in Europe, which I think is probably equivalent to the 150 per group. I'm not sure if you mentioned it, but what is the expectation for the calendar Q3 on Middle East? Sure.

So yes, Mario, your math is correct. So it was 400 basis points for the EMEA region, which translated to about 100 basis points for the company. We are, right now, our assumption is that in the second quarter, the impact will be very similar.

Thank you.

This concludes the Q&A portion of the call. Back to you, Hanneke.

Thank you, guys. Thanks for being here. I wish you a great rest of the summer, and we'll see you next quarter.