10/23/2025

speaker
Kristian Tammela
VP of Investor Relations

Good morning, all. Welcome to Hurtamäki's Q3 2025 results call. My name is Kristian Tammela, VP of IR. Today, we have, as usual, a presentation first by President and CEO Ralf Wunderlich, and then followed by our CFO Tuomas Gaust. And after the presentations, we'll have a lot of time for Q&As. So without further ado, let's get started in handing over to Ralf.

speaker
Ralf Wunderlich
President and CEO

Thank you, Christiane, and good morning also from my side. Thank you for dialing in. And I'm starting with an overview, high level of the group. Very happy to share with you today that we saw profit improvements for the group, specifically driven by three segments, flexibles, fiber, and food service in what we see as still pretty volatile and soft market environment. Also happy to share that we have both in the quarter as well as here today seen strong volume growth in two of our segments, namely fiber and North America. The margin improved to now 10.3% in the quarter. And for the first time, all of our four segments delivered greater 9% EBIT margin. Headwinds from FX, especially the US dollar, persisted, impacting our top and bottom lines. We have seen a weak quarter in North America and will further comment on this in a bit when we come to the segment presentations. I'm also proud to see that our three value drivers continue to progress very well and are showing impacts. Let me use that. as a bridge then to the drivers. Driver number one is growth, and we want to use all levers which we have to drive profitable growth. First one, organic. Initiatives which we kicked off are very focused, and they are focused on both the JKAs, our global key accounts, as well as small and medium customers. especially the later one where we have a very small share with, are in focus and we are starting to build good relationships in all our segments. As I mentioned before, we have seen volume growth both in the quarter and year to date in fiber in North America. And of course, that's in a volatile and soft market. Very encouraging. On the inorganic side, We are proud to say that the integration of Selwyn Farms is tracking very well, and it's delivering both top line as well as bottom line as by promise. We are also managing our pipeline actively. It's a long pipeline, and as you know, we are focused on small bolt-ons, so that will take some time, and we will do that in a very disciplined way. Second point and second driver is capital discipline. After significant investments over the last years, and with very disappointing growth after those investments, we have started to be much more disciplined already at the back end of last year. We continue to be very disciplined, and we are going ahead with the guideline of 80-80-80-10, which is 80 million approximately for growth, 80 million for productivity, 80 million for maintenance, and 10 million for what we call license to operate. That context will continue. But we are ahead of our target, and we might end this year at a lower number, as you can see from the Q3 track which we have. Third driver for value for us is accountability. We have changed to now empower our segments. We will have faster decision making and faster speed of execution. We have also decided that tax and treasury will remain in the center and now procurement is also handled directly from the center for all our segments. The reason for that is that we will see direct bottom line impact by those three functions. All other functions are supporting the segments and are guiding, are reporting, are coordinating, are controlling and ensuring that at Hutamaki we have one language. Let me swiftly go to the business performance. And let's start with net sales. As mentioned, similar market conditions in Q3 as we had in H1, pretty volatile and very soft demand. With the FX impact now accelerating in the quarter and now over 4% or 44 million in the quarter alone, we have a very, very negative impact just from FX alone. And you see the acceleration by comparing quarterly numbers to year-to-date numbers, where year-to-date we are at approximately 2%, but in the quarter it was more than four as mentioned just a second ago. Our organic growth continues to be impacted and stands now at minus 0.9%, just under 1% year to date. Again, we'd like to stress that we are seeing volume growth in North America and fiber, and we are actively working also in the other segments to come back to volume growth. Good to see that Selwood, and that's what we call the acquisition line here, is delivering on the top line, as I mentioned before, also on the bottom line. Now looking at the profits, and we see that the adjusted EBIT was ascending at the quarter at 100.3 million. If we add the 4 million FX impact, then we would be in fact, 2% above last year quarter and spot on year to date, if again, including the FX impact, which for year to date is over 5 million. Our quarterly margin increased now to 10.3% and even year to date, we are double digit at 10.1%, which is again slightly ahead of year to date last year's margin. We're very proud to see our EPS growing 2% year to date. On a side note, if you would adjust the quarterly EPS by the currency, you will also have a 3% EPS growth in the quarter. Capital discipline is allowing us to have a very strong support from capital expenditure, which of course is positively impacting our cash flow. So you see that we are 26% down quarter over quarter on capital expenditure and 18% down year over year. Now going to the segment specifically. And as always, let's start with food service. The demand in food service remained unchanged versus H1. On the comparable FX, we are spot on last year. And I want to stress that because it's after eight quarters of decline. It's the first quarter that we are now back on being spot on with the prior. The increase in net sales came especially from Western Europe and Middle East Africa, supported by price and mix improvements. Adjusted EBIT is above 9% margin again, both in the quarter and year-to-date. This is, of course, also driven by cost focus, cost management, and margin management, and that will remain key. Our adjusted EBIT is 5% ahead of prior in the quarter and just at minus 2% year-to-date. And food service continues to focus on cash flow. And again, here capital discipline is supporting a very strong operating cash flow delivery. Now North America. North America had another strong volume quarter. And I want to stress that even though the North American numbers are disappointing, that the volume was strong in North America. And that was driven by a mix, by pricing and by volume. But pardon me, the mixed impact in the quarter was negatively, as the price impact was negatively. So volume positive and price mix negatively. So the total comparable growth in the quarter stands at minus 3%. Year-to-date net sales stands at minus 1%. So the disappointing EBIT was impacted by, as I mentioned before, by price, by mix, and by cost headwinds. specifically operating cost increases, transport, energy cost increases. I encourage you to look at the full year margin as again, the quarter was impacted by those very high impacted on the transport energy and other operational cost increases. So we are running at a margin of 11.4% year to date, which as anticipated already early in the year is driven, clearly driven by pricing, which we were holding on for two years after the spike of raw material prices in 22. So this is now the more normalized EBIT percentage, which we are seeing. Moving on to flexible packaging, where we have a much stronger story to tell. Even though the volume side continues to be soft, we continue to focus on price, mix, and turning around our underperforming units. And we are seeing in the quarter and year to date encouraging results on all of those elements. We have had unfavorable FX, but again, strong price and margin management. We were able to increase the EBIT in the quarter versus last year by 28%, with a very strong double-digit margin for flexibles in the quarter. However, here the EBIT absolute and relative was impacted by raw material decreases, which we will need to pass on on Q4. Hence, also here, I would encourage you to look at the year to date EBIT margin, which is more what we see our business currently traveling at. But even that one is two points ahead of what we have seen last year. So we are now at 8.8% margin. Flexibles also delivered very strong cash flow. And we also were very disciplined on the capital expenditure side. Let me move on to fiber packaging now. Fiber packaging continues to show very strong performances as they have done in the two quarters prior to that. Net sales was driven by volume, price and mix and resulted in a strong quarter with 9% growth and year to date even a double digit 10% growth. Net sales growth combined with cost management drove also very strong EBIT improvement, again, both in the quarter and year-to-date. Our margin stands now at 12.6% for the quarter and similar at 12.4% year-to-date. As fiber is performing very well, we continue to invest In fact, fiber is the only segment where we have seen growth in capital expenditure. This is again totally in line with our capital discipline, where we want to invest behind those segments which are performing very well. Thomas would like to pass on to you to give us an update on the financials.

speaker
Tuomas Gaust
CFO

Thank you, Ralf. And I'm starting off with the main topic, actually, for the quarter, and that is the currency. Currency and its negative translation impact to our results is visible clearly in both Topline and in... You can see it accelerating to 44 million net sales impact in the quarter, 4 million in EBIT, and year-to-date 66 million and 5 million on EBIT. I would like to remind you here that our P&L is valued at average rates while the balance sheet is valued at closing rates. So we see the impact immediately in the balance sheet while we come with the lagging to the P&L. Of course, the biggest currency impact will come from the USD. There we have a drop now of the USD to US. to a 1.12 average rate, while we in the closing rate already see the 1.17. Looking at the currency yesterday and today, we are roughly at 1.16. So USD obviously being a very important currency, but you can see that we are trending negatively on basically all currencies in the closing rates and only Thai baht and British pound is positive in the average rates. I would like to remind you also about that in our top 10 country revenues, we have only Germany and Spain denominated in euros. So, currencies are and will remain one of the core topics when it comes to translation of profits. So, the main impact in North America, but also in flexibles, you will see significant negative currency impacts. Then moving on to the more detailed P&L and adding on top of what Ralph said, we are still seeing tailwind in value add. Otherwise, I would say the core of our continued positive profit development operationally really comes from the activities we have done ourselves. You will find that on personal cost, we are still up year to date, but actually in the quarter we were trending already positively compared to prior year, just as one example. EBITDA is progressing ahead of EBIT, indicating that we are seeing a strong operational performance in our profitability, but also showing that we still have assets available for delivery. Other items in the P&L to address is the net financial items, where we had a few one-offs Last year, partly explaining the significantly lower finance cost. However, we are also moving downwards on finance cost from a structural point of view. The tax rate remains at roughly previous year's level, so we are 23.4% of tax rate. So, also there, a consistent delivery. So, if you look at the EPS, I would claim that despite the hit from the currency, we have made a good job at maintaining the EPS at roughly previous year's level on the quarter and actually improving year to date on EPS. Moving to the cash flow. Cash flow progress since the low Q1 has been good. We have now... You will also find in this bridge that the sort of... abnormal or non-operational items proceeds from selling assets and the CapEx part are balancing each other off. So one could say that the cash flow development comes purely from the operative activities as well as from lower taxes. So progress on cash flow We are anticipating also quarter four to be a positive cash flow quarter. So good development based on our capital discipline also in the cash flow on the cash flow side. Net debt EBITDA, you recall that we got an upgrade from S&P on our rating. We are nowadays a triple B minus company. That is really driven from the discipline we have seen on deal leveraging our net debt. We are at two in the end of the quarter. similar level as previous year and stay very focused on this key parameter. Gearing is at 0.65, and as you can see, we have sufficient cash and cash equivalents available at the amount of 328 million at the end of the quarter. On top of that, we obviously have our revolving credit facility available. Another element which we have been focusing on in order to be a predictable company is obviously working around our loan maturity structure. We have highlighted on this page the key events we have been going through this year. So in June, we signed a 150 million schuldschein. You recall that we entered an EMTM program for bond issuance program, and under that one, we issued our first bond in the quarter. And in connection to that one, we also set out a voluntary tender offer for repurchase of some of the outstanding bonds. So a disciplined approach in order for us to have a predictable maturity available in our loan facilities. Moving over to the balance sheet. In the balance sheet, obviously, the translation impact of currencies has a significant impact. You can see that alone in the equity line, we have a 232 million negative impact. I would also highlight that on the working capital, we are up roughly 60 million, And with that one, I would highlight that core items come from, for instance, receivables. So working through this balance sheet towards the end of the year will be core, including delivery of the inventory. Looking at then the return on investments, you remember me highlighting that this comes with a significant lag, so we are slowly but surely moving towards our long-term ambition, which is a 13% to 15% ambition on return on investments, adjusted return on investments. Beyond that one, we are Continuing now in the threshold of the 10 to 12 on adjusted EBIT, we are in line with our net debt EBITDA ambition. And as you recall, we have paid the dividend this year in line with our ambition as well. So the only part we are really still lacking is the comparable growth and with the comparable growth, we would also see a positive development into our return on investments. Our outlook and short-term risks remain unchanged. And with that one, I will then open up for Q&A.

speaker
Operator
Conference Operator

If you wish to ask a question, please dial pound key five on your telephone keypad to enter the queue. If you wish to withdraw your question, please dial pound key six on your telephone keypad. The next question comes from Louis Merrick from BNP Paribas. Please go ahead.

speaker
Louis Merrick
Analyst, BNP Paribas

Morning, Ralph. Morning, Thomas. Thank you for taking my questions. Just after North America, as you went through a somewhat disappointing quarter for profitability, You mentioned pricing and costs. Can you just explain those various parts in a tad more detail? And equally, what gives you confidence in the margin bouncing back to the year-to-date levels, as you spoke of? I've got one more to follow up.

speaker
Ralf Wunderlich
President and CEO

Very relevant question, Louis. Thanks for asking that. So let me start on the pricing side. You will recall that in 2022, the raw material prices spiked and then we saw reductions of those over the last few years. We were able to hold on on those advantages, those pricings for quite a while. With now a softer market, that was just not possible anymore. So we had to go back and pass on those benefits back to customers. We anticipated this the whole year. So that happened. Now, as you can also see, and I mentioned that, we benefited from getting more volume, not just maintaining, but growing volume in North America, which is a soft market currently. So we are very optimistic. convinced that that was the right move for us to do going forward. So that's now at the level which it should be. So I'm confident on the pricing side going forward. On the second point, on cost, there are a few points I'd like to mention which might give you some comfort. Number one is There were some costs, energy costs, transport costs, which did hit us in the quarter quite a bit. But we see those getting more in line in Q4 and then going forward, number one. Number two, we did pre-build quite a lot of inventory in the quarter for the seasonality. Seasonality is now again much stronger in North America. We saw it Easter already when we had the Easter seasonality. And we are seeing this with the order intake now also for North America Q4 also. So seasonality is strong. We had to build inventory, which increased our cost as well. As did, and part of that was, of course, also building inventory for our news or our two startups, which I mentioned, Paris and Hammond. And the additional volumes, which is great news, unfortunately came with increased costs as we are ramping it up. We had to increase our costs to make sure that we are ramping it up. correctly those those two so those were costs which again we will manage going forward which gives me also confidence and then lastly again with the seasonality I think the way to look at this really is if either you look at at the year-to-date margins or you you in fact you say it's h1 and h2 where easter It can vary between two quarters impact and the same then of course Q3, Q4 with a very strong Thanksgiving seasonality, which can or cannot impact the end of Q3 strongly or the beginning of Q4 strongly, depending on when you start building your inventory. So with other words, when our customers are then ordering from us. That gives me the confidence that I see Q3, Q4 together and I see the year-to-date numbers that we will get the cost back under control, especially in Paris and Hammond, the two startups, that we have the pricing now at a level which we think is the new level going forward and that we will manage, again, the demand of the seasonality better.

speaker
Louis Merrick
Analyst, BNP Paribas

Thank you. Very clear. And then just on flexible packaging, clearly great to see the improvements in profitability in that division. My math puts at least part of that down to improvements in the Indian entity. But it would seem there is improvements elsewhere also. I know you mentioned cost tailwinds, which will then need to be passed on in the next quarter. But can you just give a bit of extra color on what drove the improvements there this quarter and also equally on the sustainability of that going forward?

speaker
Ralf Wunderlich
President and CEO

Yeah. Also, that's a very relevant question, Louis. So I think on flexible, there are a number of points. Really, it's not just India or Turkey, the turnarounds, which are, of course, helping us. and especially if you compare this to frankly the years before not just prior so that's helping us and that's we are seeing this now um in every quarter q1 we saw a bit q2 we saw more q3 we see that so that's that's helpful but we're seeing also the same in other units flexibles because of soft demand started cost all programs early in the year everywhere, not just in those two where we have to turn around teams, but in every unit. And that's now giving us the benefit on the cost side on flexibles. They are very stringent on managing margin. They don't take any more negative margin orders. So they are very stringent and diligent and disciplined, I should say, on the management of their margin. So that's really great to see. And as I mentioned, we had in the quarter specifically a very positive impact from raw material where we saw a decline. And you know that flexible is in fact the segment where we have to pass on most with automatic clauses. So we will see that impact now reversing in Q4. So we think, again, it's the other direction than North America, but we think the way to look at flexible is more like the year-to-date margin, which we are super proud of because it's a two point ahead of what we have seen in prior year.

speaker
Louis Merrick
Analyst, BNP Paribas

Thank you. I'll turn it over.

speaker
Operator
Conference Operator

The next question comes from Samu Wilhelmsen from Nordia Markets. Please go ahead.

speaker
Samu Wilhelmsen
Analyst, Nordia Markets

Hi, thank you for the presentation. Maybe only one question for me. Given now that the inflation is now, of course, waiting on in-demand for branded products, and according to my understanding, customers for you are mostly like big brand companies. So I was wondering that could you comment on either your willingness or your ability to try to gain these smaller local customers to combat these kind of problems arising from companies?

speaker
Ralf Wunderlich
President and CEO

Yeah, that's great. Thanks for that question. Look, on the smaller and medium-sized customers, which are under focus, we have lots of activities kicked off, and we see good discussions. I've got to be transparent that those discussions will take time before we see the benefits. This is never going to be a quick win. We just needed to start it, knowing that they are, of course, supported by competitors since here so we know it's a starting point and we know that those discussions will end up in better relationships and then eventually we will get our chances so we have started that knowing that we will not get a small or a short-term impact knowing it will be relatively small this year and then we will see this ramping up over the next year so but it was important to start and yes you are right with the global key accounts Of course, they are seeing, and you have seen their numbers, and you will see more reports coming out shortly, they are having similar issues on relatively soft demand as well, which is then what we are seeing is with most of them, we have long-term contracts. So there is a quick... share win is always going to be again difficult so we are supporting them we believe that they will come back and we are sure that demand will come back but we don't see it coming back at short term all right thank you very much no other questions from my side the next question comes from maria wickstrom from seb please go ahead

speaker
Maria Wickstrom
Analyst, SEB

Hi, this is Maria Wickstrom. Thank you for taking my question.

speaker
Unknown Analyst
Analyst

Wanted to touch upon the North America, given that I think the kind of soft guidance, I mean, earlier have been that the margins on North America around 12-ish level, and now we were a bit above 10% in Q3. So how should we, I mean, see, is this around, I mean, if we talk about like annual margins, EBIT margins in the coming years. I mean, is this still valid or has something changed in the profitability of North America?

speaker
Ralf Wunderlich
President and CEO

Yeah, thanks, Maria. So I think we are very consistent to how we guided after the capital markets there a few years back, the North American profitability, which was between 11% and 12%. So we are at 11.5%. Now, we think, again, if you take, which will be seasonality-driven, a strong Q4, that we will be in that range of 11% to 12%. And that's the way we are thinking about North America going forward. The 13.9%, which we have seen last year as the highest, was clearly impacted by a pricing which we were holding on after the raw material spikes a few years back. So the 11% to 12% guidance, which we have given some time back, is how we see this. And we are very confident that we will deliver on that.

speaker
Maria Wickstrom
Analyst, SEB

Okay, thank you.

speaker
Unknown Analyst
Analyst

And then I wanted to touch upon, given that the North America is kind of like three different businesses. So if you could talk about the volume development, I mean, in retail tableware, food service, and then the retail packaging, please.

speaker
Ralf Wunderlich
President and CEO

Yeah, so we don't give specific volume guidance, but I give you a flavor. And the flavor is that from a volume perspective, we are doing well in all our different segments which we are driving in North America, specifically well in food service. But again, also on the retail side, we are pretty happy with positive volumes and we are seeing seasonality. So the next quarter is the big quarter as a reminder. So we don't have huge variations. We have volume growth year to date and in the quarter in North America. I'm pretty proud of that.

speaker
Unknown Analyst
Analyst

All right. And then my final question on CapEx, I mean, which was down year over year in Q3. I mean, is this kind of the quarter or run rate we should expect for the Q4 as well? Or is this something specifically why the CapEx figure was lower in Q3?

speaker
Ralf Wunderlich
President and CEO

No, you should always expect in packaging that the last quarter is the highest quarter with regards to CapEx. So there's always a ramp up over the year on CapEx projects coming and then, of course, also being paid to our suppliers. So that one, you should expect a stronger Q4. But I think our overall capital discipline is showing clear improvements year over year. That would be the flavor I would give you significantly down towards previous year though.

speaker
Maria Wickstrom
Analyst, SEB

Thank you so much. I had no further questions.

speaker
Operator
Conference Operator

The next question comes from Hai Win from UBS. Please go ahead.

speaker
Hai Win
Analyst, UBS

Hi, I have a couple of questions, please. So on food service, are you seeing any early signs of demand stabilization within Q4 in the UK and Northeastern Europe? And on fiber packaging, how sustainable do you think the strong volume growth in egg and food packaging is?

speaker
Ralf Wunderlich
President and CEO

Yeah, thank you. Hi. So we see early signs that take our largest customer, that the promotional activities are showing impacts. So how sustainable that one is, the next quarters will show, but we see that Again, who is doing promotions sees traffic coming back and sees there an uptick. So that we have clearly seen in the quarter, specifically in the two markets you mentioned, and they are specifically in Western Europe. But also in the UK, promotions are showing first results, but Western Europe even stronger. So it's a quarter we are super proud of, the quarter being flat versus prior. As I mentioned, eight quarters in a row negative. But it's too early to tell that this is going to continue. So I would say we think it's still going to be relatively soft before demand really comes back. But we also see that promotions are increasing and increasing. And towards the end of the year, again, we are hopeful that our customers will do their promotions. And of course, we will support those on fiber. So the strong growth, which is really driven by all three elements, by volume, by price and by mix. We see this now not happening in one quarter, but we see this now happening for the whole year, quarter after quarter, in fact, month after month. So we are. We are very confident that our segment is strong, well-prepared, very close to their customers. They are working, as a reminder, not with global key accounts. They are working pretty much with local small accounts. And they know how to build relationships with those. They know how to serve them well. And that's clearly showing the benefit now. And I mentioned also that we are investing behind Fiverr. So we are confident of the Fiverr performance And that's what I wanted to mention on fiber as well, that wasn't a big impact, but we had a fire in one of our three South African plants at the end of the quarter. So this is going to be back in Q4. That plant, it's not material, but just as a factual update on you on the fiber side, as you are asking. Hi.

speaker
Hai Win
Analyst, UBS

Thank you. Thank you. Sorry. And I forgot one last question, if you don't mind. So net debt EBITDA now two times at the bottom end of the range. And you mentioned capital discipline. So are you planning to do leverage further then? Or are there other spending or returns that you're considering?

speaker
Ralf Wunderlich
President and CEO

Yeah, thank you again for that one. So you might remember, we presented our model on how we are thinking about allocating capital to shareholders. So we have a number of things we are considering. Number one, where we think we have the biggest impact is how can we invest the capital back into the business to continue to grow profitably in our business. Second one, and we have now opened again up the lever of M&A, So we are actively looking at M&A. We did one in April this year, but we are continuing to look at other opportunities. And again, we will be very disciplined. It's super difficult to predict if and when something will happen, but we are prepared if it does. And then we are considering, of course, returning money to shareholders via dividends, which we always did. We are very proud of our long track record of increasing dividends year over year. So that's extremely important for us. And of course, we are not excluding other means, which of course are up to the board to discuss, but we are not excluding anything here. So the target is not to be at lower than two times. We are now at that very bottom end. The target is to be between two and three times, and we are considering all levers. Thomas, anything you want to add from your side?

speaker
Tuomas Gaust
CFO

No, I think you covered it all. So organically, we are still moving towards a continued deleveraging. So we want to use the capital wisely.

speaker
Hai Win
Analyst, UBS

Thank you very much.

speaker
Operator
Conference Operator

The next question comes from Kaie Loikkonen from Danske Bank. Please go ahead.

speaker
Kaie Loikkonen
Analyst, Danske Bank

Thank you. Good morning and thank you for taking my question. I have a couple of questions. Firstly, it sounds like you're not expecting any major improvements or major changes in demand in Q4, but what are you seeing for 2026 in terms of demand? Are you optimistic for next year or What kind of discussions do you have with your customers and so on?

speaker
Ralf Wunderlich
President and CEO

Yeah, Carla, thanks for looking ahead. Yes, of course we see the market being soft on the one side, the market being volatile on the other side. We are seeing that the Look, the geopolitical issues didn't all go away. So that's still, of course, impacting everybody. Of course, we are seeing that the tariff discussions, even though they don't impact us directly in the US, are not improving. consumer confidence at all yet. So we are seeing those headwinds. Until the world is changing, we don't see those really helping us. But on the other side, we see that our three value drivers are starting to help us. So I made the point about in a soft market, we are having two of our segments improving volume. growing. That's really important. We see the other two, of course, working really hard on making sure that they get closer to customers, new customers, which, of course, this year was always going to be a difficult one to have an impact. But of course, we are super optimistic that this will start showing an impact going forward. We have started, you know, and I mentioned that over the year to really kickstart our investments in the US, Hammond and Paris, which is now already showing impacts on the volume side. Unfortunately, with increased costs in the quarter. But of course, we are seeing those volumes going to help us going forward into 2021. into 2026 and we have invested colors you know in knots of blue loop investments where we still have capacity and we are actively out in the market selling them we have a couple of multinationals which gave us already contracts where we see increased volumes for for next year so yes are we are we optimistic for next year we are but on the other side just to to make sure i don't

speaker
Kaie Loikkonen
Analyst, Danske Bank

lose that point we are seeing still a market which is soft and we are still seeing geopolitical issues in many places which aren't helpful at all yeah thank you that's that's very helpful and and my second question was actually on the on the capacity ramp up in the us um i was wondering that are there any kind of numbers or anything that you can provide in terms of of um what sort of help you've got from the new capacity in Q3, anything of the impact in Q4 and perhaps onwards as well. So any kind of additional numbers or anything on that would be helpful.

speaker
Ralf Wunderlich
President and CEO

Kalle, we are not giving numbers on those specifically. As mentioned over the year, and I continue to make sure I mention that, We started at a very low point early this year. We are nicely ramping this up. And we are, of course, getting quite a bit of help. So, Hammond is now contributing in the quarter. Paris will start contributing then next quarter onwards.

speaker
Kaie Loikkonen
Analyst, Danske Bank

Okay. Thank you. That's clear. And that's all for me. So, thank you.

speaker
Operator
Conference Operator

The next question comes from Marayo Adesina from Barclays. Please go ahead. Marayo Adesina, your line is now unmuted. Please go ahead. Hi, can you hear me?

speaker
Kristian Tammela
VP of Investor Relations

Yeah.

speaker
Marayo Adesina
Analyst, Barclays

Sorry, some technical difficulties there. Yeah, Mariah here on behalf of Gore of Jane. Just two questions to clarify some things on North America. So you mentioned the seasonality in Q4 that is upcoming. Does that mean that you're then expecting an uptick in volume performance in Q4 in North America versus the volumes that are already improving in Q3? And then I just wanted to touch upon the unfavorable sales mix that you highlighted in the report in North America. Could you just clarify that? which of the sub-segments, you know, are making up this unfavorable sales mix?

speaker
Ralf Wunderlich
President and CEO

Yeah, thanks, Maria. Yeah, happy to answer those two. Let me start with the first one. Yeah, clearly, clearly for us, Easter, number one, and Thanksgiving, even more so, are the two very big seasonalities in North America. Thanksgiving is going to drive retail sales specifically in North America in Q4 as it does in every year. And we have no reason to believe that it wouldn't in Q4 this year. So we are optimistic on that side. There's no doubt about that. On the on the mixed side. On the mix side, I think it's important to see that retail is our largest segment in North America. And as retail is also a high margin business, that's of course with being the largest with regards to volume and the highest margin with regards of the margin side, it will impact positively the mix in Q4 for our North American business. And the focus on branded products also will help us because also there we see higher margin. So both of those questions, I think we can give you some comfort.

speaker
Marayo Adesina
Analyst, Barclays

Great. Thank you so much.

speaker
Kristian Tammela
VP of Investor Relations

Thank you for attending this event. There seem to be no further questions, but as always, we remind you that if you have any follow-up questions, feel free to reach out to the IR team. And with that, we hope you have a great day and thank you from our side.

speaker
Ralf Wunderlich
President and CEO

Thank you.

Disclaimer

This conference call transcript was computer generated and almost certianly contains errors. This transcript is provided for information purposes only.EarningsCall, LLC makes no representation about the accuracy of the aforementioned transcript, and you are cautioned not to place undue reliance on the information provided by the transcript.

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