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Tonies Se Reg A
4/14/2026
Good morning and good afternoon from wherever you are joining us virtually today and welcome to the Tony's earnings call for the financial year 2025. A landmark year where Tony's didn't just meet ambitious targets but again redefined the global benchmark for connected screen-free children's entertainment. My name is Moritz and I am the new head of industrial relations. Being born and raised literally 20 minutes from here, it is my pleasure joining Tony's on its path from being a local hero to becoming a global icon. With me today are our CEO Tobias Wann and CFO Hansjörg Müller. Tobias will start with last year's business highlights and Hansjörg will walk you through the financials before we finish with the outlook for the financial year 2026. As usual, After the presentation, we will continue with the Q&A session, and we invite you to submit your written questions through the Q&A function during the presentation already. I will hand over the floor to Tobias to kick things off.
Thank you, Moritz. Welcome to the team, also from my side again, and also a warm welcome to all of you on the call. Today we are indeed looking back on a landmark year for Tony's. 2025 was full of success and innovation. We strengthened our leading market position as the global number one for kids audio. All indicators point the right way. Our global footprint is getting deeper and deeper. Our installed base grows. We are now around 11.8 million Tony boxes activated in more than a hundred countries. And those Tony boxes are in heavy use. Our content portfolio appeals to kids in more ways than ever. Inspiration, education, entertainment, and now also gaming. But one thing is true as ever. It all starts with listening. And kids are listening. close to five hours per week with their Tony Box. Five hours of playtime, creativity, and engagement over algorithms and screens. 2025 reinforced the appeal and unique position of Tony's in family homes across the world. And it shows us that we are on the right track as we evolve Tony's into a true global icon. We once again delivered on our full year guidance. In fact, we surpassed our expectations slightly despite the challenging environment. At the top line, we saw double-digit growth across all markets, increasing group revenue by 36% at constant currencies, an outstanding achievement. DACH returns to double-digit growth at high profitability levels. North America once again showed how much potential we can still capture, growing the largest region in our portfolio by more than 40%, simply remarkable. And a 68% growth rate in rest of the world speaks for itself, particularly when that region already delivers over 140 million euros in revenues. While we pursue a strong top-line growth, we are also very focused on improving profitability. This year, we expanded our margin to 8.6%, a great success considering the environment we've been in. You're familiar with the model that's behind the success. Our installed base grows exponentially in 2025, boosted by Tony Box 2, of course. Every Tony Box we sell fuels subscription-like revenue through figurines and now games. The more boxes in homes, the more Tony's families buy. Year after year. That flywheel is spinning and it's spinning faster than ever. To give some perspective, not even one and a half years ago, we celebrated 100 million Tony's sold. Over a span of roughly eight years. Now, 18 months later, we reached 156 million Tonys sold, 43 million Tonys just in 2025. So we are clearly on a roll and let's take a look now at the underlying highlights. First and foremost, 2025 was the year of our biggest innovation since the first Tonyvox launched back in 2016. With Tonyvox2, we've created a foundation for the next chapter in our growth journey. We opened up our product portfolio for new target groups, new growth vectors, and new opportunities. We performed in all of our markets. North America remained a growth engine despite U.S. tariffs. DACH showed how we grow even in a more established market. And rest of the world showed the momentum we build once we really get into a market. One key to the success, strong partnerships with retailers and with the world's greatest licensing partners. 2025 highlight include new formats with Disney and a landmark collaboration with Pokemon launching in 2026. Let's take a closer look. We have talked a lot about TonyBox 2 before, and deservedly so. We had a beloved, innovative product in our first generation TonyBox. It never went out of fashion. To the contrary, we built a global platform and a huge installed base with it. With TonyBox 2, we took this winning formula even further. We kept everything that made TonyBox 1 a global success, but added new dimensions of interaction and play that open up entirely new growth vectors for us. And, once again, we fueled the growth of our installed base. The nuances here matter, because this drives both top and bottom line growth. Tony's has always been positioned right at that intersection of tech, toys, and content. Now, we are adding gaming to that mix. Alongside TonyBox 2, we introduced TonyPlay, a new category that perfectly complements our audio-first approach. We have created the foundation to bring so many new ways to our platform, to engage, to interact, and to play. So, let's have a look at how our new flagship device introduced itself to kids and families around the globe. TonyBox 2 has become an immediate success. Our fantastic team worked really hard for that. Long before the first TonyBox 2 was sold, we made sure we had high availability across the world. Then, a flawless global launch drove adoption early on, and fantastic customer feedback continued that dynamic. In Q4, our most important quarter, Around 80% of all Tony Boxes sold were a Tony Box 2. We've stopped production of Tony Box 1, so it won't be long before every Tony Box sold is a Tony Box 2, which will fuel our flywheel even more. Our promise to families is simple. We deliver on their real needs. Inspiration, entertainment, Education. Experience that support good child development without screens. Imagination, independence and wonder before algorithms and endless scrolls. With TonyBox 2, we have taken that promise further. We have now the foundation to build an ecosystem that reaches humans throughout their first decade of life. Younger and older kids alike. For us as a business, engaging families earlier and retaining them for longer means unlocking new growth vectors. We've added a younger age group to our target audience, kids between one and three years. To drive early adoption, we evolved both our product and our content portfolio. We now develop formats designed specifically for children aged one and up. The highlight here, My First Tonys. A range of soft, squeezable characters built around the needs of the very youngest. Simple and tactile, they introduce first sounds and language in a gentle, playful way that resonates. In North America, where we first launched them, My First Tonys averaged a 10% higher listening time with one-year-olds compared to classic Tonys. And keep in mind, My First Tonys offer relatively short content tailored to the attention span and instincts of toddlers. So what that tells us, babies and kids love their My First Tonys so much that they're listening to their favorite animals over and over again. Fully developed in-house, this new content format is now ready to win over children all over the world. Now, let's turn to the other end of the age range. Here, TonyPlay is our highlight, bringing interactive, screen-free gaming to older kids. Approximately half of households with 6 plus year olds that upgraded to a TonyBox 2 have adopted TonyPlay already. That clearly shows the TonyBox can add new dimensions of wonder at a later stage in childhood. And while Tony Play is a full new category, we are also evolving other formats. Pocket Tonys, our educational content ones. Book Tonys, our long-form audiobooks. Together, they now account for around 60% of our portfolio for older kids and drive strong engagement. With Book Tonys, for example, we are seeing and engagement rates up 25% compared to classic Tony's. That confirms what we always believed. Older kids want more depth, and we are delivering it. We are growing our platform, our user base, and our formats. And in doing so, we maximize the appeal of our global Tony's brand. One moment that clearly stood out to me happened over the holiday season. Our own Tony's Christmas miracle, you could say. More Tony boxes than ever before were unwrapped under Christmas trees around the world. That we expected. But we didn't anticipate this. Tony's became the most downloaded app across all categories in the app stores. Number one in the U.S. DACH, UK, and France. Ahead of JetGPT, Meta AI, Google Gemini, Amazon Alexa, Garmin, tech that was gifted to adults. I couldn't help but smile, thinking of our global icon ambition. So, Tonyvox2 is clearly the number one choice of kids and parents. And of industry experts, too. He set an industry standard with Tony Box 1 10 years ago, and we are doing it again with Tony Box 2. We are really proud that my first Tonys have already won the prestigious Toy Award in the Baby and Infant category at Nuremberg Toy Fair in January. Given our focus on winning young kids for Tonys, that means a lot. Tony Box 2 won the Best EdTech Innovation Award at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. And in Australia, we are not just the overall product of the year, but also the product of the year for infants and preschoolers. So clearly, we are shaping the industry, be it in toys, be it in tech. Tony leads the way these awards reflect the appeal of our product, our platform, and our brand. Let's move from awards to bar charts. Maybe not as shiny, but equally exciting. Looking at our markets, I'd like to start with North America, our largest territory and growth engine. Let's be clear, we faced a challenging macro environment with tariffs and economic uncertainty. And despite this, we delivered 40% growth in constant currency while increasing profitability. How did we do this? We listened to our customers and then embedded Tony's further and further in families' lives, with higher visibility and through strong execution within our organization. As everywhere else, Tony Box 2 created excitement like we never did before. We captured Times Square. We were featured in Walmart's holiday TV spots alongside household brands like Apple and Nespresso. Throughout the year, we deliver day-to-day moments of joy with outstanding collaborations. Just to give you some examples, the Miss Rachel Tony has seen incredible demand, and Snoop Dogg's Doggyland has been a great success that showcases the diversity of our content in North America. Next up, market presence. Shoppers that look for Tonys find them, and shoppers that don't know Tonys yet see us. That's because you cannot miss us in stores of all major retailers as we continue to expand. The impact we have on kids and on family routines in the U.S. is noticeable across the broader toy industry. In 2025, no other preschool toy brand grew as strongly as the Tony Box. We accomplished this in a year in which every international company had to deal with tariffs. One year after the so-called Liberation Day, I can say with confidence and with pride, our team managed it exceptionally well. We increased prices and saw no material impact on demand. That signals very clearly how much families in the US value our products. And we diversified our supply chain, ramping up capacities outside of China. The result? is what you can see here on the left-hand side of this slide. Distribution channels. Whoever wants to be successful in our industry needs to play the omni-channel game, and we are mastering it. D2C, wholesale, marketplace, each channel contributes individually and feeds into another as a self-sustaining flywheel. Families discover us in store, buy online, return to retail, and vice versa. Still, retail partnerships are particularly important in building market presence. They underscore our intent to be a staple in families' lives and drive brand recognition. Building on a strong nationwide footprint, we continue to scale. In 2025, we increased permanent points of sale in North America by 12%. from 6,500 to 7,300. One highlight in particular, our long-standing partnership with Walmart where we moved from the consumer electronics section into the toy category. That has been a significant shift because it means every family browsing for toys now finds Tony's exactly where they are looking. That placement drives discovery and ultimately growth. Now, let's turn to our most established market, DACH. DACH is not only where our home is, it's where every second family household already owns a Tony Box. 80% of our target group know our brand and it's our most profitable market. That's why we are particularly pleased that we accelerated growth here again, increasing our top-line growth rate by nearly 5 percentage points year-over-year to 16%. TonyBox 2 played a pivotal role, creating unmatched buzz around the launch, but we delivered innovation beyond that with BookTonys and our MyFirstTonys. Our success in DACH, our blueprint market, underscores Tony's potential to grow fast sustainably and highly profitably, even in a more developed environment. We didn't only grow with a new signature device and innovation beyond the box. We are also constantly looking for new ways in distribution, growing our retail presence even further. We opened up a new channel with our TikTok shop and we successfully tested our first ever Tony's vending machine. So more than nine years after selling our first Tony box in Germany, our customers in DACH are hungrier than ever to buy from us. Let's also have a look at our rest of the world. Our international markets, France, UK, Australia, New Zealand grew 68% in constant currency. A fantastic result considering we've established ourselves across these markets in a relatively short time. France delivered a very strong performance. No other brand gained as much market share as Tony's, even in one of Europe's most competitive markets. Our playbook works. In the UK, we gained market share as well and increased our in-store base to over 1 million Tony boxes. And in Australia and New Zealand, 2025 was our first full year of operations, and we are already serving more than 500 points of sale. One of them was something truly special, something we have never done before. Right in the heart of Sydney, we opened the world's first Tony's store, a completely new way of bringing Tony's to where families are. He gave children memorable experiences, not just through their Tony box, but by meeting their heroes, like Emma Memma, for example. He made the Tony's brand visible, tangible, and experiential beyond any shelf placement. In addition, he added three major retailers in 2025 in Australia, Target, Officeworks, and J.B. Hi-Fi. Brand connection and distribution built at once. That is how we grow in new markets. And very important to me and many others here in the company, beyond our products, we live our values as a company. Tony's is a force for good across the world together with our community. We show up in people's lives far beyond the point of sale, art, charity, celebrations. This is what defines them. At Kunstpalastmuseum in Düsseldorf, we enable children to experience art in a whole new way. In London, our Tony's Cab delivered presents to hospitals during the holiday season. In Toronto, we participated in the Santa Claus Parade. And our Tonypalooza events continue to attract more than 40,000 visitors a year. Our mission makes us who we are and it truly sets us apart. The same goes for our business collaborations. Through our partners, we continuously reach new audiences, surprise fans, and deliver on their wishes. The most recent example, our Cuddle Tonys, launched in partnership with Disney. Our work with Disney goes far beyond a traditional licensing relationship. It's actually a true creative partnership. With Catatoni's, we collaborated closely from the very beginning, shaping a more intimate listening experience where characters speak directly to the child, a calming, story-led moment designed for comfort and connection. Disney produced the in-character performances to ensure absolute authenticity. Together, we curated stories, guided the audio experience, and layered music and sound design. That way, we bring each world to life in a way that feels uniquely suited to Tony's. The result? Continued innovation for us and a new category for Disney, an audio-first plush built around narrative and immersion. This reflects the trust an iconic brand like Disney places in our expertise. We are helping Disney And so many other fantastic brands bring families the best possible experience to audio-first storytelling. And we've got many more partnerships like this. This year, Pokemon will join our lineup. The top global toy property for four consecutive years, loved by multiple generations, kids and adults alike. This is a landmark partnership for Tony's. Tony's will be the first partner to bring audio storytelling to the Pokemon universe, creating a completely new way to engage with Pikachu and his friends. This partnership demonstrates the power of our platform. The biggest brands want to reach new audiences in our community. We tap into their fan bases and together, we deliver genuinely new experiences for everyone. That reinforces our market position, and just as important, it shows the pull of Tony's globally. So before we break down our numbers in more detail, let me recap the strategic progress we made last year. The final quarter of 2025 captured what Tony's is all about. Q4 has always been essential for our success, a moment of truth, the peak of our commercial calendar, and once again, we delivered. We increased revenues by 39% in constant currency, surpassing the 300 million euro mark. We sold 1.4 million Tony boxes and more than 21 million Tonys in one quarter alone. We know how to scale when it matters. We know how to execute in retail with existing and with new partners. Our integrated supply chain is highly resilient, capable of handling exceptional peak season demand. We create unparalleled buzz with great IPs and strong retailer-partner integrations. And we onboard new Tony's families fast and smoothly. thanks to our brand new app and also a customer happiness team that loves our brand as much as our fans do. It's a great privilege to excite our customers and to deliver a product that spreads joy and happiness, even in peak times. I am proud that in 2025, we proved it again. And with this, I now hand over to Hansjörg, who will take you through our financial results.
Thank you, Tobias. Thank you very much. Now, before I get into the numbers, of course, I wouldn't want to miss this milestone. Since December, you all know, Tony has listed on YesAx, and of course, I totally share the excitement of this little listener here. So, very proud of this achievement. Very pleased that our performance as one of the fastest-growing German companies is reflected in our share price performance. and in our capital markets standing. And let me tell you, we are ready to continue this journey. As we're bringing receipts for our confidence, let's look at the results. The headline is straightforward. In 2025, we deserve it. We aim for group revenue growth above 25% at constant currency, and we delivered 36. We aim for North America revenue growth above 30% at constant currency, and delivered 40. Then we aimed for an adjusted EBITDA margin between 6.5% and 8.5%, and we delivered 8.6%. So we grew sustainably and prosperably, and we did so despite a genuinely challenging macro environment. I don't need to explain to you the extraordinary situation around tariffs we faced earlier in the year. Being able to pull this off is remarkable for us. Our top-line growth was fueled by all markets, and our international expansion in particular. Our revenue share from markets outside of DAST has now climbed to 66%, as expected, as we aspire to become a global icon. Our Tony Box performance was strong and accelerated year on year, as it should when you launch a new signature device. We're moving according to plan, locking in future figurine and games revenue through Tony Box sales. We improved our adjusted EBITDA margin to a higher contribution margin mainly. And we achieved this despite macro headwinds, including tariffs. Our regional EBITDA margins improved everywhere. North America stood out, gaining almost 7 percentage points year on year. DACH continued to improve from an already high base. And the rest of the world is already clearly in the green. Then, free cash flow. We did make the strategic choice to build up higher than usual inventory levels ahead of the launch of Totally Box 2 and other new content categories to maximize their commercial impact. And while that had an effect on our free cash flow, it was an investment that paid off, especially as we look at the cash available balance, including on these credit lines, 138 million euros to further fund innovation and expansion ourselves. Now let's dive deeper and start with the pinner. Our focus is and remains on profitable growth, and we have achieved exactly that, as you can see here. I want to highlight a few figures. First, our contribution margin. It was already strong last year at 34.5%. This year, we continue our cost savings programs that, together with a continued and expected product mix shift, improved contribution margin by 2.5 percentage points to 37%. This, in turn, was the primary driver to expand our adjusted EBITDA margin, which improved by 1.1 percentage points so that we surpassed the upper end of our guidance. Now let's take a closer look at our full-year top line by diving deeper into our markets. You already heard from Tobias that each of them contributed double-digit growth. Overall, group revenue came in at 630 million euros, 276 million of which from North America, 214 from DAS, and 141 million from the rest of the world. Each market has its own story and pace, but overall, they're following similar dynamics at different scales. Another figure we're keeping close track of is our international revenue share. It continues to grow, and we are very pleased with that. International revenue now accounts for two-thirds of our total, as our regions outside DACH are growing even faster than our home market. Let's take a look at our category splits next. Tony Box 2 was not only our flashy headliner launched last year, but also a shining star when it comes to performance. Overall, Tony Box revenue grew by 21% in constant currency. That matters because every Tony Box sold is a leading indicator of future Tony's revenue. A growing installed base means growing subscription-like bigger ring revenue, and that structurally drives margin. This year's results also show the dynamic And the expected revenue mix shifts toward tony figurines of gains. With 43% growth, revenue in that category grew faster than others, fueling our margin expansion as planned. Last but not least, the positive development of our accessories and digital business contributes to our overall growth, with a category increase of 25%. Now moving from full year to Q4, Tobias already discussed the drivers behind our strong year end performance. I want to focus now on the numbers. Group revenue in Q4 was 330 million euros, roughly half of our annual revenue as is typical for us. Also in Q4, we saw double digit growth in every market and every category. We registered above full year growth rates at group level. in dust and in North America, testament to our ability to accelerate our momentum when it matters. On the right-hand side of the chart, you can see the category split. Here, I'd like to provide some context from the Tony Box growth rate. In Q4, we recorded 18% growth year-over-year, slightly below the full-year figure of 21%, which is simply because Q3 already captured significant launch effects from Tony Box 2. On to segment reporting. Last year, we achieved profitability in all regions for the first time. This year, all markets improved even further, so we're progressing according to plan. Looking at our EBITDA margin, DACH continues to be our main profitability driver. The 24.6% EBITDA margin is a further improvement from an already high base, supported by operating efficiencies. That remains our profitability blueprint that we translate to other markets. We are seeing the success of implementing that playbook when we look at North America. A margin improvement of almost 70 percentage points year over year were nearing double digits. It's an outstanding development driven by a favorable product channel mix as well. And the rest of the world is a success story of its own. Despite still being in a very high growth phase, despite having just completed the first full year in Australia and New Zealand, we're already expanding our rest of world margins. Finally, on group level, we improved EBITDA margins from 7% to 7.7%. Our journey of sustainable, profitable growth continues. Now I want to take a closer look at the development of our adjusted EBITDA margin. Overall, the increase here was supported by a higher contribution margin, which is comprising COGS licensing and fulfillment. As mentioned earlier, notable benefits were improvement in COGS cost of goods sold, driven by product mix shifts towards figurines, but also our continuous cost savings efforts, which more than offset the negative impact of U.S. tariffs. With regards to licensing, increasing the share of Tony's original sold supported licensing costs favorably, while the ongoing US wholesale expansion improved further our fulfillment costs. These two positive drivers more than meet up for the negative 1.4 percentage point of a category. That was related to beneficial one-off effects in 2024, which we then didn't have in 2025, mainly driven by foreign exchange. and an adverse one-off effect in 2025. As a result, we increased our adjusted EBITDA margin by 1.1 percentage points to 8.6%. One of my favorite slides. As we said before, our business is resilient. Our organization is resilient. 2025 proved it, and we are on track to show it again this year. Markets will remain volatile, and our proven toolbox to manage this uncertainty is now part of our reality. Tariffs didn't go away, but we managed them well. We now have a stable response setup. We have sourcing flexibility across production, and we have effective commercial levers. We made targeted price adjustments successfully, which means our toolbox of measures proved effective throughout the year. We also have a toolbox to address production challenges. Device components, namely memory chips, have increased in cost for us as well as for other players in the tech sector. So in addition to the just mentioned commercial mitigation measures, here we're also equipped with expertise and access to alternative, more cost-effective memory technologies. So the TonyBox inventory that we equipped us with and the memory chip inventories that we secured already give us flexibility to shift production towards these more economical alternatives, if necessary. Consumer sentiment is and remains key for our demand. But we have a great advantage over classic entertainment properties because we offer a value proposition that families tend to not compromise on, as time has shown. We offer great experiences for their children. That gives us strong stickiness, even in a challenging consumer environment. Our platform drives loyalty, and key IT launches continue to drive acquisition and engagement. And lastly, we're prepared to mitigate currency effects. Our business model is to a significant extent naturally hedged on the bottom line, and flexible financing for work and capital puts us in a solid position. 2025 has shown how resilient Tony's is. We're capable of executing our strategy even in times of volatility. I see us well prepared for 2026 and another successful year of profitable growth. And with that, let's take a look at our guidance. Back to you, Tobias.
Thanks. Thanks, Andrzej. 2025, as you've heard, was a great year. And we are convinced 2026 will be too. Our ambition to grow Tony's sustainably and profitably is reflected in our guidance. For the full year, we expect group revenue growth of more than 20% in constant currency to above 760 million euros. North America revenue growth of more than 30% in constant currency. And an adjusted EBITDA margin between 9% and 11%. As always, this guidance assumes no material deterioration of consumer sentiment or force majority. We continue to scale Tony's globally, profitably, sustainably from a position of strength. So we are excited for another great year. And with this, I'd now like to open the floor for your questions.
Moritz, please take over. Thank you, Tobias. As a reminder, if you have any questions, please post them through the Q&A function. And I see the first questions are already in. Why did free cash flow decrease from 2024 and become negative? Thank you.
That's a perfect question for the CFO.
Handing it over to you, Hans-Jörg. Thanks for those words. Yes, happy to take that one. I think let's start with the fact that 2024 was a milestone year, operationally, also financially, and we achieved targets probably earlier than expected. For 2025, what's really different is that we intentionally built up strategic inventory. to fully support the launch of CB2, but also three new content categories, right? We established three new categories, which is Tony Play, My First Tonys, and Plush Tonys. This kind of investment didn't happen in 2024, nor is this an ongoing recurring investment that we expect in 2026 in a comparable fashion. So it's not entirely comparable year on year, And considering that forward-looking, although we're not guiding on free cash flow, we expect this to improve coming out of this one-time inventory buildup to secure commercial success for 25% in the new categories.
Thank you. The next question is on the guidance. You guided for 25% growth in 2025 and delivered more than 30%. Congrats. but why do you expect decelerating sales growth for 2026?
Thanks for the congrats. I'm happy to take this one. So let me actually make this really clear. 2025 was a great year for Tony's, and we really believe 2026 will be as well. I may want to, I think that I read the question in the sense that I probably should put our guidance into perspective here. In 2025, we added around 150 million euro in revenue. So for 2026, our 20% constant currency growth implies at least another 130 million. So while we do this and while improving our overall profitability. So in percentage terms, that's naturally less than 2025, given the significantly higher baseline. But in absolute terms, this is a very continued, strong, very strong momentum. And let's also be clear, we are delivering this despite geopolitical headwinds that do dampen consumer sentiments across the board. And I want to be explicitly saying that we have never experienced consumer sentiment issues and are confident also for 2026 because we have such a strong, high-quality product. So outside of DACH, we expect the growth rates of more than 30%, and they will be supported by new franchises, as I explained, by exciting new product innovations DACH will continue to grow. We've seen exceptional growth, and we clearly expect it to continue. Probably not necessarily always a double-digit growth rate here. But, again, we're very confident that this will be another great year for Tony's, and I think this is very, very strongly reflected in the guidance that I've presented.
Okay. Next one is on sourcing and memory chips. How is the shortage in price increases in memory chips affecting your earnings forecast? What additional costs were incurred in securing the necessary memory chip capacity?
And as soon as you actually talked about memory chips already, you may want to take that.
Sure, I will do. Yeah, great question. And I think I'll start with, according to our estimate, any remaining volatility that the memory chip market should give us, we think we've already covered in our guidance or captured in our guidance. So we don't expect this to break out from there. Of course, we have significant mitigating actions that we've undertaken the last month. I've already mentioned earlier, we have access to and experience with various technologies changing between memory chip components to more economical ones where necessary. We also equipped ourselves with inventory, like we pointed out earlier. We have a significant inventory balance at the end of 2025. This plays into a strategic advantage now, because it actually gives us the ability to potentially change production to lower cost memory components. Plus, we have, of course, the inventories that we secured already on those memory components. Hence, all of these are reasons together with the commercial levers that we have, just like we did for tariffs, that gives us confidence that we've covered any potential fluctuations, uncertainties already in our guidance.
Okay. Next one is on geographic expansion. If you're saying Australia and New Zealand had an exceptional positive start, Are there any plans to use Australia and New Zealand as a blueprint for furthering geographical expansion?
Thank you for that question. I actually love to talk about this topic and Australia specifically. And yes, I agree 100%. Australia and New Zealand has been an exceptional success. We have a great team in Australia. We had from the very beginning a very strong comprehensive retail penetration And this is clearly also a very powerful proof of concept of what I call usually or describe usually as global pull, right? You have, as I said before and said in many previous calls, the Tony box is active in over 100 countries. That's what I mean with significant global pull. Moving into a market like Australia just shows how we capitalize on that. global poll as we enter and scale in those markets that you see being already penetrated in some way, shape or form with Tonyvox. And yes, I mean, Australia, it's been our fifth major market launch and every time we have, we find and improve the playbook. We are tailoring our go-to-market strategy to each, so each of those market entries is more efficient or better than the last, and we continue to do so. And we will continue to leverage this global momentum or global pull also in the coming years. However, I hope you understand that I'm at this very moment not ready to share specific timelines or country sequences for the next phase of our roadmap, but very clearly, You can see with Australia and all the other countries, we know what we do here. We're getting better, and we have all those remaining countries that we can still enter, and that creates a lot of excitement on our end as well.
Okay, the next question is a double question on TonyPlay. Can you give a first indication on how TonyPlay sales per TonyBox 2 are trending? Okay. And the second part of the question is, could you share first indications how TonyPlay impacts customer behavior and stickiness? Weekly playtime has increased by 10 minutes year over year. Was it driven by TonyPlay? Are there any cannibalization effects on other product groups?
Oh, there's a lot of specific questions. So let me dissect this. What I can tell you, TonyPlay had a really strong startup. as I've shown you in the presentation, in its respective target age group. And the user feedback that we are getting is extremely positive. For example, you can see this going through the website reviews on Tony's.com. As I said, approximately half of households that have a six-plus-year-old and that upgraded to a TonyBox 2 have adopted to TonyPlay already. That's a significant number. And it shows that the Tony box, the new Tony box, can add new dimensions at a later stage. That's exactly what we wanted to prove, and it's working. However, I mean, obviously I understand where you're going with the question, but we need to also be patient. We will definitely need at least a good 12 months full cohort life cycle to actually draw deep conclusions. But I can tell you from all I can see and all we are seeing here as a team, we're off to an exciting start. And with regards to playtime and the second question, if I remember it correctly, again, we're only six months in the market and it's relatively early to draw those conclusions. We see a very positive momentum and we see clearly customer adoption, we see stickiness. At this point, we are not commenting on any specific metrics, but I can tell you that we see a significant share of our users already showing strong adoption and retention of TonyPlay over multiple weeks. And let's also be clear, there's strong IP coming up. We talked about the Hasbro games. Those are extremely exciting games. The one we can talk about in public is the Monopoly game, and I've played it myself, and I can tell you, playing Monopoly with Tony Box is an awesome experience. I can't wait for all of you to try this out. So there's so much to come, and there's so much to explore. I wouldn't even think of talking about cannibalization and these type of things. This is all growth layering on top of growth.
Okay, the next question is on inventory. Can you shed some more light on your relatively high inventory levels in terms of composition, product categories, etc.? Hansjörg, do you want to take that?
Sure. In fact, it's similar to what I stated earlier. Our strategic inventory buildup was mainly driven by supporting the TP2 launch, but also we established three new categories, Tony Clay, Plush and My First Tones. An investment and launch of this magnitude hasn't happened in the year before, nor is it happening in the year after. So that's why this year stands out. I would also add our fiscal year ends in the same week as our most busy peak period of the year. So by definition, whatever we do in that last month has quite an impact on financial KPIs. But operationally, We get a lot of credit for what we did here because it secured us that commercial moment, and we have the benefits throughout a longer time period now, throughout 2026.
The next question is on interest and taxes. Interest income was $8 million in the first half of the year and $0.3 million in financial year 2025. Could you explain this and what we should expect in financial year 2026? You paid cash taxes in 2025. How much tax loss carry forward do you have left? And what tax rate should we expect for 2026, 2027?
And Jörg, you're in such a great flow, I'll let you continue.
Yeah, I think there's two questions here. Let me try to answer this without getting too technical. So the first one on interest, yes, we were tracking positively for the first half of the year and then negatively for the second half of the year. The main driver, actually the sole driver of this is the valuation of our warrant shares. which basically led to this benefit at lower share price in the first half of the year, and then as our share price strongly climbed during the second half of the year, leading to an inverse position. The good news here is that our Warren shares actually either settle or expire throughout this year, so at the end of this year, we will have quite a simplified capital structure, and this volatility, more financial impacts, we'll know will no longer have to be reconciled. So a simplification to be expected here. Oh, tax. Yes. This is another point where 2024 and 2025 are a bit difficult to compare like for like, because 2024 was in relative terms, a lot more driven by tax laws carry forward than 2025 is. and we don't guide on effective tax rates, but I think the 2025 environment is probably more representative of what's happening going forward.
Okay, in the interest of time, let's take two more questions. The first one, let's call it on sales channels. Where is your Tony's vending machine located? Could you imagine rolling it out further? Yeah, love the question.
Thank you for that one. It's a real highlight. This is why I'm smiling. And something that we have discussed for a while here as a team and worked on. And it's a typical example of great Tony's inventions and engineering capacity. So the first real life vending machine, Tony's vending machine is located in Aachen, here in Germany, in our home Dachmarkt not far from Düsseldorf. So it's, as I said, a really good example of us constantly exploring channel innovations. I also talked about our own store in Australia, New Zealand. We talked about TikTok shops and all of the things, and now the vending machine. While I cannot share any specifics here on rolling out those vending machines globally, I can tell you, and you can hopefully see, I am and we are excited about this. And this one vending machine is already really working well, so there is no reason to assume that this will be the last.
Thank you. The last one on licensing costs. Licensing costs in North America seem to be structurally lower than in the DAF region. Hence, once the mix in North America shifts towards figurines, could contribution margins in North America exceed the current DAF levels of 38%? Georg, do you want to take that?
Thank you. I think, again, quite a few questions lumped into one. Let me try to dissect. The main driver of our licensing ratio or the percent of licensing cost of revenue is, in fact, time from launch because the further away we progress from launch, the more our mix will evolve towards figurines. That means the more figurines, the more licensing costs. So expect, right, as we grow also in the US, we are not as far progressed from launch as in dust, for example. So that mix development will further continue. A second point I would mention here, and by the way, this mix evolution is also our main profit driver. while there may be an impact on licensing, the main driver of our ever-growing profitability is the further away from launch we are, the further our mix shifts to more profitable Tony's versus the box. This is all as planned for our standard business model. The second component that I would mention here is the fact that licensing ratios always breathe a bit from year to year because it's primarily driven by what we launch in that year. And sometimes you satisfy a certain listening need better with a licensed product and sometimes you satisfy it better with an own production. And we don't do this necessarily to drive an improved licensing ratio. We do this to best satisfy the listening desires of our little listeners. And the licensing ratio is an outcome. And yes, of course, structurally or high level, we want to have a healthy combination of licensed and owned.
Okay, this concludes our Q&A session. In case of open questions, we'll follow up during the next couple of days. Before Tobias finishes with the key takeaways, let me quickly highlight the next events to come. Until our Q1 results on May 13th, Hans-Jörg and myself will be at the Metzler Small Cap Days in Frankfurt on Thursday, followed by IR-only events in Munich and Madrid. Following Q1, the three of us will be at the Birnberg European Conference in New York and organize the roadshow with Kepler in Paris later in May. The next big milestone on the event side will be our first capital market space since IPO on June 18th in London. We have a great agenda in mind with full management board attendance in person on that day. So, Tobias, please take over again for the key takeaways and final remarks.
Thank you, Moritz. Thank you all for the great questions. I really enjoyed it. It was an engaging discussion, I think. Let me close today's presentation with a short summary as always. We delivered in 2025, and we are ready for a strong 2026. Key takeaways. First, 2025 was a very strong year across all markets. Despite macroeconomic challenges, we grew in every market by double digits. We expanded our margin, we achieved our goals, and we delivered our biggest ever product launch. Second, Tony Box 2 has taken over, a smashing success with customers and partners alike. We have not only launched a new flagship product, we have created strategic levers for future growth. Third, we will continue our profitable growth journey in 2026. We aim for double-digit growth across all markets, again, with expanding our profitability. Fourth, Morris just mentioned that our capital market day in June, we will share more details on our midterm roadmap. We have big ambitions and we are excited to share how we will continue to grow into a global icon. And finally, Tony's is well positioned for 2026 and beyond. We have a clear plan. We have a strong pipeline. I'm really excited to tell you much more in the coming months. For now, Thank you all for joining today's call, for your continued interest, and for your trust in Tony's. Take care. Goodbye.