Thule Group AB (publ)

Thank you very much and welcome everybody to this Q4 call. I am as always joined by our CFO, Toby Lawton, and we'll take turns going through a presentation and then open up for Q&A. So before we get into the quarter and the details, I'd like to just take a moment to step back and look at the full year 2025. It's of course been an intense year and not an easy market but in many ways it's been a good year for Thule and let's mention a couple of highlights. Thule has never been bigger. We have recorded the highest sales number we've ever done in 2025 and profit increases versus previous year despite of course a challenging market with cautious consumers, retailers, currency headwinds and tariffs, etc. We have done the biggest upgrade of our sporting cargo carriers product portfolio in the history of Thule. And that's important because sporting cargo carriers is just over 50% of our sales. And we know that new Thule products drive growth. We are seeing fast growth in our newest product categories, dog transportation, car seats, and phone mounts. And we have had a very good first year together with the QuadLock team. We've added two new markets to Tudor.com, taking our D2C footprint to 20 markets live now. And our digital channel is now a meaningful channel to launch new products and categories, which is clear to us. We continue to push cost improvements in supply chain and in other areas, but clearly visible in supply chain through the record gross margin we've seen in 2025. We are pleased and proud to see continued strong recognition for product design. Again, winning the ADAC test for on-car seats this year with our second product and a further 17 Red Dot and IF Design Awards. And we have recently clarified and set the direction very clear going forward that we're focusing on building what we call champion product categories and driving efficiency gains. So that was the stepping back for 2025. And let's now dig into some of the details for the quarter. On page three, I mean, you are probably well aware that the fourth quarter is our and therefore doesn't have a big impact on the full year financials. But nonetheless, it is a quarter that's in the right direction for us with increased sales and increased profitability. Sales amounted to just over 1.8 billion Swedish in reported currency, plus 20% versus previous year, excluding currency effects. We're still seeing cautious consumers and retailers in the marketplace. Organic growth was flat, 0%. Positive growth in Europe, small positive, and a negative in North America, although a bit less negative than previous quarters and particularly the start of the year. And we also saw that organic growth number was better at the end of the quarter than when we started the quarter. Reported sales is up 9%, and then, of course, there are big currency effects in the quarter, 10% impact on the top line. We continue as previous quarter to see that the growth we are seeing is driven by new TULA products and new categories, including the acquired QuadLock business. EBIT margin adjusted increased to 4.5%, which is a bit higher than last year. It actually in this small quarter is also impacted meaningfully by currency effects. And Toby will get back to that later in the presentation. EBIT up to 83 million versus 65 last year. So zooming out to the full year results, sales a bit over 10 billion Swedish, 10 and a half, plus 14% excluding currency effects and the small organic growth decline of 1%. Still big currency effects for the full year, although not as big as, of course, for the fourth quarter. EBIT margin is 16% for the year, one percentage point lower than last year. Of course, margin continues to be strong and all-time high. SG&A is coming down in H2 and excluding QuadLock. And correspondingly, the EBIT margin is increasing during the second half of the year versus previous year. Cash flow from operations continues to generate good cash flow at about 1.1 billion, which is lower than last year. And then, as we talked about before, the working capital patterns has now returned to sort of historical patterns, which was not fully the case last year. The board of directors is proposing an ordinary dividend of 8.3 sec per share, which is the same level as previous year. Zooming out on page four, 2025 is yet another year of increased sales and increased profit for Tule. This graph shows the trend since the IPO in 2014, and it's a nice continuous upward trend over time with some COVID bumps and declines, of course. Sales is also in reported sec despite the currency effect all-time high and EBIT increased versus previous year, taking sales to zero. 10.4 billion, and EBIT to 1.7 billion for the full year. So that's the top line financials. But we turn next into the category level. We are a product company after all. So I think this adds hopefully some color to how the business is performing at the moment. And overall, as I mentioned in the beginning, the growth we're seeing is coming from new products and new categories. But let's dig into the four product categories that we report. Sport and cargo carriers declined 4% in the quarter and 1% for the full year. We saw good growth from the bike carriers we launched during the spring in 2025. We see good momentum also in H2 of the new rear of cargo products that we have launched. For example, the Thule Arcus XL here in Q3. And we've seen a good start, although it's very recently launched, the pickup truck rack Thule Escape we launched in December in 2025. For the full year, we do see growth in Europe for sporting cargo carriers, but the decline is driven by a decline in North America. It is still a challenging market. We still see the best sales performance in our premium end, in the higher price points. And the retailers were, as we talked about in the Q3 call, really cautious on stocking inventory of spring-summer products as the summer product ended, which impacted, for example, bike carriers' inventory levels and our sales also in Q4. RV products is growing in a market that is improving. Net sales was up 10% in the fourth quarter organically and full year 4%. And for the first time in quite a few quarters now, two years almost, we see that sales increase also to the OE channel, i.e. directly to manufacturers. um whereas the aftermarket trend has been better for a few quarters and is growing also on a full year basis in 2025. we are really pleased to see also that quite a few of the we have delivered quite a few new products within rv product segment in the last 18 months and they continue to do well and actually drive all the net growth in terms of money for us so on top of an improving market we do see good performance from our new rv product just launched And market conditions are improving step by step. And as talked about previously, the consumer interest has remained quite high over the last two years. The aftermarket channel has done better and better. And now we see a return to growth for us also in the OE channel, which is, of course, positive. Turning to active with kids and dogs, net sales was up organically 6% in the quarter. down two for the full year. We continue to see very nice sales momentum in our new categories. Dog transportation continues to grow really well in 2025, building on a very strong start in 2024. And the child car seats also continues with a really nice sales momentum and is now the new record holder for the best category by first full year sales as we wrap up 2025. We also see continued momentum in all-terrain and running strollers, which is very positive. But similarly to what we talked about in Q3, we continue to see the cautious retailers, particularly on cautious with inventory buildup for strollers. Seasonal products impact sort of everything bike related, which impacts the category negatively, particularly at the start of the quarter. And just as in Q3, we see better consumer demand and wholesale demand and Tula.com continues to grow. Bags and mounts is a little tricky to get the numbers right here because we have the impact of the acquired quad lock business reported under bags and mounts. But the organic growth was 0% in the quarter for bags amounts. It was up over 100% in terms of total sales, excluding currency effects. And 0% is a clear improvement versus the full year trend, which was minus 10. This category now is to almost 70% made up by performance phone mounts. And the QuadLock had another improvement. really good quarter with organic growth over 15% in Q4 and about 15% for the full year as well. The bags business or bags and luggage business is doing a bit better. The Thule brand is back to modest organic growth in the second half of the year, also in Q4, whereas we just continue to see a decline in case logic and OE products in bags. So before I hand over to Toby to talk about the more financials, I thought we would return to talk, expand a bit on the highlights that I started out sharing. And in particular, some of the highlights that are important for 2026 and going forward. On page seven, let's start with the updated financial targets and our plan to reach them. And we shared this at our Capital Markets Day in November last year. But to recap, the financial targets that we have set are ambitious. We want to outperform the historic performance that Tula has delivered. We have a pre-pandemic and also until the full During the full period, we've been a listed company delivered organic sales of an average of 5%. And our new sales target is to deliver 7% annual organic sales growth. The other two targets are not changed. They are achieving an EBIT margin of 20% and the dividend payout ratio at or above 75% of net income. We have two main targets. priorities or themes to deliver on our ambitious targets. And the first one is to build bigger and more champions. Champion product categories to recap are the categories that are the core to our success and have accounted for 90% of historical sales and gross profit growth and value creation for Thule. And these are categories where we are a clear global number one with the distance to number two. Typically in a small market, or we call a pocket, a niche, Where Thule is not just the market leader by numbers, but we are the leader in terms of innovation and with the clear ability to out-innovate a competitor, that is innovate more and better than competition, to really get payoff on our strong product development. capabilities. And the first priority in our growth plan is to grow bigger champions that is grow the ones we have and also add more champions. And our ambition is to go from the current six to 10 by 2035. We are pleased to see that we already have three what we call champion candidates in our portfolio that are doing well that we can continue to develop. The second part of our plan to reach our financial targets is around efficiency and skill effects. And you may remember from the capital market state that our current EBIT margin is about one and a half percentage points below the historical average. But the EBITDA margin is 1.5 percentage points higher than the historical average. So we have during the COVID years invested quite a lot in building a bigger infrastructure, particularly manufacturing capacity. that we now have room to grow into. So we are doing two things to take us to the margin target. First of all, we are taking a lot of cost actions and the actions that we already have initiated will drive EBIT margin up 2.5 percentage points by 2028. And then secondly, we expect and have proven historically that when we get volume growth, we do get scale effects both on gross margin, for example, increased utilization of our manufacturing capacity, and on sales and admin costs. So on that note, and on the topic of champion product categories, it's very pleasing to just have done the biggest ever upgrade of our sport and cargo carriers product portfolio. As mentioned, this category is As we report, it accounts for just about 50% of our sales, and it includes three of our six champions, roof boxes, roof racks, and bike carriers. And we have done an upgrade in 2025, both of bestsellers that we have taken to the next level with a new generation of products. We have delivered several new innovations, for example, to Lesanto, which is a Corobox product, Combined with the bike carrier behind the car and two Larkos XL just recently launched, which is a cargo box behind the car that can have capacity for skis, which is doing really well. And we've also particularly focused on North America and delivered quite a few North American specific products that we see also really pay off. So all these actions have had clear positive sales impact in 2025 across the geographical regions. And we are now entering 2026 with an upgraded portfolio and more news on the way. On the topic of champion candidates, as an example, I'd like to point out the momentum that we have in dog transportation at the moment. And you may remember we entered this category in the beginning of beginning of 24. quickly became the best new category of first-year sales in the year of 2024, with the Thule Allax, the crash-tested dog crate driving the business, and then later followed up with the dog-specific bike trailer, Thule Bexi. And we've continued to see good performance in 2025, with more products added to the portfolio, increased distribution, and increased awareness. And this is a category which, We think it has a clear potential to be a future champion, what we call a champion candidate. This is a niche market or a clear pocket. There are no global players, no global brands in dog transportation. We know from our own research that many Thule consumers already own a dog, of which many own two. And the pet market is clearly growing and pet safety is clearly a growing trend within that. So we will continue to grow dog transportation in 2026, both through more products we will share in a minute, but also continue to extend the distribution. We're also supporting our champion categories and candidates with what we call better sales and marketing. We're reaching more consumers, but also presenting and selling more of what we have. And we are doing many activities to this end. But one example I'd just like to highlight, because it's very recent, is that we held a Thule Experience event in November in Malmö and in Hillerstorp in Sweden, where 50 of our global Thule brand ambassadors were showcasing our wide product portfolio and the launch is coming up in front of a 500... 500 people audience made up of big customers, important customers and global media. So we're starting to see the global PR effect very early right now with positive results, but we also perhaps at least as importantly have really good discussions right now with some of our biggest customers about expanding the range of Tudor products in those channels. And last but not least, on a more business-oriented update, I'd like to mention something on our sustainability of efforts that are paying off. It's a long-term work to meet long-term targets. And the key area for us where we're making progress is around the CO2 emissions. We continue to come down, and now CO2 emissions are down by almost 30% compared to the base year in 2019. That is in absolute numbers. And one of the key drivers for us to achieve this is the way we design our products, and what we call eco-design, where we are already at the product development stage, try to think through very carefully which materials we use, reducing, for example, aluminum and steel where we can, using recycled aluminum, and really designing for sustainability footprint. And one very recent example launched here just two months ago is the Two Lakescape bedrock system for pickup trucks, which It's replacing a quite a few years old product with 60% lower emissions footprint compared to the previous version. So we are making big efforts and it's paying off and leads us on the good path towards reaching our CO2 target. So with that bit more business oriented update, I'll turn over or hand over to Toby to take you through some of the more financial detail.

Thank you, Matthias, and good morning, everybody. I'll start off on a couple of minutes on the income statement. And firstly, looking at the Q4 numbers, the Q4 revenue, we were just over 1.8 billion sec in the quarter, which, again, it is our smallest quarter of the year seasonally. So we have to bear that in mind. That was 9% higher than the same quarter last year. So the reported sales growth was 9%. Organic growth was flat. The acquisition impact on Q4 was 20%. And FX was minus 10%. So we had a pretty big impact from FX in just in quarter four. So I'll come back to that. The gross margin in the quarter increased to 44.9% versus 41.6% last year. And that increase is mainly driven by the acquisition of Quadlock. And here, while the margin has increased versus last year and we have a good margin, it's a good gross profit margin, it's important to bear in mind that the actual amount of gross profit is also impacted by the FX impact on revenue. So the fact that we have a 10% negative impact from FX on revenue drops through to the absolute amount of gross profit. The adjusted EBIT in quarter four was 83 million versus 65 million in prior year. And here, there's two main effects. Firstly, the margin is up due to the QuadLock acquisition, which has also the impact on the gross profit, which I mentioned earlier. But it's also improved due to lower selling and administration expenses, excluding QuadLock, so lower cost excluding QuadLock. But it's negatively affected, however, from the FX impact, which I mentioned earlier, particularly on gross profit. And the FX impact in the quarter actually has an impact on EBIT margins of around 2% to 3%. So quite a big impact in the quarter. But again, it's our smallest quarter, so it shows up more in the small quarter. When it comes to the full year, we had net sales of 10.4 billion. This is versus 9.5 prior year, so reported growth of 9%. Organic growth was minus 1.3%. Acquisition impact plus 15%. And here the FX impact is minus 5%. So not as big as in Q4. Q4 was bigger, but still a negative FX impact on the full year as well. Gross margin increased for the full year to 46%. So record gross margin versus 42.7% last year, with the increase driven by the QuadLock acquisition again, but also by price mix effects and also efficiencies in our supply chain. Adjusted EBIT for the full year is 1671 million SEC. And this compares to 1622 million SEC prior year. So we ended the year with an adjusted EBIT margin of 16.0%. And here, just to mention the FX impact is smaller on the full year, but still has an impact of approximately 1% on a margin basis. All right, if I go to the next slide and here a few details on our investments in R&D or our development spend, which we've had in 2025. And you may remember this graph from our Capital Markets Day presentation as well in November. And here you can see firstly that the development or R&D spend ended on 7.3% of sales for the full year 2025. And that, again, is also impacted by the FX impact primarily on sales. And you could say without any FX impact, we would have basically been flat versus prior year in development spend at 7.0%. As you can see from the graph here, we also increased the share of our spend on our champion categories, which, as Matthias has talked about, those are the categories which generate 90% of the value creation or the profit growth in Tula. So it's important that we increase our spend on champion categories. And for 2026, we are going to continue that to increase our proportion of spend on champions. And we'll also spend less in total in 2026. And looking further forward, we talked about this also at the Capital Markets Day, but our medium term plan is to reduce development spend to 6% of revenue in the medium term and to spend at least 4% of revenue on the champion categories within that development spend. So continuing to focus our spend on the champion categories that deliver the profit growth. Okay, if I turn to the next page on cash flow, cash flow, for the full year, we generated a cash flow from operations of 1.1 billion, a bit more than 1.1 billion. So we have continued to have a good cash flow generation in Tula. As part of that, we reduced inventories by 157 million SEC, a good reduction in inventories, we did have a target that we talked about at the start of the year to reduce inventories by 200 million, but we forward integrated in Australia in quarter four, which did have an impact on inventories that we've put into the market in Australia as part of that forward integration. So that's had an impact in the quarter. But here it's also important to remember that over three years, we've delivered an inventory reduction of 1.6 billion. So a big inventory reduction over the last three years. Overall, working capital increased by 131 million SEK for the full year. And we're back, you could say, to our historical pattern when it comes to working capital. Finally, on the CapEx line, you can see we had a CapEx spend for the full year of 348 million SEK. and that's primarily relating to the automation and extension of our warehouse in Poland. And we did actually bring forward a bit of that investment into quarter four to get ahead of the winter weather and ahead of plan. So that's going well. The next slide, we show our leverage and here you can see our debt to net debt to EBITDA leverage. And leverage is important to us. And it's something we follow very closely. And we want to maintain a conservative leverage. And we do that with a leverage of 2.0 net debt to EBITDA. You can see historically, we've been at a level around 1.7 to 1.8. For a lot of Thule's history, we're close to that level. We're still comfortable with our leverage, but we expect to delever during 2026 and come towards that level. And just to reiterate what I said on the cash flow side, really, that our quarter four leverage was somewhat impacted by this inventory effect that we built some inventory in Australia as a part of the forward integration and also that we pulled forward some of the Huta investment, both of which, of course, are impacts that will help the cash flow in 2026. So we'll get that effect back in 2026. Four. And then to the next slide, just briefly on the dividend, the board has proposed a dividend of 8.3 sec per share. This is the same dividend level as we had in the last year, in the prior year, and is also in line with our financial target, which is to distribute at least 75% of net income as a dividend. Okay, and with that, I'll hand back to you, Matthias.

Thank you, Tobbe. And I'll close off the presentation part of this with some forward looking remarks. So on page 17, our focus forward is now quite clear. Now we're about building champion categories and driving efficiency gains. Starting off where we are, I mean, we are still operating in the market where both consumers and retailers are cautious. It's important to note, and particularly so in North America. However, there are some positive signs in the marketplace of improvements. And the clear example is within RV products where market conditions are moving in the right directions and improving. Thule is well positioned in general, almost independent of the market with our strong brand, global market leadership in our key categories and own manufacturing in both Europe and the US, for example. But now we're also quite excited to enter 2026 as we have an upgraded product portfolio, not the least in sport and cargo carriers. We have fast growth in our three newest product categories and lower cost levels. So we will continue to push the agenda at a high pace also in 2026. And to take you through some of the action points under building bigger and more champions, we are continuing to launch quite a few new products in 2026. It is a high pace. Do we continue? And we are focusing this on our champion categories. So more details to follow on the next page. We're also building and adding more champions by both growing the product portfolio in these champion candidates, but also growing the presence in terms of sales distribution and driving awareness. And that's across dog transportation, car seats, and our all-terrain and running strollers. We are, as we talked about at the Capital Markets Day, not pleased with the long-term performance around in bags. And we are turning that around by focusing on outdoor-related products and functional accessories. I'll show a few examples in a minute or mention a few examples. And lastly, we continue to support our champion categories by selling more of what we have, reaching a bigger consumer audience. For example, in addition to the tool experience event I mentioned, we are continuing to build out D2C also in 2026 with more markets for tool.com. And building up the presence in Australia that we just established to Toby's point earlier, we now have our own sales organization in place as of just a couple of months ago. We're continuing to push the efficiency and scale effect points as well in 2026. We are focusing our R&D spend and will bring the total R&D cost level of spend level down in 2026, while still spending more on our champion product categories. We're continuing to drive efficiency in our supply chain. For example, we will continue to insource selected components where it fits our capabilities to utilize our available capacity. And we will continue to build what we call product technology platforms. For example, harmonizing components and parts of products across our product portfolio. We have... come quite far within bike carriers, for example, where we have a quite wide portfolio, where we can see that we can use same components or similar components for many types of bike carriers, thereby driving synergies in purchasing, in manufacturing processes, sometimes even consolidate manufacturing lines. So that's an important work that is ongoing with much more to give and will support the gross margin going forward. And then lastly, we continue to take actions to reduce what we call the structural costs. So our setup, if you like. And we are, as you know, automating our DC in Poland for GoLive in 2027, which we expect to have a significant savings of, in this case, 100 million SEC with full effect 2028. So full speed ahead on both building bigger and more champions and driving efficiency gains. A couple of notes on the product launches coming in 2026. We have a busy launch calendar also in 2026, although not as intense as in 2025 or 2024. But more importantly, it's really now aligned and focused on building champions and the agenda that I just talked you through. So a couple of examples. Under the first umbrella, growing the existing champion categories, we're doing... We're addressing more use cases, we're addressing more price points, both lower and higher, and more North American products. Just to mention a few, Thule APOS Park Secure is taking our most premium bike carrier and adding parking sensors, which we think is a sought-after feature in the market, and of course pushes the price point up and really positions Thule with a unique premium plus offer, I would say. We have just launched Tule Vero, a new North American product for heavier bikes. And we are introducing Tule Velolite very soon, which is an entry-level price point bike carrier. So we're doing many things there. We continue to invest in our next generation champion categories. And to take just two examples, we are launching our first dog basket for the bike, making it easier to bring your at least smaller dogs when you are biking online. And we are, during spring, introducing a new and upgraded suite of car seats, of both infant and toddler seats that are connected, have sensor-based feedback that will help prevent misuse and help the parent to be more informed when the child is safely in place in the car seats. In all, continuing to push the child safety agenda as the Turle wants to do. And then lastly, we are launching several products to turn around the bags trend, focusing our bags assortment much more on outdoor-related products and functional accessories. And we have just recently shipped what is Tool Inlock to the market, which is an innovative new bike commute bag and rack solution. And more products are coming just this spring. We are a product company, and I think it's always nice to show a little bit of product before we wrap up. So bear with me. I'll go quick. But on page 19, Tulivero just hit the North American retailers about now. It carries... up to 80 pounds of weight so that is heavier bikes and e-bikes it has a tilt functionality and it has been very well received in early introductions and by the press so far I mentioned Thule Velolite, which is a great value bike carrier. It's our newest bike carrier that touches the entry-level price point if you're still looking for a safe, flat-form rear-car bike carrier and also comes in a fun bike version. We're really looking forward to that. We've done a big push on rooftop boxes recently. We introduced Thule Force in 2025, our best-selling mid-price box. We introduced a new generation Thule Motion, our best-selling premium box, a little bit before that in 24. And now in 26, we're refreshing our entry-level roof box called Thule Pulse with a new generation. We're looking forward to having a fully upgraded roof box assortment as we move into 2026. And I mentioned also quickly Thule Inlock, which we think is a really innovative bike commute bag solution, which if you're used to bike panniers, sort of shifts the system around to avoid any hardware on the bag and towards your back and puts that on the bike with a super easy slip on, slip off functionality. So we are quite excited about the new products coming out in 2026 and we are very pleased that we are focusing our product launches on the champions we have and the champions we are trying to build. So that summarizes the presentation part of this conference call. And we now ask the moderator to turn to Q&A.

Thank you very much. To ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad now. If you change your mind, please press star followed by two. In preparing to ask your question, please ensure your device is unmuted locally. Our first question comes from Frederick Iverson from ABG. Your line's open, Fredrik. Please go ahead. Thank you.

Thank you. Morning, Mattias and Tobias. Thanks for the presentation. First, I'd like to drill into the margin of quad lock a little bit. It seems like it was very strong in Q4, if I'm not completely mistaken. It seems like the margin here was almost as high as in Q2. And I mean, Q4 is obviously a high margin campaign quarter, et cetera, et cetera. So what drove the strong margin in Quadlock? Was it gross margin or did you reduce costs here underlying? And then how should we think about the start of Q1 and maybe for the full year, what do you expect in terms of growth and then the margins, I guess, et cetera, et cetera?

I think so... Morning, Frederick. Yeah, you're right. We had a good quarter in Quadlock and in mobile phone mounts. And I mean, it's really driven by a strong performance during the black week, in particular in November, when we did very well in driving revenue. And really, when we get good growth, that drops through to good margin as well for Quadlock. So that's what's impacted margin in the quarter. Yeah. And I would say going forward, as we said from the beginning, Quadlock is slightly accretive to Tudor's overall EBIT margin, and we expect the same going forward as we've seen this year.

Okay, so OPEX was roughly flat Q on Q, or in line with previous quarters.

Are you talking Quadlock? Yes, yes, yes. No, so OPEX is impacted by sales as well. So there is, you know, there is, because it's, you know, a lot of D2C business, there's quite a lot of, you know, marketing spend, which is driven also from the top line. So OPEX is not flat. It's not flat, but of course you get some leverage.

Strong sales growth.

Yes, you still get leverage, but it's not flat.

Yeah. Sure. Okay, thanks. And the second one on the new categories, dog transportation and child car seats, which we spoke about quite a bit in the presentation. Would you be open to share some ballpark figures on the incremental sales stemming from these two on an annual basis?

Hi, Fredrik Mathias here. It's a good question. I think... Two comments. First of all, I think you can maybe get an indication as you look at our reported categories, you know, the active with kids and dogs categories where we're in quite clear that these are the categories driving the growth for us this year, but it's been more challenging in other areas. And then secondly, we'll bring that question with us as we think about reporting going forward. It would be wrong to just sort of start throwing out numbers right now, but we'll take that into consideration for 2026.

Okay, thanks, Mattias. And then on product development costs which also spoke about obviously you spent around 760 million in in 25 and you plan to spend a bit less in 26 so what's a good number for us to to have in mind when thinking about this for the current year please i think we i think we've we're quite clear frederick do we expect

product development spend to go down in in money in absolute numbers. And that's the guidance we give. Yeah. Okay, no, we're not gonna give us unless.

Yeah, that's right. Thanks, Toby. And then last one before I jump into the queue. How should we think about the FX headwind on the on the margin as we look into the coming quarters? q1 q2?

Yeah, I think obviously it depends on what happens in FX going forward. So that's one part of it. But I think it's also worth bearing in mind that the FX movements kind of in 25, there was quite big movements at the end of Q1 and the beginning of Q2, if I remember right. So Q1 will, yeah, if FX rates stay as they are today, Q1 will face some headwinds as well.

Right, but maybe not as strong as in Q4, given the size of the quarter.

I mean, yeah, obviously we're only one month into the quarter, but yeah, FX have maybe eased a little bit in January, but we'll see where they go February, March. But yeah, I think the other piece of it is that basically it's probably bigger impact for Q1 than Q2, 3 and 4 if FX rates stay as they are today.

It's a detail, Fredrik, but for us, Q1 is also, I mean, March is the bigger month in the quarter. And obviously not much has changed in January versus how we ended the year in terms of impact, but we'll see as the quarter progresses.

Yeah, that's very clear. Thanks for the question.

Our next question comes from Daniel Schmidt from Danske Bank. Your line is open, Daniel. Please go ahead.

Thank you, and good morning, Mattias and Toby. A couple of questions from me. And starting with, Mattias, you mentioned in your opening remarks that organic growth numbers were better at the end of the quarter versus the first part of the quarter, and I think that also probably comes back to your comment about... low restocking at the sort of previous high season, which impacted your sales at the end of Q3 into Q4 on the bike side, if I remember correctly. But when you say that, do you also mean organic growth for the legacy business? Because Quadlock, of course, becomes part of the organic growth from 1st of December in your numbers.

Hi, Daniel. Yes, you are right on all points. It is true what you said about the destocking effects. I mean, we had a pretty good, I know, we had organic growth in Q2 and the start of the summer. We really saw, you know, the D2C business continuing at the fall, but really cautious retailers. And I guess... That cut off between Q3 and Q4, you know, we saw most of that in Q3, but a bit of that in the beginning of Q4. And when that was largely gone or we sort of passed that calendar dates where that's not meaningful anymore, we saw organic growth, both driven by Quadlock, but also in the sort of previous or as you called it, legacy to the business towards the end of the quarter. Yes.

Good. And with that in mind, and you also, of course, mentioned that the U.S. or North America has been weak, but you've seen this gradual improvement also maybe in that market, although it's probably still negative in maybe all the months of Q4. Maybe I'm wrong, but that's sort of how I read you. But given that trend that you talked sort of refer to and what you say in general when it comes to the legacy business for Q4 and the fact that I would say probably if I remember your wording last year that you started to see retailers in North America or in the US pulling the brakes quite hard by beginning of March last year. Sort of that scenario, wouldn't it be sort of quite reasonable to expect the U.S. market to be back to growth as we enter the second half of Q1?

Yeah, we would hope so. I think overall, I think it's nice to see that things are moving in the right direction if we start with the total picture first. And on the U.S. specifically, then I think there are you know, two things I always try to keep separate. One is the marketplace and one is what we're doing. And I think in terms of the market, there was clearly, you know, a big halt there in beginning of March last year when after the tariff announcements, to your point, that's very true. I think on the other hand, you have seen a continued sort of decline in consumer sentiment in the US throughout 2025. So if you do sort of a year-on-year comparison, the underlying consumer sentiment is worse than it was a year ago. I doubt. There are signs that could pick up. And I was in the US two weeks ago and talked to our team, of course, but also quite some customers. And I think there is now a bit of a mixed picture in terms of some being quite optimistic and others still quite cautious. So... I think in the marketplace, to summarize, you know, I'm not sure it's going to be a plus or a minus, but more importantly, I think, is some things that we have done. And I think we have seen really nice impact of the quite few North American specific product we have delivered the last sort of 12, 18 months. Bike carriers in the spring. And now we just launched Two Legscape, which is, you know, a pickup bed rack, which I haven't done a new product for pickup products in many years. That's out in December. So, We are having better and better traction, I think. So it's hard to tell the net effect on those two, particularly when we're talking about a quarter, even half a quarter. But I am optimistic that we will turn the trend around in North America in the coming quarters.

Okay, good, cool. And you also... talk a lot about dog crates and car seats. And I hear you when it comes to maybe breaking those numbers out as we go along into 26. But you also mentioned continued extension of distribution of dog crates in 26. Is that meaningful or sort of is there a lot of retailers they haven't been able to reach yet in the U.S. or maybe more importantly in the European market?

Yeah, I think with all our dog products, we are still both adding parts of the portfolio, but also expanding distribution. Where we quickly got traction is in markets which had, I think, more of an acceptance or a consumer use to this product, to the Nordics, the DACH regions, you know, where dog safety and dog in car is quite an established kind of kind of product to use. But we have seen really good growth in the US, for example, in dog products in 2025. And to be really transparent, pretty much with just some online listings and Tudor.com, because it's not really a product that you're used to buy at a retail store. But now, with that you know first success case in hand we have some interesting conversations with pet retailers and some of the outdoor retailers in the u.s so for sure there's more to do in southern europe in north america and in in general okay and and it just may be a dumb question uh but

Mark, sort of weather conditions, we don't talk a lot about that, but especially we talk about it maybe when the season is shifting, if this is sort of a late spring or early spring or so on. But it has been very snowy, I think, especially in Europe this year. Is that having any impact on your assortment?

Yeah, well, probably. We don't focus on it too much, to be honest. We try not to spend too much on sort of these things short-term effects but in general you know good snow conditions means more skiing and earlier skiing and helps boxes for example and ski transportation but of course the bike season ends a bit earlier in southern europe for example so that maybe knocks a little bit of that but i'd probably and then in the u.s where let's see now we had good snow on the east coast but really poor snow conditions in central and the west coast for until what about maybe january or even new year's maybe so probably a little bit but to be honest have not done the exercise to pin down if it's net positive or net negative but if it would have been a meaningful point we would have brought it up of course yeah yeah

And then maybe another sort of overall question. Others are talking a little bit about sort of consumers refraining from buying US brands, maybe especially in Canada. I don't know how prevalent that trend is in Europe. Are you seeing any of that?

No, not really. I think, in a way, Thule is clearly positioned as a Swedish brand. It even says Sweden on our logo. And I think in the U.S., we are among the sort of Tule fans, if you like, that know us really well. There is some general awareness we are produced in the U.S.

I mean, from sort of Jakima and all these guys, are they losing out more? And is it a competitive advantage for you in sort of Canada and parts of Europe?

Right. Thanks, Daniel. Now, we do see competitors, I would say, having challenges. Probably... more driven by supply chain issues and, you know, not having manufacturing capacity in the U.S. with price hikes and sometimes, yeah, other types of more qualitative discussions with the customers. But nothing I have picked up specifically on the branding, to be honest with you.

You could say we have a good position in Canada, but it's not the biggest market. So it's, yeah, we already have a good position and a good market share in Canada.

Yeah. Okay, thank you guys. That's all for me.

Our next question comes from Carl Dangenberg from DMB Carnage. The line is open, Carl.

Please go ahead. Thank you very much. Could I start on the organic growth development in RV products here in Q4? Obviously, a step up relative to what you've seen in the earlier part of the year. Maybe first, if you could share a little bit the growth split, what you report or what we talk about, the OE side relative, let's say the aftermarket on the growth development in Q4 would be interesting to hear about.

Yeah. Hi, Carl. It's Mattias here. I can start and Toby can add. But, you know, if we step back just for clarity, I mean, the RV industry has had a challenging period. And we have during the last year or almost two right now actually still seen pretty good consumer demand. And the aftermarket has done quite well for us, while OE has declined. They declined, particularly now in the recent quarters as OEs have taken manufacturing stops not to push more inventory into the value chain. So we're now seeing that picture turn around a bit with continued modest growth for the full year continuously for the aftermarket channel. But Q4 is the quarter where OE is back to growth for the first time in almost two years. So the split is around 50-50 for us between OE and aftermarket, but it's a bit more OE in the low season Q4 because obviously not a lot of consumers buy their new motorhome in November, December, but the OE that are producing are producing ahead of next year's deliveries. So it's a bit higher. So in this quarter, specifically, the growth is driven by the pickup in deliveries to the OE channel.

Right. Interesting. Could I then also ask a little bit on the pricing situation in the US? I mean, you made fairly pronounced hikes in the middle of 25, and I believe you also did some let's say the normal adjustments here in the beginning of this year. And I just wanted to ask a little bit now, you know, we had a couple of months with tariffs and let's say maybe a new cost picture for you guys and so forth. Just your view on, you know, the balance you're entering 26 with also if you consider, you know, recent raw material movements and so forth. Do you feel that we are now on a sufficient level in terms of the pricing?

Hi, Carl. Yes, we I mean, we did a price increase first of June last year, which offset basically most of pretty much all of the tariff impact at that time. Then there were some some adjustments during during the summer. And we actually haven't had the normal price increase from first of January this year yet. which you could say across the board is normally around 1.5%. It's slightly higher in North America because we're compensating for the final pieces of the tariffs that came through during the summer last year. But now we feel we're in a good position given where the tariff situation is today. That's all we can say, I think. And we've all set the impact today.

Yeah, yeah. And maybe on the topic as well, I mean, obviously some raw material movements have been quite extreme here in the latter parts of Q4, I guess, maybe less so on aluminium, but yeah, do you expect any sort of indirect impact from what we're seeing on other raw materials spilling in or anything? I guess you don't use any copper and so forth in your production, but yeah, anything from that, or do you see that you're on a...

No, we see for our raw materials, we use the main raw materials. We don't see any dramatic price movements, basically. Like you say, we're not using copper. The main raw materials we use are basically aluminum, steel, and some types of plastics. And it's a bit more stable on those.

Yeah.

Perfect. Yeah, I think that was all from me. So I'll get back in line. Thanks.

Our next question comes from Agnieszka Wiela from Nordia. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Thank you. I have three questions, I think. Starting with Quadlock, obviously strong performance in 2025, plus 15% organic growth. Can you tell us what were the main growth drivers for Quadlock last year in terms of products and geographies? And also, what are your expectations for the growth for 2026?

Hi, I'm Mattias here. I'll start. Yeah, the Quadlock had a good year and it's had many good years. The trend has continued with us as the owner and partner. And it's really two sort of growth drivers that are in combination driving the total performance. One is product development, continue to launch more products, more types of mounts to fit more types of bikes, use cases, vehicles, which expands the category. And the other one is driving consumer awareness, if you like. It's still a category that Quadlock pretty much invented and is bringing out to the world, to consumers and reaching more consumers with the D2C direct model and also getting listings with some new retailers has been an important driver of the growth. Quadlock has seen good growth in all geographies, but North America has been a tougher marketplace also for Quadlock, just as for the total tool business. I think we've said a few times that we have seen historical market growth in performance phone mounts. Best we can analyze an estimate of around 10%, maybe slightly above for a few years, 10 to 12. And that's where we expect around 10% that the market will continue to develop. Of course, Quadlock is the clear global number one. It's a champion. And it's hard to beat the market over time and time again. But we do see Quadlock participating both in building up that market and that 10% and in good years also have the potential to overperform.

Perfect. Thank you. Well understood. Then maybe on the growth expectations for 26, Mattias, Can you tell us, if you look at the new product categories and new products as well, how much can those add incrementally to your growth in 26? Is it a number like 3% or 5%? How should we think about the contribution to sales coming from new products, really?

It's a fairly relevant question. We have a target to get to 7% organic growth. We'd love to get there as soon as we can, as we talked about at the CMD in November. We've done 5% historically in a GDP market of maybe 2-3% growth. We want to take that to seven. And part of why we think we can beat historical performance is the new categories that can help us. And you may remember that we talked to Capital Markets Day that to get to the seven, we expect the same historical 5% in our sort of traditional Thule categories of sport and cargo and RV products, whereas the active with kids and dogs and the bags and mounts is going to grow faster. We expect 10 to 15% that will take us to the total of seven. So that's the contribution we are expecting. And that's the contribution we are building for now. and i know you're of course curious about you know 2026 specifically but as we've talked about many times we are building this long term we see that the growth is coming but there are some market trends that it's looking more promising but still overall cautious consumers and and retailers so when when those two curves start pulling in the same direction we will be at our seven percent and when exactly that timing is i think your guess is as good as ours but but we will get there

understood and then the last question for me probably to toby uh i mean a lot of uncertainty in the market still and as you also talked about the growth even but what will be the most important drivers for your profitability development in 2026 are there any tailwinds and headwinds that you can uh help us to list out yeah morning i guess gonna i mean um

I think with Tula continuing to drive growth and profitable growth, it's been the lever of Tula's value creation for a number of years and will continue to be for 26 as well. So that's what we're focused on investing in and delivering. Do I answer your question Agnieszka?

No, not really, sorry. Maybe a comment, you know, we can imagine effects still negative and raw materials commented on, but then if the growth comes, maybe, you know, not 7%, but some growth maybe, that you expect an emotional surprise increases. So any, you know... and lower R&D. So if you could help us to structure the significance of those factors, maybe.

Okay. We work to continue to drive growth. That's number one. But we do expect to focus R&D expenses, as we said, and we'll come down in absolute terms when it comes to R&D expenses. And then we're working in the medium term as well on our efficiency improvements, which we're going to deliver 2.5% impact on EBIT margin over the medium term. So that's not all going to come in 26, but we expect to track on the way to that during 2026. And then, yeah, on top of that, the scale benefits that Tula can generate from growth are substantial as well. So I think... If you kind of think about those things in the way you model, then you should be on the right track.

Yeah. On the negative side, mainly FX then?

Yeah. I mean, FX, firstly, make sure you understand also that our exposure on FX is mainly to the euro sec. So we're not that exposed to euro dollar when it comes to profitability. It does impact the top line, but profitability is... is not affected much by the dollar. It's really the euro sec, which has obviously moved less than the dollar. And yeah, we have seen some FX headwinds in quarter four. And yeah, like I mentioned before, if it stays at the same level quarter one, we'll have some FX headwinds as well. But I'd say overall, like I said before, you could say an impact for the full year 25 was around 1% EBIT margin from FX in 25, where we had some pretty big movements. So it's substantial, but it's not the biggest item when it comes to exposure and profitability. But it is a factor, absolutely.

Thank you.

Our next question comes from Max Liss from Kepler Chevro. Your line is open, Max. Please go ahead.

Yeah, hi, thank you. Well, just coming back to R&D spending there, and you mentioned some extra electronics or whatever sensors that you have on the car seats and also on some of the other products you have. Is this an important part of the R&D spend you have currently or is it sort of a marginal importance? Could you say something there? And maybe also if these electronic devices could be sort of an important part in growing the champions going forward?

Hi, Mattias. Thank you for the question. It's a very nice feature that we are, I think, very early to market with, but it's not a meaningful impact on our spend. We are developing this together with partners. that have really strong knowledge in this area. And now we're applying it to the product. So for the car seat example, just to give you a bit more clarity, you know, as a parent, you will be able to be informed if the car seat is installed correctly, if the buckle is tightened correctly and things like that. And you can get that information either through Sound & Light or in your app. So there are some nice features that we are bringing to the market that are so far very well received by these premium retailers and some opinion leaders to push the safety agenda. very limited impact on our total R&D spend. It is very interesting to your point more broadly and conceptually to start thinking about the next level of safety for products. And of course, you know, electronics and digitization is an exciting area that we are exploring in more champions, but nothing that is imminent or will significantly impact either top or bottom line in 20 weeks.

Okay, great. And then coming back to the, well, you mentioned that you will 4% spend on the champions. And is those 4% sort of spent on the existing champions or is it sort of developing the new ones? It's a mix, I guess, but could you say something about that?

Thank you for allowing us to clarify that the four percent we're talking about for champions is the existing six champions that we have so part of that other area is to invest in the champion candidates that we have they want to build up and then of course everything else in our product portfolio that we still want to maintain.

And you also mentioned well your partners there I just heard that anyway the champions could do sort of be developed in cooperation with partners also or is it more sort of to the existing organic growth structure that developed those

Our champions are really managed by our in-house product development team. We have almost 300 product development engineers in Hillerstorp in Sweden and satellites in several countries around the world. part development in-house, which we're really proud of. And maybe I wasn't super clear when I talked about the electronic component of our future connected car seats, that the electronic component, the electronics that go into that product is developed via the supplier or a partner.

Great. Thank you. And finally, I mean, you have all this new product there and Then again, you also mentioned the cautious consumer, but do you sort of try to build an inventory now in the first quarter to maybe get ahead of demand and push forward some interest among retailers or is the lead time enough so you don't need to to build any inventory? Could you say something there?

Hi Mats, it's Toby here. I could say we have a seasonal pattern to our inventory, number one. So we do normally build inventory ahead of the season and then reduce inventory during the season and the summer. So it's quite normal to build a bit of inventory during doing quarter one. But that's just driven by the seasonality of the market, really. And I don't think there's any other effects you should be looking for or thinking about.

We will be ready when the demand comes. And I think we are planning accordingly. But to Tobbe's point, this will be in line with historical working capital movements.

Yeah. Okay. Great. Thanks a lot.

Our next question comes from Johan Eliasson from SB1 Markets. The line is open. Please go ahead.

Good morning, Mattias and Toby. Just a very brief follow-up here at the end. You talked about price hikes for 26, typically 1.5%. It was obviously more in 25, but can you gauge it a little bit? Was it 2, 3, or what were we... Are we talking about as realized prices in 2025? And then just a detail, I noticed your capex levels for the investments in Poland went up in the second half. How will these pan out in 26 by quarter or on a total capex level? Thank you.

Firstly, on the price increases, we had the normal around 1.5% at the beginning of 2025, but then we did have a special price increase in relation to the tariffs in North America from 1st of June. And that was approximately 10%. It wasn't the same on every single product, but approximately 10% on average from 1st of June in North America. So that's the first question. And the second question, we do actually give some details in the report on the expected phasing of the capex in Poland. So I'm just turning to the page. But if you look in the report... I think we see just here we say we expect 50 I mean, of the total capex is 450 million of that 33% has been taken in 25. We expect most of the rest so big piece of the rest to come in in 26, which is 56%. And then there'll be the remainder in 27. So the tail in 27. So that's the phasing expected.

And there's nothing else to focus on in the CapEx otherwise?

No, it will mainly be the Huta project in 26. Yes, that will be by far the biggest impact in 26, yes. Yep, excellent.

Thank you very much.

We currently have no further questions. I'd like to hand back to Mattias for some closing remarks.

Thank you, everybody, for joining the Q4 and Q1 call. I wish you a great day and look forward to talking to you again at the Q1 report. Thank you.