Thule Group AB (publ)

Welcome, everybody, to this Q2 call. I am, as usual, joined here by our CFO, Toby Lawton. We'll be talking to a presentation available on the screen and later on also on our website. And as usual, we will follow up with a Q&A session after the presentation. So starting with highlights on page two, it's nice to see that the positive development that we saw in Q1 continues also in the second quarter, which is our peak season and our biggest quarter. We see continued both organic growth and increased profitability. And as you may be aware, we are very focused on growing what we call champion product categories, product categories where Thule is the global market leader and can out-innovate competition with new products. And it's nice that that continues to give results, as does the efficiency agenda that we are driving. In the quarter, we see growth in all of the four product areas that we report, with the fastest growth coming from Active with Kids and Dogs, just as in Q1. And as also announced earlier in May, we have made a small acquisition in the quarter of a company called Curly, which is a leader in premium dog harnesses. Turning to page three, the financial overview. As mentioned, we saw both organic growth and increased profitability also in Q2. For the quarter, sales amounted to just over 3.4 billion and 2.5% organic growth. We continue to see a market where both consumers and retailers are cautious, both in North America. So it's nice to see the organic growth coming through even despite that backdrop. And as a continuation of trends, also Europe continues to be strong for us, growth of 4% in the quarter. North America is the toughest spot with the minus 2%. where we are making good progress on the agenda that we are driving, but it's also the toughest market that we're in, and more than happy to get into some highlights specific to North America later on. There continues to be a negative currency effect for us, and in the quarter, the impact on sales was about two percentage points. Gross margin is all-time high, up one percentage point at 47.3%. Mainly, this is positively driven by mix, both product and channel mix, and some efficiency gains in our supply chain, which more than offset some of the headwinds that we are seeing, and we will get back more to that later. In all, the adjusted EBIT margin increased to 22.8%, which is up a bit more than a percentage point versus last year. Our sales and admin costs are somewhat below last year, not as much as in Q1, which is also as planned, but a bit below. And we also have cost for the closure of a smaller satellite office in Belgium in the quarter. So there is an adjustment of 23 million SEK in these numbers. Cash flow remains good up versus last year and amounted to 824 million SEK. So for the first half of the year, we can conclude that we're growing just about 3% organically and an EBIT margin improvement of close to 1.5 percentage points. So on page four, before we dive in some more details of the quarter's performance, let's step back. This graph shows the long-term trend. It's actually the trend development since Thule became a public company back in 2014. So it's been a bit more decade. And the point is that the long-term positive trend continues also in the last couple of quarters. As you can see on the blue bars, which is the sales trend, it continues up. It's a little bit of shading there to show the negative currency impact for the first half year this year. And the green line continues to point upwards to the northeast, which is the EBIT development continuing to improve. So all in all, we have on the last 12 months basis Net sales of 10.4 billion and an adjusted EBIT margin approaching 17%, 16.8%. So with that long-term backdrop, let's dig into some of the details around the quarter. And we'll start with the performance per product area. And as I'm sure you're aware, we report four product areas. The biggest one is Sport and Cargo Carriers, which amounts to more than half of the sales in the quarter. And we have three so-called champion categories, the categories that we are focusing on for growth and where we are global market leaders. And in the quarter, we were up somewhat, 1% up and flat for the year so far. We continue to launch new products in these categories and continue to see growth as a result of that. We have maybe particularly interesting to mention around bike carriers, since bike is really high season in Q2, where we have launched both more expensive products and at lower price points, which both help us actually in the quarter very nicely. We had a very good start for our new most premium bike carrier to Epos Park Secure, which is an upgrade of our best carrier now with parking sensors, and also the lower price points which allows more consumers to access Thule products at lower price points. And the example I'd like to highlight is Thule Velolite, which has done well for us in the quarter and launched in April. But also other price points that we are now addressing with more new products. For example, the new entry-price rooftop box Thule Pulse also did well. We continue also to see good momentum in rear of car cargo products, just like some of the ones you see on the picture. And generally, we see a positive development from both new products launched, but also in the existing portfolio, the premium price points, the higher price points continue to do best where it's a bit softer in the lower and mid range. All in all, we saw just like in the total numbers, good growth in Europe for sport and cargo carriers in the quarter, but the decline in North America. The second product area for us is RV products, which is about 15% of sales in the quarter, which continued to show growth, 4% up in the quarter, 6% in the year to date. And we had another quarter with growth both to the aftermarket or the RV dealers and the OE channel or the manufacturers. And again here, a substantial part of this growth that we're seeing this year is from new products that we've launched in the last two years, which continue to drive growth for us. The market has been gradually improving over the last few quarters and consumer interest in RVing remains high. However, we are seeing a decline in RV registrations during the second quarter as a consequence of even more cautious consumers for high ticket items now following for example, the conflict in the Middle East. But overall, good growth in the quarter for RV of 4% and 6% year-to-date. The third product area is active with the kids and dogs. And this is a product area where we have three of what we call champion candidates, which are product categories that have the characteristics of the champions but are yet small or smaller, not making the bar of 500 million SEC to be called the champion. And it's nice to see that all these three product categories continue to grow really fast and really drive this product area to the best performing one in the quarter with net sales up 8% organic and 9% year to date. And just to give some color on these three champions, candidates, we continue to see really nice growth in all-terrain and running strollers, where we have launched some upgraded products in the recent year, and that continues to boost performance. Dog transportation, which we launched two years ago, is really growing strong. Continued growth in the dog crates, that was the first product in, but also with the broader product portfolio now being built out, for sure helps boost the sales as well. And then similarly, sustained momentum in the child car seat category, which was also launched 18 months ago, almost two years ago now, which also is benefiting from more new products, a broader portfolio, and a wider distribution, which continues to drive sales for us. The other category, which is worth note, is the multi-sport and bike trailers, which is also part of this product area, where the market had been really tough with lots of stock and discounting, but that product category performance turned for the positive during the second quarter, particularly driven by premium price points. So all in all, a good development in active with kids and dogs, so 8% organic growth. And the last product area for us is bags and mounts, 18% of sales in the quarter, where net sales was up 5% organic and 6% year-to-date. And two-thirds of this, actually a bit more than two-thirds of this product area is now made up of performance phone mounts, which is a result of the acquisition of QuadLock, which continues to grow well, just below 10%. We also see growth in Tulip branded bags, which is nice. Small growth, but still positive growth. And we're pleased to see some... Good reception of new products also in the Thule bags. The Thule in-lock system for bike commuting that was launched in the first quarter continues to do well and also upgrades to our Thule Chasm line with both gear holders and new duffel bags that are performing really well. However, against these two growing parts of this product area, we continue to see a decline in the Case Logic bags, which is a legacy product. legacy business that we are facing out, which I've been commenting on many times before. But overall, positive development in bags amounts of 6% for the first half year. And then before turning to some financial details, just an update on the add-on acquisition of Curly that we announced in early May. As just shared, we have a strong momentum in dog transportation products, and it's an area that we Like and believe in connects really well with our consumer and has some positive tailwinds in the category. And we have acquired a Swiss company called Curly, founded by two mountaineers used to lots of mountaineering equipment, including harnesses and took that knowledge about harnesses into the dog space and developed a company around that product and really are the global market leading position in premium dog harnesses, particularly for smaller dogs. So really complimentary to the dog transportation products that we have already. It will be integrated under the Thule brand. We will launch harnesses for larger dogs already this fall actually. And we closed the transaction at the end of June just as planned. So I'm very pleased to now welcome the Curly products and team into the Thulebranden family. And with that, I turn to Toby to give some further financial details.

Thank you, Mattias. Good morning, everybody. I'll start on the financial summary of the Income statement. And here, firstly, on the top left-hand side, on sales, we reported 3.4 billion sec of sales in this quarter, which you can see in the left-hand column and the Q2 column. And remember that Q2 is also our biggest quarter of the year. And as you can see that in the graph to the bottom left, where you can see the seasonality of the business as well. When it comes to organic growth, in the quarter we had 2.5% organic growth with growth in all four product areas. And you can also see if you move to the first half on the right hand side of the table, we had 3.1% organic growth for the first half. Gross margin increased versus the same quarter last year and now talking about quarter two. And the biggest impact here was price mix, where the mix of products and channels is now more favourable than it was in the same quarter last year. And just to give an example, we have higher than average growth in D2C and in performance phone mounts, both of which contribute to improving gross margin. And that, together with price increases as well, help the gross margins. We then continue to drive efficiency gains, which also helps gross margin. But of course, we're also incurring higher tariff costs in North America than we were in Q2 last year, because in Q2 last year, these costs were not yet fully reflected in the result. And then just talking about the first half year, gross margin is up 0.6% for the first half year, due mainly to these same effects that I just mentioned. Selling and administrative expenses were down slightly in the quarter from 841 million SEK to 838 million SEK and are now down 3.9% for the first half year. So down from 1,632,000,000 down to 1,568,000,000. And as we have said previously, we expected costs to come down in the first half year and we've delivered on that. And as we've also said previously, the reduction was bigger in Q1 than Q2 due to the different phasing of development costs compared to last year. Important to mention here is that with our focus strategy, we're focusing more of our R&D costs on champions while also bringing the total development spend down slightly. And we intend to spend at least 4% of our sales on development for the champion categories, which are really driving the growth. And at the same time, bringing the overall spend down slightly. This gives an adjusted EBIT for the quarter of 779 million SIC, with an adjusted EBIT margin of 22.8%. This is up 1.2% versus Q2 last year, and that's mainly due to the improved gross margin, but also partly due to slightly lower SG&A costs. And for the first half year, the adjusted EBIT margin is up 1.4%. So a good increase in profitability. A few things to mention here to bear in mind. Firstly, the FX impact was still negative in the second quarter. We still had headwinds, but the headwinds are somewhat less than we've had in previous quarters. And the total FX impact on the Q2 result was approximately 20 million SEC negative. Secondly, we have an adjustment item in the quarter. And this relates mainly to the closure costs for an office in Belgium, but also a small part for some transaction costs related to the Curlie acquisition, which Matthias mentioned. And the total adjustment is then 23 million SEK in the quarter. And that's all the adjustment relating to these items. I can mention that as well. Thirdly, I think important to mention that there is no impact in this result from any tariff refunds. So there's no impact in the second quarter in any way of tariff refunds. And we can come back to this in the Q&A if you like. But that also means that the... Or if I just move to the unadjusted EBIT, it's also worth mentioning the unadjusted EBIT was also up versus last year by more than 50 million sec, a similar improvement than we saw in adjusted EBIT. When it comes to net income and also earnings per share, this was up by 4.7% in the quarter and 6.6% in the first half year. Okay, if I move on to the share of sales. Here you can see that our share of sales by geography and by product area and on the left hand side here you can see that the share of sales from Europe on an LTM basis has increased and this is because this is where we have the strongest organic growth and it's very important that we perform here in Europe in our biggest and most important markets and North America and particularly USA has been more challenging as Matthias has said in the last couple of years. But the actions that we have taken here are showing traction and the trend is improved. On the right hand side, you can see the share by product area and worth noting on this pie chart I think is that the active with kids and dogs product area where we have seen a strong growth from the three champion candidates has driven the strong growth and increased share of sales from that product area. Otherwise, no big changes in these distributions. Just moving on to a graph on EBIT and EBITDA margins. And we just take a moment to look at the development of our EBIT and EBITDA margins. And this was also an item we talked about in our Capital Markets Day last November. So there's more information there if you want to go and look at it. But firstly, looking at the EBITDA margin at the top, which is the margin before depreciation. And here you can see that the LTM margin has now increased to 20.2%. So that's the last 12 months EBITDA margin versus 19.5% in 2025. And that's a level that's higher than the history in all years, except for those years where we had the pandemic effect. Secondly, looking at the EBIT margin, the line at the bottom, and this is also increased to 16.8% on a last 12 months basis versus 16.0% in 2025. So good to see that the actions we are taking are having an impact and delivering the margin improvements. And we're taking important steps then towards our EBIT margin target of 20%. If I then move on to cash flow, Firstly, here to mention that Q2 and Q3 have historically been our strongest cashflow quarters. That's due to the seasonality of the business. And you can see that in the graph on the bottom left. And then this quarter, quarter two then, we had a strong cashflow from operations in the quarter. We had 824 million sec of cashflow from operations, which is a good level driven by both the good profitability but also a reduction in working capital in the quarter. Important to note, we also had some cash outflows in the quarter. We had a capex of 70 million mainly related to the investment we are making in Poland in automating and extending the distribution warehouse in Poland. We also paid out 114 million for the acquisition of Curly and we paid 448 million SEK for the dividend in the second quarter. But with the good cash flow we had, even with these cash outflows for those items, we managed to reduce net debt with 100 million sec and improve our leverage. So our leverage net debt to EBITDA is now down to 1.9 times. And you can see that on the graph on the bottom right hand side. And just to mention here as well that we expect to further reduce the leverage with with a strong cash flow that we normally have in the quarter three as well. And obviously we have no dividend payment in quarter three. So that has no negative impact in quarter three. So the cash flow drops through. And yeah, with that, I will hand back to Matthias.

Thank you, Tobbe. Let's turn to some forward looking commentary around both our priorities and the market situation. And our focus for 2026 remains the same. We are focusing on building champion categories and driving efficiency gains. And it's nice to see the Results coming through despite a not easy market during the first half year, which is of course good evidence that the efforts we are making are giving positive effect. So as we stand right now, we see that the market is now being impacted by the conflict in the Middle East. on already cautious consumers, and likely there is both negative and positive effects for the Thule business. On the one hand, we can see that the RV segment, which had experienced a few quarters of improving market conditions, had now a quarter of declining new RV, new vehicle registrations, which is of course not positive for us. On the other hand, More consumers are saying this year that they expect to spend summer vacations closer to their home. They still expected to travel, but not long distance, rather closer to their homes, which is typically positive for Thule. So both positives and negatives there. We continue to see North America being the toughest market, although there are some bright spots, it's still the toughest market. And on the cost side, there are raw material prices, of course, that have gone up and that will impact us in the second half. And we are conducting price increases centered around August in the third quarter to mitigate those effects. So that's the market situation and sort of the short term actions. Longer term, we continue to build bigger and more champions through our product development efforts. new and upgraded products to grow both the existing champion categories that we have, but also to expand the product portfolio around the champion candidates. The dog transportations, the car seats, and the all-terrain and running strollers are continuous investment areas for us. We're also continuing to push efficiency gains. We are, as Tobbe mentioned, focusing our R&D spend more in 2026. We're actually spending more on champions, but less in total. We're continuing to push efficiency gains on the supply chain with continuous insourcing and continuous building of technology platforms, which are giving nice effect also in this quarter in, for example, bike carriers. And lastly, we are continuing the work to extend and automate our biggest DC in Poland, which is expected to go live early next year and have cash savings of 100 million SEK a year when fully operational. So that is the agenda going forward. On the next page, you can see the product launches or highlights from the product launches that support this agenda. And the launch calendar this year is really focused on supporting building champions, growing the number one positions that we have and building out the next generation champion categories. Several of these products have been launched now in H1. I'll comment on a few of them in a minute. But there are also some highlights for the second half. For example, we are rolling out our connected car seats. Just started the launch of car seats that now have sensor-based feedback to prevent misuse, which is really exciting for us. And we continue to build out the dog category with harnesses for larger dogs called Tula Dart coming here in the autumn as well. So continued high pace in the product launches also in 2026. And just to round off, to show you a few examples, we have launched several bike carriers also this year. And in the second quarter, we have continued to launch products also specifically to the North American market. Tulevero is our latest premium hitch bike carrier built for heavier bikes, e-bikes particularly, that has been well received by the US and Canadian market here during spring. We also continue to innovate and really push the limits to make Thule stand out. And we have upgraded our most premium bike carrier, Thule EPOS, with parking sensors, Thule EPOS Park Secure, which is also launched during the second quarter in April and had a really nice start. continuing to build even better products for our consumers. And on top of that, we're continuing to stretch the category also to lower price points and launched Thule Velolite in the quarter, which is the first ever one bike platform carrier that we've done. Really compact bike carrier and accessible for a very healthy price point to be a Thule product. So really nice start for Thule Velolite as well in the quarter. Bike season, sort of high season is bike season in many ways, and we have been pleased to see these bike carriers having positive effect. We've also continued building up some smaller product categories with car tents being one good example. Thule Wide Sky is our newest hard shell rooftop tent. Really well received. Very easy to install and very appreciated also for the ability to turn the bed in the tent into a sofa on the tent with a front row seat to the outdoors, as the tagline is called. That's nice to see. And then, as mentioned before, continuing now the focus going forward on building champion categories also in the candidates. So we have just launched in... We started small and are now expanding our launch here in the third quarter of the connected car seats which is upgrading our existing car seat family with sensors that provide feedback, light, sound and in the Thule app about the installation and of course the whole purpose is to prevent misuse. So really trying to push the safety standards and innovate also in the car seat category going forward. And that's going to continue to roll out here in Q3 and Q4. And also continuing to build out the dog transportation space with To The Dart, which is dog harnesses for larger dogs, which are also launched here during the autumn. So a pretty busy half year ahead of us as well. And we hope, of course, to build on the organic growth and the margin expansion we have seen here in H1. and take that into the second half as well. So with that, we conclude the presentation part and turn to operator to moderate questions.

Thank you. Please press star followed by the number one if you'd like to ask a question and ensure your devices are muted locally when it's your turn to speak. Our first question today comes from the line of Frederick Iverson with ABG. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Thank you. Good morning. First, maybe a question on what you said regarding consumers planning vacations closer to home this year. Curious to hear whether you've seen this already. Have you seen any evidence of this happening?

Hi, Fredrik. Good morning. Yes, some. I think some good indicators are, for example, campsite bookings are up across Europe, basically, from the Nordics to Spain, versus the same period last year. There's also some pretty good data in the US around pre-bookings for national parks and other sort of outdoor recreational spaces that also look positive. So I guess I would say the booking read, if you like, looks positive. But I guess both the European and the American summer vacations are really centered around August. So then we will see the impact coming through the next couple of weeks. But those are some good indications.

Perfect. Thanks. Then you talk about a new technology platform for the carriers or the carrier components and that you're, I guess, starting to scale those up now. First, do you see any meaningful impact on margins from this already or is that too early? And maybe also if you see similar opportunities within other product areas.

I think the answer generally is yes. So exactly to your point, we have been focused for a while on building what we call technology platforms, which is basically Nice word to say that we're harmonizing components and some of the technology that goes into the products. BikeCare has been a real focus for us because it's big and we have a pretty big portfolio. So we have really been able to actually see some improvements kick in this Q2 in the gross margin. It's not the biggest part of the gross margin improvement. To Toby's comment, the mixed part is bigger, but supply chain efficiency Efficiencies clearly help. And yes, we have more work to do on the bike carriers. We're quite far already on roof racks and rooftop boxes. But we are continuing the work also in other categories around the all-terrain and running strollers, around the bike trailers, around some of the car tents, actually, that are quite complex products, although it's small in sales for us. So more to do on bike carriers. It's coming through and more to do in other categories as well.

Good, good. Thanks. And then regarding Belgium, closing an office there, I believe you have a development facility in Belgium related to RV. Is that what you're closing down now?

Hi, Fredrik. No, it's nothing related to RV. That's maybe good to mention. It's an office we had related to primarily the bags business. So it concerns around 10 people and closing that office in Belgium related to the bags business.

And you are right, Fredrik. We do have a development center and some other functions as well, actually, for the RB business based in Belgium. But that's another site which is not impacted by this decision. Yes. Okay, perfect. Thank you.

I'll jump back into the queue.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Adela Dashian with Jefferies. Please go ahead.

Thank you and good morning, gentlemen. Firstly, on North America, continue to see negative organic growth territory. Would be good to try to understand what the trend has looked like throughout the quarter and also if we can get any sort of updates on current trading.

Yes, I can start. Thank you for your show. We agree. We'd love to move out of negative territory, minus two in the quarter, minus one for the first half year and get into positive. So we're not where we want to be there for sure. I guess on the positive side and adding some color, there are some good green shoots in North America. We have seen really nice development on Tudor.com, which is actually a substantial part of sales in North America now, growing really nicely, well into double digit in the second quarter. And actually, having said that, the majority of our sales in North America is wholesale, so with retail partners. And actually, we do see many of our biggest retail customers also increasing sales of Thule products in the second quarter, which is really positive. But on the other hand, though, they have simultaneously reduced the stock levels of Thule products. So we are not seeing that coming through in orders to us, if you like. In a way, it's a positive sign that it's a clear sort of improvement in the consumer demand or the sell-through of Thule products in the US in this quarter. But it has not yet materialized in a positive organic growth number for us, which we, of course, are looking for. So in the right direction, but not there yet.

So would it be fair to say that you ended the quarter at a higher level than you entered the quarter?

In North America, yes, absolutely. As some of these stock levels are now sort of reduced enough that they need to start to put in replenishment orders, the momentum is better in the second quarter for us in North America, yes.

Maybe it's worth putting in context. Sorry, just Toby here, but just I mean, close to 70% of our revenue is Europe. So that's obviously the biggest part. So, and it's kind of what moves the needle for us in a much bigger way, of course, is the good organic growth in Europe. So it's kind of important just to keep it in context.

Yeah, of course. Moving on to margins, gross margins. I mean, you were talking about holding it stable. So an improvement of one percentage point, this is a good thing. Good development, obviously. But what happens now in the second half of the year? What type of price increases are you planning to offset the raw material inflation? And how, I guess, how are you expecting to manage that development in H2? Still a stable to slightly positive development? Or are you expecting the raw material price increases to completely offset that?

Thank you. And this is a question with many layers. I'll start and then Toby can add on. But first of all, yes, we are really pleased, of course, by the Q2 margin. We have been almost positively surprised by some of the new product launches. And then again, our own channels are outperforming, which is helping in addition to some efficiencies. But for the second half, I think that there are now at least three sort of factors into play. First of all, the raw material prices, particularly aluminum, will now start to impact our COGS in Q3 meaningfully. Toby can add some detail, but that will, of course, be a negative factor. Secondly, we are doing price increases mainly centered around August and on average two and a half percentage point. varies a lot by geography and product, but 2.5% centered around August 1. That will help mitigate this. As it is August, it will not have an impact on the full quarter, of course. So it will help some. And then we should also mention, as Tobbe did, there are no tariff refunds in the Q2 results, but we do expect that there will be in the Q3 results. have received some refunds already now, starting Q3, and we expect US$5 million in refunds during the Q3, the third quarter. So all in all, those three factors should net be positive for us in Q3. And that would sort of support the more longer-term agenda, of course, we have to improve gross margin through our own actions. I don't know if you want to add some detail to that, Tobbe.

If we're just looking at the tariffs we are incurring now on an ongoing basis, they are at a similar level than they were during last year. They've just moved around from one type of tariff to another. So at the moment, the tariffs we have in our cost base is the same. the prices that we increased last year to offset that are in the results. So those tariffs are there at the same level. Then we do have a refund for some of the tariffs during last year, but that doesn't mean that the ongoing tariff cost is around the same. So that's one thing to bear in mind. And then the other, I think, just to reiterate really, but as Matthias said, We have the price increase of 2.5% from August, which we expect to offset the tariff cost, but that won't come in fully in Q3. So that means it won't fully offset the tariff cost in Q3, but then we will get this tariff refund from tariffs paid last year and earlier this year, which will offset that.

So just to try to understand that...

Yeah, and just to say from quarter four, the price increase will be in the results. So we'll be offsetting the impact.

But it obviously depends on what happens.

Yeah, I'll just say for quarter four, sorry, it depends what happens to raw material costs going forward as well. But that remains to be seen.

Yeah, so that was going to be my question then. So the price increases are to offset the tariff impact, not the raw material increases?

No, no, no, no, no. You're misunderstanding. The price increase is to offset the raw material increase. Apologies if that was unclear, but the price increase is to offset the raw material increase, and it's the raw material increase that we see as of now. And that's raw material increase we expect in Q3. It's largely locked in in Q3. And the price increase will come through from August, so it won't be through for the whole quarter, and it won't offset the full material cost increase for the third quarter. But on top of that, we will get this tariff refund, which will compensate. But obviously, that's a one-off.

That's a one-off item.

Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. We'll move on to our next question from Daniel Schmidt with Ganske Bank. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Yes, good morning, Mattias and Toby. Just to come back to the latest topic, and I think you cleared it out quite well, Toby, but with the $5 million refund that you get, will that be sort of leaving the gross margin, you think, at the same level, or could that still maybe be a positive on a year-over-year basis?

I think that I'll start, and then it's complicated, so let us try to be clear. We expect that the raw material price increases, the raw material increases will be offset by price increases when they're fully kicked in in Q4, unless raw materials change, of course. Not fully in Q3 because of the timing impact, but then with the $5 million of expected tariff refunds, we expect that that will actually more than offset the negative impact in Q3. So net positive from those three factors in Q3.

Good. And if you look into, it's hard of course, but given the sort of progress that you've done, on the tech platform and of course channel mix and product mix will be a big part of it also going forward but with that all else equal looking into Q4 then and assuming that aluminum prices stay the same or raw materials stay the same and you've made these price increases that fully cover that Would you think that the underlying trend in what you're doing on the tech platform side could still have a positive effect also for the last quarter of this year?

I'll say this. I think that the underlying trend should improve several quarters going forward because we have more work to do and that gives effect. And then having said that, we had Really nice effects also in the second half last year. And the mix always plays in. And some of that mix is seasonal. Some of that mix is because we launched a certain type of product. And now we've also lately sold quite well of premium and a little bit less well of others that has a slightly positive effect on the mix too. So really, Frank, I wouldn't mind studying more of everything. And then that would maybe... mix it percentage-wise down a bit. But we should, over time, back to your question, get more positive impact from the work we are doing on supply chain improvements, technology platforms included.

Okay, good. And another US situation where you're very happy with your own DTC and growing well into the double digits, as you mentioned. and then you have good progress in sell-through on your sort of core retailers, it sounded like, and then it gets a lot worse on other retailers. Why do you think that is? Is there a stock-out situation in the U.S. market on your products and people are turning to your web page to get your stuff, or how does it sort of, what's your thinking?

Yeah, no, maybe I'll... slightly adjust your comment there, Daniel. Maybe we weren't super clear. So what we're seeing is good progress, very nice on the DTC, good growth in our major retail partners sell-through, actually good or okay sell-through elsewhere as well. I mean, in most places at least, all material places, I would say, but destocking from the retailers. So several consumers are reduced, not several consumers, several key retailers have reduced their stock of Zulu products during the second quarter. So they sell, but they don't reorder yet, which means we are not accounting for sales in our numbers, if you like. I hope that was more clear.

Yeah, I think I got you, but maybe I'm getting it wrong anyway. But I'm just thinking that they are getting to a stock out situation given that their sell-through is good and they are not reordering. And is that in turn basically turning the US consumer towards your B2C business?

Okay, got it. No, could be a little bit for sure, but I don't think there's necessarily a stock out. I think retailers these days are focused on improving their inventory management. And I think they are maybe having some of them have easy goals, but easy open targets. But I think they're really focused on trying to operate with less, which is a part of what we see in the second quarter.

And then just turning to the cost side and you've seen good progress on SG&A and it should be down for the full year but of course it sounded already at the end of last year it's going to be front-end loaded. and tilted towards H1, which I guess you're saying now as well. You are making these changes in Belgium and you don't give any numbers on, it doesn't sound like a lot of people, but total cost could still be something. Would you share sort of there to give any guidance on savings from that close down?

I can give a bit of guidance. It's around 10 people affected. So there will be savings, basically, which is the majority of which is the salary and personnel cost of the 10 people going forward, which will come in successively. And the office is now closed from the middle of July. So it's coming in, but it's 10 people. So put it in context, it's not that big. But we do, I mean, just to answer Reflecting on your question, we are focusing very hard on efficiency and cost efficiency and optimising our SG&A. We started and had some good reductions in the second half of last year, and we've continued that journey in the first half of this year. It's a long-term journey, so as we presented in the Capital Markets Day, we We expect to see 2.5% of margin improvement over three to four years, the medium term, from the actions we are doing and initiated cost actions in, which is both SG&A, it's also some improvements in distribution cost, which is part of SG&A. It's also some improvement in gross margin to these technology platforms that Matthias is mentioning, but it's kind of real improvements in margin that we're delivering successively over over the medium term.

Yeah. And then on top of that, FX has been a burden, and I assume that looking at FX right now, that burden is probably gone, right?

Correct, correct. So that's been, for the last 12 months, that's been a headwind that we've taken on the top line and the bottom line, and now FX stays where it is, which no one can say, but if it does, then that headwind is not there anymore.

Thank you. That's all for me.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Agnieszka Vilela with Nordea. Please go ahead.

Thank you. And hi, Matthias and Tobi. So I would like to ask you about the organic growth trajectory. And I understand the fact that consumer demand has been challenging, at least after the Middle East conflict. But given either comparisons now in Q3 the price increases that you implement and your product launches, do you see any scope for your organic growth to accelerate from 2.5% in Q2?

Yes, well, as you know, we don't give clear guidance, but as you also know, we have been commenting that we would like, we are focused on driving organic growth, and we expect to see it this year. We're pleased to see it in H1. And look, to be really honest, on the short-term basis, a quarter, it could go up or it could go down. We will see what the market has to give us, but there are some pluses and minuses for Q3 in terms of really bigger ticket items like RVs. We're not selling RVs, but two RVs, of course, are slowing down, whereas vacations are in the summer house or closer to your sort of permanent home is typically benefiting Tule. So that could help. So I guess, could it accelerate? Yes, it could. Could we have more negative impact? Yes, we could too. So it's exciting times in July and the start of August is the very sort of biggest part of the quarter. And I guess we could comment and say that the quarter has started fairly much in line with how the second quarter sort of performed. So that's the trajectory as we speak.

Thank you. And then maybe a question to Toby and coming back to the tariffs. If you could be helping us and if you'll be willing to quantify the gross tariffs cost that you incurred in the quarter and how much of this cost we've been compensated for, and also the refunds, do you expect to kind of keep it internally, or do you expect that you will need to share some of that refunds with your customers, for example?

Let me try to answer and then Agnieszka, but basically the, I mean, just to put in, we've paid tariffs for a long, long time, they just went up last year, so it's not a case of completely new things, so the tariffs went up last year, and we are paying about the same level of tariffs now as we were in the second half of last year, and we have increased our prices to compensate for that. So the net impact of that is already compensated for in the result in Q2. Then separate to that, completely separate to that, there is a tariff refund because some of the tariffs last year... that we paid last year are being refunded and that is $5 million or around $50 million SEC that we expect to get back in Q3 and we've received a good chunk of that also already in July so that will come back in Q3 and will positively impact the result in Q3.

Thank you.

Thank you. The next question is from Andreas Lundberg with SEB. Please go ahead.

Hi, good morning. Can you hear me?

Yes, sir.

Great. Can I start with the sales growth in the second quarter? How much was coming from price and mix?

So, Andreas, we increase prices typically on an annual basis. So did we this year, 1st of Jan. around one, one and a half percent. Mix has been positive. We've been selling well of the higher price points and of the new products. And on top of that, you have a channel mix effect, which I would like to point out, which is we're doing well on DTC. So there are quite a few positive sort of price mix effects here that of course means that volumes are not growing as much, And then just to add to that, as you probably are aware, we build the company around, you know, a handful of these categories that we call champions. And the development is quite different if you walk into the different champions. So it's not like, yeah, there are different sort of dynamics in each part of the business in terms of volume and mix and price that we can get into. But that's the overall comment.

Okay, cool. You did some price hikes in North America a year ago, right? Or in Q2. Was that in the late part of the quarter or early part of the quarter?

Yeah, June 1, 2025, correct. Yeah, that's a good point. That also, of course, impacts most of Q2 this year.

But again, it's only North America, so it's around 20% of the business that's impacted. Two of the three ones, yeah. But that's true. That's right.

But on organic growth in general, I mean, you seem to be relatively pleased with champions. You had a group growth of 2.5. You also highlight very good growth for some newer categories, you know, dog transport, etc. To some extent, RB is still growing faster than the group. Can you comment on the development on the remaining part of the portfolio?

Yes. Obviously, the product area that we report for, as you're aware, that is growing the slowest, is the port and cargo carriers, which is just up 1%, and that's still more than 50% of sales in Q2. And there we really have different geographic developments, or different developments by geography, where Europe is developing very nicely. and North America is not. So that's really the sort of softer spot, if you like, in terms of sporting cargo carriers in North America. With the comments we just had about North America, we could go into more detail on that, but that's what's holding it back.

Is it broad or is it on specific categories, isolated categories, so it's doing bad or good?

In North America, you mean?

Or...

Yeah, it's a general tough market and general sort of drag, if you like, across the different product categories. That's one observation. The other observation, I mean, for us, but the other observation is that actually the sell through of these products in this quarter is positive. So, I mean, if you look across racks, bike carriers, etc., for sure, where we launch new products, it helps. D2C is outperforming. But also, actually, in this quarter, at least to me, that is a positive indication that the big retailers are selling more of our products to consumers. It's just that they haven't replenished as much.

All right. Do you know how your products are doing, both in Europe and also in NACA, relative to market growth?

Segen Andreas, I missed you there a bit.

Do you know how you're doing versus the market in North America and in Europe?

Yes, we have sort of partnership or category captain agreements with big retailers. So we see sell-out data of the category and our product. And then we, of course, do our own market research. And for some categories, there is third-party market research, mainly in the US. And we are... North America taking share across the product categories that we're in now having said that part of this champion strategy is you know to be clear number one so we are you know a really big part of the market already in these categories so There's not a whole lot of share to take. It's driving and building out those categories, which is the game, which we have done very nicely in the past, and that's been a success story. And of course, that's just easier to do in a market where consumers are not sort of less and less happy quarter on quarter.

Speaking of North America, you touched upon it a little bit, perhaps, but you You wrote that you were happy with the progress of changes you have taken. What specific factors give you confidence that the business is progressing well?

Well, I think the actions, if you look at the actions we have taken, there's been some of the cost side. We can put that aside and some to simplify sort of the organizational structure. But we have launched more North America specific products. I mean, there's a few bike carriers we mentioned this quarter. We sort of reopened the focus on pickup trucks, which first product for many years coming here in the beginning or in December. So there's, you know, a bigger growth focus on categories where we think we have a big right to win. So those are really pleasing. And I guess some of the evidence that we think we are seeing is what we just talked about, that the consumers are buying more of these products this spring than they did last spring. Sales value is up. It's just that it hasn't come into our books yet because the replenishment orders are not in. And I think retailers are clever. The big retailers are good. They are trimming their business, and they should, and they are reducing inventory. But of course, at some point, there's new orders coming for Thule as well.

Cool. And lastly, maybe Nitte Gritte here, but the closure in Belgium, it seems that you close facilities here and there. Are there any more offices or other facilities that you consider to close or can close? Thank you.

No, thanks. We're not an enormous company, but we are present in 138 countries. And of course, we have smaller offices around the world. As of now, there is no plans to close anything else. Having said that, we of course look at all the ways we can to try to trim our efficiency, both to be more lean and focused as an organization, but also to trim costs. So we will continue to evaluate new opportunities to get more efficient, but nothing is planned as of now.

Thank you so much.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Hal Wynn with UBS. Please go ahead.

Hello, it's Hal from UBS. Thank you for taking my question. My first one's on the RVN market. So you've mentioned the lower registrations you've seen during Q2. What is the normal kind of lack you see from the weakness in registrations into own equipment and aftermarket sales? And should this weakness cause RV Group to slow further in half too? Because you're saying, you know, eventually inventory levels would need to be restocked. But with this weakness in trend, does that actually delay the stocking up from wholesalers?

Yeah, we'll try to comment on that. There is a lag in exactly how much depends on a number of factors, not the least of the seasonality. Right now we are in high season still in RV. and if I could simplify what I would predict will or would guess would happen in the Q3 is that the dealers that have sold less vehicles don't need to order as many TULA products to install for new vehicles so that business will be softer but the OEs which we also sell to will continue to produce vehicles of the new year's program and keep factory sort of utilized as at a reasonable level. Obviously, they haven't been running at full capacity for a while, but I think that will not be so much impacted by a couple of months of lower registration numbers. I think it will, over a quarter or two, impact the restocking of Thule products.

Got it. Thank you. Now, in terms of the capital allocation. So your leverage is back down below 2, so 1.9, and you're expecting it to decline further in Q3. So how do you think about using the excess cash now? Is there a possibility of considering excess return to shareholders outside of the ordinary dividends? Or do you have any M&A targets or uses of cash you need above that?

Hello. Hi, it's Toby here. I can just say, yes, we've delivered in the quarter down to 1.9 times debt to EBITDA, which we're happy to see. And TULA generates good cash flow and gets very good cash drop through from EBITDA and operating profit down to cash flow. And we expect a good effect also in Q3, as I mentioned, because we have good cash flow, but we also don't pay a dividend in Q3. So firstly, it's good cash flow. Secondly, we do pay three quarters of our net profit as a dividend every year. So Thule has a good level of dividend, which we fund through operating cash. performance, and that drives good capital allocation, because the remainder of them really need to be disciplined on investing to drive growth. But you could say we're comfortable with the kind of leverage we have. It's at the kind of same level we've had through a lot of history, and we expect to see a bit more deleveraging in Q3.

Thank you. And my last question is on some of the champion candidates. So on Active with Kits and Dots, It moves from 11% growth in Q1 to about 8% in Q2, even though the commentary is multi-sport and bike trailers turned more positive. So does that imply there's some moderation, more material moderation for the champion candidates? And what's the Q2 growth contribution from these three champion candidates?

Well spotted. And the difference between, see if I can make this clear in English, the difference between the growth pace in Q1 and Q2 is one of mix effect due to seasonality within the active with kids and dogs. So bike trailers is a really strong Q2 season. So although it turned a bit positive, it is not growing at all as fast as the champion candidates, which is mathematically making this quarter's number to be 8%. And I'm sorry, I lost, I can't remember if I got, if that was all of it. Please repeat your question if not.

Yeah, that's clear. I was just saying the dynamic is a slow growth in Q2 sequentially versus Q1, even though bike trailers busted. So it's due to seasonality. Yeah, yeah.

due to mix and seasonality, but you can probably say that, you know, in Q1, more than all the growth comes from the candidates and about all the growth almost is coming from the candidates in Q2 as well as the trailer business really turned during the quarter. So that's, yeah, that's about the level.

Thank you.

Thank you. The next question is from Matt's list with Kepler Chevro.

Please go ahead. Thank you. A couple of questions from me as well. First, coming back to the RV segment there, I mean, well, historically, slowdown in sales have sort of helped you to some extent. And the aftermarket side, since dealers like to, well, make the sale easier by implementing some of your products extra there. Do you expect that to compensate some from registration numbers going forward?

Hi Mats, Tobi here. I mean, I think if you look historically, When the dealers are selling out from stock, that sometimes has helped the aftermarket side, but I think we've had a strong aftermarket performance also for a number of quarters, so it's hard to say how that's going to play out, to be quite honest. I mean, the lower level of registrations is being compensated by OEs adjusting their production levels as well. So keeping the kind of stock levels in the dealer network under control, I would say this time.

Okay. And then about the price increase there. I mean, you talk about August 1st, why it seems a bit late since the costs have increased. is the date sort of or the timing affected by the inventory reductions at the dealer network sort of?

It's a good question Mats and I should say most this August 1 there is variation it's not just RV it's across the product portfolio in different extents but I think the main reason for it to be sent around August 1, not earlier, is to really give our retail partners a clear view for how to operate the high season. We give them notice in good time. And July is the big month for high season for a lot of retailers. So now they have good visibility and can plan ahead to manage their inventory and their sort of purchase orders from Thule in a very controlled manner.

Okay, great.

And just finally about, I mean, you seem to think about launching a lot of products with sensors and maybe connected products. And are you sort of being, well, creating the market there or are there sort of opportunities to make bolt-on acquisitions to maybe speed up this changeover? I mean, it seems... Good to have a sensor on the back of the bike carrier there and keeping the child safe in the stroller. A lot of things, safety and so on. Could you say something about that?

Absolutely. No, but you're absolutely right. We are really trying to push sort of the the level or the limit if you like forward or upward and electronics and sensors is becoming you know one important part of that and exactly to your point both for bike carriers and for car seats this year so we of course do development on our own with our development team that we're really proud about we work with some suppliers and We've also done the occasional add-on acquisition where we think it makes sense. Curly was a good example, although it's more on the broadening of the product portfolio now in the quarter. So if the right opportunity were to present itself, that could also be an option. But we can also work with partners. And it's one way for sure to add safety features to some of the products that we are selling. And that's an agenda that's going to continue to your point.

Okay, great. Thanks a lot.

Thank you. We have a follow-up from Fredrik Iverson with ABG. Your line is open again.

Thank you. Hi again. One housekeeping question for me as well. You mentioned the positive mix impact from Quadlock growing slightly below 10% and Quadlock is obviously high margin especially in Q2 and I wonder How did the margin in Quadlock progress in the quarter? Is it up, down or flat versus Q2 last year?

Hi, Fredrik. Yes, so Quadlock's margin is high, but it's flat versus last year. So the impact is that Quadlock is growing faster than the average. So it's impacting the mix positively. Thank you.

Thank you. And our final question is a follow-up from Daniel Schmidt with Danske Bank. Please go ahead.

Just also another question on Quadlock. You had a hiccup in Q3 last year relating to the year before when it being onboarded in Q3 24 and you didn't have that same, that was a non-repeat in Q3 last year. Do you see any of those kind of events happening now in the second half of this year?

Yeah, you're right, Daniel, and it was really a very good memory. It was really related to a 2024 retailer introduction that gave some good pipeline fill and took the percentage growth a bit down in Q3 last year. But no, we don't have any any of those events on our radar screen. It's nice to see that the callback business is developing well and yeah, both of course with new products, but also wider distribution and some support from some Thule friends who opened up a few doors as well. So it's more to come, but no, to answer your question, no hiccups on the radar screen as we commented on last year.

Given the trend that you've seen now since you bought it and if that continues we should have some support from that also in Q3 on the gross margin which we didn't have really to the same extent maybe in Q3 last year.

Maybe I need to get my math here right but the percentage point The growth was a little bit lower in percent, but that's really related to a 2024 loading really on retailers. But overall, for your point, if Podlock continues to grow well at higher gross margin and, mind you, higher S&A costs, which push that a little bit higher, but overall, good margins, that, of course, is supportive. Exactly to your point. Okay, thanks all.

That's all for me.

Thank you. We have no further questions in the queue, so I'll pass back over to Mattias for any closing comments.

Thank you very much, everybody, for joining the call. Wish you a great day, great summer when you get to it, and look forward to speaking to you again, if not before, at the Q3 conference call.

Thank you.