Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and a warm welcome to today's H1 2026 earnings call of the Bike24 Holding AG. I am delighted to welcome the CEO, Andrés Martin-Birner, and CFO, Sylvio Eichhorst, who will give us an update on the results in a moment. Following the presentation, we will move on to our Q&A session. I would say let's jump straight in. Andrés, the stage is yours. Thank you very much. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Bike24's Q2 2026 earnings call. Thank you for joining us today. My name is Andrés Martin-Birner. I am the CEO and Founder of Bike24. On the call with me today, again, is Sylvio Eichhorst, our Chief Financial Officer. We will start to walk you through the key developments of the second quarter and the first half of 2026 before we conclude with your questions. Please also note that the presentation is available on our investor relations website. Today's call is structured in four parts. I will start with a general update on Q2 and first half year's overall performance. Sylvio will then move into the detailed business update and our financial performance, followed by our outlook for the remainder of the year. Finally, we will take your questions. Let us start with Q2 at a glance. Bike24 continued its profitable growth trajectory in a challenging and price-sensitive market environment. Group revenue increased by 20.1% year-over-year to EUR 96.1 million, while adjusted EBITDA improved by 15.8% to EUR 5.9 million. This means we continued to grow strongly while also keeping profitability at a solid level. Our growth was broad-based. Localized markets again outperformed, growing by 29.7% to EUR 21.5 million, while the DACH region grew by 17.2% to EUR 66.4 million. We also took the next step in our European expansion with new localized web shops launched in Denmark and Slovenia at the end of June, followed by Ireland in July. On the product side, PAC, that means Parts, Accessories & Clothing, remained the main growth driver. PAC increased by 22.3% to EUR 78.9 million. Full bikes also continued to grow, with revenue up 11% to EUR 17.2 million, resulting in around 9,100 bikes assembled and shipped through our workshop. In addition, we introduced our Collect & Ride option at the end of Q2 in our web shop, enabling customers to collect fully assembled bikes from selected distribution partners in seven different locations in Germany, which might also serve as local service and support points. Finally, we deliberately built inventory to secure availability for the second half of the year. Inventory increased to EUR 91.6 million, while the inventory to sales ratio remained almost unchanged at 28.8%, underlying that the stock build-up is in line with our growth. With this overview, I would now like to hand over to Sylvio, who will take you through the business and financial details. Thank you, Andrés, and good morning from my side as well. I will start with the business update. As Andrés already explained, the quarter was characterized by a strong demand, improved product availability, and continued traction from our localized market approach. The most relevant point is that growth was not driven by one isolated factor. We saw positive momentum across categories, regions, and customer cohorts. Turning to the category view, group revenue grew from EUR 80 million- EUR 90.6 million in Q2. The strongest absolute contribution came from PAC, which increased by EUR 14.4 million- EUR 78.9 million, supported by strong demand for electronics and bike service products. This confirms that the core assortment remains the backbone of our business, with a proportion of 82.1% compared to 80.6% last year. Bike revenue increased from EUR 15.5 million- EUR 17.2 million. Growth in full bikes was somewhat below PAC growth, but still positive in a very competitive market. Gravel and road bikes showed particularly encouraging demand, and bikes remain an important contributor to customer relevance and basket size. Looking at the regional split, the picture remains very consistent with our strategy. GSA, meaning Germany, Switzerland, and Austria, is still our largest region and delivered solid growth of 17.2%, reaching EUR 66.4 million in the quarter. This shows that our core markets continue to perform well despite overall market environment. At the same time, our localized markets grew significantly faster increasing by 29.7% to EUR 21.5 million. This confirms the traction of our platform strategy and the value of local customer experience. Rest of Europe also grew by 29.7% to EUR 7.4 million, while the Rest of World declined in line with our focus on Europe and our attractive customer economics. In short, GSA provides scale and profitability, while localized markets provide an important incremental growth trajectory. Looking at the customers' KPIs, we continue to see a solid and high-quality customer base. Active customer reached 1,244,000 on a last 12 months basis, up 21.7% year-over-year. Orders increased by 22.3% in Q2, while the average order value remained broadly stable at EUR 143. Importantly, repeat customers' behaviors remained strong. The share of orders from recurring customers increased to 71.2%, and the return rate improved to 17.1%, down 1.7 percentage points year-over-year. For us, these KPIs are important because they show that growth is not only coming from more customers, but also from a healthy level of engagement among existing customers. The regional customer picture shows two complementary effects. Localized markets are driving customer acquisition, with active customers up strongly by 31.5%, while GSA continues to provide a large and valuable base with 343,000 customers with a very resilient average revenue per customer of EUR 193, up by 4.8%. This balance is important for a sustainable growth profile. On the next slide, we will show you the development of our inventory. Inventory remains a central operational lever. At the end of June, inventory stood at EUR 91.6 million, up 26.9% year-over-year. The increase was deliberate and is intended to secure high availability for the second half of the year, a need that had already become apparent in July. At the same time, the quality of inventory improved meaningfully. Aged stock older than 12 months decreased from EUR 14 million to EUR 6.3 million, a reduction of 55%. More importantly, the inventory buildup remained almost stable in relation to the size of the business. The inventory to sales ratio stood at 28.8% at the end of June, almost unchanged versus 28.7% in the prior year period. From a mix perspective, inventories also show our category focus. PAC remained the largest component at EUR 66.2 million, while bike inventory increased to EUR 25.5 million, reflecting our strategy focus on growth in the full bikes category. Let us now turn to the income statement. In the first half year 2026, net sales increased by 20.8% to EUR 167.1 million. Gross profit rose by 20.7% to EUR 44.3 million, with gross margin remaining stable at 26.6%. Contribution profit, meaning gross profit, less performance marketing costs and selling costs, increased by 18.6% to EUR 27.3 million in the first half year. Adjusted EBITDA improved by 35.7% to EUR 7.7 million, which means the adjusted EBITDA margin increased from 4.1%- 4.6%. In Q2 specifically, revenue increased strongly to EUR 96.1 million, gross profit rose to EUR 26.3 million and adjusted EBITDA reached EUR 5.9 million. Looking at the cost structure as a percentage of revenue, gross profit remained stable in the first half at 26.6%. In Q2, gross margin was 27.4%, slightly below the prior year level of 27.7%, mainly reflecting the promotional environment and continued price pressure in parts of the market. Performance marketing increased as a percentage of revenue, reflecting our continued investment in customer acquisition and market share. Selling costs were broadly stable in the first half year as a percentage of revenue, but slightly higher in Q2 due to higher carrier costs and the change in country mix. At the same time, personal expenses and miscellaneous income expenses improved as a percentage of revenue. The key message is that Bike24 delivered growth and improved earnings at the same time. This demonstrates the operating leverage in the model, even though capacity buildup and temporary staffing are still required to support strong order growth. Turning now to cash flow and net leverage. The main effect in cash flow of Q2 was primarily driven by the intentional inventory buildup to secure availability and support growth in the second half of the year. EBITDA contributed EUR 5.9 million, while the development of the trade working capital and other operating cash flow items led to a negative free cash flow of EUR 8.5 million. At the same time, stronger profitability over the last 12 months, combined with a slight improvement in net debt from -EUR 16.7 million to -EUR 15.2 million, resulted in a clear reduction in net leverage from 2.1 x to 1.1 x year-over-year. Overall, we continue to finance our growth in a disciplined way, investing in availability and future scaling by keeping our financing position under close control. To summarize again, Bike24 continued to gain market share by investing in future growth. Revenue growth of around 20% in Q2 clearly outpaced the broader market environment. Availability remains a competitive advantage. The stock build-up was intentionally quality-driven and aligned with expected demand. From a profitability perspective, adjusted EBITDA increased both in Q2 and in the first half-year. We are seeing operating leverage while still investing in marketing, fulfillment in localized markets, and operational capacity. Overall, we have created a clear foundation for continued profitable growth. With that, let me hand over to Andrés, who will share our outlook for the quarters to come. Looking ahead, we remain confident in our strategy and our ability to grow profitably in a challenging market environment. The market is still characterized by uncertainty. At the same time, we see opportunities from market stabilization, high availability, structural weaknesses of some competitors, and the continuing demand for cycling products across Europe. Based on our strong first half-year performance, current developments, and the basis we have created for the second half-year, we confirm our full-year 2026 guidance. We continue to expect revenue in the range of EUR 318 million and EUR 332 million, corresponding to growth of 10%-15% year-over-year, and an adjusted EBITDA between EUR 16 million and EUR 20 million, implying an adjusted EBITDA margin of approximately 5%-6%. As always, this outlook is subject to the unusual risks and uncertainties, including macroeconomic developments, as outlined in our half-year report. Before we move to Q&A, let me briefly point out the upcoming dates on our financial calendar. We will attend Hamburg Investor Days on August 26th, followed by the Berenberg and Goldman Sachs German Corporate Conference in Munich on September 22nd, and the European Midcap Conference on September 30th, 2026 in Paris. Our Q3 2026 results are scheduled for November 12th. With that, we have reached the end of our prepared remarks. Thank you for your attention. We are now happy to take your questions. Yes. Thank you so much for your presentation. We will now move on to our Q&A session. For a dynamic conversation, please ask your questions in person via audio line by raising your hand. To do so, please click on the raise hand button you see below. If you are dialed in by phone, please use the key combination star key nine, followed by star key six to unmute yourself. If you are not able to speak freely today, you can also place your questions in our chat box and I will read them out loud for you. With that said, we have already received a risen hand by Mr. Schmidt. You may unmute yourself now. I just sent you an invitation. Yeah. Thank you, and hello. Ingo Schmidt speaking from Montega. First of all, congratulations on the strong performance in the first half. I have two quick questions. First, on your geographic expansion, you recently launched in Denmark, Slovenia, and Ireland. Could you give us an update on how these new markets are performing so far? Are you planning to add more specific countries in the coming quarters, or do you now feel that you cover all of Europe sufficiently? Second question on profitability. Given the positive scaling effects we are seeing, what main levers do you plan to use to further improve the EBITDA margin going forward, and what would be a realistic target level for 2027 and beyond? Thank you. Okay, maybe I catch the first questions regarding the start of our localization in Denmark, Slovenia, and Ireland. The first thing I think it's good to know for you, we start, I would say, a little bit late for launching these three markets. That's why it's a little bit too early to be fair. But we see a strong development in sales. This is what we can say today. We have to, as we always do, invest a little bit more in marketing, and so the penetration for these countries just started. I think the second one for the question is that, for us, these three markets are very interesting for us because road bikes, gravel bikes, and this is a little bit our Bike24's DNA. It's a very important market there, and many enthusiast customers. That's why we decided for these three countries. The next thing is that we think that when we look to maybe more localization, I think it could be a better decision when you see our market shares in all the countries we localized, that it could be more interesting to invest a little bit more in the existing localized markets and not to launch, I would say, small and also smaller countries. This I think it would be more interesting for us. Regarding gross margin, I will take this question from you, Mr. Schmidt. Thank you very much. As you know, and as we said also last year and this year as well, we are focusing not particularly on gross margin, even though we have this in focus, but we were focusing more on gross profit. This is where we want to grow even more also in the future, and we see also there operating leverages, of course, and to improve this margin. Opportunities to improve as well lay in our product mix that we can slightly adjust in our favors. Of course, we continuously looking also to try to lift up prices where possible. But like I said at the beginning, I think also we can increase our gross profit margin, but the target is difficult to predict since we are more focusing on increasing our profit in absolute terms. Okay, perfect. Thank you very much, and all the best for the rest of the year. Thank you. And see you at the end of August in Hamburg. Yes. Thank you so much, Mr. Schmidt. We are moving on to our next question by Mr. von Spee. I just sent you an invitation to unmute yourself. Does it work? Yes, we hear you. Hello. Thank you very much for taking my question. Congratulations to both of you, Mr. Andrés and all your colleagues. I remember well when I was sitting in your office, let's say three, four years ago, much more difficult situation. My questions are a little bit all linked together. First of all, return ratio. I saw on LinkedIn that you work with Bike Matrix, which sounds really very exciting, where actually when you can really find the fitting part for your bike, that should have positive impact on your return ratio. So could you elaborate on that a little bit? Then aging stock, it is tremendous how you reduce that, and that is certainly because of your big effort you made with SAP. I think, unfortunately, you never present enough what you have done there and what the effects will be of that, having successfully introduced SAP. Then, in this difficult market, markets are how they are. But shouldn't it be the case that you, with all what you have done the last years, SAP, reducing return ratios, in the end, you should profit out of it. In the end, you should be the guy who still can survive with extreme competitive pricing. That's actually the broad questions I have. Okay, maybe I catch the first question. Yes, I think it's important for our customers, especially as you know, we have many enthusiast customers on our platform to find the right part for their bike. That's why the cooperation with Bike Matrix is very interesting for us and especially for our customers, and we see it as a benefit for them in customer experience. That's why we see a slightly lower return rate, especially in parts in the first half of this year. But the main thing is still the high return rate in Clothing, and this is where we also have ideas that a customer find, I think, the right size for maybe the shirt or jersey or the. That's what I think a little bit the more important thing for Bike24. But to be honest, Bike Matrix is technically very sophisticated and very interesting for us, and we see slightly better return rate than last year. So I think we and our customers benefit from that. Emanuel, can I ask you to repeat your questions regarding or make it. Maybe the SAP, you reduced the aging of the stock from 14 to six months. Yeah. In my, I don't know, daydreaming, I would say that is also mainly because you have introduced SAP, I think two years ago or 18 months ago, and that should be one of the already big result of that, and I think you should much more emphasis and presentation that you have built up since SAP, what not many of your competitors have done. Yes. Generally speaking, we have some advantages from SAP. They lay, but more in the procurement and how fast we can procure or reorder products. In regards to the aging, as you might at least understand, we should have been, or we should be able also to see our aged stock before SAP, and this is what we also monitored. That we built up more aged inventories or aged stock was driven by the markets in 2023 and 2024. Currently, of course, we can monitor them, but we were also able to monitor this before, and we did it. Of course, we need to be ahead of our stocks that we have. We need to know what's there, that we now have reduced it. It's an ability that we created 2024, where we're focusing, and this is what we're also telling to the market regularly, that we're really focusing on being more competitive also in our pricing, and this is what we also do when it comes to how we're monitoring our products. Of course, we have certain life cycles in products. Different products have different life cycles. We have products that turn faster, which we monitor closely, but we have also long tail that are intended to stay a little bit longer, and this is how we also manage our stock or how we keep stock in here. Yeah. Then maybe the last point was, how do you see your position in this difficult market? This is what you mentioned in the statement, still very price competitive. Where do you see your company set up what you have done the last years to compete in this market? I think we did many good decisions in the last two and three years. A part is, of course, introduction of SAP, and it is also that we have now a lower obsolete stock, and we have now fresh stock. We invested a lot in technology, especially as you also asked for Bike Matrix. It is all many of small points, I think is the tailwind we have from, I would say, from our customers, because, as you know, the market is solid, is I would say, stable, but it is not too much tailwind from the market and also not from consumer sentiment. So we gain market shares from, we have to say it, from our competitors. I think we have the right assortment, we have a good pricing, we have a good availability, and this also is our We have very often told you it is our secret sauce. Now, it is not too big a secret, but I think all of these we master, we handle very good, and this is why we were able to grow faster than the market in the last 18 months. Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr. von Spee. We have another risen hand by Mr. Specht. I just sent you an invitation to unmute yourself. I can see that you are dialing in by phone, so please press star key six to do so. Can you hear me? We just could hear you for a second. Now you are gone again, but I can see that you unmuted yourself. Yes. Hello. Good morning. Good morning. I have three follow-on, if I may. The first one on the logistics side, we noticed the, let's call it revitalization of the Barcelona hub, which currently forms a burden in the ramp-up phase. Can you give us some idea how we should look at it in the midterm? Is Barcelona a tool to bring down the, let's say, cost per unit or per parcel down over time? Or will it be just working side-by-side with Dresden on similar economics? Also on the logistics shipping side, do you see options to, let's say, roll over rising costs to your end customers? Second point is on the inventory side, I noticed the reversal of impairments was roughly EUR 1 million. Is more to come or the option of more to come as you are driving down the amount of aged inventory further? Finally, the elephant in the room, the guidance for sure, at least the top-line guidance looks very conservative now, having delivered the first half year sales results. What holds you back from increasing at least the sales outlook for the full year? Maybe I can start with your Barcelona question. Of course, it was a part and is still a part of our story, what we introduced during our IPO, that localization is a big part of our strategy. Barcelona is our second warehouse, and we see that we need it. We saw that around 250- 300 million, we have here the capacity limit in Dresden. The Barcelona warehouse has almost the same size, so it was a good investment when you see that our guidance regarding to sales is above the 300 million now. We need Barcelona for our growth. It's an important part of our strategy. We need this, and it's clear, the closer you are to your customers, the shipping costs are less or lower. It's a big and important cost point for us. That is why it is important also for the coming quarters to ship more and to build up our capacities from Barcelona. Regarding costs to roll over to customers? Yeah. The second part of your question was the rising costs for shipping because of the higher gas prices in Europe or in the world. We check it. It is a part of our strategy, but we have to look how competitors do the prices for shipping, and we will check it, and when we see opportunities, then we will do it. Clear. Regarding the second question from you, this is related to the inventory and the aged stock that we decreased, and also you see more potential there also from releasing write-offs. The biggest part we released last year, regarding the write-offs and we reduced the. Also in the second half of last year, we reduced our inventory stock materially to around about EUR 7 million. We now reduce a little bit more. But since we define also the aged stock older than 12 months, we surely have some certain levels that we will keep as this is also our strategy to have a long tail and provide to our customers also for longer time parts that might be needed for their bikes. Then we are coming to the third questions. Yeah. Third question. I start with the guidance regarding the sales. As you know, and also many news in the last two weeks of our market. We see, and this is not a secret, consolidating is a part in our industry today, and we see, I would say, significant opportunities to gain additional new customers and to expand our market shares. That is why it is a big focus for us to push revenues in this, I would say, what I also mentioned, that we see some weaknesses of competitors, and that is why we, I would say, we take this opportunity, especially in pushing sales. On the earnings side, I say something. Also there, we think that we remain within the guidance. Of course, this reflects on the one hand side, our product mix and also our regional development as we explained today. Particularly in areas where we have very intensified price competition and very high price sensitivity. At the same time, we also invest in customer acquisition, as you could see from our marketing costs. We also invest in our structural capabilities, as you also asked regarding Barcelona as an example, which we bring technical to the same level as in Dresden. Of course, we boost that investment. We also prepare ourselves for future growth already. Furthermore, also last year, as I just said in the second question, we also had significant reduction in aged inventories, which of course had then lower product costs and positively impacted the EBITDA margin. At the end, as I said, we expect to be within the guidance range at the end of the year regarding earnings. Okay. Thanks a lot. Maybe one additional one before we go back into the line. On the tax side, you have become a net taxpayer in the second quarter, a thing we have not seen for a while. Do you believe or expect to remain a net taxpayer, or could there be changes in the upcoming quarters? No, we think that we will become taxpayer. Of course, we can make use of our tax losses carry forward. That will be used. On the other side, we have amortizations, as you know, from our brands and customer relationships that we have not from the tax side. That is why we have also positive income for tax purposes. Thanks a lot. Thank you so much for your questions. We have one more risen hand by Mr. Michaels. You may unmute yourself now. Thank you. Congratulations on the numerous strong KPIs, gentlemen. I have a few questions. Maybe I will go through one by one to make it easier. Could you give us more detail or color on the better and weaker localized markets? What do you see in the localized markets, or is it pretty much across the board similar growth? Similar growth. Today, we do not see any, I would say, very weak region in Europe. In all regions in Europe, I would say in almost all countries, we have double-digit growth rates in Q2 and also in the first half of this year. There are slightly differences, but we see a whole tailwind from all markets and also from our home market. That is great. On the full bike side, could you explain maybe why it seems to be a little bit more slower and talk about trends? You did say that road bikes and gravel bikes are doing well. Any other thoughts about full bikes, the slowness of the market, if it is slow or capacity constraint on assembling them and getting them out? More color on what is going on with full bikes. Yeah. I think the first part to answer your question is that the bike revenues, the share is almost 20%. It is a little bit less than 20%. When you see the whole market, our market share in bikes is very small. That is why the focus is important. As you know, it is also a part of our strategy to have a good development and good growth for full bikes. But one quarter is a little bit a small time, a short time, I would say, for full picture, and when we see the first weeks of July and also starting August, we had much better results than in Q2. That is why I think this is also a part of our question. The second thing is that we grew in units in the first half of perhaps 24%. You see, it's also a product mix part, and that's why we feel very comfortable today. I think we will have better growth in Q3, also the part of the top line. Got it. Great, thanks. On the bike market, in reading your report that was published this morning, some good detail on the bike market for last year for the industry that you write about. I was kind of surprised to see how negative it was. Do you see any signs, and could you comment on them, are the industries going from negative growth to perhaps the more stable? It's really difficult because as you know, we are focusing on enthusiasts. There we see much more. It's our focus, and enthusiasts market, I would say, is improving and is better than the whole market. I think the negative impact is especially for the retail market, especially also in e-bikes, and where the demand is, I would say, is still lower than last year. But especially in the market where we are, or where Bike24 is, we see a slightly better market and we see the little tailwind for us. That's why for the whole market, we are not so negatively impacted. Got it. I guess you could say that the e-bike market grew tremendously thanks to new riders who were stuck at home in. Right. Covid, right? It was a one-off big bubble, and that bubble is still just being digested by the, not the enthusiast market, but more the just the general market. So that's how you get those. I get it. Thanks so much. Thanks for answering the questions. Appreciate it. Good to see you, gentlemen. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr. Michaels. We have not received any further risen hands nor any questions in our chat box. I would say we therefore come to the end of today's earnings call. Thank you for joining and this lively conversation. Should further questions arise at a later time, please feel free to contact investor relations. A big thank you also to Andrés for your presentation and to you, Sylvio, as well. I would say I wish you all a lovely remaining week, and with this, I hand over again to Andrés for some final remarks. Yeah. Thank you again for joining us today and for your continued interest in Bike24. We appreciate your trust and look forward to keeping you updated on our progress over the coming quarters. Until then, we wish you also all the best for today, and have a good day. Bye bye. See you. Ciao.
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