Dear ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the conference call of Ströer r egarding the preliminary figures 2021. At our customer's request, this conference may be recorded. As a reminder, all participants will be in a listen-only mode. After the presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. If any participant has difficulty hearing the conference, please press star key followed by zero on your telephone for operator assistance. I now hand you over to Christian Schmalzl, Co-CEO, who will lead you through this conference. Please go ahead, sir. Dear ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining our prelims results call for the full year 2021 today. Together with my colleague, Henning Gieseke, our Group CFO, we will give you a brief update on the developments of Q4 and the achievements in the last year, the unaudited preliminary financials of the last quarter and the full year 2021, and an outlook on what we expect for the coming months. Following our presentation, the board will be available for Q&A to you. Before we go into the details of our full year performance, it's worth summarizing the main takeaways for 2021 and the key value drivers going forward. We finished the year with the strongest Q4 ever and a really consistent performance across the total group. Versus 2019 and pre-COVID, revenue was up by 13% and net income by 69%. Besides some after effects of the pandemic, we see that we are currently well-prepared for profitable growth in the coming years, and Q4 just showed what you can expect in the future. This is clearly fueled by a strong demand for digital out-of-home, which was on an all-time high in Q4. Digital out-of-home revenue was 53% above Q4 2020 and 30% above Q4 2019. The share of programmatic sales was about 51%. Also all Plus businesses are really in good shape. Statista has an outstanding profile, and 2021 was another big step forward. Net revenue retention is meanwhile at 103%, and the ARPA CAGR stands at 24%. The company is currently entering the next level of global scalability and realizes more and more network effects. Back to the development of the total group. We have gone through extremely different quarters. Until the beginning of June, our country has been under hard lockdown restrictions, and the decline of public traffic was a real challenge for our core out-of-home business. Accordingly, the first quarter was earmarked with a rigid cost management, while our Plus businesses showed strong momentum in the lockdown phase. The second quarter, however, marked a tipping point with the beginning of a V-shaped recovery of out-of-home media over the quarter. Against this background, our out-of-home Plus strategy again proved its strength and flexibility, bringing back group performance in the third quarter to pre-COVID levels. Also Germany was facing a strong infection wave with a Delta mutation, and the rise of the Omicron variant towards the end of the year was not really supporting advertisers' confidence. Q4 showed a very strong performance across all businesses. In total, reported group revenues for fiscal year 2021 were up by 13% from EUR 1.44 billion to EUR 1.63 billion, as we have guided for. Organic revenue was at a comparable level with 12.6%, up 20.9 percentage points versus prior year. The Adjusted EBITDA increased by 13% to EUR 513 million, basically following the overall revenue development. It's worthwhile mentioning that our adjustments came down from EUR 22.5 million in 2020 to EUR 5.9 million in 2021. We have highlighted in the last two years, we are constantly working on our earnings quality in line with no or almost no M&A, and therefore less post-merger integration and restructuring one-offs. Our Adjusted EBIT benefited from the accelerated performance in the second half of the reporting period versus the prior year and a slightly lower D&A volume. Due to the low comparative value of the previous year, Adjusted EBIT improved over proportionally by 41% from EUR 177 million to EUR 249 million. Adjusted net income was up by 35% from EUR 126 million to EUR 170 million. Operating cash flow in the full year 2021 developed positively, mainly in line with business, and was up by 12% and improved from EUR 380 million to EUR 426 million. CapEx spend increased by 6% from EUR 95 million to EUR 101 million. As indicated, we accelerated our CapEx spend in the fourth quarter with EUR 39 million to cover the ramp-up of our digital footprint. At our Capital Markets Day 5 months ago, we talked in detail about our strategy. Our focus areas are unchanged and have also been the key drivers in 2021. First of all, the digitization of our out-of-home infrastructure, especially with more digital roadside inventory to strengthen our profitable Public Video proposition. Secondly, the continued optimization of the synergy potential and network effect of out-of-home and Digital and Dialog Media, i.e., the areas of content, tech, data, and customer access. Finally, there is the unlocked value crystallization potential of Asam and especially Statista, and both have shown excellent growth and performance in the last 12 months. Let's have a closer look at our digitization roadmap for out-of-home and where we are versus our mid-term targets communicated at the Capital Markets Day. We finished 2021 exactly where we wanted to be, but have used especially Q4 to already build the fundament for an even faster rollout of screens. Even if we stick to our midterm plan with a CAGR of 500 roadside screens and 300 incremental premium indoor screens per year until 2026, we want to pull some of our investments forward and accelerate the momentum in 2022. We plan 750 to 800 roadside screens instead of the midterm benchmark of 500 in the coming twelve months. We plan 400 instead of 300 premium indoor screens on top with a clear focus on the top 10 cities in Germany. The long tail portfolio will be optimized, especially towards high-traffic point of sale locations. In the last weeks and months, we have seen more and more demand for digital out-of-home from the ad market, and the +53% in Q4 are encouraging. We want to use the momentum also by means of offering more special and large format public video screens. In 2021, we already installed those highlight products, for instance, in Freiburg main station, in the heart of Munich, or in the main station in Cologne. You see the visuals on the slide. The famous Munich Stachus Underground, Stuttgart City Center, or also Dortmund are other exemplary locations of large format screens we have installed during the last 12 months. The most interesting project happened probably in Hamburg in Q4 last year when we started rolling out our digital columns. A completely new product in Germany and to our knowledge, also globally when it comes to roadside inventory. We call them Public Video City Towers. Airports are normally not on our key topic list. We have integrated the airport Düsseldorf to our portfolio, also with a large format port besides other smaller screens. In Munich and Berlin, we started experimenting with what we call Digital Motion Towers. It's a lightweight and rather thin tower with two-sided screens, which we have been using temporarily for fairs or special events already. We have tripled reach and audience across our Public Video network for advertisers in the last 5 years. We generate over 16 billion ad impressions or gross contacts per year, and an average person passes one of our screens 15 times a day in public transport, train stations, malls, on roads or pedestrian areas, point of sale locations or other destinations like restaurants, fitness studios, or supermarkets. Part of the strong sales momentum for out-of-home business is also driven by the network effects of out-of-home with our digital business and our dialog marketing solutions. We talked at our CMD in detail about the key synergy areas around content, tech, data, and client access. Our publishing business is the source for any kind of content around general interest, news, entertainment, or sports, and especially local content that we show on our screens to make them attractive for consumers, but also municipalities. We deliver more than advertising. Vice versa, t-online is growing year-over-year, and in 2021, it became the biggest German news portal based on the AGOF digital facts. The constant presence on our Public Video network clearly supports the organic traffic development of the portals. Our tech and data initiatives from the online business are also more and more driving the growth of digital out-of-home. We have broadened our coder team last year, and 22 people are doing nothing but extending the online tech stack to digital out-of-home. Besides private deals and private auctions, our SSP is meanwhile also offering open auction modules for Public Video. Real-time reporting features and data products have also made progress in 2021. Public Video becomes more and more an integrated element of the digital marketing ecosystem of our clients and unlocks new revenue streams for out-of-home. That clearly helps deepening our relationships with advertisers like Google as an example for the growing business with tech companies, Ferrero as a reference for the momentum with FMCG, or Sky representative for media and streaming. Both classic out-of-home and digital out-of-home benefit from Ströer having a larger share of clients' advertising wallets via online and dialog solutions. New customers or temporarily non-active advertisers are finding their way to out-of-home. Brands like New Balance use out-of-home even as their lead medium. Burger King is back in out-of-home, and at the same time, with a media mix share beyond 20% on their all-time out-of-home high. Our non-core assets in the e-commerce and Data as a Service segment have finished 2021 with a record year by means of top-line growth of almost 35%. Henning will show you the detailed numbers later in the presentations. The challenge, but also the beauty of Statista is that there are not many comparable companies, if at all. We have worked on defining the right KPIs to manage the business, but also to drive value. Ultimately, we had to establish a category that we call Data as a Service, a global data business that follows the logics and metrics of Software as a Service. On that basis, it's easier to benchmark and evaluate the asset value, and Statista performs against all KPIs like ARR growth, gross margin, net revenue retention, and gross retention. Parallel to rolling out our global sales activity, we constantly invest in the substance and quality of the Statista platform around market outlooks, the company database, and consumer service. Of course, the bigger each of the three pillars gets, the more network effects can be realized across the areas, delivering extra insights for our customers. Year-over-year, the average revenue per account is growing in 2021, faster than our investment into incremental platform features. The subscription business is running on rails and sales where we track all new revenues without the deferral of billings from long-term subscriptions were up almost 60% year-over-year in 2021, and the mid-term target of EUR 250 million in 2025 is unchanged. For Asam, 2021 growth was driven by the extension of the MAGIC FINISH product line in combination with accelerating growth in streaming commerce and digital live selling events. In parallel, we have started with the international expansion in the second half of the year and kicked off France, Poland, China, and a small operation in the U.S. With that, let me now hand over to Henning, who will guide you through the financial details and results for the fourth quarter and the full year 2021. Thank you, Christian, and hello everybody. Let me first start with a deeper look in the P&L for the full year. For additional transparency, we added 2019 to give you a flavor where we stand against the pre-COVID benchmark. When looking into the full year, you see a very strong operational development compared against both 2020 as well as against 2019. Group revenues were up by 13% or in absolute terms from EUR 1.4 billion to EUR 1.6 billion, or EUR 36 million higher when compared with 2019. Organic growth developed more or less in line with reported sales growth, as we had no material M&A in the year. As part of our M&A-driven transformation into digital business models over the last couple of years, we adopted the calculation method, which ensured that internal steering is in line with transparent external reporting, as we included acquisitions directly from the first time consolidation by comparing their sales to the respective prior year period. With the group reshaping being concluded with the introduction of our current segment structure at the beginning of 2021, we do not expect any significant acquisition activities anymore. Correspondingly, we now apply the more commonly used method that delays the inclusion of acquisitions by 12 months. As you can see from the slide, the difference between the two methods is only very minor. Adjusted EBITDA increased by 13% as well, and was EUR 530 million compared to EUR 453 million in 2020. The Adjusted EBITDA margin was 31.5% and thus on the same level as in 2020. As indicated, exceptionals have been reduced from EUR 22.5 million to EUR 5.9 million. As a result, earnings quality has improved further and reported EBITDA developed slightly disproportionately with an increase of 18% to EUR 507 million in 2021, compared to EUR 430 million in 2020, and is basically on par with the 2019 level. Depreciation and amortization, including mainly the depreciation on IFRS 16 assets, was minus EUR 310 million, EUR 25 million below the level of 2020 and EUR 35 million below 2019. The main driver behind that development, as already seen in the first nine months, are lower amortizations from PPA assets that to an increasing amount, have been fully amortized in the meantime. Based on the strong EBITDA development and declining D&A, EBIT more than doubled to EUR 197 million, compared against EUR 95 million in 2020. With -EUR 29 million, the financial result was EUR 5 million better than in the prior year, which stood at EUR 34 million. This relates mainly to higher write-downs on other financial assets in the prior year. Earnings before taxes were up by more than EUR 100 million and led together with a tax rate of around 23% to a net result of -EUR 38 million. Summing all this up, reported net income for the full year increased to roughly EUR 130 million compared to EUR 48 million in 2020. Driven by our healthy operation development and with significantly lower adjustments, net income adjusted improved to EUR 170 million, up 35% against fiscal year 2020, which came in at EUR 126 million. EPS adjusted post minorities was EUR 2.86. Let us now have a brief look at the Q4 2021 developments. Sales growth accelerated to 16% in the fourth quarter, driven by Out-of-Home Media. Sales came in at EUR 527 million compared to EUR 455 million in 2020, and also exceeded 2019 sales of EUR 468 million. Due to the already mentioned very strong performance, especially of our high margin digital out-of-home business, which delivered a revenue increase of 53%, adjusted EBITDA increased ahead of revenues with 20% and came in at EUR 194 million for the fourth quarter. As exceptional items were with EUR 0.3 million on a very low level, reported EBITDA doesn't differ materially. Depreciation and amortization were down to EUR 79 million in the quarter for the same reasons as described before. Also, as explained before, the financial result improved to EUR 7 million while taxes increased due to better earnings and a higher tax rate. Looking at the adjusted net income, this increased pretty much in line with the revenue and Adjusted EBITDA development and was up from EUR 72 million in Q4 2020 by 21% to EUR 87 million in Q4 2021. Moving over to cash flow. Altogether, we see a quite decent cash flow reflecting the overall business dynamics. Operating cash flow went up from EUR 380 million to EUR 426 million, a development which underlines our strong cash conversion capabilities. Cash outflows from the change in working capital reflected a reduction of reverse factoring volumes to zero, as well as investments in the growth at Asam. The underlying network and capital development was broadly neutral. Cash outflows from non-M&A investments came in 6% higher than 2020 at EUR 101 million in 2021, reflecting mainly the accelerated ramp-up of our digital roadside portfolio. Free cash flow before M&A was EUR 325 million after EUR 285 million in previous year, and free cash flow, including leasing payments, went up to EUR 147 million from EUR 130 million in 2020. Leasing payments in 2021 also included some payments which were deferred last year in the context of the pandemic. With this development, financial net debt came in at EUR 612 million for 2021, and thus broadly on prior years level, despite our dividend payments. Accordingly, our leverage ratio improved to below 2x in line with our expectations. Let me also mention that our equity position remained broadly stable, so that both developments, leverage and equity, support our credit quality in a context of the year 2021, which had a very challenging start, as Christian described earlier. Let us now have a closer look at the operating segments and where we stand at the end of the year, starting with Out-of-Home Media. The fourth quarter 2021 showed a performance on pre-COVID level and significantly above the revenues of the prior year period, and this despite the Omicron wave which unfolded during that period. In numbers, revenue increased by 18% from EUR 216 million to EUR 256 million. This leads to a full year level of EUR 701 million, in line with what we have guided at our Capital Markets Day in fall, or 7% up against fiscal year 2020. This positive development was also reflected in Adjusted EBITDA, which increased even stronger by 28% from EUR 110 million to EUR 141 million in the fourth quarter due to better leverage on our fixed cost structures and significant growth of the high margin digital out-of-home of 53%. Accordingly, the margin went up from 51%-55%, and with that above pre-COVID profitability. On a full-year perspective, Adjusted EBITDA increased by 13% from EUR 298 million to EUR 336 million, which translates into an Adjusted EBITDA margin of 48% or 2.4 percentage points above prior year's margin and getting closer to the level of 2019. Our Digital & Dialog Media segment again delivered a sound performance both from a quarterly as well as from a full-year perspective. Revenues increased by around 15% from EUR 199 million in Q4 2020 to EUR 228 million in the fourth quarter. Also 15% on an annual basis to EUR 734 million. Our online advertising and content publishing showed continuing growth in revenues. In numbers, sales were up by 21% to EUR 142 million and exceeded both Q4 2020 as well as the comparable pre-COVID quarter. From an annual perspective, digital was up by 11% to EUR 430 million. The Dialogue business continued to perform robustly. Sales increased by 22% from EUR 250 million to EUR 304 million for the year. Against higher and thus more normalized comps, Q4 showed the sales growth of 6%. While our call centers turned in slightly declining sales in a challenging labor market context, our door-to-door activities delivered a strong year-end business. All in all, Adjusted EBITDA of the segment in Q4 2021 was with EUR 61 million, EUR 6 million or 11% higher compared to the same period in 2020. For the full year, Adjusted EBITDA increased by 20% from EUR 155 million to EUR 187 million, and Adjusted EBITDA margin was up by 1.1 percentage points versus 2020. Our Data as a Service and E-commerce segment added another quarter of strong growth. Q4 segment sales in the reporting period were up by 29% to EUR 67 million, and for the full year by 34% from EUR 180 million to EUR 242 million. With 39% growth in the fourth quarter, Data as a Service powered by Statista continued to show strong growth and achieve sales of EUR 29 million. On a full year basis, Statista again marked new record sales, EUR 102 million, 38% up. The total generated contract volume in fiscal year 2021, so without accruals, achieved EUR 118 million, and thus considerably more than the EUR 102 million indicated at our capital markets day. E-commerce, also known as Asam, showed a very decent development in Q4 2021, with sales being up by 22% to EUR 38 million. However, when compared to the third quarter development, somewhat lighter due to significant Christmas orders from retailers delivered already in Q3. On a full year basis, Asam performed as expected and reported revenue growth of 32% from 106 to 140 million EUR. Due to increasing investments in accelerated growth and the expansion of our international business, especially with Asam, the Adjusted EBITDA margin declined to 5% and Adjusted EBITDA was EUR 3 million in Q4 2021. Annual developments draw basically a comparable picture. Adjusted EBITDA was broadly flat despite ongoing intense investments in the international and channel expansion. Let me now hand you over back to Christian for some closing remarks and our outlook for the current fiscal year. It's fair to say that the pandemic is not over yet, and that the current situation in Ukraine and Russia is extremely worrying. On the basis of what we see today, without a significant next COVID wave in autumn or massive international political turmoil that influences the advertising behavior of our customers, we expect for the full year 2022, group revenue up by 10%-14% organic. The out-of-home segment revenue up by 16%-20%. The group EBITDA growth above revenue development, despite the fact that we invest significantly in the growth of Asam and Statista so that the EBITDA of DaaS and e-commerce will rather show a sideward movement, as Henning also described for 2021. For the first quarter, 2022, we expect group revenue up by 20%-25% organic. The Out-of-Home segment revenue up by 55%-65%, with the digital out-of-home showing the strongest momentum and the lowest comps and therefore should be beyond +120%. Group EBITDA will be up by 25%-32% in Q1, so we expect a margin improvement versus prior year quarter. Let me close the presentation with looking at our financial calendar for the coming months and further in-depth information we plan to provide. The release of our annual report 2021 is scheduled for March 30. On May 18, we will publish our Q1 numbers and update the midterm plan that we have announced at our Capital Markets Day. You might have seen that we accelerate the rollout of digital screens and Digital & Dialog has also finished 2021 stronger than expected, so we will connect those data points and the guidance for this year with the midterm projections until 2026. For Q2, we've also planned a deep dive slot around our ESG initiatives, and we will publish our next ESG and sustainability report end of Q2. Our AGM is planned for June 2022, and the invitation going out mid of May will include the dividend proposal for 2021. We will probably also use the AGM or the Q3 numbers to update our capital allocation strategy, given the fact that our leverage is declining month-over-month at the moment. We plan the next Capital Markets Day end of September or early October. The focus topics will be digital out-of-home and Statista. Further dates can be found in our financial calendar on our newly designed website. Thank you, everyone, and we are now happy to take your questions. Thank you. We will now begin our question-and-answer session. If you have a question for our speakers, please dial zero and one on your telephone keypad now to enter the queue. Once your name has been announced, you can ask a question. If you find your question is answered before it is your turn to speak, you can dial zero and two to cancel your question. If you're using speaker equipment today, please lift the handset before making your selection. One moment, please, for the first question. The first question is from Christopher Jonen of HSBC. Your line is now open. Yes. Good morning, guys. Hope everyone is well. Thanks for taking my questions. Two, if I may, and one by one, if possible. First, I appreciate the color on the first quarter. I'm just trying to understand the EBITDA component of it, so maybe I can pick your brain here. If I'm assuming, you know, more ongoing investments, you mentioned that at Statista and Asam this year, so there probably won't be an improvement in Q1 on that respect. Dialog and Digital, I would assume that there's nothing major going on here. The residual to get to the midpoint of the EBITDA guidance for Q1 would be Out-of-Home. I know there are investments ongoing, but maybe you could, yeah, share, you know, what we should expect here margin-wise. Because it seems that, implicitly, given the guidance, there is not that much of a pickup versus Q1 2021, and I'm just trying to understand if I have an issue with my math or whether, you know, it's predominantly driven by investments being sort of front-loaded in the first half of the year. Just any comment on that will be great. Hi, Christopher. No, I think you're right that as you described, segment three is going sideways. Segment three is probably in line with revenue development or running against quite tough comps. The incremental EBITDA from the group comes from Out-of-Home. Nevertheless, I think it's fair to say that as we had last year, a situation where already November, December were locked down and we knew that Q1 will be difficult. We've used the furlough scheme in as much as we could. I think there are some one-off costs or cost benefits in 2021 that we don't have now. Nevertheless, I mean, as we've seen in Q4, I think in general, the Out-of-Home business is improving the margin profile. I think that's driven by three aspects. One is the business is growing again on or also above pre-COVID levels. Second point is the product mix is more favorable towards digital out-of-home, which is the strongest product by means of margin. The third aspect is that parts of the cost exercises that we've gone through during the pandemic are also sticky as we've been hoping for. I think part of that development will be already visible in Q1, but nevertheless, maybe not as extreme as you might expect because there's EUR 2 million in furlough scheme savings in last year's Q1. Okay. Got it. My second question, just I don't know how much you can say, but I have to try anyway. So as far as the non-core assets are concerned, I mean, obviously Q1 has been a little bit difficult so far or even the end of last year with respect to multiple compression in the more general, you know, tech space, let's call it that. I'm just curious whether you see any sort of, I don't know, change in interest, whether you I mean, you implicitly said you see yourself on track with respect to, you know, the assessment of the options for ADVA and Statista. I would just, you know, again, want to pick your brain, if you've seen any sort of, you know, change happen over the last couple of years, you know, differences in indications on valuation. You know, I'll happily take any sort of color on that. Thanks. Well, I think not really. I think we try to concentrate on execution and delivering what we promised. I mean, as you've seen the last couple of months, I think market volatility is high because of, well, still, pandemic or post-pandemic challenges around supply chain issues for a couple of industries. You see that political challenges popping up again. I think tech and digital companies have seen enormous upgrade valuation-wise during the pandemic, so maybe parts of that is coming down again. I think that's all. In our view, that's all short-term effects. I think we look at the development of the company midterm, as we also tried to highlight at the capital markets day. We're not really under pressure to do anything that has a short-term timeframe. Apart from that volatility, that seems to be more extreme than ever before in both directions. I think our medium-term view on the key topics has not changed. Yeah, but of course we cannot speak for the market. For instance, our share price is not driven by us, it's driven by others. Yeah. What we can do is deliver the best possible performance, and that's what we try to. Maybe to build on what Christian has been saying, 'cause so far I think we have been quite clear about the timeframe for both ADVA and Statista. However, when comparing timeframe against valuation, clearly valuation is far more important. I think both assets are very healthy. They're not compromising our balance sheet. They are to a large extent self-funding, so valuation is key. Got it. Understood. Thanks a lot. The next question is from Annick Maas of Exane BNP Paribas. Your line is now open. Good morning. My first question is, you are increasing the number of digital billboards this year. Can you please comment on what that means for CapEx this year? Then related to that, are you sure you will get all the various authorities and all the various suppliers will be able to to basically fit with this new strategy of building more boards in 2022? Or is there a risk that maybe some authorities are not approving this or one of your suppliers cannot fulfill that demand? Secondly, I'd be keen if you could discuss a bit more in detail the profitability of the two assets, Asam and Statista, in 2021. Then finally, if you could comment on how much you were able to grow the pricing of existing Statista customers last year. Thank you. Maybe, Annick, let me start with a question regarding CapEx. If we recall our capital markets day, I think we've given an indication that we expect CapEx to rise, let's say, in the low- to mid-single-digit% range until 2026. Based on what Christian has been describing, that we're intending to pre-draw some of the OOH investments, I think it's fair to assume that there will be an increase in CapEx in the current fiscal year that is higher than this rate. However, the full amount shall not change over the, let's say, five-year period. Secondly, there's kind of a special effect in terms of CapEx. We intend to acquire, let's say, the real estate of our headquarters here in Cologne, which we consider to be a very good deal. Say, we save a rent of EUR 1 million, and we can buy it for roughly EUR 10 million, so that will also be included in this year's CapEx. Apart from that, there's no change in the underlying drivers of CapEx. Regarding the rollout of screens, I mean, sometimes, you know, when we announce things, we've been already working to make that happen 2 or 3 years. For whatever our rollout plans for 2022 are, we already have by far more approvals from municipalities than we can technically, operationally roll out. That's always like a 2- or 3-year process ahead of a concrete year because we need to make sure that across the different cities and locations, we just have enough approvals in our pipeline. In some regions and cities, it might take also because of formal or legal processes, it might sometimes take 2, 3, or 4 years until you get the approvals that you want and need. It's the same with suppliers. I think we've been working on that already last year and also already in year one of the pandemic, that we have different sourcing options for screens, plan more long-term than before. Not only just in time delivery, but also making sure that we have enough product in stock. The bottleneck at the moment to do even more is neither CapEx nor the approval situation. It's just how much capacity do we have with the suppliers on the ground that we need. You know, if there's electricity needed, if there's fiber needed to make that happen. That's why I think we also try to work on that and create more capacities. Accelerating the level that we've now communicated requires another step of pre-work, and we will see if there's anything we can do to move faster throughout this year. Yeah, the pre-work 2022 is crucial that we are able to accelerate that even further in 2023. On profitability. On profitability or underlying profitability with regards to Statista and Asam. Again, as we said, I think if you look into basically, let's say, a little more like declining margin, the key point to that is the intensified international expansion at Asam and also the continuous investments in Statista. If you look into, let's say, more the more mature areas of activity, so that would for Asam be like, say, the German part of the business in the DACH region. Or in Statista, also the profitability in Germany and the more mature markets, we see very robust and healthy underlying profitability. It's a clear message. What you see in terms of margin investment is clearly, let's say, the ramp-up of the international expansion. On the pricing, I mean, it's a little bit tricky because we constantly increase the substance and the statistics and the data on the platform. We have to inflate prices, and in some way it's not really like for like inflation because we deliver on top. That requires or it's fair to ask for more money on top. In the last twelve months, we've increased prices of existing customers on a touch of double-digit level. Nevertheless, net revenue retention was slightly above 103%. I think that shows that I think we still have a lot of space to improve, but are flexible on the pricing side. The pricing is just straightforward price increase. It comes with much better value also in further improving the product, right? Okay. Thank you very much. As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press zero and one. The next question is from Nizla Naizer of Deutsche Bank. Your line is now open. Great. Thank you. I have a few questions. The first one is on the increasing number of digital screens that you are doing. Are you still able to sort of convert the monetization of these screens as effectively as you did in the past? As previously you've told us, you could charge four times more on a digital screen than you can on an analog screen. Is this still the momentum that you're seeing as you open these screens up to national-level customers as well? You know, is the return on investment just as attractive? That's question one. Two, linked to that, how are your national-level clients sort of responding to the inventory that you're now giving them with these roadside screens that they have access to? Some color there would be great. Lastly, the geopolitical environment changing, has that changed any of the conversations that your customers are already having with you, or is it still very much business as usual? Some color there would be great. My last question is on the Digital and Dialog Media segment. Digital revenue was up 21% in Q4. That's quite an impressive growth number. What's really driving that? Was there growth in t-online or was it more the online sales business? Some color there would be great. Thank you. Okay. Nisa, on your first question, indeed at the moment, we see based on what we planned, but also what we see in the first quarter, what we've seen in Q4, that also, if we increase the number of screens, we are still able to quadruple revenues at the moment. Why? Because we still fill every new screen mainly with local customers, but we change the mix across the total network from more or less 100% local and regional customers to, let's say, 80% local and regional, + 20 national ones. For the national advertisers, it's a new product that they can combine. I think that was your third question, how do national clients respond to that? They either prolong our current indoor Public Video product with that roadside inventory. Yes, also the CPM of roadside screens is higher than on the indoor product. It delivers clearly incremental reach because you approach, in some areas, completely different target groups. Because on the one hand you have maybe more people that commute via public transportation systems. On the other hand, you have people that do that mainly by car. They do not look only at net CPM. They look at what do I pay for incremental net reach, and there the roadside screen delivers definitely extra value. On the other hand, I think we see that the second response that we see from national clients, the ones that are more on the classic or traditional out-of-home side because they are interested in some specific locations and they want precise local targeting, they just see for the first time that interesting opportunity to prolong existing analog inventory with the digital screens that historically have been only open for local advertisers. That's why we think that from both sides, combining analog and digital as well as digital only, the response from the national clients is so positive that we decided, I think already in Q4, that we want to accelerate the rollout of roadside screens. Nisa, on your question regarding Digital and Dialog and the strong growth in Q4 single, I think there's essentially two drivers of that. First, I think the strong development of reach with t-online.de, also to some extent benefiting from the rising news flow around the Omicron variant, which you know drives a lot of people looking into news, and that is obviously helpful for us. Secondly, the strong lift up in digital out-of-home, and specifically programmatic advertising, is also having a positive effect here. Since vis-à-vis customers, we marketing this product in sort of a one sales house approach to clients. You see also a positive effect of the programmatic development. Also let us mention, and I think that has been clear with Christian's statements on the outlook, that we shouldn't see the growth rate in this single Q4 as an indicator for the current fiscal year. Right? Have we missed one of your questions? Yeah. The last one was on what the geopolitical environment is, how that's impacting the conversations with your clients at the moment. Yeah, I mean, of course, we see that our sales teams are in discussions with clients, not so much about budget in general, but about the right timing. It's fair to say that, you know, if you had planned two weeks ago a campaign for end of March, and the topic was Freedom Day in Germany, everyone is happy, let's go out, celebrate, and here are special offers, then either you have an alternative copy or you might rethink if it's perfect timing and maybe you move the campaign a little bit forward. I think that's the kind of feedback that we get at the moment. I think potential impact that is driven by supply chain topics is too vague and nothing that we currently see directly any kind of impact. That is something that could also materialize sooner or later throughout the year. At the moment, what we see is that people rather think about how do we deal with it here in Germany tactically with our advertising and communication, not so much that they question in general their P&L or what massive impact it could have on the marketing side. I mean, we came up with our annual guidance despite the fact that there is an unclear situation, because we've seen in the last 24 months that we are quite good in managing also difficult macro environment, bouncing back quickly, having a broad regional, local customer base, having always industries that also benefit from crisis. I mean, you mentioned the really good performance of the second segment in Q4. t-online.de is probably one of the areas where we benefit from news flow, even if it's driven by crisis. Yes, there is definitely a little bit more communication. There is definitely discussions around how we deal with it tactically, but for the moment, yeah, we don't see anything that is material in the context of what we have been guiding so far, both for Q1 as well as for the full year. Also, to build on that, I mean, if you just recall last year, we had a very difficult situation in the auto industry, and despite that, we achieved, I think, a very decent Q4 in digital out-of-home. Again, I mean, given the diversification of our client portfolio, at least to some extent, we should be able to counterbalance that. Then just for housekeeping, we don't have any relevant exposure with either Ukrainian or Russian clients in our customer portfolio. Understood. Thank you very much. The next question is from Craig Abbott of Kepler Cheuvreux. Your line is now open. Hi, good morning, everyone. Just a couple questions quickly on inflation and how well positioned you see Ströer there. I mean, in your call center business, you mentioned facing tighter, excuse me, labor market conditions which already impacted your growth in fourth quarter. Also looking at the product group, particularly also your core out-of-home activities, what you're expecting in terms of wage inflation and in particular energy costs, particularly now that energy is a larger component as you're continuing with your digital billboard rollout. If you could just give us some flavor on how confident you are in being able to compensate for all the inflation pressures. Thank you. Thank you for the question, Craig. I mean, in general, looking at, let's say, more inflation environment, we would consider the group to be slightly benefiting from that. The main reason is that if you look at our cash costs, that's actually what we have to pay the owners of the rights or our landlords is not, let's say, increasing the same amount as your top line. So there is a positive effect on, let's say, our cash results from that. However, that only holds true for, I'd say, a controlled increase in inflation. Whenever things get crazy, I think it's obviously difficult to tell for everybody. Regarding energy, for us, it's not a really relevant component of our cost structure. So to that extent, I think we should be able to compensate for whatever might come. On that line. With regard to wages, I think we budgeted, let's say, more or less the same amount of increase as we had over the last couple of years. I think it's fair to mention that Ströer is not a unionized company, so that means we can apply a lot of discretion in specifically managing churn situations. I think this is probably in a much better situation than many other German corporates. This gives us, I would say, the flexibility. So also in that regard, we probably will see higher wage increases than in the last couple of years, but to a controlled extent. This is how we look at it at the moment. As you said, I think the call center business is a slightly different topic for two reasons. Yes, inflation plays a role here, but rather the increase of the minimum wage level in Germany, but also in combination with, I would say, an employment market that is quite stretched at the moment. I think the unemployment rate in Germany is on a historic low. Companies like Amazon look for a lot of new people. I think the people that we compete for in the contact center business have a lot of other alternatives. I think there's two challenges. Yeah, I think we can handle it, but it's part of the current situation. First of all, we have to live with more pressure on churn and more pressure on hiring people. You have to work hard to keep your full-time equivalent line, as we call it in the call center business, just having productive people out there and keeping them on the same level as before. That goes ahead with more costs just because of the increased minimum wages, and you have to sort that out with your customers to make sure that yeah, they pay for it and not you. I think that's a little bit the challenge that we have here. But you know, there's always times when it's easier. We've seen that at the beginning of the crisis. We see that sometimes after the summer season again. There are phases in a year or in specific year that where you just have more pressure on those kind of topics. I would say that is happening within a kind of normal corridor, and it's daily business and shouldn't impact the group performance in any way. Okay. Thank you very much. The next question is from Marcus Diebel of JP Morgan. Your line is now open. Yeah. Hi, everyone. Just one question left, obviously very strong advertising markets. Christian, on the SMEs, could you just elaborate a little bit more how much they contribute to this? Is programmatic already something that is really starting? You know, in previously you commented that Salesforce is pushing this also at the SMEs. Just would be interested in a bit more comments on specifically SMEs contributing to the strong advertising environment. Yeah, I think small and midsize businesses contribute as in the last years. Nevertheless, I would say that our strongest USP in the SME sector is ultimately the managed service. Because the guys that are up for doing their stuff directly and that are maybe more digitally savvy spend over proportionally with Google and with Facebook. They are maybe also more looking to the broader digital options. I think I would call them the more classic SME advertisers. They have other things to do than marketing. Yeah, they live more in a, not only digital, but broader, personal media environment. They are mainly interested getting everything out of one hand with creative, with production, with good after sales and so on. That's why I would say that was true in the past. That is also true at the moment and in the future, and that is, this is a substantial part of our revenue growth. On the other side, what we see is, I think the programmatic part becomes more and more important for the national advertisers. That's maybe also an area where different to the past, is maybe in the future also more growth in the national advertising market possible. Because in a way with programmatic, we manage to position our product as part of of digital marketing opportunities and not as part of the out-of-home world. It's easier to get a higher share within, I would say, Germany meanwhile, at least 50% of the total ad market is somehow digital. Yeah, it's easier to pitch with a young digital out-of-home product within that large 50% pot than trying to increase digital out-of-home within the 7% for out-of-home and on top also still fighting for growing classic out-of-home business. That's why I would say what are the two growth drivers in general? I would say on the one hand, the SME business, where we see there is so much untapped territories, where print media are still losing market share. On the other hand, it's clearly programmatic driving incremental revenues into the out-of-home sector and especially digital out-of-home in general. Yeah. Okay. Makes sense. Thank you. As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press zero and one. If there are no further questions, I hand back for the conclusion. Good. Many thanks for your time and also the questions. We hope to see you all of you soon. Take care and see you then. Take care. Thank you. Bye. Bye-bye. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your attendance. This call has been concluded. You may disconnect now.