Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to our conference call, held in connection with the publication of our annual report for 2022, which we released this morning. As always, we have Soren and René with us, and they'll walk you through a presentation of our results and outlook. We'll turn to Q&A. Presentation has also been uploaded to our website, so you can find it in there. As usual, we plan for the call to last no more than one hour, including the Q&A session. Besides Soren and René, we have the IR team, which is myself, Mathias Holten Møller and Peter Pudselykke. Over to you, Soren. Yeah, thank you very much, Mathias, and welcome everybody. Let's hit right into it. The agenda for today is financial highlights, briefly on our sustainability efforts and key events for the year, then diving a bit more into hearing healthcare, communication, and then René will handle financial review. We'll speak to outlook and then the Q&A. The financial highlights for 2022 is all in all, 10% growth for the group, half of it from currencies, 4% from organic, and then 1% from acquisitions. Clearly, a growth year. A small decline in the gross margin and a decline in EBIT also in the margin, which is due to the weaker-than-expected market growth in both hearing healthcare and communication. That of course also translates into the free cash flow, which is both because of lower earnings, but also normalization of working capital. Sustainability advancements in 2022, outside being the kind of company we are working in hearing health, then we have two other focus areas, and that's diversity, equity, and inclusion, where we have seen an increase in women and gender balance in top management teams as well as our top management group. Climate effort and green transition, where we have seen effort now and clear goals being established for both 2025 with a 50% reduction of our renewable electricity and 100% in 2030. We are a relatively low consumer, so our own Scope 1 and 2 emissions are something we of course focus on now, and then later we'll follow with the Scope 3. Key events in second half is of course increased macroeconomic uncertainty is the biggest. It has profoundly impacted our business in a negative way in both hearing healthcare and communication. China, where we saw a change in policy towards the end of the year which lifted restrictions, but where we saw the then expected effect of very high count, you know, virus numbers and with that a number or many staff at home and, and customers that couldn't meet up but a necessary transition from a lot of restriction to a more open society, so all in all positive. W e have seen further market share gains, in hearing aids and diagnostic in second half, particularly in the U.S., but the weaker-than-expected market have negatively impacted growth in hearing care. A nd however, we saw all in all, a significant sequential increase in the organic growth from Q3 to Q4. Communications, weak growth, particularly attributed to gaming, but also in enterprise where we saw some slowdown in Q4 and where for the whole business, the normal seasonality did not materialize. Key financial figures, organic, for second half, organic growth for the group of 3%, 6% in Q4, back to the acceleration in fourth quarter. Hearing healthcare did 5% for the half year and 8% for the quarter, driven by very strong performance in hearing aids and diagnostic, whereas hearing care on the half year contributed negatively to the growth, but in fourth quarter, positively. Communication down for the half year 13% for Q4 2023, but please keep in mind that that's also where you normally have a seasonality, so a hockey stick that didn't materialize, more than a worsening of the situation. It is a very tough market for gaming, and again, also, enterprise saw some negative growth in Q4. OpEx increased due to acquisitions and further investments in R&D. That is still key to growth and future success, and we continue to invest in that. To some extent, also higher inflation that impacts, of course, some of the group's cost lines. EBIT was a decline of 12%, basically due to negative growth, organic growth in hearing care and communication. A relatively fixed cost base, but as you know, we have taken measures also to lower the cost base to create a better balance between top line growth and cost base. Outlook for 2023 at this stage, very brief. Organic growth of 3%-7% and an EBIT of DKK 3.6 billion-DKK 4.0 billion. Little more details on hearing healthcare. I have spoken to the organic growth rates, but gross margin declined due to primarily geography and channel mix, as well as mix effects in hearing aids, and with that also an increased share of rechargeability higher than originally planned due to channel mix development, and this of course, have a slightly dilutive effect. Also, some of the channels have lower ASP, so we have had to sell more units to get to the organic growth, the high organic growth. OpEx grew 17%, 6% was organic, and there is limited short-term flexibility. However, we have done things in hearing care and hearing aids to reduce some of the cost elements. The acquisition of ShengWang added almost, or acquisitions added 6%, but most of it related to ShengWang. EBIT was down 8%, and the margin down in hearing healthcare 4%, 4.2 percentage points, and it is driven by hearing care, and the lower than originally anticipated revenue, and only short-term, limited short-term OpEx flexibility. The hearing aid market, we have statistics from around two-third of the markets now, and as you can see from the table, we have seen a continuous decline in the growth rate. When you compare to back to 2019, it is across the board that we, in fourth quarter, except for rest of the world, which is, in that context, is a smaller proportion, saw negative growth. That's something at least I cannot remember that we have seen in the past. It is a negative market, we have seen, you know, Europe sequential slowdown driven by Germany, France more naturally. North America, especially the commercial market, but now also VA had, of course, higher comps last year, but also they are a decline. We have also seen in the period a larger-than-expected, or we believe a larger-than-expected, normal ASP decline due to unfavorable geography and channel mix. All in all, not a strong hearing aid market, but even more importantly, then underlines the performance element of hearing aids, which in Q4 grew 11% in total, including sales to own retail, but to external customers, 14%. This is both across the Oticon and the Philips brand. We have seen that. It is entirely unit growth. ASP is basically unchanged from last year. As we have worked with increasing prices, it means that it has been offset by exactly channel and geography mix changes. We also today announce the launch of a new premium platform, which will start here in February 2023. You can see also in the graph to the right, the solid over the years development of the hearing aid business quarter by quarter. Oticon Real is the flagship product in the new portfolio. It builds on all the things we started with Oticon Opn and on top of Oticon More. It still centers around the ability to, even in the most difficult listening situations, hear things naturally all around you, but where things are much better balanced now also include sounds that have a tendency to be very disruptive and annoying for the user. The neural network can identify these and make sure they are better balanced to the surrounding. You know, full portfolio in RITE and miniBTEs, 3 price points, all brands. We are ready to roll it out, basically, in the coming weeks. Hearing care continues negative impact from macroeconomic uncertainty, especially in markets dominated private pay or very high share of private pay. We have seen improved growth rates. In Q4, we come in at an organic growth in, of 1%, but that is mainly due to lower comparison figures and not as such a fundamental change to the performance of the business. However, we see a better traction on lead generation and have some good hopes here for the beginning of the new year. Positive revenue contribution from acquisitions, broad-based, but in particular North America, Germany, Japan and China. Again, a continued growth of the hearing care part of the group. Diagnostic continue very strong performance, delivered 7% organic growth in the fourth quarter, basically a continuation of what we have seen. The reason why it might have been a little softer, one of the main reason for a little softer than maybe the other quarters was the situation in China, that also significantly impacted the Diagnostic group. Communication- EPOS, a challenging year and continue to be. Organic growth of -13%. Also some pressure on gross margin, which is partly an exchange rate element as all cost of goods sold are bought in the dollar, not all of it sold in the dollar. Higher-than-normal freight rates continue to be an issue. Very modest OpEx growth in order to protect the EBIT, but not enough. It has worsened since 2021. We are very busy with trying to ensure a better balance. As the initiatives were announced in November, even though they were in size, maybe absolute size, the same across the different business areas, the impact on the EPOS business was most profound, of course, due to the relative size. In Q4, - 23% and below expectations on gaming. However, Enterprise being a little more stable, but a number of customers seems to have pushed the actual purchase, you know, past the year change. We are now rolling out the video solutions, the Vision 1 and 2, and we expect them to contribute to growth in 2023. Over to you, René, for group financials. Thank you, Soren. Putting a little bit more flavor to the financial numbers, we start out by looking at the income statement for second half year of 2022, and repeating our gross profit of DKK 7.6 billion and a gross margin of 74.3%, down 1.5 percentage points compared to last year. Likewise, the operating profit of EBIT of DKK 1.6 billion and an EBIT margin of 15.9%, which is segmented into our hearing healthcare, that does an EBIT margin of 18%, whereas our Communication business has an operating loss of DKK 129 million and an EBIT margin of -25.4%. If you look at the adjusted growth, reported 11%, is an organic growth of 3% acquired two, and a significant impact from exchange rates of 6%. Whereas if you look at the operating expenses, you would see that the underlying growth organically of 6% predominantly comes from continued investments in R&D that amount to 12% organic growth. Whereas on the distribution side, the growth is predominantly driven by 7% from acquisitions and also 5% from organic growth. Looking further into our gross profit, it increases by 9%. As I mentioned before, the operating margin decreases by 1.5 percentage point, driven by predominantly the hearing healthcare, where a channel mix has been seen, basically selling more in government, less in private, more towards export markets versus the U.S. Broadly across all geographies and channels, a significant higher level of rechargeability. Adding to this, we have seen a slight negative impact from exchange rates. We continue to see some impact of a dynamic supply chain situation, related to higher freight charges, but it is becoming less pronounced than previously. We also see some impact of higher than normal wage inflation. However, as we have also said previously, not in any dramatic way. Further, commenting on the operating expenses, the growth in local currencies was 12%, of which half, meaning 6%, related to acquisitions. This is, of course, predominantly ShengWang, our hearing care business in China, and Inventis, our newly acquired diagnostics business. The organic growth in OpEx was 6%, and it was predominantly, again, related to our continued investment in R&D to secure technological leadership, as well as 5% organic growth in in hearing care, where we short-term did have only limited flexibility to adjust the cost base to the organic growth level. On that notion, we took cost reduction measures in hearing aids, hearing care, and communications. By end of year, we estimate that this will amount to approximately DKK 100 million in annual cost savings from 2023, and it had very limited effect in 2022. EBIT for 2022 is in relation to, when comparing to 2021, down 12%. Just reminding ourselves that 2021 numbers were extraordinarily strong due to tailwind from the French hearing healthcare reform and also temporary savings. Looking at the EBIT margin of 15.9%, that's a decline of 4.1 percentage point compared to second half year of 2021. That is driven by lower profitability in hearing care and communications, where we, in both instances, had a limited ability to adjust our cost base to revenue that was below our expectations. When it comes to sort of end of year, we would highlight China as a particular geography across business areas where we saw a significant impact from actually the reopening of the society, which we deem to be a temporary effect. On cash flow, we had a strong second half year, after a more modest first half year, where we normalized working capital. A strong second half year in terms of cash flow and a relatively high level of acquisitions driven by again Sheng Wang as the primary driver of that. CapEx is slightly above our medium to long-term expectations due to investments in production facilities in Poland and Mexico. Looking at the balance sheet, compared to end of first half year, we see a 9% increase, and compared to full year end of 2021, we see a 20% increase. That 20% increase is 5% organically and 13% from acquisitions predominantly under goodwill, and only 2% from exchange rates. Net working capital in the second half year declined by 11%, which was mainly due to a decrease in prepaid expenses following the full acquisition of ShengWang. Our net interest-bearing debt year-end is DKK 12.7 billion. We have a gearing multiple of 2.9, which is above our medium to long-term expectations of 2-2.5. With that, Soren, let's go to outlook. Yeah. First of all, around the market, we expect to continue to see macroeconomic headwinds. In the hearing aid market, we expect the unit growth rate to be slightly below the structural 4%-6%, which, and it's the best we have for now, the normal negative ASP development coming from various mix effects. In the market for audio equipment, we see still very high uncertainty, and we cannot really predict the growth rate. We expect still enterprise to be more stable than gaming. That's it for now. In Communication segment, we as basis or based on that, expect a modest positive organic growth, but negative in the beginning. It is, you know, our effort in video equipment and a number of product launches we have coming that should support the organic growth. We also expect EBIT to be less negative than in 2022. We have taken certain measures on the cost side, and with a modest organic growth, we will see an improvement of EBIT. Due to a high level of attractive options on the acquisition side, we expect the level of bolt-on acquisitions in 2023 to be slightly higher than or higher than normal. Our gearing multiple at the end of the year is therefore expected to be around the high end of our medium to long-term guidance of the 2.0-2.5. Higher than normal. Despite of the higher than normal cost inflation, we expect to grow group's OpEx less than revenue. That is simply the way we have built things for 2023. We go into the year much more cautious than we did in 2022, and again, have already taken a number of steps to reduce some cost. Also again, the way we look at further expansions, it is very conservative and modest, the plans we have, as long as the market development is like it is. Therefore, we can also cope with the expected inflation. The discontinued operation hearing implants is still expected to close in second quarter of 2023, resulting in a payment of DKK 700 million of the first DKK 700 million out of a total of DKK 850 million. The metric is organic growth rate of 3%-7%, acquisitions around 3%, and that's what we know for now. More could come. FX -1%, as we know the currencies as of today. EBIT DKK 3.6 billion-DKK 4.0 billion. Net financials negative around DKK 600. This is an increase coming naturally from the higher debt and the higher interest rate. Also an increased effective tax rate. As said, gearing multiple between 2x-2.5x, but most likely in around the higher end of that interval. No share buyback. We are focused on bringing down debt and the gearing multiple, and also to be able to do relevant and necessary acquisitions. Profit after tax from discontinued business, negative around DKK 100 million. With that, over to Q&A. At this time, we will open the floor for questions. If you would like to ask a question, please press the star key followed by the one key on your touchtone phone now. Questions will be taken in the order in which they are received. If at any time you would like to remove yourself from the questioning queue, please press star two. Again, to ask a question, please press star one. We will take our first question from Julien Ouaddour. Your line is open. Thank you very much. Good afternoon, everyone. I have three, please. The first one on guidance. I think it's fair to say that we were all positively surprised to see you calling the hearing aid market growth not far from the usual 4%-6% in units, while we see that the current market conditions not really showing sign of improvement yet. Could you walk us through your reflection when it comes to market growth? Basically what makes you confident about like the market rebound in 2023? Also if you can give more color about like the base case scenario for the 3%-7% organic growth in your guidance, basically where you expect to take share, and especially at the top end of the guide. The second one is on profitability. Guidance, again, you guide for, let's say, 200 bps higher EBIT margin next year at the midpoint of the range, up to 250 bps at the top end. This despite a more challenging H2 this year, margin down sequentially, which has rarely happened in the past. Just what makes you confident that you can bring up the margin so much this year? Last question very quickly, René, as you mentioned, high level of attractive opportunities when it comes to like acquisitive growth. Does it refer mostly to bolt-on and retail store acquisitions, or do you see other kind of larger, like, opportunities this year? Yeah, thank you very much. That was a lot of questions also into them. I get mostly. I will try to handle as many, many as possible. You know, the unit growth, it is below the structural, but I still think you can see, even though it has been negative towards in the second half, it still comes out very close to the structural expectations for the past three to four years. There is a resilience, there is a certain rhythm. You also have markets that still have opportunities. China, just one example from being severely impacted during the year that have passed. It is our best take that with the general stability and so on, we will not be in the 4%-6%, but slightly below, whether that's then two or three, I think that's time will show. You know, base case versus top end, that is of course a part of the uncertainty. That is the market growth rate. Other than that, it is of course also some full year effect of things we have already gained. I'm sure you can see the momentum that we are currently seeing, especially in the hearing aid wholesale business and the diagnostic business. Yes, we expect those to continue, but of course, with some uncertainty. Therefore, I think they are part of it. Also the consumer sentiment to hearing care and the communication, but mostly the hearing care, I think that's where you see the uncertainty in the range. I don't know, René, if you will comment on the EBIT. I can do it as well, but I think you can put flavor to that. Just add to the, let's say, the margin improvement that is implied by our outlook. That's very evident, and I think it's all the things that Soren mentioned, but also the fact that you can say, we come out of 2022 with a very strong momentum on the hearing aid side. We continue to have strong momentum on diagnostics. We have clear expectations that contrary to 2022, we would see a positive organic growth in our hearing care business. That is a big swing factor for a group margin as it constitutes 40% of our business. That's something where we have different expectations than what we saw in 2022 for sure. There are many drivers of also margin expansion in our business. Lastly, on Communications, it is also there our expectations to have less of a loss than what we had in 2022. In general, again, conservatism in going into, you know, the planning for 2023. We have a much stronger focus on working out of the established cost base than growing it further. I would add that in. That all together gives us comfort that this is the translation we should see from continued strong organic growth. On the acquisitions, it is within distribution. It is bolt on to what we do already. That is where we see opportunities and have a number of things done already. This is just to confirm that consolidation on the retail side, distribution side continue to be a key play in our, in our sector, and we are firm in continuing to be part of that. Thank you. Thank you very much. Our next question comes from Maja Pataki. Your line is open. Yes, good afternoon. Thanks for taking my question. I think I have two or three. I would like to start with your momentum that you're seeing in Q4 and that you're, you know, being also expecting to see it again in 2023. You have clearly benefited from the KS 10 contract being removed and Sonova exiting Costco. How are you thinking that this is going to translate into 2023 on top line growth and on EBIT margin? The second question, loose from that, you have seen quite a strong pickup in momentum in third-party sales. Can you maybe elaborate a bit more what you're seeing in the market? Is it, you know, is it a broad-based market share gain, or is it more, you know, head to head with specific competitors where you think you're taking more shares? I don't know if you're willing to comment on that. Then the third question is really on how is Europe behaving with regards to trading down? We, you know, for the longest period of time, we haven't really seen a impact on trading down. Is that something that you're starting to see? Thank you. Yeah, thank you very much, Maja. Well, it is obvious that the change in, you know, the U.S. market when it comes to Costco is a opportunity that we have pursued and benefited from. We see it as, you know, there seems to be no new changes. Of course, it is with uncertainty, but we have no visibility that this is not a new way of operating the business. At least for now, that's a tailwind for us. Of course, when we come to fourth quarter, we don't expect the same tailwind from growth there. That is part of the guidance, but also with some uncertainty that it's can change up or down. I cannot really speak to the, you know, EBIT translation on single customers and so on. It is, of course, one of the areas where it's very incremental sales and doesn't release, you know, a big step-up in cost. There is more people on the phone and more in the, you know, stockroom and production lines and so on, but that's just to build the volume. The incremental is, of course, a positive for EBIT. The external sales, the third party, yes, it is broad-based and the, you know, the, broad-based is bigger than the change in, you know, Costco. It is basically almost all markets where we have seen market share gains. I feel very comfortable about the momentum. Where it's coming from, you know, still there's not full transparency. We will see as the various players that come out with numbers, bring their numbers out, and then we can get a better overview of that. Generally speaking, I would also say outside Europe, trade down is not the main effect. There is something on units total, meaning some people postpone or wait, but I would still say the biggest effect is, you know, channels shift towards channels where the pricing is lower or there is more reimbursement or don't have to pay anything. There is a bit of trade-down, but I think I've said many times it's really difficult to take apart whether that's because you have a strong offering or whether that's the market. We have very few markets where there's any insight to what the actual mix is in the market, and generally speaking, it's quite stable. Thank you. Our next question comes from Hassan Al-Wakeel with Barclays. Your line is open. Thank you for taking my questions. I have two, please. If I can follow up on guidance, how do you see the phasing of growth over the course of the year? For the market as a whole, do you not consider a similar level of volatility in 2023 as we saw in 2022, but potentially for a longer part of the year? On, and on margin, are there any one-offs to bear in mind in terms of margin guidance, say FX or dilution from M&A? Secondly, could you talk about the key buckets of cost inflation and what your assumptions are for wages, as well as COGS, and to what extent you're seeing some normalization this year? Thank you. I will speak on the volatility, and René, he can dive into some of the others. No, we don't. Of course, it's uncertain, and the uncertainty is there, but the dramatic change happened in the transition from, let's say, during second quarter into the second half. Yes, then the, you know, comms will start to change and so on. We will, of course, see the comparison figures being higher in the first quarter and also due to the way 2022 developed in fourth quarter. Second and third, there will be good growth. Of course, on top of that, the organic growth does come during the year as we benefit from product introductions and so on. There is a bit of phasing, where you would say the middle section is probably the strongest. Rene, if you- Yeah. On one-offs, I would say when it comes to FX, it is year-over-year on an EBIT level, neutral. There's a slight negative effect on top line, but due to hedging, it becomes neutral on the EBIT line from 2022 into 2023. When it comes to dilutive effects of acquisitions, I would not really highlight that as a particular topic since it is built on acquisitions to businesses that we already, you can say, are in and therefore representative of how we look today as a business. Wages. Maybe also, you know, as the organic growth rate is at least, right now, bigger in hearing aids and diagnostic, in, you know, comparison to hearing care, there's also, the opposite effect, from that, I would say. Exactly. When it comes to inflation on wages, what we experience is in line with what, or consistent with what we have communicated in our sort of previous calls, is that yes, it is slightly higher than what we normally see. Just to quantify it, on a global level, we are maybe in the range of 3.5% to 4%, but it is in that range, and that might be 0.5 to 1 percentage points higher than normal. That's on a like-for-like basis, and to some extent we of course mitigate that by looking at our global footprint of people and where do we sit, and therefore it will not have the same sort of overall effect on our cost base. On the cost of goods sold, also we are, you can say to some extent protected by the fact that a lot of the materials that we buy are particular to either to us or to our industry, and thus, say, less volatile when it comes to a spot market buy, at least when it comes to the hearing healthcare business. The situation is slightly different on Communications. Also there are some impact from inflation, but not a lot. That's very helpful. Thank you. If I could just follow up on the transition that you talked about from second quarter to second half, that was mainly a U.S. weakness that the market saw. How are you thinking about the relative strength of U.S. versus Europe in 2023? Yeah. Europe is just in general more resilient due to higher level of reimbursements and so on. The majority effect in U.S. is also, you know, what I would call it, a channel mix change. More people have benefited from their own personal health insurance, so managed care growing. That's just an example of the channel shift that is more profound than the actual unit growth, and that's unit growth development. Back to whether it's unit growth or whether it's channel shift, I still think the majority of the effect we see on our own numbers come from channel and mix effect rather than the market being down in units. Back to my initial comments that the market also in U.S. is relatively resilient when it comes to the number of people that seek help. Thank you. Our next question comes from Christian Ryom with Danske Bank. Your line is open. Good afternoon, and thank you for taking my questions. I also have a couple. First, can you comment on how you've seen the market develop here in Q1, whether there are any changes to the trend from what you reported for the market or estimated for the market in Q4? The second question is sort of a split question to your EBIT margin guide. My understanding is that you're basically guiding that most of the EBIT margin expansion should come from OpEx growth that is slower than top line growth. Can you explain that? Is that a reflection of say, faster growth in hearing aids than hearing care? What is the underlying driver of the, of that, lower OpEx growth? Thank you. Thank you, Christian. Well, we cannot comment on Q1. It has barely closed, and we don't have statistics that tell us anything, so we cannot speak to that. On the EBIT margin split, yes, the scalability fundamentally is stronger in hearing aids than it is in hearing care. Of course, outside short-term, you know, negative market development where there's simply fewer people, you could say, in each store. When we drive a strong organic growth, we do see a scale effect on the hearing aid business. Again, the way we went into the year being more conservative on, you know, what we assume we can and will do on further growing the company's investment in R&D and global infrastructure, et cetera. It is also a more conservative approach to the year when it comes to the OpEx that's part of changing the this balance between top-line growth and OpEx growth. Adding to that, you've seen the DKK 100 million of expected savings in OpEx based on what we have already done of initiatives. I would add that in particular in second half-year, the, say, revenue and cost base for our hearing care business was significantly out of balance compared to even our normal range. That of course, is also a key, you see, activity and assumption for 2023, that that is rebalanced, so to say. When it comes to market, no, we don't have market data as such, but we have seen nothing in January that would lead us to believe that, let's say neither the market nor our own guidance should be impacted by that. Okay. Makes sense. Maybe just to confirm my understanding here. The interpretation is not necessarily that you are guiding that a hearing aid should grow faster in local currency than hearing care, including M&A for the year? No, no, that's not, that's not a logical conclusion. It might be the case, but it's not, it's not a particular guidance. Okay, great. Thank you. Our next question comes from Rajesh Kumar with HSBC. Your line is open. Hi, good afternoon. Just on the growth rate, could you give us some flavor on how the inventory levels in your supply chain are looking? Was the growth held by restocking by some customers towards end of the period? I know usually it's not a practice to comment on current trends, but I'm sure while setting this year's guidance, you must have seen trading in the recent weeks. Would it be fair to assume that the momentum we saw towards end of the year has continued? I'm sorry, your line is not really good. I think I got the first question, but the second I'm not really sure. Regarding supply chain and inventory and components level, we are in good shape. That's the headline. There can always be one small area and it has been the longest drag has been in the Communication business where due to, you know, shipping and China's built in China and so on, there has been still some constraints. For big picture and the group as such, and especially the hearing aid side, we're in good shape. The second part of your question I simply didn't get, maybe you can try to repeat it. Yeah. The second question is basically, have you seen the growth rate continue through 2023, what we saw in the performance in Q4, that momentum in hearing aids, has that continued in 2023? you know, I think it's quite a structural, what happened in Q4. This is the run- rate of, the business, now. It continues. Thank you very much. Our next question comes from Hugo Solvet with BNP Paribas. Your line is open. Hi. Hello. Thanks for taking my question. Quick follow-up on the Costco. Can you help us please size the sales tailwind from Costco in Q4 2022, please? Exactly what your expectations for 2023? Second, on EPOS, can you maybe give us a number or quantify a bit more your comments around the less negative EBIT for 2023 and maybe some details on the timeline for when you are expecting to bring this business to breakeven? Lastly, still on the Communication business, you point to the roll-out of some video collaboration devices that should help to accelerate growth in 2023. Yet, this is one segment that has been particularly impacted by weakening of demand, the enterprise segment. What's the underlying growth for your enterprise Communication business story, if we were to exclude this type of new launch? Thanks. Okay. Thank you. I think I got most of your questions. Again, the line was not too strong. You know, the U.S. big retail business is looking at hearing aid revenue only an organic growth in the, you know, ballpark of 3%-5%, meaning half for the group, round numbers. So that's, you know, for 2023 as well on a run- rate basis, what you should have in mind. EPOS, you know, we don't we're not more specific on the guidance. Of course, if you assume, you know, a modest organic growth and a good effect from the cost initiatives, and of course, a continued very close eye on the cost side, then it is meaningful, but it is not making it anywhere near break- even in 2023, and we basically don't comment on that right now. We need to see growth and also an improvement in the market before we can really start guiding on that. Video, we cannot take apart the enterprise. Of course, it's small. It's a, it's a totally new segment we go in, so the majority of the growth has to come from the existing business and not the video systems. They're just an important part of building actual growth. On the other hand, it's a segment where we don't sell anything and where we see good growth. There is, you know, being bought and installed video equipment in still many more meeting rooms as people are starting to or have returned to office work and so on. It is a growth driver, but it's not the predominant growth driver. Okay. Thank you. If I can just squeeze in one follow-up, on the DKK 600 million of negative financial expenses. Should we assume that as a run- rate from 2024 onwards? Is there a cap on this level of expense, or could this go higher as interest rates will pick up? Lastly, on share buyback, any plans to resume that or timeline for resuming the share buyback? Thank you. Yeah. On interest rate, you can say it's a function of our debt and what our financial expenses is a function of our debt level and interest rates. I have no particular insight on what the interest rate would be in 2024. Assuming it would be the same and debt level would be the same, then the financials would also be similar. In terms of debt level and share buyback, currently we are at 2.9x leverage. It is our clear ambition to bring it down within our guidance range to 2x-2.5x. Once we are there, as we generate excess cash, it would be natural to again resume share buyback activities. For now, we don't see that as something that we would do in 2023, but it might well be on the table for 2024, depending on the outlook at that point in time. Thank you. Our next question comes from David Adlington with JP Morgan. Your line is open. Great. Thanks, guys. two questions, please. Maybe I could just ask for an update in terms of what you're seeing either in terms of your own or market activity very early in 2023. I know December was quite weak for the market, just wondered if any bounce back in January. Secondly, you point towards higher M&A. I just wondered if that was because of the sort of tougher market conditions and whether that was being reflected in asking prices. Thanks. Yeah. Thank you, David. I think, big picture, the way we saw sales development in Q4, that's, you know, align into 2023. The same level of business growth, I would say, that's how we start the year. M&A, it is also our own, again, appetite in participating in consolidation on the distribution side. We have started to be more active in Germany as an example, and came a little late. That's also, you know, a sign of, we have seen good opportunities there and have closed some of them and building, you know, trying to build scale in Germany, so we try to do it fast. Other than that, it's, you know, I don't think it's a big change to pricing or what is for sale or that the macro environment push people to sell their business. This is just, I think also an element of normalization after COVID and us being still firm on our strategy to join the consolidation that obviously taking place. Perfect. Maybe just one housekeeping one please as well. Just in terms of tax rate, sort of a bit higher than we had in our models. Is Is that something we should be thinking about going forward as well? Well, at least for 2023, this is the level you should think of. The two major changes is that there was a temporary additional deductibility on R&D expenses in Denmark. It is within the, you can say, it's on the government program to reinstall that's obviously out of my hands. That's at least an opportunity for it to improve. The second part is limited deductibility of interest expenses also in Denmark. Longer term, that's of course also something that we can work structurally with which of course we intend to do, so that's also an opportunity to improve. Again, nothing that I can guide specifically on. Perfect. Thanks so much. Our next question comes from Shubhangi Gupta with HSBC. Your line is open. Hi. Thanks for taking my question. I want to ask, in hearing care, you have exited selected managed care plans in the U.S., which had a negative impact. Can you please elaborate on that? Also diagnostics saw some growth deceleration in Q4 in the U.S. and U.S. is a big market share of diagnostics. Can you also shed some light there? Thank you. Yeah. The managed care plans is the storyline that it's, you know, it's not all managed care plans, but the share of managed care in our hearing care business in U.S. had grown to a level that, you know, was not sustainable. Secondly, most of it came from a third-party administrator that's owned by one of our competitors. The share of Demant hearing aids on those contracts were just too small. It doesn't make any financial sense. It is a transition we're going through, a transition where we do less managed care and nothing with these particular plans. Of course, builds and back to changing the business model, build a stronger pipeline for filling it with private pay patients, which are still the majority in the U.S. market. That's the transition we are in and which we are seeing some traction on. On the diagnostic, the deceleration in Q4 is not U.S.-based. That is primarily due to China. That was a very weak year-end due to the changed corona policies. Not something structural. We have a high market share in many markets, but we also do a lot to expand the market, in particular within balance, which is still a treatment that's underdeveloped in many markets. The diagnostic group is spending a lot of resources and energy in teaching the world how to build a proper and appropriate balance treatment in many countries, and therefore see good growth rates on a, in a segment like that. There are segments where our growth or our share around the world is not, you know, is still relatively lower than the average. There's still good growth opportunities. Thank you. Our next question comes from Mattias Häggblom with Danske Bank. Your line is open. It's Mattias Häggblom with Handelsbanken. Thanks so much. Two questions, please. Firstly on the net financial guidance of DKK 600 million, given the net debt you exited 2022 with and the net debt you more or less guide towards at the end of 2023 given your gearing comments, I end up with a pretty high average interest rate to get to the DKK 600 million. Any more comments to help me think of your net financials and the rates? Secondly, 74% of your borrowing is in DKK. Given what you just said on deductibles for interest rates and limitations in Denmark, can you talk about any imminent maturity of your debt that could enable you to shift that to more tax-friendly currencies? Thank you. Yeah. So a little bit more of considerations regarding financials other than it all being in round numbers is that you're right when you look year-end to year-end, debt, ballpark. You need to look on average, debt throughout the year, which has been increasing significantly during 2022, i.e. the average debt in 2023, you know, would be higher than on average in 2022, and that's what you pay an interest on. Secondly, of course, also a significant part of financials is credit card fees, which is also seeing a, you can say an increase and not just from, you can say, pricing or interest level, but also from activity level. That's a couple of additional elements. I would say, without going into the details, of course, we look for opportunities to optimize our global financing setup, and also when it comes to, in particular, deductibility of interest expenses. That is part of the considerations. I think that's as detailed as we can discuss it. Thank you so much. Our next question comes from [Aisyah Noor] with Morgan Stanley. Your line is open. Hello. Thanks for taking my question. Just had two. One was just on your conviction around, I guess, positive organic growth in the Communications business in 2023, in light of your comments that enterprise was slowing through the fourth quarter. Just wondered what you were expecting for that bit of the business as you head through the year. The second was just around the sort of ongoing M&A comments you made. How do you sort of balance that sort of desire to do further M&A with the current leverage and higher interest costs? I mean, as a couple of people mentioned on the call already, they do seem to be going up quite a bit from where consensus was. Was there any, kind of thought process between kind of dialing that back and trying to bring the leverage down any quicker? Thank you Yeah. Let me take the first one. What I try to say around the Communication is enterprise business and Demant is a B2B, so it is fundamentally more stable than a consumer type of business than gaming. Yes, we saw some slowdown towards the end of the year, but I think many companies try to optimize, you know, spend and cash flow, et cetera. The trend we still believe is healthy, and therefore that's the more stable of the two businesses. With new equipment and new products coming out, I think the opportunity to deliver growth there should be solid. I think the main uncertainty in the Communication business do still center around the development of the gaming market. M&A, it's always, you know, a balance between opportunities. There's definitely also M&A opportunities we shy away for. I think as we have spoken to earlier, we are also very conscious that it's acquisitions of good quality and not just, you know, pick up anything. We are more selective. I'm just saying that the activity level in general is still high for, you know, in the sector. It is important that we continue in the markets where it is key to build, to build profitability by achieving a certain level of scale. Then, of course, we do, definitely we are very focused on bringing down our gearing. That is a primary target for the group to get down in our, you know, near, at least, and best of all within our mid to long term guidance on that. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, I think, with that, we have to conclude the call. We are at the 3:00 P.M. mark here in Copenhagen. Thanks very much for joining us and participating with questions. Let us know if you have more. We'll be happy to follow up. We'll be on the road and in conference over the next couple of weeks and months. Look forward to seeing you on the road. Have a great day.