AB Electrolux (publ) (ELXA.F) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Very welcome to the Capital Markets update here at Electrolux. So welcome to you here in the room and also welcome to all of you who are viewing on the web. For those of you who are here in the room, I would like to start with a very, very short safety instructions. We have 2 emergency exits: one that you entered and one up in the corner over there. We have hosts here that will help you in case of an emergency. Assembly point is outside of the building, and they will take you there. And in case you need safety equipment, it's at the reception where you came -- which you passed through when you walk here. So over to the agenda. Today, we're going to talk about our strategy and the updated strategy will be presented. It's going to be presented by Yannick, our CEO; Therese, our CFO; and Michelle, our CPO. Here they are. The IR team is also here in case you have any questions at all. After the presentations, we'll go through a Q&A session. [Operator Instructions] And after the Q&A, we will close the webcast. And for those of you who are here, we will take a brand booth tour outside here and end it with a mingle and pizza tasting. So with that, I hand over to you, Yannick.

Thank you very much Ann-Sofi. Good day to all of you. Very happy to see you back. Welcome to the people online and certainly welcome to everybody who has been joining us in the Electrolux headquarter. Very happy to be here for this capital market update. That would be giving us the opportunity to look back into '25 and give you a fair glance on what is coming up in terms of strategy. As I've been saying it before to many of you, I've been working in this industry for more than 25 years. And I've seen more changes in the last 5 years that I have been experiencing in the first 20. Post-COVID this industry has been going through a big storm, quite a lot of turmoil. And I'm absolutely convinced and positive that the Electrolux group has been taking the right, very courageous decisions. Let me just mention a few of them here. Electrolux kept on investing in the industrial tool for the last 3 to 4 years. We have been innovating and launching products in every single region. We have been resizing the organization. We have been reducing our workforce by more than 20% between 2023 and 2024. We have been stepping up in terms of cost reduction first, by downsizing the organization after by taking cost out of our products. And finally, we have been sharpening our strategy by divesting from noncore assets, but also by refocusing the entire organization in the premium segment. Let me look a little bit forward, and I've been saying that for the last quarters, our main priority are 5 today. And the first one is pretty obvious. We will be improving North America. We have been improving North America. We have been growing in North America by almost 10% in 2025. We have been expanding our presence on shop floors. We have been expanding our presence in many channels like the contract channel. We have been launching major innovations, you will be able to taste one for once here, which is the pizza baked on ovens. We have been doing the right things in North America, and we have been making progress, taking Springfield to cruising altitude as well, but we need to do more in order to bring this region to a 6% EBIT. I personally very much believe that in order to get to the targeted profitable level, we need to keep on growing. We have been losing too much market share in the past years. We need to regain this market share in a profitable level. That's why profitable growth is the second pillar you can see on this page. We need to strengthen our market position by keeping on launching consumer relevant innovations in every single region. We need to keep on doing what we have been doing in the last years in terms of cost reduction. We're well placed to deliver once again in 2025 between SEK 3.5 billion and SEK 4 billion in terms of cost reduction. We need to keep the space moving forward. Last but not least, this company has more than 100 years of history. We're very rich in terms of legacy. What we need to do is to combine this richness with more speed and agility moving forward. That's why I will be presenting to you today a strategy, a strategy which is ambitious, a strategy which has been built with the entire staff in full cooperation, a strategy which has clear responsibility and accountability moving forward, a strategy which has clear projects and initiatives with timelines. And this strategy will be laid on key enablers, which are the operating model. We are changing the organization, meet people and people is the major resources we do have and certainly the culture. I'm very proud today to present the new vision for Electrolux, which would be the North Star for the company. This star we will be following as an organization. Let me just read it to you: Our vision is to become the home appliance industry leader in consumer satisfaction, delivering outstanding lifetime experiences with solutions that always get better. Consumer satisfaction is today our bread and butter. We have some of the best consumer star rating in every single region. We're winning prices, prices that we'll be showing in a couple of pages. We need to innovate and deliver outstanding product. Our customers love our product. Lifetime experiences is about standing next to the consumer at every single step of the consumer journey. Building consumer intimacy, building consumer loyalty moving forward, connecting with the consumer and monetizing this connection. We have solutions that always get better and not older. Most of our new platforms will be connected. With this connection, we will be able to upgrade the appliance exactly why like your phone is getting upgraded from a software perspective. In terms of durability, we will be breaking through. Let me get to the main consumer -- main strategic drivers. The first one will be consumer preference here. And the consumer preference is built on brand strengthening, product leadership and go-to-market. The second one will be lifetime value creation here. And as I said previously, it is about consumer journey ecosystem, innovative lifetime solutions. The first one is about cost leadership. And Michelle will be presenting that in a few minutes. And the last one is about cash. And I'm used to say cash is king and the entire royal family here. We will certainly be focusing on the bottom line here, gaining efficiency in terms of working capital and capital expenditure. The next page is giving you a picture on where we are. I mean 1/3 of our turnover is realized in Europe. Another one is realized in North America. We are generating close to 1/4 of our turnover in Latin America and slightly more than 10% in EMEA, Middle East and Africa and Asia. We have 3 main product categories. The first one is Care, which is englobing dishwasher, washing machine and dryer. Representing about 30% of our turnover. The second one is Wellbeing. And in Wellbeing, you have key historical product categories like Electrolux vacuum cleaner. And the last one is finally the products you have in your kitchen. I mean food preparation and food preservation representing 61% again of the turnover. Financial targets. And we have been publishing them this morning. We kept our commitment in terms of EBIT 6%, we will be delivering more than 20% on RONA side of the equation and the capital turnover rate will be at least 4x. The single big difference we have is the first column you see on this page, which is about annual organic sales growth. I'm -- as I said, I'm absolutely convinced that we will only be able to reach 6% if we're growing. In the past, we said that we will not be fueling growth before getting to 6% EBIT. Today, what we're saying is that, I mean, we need growth to get to 6% EBIT. And our target is to grow by more than 4% organically in the coming years. Let me just go to the 6% bridge at a group level first. And as you can see outlined on this page, you have the 4 main columns, which are consumer preference, lifetime value creation, cost leadership and external factors. In terms of consumer preference here, one of the main factor will be growth. And growth will come through expansion, expansion, geographical expansion in areas where we're not very much present today. Expansion from a product perspective, we'll be focusing on key markets where we are strong today and we'll be getting stronger, and we'll be expanding as well in terms of channels. And I think one of them, obviously, is the D2C channel. Many opportunities we do have in front of us. From the lifetime value creation here, it will be about ecosystem, creating a partnership with a lot of third parties around the product. Along the lifetime from the purchase stage to the disposal stage of the product. The third one will be about cost reduction here. And as you can see, there is one point about footprint. We have a good footprint. We have factories in Asia. We have a factory in Thailand. We have a factory in China here. It is about how we will be utilizing this existing footprint in the best possible way, reducing cost. And the last one is about external factor. And as you can see, we are starting with 2024, and we are facing in 2025, significant external factors, one of them is tariff, and we don't see these external factors moving away in the coming years. If you allow me, I would like to deep dive into North America, which is, again, one of the main focus points we do have. And you will find the same for columns, consumer preferences, lifetime value creation, cost leadership and external factors. We want to grow in North America. We have been growing in North America, again by almost 10% in 2025. Tariff is a big subject, and we all know that, I mean, the latest tariff structure will be benefiting local producers and we are one of the 3 local producer. We will be taking full advantage of that moving forward. However, we'll be expanding as well from a product perspective. There are many product categories we're not in today in North America. And if I can give you one example, it is the vacuum cleaner. We're just relaunching an upright vacuum cleaner in North America that will be generating additional revenue and additional profit. We'll be expanding in channels, the contract channel was one of them. D2C is another one. So lots of opportunities to move further in North America. Lifetime value creation is again about ecosystem and the D2C channel. We will be gaining inefficiency in North America moving forward. Springfield has been reaching a cruising attitude, but still, there are pockets of efficiency to be gained in the coming years. And again, tariff would be one of the headwinds we had in 2025, and it will not be going away in 2026. That will be driving us towards 6%. Again, there is a very detailed plan next to this bridge here with very clear accountability and responsibility. Moving into consumer preference here, and I will be jumping to one of the main strengths we do have, our brands. We have 3 main brands: Electrolux, AEG and Frigidaire, and we have been spending a lot of time in the last 12 months clearly identifying who our consumer targets are. Clearly, refining the identity of every single brand, understanding who our target competitors are for Electrolux, AEG and Frigidaire. In terms of identity, Electrolux stands for Scandinavian design, human centricity and legacy, we have been existing more than 100 years. AEG is much more about precision, performance, German engineering design. And Frigidaire is about affordability, legacy, modernity. And as you could see, at the introduction of this session, we have been dusting the brand, launching new campaigns here more modern campaign, giving a new image for these 3 brands. The North American team has been doing an outstanding job mixing up Frigidaire in the last years. Few years ago only, the price index of Frigidaire was around 80. Price Index being 100 is the average prices you can find on the market. So only a few years ago, Frigidaire was around 80. We are close to 100 today in Frigidaire with the introduction of 2 signature brands, which is -- which are Frigidaire Gallery and Frigidaire Professional. Electrolux is a premium brand, mainly focusing on front loaders in North America. And as you can see on the right-hand side here, we have been downsizing the Frigidaire brand, but growing with Frigidaire Gallery, Professional and Electrolux, mixing up our price index, mixing up our product. And the best illustration is when you look at products. If you look at food preservation, we have been growing with high-value appliances. Upright freezers, multidoor, side by side, when we have been going down in terms of share with entry price point products like top freezers. Story is exactly the same on food preparation with wall oven, freestanding front control, which is a premium product, where we have been growing significantly while reducing our presence on freestanding rear control which is an entry price point product. Same story for laundry and dish care. So mixing up, gaining shop floor spaces, expanding our presence in different channels. Many awards, many recognition. We have been putting a few of them on this page. A few weeks ago, we had a supplier partnership, a journey with Home Depot, one of our main retailer in North America. And we're very proud to say that we got 2 prizes. The first prize was the best supply of a year and the second prize was the best innovation of the year. Never ever a supplier has been getting these 2 awards at the same time, big recognition for the North American team. Latin America, fresh out of the press here among -- we were recognized among a top brand among with 15 preferred brands in Brazil for the Generation Z. In Europe, many recognition, I mean, for the ones who know Germany, many customers are looking at StiWa. StiWa is the main test institute in Germany, for appliances. We have been winning 7 StiWa awards in laundry over the last 24 months. Never ever a manufacturer has been winning as many StiWa awards in Germany. And very lately, I mean, Darty, one of the main retailers in France, present in Italy and in Belgium has been publishing his barometer of after-sale service. And here once again, our appliances have been getting the top positions in terms of durability and reliability. Many recognitions, which is, again, proving the quality, the reliability of our appliances and why our customers are showing the level of satisfaction we are showing today. This page is a pretty important one as well in terms of mix. If you look on the top hand side here in North America, you have a curve showing the market share we had in terms of volume and the blue line is the market share in terms of value. The first conclusion you can draw out of this page is that we have been losing a lot of market share between 2020 and 2023. This market share we want to recover. The second conclusion you can draw out of that is that our 2 lines are getting very close together in '23, '24 and '25 here, which is showing once again that we're mixing up, that we're getting closer to 100 price index in North America. The curve at the bottom is the curve for Europe. On the top, you have a value market share. And on the bottom, you have a volume market share. And here in the last 3 years, we have been increasing the distance between volume and value market share, gaining market share with our premium brands, Electrolux and AEG. We are on the right path. We are growing again in the different regions, and we are mixing up, gaining price indexes. The next slide is about sustainability. And here, I will not be very humble if you allow me. I mean there is absolutely no doubt that Electrolux is the leader in terms of sustainability for home appliances. We have a very ambitious target. We have been reducing our scope 1 and scope 2 footprint by 42% between 2021 and 2025. And we have been having a reduction of scope 3 at a level of 31% in the same time period just for the one -- I'm not familiar with what scope 1, scope 2 and scope 3 are. Scope 1 and Scope 2 represent the carbon footprint you are having, while producing the appliance, while Scope 3 is a carbon footprint you are having while using the appliance here. Very ambitious target moving forward. we want to reach 85% for Scope 1 and 2 in by 2030 and 42% for scope 3. On the right-hand side, the message we want to give you is that the most sustainable product we're producing today do have as well the highest gross margin. On the go-to-market side of the equation, I just want to underline on the left-hand side, some of the key trends we see globally. The first one is during COVID and post-COVID the market has been moving online. The second big trend is about cost. I've been mentioning it. I mean, lately, commodity prices in Asia have been extremely cheap versus Europe and North America. Energy cost has been significantly higher in Europe as well. So never ever, the cost different has been as big between Asia on one side of the equation in Europe and North America on your other side of the question. One of the other key trends, and you would not be surprised, is a digital trend in our industry. We have very clear answers towards these trends. First, I mean, we're investing massively into digital. And one of the channels we are expanding the most is D2C and the e-commerce side of equation. We had as well a very strong product range in terms of premium. The message we want to give here is that cost entry price points is not our battle. Our battle is about customer satisfaction, our battle is about premiumness. And we are expanding the offer we have in terms of connectivity. All the new platform we will be launching in Electrolux will be connected. Last but not least, we are working on AI. We are working on digitalization and we are working on taking our customers -- on connecting better with our customers in terms of intimacy on the post-purchase experience. Let me show you some video now on the product side of the equation, which are demonstrating some of the latest innovation we have been launching. Bear with me. [Presentation]

That's only a few examples of what we have been launching in 2025, much more to come. But I mean, again, outstanding reception for every of these products. I will be moving to the next pillar of our strategic drivers, which is the lifetime value creation. And the lifetime value creation is based on three drivers, which is the consumer journey, the ecosystem and the lifetime solutions. As I mentioned previously, in every single region, we have been dissecting every single stage of the consumer journey, starting with a purchase experience until the customer is disposing the appliance. And we have somebody standing at every single stage to really understand how we can build a better consumer intimacy moving forward, how we can build this relationship here, how we can build the ecosystem around the product. That's exactly what we're doing, thanks to connectivity. We'll be selling -- thanks to connectivity and the relationship we will be having with a customer, we'll be building and selling spare parts, we'll be selling consumables and accessories. We'll be selling services. We'll be selling extended warranty and much more moving forward. The intent is to reach out to the end consumer, to engage with consumer and to monetize the relationship we have been moving in -- we have been creating. Again, creating a full ecosystem around this relationship and the customer. And I think that's an example. We want the appliance to live longer. We want your ability to be one of the main streams we will be -- moving forward, we want to demonstrate clearly that I mean the reliability we do have as Electrolux is superior to the one you will be finding by our competitors. And that's one example. Thanks to connectivity, we will be able to detect in advance when an appliance will have an issue. We'll be able to help our service technician to understand exactly what's wrong with the appliance. We'll be able to come to the customer with the right spare parts moving forward. That's -- we will be able to upgrade the software of the appliance during the lifetime until disposal. So much more to come in terms of digitization and monetization. In terms of cost leadership, which is the last driver we do have today, we have been delivering strong results in the past years, SEK 4.7 billion in 2023, SEK 4 billion in 2024. And certainly, I mean, we're aiming to deliver the SEK 3.5 billion to SEK 4 billion in 2025. In 2023, I mean, most of the savings was coming from the restructuring process we had on the blue collar side of the equation and the downsizing of our workforce. In 2024 as well, we have been simplifying our organization. In 2025, the saving is of another nature. We are really pre-taking product -- cost out of the product. We are sourcing our product -- our components in a more efficient manner, and we are gaining efficiency in our factories. But Michelle will be speaking about that in a second. Michelle. Very warm welcome. I leave you the floor.

Great. Well, thank you, Yannick. As Yannick mentioned, cost leadership is a key pillar for us. So before I go into the details, cost leadership can't be done just by finding ideas here and there. By doing it that way, you're not going to get repeatable cost benefits. So we actually have a very structured way in doing that, not only involving our people getting the engagement, really driving cost leadership into the ways of working. But we also have a toolbox that we leverage different tools for the different needs we will be requiring. And one of them is best cost country sourcing. And you have heard of best cost country sourcing before. So we are increasing the percentage of our components that are coming from best cost countries compared to high cost countries. And you might say, okay, it's just labor cost. No, it's way more than just labor cost. And that is the degree of details we go into. We look at commodity cost trends. We look at energy utility costs. And more importantly, as we look at the maturity of the supplier ecosystem. It's not just about the Tier 1s, what they can give you. If they don't have sufficient Tier 2s and Tier 3s that to give the cost efficiency in the value chain, you will not get that efficiency and optimized cost from the components. So we are now going with an approach that is a lot deeper than ever before to balance what is the best cost country sourcing for the different markets as well. Of course, tariff is real in the U.S. as well. So we look at landed cost really take the approach to understand where value can be generated and also at a landed basis, how do we get the cost to the optimum that we can. So with this approach, we are able to achieve the cost efficiencies and the competitiveness that you have seen in the 9-month results that Yannick has shown before just now. But that's not the only tool. You have seen the beautiful SaphirMatt hob in the -- our campaign early on as well. This product is a collaboration with our supplier. And the innovation we were able to bring to market ahead of our competitors is through the collaboration with our suppliers. So the relationship we have with our supplier base is not only just on cost efficiency, but it is also on collaboration on leveraging where can we get the innovation extracted out of the supplier ecosystem to allow us innovation that is ahead of our competitors whilst maintaining the cost leadership. And if you look at the SaphirMatt, not only it's a beautiful piece that every family enjoys it did bring us 7% more volume in our built-in hobs in Europe and also 15% of the revenue. And again, we were ahead of the pack with this innovation as well. So we will be exploring more on supply collaboration, not only from a cost competitiveness perspective but also from an innovation perspective. So that we are able to bring products that actually our consumers love and also meets the quality promise that we have to our consumers as well at that competitiveness and also ahead of everybody else. So another lever that we're pulling. So of course, there are tools. There are a lot of tools in our tool boxes. We can -- we are using to drive the competitiveness of our products. But the key really is in our people. It's not just Yannick or myself or the rest of the group management delivering this. We need every part of the organization to understand what is cost leadership and embed that into their day-to-day as well. So we have been on the cost excellence journey since late 2023, and we have gained speed this year really on value engineering, really focus on our products. How do we maintain the products the consumers love, the quality promise we deliver, the specification we need to compete but at the same time, drive cost competitiveness as well. So we have a structured program and through the structured steps to really get all the different functions of Electrolux together to deliver that. And the best way to see this is to hear from our colleagues rather than me. So we'll play the video. [Presentation]

It's always great to see actually the teams have a smile on their face when they're working on cost. So it is really getting embedded into everything we do. But it's not only just internally, you saw some of the supply collaborations. There's plenty more photos we could show on the suppliers working with us closely. And also the outside-in information is so valuable for us to not only knowing where we need to go, but also where we can improve with where we have already been as well. So this program will continue to drive and embed the tools, the methods to deliver the results we have, but also getting that cost leadership mindset and ways of working embedded truly into our organization. So just to summarize, cost leadership is a key pillar to Electrolux growth. And that is one pillar we have full control of, and we truly believe with the tools, with the methods and the people we have and the supplier base we have and also going to have, we will have the competitiveness in cost leadership. That's because we have the structured approach. We are sourcing better. We are doing value engineering better, and we'll continue to do that. But we also, to Yannick -- what Yannick has mentioned, we do have the footprint our competitors have. We have factories in China. We have factories in Thailand. We can also have our optimized product flow to give us competitiveness as well, and we will leverage that as well. And more importantly, we are building a lean and also customer-centric organization, coupled with cost leadership. And that really drives the entire organization to move forward to drive cost leadership, which will be the rock bed of our growth as well. So with that, I'll pass on to Therese, who will talk about cash generation.

Thank you, Michelle. Yes. So moving now to the fourth strategic driver, which is cash generation. And of course, the main item of cash generation is really to improve the EBIT performance, which is really what you've heard about from Yannick and from Michelle. But there are also other levers that we can pull when it comes to cash generation, which is specifically around operating working capital improvement. And also, of course, how we allocate our capital in the best manner to bring the return and also to strengthen the balance sheet. And these 2 items are the 2 items I will come back to in this section. But before doing that, we have also been working on derisking our balance sheet with a couple of initiatives during the past couple of years that I wanted to mention to you. Yes. And that is related to derisking our pension liability. So in the end of 2022, we were actually transforming our internal pension debt in North America pension fund to an external partner to take that over, which meant that we moved out the pension liability, but also the asset that came along with that, which meant that we took down our gross pension debt by around SEK 6 billion and this we did without any impact to the EBIT bottom line. And the other transaction, some of you might remember from the end of last year when we divested our potential large exposure of asbestos in U.S. where we divested the subsidiaries that held this exposure and liability and also then the insurance assets that came along with this. And while completing this transaction, we also made a profit to the bottom line. So these are 2 examples of how we have, in the meantime, been able to derisk our balance sheet. But then with that, we will move into the 2 main items apart from EBIT that we can also then work hard on in improving our cash generation. The first one, I think, is really obvious when it comes to, of course, improving operating working capital. You know that we have worked a lot with this over the years. I think we went through a very hectic and difficult period during the COVID -- post-COVID crisis during the supply chain crisis, during 2021 and 2022, when our operating working capital went up significantly. Mainly related to inventory. And as you know, the full supply chain kind of coming out of sync. Since then, we are gradually taking operating working capital back down and specifically also taking inventory back down. Still where we are today is not back to the pre-COVID levels. And this is mainly related to slightly higher component and material stock to be able to supply our customers in a really good manner in a still quite volatile market environment. And then you know during 2025 that we have also had negative cash flow and specifically related to operating working capital. So it's fair to say that inventory this year has gone up, not only inventory, but working capital in total. And what we talked about at the end of the third quarter is that we are tying up somewhat high receivables at the end of the third quarter due to that we have entered into high season and that September was a quite high sales month. But also that we have relatively high inventory levels. This is related to several parts. One part is related to that Latin American retailers has been taking down their inventory level during the second and third quarter, which has put pressure on us as a supplier. The other part is related to tariffs. You know that the cost, of course, has increased, but also in relation to the timing of when those tariffs are being paid, this is also increasing our working capital. And then the market in Europe has been very volatile and also a little bit softer than what we anticipated going into 2025. And so also in Europe, we're sitting on a little bit high inventory. You all know that the fourth quarter normally is our strongest cash flow year, and this is really what we are looking for as well this year also in working capital. And then looking a little bit further ahead, for sure, when it comes to working capital performance and inventory performance, we need to stay in sync with our strategic priorities with change -- potential change in business model but also in changes and opportunities that are happening in the external environment. And to mention one, which Yannick also touched upon earlier on is the important channel of direct-to-consumer, which, of course, is an enabler for us, yes, to interact directly with the consumers, but also to build lifetime value creation. And this is meaning that we need to be much more flexible and agile and sometimes also slightly increase the inventory levels because all of you know that if you're shopping for something online, if you don't find it online, you don't find it in stock and you can't get it delivered within the time frame that you are expecting. You're most likely jumping to the next appliance, and we lose sales in those instances. So this means, of course, that we need to stay very, very close to our customers and our consumers, which means that the accountability needs to be very close to the market when it comes to working capital management. And in this case, we also have the possibility to help our colleagues around the world in terms of data-driven decision-making to be able to be more flexible and more agile. And this is, of course, big initiatives that we need to drive going forward. The other part then is around CapEx. Yannick touched upon it. I think, as you know -- as you've seen on this graph, if you go back several years, we have been on around SEK 4 billion to SEK 5 billion in CapEx for quite many years. We then went through a high investment cycle when it came to globalized architectures and driving automation. We then have come down since 2022 of around SEK 7.6 billion at the peak in CapEx, then to 2024 around SEK 4.6 billion, and the updated outlook that we have for 2025 is that we should be between SEK 3.5 billion to SEK 4 billion. Compared to when we entered this year, we said that we would be between SEK 4 billion to SEK 5 billion. And this is really not about us deprioritizing or pushing investments further. As you've heard, we have the most updated product portfolio we have ever had. And Michelle and the team is doing a great job, not only when it comes to cost reduction on material, but this is also really valid when we are buying equipment and tooling. So we're also benefiting for the great job that we're doing under the cost excellence program also when it comes to optimizing CapEx. And then to wrap up this section. By driving cash generation, we are really aiming to strengthening our balance sheet. And we want to do that because we want to continue and we really are committed to continue to be a solid investment-grade rated company, which then means that we need to take down the net debt to EBITDA below 2x, and then we cannot exceed the 2x net debt to EBITDA. We know that at the end of the third quarter, we are at around 3.5x net debt to EBITDA, so improving from 1 year ago, but we still know that we have to focus on continuing to get it down. And that, of course, we need to do through earnings improvement. That's a given. That's the main, main lever, but also, of course, through cash generation and to strengthening our balance sheet. That's a key priority. And then when it comes to then how do we allocate our funds, CapEx is our main priority within allocating capital. And that is to continue to fuel the product innovation and the product pipeline that we have. It's to continue to support the cost-out projects. Of course, we have some special areas that Yannick mentioned around new product categories that could drive higher growth. We have lifetime value that we know is generating a higher profitability. These areas continue to be very interesting also from a capital allocation point of view as well as certain sustainability initiatives that are also driving value creation. Then when it comes to dividend, I mean, our -- of course, this is the Board decision. You all know that. But the Board has been very clear in their direction about strengthening the balance sheet. And that we need to maintain being an investment-grade rated company. And with that, I hand back to Yannick.

Thank you very much, Michelle. Thanks, Therese. Thank you very much. I think -- yes, I'll just quote somebody called Einstein who was saying that "the definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and over and expect different results". I think we will be doing and we are doing things differently, and we are certainly expecting a different result. And one thing we want to do differently is to get much closer to the end consumer. And that's why we are changing the operating model. We want an organization which is flatter, which is heavier on the frontline side of the equation, we have been announcing a few weeks ago that we would be splitting the EA region in an EMEA region and an APAC region. And the simple reason why we are doing that is to be closer to our customers in Asia here in order to serve them and support them better moving forward. I just want -- I mean one of the sentences we put here is, I mean, the boat and the engine. What we want to do really is to serve the customer in a much faster, much more agile way, much more consequent way, much better way than our competitors here. That's why I was saying we want to make the engine much bigger moving forward while making the boat lighter on the corporate side of the equation. Again, I just want to repeat what I said previously, we are doing things differently versus the past. I mean, in terms of profitable growth, we want to increase the consumer centricity here. We want to improve our cost level. We want to offer more products into the market by strengthening our market position. Michelle has been explaining very well what is the new approach we do have in terms of cost efficiency, taking cost out of our products, sourcing better our components, using our footprint in a much more efficient way moving forward. And last but not the least, here, we want to drive a cultural transformation in the organization, leveraging the richness we have been gathering for the last 100 years, but being more fast or faster and being more agile moving forward. I would just close here before taking your questions about a high-level summary. We have clear strategic drivers. We have been defining these clear strategic drivers, and I want to underline once again that we have clear actions, roles and responsibility next to the projects initiatives we are launching. And these strategic drivers are consumer preferences, life value creation, cost leadership and cash generation. And we have been reiterating some of our financial targets, which are 6% on EBIT, over 20% on RONA and 4x the capital turnover rate with an organic growth rate, which would be above 4% -- which should be above 4% in the coming years. That's concluding the presentation. Thank you very much once again, and we would be glad to take any questions you have for us. Thank you.

Great. So if we could have Michelle and Therese also on the stage. We will start with the questions in the room.

Johan Eliason, SB1. I think it was interesting listening today about your focus on growth. Growth tends to imply that you need to invest as well. And I was wondering if there's sort of CapEx program coming related to this. And secondly, the last time I heard about best cost sourcing, Hans Straberg went to Australia and spent SEK 8 billion, closing and moving manufacturing locations, et cetera. Are you satisfied with your manufacturing locations as you have today? Or will there also be sort of CapEx related to potential relocation of manufacturing?

Thanks, Johan for your question. I mean the first thing I would like to say is that, I mean, you know very well, we have been investing massively in the past year in our industrial footprint, massively. I think now this CapEx is going down. And it's giving us some oxygen to finally invest in products and marketing because we're launching these great products, which are extremely well received on the market here, and we need to fuel growth indeed in order to sell this product here. We are scrutinizing, of course, every single investment we're making on the marketing side of equation in order to warranty that we will have a fast return on investment on the marketing side of the equation. But again, I mean, you saw some of the campaign we defined. I mean, they're new, they're fresh. I think they are again targeting very clear customers for Electrolux, AEG and Frigidaire. So yes, I mean, we have great products. We need to market these great products. We don't think it will be inducing a significant level of additional capital here because, once again, I mean we're reducing the industrial capital we have been investing for the last years. On your second question here in terms of footprint, like any company, any company I know who are dealing with industries, we are always looking at footprint. And today, indeed, I mean, there is no secret. I mean, we are at a volume level, which is 10 years low in Europe. So we have factory which are underutilized. But what we're looking much more than, I mean, closing or whatever is, I mean, how can we utilize the factories in the best possible manner, how can we be agile enough to move platforms or produce platforms in one factory or the other one? And Michelle said it very well, we have great assets. We have assets in China. We have assets in Thailand. We have assets in Asia. And while cost in Asia is so low. I think it is our duty as well to utilize these assets to grow.

And maybe coming back slightly on the first question. The example that Yannick took, of course, related to vacuum cleaners in North America. As you very well know, we have had vacuum cleaners for ages, and we have vacuum cleaners, of course, in all the other regions of the world. We -- but we have not had them for a long time, at least not under the Electrolux brand in North America. So this is an initiative. It's not triggering any type of CapEx or any type of investments like that, then it's much more around go-to-market and of course, yes, marketing on that end.

It's Martin Wilkie from Citi. The question I had was on growth. You talked about consumer preferences and channels and products. But how dependent are you on a recovery in the housing market? I mean, obviously, there are parts of the world where that part of the industry has been quite depressed for some time. And within that 4% target that you have, how much of a reliance do you have on a housing market recovery?

I think we have strong holds, I think, in LatAm, in many markets in Europe, in Australia. And certainly, I mean, we need to keep on developing the strong growth, and we keep on -- in growing in this strong. We keep on fighting. I'm just coming back from Brazil, last week, and we have a very strong strategy moving forward in order to gain in terms of value in this market. So I think we're not -- absolutely not giving up on that. Certainly, I mean, the markets are very depressed right now in Europe. I mean we are 10 years low. I mean we're at the level of 2014. And the best help we would be getting is to get back to normality in markets like Europe with a 2% to 3% organic growth moving forward. So I think we're not counting on external factors. I mean that's why we're really speaking about organic growth. I mean we cannot -- we should focus on what we can control, not what we cannot control. And I think the growth we are looking at are mainly coming from new product introduction, new platforms, new -- expanding some geographical areas as well we have in front us. There are many opportunities we have in every single region that we're looking at. Just to give you another example, we just opened in LatAm a few months ago, a new factory focusing on SDA. And we're launching new product categories and use these factories in LatAm here, which we'll be generating, again, growth. So many examples to be given here, but I mean the size of the opportunity is relevant.

I guess we're not betting on, let's say, any quick recovery, but we should be able to drive this type of growth rates independently.

If I go to my second question as well, just on working capital, are you suggesting we get back to the levels we had previously because you've kept your RONA target unchanged. So should we expect that those percentage of sales numbers go back to the long run average?

I mean, I think, of course, RONA is 2 items. And when you talk about capital turnover, we're actually quite close, I would say, still today with the 4x. So of course, it depends on what type of levels you're looking at as well. And I think there was honestly some room in those metrics if you put them together. Is there a possibility to get back to where we were pre-COVID? I think that we have certain pockets, which I mentioned as well on inventory where we right now at least, are having somewhat higher supplies inventory or inventory of components and materials. Do we see a possibility of getting back? I mean, of course, that will always be our ambition, but it always will depend on what type of business model will we have. And we, of course, need to be -- the highest priority needs to be that we need to serve our customers and consumers in the best manner because if we fail there, then we will fail much more than optimizing inventory to the kind of ultimate level.

Uma Samlin from Bank of America. First, I have a follow-up on the growth that you mentioned. I guess in terms of organic growth, how should we think about the split price mix versus volume? If I look at the graph you presented like so far this year, it seems like you've had relatively limited unit growth, but you've had like more focus on the price mix. So how should we think about that going forward? Is that your focus more on growing the mix rather than growing the absolute volume share in the market in both Europe and North America? That's my first one.

It's a great question. Thank you very much for asking it. I think it will depend on the region mainly. And on the market share we do have. It will even depend on the product category. I mean we have very different type of market share, depending on the product category. You look in North America is a great example. So there may be product category where we'd be increasing. But in a nutshell, of course, we have a strong position in LatAm today. So the focus in LatAm is much more on the value side of the equation when it is on the volume side of the equation. That's where we want to grow. It is on the value side of your question. That doesn't mean that we're not paying attention on volume. But I mean what we want to fight is on core plus and premium segment of the equation. In Europe, where we are growing is with Electrolux and AEG, so core plus and premium. We have been ramping down the Zanussi brand. And despite this ramp down, we have been gaining market share in value and volume in Europe in a very depressed market. So I think in Europe, it would be volume and it will be volume uncertainty value market share. In North America, we have been growing by more than 10% in Q3 here. And I think there are many product categories where we're not present today. I mean the upright vacuum cleaner is one example, but there will be more. And that's where we will be focusing. So it will be certainly volume and value market share. But the environment in North America, as you know very well, has been pretty hectic and will be probably hectic moving forward.

My second question is on North America. Perhaps it's a bit more shorter term. So I guess you had a really good growth this year in North America, close to 10%. You've heard really good cost cutting as well. And then going forward to next year, how should we think about that? What are the incremental improvement you can do going forward to bring the margin from where it is today to 6%?

I think, of course, we're not discussing -- I mean, we're discussing near term and midterm. So I will not be giving clear indication about 2026. But certainly, I mean, what I want to underline once again is that the latest tariff structure in North America should be benefiting the local producer. And we are one of these local producers. We are producing the vast majority of our appliances in North America. So on the top of organic growth that you have been mentioning previously, on the top of cost reduction that I mean, we'd be driving factory efficiency, like pockets of efficiency still to be gained in Springfield, certainly. I mean we will be looking at any potential gain we can get as well in terms of price, thanks to the tariff situation we do have in North America.

It's Akash here from JPMorgan. I've got a couple of questions as well. The first one, and I'm surprised not to see in presentation is about operating leverage. I think you have been cutting costs in the last 3 years. And you talked about underutilization in factories, especially in Europe, where demand is at 10 years low. Sooner or later, we will get recovery at some stage. So can you tell us about some indication of operating leverage that we should be able to get out of this footprint that is there? And can it be higher than what you have seen historically? And second one is on dividend, and that's with, Therese, like what needs to happen? Like do we need to see leverage going down below 2x before dividends can be resumed again?

Do you want to start with the second part?

Yes, of course, this is for the Board to decide on an annual basis, as you very well know. We have not been discussing how far down would we need to go to start initiating dividends, but they are very clear in their direction that we need to deleverage and they are committed that we should continue to be a solid investment-grade rating, which of course, we then classify us becoming -- yes, seeing a path of becoming below 2x net debt to EBITDA.

On the operating level side of the equation here, certainly, I mean what we are all hoping is that, I mean, first market will be recovering as we said, at a normal speed, which would be a 2% to 3% growth. I mean the second aspect, and we have not been approaching that in this presentation is certainly kitchen. Because, I mean, we are very strong. We are a strong #2 in terms of kitchen and the kitchen channel here and right now, construction is pretty subdued. So I think once construction will be restarting, we're hoping to take full advantage as well on the kitchen side. On the operating level side of the equation, I mean, right now, I think what we're looking is all the level -- all the potential level of efficiency we are gaining out of the lower volumes we have indeed been reducing our workforce pretty significantly in our factories. And we have been -- thanks to automation and all the investments we have been making in our factories. We have been able to take this volume down without being hit with a cost which is outrageous or too significant.

This is Gustav Hagéus with SEB. You mentioned, if I recall correctly, that there's never been a bigger cost discrepancy between Asia and your bigger markets. Is that true also when you incorporate tariffs in U.S.? And can you talk a little bit about how that dynamic has changed? That's my number one. And then number two, a very easy question to answer. If the war in Ukraine were to stop or somehow halt. How would that dynamic change? Because in that scenario, then that Russia would be able to export plastics and steel also to other jurisdictions than China?

Yes. I think a very interesting question. On the tariff side of the question, if you allow me, I would just go back a little bit in time, 2018 I mean the first tariff wave was mainly on China and on component level. And that has been actually handicapping the local producers in North America in the sense that I mean, we were using Chinese components. So we were impacted by tariffs. But I mean people producing finished goods were not impacted. After we had only basically China being tariffed on a finished good level here. So I think a lot of footprint has been moving from China to Southeast Asia, Thailand, Vietnam. And I think Chinese producers were producing out of Southeast Asia and basically importing finished goods once again in North America. So we -- the single tariff structure, which is purely benefiting local producers has been the one published on August 7, which is, at the same time, handicapping significantly Southeast Asia and China here. And by handicapping Southeast Asia and China, local producers are benefiting basically from the structure. We are producing out of North America, the majority of our appliances. I mean we have factories, we have 3 factories in North America. We have factories as well in Mexico, which are USMCA. So we are benefiting out of that. So I think it's pretty recent that tariff is truly making sense for North American producers. On the top of that, we have been leading price increase in Q3. But unfortunately, we have not seen basically competitors clearly following in this respect here. So I think what we are looking forward is to see if Russian oil would be hitting basically the North American market moving in the coming months and see some price changes in the market. Do you want to add anything on that?

No.

And what about the other question on the Ukraine?

Yes, that's a very easy question. I guess yes, very hard to speculate, I guess, how quickly other markets potentially in Europe would start dealing with Russian oil and steel. But we know that, of course, that is clearly an advantage today for Chinese or Asian production, not only -- yes, also -- not only related to the tariff structure, but for sure also related to being able to access lower cost of steel and oil and plastics. How quickly that will move even if we get some sort of resolution, I guess, it's, at least from my point of view, very hard to speculate.

It's something we're not controlling in [ Russia ]. It's very difficult to speculate upon at this point of time.

Of course, I think one item that we might mention related to the conflict is that I think we would have hoped going into this year that we should have seen a recovery in the European market. While, of course, what we saw in the beginning of the year when the conflict intensified further and, of course, also then with the trade war between U.S. and Asia, that indications of a fast recovery in Europe and a pickup in consumer confidence, I think, really took another hit. So I guess that -- and while I think most of the consumers in Europe are actually doing relatively okay, they're not starting to spend yet, specifically not in our category. So I think -- and that, of course, is not only related to the war or to the conflict. But that, of course, is at least one thing that I believe could help consumers in Europe to actually start taking those consumer decisions going forward and get a little bit more beat up in confidence.

Björn Enarson, Danske Bank. If you can shed some more light perhaps on the tariff situation. I mean when your relative position really or the headwind kind of peaked? And if you have seen any effects in the market on pricing, et cetera?

I can only speak about Q3, [ not sure ]. As we discussed, I mean, we did not see significant price movement in the North American market. I mean we have been leading price increase, but unfortunately, I mean we did not see a clear impact on tariff. Now I think what we need to say as well is that I mean the products which were on the sea before August 7 were not fully impacted or were not impacted by the full tariff structure. These products, which were on the sea just shortly before August 7 have been arriving in North America beginning of October. And they will be probably consumed, I mean, during the promotional season, which is Black Friday. So the full tariff impact will really be visible. I mean, now in the coming months. We'll see how the market certainly will be reacting.

And on the margin bridge that you had going to 6% and you have this external headwind. Can you give some color on what you're including in that headwind?

Yes, we are assuming the tariffs to stay. I mean when it comes to the tariffs, we are assuming the tariffs to stay where they are currently with the current structure. That's what it's based on.

That's an incremental headwind then for '26?

That would be an incremental headwind for '26, yes.

Thank you. I'm Tim from Barclays. A couple of questions as well. So the first one about the strategy to go to Asia Pacific as one of your commercially focused area. Can you talk a little bit more about your strategy going into that region, given that it's also the base of your major competitors, even in Europe and the U.S., how do you see your potential to really gain market share in the region? Yes, that's the first question.

Yes. Thank you very much for asking this question. I mean we have been showing where the revenue split for the company. I mean, 1/3 in Europe, 1/3 in North America, 20% or close to 25%, 23% be precise in LatAm and a little bit more than 10% in Middle East and Africa and Asia. So if you look at this market share, obviously, I mean the conclusion you may have is that I mean, there is -- there are a lot of opportunities in Asia. We have a stronghold, which is called Australia, where we are a market leader today. But certainly, there is a lot of opportunity in a lot of locations and in product categories. So we are certainly studying the possibility to keep on growing in this area here. Looking at the geographical opportunity we do have, but also on the product side of the equation.

Understood. And then the other one is about the trend of the consumer behavior, which are focusing or continue to favor the lower-priced products. How do you see that trend to evolve going forward? And given that you have been gaining market share quite successfully over the past couple of months, including some of the brands, the higher end products or high-end brands, which help you to gain the market share. But given if consumers continue to favor the lower priced products, how do you see the sustainability of your market share gain by focusing on your high-end products?

Yes. I think you're right. I mean, right now, we have seen a level of -- a significant level of price pressure in the 3 region. And we have seen, indeed, I mean, especially in the European region, the price level going down. However, there is still plenty of space in the core plus and premium side of the equation. And I think -- what is certain is that, I mean on core plus and premium, it's not just about the product. If you look at the kitchen channel, it is as much about the product as it is about the service, the logistics you do have. How we can deliver basically the full range of product to your kitchen manufacturer. It's about fit and finishing. It's about understanding the customer. It's about basically having the consumer relevant innovations for this product. I mean the example, if you allow me, I would like to give is the AI assist feature we had in our oven, which was about downloading a recipe on your phone and sending it to your oven and having -- we won a lot of prizes on this feature. So it's not about the pace of innovation you have and how you put just a Wi-Fi sign on the product. It's how you're using this feature to benefit the user and basically show progress in his daily life. And that's what I think we're really good at. So we may not have introduced on the market the highest number of innovation in terms of connectivity, but the ones we have been selecting have been extremely well received in the market. So once again, I mean, you're right. I mean, very the market is very promotional these days. I mean consumer confidence can be one of the drivers here. I mean price pressure, I mean, out of Asia can be another one. But I mean the focus we do have on core plus and premium is absolutely working, and we are gaining market share with Electrolux and AEG in these segments.

Understood. And my last question will be on aftermarket. I think in your last CMD, you have targets to achieve 10% aftermarket by 2025 and 15% in the long term compared with 7% in 2022. If I look at the numbers that are in one of your previous slides in 2024, around SEK 9.9 billion, that's also talk about like 7.3% of 2024 revenue if I calculate correctly. So that means it seems like contribution didn't really achieve what you targeted previously or the growth was not really coming through. So I'm just wondering what's the reason to hold back the growth of the aftermarket? And how do you think it can accelerate to 10% CAGR according to your targets?

Your conclusions are correct. It's the first thing I would say, we did not deliver on expectation on aftermarket so far. And that's why we're accelerating as well. I mean the entire ecosystem I have been describing on the strategical side of the equation. And moving forward, we will be focusing on year-over-year growth in this segment. The approach we're having is different. I mean we're not leaving of course, I mean, spare parts, accessories, extended warranty and stuff like that. But we're enhancing that by really creating through connectivity these bridges with third parties moving forward. And we would have many examples here. So I think our aim is really to go in this direction and increase the level of revenue and profit we will be driving out again of this ecosystem strategy.

Thank you. Okay. Some more questions in the room? Yes, Uma?

I just have a quick follow-up on your chart for procurement for the best sourcing part. It seems like from the chart that you have more benefit from 2028 onwards. Is that correct? Or is that intentional?

Yes, I think it's a buildup. So we've started to qualify different sources from last year and also this year. As some of you might know to qualify a new source, it does take time to do that. So it's not a linear curve, like as you've seen on the chart, it will exponentially grow a bit but also at the same time, to build our resilience as well, we're not going from 0 to 100 or 100 to 0. We're also balancing between the incumbent and the new source as well, so that we are able to also choose between the 2 and also have the resilience built up as well. So this is where you will see the -- not a linear curve from that perspective.

Johan have another question?

Yes. I just want to follow up. I thought it was interesting with your chart, the new organization with Asia being mainly marketing and sales, et cetera, driven and the operations staying in the European part. If we look forward a decade, is Electrolux a company that needs to have manufacturing at all or can't this approach be applied to all of the business? I remember 10, 15 years ago, it was talked about, you need to have manufacturing close to the end customers in Europe because it was expensive to ship, but that I think we have learned that, at least into the U.S., it's been pretty favorable to ship from Asia. And I mean isn't it so that most of the value is in your product innovation and your brands to reach the customers rather than manufacturing the actual stuff by yourself?

Yes. Thanks a lot for the question. I mean, the answer -- simple answer is yes. Because I mean, again, I mean, our main focus point is customer satisfaction. Customer satisfaction is coming with quality. It is coming with reliability. And I cannot imagine a company like Electrolux without factories because, I mean, we have a know-how. We have a savoir-faire, which is basically has been built for all these years. I mean, we have been investing massively in automation today to really grant the quality and the level of reliability we do have out of our factories today, which doesn't mean that we should not be leveraging other companies here. But I mean, the core of our products are benefiting from the gigantic legacy we do have as a manufacturing company today. And I wish I could take you to one of our factories, but it is actually a top-notch, very advanced automated factory we do have across the world. So there is -- I know how our products are benefiting from and our customers are benefiting from. So we will be, of course, working with other partners as well. But moving forward, I think I don't imagine us without an industrial tool.

And the chart is not saying that we should not have any manufacturing in Asia, just to be clear. So I mean, as Michelle mentioned, we have already today, manufacturing in both China and Thailand that we want to leverage even more than what we're doing today. So it's just indicating that from an organizational perspective, it will be having the management leader in -- from Europe and Asia.

No. Okay. I understand where your question is coming from. I mean, indeed, I mean, we will have a commercial area focused on Asia. But certainly, I mean, we are expanding our high-end factory today in Thailand. We have a factory in China as well. But what we thought is that we would be keeping basically the operational side of the equation under one umbrella which is covering Europe and Asia at the same time to leverage best practices. But I mean it is much more the customer relationship we wanted to announce and to accelerate and to speed and having Europe between basically the upper management and Asia was filtering somehow, I mean, the needs we were getting out of the market. So it is really reinforcing this frontline getting consumer needs in a faster manner, being able to support these consumer needs faster from a headquarter perspective. That's what we wanted to do. But on the operational side of the equation certainly, I mean, we would keep and expand the factories we do have, and it's fantastic tools we do have in Thailand and China.

Okay. And then finally, the last time you talked to market was end of October, and then you talked about Black November. Now we have passed Black November. Can you give any sort of indications what happened with pricing or volumes in this important period?

We're not giving indication of course, about what is happening in November right now. But certainly, I mean, it's not -- we're not speaking about a Black Friday any longer to your point. We're speaking about a Black November. And I think -- that's certainly a promotional season. We don't see -- which originated in North America. But I mean, we don't see it only in North America. We see it as well worldwide.

It's Martin from Citi again. Now that you've been at the company for almost a year, when you look at the portfolio, is there anything that you think is missing? I mean I realize you don't have a huge amount of balance sheet to do acquisitions. But from a product perspective, you're obviously very focused on larger domestic appliances. I know you obviously have some and small, but there are large parts of the market that are fast growing, high margins in countertop appliances that you're probably underrepresented in. When you look at the portfolio, when you look at your growth strategy, even organically, is that an important shift for you? Or do you think that the major categories that you've outlined today are enough to drive the growth and profit that you like?

I'm somebody who truly believes that you need to leverage the strength before looking at your weakness or what is missing. And I think we have a lot of strength. I mean, if you look, we have been launching the best kitchen range ever in AEG and Electrolux in recent years and in the recent months. And I think that's something we would be leveraging. There are certainly areas of opportunities we're looking at. I mean we have been inventing the vacuum cleaner or at least we have been one of the leaders driving vacuum cleaner in the past years. To me, it's abnormality that we don't have our fair share in North America in terms of vacuum cleaner, and that's certainly an opportunity that we are looking at. And that's why we have been reintroducing the upright vacuum cleaner in North America, and we are looking at how we can expand basically this range moving forward and increase revenue. That's one example, specific example here. We will be covering the entire infra space, not right away, but I mean where will we see clear opportunities moving forward, we will certainly be studying them and leverage them and executing them.

And the strategy that has been done really in detail since Yannick came in was really looking at that angle between geography and product categories and where do we actually see opportunities to leverage them, of course, in the cost-efficient manner. But that's what also the kind of growth ambition is built on.

Okay. So we have 2 more questions here in the room, here in the front and back.

One more question on promotional activities and months or Black November or what have you. I mean, it's taking more and more porch time of the year over the years. Yannick, what is your experience, is the best way to deal with those periods? Do you fully participate or selective? Or what's your view on that?

I think we need to find the right balance. That's the way I would be describing it on -- I mean, the bottom line perspective, not -- we're still a scale industry, obviously here. And that's why I mean growth is very important. So not participating at all in a season, which is gaining in terms of volume is not reasonable, it's not rational. But certainly, you need to find the right equation between how much you want to be promotional and how much you want to drive volume, which will be driving to the highest level of profit bottom line. So I think it is really something where you need to find the right balance when you're approaching these type of seasons. And you have more and more of these type of seasons, unfortunately, I mean globally.

And do you have the offering in North America today to choose a good strategy to be -- to participate where you want and not participate where you can't. Because I remember, it's in the past, it has been a little bit like you have not had that full offering. So you have been hurt perhaps more than other players, et cetera. But do you think that offering is in place? Or is that something to come? Or can you be better or is it decent?

I think in all fairness, that's what I've been trying to demonstrate through the presentation. I think we have been increasing the level of offering significantly. The product reception in North America, the latest one from Springfield, especially the front controlled that I have been showing got a great reception, and they are higher priced products than the ones we have been offering by the past. So really, we -- that's why we invested as well in North America, so massively in the past years. It was to increase the product range we do have in this market, increase the level of quality features we do have on these products. And I can say today that I mean, again, reception has been really good and strong here. So we don't have an issue in terms of product acceptance. I mean, that's why we have been growing by 10% in the third quarter or close to 10% here despite we have been leading price increase.

Okay. I think this will be the last question.

It's Akash here again. I think, Yannick, earlier, you talked about consumer star ratings. And my follow-up is on, maybe if you can elaborate a bit more, like when you have industry-leading consumer star rating, how does it translate into price premium because there could be a story on like having more products with higher rating and being an industry leader in all the categories. And I just want to understand how much price premium can you get out of it? And is this something that is part of that 6% margin that you have set as a medium-term target.

Again, what is -- thanks for the question. What is extremely important when you have a brand portfolio is really to understand first, who you're addressing. And that's really, we have been doing a massive amount of work in refining the consumer target group, we do have to really understand who we are targeting here. The second point is really to understand what is your price positioning. Where do you want to play in terms of price index? And how would you be moving this price index? And afterwards, I mean, you need to define very clearly the identity of your brand, especially if you have a market like Europe, where we have Electrolux and AEG, you need to make sure that, I mean, the brands are not stepping on the feet of each other that they have distinctive price indexes that they have a very clear and differentiated identity here such that you can basically play on both sides of the equation, Electrolux, and on the AEG side of equation. So what I've been hammering since I came here is we want to grow. We want to grow certainly not at the expense of price index. So what is extremely important, even if the market is getting more promotional, we want to keep the market position. We want to keep our identity where we are in the markets here, even I think if prices and promotions are getting more aggressive on the other side of the question. That's why I think I really want to applaud the decisions which were taken before my arrival. I mean moving away from entry price points in Europe, a market which is extremely competitive and focusing on premium, core plus and premium product offering just more than a product with services as well was absolutely the right decision. And that's why we keep on growing in these segments here because, I mean, we were focusing. We're fueling basically the growth, and we have the right product to feed basically the customers we have been targeting.

Thank you very much. And thank you very much for your questions today. So before we end the session in this room, I will hand over to you, Yannick, for a short...

I just wanted to thank you all for joining us today online, especially, I think that has been a first glance on what's coming from a strategic viewpoint of equation. So many changes in the market which is very volatile, which is very uncertain, right, but I'm absolutely certain that, I mean, we are navigating as a group in the right direction. So thank you very much again for attending this Capital Markets update today. Thank you.