Demant A/S (DEMANT) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Hello, everyone. Welcome to our conference call held in connection with the interim management statement that we put out this morning. Obviously, it's covering the period year-to-date, as always. But you've probably seen, we've mostly commented on the period H2-to-date. So hopefully it's a little bit easier to interpret the messaging in the context of your modeling. We plan for this call to last a maximum of 1 hour, including the Q&A session. So as usual, we are 3 Demant representatives, President and CEO, Soren Nielsen; CFO, Rene Schneider; and myself, Mathias Holten Moller, Head of Investor Relations. So Soren will just go through the presentation here before we then open up for questions. It's available on our website. Soren, please?

Thank you very much, Mathias, and welcome, everybody. The agenda for today is quickly key takeaways. A little more details on flavor on the hearing health care business, the communication and update on supply chain situation, our revised outlook and Q&A at the end. Key takeaways for the group, very strong performance so far in second half and leading to an increased EBIT outlook for the full year. And the 4 important elements to highlight is the higher-than-expected EBIT, which is driven by performance in the hearing health care business, where we continue to see market share gains in hearing aids, backed up by the successful product launches, strong performance in hearing care, supported by the reform in France. Diagnostic continued to gain market share. And of course, some headwinds in the hearing implant, but the small list of our businesses due to the volunteer field corrective action in the CI business. The hearing health care market continued to recover well in line with our projections, actually all the way back to the beginning of the year, where we guided that we expected the year 2019 to basically -- sorry, the year 2021 basically to look like '19 plus the natural growth rate of 4% to 6%, with the exception of VA, NHS and developed markets. And it seems like we are very well on track to be there when the year ends not too long from now. Increased EBIT outlook from the group increased to now DKK 3.3 billion to DKK 3.5 billion from previously DKK 3.15 billion to DKK 3.45 billion. And the negative outlook is increased in spite of negative impact on the cochlear implant business and additional cost related to buying components and freight cost. And then also net positive impact now expected from 3 one-offs, all in all, DKK 60 million to DKK 90 million positive one-off in second half previously related to the field corrective action in implant, previously negative DKK 70 million to DKK 100 million. Just a little more flavor to H2-to-date. So the second half so far, low double-digit organic growth for the group in addition to some minor growth from acquisition and more or less neutral FX impact. Gross margin improved compared to the level in the first half, driven by hearing health care growing more than expected. And despite of the additional costs related to supply chain, but caused also some efficiency gains and scale effects in the growing business. OpEx, local currency growth similar to first half of 18%, and this reflects still that we see things being largely normalized and mid-single-digit growth from H2 versus H1. And therefore, all in all, for the business, strong profitability, very strong, exceeding our expectations, driven by hearing health care despite of negative impact from cochlear implants and additional costs related to getting hold of components and freight costs. Cash flow from operation remains strong. Share buyback also significant in second half so far and all in all, DKK 2.771 billion year-to-date. The outlook for 2021 is unchanged on the expected organic revenue growth, but lifted, as I said, on the EBIT, share buyback unchanged. Digging into hearing health care with a few more details, starting with markets, how we see it currently across hearing aids, implants and diagnostic. We have most data and precise data on hearing aids. And below, you see on the slide, you see the chart where you see the sequential development in Europe, North America, rest of the world, across first quarter, second quarter, third quarter in total versus 2019. And I look mostly at '19, where you now see a total of 9% in Europe, where there is, of course, a exceeding normal effect from France, but even excluding that, it's not that far off. We see Germany still lag a bit, but NHS coming back now and also a number of other markets continue to progress well. In North America, we see U.S. commercial continue a strong momentum, 17% growth in third quarter against '19 and total of 17%, which again underlines that we have seen release of pent-up demand in the commercial market in U.S. On the contrary, we are still lagging compared to '19 despite of the strong growth against '20, a strong growth that, of course, also help our business in growing. But still there is much more to come and a very significant pent-up demand. We'll see how long time it takes. That's less predictable in these waiting list type of systems, capacity-driven systems, how and when you will see pent-up demand come back in. But all in all, across everything, including VA and NHS and 8% growth for the year, including third quarter globally. And then you are, you could say, already in the lower part of the natural growth. So with a further improvement in fourth quarter, we feel and see very clear evidence that we'll be within the normalization we have had our outlook based on for the entire year. Implants still lagging, faster recovery in bone-anchored, but that's mainly driven by the nature of the surgery or the ability to use it with headbands or others, still some lag on the CI, of course, now a little different for us to follow. On the diagnostic, growth is in line with the or above the structural growth rate of 3% to 5% per year, but not much more than that. So we definitely see ourselves taking significant share. OTC, a quick update. We have now seen the draft guideline issue, the long awaited for. We are happy to see it. It gives clarity on what is coming and what to expect. It doesn't change anything in our fundamental belief about the nature of the sector or industry, that there is still a number of stigma related lack of recognition themes that make adaptation low. So it's not access. It's not price, which is the core rationale behind the OTC. And also we continue to see strong evidence in a number of surveys that personal counseling, lifelong service, support during use, et cetera, is key for people that consider to approach hearing health care. Hearing aids, more details, double-digit organic growth so far in the second half, supported, of course, by market recovery, but also a strong performance of our new flagship products, not the least in the important U.S. market. On the commercial side, where we do evidently see very strong market share gains across many customer groups and segments. And then we see actually due to NHS growing a lot, VA growing a lot, the French reform, a very strong unit growth in the period and a flattish ASP. But as these strong unit drivers are at a lower ASP than average, then it is fully covered by the continued growth in U.S. So all in all, a flattish ASP, which is quite strong, I believe. And yes, other than that, we start to see Canada come back up. We see recovery in Asia, Japan and the lockdowns in Pacific are starting to be lifted, and we there also expect a normalization coming now. Hearing care, low double-digit organic growth, continued tailwind from the French reform, recovery helping in most markets. Again, growth have been unit driven, meaning we get more through each clinic, and ASP has been flattish in -- compared to past. And additional growth from acquisition is predominantly in Europe and North America. Implants, of course, negative growth due to slow market recovery and the voluntary field corrective actions in CI, we are not making any new implants, implantations or supporting any new implantations until we have full control of the failures we have seen. It's a very low rate, but we need to be absolutely sure we have none of that. And that's, of course, what we are working at. Our bone-anchored business is unaffected, and we I believe it will continue to recover. We have launched new products, the Ponto 5 Mini sound processor and a new procedure for the surgery called MONO, which is making it even easier and lower barrier to implantation. There is nothing new to the voluntary field corrective actions. We cannot put timing on yet, as soon as we can, we will. The expected one-off is still estimated to be DKK 70 million to DKK 100 million. This is all related to return products, inventory write-downs and the material need to go through the test and qualification, but the no coverage for lost revenue in the forward going period that will come over the natural operating profit, of course. Diagnostic, strong performance, [ wide-based ] growth. U.S., Europe, et cetera, we are gaining a lot of share in hearing aid fitting segment or instruments for that, the Affinity Compact that we launched 2 years back is doing very well and the same for balance testing. And our order book absolute quite strong, so a good outlook for the rest of the year. Communication, really not much new to add since our Capital Market Day, unchanged outlook. Only thing is we, as expected, now start to see an increase in new orders towards the end of the period and improved momentum month-by-month and week-by-week. And that's, of course, also what we expected, but good to see and confirm and therefore, unchanged expectations for second half and beyond. There is no changes. We expect a decline of more than 10% in revenue in second half versus first half as we came in very strong with a significant backlog. So the run rate is now changing, going upwards, but still for the second half in total, this is the picture. We expect a negative EBIT in second half of DKK 50 million to DKK 100 million. There's no change to that. And then slightly negative next year and slightly positive the year after and moving on from that point. Quick update on supply chain situation. It is obviously a very dynamic world we are part of where there are shortages of components and instability in the supply chain. We work on that, and I'll come back to that. There is shortage of chipsets globally, and we also have a number of generic chipsets in our products. We also work on that. And then there are certain shipping constraints and capacity constraints. But with our main operation located in Poland, we are in a good spot to get goods out to customers once we have components in for the factory and a high flexibility. So mitigating actions, what is it we do? We have had to redesign selected products to qualify more components for the same design. So we have more flexibility. We do incur higher cost in securing components and sourcing and ensure on-time shipping. And then the whole inventory management, you can lower your total working inventory across the full supply chain by more frequent shippings, a number of activities that you can apply. And through that, we have prevented any material impact on the sales side and steered through these dynamics and this uncertainty. We spent more money on it. We have seen additional costs in second half compared to first half, but we also, for the remainder of the year. And as long as we can see, believe we can continue to steer through this potential supply chain issues and, again, get goods into the factory and therefore have relatively high flexibility on what to produce and deliver to who, when. So outlook assumptions; due to corona, there is still uncertainty. We don't know exactly what's going to happen during the winter, but we still don't believe in any widespread lockdowns or anything like that. We do believe in a continued improvement of markets. And I have already explained our expectation for market growth. We are positive to see NHS starting to come back up. There's still more to come from VA, but we believe it will come, of course. And the emerging markets, on the other hand, could pull into next year or will. Communication, the 12% growth. And then we believe there will still be additional costs related to dealing with supply chain dynamics. So all in all, outlook for 2021, still unchanged, 26% to 30% organic growth in revenue. In communications, a decline of more than 10% relative to first half, 1% based growth from acquisition, minus 1% on FX as of today. EBIT lifted to DKK 3.3 billion to DKK 3.5 billion. And in addition, a now net positive one-off of DKK 60 million to DKK 90 million. And the EBIT includes the unchanged EBIT -- negative EBIT of communication of DKK 50 million to DKK 100 million and unchanged gearing ratio, unchanged share buyback ambition and expectations for exchange rate. And if we look at the 3 one-offs. One already announced in connection with the volunteer field corrective actions, negative of DKK 70 million to DKK 100 million, having limited cash flow effect. Then we have divested the business front row in U.S. that we were a part owner of to a company called Boxlight Corporation that we believe can better develop that company going forward than we can. We get a net positive one-off of DKK 100 million from that. And then the last provision of bad debt that we made early on in corona, there is DKK 60 million left that we don't believe we will need. And therefore, they are reversed. And also that have no cash flow effect. Of course, the divestment of front row have, we are basically mid-November, expecting to see cash coming in from that gain. And that was it. So now Q&A.

[Operator Instructions] And the first question comes from the line of Maja Pataki from Kepler Cheuvreux.

I will stick to 2. Soren, with 2 months to go in the year, we are still looking at a relatively broad range on top line guidance, the 26% to 30%. And I'm trying to understand what are the biggest swing factors which can get you up or down? I guess the uncertainty with regards to COVID and potential restrictions in APAC remain. But is there anything else where you'd say like, oh, maybe EPOS could see an acceleration in the last 2 months or anything on the implant side. I was wondering if you could share your thoughts on that. And then second question relates to France. Could you share with us where you think that market growth for France stands for 9 months? And how much that represents or how much France represents of your revenues at the end of 9 months?

Yes. Thank you, Maja. And you know, it is all of it together on the top line that there are just 5 different businesses of nature. And the final months, yes, there is a swing lift. And that's -- we just don't believe there's a reason for changing that. The uncertainty is basically the same as it has been, and that's it. And on France, I don't have the…

So on France, Maja, you can say, prior to the whole reform effect, France retail used to be just below sort of 20% of overall retail, while now it's probably 20% -- more than 20% and roughly 10% of total business is in France today.

And market growth, we are still seeing the market more or less double year-to-date compared to '19. That was the number I was looking for.

Our next question comes from the line of Christian Ryom from Nordea Markets.

A couple of questions from me. And actually both of them along the same lines as Maja's. So the first is, specifically for the last 2 months of the year, can you remind us how the comparison base, what it looks like for the last 2 months, maybe relative to the first 4 months of Q4 when we -- sorry, of the second half when we compare to 2020? So did you experience a continued strengthening of hearing care and wholesale markets throughout the second half of last year? That's my first question. And the second question is to France. So in the first half, you called out sort of that you believe you saw an exceptional revenue add on from the French reform of around DKK 200 million. What are your expectations here for the second half? And is it your base assumption that we should expect negative growth for the French market in 2022?

Yes. Thank you, Christian. We -- it was not profound, but we did actually see a little bit decline towards the end of the year in 2020, not driven by market, but we had announced new product launches and so on. So we saw a little bit speed going out of things at the end of the year, in particular in North America and then picking up nicely at the other side, but not something profound, but it was more the trend. And on France, we don't fully know yet, of course, because we don't know how it continues. But the way things look today, it could happen or something like that compared to first half, in second half. So if it was extraordinary, DKK 200 million on the top, it could be DKK 100 million, if it was the DKK 100 million on the EBIT, it could be DKK 50 million, but that ballpark.

And anything to say regarding the outlook for 2022? Is the assumption then that we should basically sort of adjust for these DKK 300 million or so when we look into 2022?

Yes, that's why we have made them, and there will be some kind. We don't know to what extent, we don't know how fast. But there is an element of, again, what you could call pent-up demand, I'm sure, when you all of a sudden of a totally free category. And then it will find its new plateau. And what that exactly is, we don't know.

Our next question comes from the line of Martin Parkhoi from Danske Bank.

Martin Parkhoi. Just on the -- maybe that's for Rene. On the gross margin development, which appears to be a driving factor for the development, better earnings performance also in the second half. And that is despite the headwind that you're seeing from the supplier. Could you maybe talk a little bit about what have you done good in the gross margin? Is it something specifically driven this year? And should we -- you have normally said like a soft guidance, you could say, of a gross margin of 74% to 75%. Maybe that will be in the high end this year, but is there a carryover effect in the coming years as well? And then, Soren, then just on the supply side, again, you're not seeing any material impact on your sales as it looks right now, but have you seen any change to visibility? How strong is the visibility going into next year?

Yes, Rene, why don't you start?

Yes. So -- Martin, so first of all, compared to our, let's say, group guidance of -- soft guidance of 74%, 75%, that implies a certain business mix. And there's no doubt we've seen from that perspective an improved business mix much more towards hearing health care than communications. So that is, of course, one key driver. And that being said, even if you look then at hearing health care, we have, despite increased, you can say, supply chain costs, seen a higher gross margin. And it is driven by, even say, some of the potential effects that we mentioned at the Capital Markets Day. So scale efficiency, just general efficiency also in a time like this, where you can say components are scarce, and then you're really diligent and disciplined around how you manage your cost and your supply chain, and we can see that spilling through to a better gross margin. So definitely, we think and hope that some of these things we can carry with us into next year. Of course, the dynamics around supply chain, one can hope that it normalizes during the next year. But of course, we don't know anything better than others.

There are a number of good habits that you potentially could carry over. We have become extremely efficient in utilization, of course, of material, and I'm sure there are some good habits. But let's see. On the outlook, of course, the phone call, you haven't gotten yet, you never know. But other than that, yes, we have good visibility, and we think we have sight of things well into next year. We still have to do the same type of activities as we have done so far in the second half to make it there. It is tight in some areas, but we are steering through well. And again, as long as we get hold of components and bring them into on the hearing health care side, our facilities in Poland, we have a tremendous flexibility in when to produce what and make sure we don't put components into things that will go to a stockroom, but go out straight to customers. And it is really part of what I think helps us a lot these days. EPOS is, of course, slightly different, but so far, they have also steered around things.

Our next question comes from the line of Niels Leth from Carnegie.

So my first question, tacking along the discussion about gross margin. So would you expect to be able to maintain the gross margin level that you are going to have here in the second half going into 2022? And then a second question on price adjustment. So are you considering to revise up prices more than normally given the price inflation that you're seeing across components, freight, wages, et cetera?

So on the gross margin, of course, subject to, again, business mix effects. It is at least our aim to maintain the gross margin improvements that we have realized. And to what extent we will -- we feel comfortable in doing that, of course, we will come back to when we give an outlook for next year. But that will be, you can say, our ambition to maintain as much as possible, of course.

And on pricing, it's the market that defines pricing. But of course, if we continue to see permanent cost increases and inflation in society, we would also, of course, try to adapt to that. But a number of the products we sell, we sell on contracts and pre-agreed terms. So we cannot just run out and add pricing. But of course, we try to optimize pricing as always, in any given market. And again, there are some markets where you are used to things starts to grow in price, and then we will also pursue, of course, a strategy to try to lift our pricing. But it's very market-by-market and timing, yes, will have to follow the development in the market.

But would you foresee that the next product wave that, I guess, begins next summer will be set at price premiums, which are higher than what we usually see?

We will see how the situation looks when we get there. Pricing, Niels, is much more a net pricing game than a list pricing. I think everybody try to add something whenever they come with something new, the material is the negotiation. So the net pricing is not something you set upfront. That's either you walk away or you take the deal.

Our next question comes from Julien Ouaddour from Exane BNP Paribas.

First question on the EBIT guidance. So could you maybe rank by order of import and which division within hearing health care has driven the most of the EBIT guidance upgrade in H2. So I mean, between wholesale, retail and diagnostics. Then second question is, are you still confident and maybe you talk about it in the -- like in your presentation, but I'm still confident that the communications underlying market would grow around 12% in 2022. And this, despite, I would say, the current supply chain issue and the lack of component that we might see today in this market?

Yes. Thank you very much. Relative to their size, then they are -- the contribution to the EBIT is relatively in line with the size of the business. So from a relative point of view, equally distributed from the 3 diagnostic hearing aids and hearing care. On the growth in communication next year, difficult to tell. Of course, if the world runs dry of something that sits in all products, you would see a market decline. But other than that, I think the market will still develop nicely and positively. So our assumption is a 12% growth, but we'll see.

Just for the, I would say, EBIT margin guidance. Also maybe the question is how big, I would say, the French reform and the French market has, I would say, impacted this upgrade?

It's part of it, but it's not alone that. It is all of them. It is diagnostic doing very well, gaining share. It is a continued market share gain by the hearing aid side, in particular, in U.S. And of course also some tailwind from France. It's continued market recovery, maybe a little stronger-than-anticipated or earlier in NHS. So it's the sum of all of it.

And I would even add that maybe in order of things, the French reform tailwind is the least. It is the strong business performance that's driving the upgrade more than…

And you can say, during the year, it plays a lot, a smaller and smaller role in it compared to the beginning, we are seeing the other businesses gain share.

Our next question comes from Carsten Lonborg from SEB.

Just sort of a top level question to the global market stuff that you show in the release for 2021 versus 2019. You could speculate that there's maybe a little bit of saturation in the Q3 numbers, growth is fading a little bit down versus Q2 for the global market. I was wondering whether you could give a little bit more color on what you have seen up until today, maybe whether you're still seeing things dampen off a little bit since there should be some pent-up demand or whatever you call it left in the market? And then also on the competitive dynamics going into 2022, the picture in terms of launches from competitors, we know at least one company has postponed some new launches into next year, which, I guess, after almost benefit you a little bit this year, whether you think that will be a headwind next year, maybe?

Thank you, Carsten. Definitely, third quarter, there was uncertainty, I would say, in July, August, maybe in particular, in August, when the whole delta was out in U.S. and so on. But since then, that have disappeared again, and we have seen a steady improvement across a number of markets. We, of course, also saw Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Japan around Olympics, Australia and New Zealand a little later, in various forms of local lockdowns, they are all being lifted now. So big picture is continuous improvement throughout the period, while we also expect it to continue into fourth quarter. Competitive dynamics, we are in a big market with many players and several of them are in good shape. So this is, I think, a bigger testament to our own strength and performance than potentially competitors not being able to deliver new products to the market.

Our next question comes from Daniel Jelovcan from Mirabaud.

Just one question. To the different countries, I mean, just curious, you mentioned South Korea and Turkey was strong. Was that mainly Oticon More or, I guess, it's probably more the Philips brand. And also, China, you mentioned that growth in your hearing aid was modest. But I think the market was quite strong. I'm trying to understand that because Philips is quite strong as a brand in general in China. So where is the delta here? And then Germany, I understand the high base, but are there some other elements why Germany is not so good at the moment?

Yes. Thank you very much. South Korea and Turkey are just basically doing well across multiple businesses and multiple brands. There's not a single effect out there just doing well, gaining share in the market. China, we don't have statistics. So there's many little evidence and many talks about whether China has lockdowns or no lockdowns and so on. We see some softening out there and maybe also a little bit dampening of our own very strong growth for a long period now, but nothing special there. And then Germany, it is the market that seems to be a little -- obviously, most other European markets, the 2020 setback was very small. But here in the second round and the second wave, the whole psychology in the market and the handling are seen less strong. So there is more skepticism whether things are normalized or not. So the comparison, as you say, is higher, but also back to '19, we are not fully where we should be. And maybe it's also because you have to get through an ENT. And it's a little more complicated process. You can't just walk in from the street, yes, you can, but you have to go back to the ENT and get confirmed, that's correct, you have a hearing loss. So I think the whole dynamics around the German market have just shown to be a little more negative here in second round than in the first round, where they were not profoundly hit.

And maybe a follow-up on NHS. I mean why is it now recovering also of a sudden now?

It's not all of a sudden. I just think the -- yes, sorry. Many of the national health care systems are in their recovery plans. There's less COVID patients on the hospitals. You have procedures found for how to protect the people coming in, et cetera. So it's just a reflection of traffic or fittings are getting up to speed.

And that was the case since when?

During the period gradually.

We have a follow-up question from the line of Maja Pataki from Kepler Cheuvreux.

Just some questions around the recall of the implant side. Of course, this is very uncertain when you think you will have solved the issue. But what is the risk that there could be a bigger box opened with surgeons coming back to you and the implantation of the device or a reputational damage will actually influence your market growth or your company growth and market share development going forward? I mean looking at what we've seen from competitors, a recall always has or always leaves a bit of a time to recover from a reputational standpoint. So what's your view on that?

Thank you, Maja. Yes. Of course, you cannot say it will not have an effect. You are delayed in your growth. It will take time to get back in for sure. But it is -- there's no change to the information just a few weeks back. It is very low numbers we are seeing. We feel as fast as possible that we had to make sure that we have strong confidence, exactly back to the image and the long-term reputation. We don't want uncertainty whether implanting a Oticon medical implant is a good decision or not. And therefore we reacted as we should. And there is and was uncertainty, and there was products that were not living up to expectations, and then you have to do these measures. So there is no new information. There is no indication that it's not a low frequency of failures. So yes, basically, no new information there.

[Operator Instructions] And as there are no more questions registered, I hand back to our speakers.

Yes. Thank you very much for that, and thanks, everybody, for participating. It seems that's it for today. So you know where to find us if you have any additional questions. We'll also be on the road the next couple of days. Soren and I will have the pleasure of being in London actually in person tomorrow. So looking forward to that. Otherwise, it's mostly virtual from here. But let us know if you have any questions, and have a great day.

Yes. Have a great day. Thanks.