Ströer SE & Co. KGaA (SAX) Q3 FY2025 Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Ströer Q3 Figures 2025 Conference Call. I am Sandra, the Chorus Call operator. [Operator Instructions] And the conference is being recorded. [Operator Instructions] The conference must not be recorded for publication or broadcast. At this time, it's my pleasure to hand over to Christian Schmalzl. Please go ahead, sir.

Dear ladies and gentlemen, dear investors and analysts, welcome to our Q3 call. Let's jump straight into the presentation and give you a brief overview of the developments in the first 9 months of fiscal year 2025 and introduce you to some of our news and topics from the last 3 months. Henning will then comment on the developments and effects of our Q3 figures in more detail. This will be followed by remarks on what we expect for the fourth quarter and the year 2025. As always, we are looking forward to your questions after our presentation. With that, let us start the call with a short overview of our 9 months 2025 developments. Before we look at the main KPIs, a brief introductory remark. After a very solid first quarter with revenue growth of around 5% at group level, second quarter of 2025 with revenue declining slightly against a very strong prior year figures due to the UEFA European Championships 2024 in Germany, our third quarter development is a continuation of the previous quarter's development in an environment characterized by political and economic uncertainty. The developments in the first 9 months of the year should be viewed and interpreted against this environment. Overall, revenues in the period January to September rose by around 1% to EUR 1.47 billion. Organic growth for the period was minus 0.4%. Adjusted EBITDA came in at around EUR 414 million compared to EUR 420 million in the same period 2024. Compared with the previous year's figure, EBIT adjusted declined by around 9% due to an increase in D&A compared with the prior year period. Net income adjusted declined on a comparable scale by 10% to EUR 86 million. 9 months 2024 was EUR 96 million. Free cash flow adjusted for the reporting period was EUR 19.1 million, 9 months 2024, EUR 78.3 million, mainly due to higher working capital requirements especially in out-of-home as well as in Dialog and Statista. Henning will come back on this in detail in his comments. In line with our communicated CapEx strategy, which includes a more focused expansion of our digital out-of-home network and to further optimize the utilization of our digital outdoor advertising media, CapEx remained on a comparably low level, slightly higher compared to the 9 months period in 2024. In total, CapEx was EUR 67 million compared to EUR 62 million, including the investments in our new flagship screen, The Whale, with 342 square meter, the largest screen in Germany in Hamburg main station. Let's have a look at the market dynamics for the first 9 months. Major digital platforms continue to perform strongly. Meta has reported 22% growth, while Alphabet including YouTube is up 14%, with YouTube alone contributing 13%. These figures underscore the sustained strength of digital advertising on a global scale. Turning to the German market, the picture is more nuanced. As always, please keep in mind that the Nielsen numbers in the middle of this chart show gross rate card developments, and the net revenue, including all discounts is on average 6 to 7 points lower. The overall advertising market in Germany has remained flat, showing 0% growth again. Traditional media continued to face headwinds. TV advertising is down 4%, while print and radio have seen modest gains on a gross level of 2% and 1%, respectively. Desktop and mobile advertising grew on a gross level by 2%, indicating a slow but steady digital shift. However, out-of-home advertising or out-of-home stands out with a 10% increase, demonstrating its resilience and relevance in the today's media mix. Now let's look at Ströer's performance. Our digital out-of-home, DOOH segment, has grown by 10%, in line with the broader out-of-home market. More importantly, our programmatic digital out-of-home, PDOOH offering, has outpaced the market, delivering 13% growth. This reflects the increasing demand for data-driven automated ad solutions and validates our strategic investments in this area. When we combine digital out-of-home and traditional out-of-home, Ströer's core business has achieved solid 5% growth, outperforming many local peers and traditional channels. As forementioned, it is important to note that the figures for the German market are based on gross numbers, which tend to be, as said, inflated by approximately 6 to 7 percentage points compared to net revenues. Our reporting is based on net numbers, ensuring transparency and comparability. If we isolate the same exercise for Q3, the following picture emerges. The major U.S. players were able to slightly accelerate their growth in the third quarter. However, developments in the German advertising market reflect weaker consumer sentiment and a weak macroeconomic environment. The overall advertising market remains at its low level of minus 2% compared to the same period in Q3. Print category declined slightly compared to the previous quarter and TV marked the low point of this year so far with minus 6% on a gross level. The out-of-home category reports 0 growth. However, if we take into account the discounts, we can continue to expand both the category's market share and its share against the largest advertising category, TV, a trend you've seen in the last quarters. Let me briefly show you 2 examples, which exemplary describe the mechanism as well as the efficiency of out-of-home. In the surrounding of cold season, Danone implemented an eye-catching digital out-of-home campaign for Actimel at train stations, specifically during rush hours when large numbers of people gather and the risk of infection is particularly high. The aim was to highlight the relevance of Actimel as a support for the immune system at exactly the right moment and in the right place. The results speak for themselves. Purchase intent for Actimel increased significantly to 38%. Equally impressive is the recommendation rate with an index of 238. Aided advertising recall reached 55% during the survey period, and Actimel clearly moved to the top of mind of the target group. The market research shows that the combination of relevant content, precise time targeting and placement at the point of infection ensures a significant uplift along the entire marketing funnel from advertising recall to purchase intent. San Pellegrino Lemonade is the second out-of-home campaign we want to highlight. San Pellegrino focused on out-of-home advertising to increase the visibility and awareness of its lemonade products. The communication focused on the natural ingredients of the original lemonade and the full flavor of the zero variety. With its first ever relevant out-of-home campaign in Germany, San Pellegrino has significantly strengthened brand perception and awareness in the lemonade segment. The strong creative implementation, clear communication and high visibility in public spaces formed an excellent basis for further growth and the sustainable establishment of the brand in the German lemonade market. These 2 examples clearly show that outdoor advertising enhanced with special targeting features not only increases reach but also reinforces the advertising message, significantly increasing purchase intent and recommendation rate. These features not only convince already established customers and out-of-home fans, but also rapidly win over new customers. As a result, we now have 2 new important customers in our top 10 digital out-of-home ranking, Lindt and Unilever. Continuous development of our digital out-of-home products is part of our DNA but also an important driver of the success. With the impact booster, we've taken another step forward in our development. The data is clear. Digital out-of-home advertising is a true game changer and a powerful impact booster within the media mix. When we combine TV with digital out-of-home, the effectiveness of the campaign increases significantly. For example, with just 2 TV contacts, adding one digital out-of-home contact raises aided advertising recall from 69% to 76%. Similarly, with 4 TV contacts supplementing with 2 digital out-of-home contacts lifts recall from 80 to an impressive 90%. The impact indices, IX 110 and IX 113 underscore this uplift, demonstrating that the synergy between TV and digital out-of-home delivers a higher return on media investment than TV stand-alone. In essence, TV alone cannot achieve the same level of impact as the combination of TV and digital out-of-home. For analysts and investors, this means that integrating digital out-of-home into the media strategy is not just an option, but a necessity for maximizing campaign effectiveness, driving measurable results. With Social Pulse, we have another example for innovation. It turns public video into an open stage for social pulses, curated by brands and enlivened by authentic community dialogue. Through a seamless one-stop shop process, Social Pulse enables brands to translate the dynamic energy of social media into the physical world. Community-oriented brand messages can now reach target groups even outside the traditional social media bubble. The impact is clear. Social Pulse bridges the gap between digital engagement and real-world presence. It empowers brands to amplify their relevance, foster genuine community interaction and extend their reach far beyond online platforms. Public Video City Urban represents significant leap forward in urban advertising with over 1,190 full motion video screens installed across 21 major cities in Germany, we offer brands a unique and highly visible stage for their messages right in the heart of urban life. These eye-catching screens are strategically placed near points of interest, ensuring that advertising messages are not only seen but also contextually relevant. The use of striking passe-partouts maximizes visibility, making each campaign standout in the bustling city environment. Public Video City Urban is an excellent example for merging advertising in real-world context, delivering maximum impact and engagement. So far on my remarks, and with that, over to Henning.

Thank you, Christian, and a very good morning, everybody. Let us start the finance section, as usual, with a review of the Q3 '25 P&L. In total and against a continuously challenging market context with impaired visibility, the performance of the group in Q3 was characterized by sequential moderation compared to development of the first 6 months. Compared to Q2, however, organic growth was not deaccelerating further. Revenue for the quarter was down by minus 1%. This includes 120 basis points support from nonorganic effects, such as the acquisition of RBL Media. Excluding this effect, organic growth came in at minus 2.1% or 0.2 percentage points better than in the second quarter. EBITDA adjusted amounted to EUR 147 million compared to EUR 156 million in Q3 '24. The exceptional items for the quarter were minus EUR 3.1 million, EUR 0.5 million lower as in Q3 '24. The exceptional items essentially comprise three components: EUR 1.6 million for restructuring measures, especially at the Dialog business, EUR 1.2 million for ERP transformation and EUR 0.2 million transactional exchange rate effects, mainly as the U.S. dollar developed against Statista in Q3 '25. Accordingly, reported EBITDA was EUR 144 million after EUR 153 million last year. Depreciation and amortization increased from EUR 81 million to EUR 84 million or by 4%, broadly in line with the development in the preceding quarters. With that, reported EBIT for the quarter came in at EUR 60 million, some EUR 12 million lower compared with Q3 '24. The financial results slightly improved against the same period '24 to now EUR 17.6 million. For the first 9 months, the financial result has improved by around EUR 6 million, excluding some noncash effects mainly from U.S. dollar-dominated internal financing at Statista, the underlying improvement is a little less. Nevertheless, lower rates are still, to some extent, compensated for by around EUR 100 million higher average net debt year-over-year. Earnings before tax decreased to EUR 43 million after EUR 54 million in Q3 of the prior year. The tax rate was basically unchanged with around 30% in the reporting period. And with that, the tax result follows the development of EBT. All in all, reported net income for the quarter came in at EUR 30 million after EUR 38 million in Q3 '24. Adjustments were slightly up by EUR 0.8 million as the increased PPA adjustments due to RBL acquisition exceeded the lower EBITDA adjustments. Accordingly, net income adjusted was EUR 34 million after EUR 41 million in the prior year. Let us now switch over to the cash flow. Our cash flow in the third quarter this year compares against a strong development in the same period in prior year. Last year, almost every line item presented considerable improvements on the back of strong growth supported by the effects of major sports events. Looking at the working capital, the first thing we should remember is that out-of-home media is structurally a negative working capital business. Strong sales growth throughout the first 9 months last year also implied good working capital improvements. This year, now with the business basically turning in flat sales in Q2 and Q3, this effect is unwinding. More than 2/3 of the delta of EUR 35 million comparing the working capital outflow of the first 9 months year-over-year is attributable to the out-of-home media segment. The remainder stems primarily from the expansion of our Dialog business and from Statista, where deteriorating inbound subscription sales year-over-year led to lower deferred income. Based on our outlook for Q4, we think that regarding working capital, the worst is behind us, and we shall see some stabilization going forward. EBITDA and working capital developments explain the development of Q3 operating cash flow for the most part. On top in Q3, we saw a EUR 6 million higher investments year-over-year resulting from the out-of-home segment. For Q4, we are currently expecting an increase of more or less the same amount. Let me come to the net debt development. In the sequential view from the end of the second quarter to the end of the third quarter '25, net debt was down by roughly EUR 11 million, including the adjusted free cash flow for the third quarter of plus EUR 21 million and cash out from minority dividends of minus EUR 8 million. The remainder of around minus EUR 2 million mainly relates to the net effect of higher debt for accrued interest and lower debt for financial liabilities recognized from profit transfer agreements at companies with minority interests. Net debt year-over-year was up by EUR 150 million to EUR 945 million, including the accumulated free cash flow over the last 12 months of EUR 99 million, cash-out for the acquisition of RBL Media amounting to minus EUR 106 million, cash-out for dividend payments of minus EUR 128 million and cash-out of minus EUR 13 million for minority dividends. The remaining difference of minus EUR 2 million is, among others, due to an increase of overpayments from customers, plus EUR 2 million, and a decrease of accrued interest expenses, minus EUR 3 million. With that, our leverage ratio in the third quarter amounted to 2.53x after 2.1x at the end of prior year's Q3. Sequentially, from Q2 to Q3, the leverage ratio was broadly stable. Let us now take a look at the performance of the individual operating segments in the past quarter, starting with our core segment, out-of-home media. Out-of-home media, against a continuously challenging market context, turned in broadly stable sales. Compared to the second quarter, where growth was around 1%, not a big change and in line with our outlook for the third quarter. At the same time, though, prior year comps were much easier for Q3, but also the market deteriorated further, in particular, if we exclude online and considering industry-wide higher discounts. So all in all, in Q3, we continued to gain share from legacy media outlets in a declining ad market. With that, sales for the quarter came in at EUR 236 million, including a contribution of EUR 5 million from RBL. Our Classic business grew slightly from EUR 131 million to EUR 132 million, while digital out-of-home sales declined slightly by EUR 0.6 million. Digital out-of-home continues to account for more than 40% of outdoor advertising sales if we exclude the services. For the cumulative period, digital out-of-home grew significantly by more than 10%, while classic outdoor advertising showed solid growth of 1.4% in the first 9 months. EBITDA adjusted for the quarter was down by EUR 1 million and includes tight cost control established via a comprehensive cost and hiring freeze in place since late July. Q3 revenue for Digital and Dialog Media amounted to EUR 206 million after EUR 212 million in the prior year period. Digital media came in at EUR 103 million compared to EUR 112 million in Q3 '24. Within Digital media, sales from our owned assets, such as programmatic public video and owned Internet content, including T-Online, were almost stable. Revenues from selling ads on third-party assets, however, declined. Dialog Media showed a sales increase of 3.4% from EUR 100 million to EUR 103 million. However, the two Dialog activities, call center and direct marketing, showed still different sales dynamics in the quarter. Our call center activities grew by as much as 12% and thus more than overcompensated for the sales decline in the door-to-door business, where Q3 revenue was still down, albeit showing some stabilization compared to a very challenging first half. In total, the segment EBITDA adjusted for the third quarter came in at EUR 32 million. Let me take a moment to explain a few topics about our last acquisition in the call center space. Effective from the beginning of October, we will consolidate the activities of AMEVIDA. AMEVIDA is an established provider in the field of dialog marketing with a strong focus on sales and sales-related services. We acquired the business in the course of insolvency proceedings for an eligible purchase price. As part of the integration, the acquired business in the future be operated largely from our existing overhead infrastructure. On top of that, we optimize the existing portfolio of locations and renegotiate existing lease contracts so that altogether, we will be able to operate AMEVIDA profitably from day 1 without incurring any relevant one-off costs. For the full year '26, we shall have more than 1,300 additional FTEs, generating more than EUR 60 million in revenue with an expected mid-single-digit million euro contribution to EBITDA. In terms of customer structure with that acquisition, we will strengthen our position, helping mostly already existing clients in their sales process. As opposed to a pure service-related business, this will offer a higher margin potential going forward. Finally, some comments on our Data as a Service and E-Commerce segment with Statista and Asam. Q3 revenue was stable for the segment, thereby a decline in Statista was compensated by moderate growth at Asam. Statista's revenue development in the third quarter was slightly up on a currency-adjusted basis. While we are making encouraging progress on the API integration with clients, we're still facing considerable pressure on the inbound platform sales. This is now amplified by impaired visibility on Google following the reduction of Statista content available without paywall restrictions and changed user search behavior in the context of AI search. The focus remains on driving demand through efficient and intelligent integration via our API interface. We have already developed a seamless connection between a large number of customer-owned databases and Statista via MCP servers. Blue-chip Statista clients moved to our new solution, Connect, such as leading payment and e-commerce players. Statista will further develop its existing customer base and new clients towards these new solutions. Feedback so far is positive, and we are working on a comprehensive pipeline of upcoming integrations. At the same time, we are also intensely working on improving our internal efficiency in producing our stats content. Based on the adoption of comprehensive AI tooling, we will adjust our staff by around 80 employees. For this measure, we will recognize around EUR 3 million restructuring costs qualifying as adjustments in Q4. From this measure alone, we shall see PEX improving recurrently by around EUR 4 million. Let us now have a look on how Asam performed in Q3. And total revenues for the quarter came in at EUR 46 million or EUR 1 million higher when compared with the same period in '24. This development was mainly driven by good growth in our business with drugstore retailers, more than offsetting declining online and TV sales. Looking at the cumulative period from January to September, the development altogether still reflects weak consumer sentiment, and we do not expect this to change in Q4. Q3 earnings for the segment came in at EUR 10 million. And with that, let me hand you over back to Christian for the outlook and some closing remarks.

Before ending the presentation, let me just have some comments on the outlook for Q4 and full year 2025 and the current trading momentum. So what do we expect for Q4 and the remainder of the year? Based on current order book, we expect out-of-home media in a low to mid-single-digit area. So what we see at the moment is a slight acceleration again versus Q3. Digital and Dialog Media with revenue development ahead of Q3 growth rate. DaaS and E-Commerce revenue growth rate broadly in line with the first 9 months. The guidance for 2025, therefore updated on September 18, 2025, remains unchanged, and mid-long term, we continue to expect double-digit top line growth on average in our core out-of-home business. With that, let me now close the presentation with a short look into our financial calendar for 2026, which are the presentation of our preliminary figures for the 2025 financial year on March 5, 2026, the publication of the 2025 Annual Report and other financial statements on March 26, followed by the Q1 report, which we will publish on May 12. We will present the development for the second quarter and the first half of the year 2026 on August 13. Last but not least, we've scheduled the figures for the third quarter for November 12. As always, updates, reports and roadshow presentations can be found on our IR website. Thank you, everyone, and we are now happy to take your questions.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Annick Maas from Bernstein.

So my first question is, I think in the press release, you're saying that your conversations with clients suggest that 2026 would see an acceleration of out-of-home growth. So my question is, how much of your order book is concerned with these conversations? How far are they going out? If you can give us a bit more details about that comment. My second question is around Statista. A couple of questions there. First of all, can you tell us how much of your Statista traffic is direct? And then secondly, I think you've been timing various different new monetization avenues for Statista. If you could give us a little bit of an update there. And then my third one is on the working capital change, you've said that the worst is behind us. What does that mean? If you can give us a bit further clarification. What you're expecting for working capital change in the fourth quarter?

Annick, the first question was about '26, right? I didn't hear it 100%.

Absolutely. It was about '26. The comment that you made in the press release to give us a bit more detail around that.

So the same expression, like for the free cash flow is for order intake. The worst behind us. We saw a really significant crisis this year, which you can only compare from the impact of the world financial crisis or the corona pandemic. So this trade war really created a lot of uncertainty. I mean, this was discussed a million of times, but we could see that our customers actually reacted to that. And we see now that we had a lot of conversations now in the last weeks and our customers, I mean, the agencies, they all already had the conversation with the customers for next year. And we see clearly that the trade momentum is coming -- I would say, coming back to normal. So we would expect in the overall market to see a slight growth next year. And I mean, if you look back to '24 and '23, even if the market is flat, it should be enough for us to grow our core business, like we've said here in the guidance, by double digit. So that is actually how we expect the development right now. So for now, this trade war crisis is over. Uncertainty is reducing. And overall, the agencies are looking with much more confidence in the next year.

I think on your second question, Statista, well, direct traffic in general probably less than 25%. So most of the traffic is from the ultimate traffic on statista.com and subsites in the different countries is coming via organic search. But the business model ultimately is not driven by traffic. So what we sell is access to the database or the access now more and more via Statista Connect to the data volume via direct APIs. So the traffic of Statista has no direct link back to revenue development because it's not like a classic publisher where traffic defines ultimately the eyeballs, and the eyeballs ultimately define the monetization potential. Nevertheless, and I think that's something we've highlighted last quarter, that organic search traffic via Google is going down and a lot of potential new users have their first contact with the website. So the kind of inbound potential on the sales side for the product and for the ultimate monetization case has clearly gone down. Also we have to say, I think, historically, we've been converting less than 0.5% of the overall traffic and new users into paying customers. So I think it's one feature of the business model but not the crucial one. The key point is, is the database and what we have there, not proprietary, but unsubstitutable. So on the long run, corporates will want the access to the database no matter if it's happening directly or via LLMs.

On your last question, Annick, on working capital. I mean, first of all, let's remind us that Q4 is just for seasonality reasons, our strongest cash flow quarter always. In terms of working capital, I think there's a few positives that should support working capital traction in Q4 compared to what we've seen in the first 9 months, and this is, of course, I think our more constructive outlook on out-of-home sales right now. At the same time, there will be still a few detractors. One of them will be Statista, where I think we should continuously expect pressure on inbound sales and the slower sales of subscriptions that will continuously hurt the deferred income position. And I talked about AMEVIDA now joining the group, which will also lead to, I'd say, some buildup of working capital requirement in the fourth quarter. Net-net, I think, I would say our internal target is to come as close as possible to the prior year free cash flow in the fourth quarter. Ultimately, obviously, it will depend how the business maps out, but this is the internal target to get as close as possible to prior year Q4 cash flow.

The next question comes from Craig Abbott from Kepler Cheuvreux.

Well, actually, my first question was also going to be on more visibility on free cash flow in Q4, but you just answered that. Two questions. One on out-of-home media. You talked about it accelerating in '26. Could you maybe just talk us around a little bit to what extent you're taking the strong Q1 comp into account? Because, obviously, it will still be quite tough. And sticking with out-of-home media, you saw flattish digital sales actually in Q3. I assume this is primarily temporary due to the very weak conditions in Q3 overall. But if you could just give us some reassurance here on what you're seeing in terms of pickup in the growth rate in digital out-of-home. And the third question is moving over to the Digital and Dialog division, you talked clearly about the weakness in third-party ad trading in Q3. Do you think this is primarily just cyclical weakness? Or are you concerned that it may be more structural?

Look, the digital out-of-home development in Q3 reflects actually the crisis because our customers were really tactical on the spending side. So that ended up in a curious situation that analog out-of-home was growing stronger than digital out-of-home. I think this is maybe the last time you're going to see that in the next 5 years because we have a very strong -- but this is more short term. You can book it actually whatever in real-time. And in analog, you need a couple of weeks lead time. And this reflects perfectly this extraordinary situation what we had this year. And it was, for us and for everybody, a weird crisis because normally, the crisis starts with a big bang, and we know the crisis. And these crisis start step by step by step, with the famous Liberation Day of Donald Trump, when nobody knew what's going to happen because it was first time experienced, the trade war between the U.S. and the European Union. Nobody ever had experience with that. And this is exactly -- you put the finger on the right point, is reflecting this crisis situation. So on full year, I mean, Christian already reported the numbers for the full year already looks different. And we see now strong demand on digital on Q4 for Christmas, et cetera. And this is, from our point of view, clearly, a one-off, what I already said, reflected the special situation we had in this year. So I mean, what I already said for '26, we have no doubt that our growth profile comes back to normal, because the trade war is finished and, therefore, confidence is back in the media market. I mean, the overall market, I already said we're not going to see explosion next year. But if the market is flat or slightly growing, it's enough for us to grow double digit because there's a big positive momentum for out-of-home, also driven by the fact that linear TV reach is going constantly down and people are looking for alternative solutions in the upper funnel. So print is obviously going down quite fast. Linear TV now is under pressure already for the third consecutive year in a row. And our advertisers are reconsidering their strategy throughout the funnel. I mean, performance is strong, obviously. So the American platform, they have a strong business. But in the upper funnel, we are getting stronger and stronger, driven especially by digital out-of-home. And this is a development what we are expecting not only for next year, but also for the next, whatever, 5 to 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 years. It's a long-term development. It's underlying structural growth.

I mean, maybe building on what Udo just said, Craig, I think also if you think about Q1 and Q2 next year, obviously, I think it's fair to say that the difference of the base is quite significant, right? So we had like 15% growth in Q1 and then basically moved to flat or 1% in the second quarter. So I think it's fair to say that looking at the first half, development will be somewhat back-end loaded, right?

And on your question on third-party sales on online media in general, on the one hand, yes, you're right that when we look at our total digital business within Digital and Dialog, we clearly see that our own portal, especially T-Online is performing, I would say, well in that environment and quite robust. I would say the parts that are more challenging is the inventory that we have from third-party publishers. Again, that's, I think, about 25% to 30% of the profit within that overall business. I think it's more driven there by higher volatility in the traffic of our third-party publishers. But before that, and I think that's the most important point, and just reflecting what Udo said, I think the macro environment at the moment is absolutely unique and outstanding. The fact that classic out-of-home has a better growth rate than digital out-of-home says something in itself. That's why I would say what you see at the moment in the digital media is like 80% cyclical, and 20% is more like structurally softer traffic development on the third-party publishing side. That's also something -- Google is updating the algorithm at the moment relatively often. So it's not an AI impact. It's just normal volatility in traffic development of some of the verticals that we've integrated from third-party publishers.

And by the way, Craig, I mean if you look on 2025, I think it's not what we wanted originally before Trump started this trade war. But I mean, if you look at the crisis, the performance is quite solid. I mean, the overall market, nobody knows exactly because there's no data. But we guess that is, in fact, should be down around 10% on overall year. So -- and that's what we see also in the last years. So we are outperforming the market by 10 percentage -- 10 to 15 percentage points, and we are outperforming TV by 12 to 15 percentage points. And this is, for us, the most important KPI to understand that this structural growth, what we have is very intact even in the crisis.

The next question comes from Marcus Diebel from JPMorgan.

I think most of my questions have been asked. But nevertheless, Henning, on the cash flow again. I mean, you made it very clear where the working capital effects come from and that it gets better very soon. This investment line before M&A, the EUR 27.7 million, can you just explain a bit more what that actually is? The other components, I think I understand of the free cash flow. And then again, I think more on the broader advertising environment and the debate, what happened to digital. I mean, do you see at least a sort of like higher pickup also at the smaller clients? You obviously get very excited about the smaller screens that you basically place in shop windows. Is that really the sort of like push of digital also happening at the SMEs? I still struggle a little bit to see the development of digital versus analog in Q3. I obviously heard your comments. But to me, it's not really clear why we should assume it should get much better in '26.

Because, Marcus, we have the conversations right now. So we talk -- the clients and the agencies for the clients, they are now planning '26. So in all the big corporates, the budget for next year is now clear or clear in the next 3 or 4 days. So we are in talks to all our customers, all our big customers, all the agencies, so -- and we are negotiating all the commitments for '26. So every agency, we have a number on the table, and that's why we are convinced it's going to change because it's different. So that's the only thing we can say. There's no hope that is...

There's no optimism, basically.

No, no optimism. That's what we're discussing. If somebody says, look, next year, we spend EUR 20 million more. It's not optimism. I mean, we are fixing all the deals. So every media company knows, let's say, in the latest 4 or 6 weeks from now, has a very, very clear indication of what is happening next year. I mean, media budgets are not allocated from big corporates overnight. There is a yearly budgeting process. And otherwise also, the agencies, in the next 4 or 5 weeks, let's say, latest until mid of -- end of January, that is already super late. The agencies close all the commitments for '26. So this is a process we are right now in. But the key point is this uncertainty is over. The uncertainty is over, and that's what I tried to express, and Christian as well. I mean, look, the digital, you can book it overnight. And in the situation -- the uncertainty situation, like we had a unique uncertainty in Q2 and Q3, people have budgets but they're waiting what's happening until they spend. And then they decide on Wednesday, if they spend it next week. And in this circumstance, people didn't spend. They just had a meeting last week with one of the two biggest agencies in Germany and said, we lost EUR 100 million in the summer, unexpected because people didn't spend.

But that's more probably sort of like national clients. My question was more in regards to the sort of like the SMEs and their willingness to adopt digital even more.

Yes, but I think...

Does that make sense?

Yes, absolutely. I think just the share of SMEs in total within our out-of-home portfolios, like if you really look at the small clients, I don't know, it's 10%, 15%, roughly. And because they focus on the location nearby their stores, they go for the next best location. So that does not need to be necessarily a digital one. So it does makes sense for them to, I don't know, focus on digital if the screen is just not close enough to their store. That's why the adoption to digital is less driven by their willingness to do so and more based on the rollout. Do we have more and more inventory close to them? And that's, I think, the point that Udo made. We are moving smaller formats into the inner cities, which just bring smaller screens, less CapEx closer to SMEs so that they also have the opportunity because before that, there was no digital screen because it was not possible to bring those large formats close to the stores.

Look, there is something between roadside and retail at the end. So as you all know, that retail is very much a fashion. That's also our move into retail that we go in the shop windows of smaller screens because, first, we come in areas where we have nothing to offer right now. And second, we create a new offer. For example, pharmacy shop windows are very attractive to pharmaceutical companies. And this is something where we -- and the development is quite promising, where we expect to create a new market segment, by targeting locations which we couldn't target up to now, which we couldn't offer to our customers up to now.

Marcus, on your question on the cash flow from investments, what is in that? It's basically all cash investments before M&A. However, there's not much. There's nearly almost no M&A that we need to talk about. The only thing which it doesn't include would be addition to fixed assets from additional leasing contracts. So that, I think, is a very pure cash flow number. The increase in the quarter stems from the out-of-home business, as I said in the speech. We talked about things like The Whale, the huge billboard in Hamburg, one that we talked about, let's say, this public city window. So there's a bit more, let's say, focused investment now after the first 2 quarters, we were more moving like sideways. And also in Q3, I think we had, I think, a low single-digit million euro in out-of-home for the renewal of the software license that is supporting the digital out-of-home technology. So that is another point. Looking at the breakdown, you can assume that more or less half of the investment cash-out is for out-of-home and the remainder would be like the remainder would be 1/3 Digital and Dialog and 2/3 on Data as a Service and E-Commerce. And within Data as a Service, I think you guys all know that we do also capitalize our stat content and depreciate it. So also those costs have actually then capitalized on the balance sheet and written down. I hope that answers your question.

By the way, The Whale is for us a really landmark project, and we're working 10 years on that. And we're going to expect more turnover from The Whale than most of our city contracts. So it's the biggest screen in Europe from this type of screens. And Hamburg is with 500,000 people per day, the most frequented area, place, whatever, in Germany by far. So the Frankfurt Airport has 170,000. And Frankfurt Airport and Hamburg Railway Station has 500,000. So we're going to launch it now in December 1. And that is only one screen, but it's a big project for us and gives also more visibility to out-of-home in Germany.

Okay. I just want to know what it is.

[Operator Instructions] The next question comes from Julien Roch from Barclays.

My first question is on Statista, to try to understand the change in the business model. So maybe can you tell us how many paying subscribers do you have at Statista? How many are large and what could potentially move to having your data incorporated in the LLM? How many have already moved and are paying you? And if they are paying, what is the revenue versus the own model? That's number one. Then number two, on Asam. I know current trading are not great, but any update on disposal? And then on AMEVIDA, Henning, did you say 15 or 50 in terms of revenue in 2026? And for Udo, why do you like the Dialog business so much? Because I would think that is one of the reasons why your multiple is so low, is the diversified nature of your company.

Yes. Thank you. I don't like the Dialog business so much. I mean, we made the deal to make an exit more likely because this is -- I mean, originally, we started a Dialog business because we wanted to sell. And this is a while ago and because of the Data Protection Act, we're not able to sell on the phone, really, except if you have a double opt-in. But now we have 50-50 sales and service. And I think this makes it much more likely that we are going to find an exit sooner or later. I mean, we clearly focus on our core business. But we are very, let's say, opportunistic in terms of if there's a window of opportunity, then we're clearly going to exit the noncore business, what we always said. But that's unchanged. But we cannot influence circumstances that is out of our control. But we think this -- I mean, we bought here for EUR 250,000, EUR 60 million turnover with EUR 5 million profit and moved the service to sales from, let's say, 70-30 to 50-50. So it's a much more attractive profile now of the company. And we are very optimistic that delivers a good cash flow next year. But we are -- what I already said, this is noncore, and there is no strategic area. We discussed it for a while, if we do the acquisition or not, because, obviously, it was a question how would that perceived in the capital market. But it was really value accretive to this call center business, and that's why we finally did it.

Well, building on that and coming back to the numbers, what I said is we expect for full fiscal '26 that we will have more than 1,300 additional FTEs, mostly agents, right? Those shall generate more than EUR 60 million, 6-0, in sales, and we expect a mid-single-digit million euro amount in terms of EBITDA contribution. For now, this current fiscal year, probably it's fair to assume that we expect, let's say, probably around about EUR 15 million sales from AMEVIDA, so more or less EUR 5 million each and every month now. What also you should bear in mind what I said about the working capital, we would expect a working capital requirement now, additionally working capital requirement from AMEVIDA in the mid-single-digit million euro range for Q4. I hope that explains your question.

Back on your Statista question about client structure and the changing business model and Statista Connect, I'm just reading out from the sales reporting, the opportunities that we've been working on over the last 5 to 6 months and then the one opportunities. So from May to September, opportunities in May 27, in June 24, in July 31, in August 39 and September 17. So you see ongoing interactions with clients that we actively see where and how we can integrate in their LLMs. One opportunities from May to September 5, 5, 6, 8, 17. So we meanwhile have roughly 30 corporates globally on that new model and accelerating both opportunities as well as one client. And if you look at the profile of the customers at the moment, you have as the first movers, large consultancies in the range of companies like McKinsey or Boston Consulting. You have larger agencies like companies as WPP or Omnicom. We have a lot of digital clients that do a lot of analytics, so also companies like Google and PayPal are on that list, also other classic industry companies like Volkswagen or Telekom. So I think it's across the range, but the profile of a typical customer of Statista Connect with an own LLM that should have access to the database is clearly large global multinational corporates.

It's all about execution now. I think the underlying thesis now is clear to everybody who used or collect experience of LLMs in the last months and quarters. I mean, if the database is bad, the answers are c***. And this is, I think, totally transparent now to everybody. So that's why we see clearly a different way how we're going to distribute our data, what Christian just described. But there's no doubt that there is a big opportunity for Statista and an important role because if you don't have access to reliable data, your LLM is not creating anything. So that's all about execution now. We have to connect with this company GPTs, and we have to find the best possible billing systems and pricing strategy. And that's the process we are right now in.

And just following up. So you're saying, if I understood correctly, you already have 30 clients that have signed on Statista Connect, right? And they're all large global multinationals. So maybe if you could remind us how many total clients you have at Statista and then how many kind of large multinational that could potentially take Statista Connect. So we have an idea of the kind of opportunity. And then lastly, if you've signed 30 clients, can we get an idea of the subscription before and after? I mean, is it the same price? Is it more expensive, is it cheaper?

That's what I tried to describe before. We are in a transition period. And this transition period has for me two levels. One is the strategic level. It's, let's say, to make it very simple, is Statista needed an LLM-driven future. And let's say, 18 months ago, nobody could deliver a reliable answer. Now we can say 100% yes. And this is, for Statista value creation, the key and most important factor. So the second is more, let's say, technical, operational level. What is the pricing system? I have to say we don't know yet because, look, we are connecting now and it takes always -- I mean, it's a very complicated technical thing to connect Statista to a company GPT, which are right now developing. And now we collect the first. We have now agreed on pricing, let's say, EUR 0.50 per take, which I think is far too expensive because we expect the traffic to explode. I'll give an example, a big, let's say, consulting company, global consulting company. Up to now, we sold 1,500 seats. But in the future, there are 20,000 consultants having access to Statista. So nobody knows now if the traffic is 10x, 100x, 5x, 500x because the company GPT will decide if they need access to Statista data, yes or no. So now we agreed on this, let's say, test environment for a certain budget on EUR 0.50 per take. I think we're going to end up on a lower price per take because the access, the traffic will explode because we have 1,500 specialists up to now. And now we have everybody who has access to Statista. And so that's why we agree -- both sides agreed in this case on a certain budget, let's say, whatever, EUR 100,000. And then we collect experience and then we're going to reprice it. So that's why I said it's all about execution right now. But the most important question was, is there a need for Statista? And we can say now there is 100%, yes, plus LLMs will make Statista more valuable at the end because of the huge amount of data, it became more and more difficult to navigate through Statista data and you need to be really a specialist. And no CEO could use Statista data. You have to ask somebody who ask somebody who is really specialist and how to use it. The future, and now what we're doing now means everybody has access without even realizing it because a part of the company knowledge management system. And we have now, whatever, a big waiting line, but every one of our customer who is building a company knowledge management system wants to do the same, sign up for Connect and connect Statista data into your LLM environment. So that's -- but it's execution now. I mean, the key point was the strategic point. And this, I have to say, we are very confident or 100% convinced that the importance of Statista for our clients is not going to shrink at all through the introduction of LLM in any company environment.

And then on Asam?

I think we already said everything. So Asam, I mean, if I look back, we made a mistake to talk about the exit of Asam, while it's clearly noncore, we want to exit it. Our bank said, don't start the process now because it is the wrong environment. And we're saying, but our shareholders want us to exit it. So we have the discussion every 3 months. There's always a trade-off between are we waiting because we believe we get EUR 100 million more, or do we exit now because we believe the effect of exiting it on the stock price is bigger than the loss we have in the sales price. And so that is -- but I think we made perfectly clear, and I also want to report that today, we focus on our core business, and we are also working on possible restructuring of the organization, of the group to reflect that more clear to the outside. The core business is clearly what we are focusing. This is, let's say, a financial investment at the end now for us, so yes, it's like a venture for us. So that's, at the moment, we see a good compromise between a reasonable sales price and the impact of the share price, we're going to exit it. I mean, if you look at the performance, is -- if you look on the overall market, I think the performance is very solid. But it's not growing this year because, I mean, overall, not only in the advertising market, we saw, I think, a big uncertainty also on the consumer side because in Germany, I mean, 40% of the jobs are based on exports. So the first trade war ever with our biggest friend, I think, was a shock for everybody here. And everybody is really happy that things are now coming to an end here and we can look -- and we can handle the achieved agreement, if you like them or not, but that's what we always said. I mean, the problem is not if you pay 50% tax or not. The problem is that if you don't know what's going to happen, it means people are not spending because they are waiting. And this is what I already said. Now that's what you saw in digital ad spend. Everything was short term, people were reluctant to spend, keeps the money in. If you talk to the agencies now, they say, okay, the money is coming back. We have a clear indication of our customers that the money we lost is coming back, and that's what gives us strong confidence in our core business.

The next question comes from Anna Patrice from Berenberg.

Just follow-up questions from my side, please. First, I understand the volatility in digital out-of-home. But could you explain why the classic out-of-home has increased so much in Q3? That's one question. And the second question is on the margins in their Digital and Dialog. My understanding is that your online portals are performing well, but this is a high margin basis. So then why overall margin has declined in this segment in Q3?

Anna Patrice, it was virtually impossible to understand the question. Maybe can you repeat it like in the short form.

Sorry, sorry. Can you hear me well?

Now better.

Now better.

Okay, sorry. So the first question is about the out-of-home in Q3. I understand why digital was volatile. I couldn't understand why classical or classic out-of-home has increased because, here, you have longer lead time. So how could you increase all of a sudden by so much? And then in the Q4, what are the trends? Do you see again a decline in digital and increase in classical? Or do you have increase in classic and also in the digital? And hence, overall, you have low to mid-single-digit increase in Q4 this year. That's on the out-of-home. And then on the Digital and Dialog, my understanding is that your own online portals were performing better, and that's where you have higher margins. So why then overall margin has declined in Q3 in the Digital and Dialog?

Okay. Maybe on the out-of-home business, I think just referring back to what Udo said, I think the logics of digital out-of-home or digital media in general is that the lead times are rather short. So if there is a normal budget process, then clients book also throughout the quarter. And at the end or in the second half of the quarter, all the money goes to the short-term bookable media, the ones with the short lead times. That's online media but also digital out-of-home. So what we've seen in that uncertainty is that additional spend that comes throughout the quarter or the kind of spot market was extremely soft because clients didn't spend that still available money and kept it. So the media that suffered the most from that development are the ones with the short lead times that normally are the ones that only benefit from that money. Classic out-of-home has lead times of normally 6 to 8 weeks. And a lot of clients book it already 6 to 8 months in advance to make sure that they get exactly what they want. So there are no -- like the extra spend on classic out-of-home for the second half of a quarter in the second half quarter is really limited. So there is nothing that you could lose short term. The loss that you have short term is in the short-lead media if that kind of extra money throughout the quarter doesn't come and if clients are holding back budgets. So I think that explains why surprisingly, classic is suddenly a little bit better than digital out-of-home in that specific quarter, which is really a unique situation. We haven't seen something like that. I think the last time where I saw classic outperforming digital was in the pandemic because it was possible to cancel digital faster than classic because of the shorter lead times.

On your question on Digital and Dialog, I mean, your assumption is right, right, that the sales performance in the actually highest margin area of that segment was relatively stable, as we said in the call. So the earnings deviation is not coming from, I would say, the sales performance on the owned content. The earnings decline more or less entirely relates to the lost business, let's say, on third-party ads and also, to some extent, on -- for the quarter now slower programmatic public video performance. I think this is the two drivers. So there's one weaker spot in the own content, which comes by way of programmatic public video, plus the earnings pressure from losing sales on third-party inventory sales.

The next question comes from Miro Zuzak from JMS Investment.

Can you hear me?

Yes.

Yes, yes. Very well.

I have a couple of questions. The first one for Udo. You mentioned that you can see an acceleration in Q4 versus Q3. You elaborated on the crisis which you mentioned from the tariff war. Are we back to normal already in Germany? Or do you still see an impact from this crisis?

I think we are in the recovery phase. So I have a strong feeling there for '26, we are back to normal. But for the full year. I mean, first quarter last year was very strong because we had elections also. But for the full year, I think we are back to normal. And in Q4, let's say, for the last 7 weeks, we are 6 weeks above previous year. And so we will see in 4 weeks if we're really back to normal. But business growing stronger than Q3, and we see that this uncertainty stuff is out of the market right now. So now we -- what Christian also said before, this is a completely unique situation that, I mean, we expect analog to grow also, but low single digit, and the growth will come mostly from digital out-of-home. And I think what I already said in the beginning, the difficulty with the crisis was that nobody -- there was no clear start with a big bang or something. It came step by step by step, but like everything for next -- which never happened before. We had in the last 4, 5 years now two first-time crisis, one pandemic and one trade war with our strongest partner. So this is -- I mean, I'm 30 years in business. It never happened before. But in case it happens again, now we see -- now we know that there is a strong impact. If I compare with the last 30 years, and I have to say the trade war crisis, you can only compare it with the World Financial Crisis in 2008 and '09 and the pandemic. This is in the last 30 years, 1 of the 3 biggest crisis, and this is actually reflected in the spending. And now we see confidence coming back. And I would say we are -- what I already said, for next year, we are expecting a normalized trading environment. We expect the overall market to be flat, maybe growing 1% or 2%, maybe 3%, something like this. But this is enough for us to grow the business double digit. And that what you -- if you look back in '24 and '23, GDP was down minus 0.5%, minus 0.3%. The market was even slightly shrinking, and we could grow the business double digit or even 12% in '24. So because this underlying structural growth that I already described before, if you look on the upper funnel, brand building that is out-of-home is strongly located in the upper funnel. Our main competitors is TV and print. And linear TV is losing share, losing reach constantly. And by losing reach, you lose ad dollars. So that's -- we have a lot of discussions with customers, they say, okay, we need to find new solutions for the upper funnel, and we are absolutely interested in developing new solutions. At the same time, we have to realize that the media market is very conservative. And we have still EUR 200 million spend in yellow pages and nobody saw a yellow pages in the last 20 years. So generally, people are doing the same split next year what we did last year, and then you can adjust gradually. And so that's why the market is also super stable. Don't forget, we show a clear growth this year in one of the worst environments in the last 30 years. I mean, this is also a very strong sign for the underlying structural growth. But to come back to one sentence, again, '26, we expect a normalized trading environment.

Okay. Cool. And the second one for Henning regarding the exceptionals that you booked. I mean, it's a very constant number since 2023. Can we expect these exceptionals and these adjustments to continue? Or is the baseline principally 0 every year? And then if there is something you book it as exceptional?

Well, I think, Miro, first, if you take like a wider perspective or I think up until '23, we have seen a consistent decline of those adjustments. One major impact last year was obviously the cost that arose from working on the transaction on the core business. Moreover, I think the point is, I mean, there will always be, I would say, restructuring in a group looking at the portfolio that has our size. So I think there should always be some sort of base level. I mean, think about what I said -- told you about Statista. But that's it, right? So I think it's probably fair to say that overall, we would feel more comfortable level way below EUR 15 million for a year. Sometimes there's stuff which is special. But I think we shouldn't expect that this number is going to grow up big time. Will it ever be 0? Probably not if the portfolio -- at least the portfolio remains as complex as it is. So as I said, there's always sort of restructuring initiatives that we're working on.

Yes. We had, in 2018, '19, I think we had like the peak after a lot of acquisitions, the 4 -- 5, 6 years before. I think at that time, adjustments were 5.5%, even 6% of EBITDA. I think at the moment, we are, as Henning said, 15% as a normal run rate is like 2%, 2.5% of what we do. So that's why I think it's -- the long-term trend shows that there will be always something, but it's a minor item in the low single-digit percentage range of EBITDA.

However, for the current fiscal year, I think we're probably more close to 20 than to 50.

Okay. Cool. And the last one, share price of EUR 36, given basically your free cash flow profile, wouldn't it make sense to take opportunity to basically buy some shares at this level?

It's definitely an opportunity. We are thinking about it, but there's no decision up to now. The share price obviously includes, for the moment, a very big skepticism of the capital markets for what's happening. That's also why we want to send today a clear message here. And I mean if I look back, it's maybe the worst share price ever in comparison to what we produce in cash. So we are thinking about it, but there's no decision up to now. But clearly, that is an option which is also interesting to our shareholders.

We have a follow-up question from Craig Abbott from Kepler Cheuvreux.

Sorry, I just want to come back on Statista again. I mean, you gave us quite a bit of insight. And the transition that's taking place with your large customers over Statista Connect. And I fully appreciate that you don't have the visibility yet yourself. As you just said, you think the data consumption will be quite significant. Therefore, the revenue potential over time could be quite significant. But as we're mapping out over the next couple of quarters, and we're thinking about the declines in inbound versus this transition taking place with the larger customers to the LLMs, I mean, just should we be thinking in terms of net-net impact on revenues for the next couple of quarters? Should we be thinking sort of in the dimension of what we saw in Q3, i.e. a modest decline? I'm just -- yes, if you could maybe just give us some insights into your thinking there, that would be very helpful.

Well, I think in general, on an annual basis, I think the Statista business will go forward. I think that specific quarter is probably -- and it's not typical for the development given the special context, but we don't know how much and how quickly and how strongly it goes forward there. And I think that's going back to the point that Udo said, we see good adoption to the new business model. We see that we only have penetrated a small share of our customers, and that's not driven because all the large clients don't want. But no, it takes time to adapt them to the new model and do the integration work. And then we'll find out with the growing number of customers what the underlying volume is there. And I think that is crucial to define then what the growth potential going forward is. So we are in that intermediate phase.

I think it's probably fair to say that we still have consistent pressure on the inbound clients, on the smaller ones. That is not going to go away soon. At the same time, we keep on selling also the classical product which is growing. But then, I mean, the third thing, obviously, is how fast can we build up monetization based on the different business model, where we are basically paid upon let's say, API calls, if you will. So that -- I think probably we talk about -- this is not a question of a quarter, probably it would take some more time.

Look, the inbound business is that. Inbound means there were private individuals, small companies. They also, for entertainment reasons, they were looking for stuff. And if you check for entertainment reasons, you go to LLM. You don't mind if it's wrong or almost right or you could guess what it is. So that is -- on the other side, this is also not a -- it will never -- it was always an add-on for us. It was never a strategic development area. I mean Statista is the only global platform for statistic data. And this is here on the valuation side, all or nothing. Either you need it to get better results in an LLM environment or you don't need it anymore. So this is completely black or white. And that is the only thing which is important for us because we are 100% convinced that the answer to that is white and not black. And 18 months ago, we were hoping it would be like that, but we didn't know. Now we know. And that is, I think, the key difference now. We know that Statista creates added value for all our clients, and they know it as well. But the clients need to also fix their systems. I mean, to build up a company GPT is a big thing. That is not done overnight. And we clearly have to wait until the customers have a complete system up and running, and then they need to be able to connect us. I mean we signed, for example, contracts with Microsoft, I mean, since 6 months, they're not able to connect us. You would guess that these big tech giants, they do it overnight, but they need now more than 6 months to connect us. It's everywhere the same. This AI world is developing very fast. But a lot what you read in the news is expectations about the future. The reality is that you have to build it up. You have to make it safe. You need to keep it running, and you need to be able to integrate a lot of different stuff. And that's exactly where we are staying right now. But again, this is, for us, that is execution. This is not a question anymore is Statista a bright future or not?

Okay. Just one quick technical to wrap it up, please. Can you kind of give us an idea of what the share still at the moment of this, say, low-value ad inbound traffic is? I mean we're talking about 15%, 20% of revenues?

Out of the platform business, which by far is the largest segment of Statista, it's probably around 15%, rapidly declining, unfortunately, at the moment.

15% of the platform business. The platform business is probably, what, 80% -- 70% to 80%?

Platform is probably something like 65%, 70% of the entire Statista business.

That's why even if you lose 1/3 on the inbound business, you talk about like 5 percentage points. So if your outbound business in general also on the classic business is still growing, you're on the existing business model, are okay also going forward. But the key focus of the company is now on Statista Connect, on the connecting the clients. So our business -- our focus of the salespeople is not, can we sell more seats to McKinsey on the existing contract. It's all about full focus on getting the adoption to connect as quickly as possible, interacting with how it's doing, what we can change but the data volume is, how many tokens they want to buy and so on credit. So that's the focus. And I think I understand your point that this doesn't translate in revenue directly and you need some kind of projections. But that's a tricky part. And that business part moves the needle going forward.

That's the point. Look, if I have EUR 10 million or EUR 20 million or even EUR 30 million more or less inbound traffic doesn't move the needle. Statista is a EUR 1 billion business or it's worth EUR 50 million. And the difference makes only if there is a significant value for our global clients and connecting Statista to their knowledge management systems. This is actually -- that is a key point, which drives the value. This inbound traffic, up or down, doesn't change anything in Statista's valuation. And also the turnover is actually insignificant, if you want my opinion. I mean, the question is what is what -- if we improve on a global scale, knowledge management system of 1% or 2%, then you have a big ticket on the valuation. And the turnover, if it's EUR 20 million or EUR 30 million more or less, it's -- I don't think we talk here about EBITDA multiples or something right now. We talk only, are we able to make transparent what is that there's an advantage in an LLM-driven world through Statista, yes or no.

We have a follow-up question from Anna Patrice from Berenberg.

Can you hear me?

Yes.

Excellent.

Perfect. A follow-up question on the out-of-home segment. So what trends do you see now in the digital out-of-home? So it has been declining in Q3. Do you see that it is already back to growth in Q4? The first question. And a more strategic question on the digital out-of-home. How do you see its growth going forward? Is it because of the rollout of the new subsegments, so to say, the retail one? Is it -- so is it driven by increase in number of screens? Or you see also increase in the utilization rate? And could you remind us -- I'm sorry.

It can happen. What was the last one?

What is driving the growth in out-of-home? Is it like expansion...

Yes, sorry. So on the digital out-of-home, is it increasing utilization or increase in the number of screens?

I think we got the question, Anna Patrice.

By the way, congratulations, Statista needs more paying subscribers on the planet. Just the first question, Q4, do we see digital out-of-home back to growth? Yes. And source of growth in general, I think it's fair to say that 80% and more will come from better utilization. Up to 20% will come from further expansion of new products. And it depends on how many new screens we deploy per year. I mean, something like what we mentioned before, a huge screen more than 340 square meters has, of course, an impact with one individual location, a completely new product category like city windows that we've mentioned before or retail media can open up completely new revenue streams. But I think in general, that strategic shift, especially from TV clients to TV plus digital out-of-home is ultimately driving the utilization of our core public video product in train stations, shopping malls and public transportation systems and roadside.

Every question is answered.

The next question comes from Jerome Bodin from ODDO BHF.

I just have two quick follow-ups on the Outdoor. First of all, can you be a bit more granular in terms of costs in Q3 and Q4? What has moved up in Q3 and should move up in Q4? And have you taken any cost measures to mitigate the top line situation in Q3? That's my first question. And secondly, still on 2026. Just to be sure, when you are referring to encouraging talk for 2026, does it refer to January and February booking, for example? Or is it more a general comment for 2026?

Jerome, on the cost side of things, I mean now look, we have seen now in out-of-home 2 quarters with more or less moving sideways in terms of sales at a time where we still have, let's say, regular cost inflation on PEX, on maintenance and stuff like that. I think in that context, earnings held up quite well. So I think it's fair to assume that there's quite a bit of cost savings that are materializing in the P&L. And I would expect this to continue also in the fourth quarter. Already, when we realize that the market is going sour and there was this heightened uncertainty around the tariff discussion, that was at some point in summer, we decided to actually move in a fairly strict cost freeze. So we look at all individual cost positions, all the discretionary spend, so what we can hold. And also at this point in time, we are not necessarily rehiring if there's attrition in the workforce. Exception is obviously when it comes to sales, so everything which is facing the clients, I think we're not cutting all the rest. It's subject to a very strong freeze still up until we realize that really things are improving.

So I mean one big topic here in cost saving for the next years is clearly AI because we have a lot of repetitive activities here like any other companies. So we have a hire freeze and the target is clearly that we introduce more and more AI solutions in our value chain. And in the next 5 years, actually to give you an impression, we believe that we are able to save up to EUR 50 million in costs and, obviously, depending on that we are able to deploy these AI-driven solutions, which would make us faster and improve our quality and many processes. But cost is clearly driven through this AI options, a key topic for the next 5 years. On the question with the turnover, I mean, we talk about the whole year now because right now, we are on the budget level discussion. I mean, we also talk about concrete campaigns in January, February, et cetera, already a lot. But now is the time to fix budgets and to strike commitments, and customers are not on this so granular now by booking. I mean, obviously, they have already bookings for January because it's only 6 weeks ahead. But we see the positive uplift for the full year. And we never talk about quarters in advance because you never know if the campaign is coming in February or April or January or whatever. So it makes no sense. I mean, for the full year, what I already said, we are absolutely confident that we go back to normal trading. We're going to -- we have strong interest for Q1. Do we see a strong growth? It's by far too early on a quarterly level. It has also nothing to say. I mean we always look on the full year. And then actually, we look always on a 3 years' average. For us, it's important that we can show the growth rates we're expecting on 3 years' average because we have always also on a yearly basis, exceptional situations. Like last year, we had the European Football in Germany and the Olympics next door in Paris. So this is -- and this was an exceptional situation last year. And that's why we always look on the 3 years average because we are very long-term orientated. And when I -- when we bought Deutsche Städte Medien in 2004, out-of-home was at 2.7%. Now we peaked at 10.4%, and we believe that this is going to grow to at least 15%, maybe 20% in the upcoming years. So this is for us key that we see that the structural growth trend is intact and that we outperform the market double digit. And that is what happened last year and where we are very confident also going to happen next year.

Ladies and gentlemen, that was the last question. I would now like to turn the conference back over to Christian Schmalzl for any closing remarks.

Well, thank you very much for your time and your questions. Just double check, officially, we meet back in March next year, but I hope we catch up earlier. Thank you very much. Have a nice day. Take care.

Goodbye.

Ladies and gentlemen, the conference is now over. Thank you for choosing Chorus Call.