Beneteau SA

Beneteau SA

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Mar 24Next Earn

Q1 FY2026 · Earnings Call TranscriptMay 5, 2026

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for joining our Q1 2026 sales conference call.

Today, we will mainly talk about three topics. First one will be Q1 sales, of course, confirming the strength of our product development acceleration.

Then, we'll talk about perspective, why Middle East conflict is currently impacting all industries. Last, electrification, as we announced the creation of a joint venture to standardize the electrification roadmap for the sailing boat market a few weeks ago.

Let's start by Q1. One year ago, we were sharing with you our product development acceleration strategy, increasing the number of launches by 50% once our dealer network would be back to normalized level and keeping our CapEx under control.

In September, in Cannes, we revealed the 23 new models of the season, either going through premiumization of the offer, either going through accessibility of the range. This product development acceleration marked an inflection in our revenue, as we commented in S2, in an order intake trend since the second semester 2025, and allowed us to report today a Q1 revenue of €170 million, increasing by 30% versus last year, growing on every segment.

More than the Q1 figure itself that embeds some nonrecurring items, as explained in the press release, these figures are significant because it shows a 10% growth on the retail sales in a difficult market environment, which demonstrate the success of our new model and allows us to regain market share in most segment and geographies. Regarding perspective with the Middle East conflict, it's still difficult to predict the exact consequence of the Middle East conflict.

From one side, our order book for the year, for the year to come, remains solid, growing like-for-like by 10% versus last year at this stage. It's balanced between some events and some others.

La Grande-Motte boat show was again a good show for Lagoon and for our catamaran brands, growing significantly the order intake versus last year. From the other side, we noticed a significant slowdown in the order intake since 1st of March, since the beginning of the conflict.

This is why pursuing our product innovation roadmap will be key. 23 models were launched last year, as I always say.

24 will be launched during this year, properly allocated to each segment, allowing us to confirm our growth ambition for 2026 and expecting the Middle East conflict to stabilize by the end of June. The first topic is related to innovation and is relative to electrification in particular.

We announced two weeks ago during the Multihull boat show an unprecedented alliance with Fountaine Pajot. Electramarine is a joint venture aimed at standardizing energy management for sailboats, either regarding propulsion, either regarding life-on-board energy optimization.

This initiative is built in open architecture, will be open to other boat builders, and will help reducing the cost of such system without overinvesting. This will accelerate sailing boat electrification roadmap, targeting an adoption rate of 10% to 15% by 2030.

These were the key message we wanted to share with you today: a Q1 that shows that product development acceleration deliver results; a Middle East conflict which is affecting order intake since March, but doesn't affect our group ambition for 2026; and third, innovation is a key pillar of our strategy and we are currently moving forward on the electrification side. I thank you for your attention and propose to go for a Q&A session.

Thank you.

You're saying that the order book is growing by 10%, what you said in the end of February. Could you confirm us that the motor boating is still outperforming the sail boating?

Can you also give us maybe the volume effects and the product mix price effects if you can? Concerning my second question, it's concerning the electro solution.

I have in mind that this solution has a price that could raise the by 10% to 15% the boat price. What is the objective, what is the target of raising price for this solution and by the maybe an normative market, like in 2030 when you reach 10% to 15% in volumes?

A joint venture of 50/50 with Fountaine Pajot, it's kind of surprising. Why didn't you make the internal development or vertical M&A for this solution?

Thank you.

I start by the first, multi sail versus powerboat. I would say quite homogeneous.

The the the dynamic is good on the day boating segment. The dynamic is a bit more difficult on the motor yachting on some segment of the motor yachting.

On the sailboat, the dynamic on the catamaran is less than on the monohull as of today, but this is the segment where on monohull we accelerated the first our product development with two new two new Océanis, two new Sun Odyssey, and one new First in the last, I would say, 7 months. Globally homogeneous in term of dynamic versus last year, but more positive on the powerboat side, especially on the day boat side, as of today.

Volume and mix, quite homogeneous. There it's, I would say, as I repeated in the speech the the the introduction, our product development was in both directions, either the premiumization of the offer, either the renewal of the access to brands and access to range of each brand.

We are not here pulled by a specific mix. It's quite homogeneous between the different between the different segments.

Regarding electrification, I start by the last question. The the sailing market is a market where there is no significant volume.

If everyone does his development by his own, at the end, it remains, first, expensive solutions, costly for every shipyard, and second, difficult to maintain worldwide by the different dealer networks. That's why we decided together with Fountaine Pajot to create the new standard for sailing in term of electrification.

Electrification means life-on-board management, first thing, and second is propulsion management, mainly about hybrid solutions. We differently we we had different approach.

We have gone through full electric for the small boat and through hybrid 48-volt for the I would say mid-range and looking for alternative solutions for the for the high range. They had chosen more the high-voltage solution, which is fitting for I would say 50 50-feet boats.

We decided to to propose to the market, to propose to ourselves, meaning 60% of the market together, and to the whole market, a unique standard for each type of boat that would be easier to use somehow at the end by the charter company that operates the boats, and create a competitive advantage for those that defined the standard for their own. In open architecture so that it can become the standard of the industry, at least for those that want to follow these standards.

It doesn't mean we're going to make a a battery plant, a battery factory. It doesn't mean we're going to make an engine factory.

It means define, specify, and validate the system that will be embedded in the boats for sailboats, which is focused on slow displacement boats. We believe there will have two trajectories: one for hotel mode, meaning in energy management in the boat, and an acceleration of the propulsion side once the the onboard system will be embedded in the boat.

10% to 15%, yes, it's currently what is the extra cost of an electrification solution for a sailboat as of today. It's much more for a powerboat, but even when with that, the autonomy is not yet there to propose it to customer.

For sailboat, it works. It's still a bit expensive, and creating a a unique standard is also made to to to make this technological evolution affordable and to cross the line of less than 10% for hybrid electrification, as you've offset, and probably less than that in the future.

The ambition we have is to reach 10% to 15% tech rate on the sail market by 2030.

Okay. Thank you.

Operator

The next question comes from Alessandro Cuglietta from Kepler. Please go ahead.

Alessandro Cuglietta

Yes, hi. Thanks for taking my questions.

I have three. First, coming back to the slowdown in orders since March, is it more due to cautiousness from dealers or are also end customers already reconsidering their decision to purchase a boat?

If we can have your.

Both. There are some dealer, I answer direct, live.

It's cautiousness from dealer, but we are not in April in the money time, in March, April, in the money time of stock building for dealers. It's more In a normal season, it's more the period of June, July, August, September than March, April.

March, April is more to sell the stock which has been previously ordered during the season. It's a mix of both, but also some customer that decided not to go or to postpone the decision.

Alessandro Cuglietta

Thanks. The second question is regarding maybe your import costs or raw materials, if you're seeing any impact already on your costs related to the Middle East conflict, and if yes, or if you have hedging positions and how much visibility does it give you?

I answer direct as well. We anticipate some and we start to pass through to the market.

It's going to be like in '21 and '22, huh, a matter of anticipation of what will happen. In the conflict, there's one thing which is an impact on the market, one thing which is the impact on the supply chain, one thing is the impact on the material base.

Resin is the first material which is impacted, and we will continue, as we did 3 years ago, to anticipate the material increase and to pass it through to the market. The first wave was communicated 1 month ago.

The next, we'll see weeks after weeks.

Alessandro Cuglietta

I'm not sure I heard. You said you already raised prices?

Yes. There was already

Alessandro Cuglietta

Okay. How was that received by the customers?

Understood.

Alessandro Cuglietta

Okay.

Globally understood. Not retroactively.

It's for the new orders, of course, but understood and it's better to pass through step-by-step than waiting and make a big step which would not be understood. Quite transparently, I would say, vis-à-vis dealer network and vis-à-vis dealer vis-à-vis commercial team, dealer network, and final customer.

Alessandro Cuglietta

How much was it, the magnitude of the price increase?

A magnitude which was understood by the market.

Alessandro Cuglietta

One last and then I'll leave the floor to others. Maybe an update on US tariffs and especially the removal of the reciprocals and the new structure.

Is it overall positive maybe for you? Also, have you filed for reimbursements of the tariffs as I know they're now opened?

We didn't file. I don't think Vendée company is the best to start the process, French company is the best to start the process, we didn't file yet.

If everyone is filing, we'll see what do we do, but at this stage, we didn't file. How is it perceived?

It's at the end, it's mixed. On one side, it's a step back in an inflation way, it's good.

On the other side, it's a new area of uncertainty. It's neither extremely good, neither extremely bad, but I would say factually, globally almost positive because it goes from 15% to 10% plus 1.5% when you export from Europe to US.

Alessandro Cuglietta

Thank you very much.

Operator

The next question comes from Emmanuel Parot from GD. Please go ahead.

Emmanuel Parot

Yes, thank you. Good evening.

My first question is concerning the multihull segment. If I understood well, the momentum was good at the boat show La Grande-Motte.

How do you explain that in comparison to other segments? It was my first point.

Maybe the second one concerning the backlog, just to know what kind of visibility you have. If I remember well, you had maybe two quarters of visibility.

Is that the case or not? Thank you.

We are one month later so we didn't catch one month one quarter in one month, one month and a half since we met for the yearly results, and the Middle East conflict didn't help the visibility at this stage. We have a good visibility on the way we should finalize the season.

We don't have yet a very good visibility on how should we handle the next season. We are back to a seasonal activity, there are some segments where we increase again our visibility, especially on new models.

We have some models which are fully booked until the beginning of next year, beginning of '27. We have some where it's normal that we sell in Q2 what we deliver in Q2, such as small day boat business, small and mid day boat business.

We are still progressing in term of visibility, less progressing that what we were internally targeting, progressing globally in line with what we said one one month one month ago. The question is how will the conflict affect worldwide inflation, worldwide economical conditions and markets, and supply chain.

These are the two areas that are impacting us in the future. Coming back to La Grande-Motte, La Grande-Motte is a multihull boat show, it's only multihull.

For us, it was globally good, better than last year, significantly better than last year, mainly because we renewed the product offer at the entry level of the range, meaning where our catamaran are affordable. It's not a big boat show, we don't sell big boats during this show.

It's more entry and mid-size boat show. Cannes, Monaco are big boat show, big boats show.

As this is where we renewed recently the offer, it's quite logic that we perform well at the beginning of the range. In term of attendance, it was a bit lower than last year.

In term of qualitative attendance, it was okay, I would say. We it's not a show where we expose monohull and it's not a show where we expose really motor yachting, except Prestige multihull and Jeanneau multihull, where we sold some during the boat show.

Emmanuel Parot

It's clear. Thank you.

Operator

The next question comes from Christophe Chaput from Oddo. Please go ahead.

Christophe Chaput

Yes, good evening, gentlemen. Just two questions for me, please.

Regarding the Middle East conflict, you said in the press release that you take action to increase your operating profit, you already, let's say, speak about price to mitigate the raw material impact. Is there other what are the other, let's say, measures that you could take or you think about for the next quarter?

The second one is regarding the backlog slowdown. Is there a geography more exposed than the other?

Europe versus US, for example. Thank you.

Measures: travel ban, hiring freeze, furlough, overhead cost reduction, all what is the toolbox of cost reduction in a period of uncertainty that will generate postponement of order, sales reduction versus our initial roadmap. As we said during the year-end presentation, we didn't share what we would have shared if the conflict didn't have start.

We are in this process to as the conflict is not over and as there will have consequence on inflation, there are some measures regarding pass-through the inflation and there are some measures regarding cost reduction. Some measures regarding break-even point decrease, I would say.

The second, you say where is the slowdown? I would say it's more in Europe.

US, believe it or not, are much less affected. We see as well on the sell-out of the month of April is not so bad.

France is a bit depressed. I would say more Europe in general, France in particular, than US.

Charter companies as well, which are concerned by interest rate increase, which are concerned by the increase of the transportation cost due to Brent increase, and which are concerned by the willingness to travel during the summer somehow. There is a not a good momentum in Europe for that.

However, in US, it's still running well, I would say. This is all for Q1 presentation.

It shows again that when you renew the product offer at a good speed, it boosts the market itself and your positions on the market. It's good that we went both direction, either premiumization of the offer because it's a gross engine for the group, but also renewing the access to our range, the access to our brands, because this is the best tool to fight against inflation.

Again, inflation wave ahead of us will require us to do design to cost, to talk to owners at a reasonable price, even if the resin continue to increase with the Brent increase. Difficult to say what will be the real consequence of Middle East conflict, as you can imagine.

We tried to do it as transparently as we could, as always, during this press conference. Again, innovation is key in every company, and every innovation is key for boat business.

That's true for design and product. That's true for technological roadmap.

It's clear that Middle East conflict will push for electric in some of the mobility business, such as the car industry, as you can see. The more these industries will move to electric, the more the solutions will be affordable, will be reliable, and will be feasible to embed them in the boats.

It will require standardization, and this is why we made such deal, at least to standardize first the boat business in term of electrification, as we both, Fountaine Pajot and us, are clearly leading this market, and it was better to define one standard than everyone is piling up his own one in his corner. That's what we did, and that's why we are accelerating on this direction.

This were the three message we wanted to share with you since we met 1 month and a half ago. I thank you for your attention and talk to you soon for the next development in July.

Thank you very much.