Hello, everybody. Good afternoon.

Welcome to our 9-month analyst conference. Our CEO, Andreas Pecher, and our CFO, Justus Wehmer, will present the 9-month figures to you, guide you through the details, cover the key business topics, and provide the outlook for you.

Thank you for your flexibility for having this call a bit unusually so in the afternoon. After the presentation, we will address your questions, and with that, without further ado, Andreas, please go ahead.

Super. Thank you, Sebastian.

Good afternoon, dear analysts, investors. Welcome to the 9-month 2025/26 analyst conference at Carl Zeiss Meditec.

I'm currently traveling at the US West Coast, more to that later, we have to schedule this call in the European afternoon. Really apologies for the scheduling constraints, and big thanks for your flexibility.

I wanted to make sure I can also speak to you, and also apologies if my voice is having a little trouble here. I caught a small sore throat, I hope I'm still going to be understood well.

I'll begin with an overview of our 9-month results, and then Justus will take you through the financial performance in more detail. After that, we'll cover several key topics, including the appointment of the new head of ophthalmology, traveling with him here, the launch of the ZEISS Torus Ultrasonic Aspirator, our strategic partnership with the Aier Group to advance the refractive workflow in China, and the status of the first Profit Up initiatives.

Then we'll conclude with an update on our financial 2025/26 outlook. Then, of course, following the presentation, we'll be happy to take your questions.

With that, let me start with an overview of our 9-month performance. Looking at revenue and EBITDA, it remained below the prior year, while the recovery of Q3 partially offset the headwinds from the first half.

Order entry in 9 months amounted to €1.606 billion, down 5.5% year-over-year and down 3.3% on an FX-adjusted basis. We did achieve solid order growth in EMEA, while demand in the Americas and APAC remained weak.

Order backlog stood at €432 million, largely unchanged compared to the end of Q2, but higher than at the beginning of the fiscal year. Revenue for the 9 months amounted to €1.554 billion, representing a 2.2% decline year-over-year.

On a constant currency basis, revenue declined 0.7%, mainly in this case due to the US dollar. Factoring in all currency headwinds, mainly the Chinese yuan, arising from German exports invoiced in foreign currencies to the ZEISS Group distribution network, FX-adjusted revenue was broadly stable.

The weaker ophthalmology business was the key factor holding back revenue development. A key reason for the decline, aside from FX, was the already known headwind in the IOL business due to the recall of the bifocal IOL in China since the start of the fiscal year.

Also, refractive consumables came in weaker, particularly in Asian markets outside of China. Looking at the revenue mix, equipment accounted for 49%, consumables for 41%, and service for 10% of total 9-month revenue.

Adjusted EBIT came in at €124.5 million with an adjusted EBIT margin of 8.0% compared with 11.1% in the prior year. Reported EBIT amounted to €108.4 million with a margin of 7.0%.

Looking at operating results, they were pressured by continued FX headwinds in Q3, an unfavorable product mix, particularly weaker consumables, and several one-off items. We will take a closer look at these one-off items later in the presentation.

Stripping out one-offs, our core operating expenses remained stable. With that, I'd like to hand over to you, Justus.

Thank you, Andreas, and warm welcome from my side to all of you as well. I walk you through the SBU performance, starting with ophthalmology.

In the first 9 months, reported revenue came in at €1.191 billion, down 4.8% year-over-year, and on an currency-adjusted basis, revenue declined by 2.9%. Equipment sales declined by 3%, while consumables sales declined by 5.7%.

Revenue was mainly pressured by foreign exchange headwinds, the suspension of bifocal IOL sales and its associated inventory scrapping in China, and softer refractive treatment pack sales in Asia. The successor bifocal IOL, which received license in Q2, cannot yet be commercialized until it is relisted under the next volume-based tender.

Following the postponement of the VBP process, it is now expected to take place in September or October with implementation around December of this calendar year. The delay in the VBP process is unfortunately yet another headwind to our revenue as the negative impact of the delayed relaunch outweighs the benefit of continued better pricing for some of the IOL models.

Refractive procedure volumes softened in South Korea and Southeast Asia, while China continued to show slight year-to-date growth. The start into the main summer peak season in June, however, was weaker on a year-over-year basis.

We are seeing a pattern of somewhat later peak in consumption and will continue to watch the trends closely as we get the July and August data. Equipment sales remained sluggish, in particular the cataract and diagnostic equipment.

Gross margin declined by 1.5 percentage points, reflecting foreign exchange headwinds, the scrapping of bifocal IOLs, weaker consumables sales, and inventory devaluation at Katalyst following the measures to wind down the Katalyst portfolio, which I will discuss in more detail in this presentation. These effects were partly offset by tariff refunds, on which I will also provide you with some numbers later on in the presentation.

OpEx ratio increased by 3.9 percentage points, mainly driven by the extraordinary IVO write-off, legal expenses, and Profit Up-related effects. Stripping out these one-off items, core OpEx remained roughly stable.

As a result, EBIT margin for ophthalmology declined to 5.2%, significantly below prior-year level. Looking at the revenue split, ophthalmology accounts for 76% of total revenue.

Within ophthalmology, consumables represent 50%, equipment accounts for 41%, and service contributes 9%. Turning to microsurgery, revenue and EBIT margin were above prior year, supported by strong Q3 revenue growth and robust delivery of neurosurgical systems.

Revenue in the first 9 months reached €362 million, up 3.8% year-over-year. On an exchange rate-adjusted basis, revenue grew by 7.1%.

Both equipment and consumables sales increased. Gross margin remained 2.4 percentage points below prior year, still pressured by currency effects and higher amortization of capitalized R&D.

EBIT margin improved to 12.7%, up 0.4 percentage points year-over-year. Looking at revenue split, microsurgery accounts for 23% of total revenue.

Within microsurgery, equipment represents 78%, service 14%, and consumables 8%. Let me walk you through our regional development.

EMEA continued to deliver solid growth, while APAC remained below the prior-year level. Let's start with the Americas.

The region accounted for 25% of group revenue. Revenue in the Americas came in at €397 million, down 2.6% year-over-year, while exchange rate-adjusted revenue increased by 3.6%.

The US grew slightly on a constant currency basis, while Latin America declined. Moving to EMEA, the region represented 33% of group revenue and delivered solid growth across all core European markets.

Revenue in EMEA reached €509 million, up 5.4% year-over-year and exchange rate-adjusted 5.8%. Finally, Asia Pacific represented 42% of revenue, including China at 23%.

APAC revenue amounted to €648 million, down 8.7% year-over-year or down 7.6% on an exchange rate-adjusted basis, with growth in India, but weaker revenue in China, Japan, and South Korea. Turning to the P&L, 9-month margins fell below prior year, while core operating expenses remained stable.

Gross profit declined to €793 million with gross margin decreasing to 51% from 52.7% last year. Gross margin remained below prior year, driven by exchange rates and unfavorable product mix, in particular weaker sales of intraocular lenses and refractive treatment packs.

This was partly offset by tariff refunds. We received an overall tariff refund of €20.8 million during the third quarter.

Out of the refunded tariffs, around €11.5 million had been paid in fiscal year '24/'25 and around €9.3 million had been paid in '25/'26. I will come back to this on the next slide as we discuss adjusted EBIT.

OpEx ratio increased to 45.6%, mainly driven by the lower sales base and one-off items. These one-offs included the extraordinary impairment of capitalized R&D at Infinite Vision Optics, IVO, legal expenses, and Profit Up measures.

Excluding these one-offs, core OpEx was broadly in line with previous-year level. EBIT declined to €87.4 million, and EBITA declined to €108.4 million.

Adjusted EBIT amounted to €124.5 million, corresponding to an adjusted EBIT margin of 8.0%. Earnings per share was at €0.80, and adjusted earnings per share was at €1.02, both below prior year.

Let's have a brief look at the bridge from EBIT to EBITA and to adjusted EBIT for the 9 months of this fiscal year. EBIT amounted to €87.4 million, as stated before.

Regular amortization of purchase price allocations amounted to €20.9 million, including DORC and Cogent Surgical. This led to EBITA of €108.4 million and an EBITA margin of 7%.

Special items included US tariff refunds for fiscal year '24/'25, legal expenses in connection with a lawsuit related to former IanTECH in the US, scrapping of bifocal IOLs, extraordinary R&D impairment, Profit Up-related expenses, and other one-offs. As discussed on the previous slide, we received US tariffs refunds of €20.8 million for both fiscal year '24/'25 and the 9 months of '25/'26.

The fiscal year '24/'25 figure of €11.5 million was excluded under our adjusted EBIT as it pertains to previous year's period. The remainder of the €9.3 million is contained in the 9-month adjusted EBIT figures because they had been mainly in Q1 and Q2 of this same year.

The net impact on the 9-month period and therefore also on our guidance is zero. Adjusted for these special items, EBIT amounted to €124.5 million with an adjusted EBIT margin of 8%.

A quick overview of the cash flow statement. The 9-month operating cash flow was strong, and net financial debt reduced.

Operating cash flow came in at €146 million, significantly above prior year. The improvement was driven by better working capital, mainly lower trade receivables, US tariff refund, and lower income tax payments reflecting the earnings development.

Investing cash flow turned negative at €83.5 million, primarily reflecting higher receivables against treasury of Carl Zeiss AG. CapEx ratio was 2.6% compared with 3.3% in the prior year.

Net financial debt reduced to €234.8 million as of June 30, 2026. With that, I hand it over to you, Andreas.

Thank you, Justus. Now let me move to the key topics.

Let me actually start with personnel. We're making progress on building the team of the future for Meditec.

We've appointed Andreas Volker as the new head of ophthalmology effective August 2026, brand new. The ophthalmology segment has previously been led by Markus Reichenspurner, who has served while in a double role as Chief Commercial Officer since December 2025.

Andreas has more than two decades of global medtech leadership experience from Fresenius Medical Care and Evonik before that. In his former role, he held P&L responsibility for an approximately €800 million therapy system portfolio at Fresenius Medical Care, which he had led strategy, product, and portfolio management, R&D, and a wide nature transformational programs.

He successfully drove the commercialization of innovative dialysis platforms, led significant portfolio and organizational transformations, and brings extensive international experience across the US, China, and other growth markets. His combination of innovation leadership, operational excellence, and value creation-focused business transformation makes him an excellent fit to lead the next phase of transformation and growth in our ophthalmology business.

Andreas and I are actually currently spending time in the US. Important time to spend with our customers and our teams.

From the get-go, he gets sort of the first impression on what our challenges are, but also what our opportunities are. With that, I move on and I'd like to present an innovation in our microsurgery business, the ZEISS Torus Ultrasonic Aspirator.

This has been presented at AANS 2026. It is still pending FDA 510(k) clearance, which we expect towards the end of the calendar year.

The Torus Ultrasonic Aspirator builds on the Cogent portfolio and is designed for tissue removal throughout cranial and spinal procedures. The device combines three tissue removal modes in one system.

These modes are ultrasonic ablation of soft and fibrous tissue, ultrasonic bone cutting, and ultrasonic bone dissection using torsional motion technology. This product is highly differentiated from competing solutions.

It's quite unique three-in-one device that can replace three incumbent devices in the operating room that are typically used for the tough soft tissue aspiration, bone dissecting, and bone cutting. It is designed to integrate with the ZEISS KINEVO 900 S visualization system, enabling system parameters to be displayed directly in the microscope's field of view during the procedure.

Out of the Cogent acquisition, we've already successfully introduced the electronic bipolar forceps. Now the Torus Ultrasonic Aspirator represents an important milestone in our instruments strategy.

Building on our strong position in neurosurgical and spinal surgical microscopes, we're expanding our presence in the operating room and extending our workflow offering beyond visualization to treatment. Moving on.

In June, we announced a strategic agreement with Aier Eye Hospital Group for the purchase and installation of 25 ZEISS VisuMax 800 femtosecond lasers across multiple Aier Eye Hospital locations. The rollout is expected to start later in 2026 across domestic and international sites.

This strengthens our position in the global refractive market, supports higher surgical efficiency and patient outcomes. Together with Aier Group, we will explore deeper collaborative innovation in areas such as international expansion, integrated digital workflows and platforms, and AI-assisted diagnostics.

Needless to say, we're quite happy about this deal. As we have commented about throughout the year, the CapEx environment in China and across most of APAC has not been easy lately.

The replacement of these machines to China's largest private hospital operator is signaling the continued high interest in our refractive technology and the ZEISS VisuMax 800. Globally, we have recently reached 1 million cumulative SMILE pro procedures being performed on VisuMax 800.

With that, over to you, Justus.

Thank you, Andreas. A quick glance on the status of the Profit Up program.

During Q3, first initiatives related to this program have been launched. I'm pleased to report that we have entered into talks with the labor representatives here in Germany.

These talks are being held in a constructive way and making good progress. Let me flag a few decisions taken in the initial phase of the projects.

On operations, we are consolidating handpiece production by closing the DORC site in Westerburg, Germany, and shifting all handpiece production to Chesterfield, US, allowing us to improve scale and operational efficiency. We also plan to establish a production site in India to improve flexibility and cost competitiveness.

We're joining the site being constructed in Bangalore by ZEISS as a manufacturing hub. This will further help us diversify our footprint and create a more balanced exposure to geopolitical risks.

Decision on which products will be manufactured there has not yet been made. On organization layers and portfolio decisions, we will merge surgery anterior segment and surgery posterior segment.

That means bring together the cataract and retinal business. This will enable us to better integrate clinical workflows, strengthen our customer offering, and generate greater recurring revenue synergies.

We will wind down the Katalyst portfolio by the end of this fiscal year as it largely overlaps with DORC instruments. This is expected to impact annual revenue in the mid-single-digits million euro range, while the Cogent portfolio will continue to be manufactured in Chesterfield.

This portfolio optimization will not have a significant impact on the Chesterfield production site overall. Its capacity will be refilled with handpiece production, what I just mentioned, and expansion of Cogent product portfolio.

We will sunset Quatera and focus on EVA NEXUS as the primary anterior and posterior device, leveraging the popularity of the DORC technology in the surgical market and its large installed base. It is still too early to quantify the exact phasing of the savings, but as I told you in the last call, there will be a certain time to implementation and transition for many of the measures involved, leading to a back-end loaded realization of the savings with comparatively little impact on next fiscal year yet.

We will continue to update you on the progress of the Profit Up program and provide transparency on the expected financial benefits as we make progress with the labor bodies and the implementation advances. Turning now to the outlook section.

The outlook remains broadly unchanged. For fiscal year '25/'26, we continue to expect revenue in the range of approximately €2.05 to €2.2 billion.

Adjusted EBIT margin is expected to be between 8% and 10%. As the 9-month adjusted EBIT margin has already reached 8% and given that Q4 typically delivers above-average top line and margin, we believe the lower end of the margin guidance is well supported at this stage.

Where exactly we end up within the range will be determined by the shape of the typical year-end sales ramp in the equipment business on the one hand, as well as the trend in the Chinese summer peak season for refractive consumables on the other hand, which, as discussed before, has been starting off on a relatively weak note in June. The current business trend is therefore pointing more towards the lower part of the range.

The guidance excludes special items in the mid-double-digit million euro range, including costs related to R&D reprioritization, the scrapping of bifocal IOLs, legal expenses, and the costs related to the Profit Up program. As discussed on the Q2 earnings call, based on our current assessment together with our auditors, we expect a goodwill impairment of approximately €150 million in the ophthalmology SBU in Q4 '25/'26.

This impairment relates mostly to the already mentioned IanTECH acquisition and will have no impact on adjusted EBIT or cash flow. Our midterm and long-term guidance remains unchanged.

For the midterm, fiscal year '28/'29 and beyond, organic revenue growth is expected to recover to at least the mid-single-digit percentage rate. Adjusted EBIT margin is targeted to recover to above 15% in the medium term.

In the long term, EBIT margin is expected to increase to the previous target range of 16% to 20%. With that, I'd like to conclude the presentation and open the floor for your questions.

Thanks very much for taking my questions. Two question blocks, if I may.

Firstly, on China refractive, can you just provide a bit of more color what kind of decline you have seen in June and also how treatment packs overall have developed in Asia in the third quarter? I think so far, you talked about slight growth in China.

Can you just update us on the kind of full-year assumption in this regard? Also if you have any kind of color if this kind of weakness has already translated into pricing pressure, that would be helpful.

Then second question just on 2026, I appreciate that it's a bit out, but it would be great to get expectations in the right ballpark. Can you just talk about the pulls and pushes for next year and whether you're fully committed to EBIT growth next year?

Thank you.

Oliver, thanks for the questions. To give you a little bit of color, I think to start with year-to-date in terms of procedures in China, we still see slight growth in the neighborhood of 2% to 3%.

That is the good news. However, it's also fair to say that we have seen this melting down somewhat over the last two months.

If we take the single data for month June and the very, very fresh data that we just received last night out of our Chinese team, we know that in June we were 8% below prior year and 5% in July below prior year. That is basically where we are right now.

Explanations that we see is that apparently the pull-in of the military-related treatments has been somewhat stronger this year, and therefore, to speak, this portion is right now missing in the summer peak. I hope that gives you a little bit of better understanding.

You were asking about the remainder of RTP in Asia. I think there's different factors that apply to different countries.

I'd say Indonesia and Thailand, there you have more recently quite a lot of political instability, as you can read in the news, and that is clearly not helping investment decisions. That is one factor.

In South Korea, I think we have reached already with the VisuMax 800 roll-in that started in Korea, as well earlier than in China, I think somewhat a level of saturation. Therefore, out of Korea, we also haven't seen any kind of significant growth contribution during the course of this year.

You had a question on the pricing pressure, whether we see there's some pricing pressure already. That is not the case.

I can clearly at this point confirm that we are still in terms of our price realization for the treatment packs in China tracking according to our expectations. 2026, you wanted to get a little bit of, yeah, color on what we see for next year.

Obviously, a somewhat bold moment to give you an answer on that, but what I can share with you right now is that we would, over the course of next year, obviously, number one, expect some more momentum out of the integration of our DORC sales organization into the ZEISS sales organization because that has advanced throughout this year, and we think that we are now basically in a position to get more traction in terms of roll-in and with that, of course, order generation. I think we would see or expect at some point next year then also clarity at least on the NVBP.

As we said, right now under our estimation is that by end of this year, it should kick in, and obviously, it's a lot of speculation right now, but frankly spoken, after now a delay of almost 9 months, I would be already satisfied to have it behind us and have the results, and with that, having better clarity on what we can expect in terms of volumes and especially at which sort of pricing. Beyond that, please understand, speculations on the US, I think I have stopped trying that, yeah, because we have too often changes in tariff announcements and tariff applications.

For EMEA at least, considering that this year, against all odds so to speak in the scheme of bigger, we are seeing quite a solid development. I would at least right now expect this to continue, and, yeah, I think this is my five cents at this point in time, Oliver.

I hope that helps you a little bit.

Perfect. That's good color.

Thanks so much.

Thanks.

Hi. Thank you for taking my questions.

You mentioned that you expect to be closer to the bottom end of the margin range for this fiscal year, but I'm just wondering what's kind of happened in the last quarter to make you feel that the full guidance range that you set at Q2 is no longer in play? Is it really the refractive treatment pack weakness you've seen in Q3 in China and earlier on in the year in APAC, or is there something else to call out?

If there is something else, just interested to hear how you expect those areas to play out in FY '27. I was wondering if you could also confirm whether you had expected a tariff refund when you set the margin guidance at 8% to 10%, was that expectation already baked into that margin?

Thanks.

I think the explanation for the... Do have a lot of background noise, maybe you can go on mute.

Weaker indications for the refractive business that we start with, and you know that the leverage of this business is massive, is probably the key indicator for the margin profile that we expect for Q4, and that brings us to this lower range of the margin as we have just explained in the presentation. I think beyond that, there is no specifics.

I could potentially add that we also know, of course, that in Q4, we always have two effects. Number one, MCS device business coming in strongly with better margins, and against that, you have the stronger diagnostic device revenue, especially from the US.

There, of course, then again, the question is how will the currency fare, yeah? Because both MCS and CDM are strong businesses in the fourth quarter in the US, and there, currency can either be in your favor or potentially come in as a stronger headwind, and that, from our current estimates, these two key factors combined explain why we are currently guiding more for the closer end.

In terms of the question on whether we had expected the refund when we had designed the guidance... It was kind of, yeah, somewhat expected, yeah.

Of course, not knowing what exactly would be the outcome of the US justice who was taking this case up, yeah.

Thank you.

Good afternoon. Thanks for taking my questions.

First was also on refractive in China. You still see some slight growth, and I assume that just on the back of SMILE pro, you still have a positive volume price effect.

Does it mean that actually you see the underlying market is shrinking? Second question is about your Torus Ultrasonic device.

Will you execute the sale by yourself or do you plan also to partner this device? Last question is quick on microsurgery.

We saw some encouraging development for some quarters. You made a comment for Q4.

How should we think? Is what you consider the trough now is over and sort of that we progress from this current slow growth level?

Thank you.

Thank you, Oliver. Refractive in China, your question on the slight growth, yes, of course, we do have the benefit of the higher pricing for the SMILE pro treatment packs that is helping, but we are not seeing a shrinkage of the market to be clear here.

I would argue probably the reason that Aier has put in this 25 VisuMax order is also an indication that a shrinkage is not something that is considered to be happening anytime soon. Much on that.

On the Torus, we are considering to use the same channels to address our customers as we do right now, which is a mix of direct and indirect sales, depends a little bit on the regions in the world. Obviously, this is strategically a device that extends our current pure single hardware play into a what we would call a not yet a workflow, but at least a workbench, because everywhere where our microscopes are being used, you will find devices that do the application of this Torus.

With that, I think it's highly complementary. What's also worth mentioning, it comes also with a consumable portion.

That means the handpieces being used on the Torus are consumables, which, as you also know, strategically has always been our target to extend our instrument and recurring revenue portion in MCS. Finally, your question on has MCS basically passed the inflection point and are we more confident going forward?

I would say at least the indicators in terms of order book and project pipeline are giving us some reasons to believe that this is the case. As we have learned in the last years, we are never safe from tariff discussions or tariff impacts, especially in our core market US, but generally, Oliver, yes, I would say we are hoping for some reasonable growth next year, yeah.

Justus, let me just build on the second point on the Torus. Actually, here on the West Coast, we're just spent some time with one of our largest customers and one of our long-standing partners that, together with him, we're serving this customer.

He is quite aware of the Torus. He's very excited actually about it.

That's a good signal that this is something that he's really happy to bring into the market. Talking to some of the customers, they're really curious.

We have quite some hopes that this will be a good product.

Great. Thank you very much.

Thank you very much. Thanks for taking my questions.

The first thing I wanted to come back on, you mentioned that there's certain products that are sort of being phased out or wound down as part of the Profit Up initiatives. Do you have any sort of firmer views at this stage of how much of a headwind that's going to be on revenue into 2027 just so we can get models in the right place?

Then, sorry to follow up on the 2027 point again, but we're getting quite a lot of questions from investors on it, maybe just helpful to clarify. As you head into sort of '27, I guess sort of what are the kind of main building blocks for the bridge for margin?

I think you said that on the cost-saving side, you don't really expect to see that much of an impact yet. I guess China refractive remains uncertain, VBP potentially unlocks some more bifocal sales.

What else should we kind of keep in mind when we're trying to think about numbers heading into 2027? It would be really helpful just to get a sort of broad view of main drivers as you see them currently.

Thank you.

Richard, of course, happy to take these questions. On the products that we are taking off, I think you can expect this to be a rather mild impact of anywhere, mid to a high single-digit million, because, as you just heard, we are talking about instruments predominantly here with Katalyst.

From that perspective, it shouldn't be something of material headwind on the top line. Just as a disclaimer, however, all decisions in terms of portfolio alignment or portfolio shaping have not yet been taken, we keep you posted if there was more to come and if so, what exactly will be the impact, yeah?

From what we have shared with you here in this call, it's roughly what I said, yeah, mid to high single digit. Building blocks for next year, if we just look at this year's numbers and look at what are the key distractors, to speak, then obviously this nightmare of the IOL revocation associated with the scrapping that was necessary, that was a weight that we clearly wouldn't expect to be repeating itself.

Yes, of course, on the other side, we have the uncertainty of the NVBP on pricing, and I think it is also fair to assume that it will be a steep impact. On the other side, there's also the volumes associated to it that like in the first tender that we participated could potentially then provide some upside for recovery.

Will this all come in in '27? Obviously, not so sure.

Over the course of two years, I think there conceptually at least should be an opportunity, and especially with a better ability to plan and schedule. I think the other point that I already mentioned is MCS, that there is some cautious optimism for a better start into the new fiscal year.

Obviously, as Andreas just highlighted, the fact that we do have some hopes for this new product giving us a little bit of new upsides and opportunities. Again, I wouldn't generate here too high hopes, but maybe wouldn't be surprised because the reception so far has been very well, and we clearly can say that we have an value proposition that is unique, and there's no competitor in the market right now who can offer a device with this three modalities, it is quite a good differentiator.

I think last but not least, I would dare to mention that the exchange rates after two years being heavy, heavy headwind for us, right now at least, indications are more reasonable for next year, and the absence of further headwinds from the exchange rates would already also be a meaningful improvement in our P&L. I think I leave it there.

There's a lot of speculation, of course, about refractive and how it ventures, and of course, as that is ultimately always going to be a decisive factor. Being now in the third year of a market in China that has been challenging, but in which we have been able to solidly defend our position and to defend our margins, I think at least we have proven that we can cope with it, yeah.

I think that's what I at this point in time could share with you.

Thanks, that's really helpful.

Thank you. Good afternoon.

I have two questions, please. The first one, given your comment that you're trending toward the lower end of this year's margin guidance and it sounds like there is unlikely going to be a big step-up in margins next year either, do you still have an unchanged confidence in delivering this more than 15% margin target in fiscal '28/'29?

Can you just give us a little bit more comfort on the points that are giving you this confidence? Then secondly, a question for Andreas.

Are you able to share if the ZEISS Group has already started to increase its shareholding in Carl Zeiss Meditec since the announcement in June? If yes, potentially also give us an indication of the magnitude?

Thank you.

Falko, then let me start with trying to give you a little bit more comfort. In terms of the 15% in '28/'29, I think it is clear in order to achieve this, we need to execute diligently on our Profit Up program.

The one message that we want to get across today is that although obviously we cannot share more details, especially on the headcount reductions given here the negotiations with the workers' councils, but I would already consider it a positive that we are in constructive discussions and negotiations and we are not seeing here red flags on the so to speak on the campus or anything of that nature. I think overall, there's a very reasonable progress, and with that, I do hope that we can implement the headcount reductions according to our plans and we'll see then most likely in the end of next fiscal year, but more accentuated in the fiscal year after, the expected payroll impact, and that is first of all helping us, of course, on the OpEx.

Associated with it, of course, there's a multitude of other measures that all need some ramp-up timing, but will then also continue to deliver. I think we shared with you last time the program in itself should have a net impact of €160 million.

€160 million on top of a normalized performance given that, as I just outlined, we think that we should eliminate for the next year two of the key headwinds, which is the extraordinary situation of this revocation of a lens, basically a part of our core IOL business, and the heavy headwinds from exchange rates. That in total can also contribute already a meaningful, whatever 2 to 3 percentage points of margin improvements, yeah.

MCS, as I also mentioned, with a somewhat stronger perspective, I think all of that I would right now consider as key components for the associated recovery. As we said, with the institution of a commercial officer and a stronger and more focused sales push of our entire portfolio and bundling, we're obviously also outside of China expecting over the course of the next two years some more returns.

I leave it there. The whole program is set up of 130 individual measures.

We can certainly not cover all of them, but I think the management team of Meditec is fully committed to execute and deliver on it, and then whatever happens outside is one thing, but we will certainly ensure that we get the contribution out of the program. I think then the second question was to Andreas,

yeah. I'll take the second one.

Thank you, Falko. Maybe just one last little bit of flavor on the Profit Up.

Justus mentioned it right, the management team is very focused on that program. The intensity and the focus on operational execution is quite strong.

I think that's specifically with a program where, of course, it takes a little bit to have the measures come in. This is what I typically look at very closely: How do we track, how do we work on it, and if there are setbacks, how do we deal with it?

I certainly see a lot of seriousness, a lot of focus on that. That makes me quite confident that we will get to what we want to achieve.

Maybe coming to your second question on the share buyback. We had the announcement, right, that we wanted to have a buyback of less than €200 million and stay below the 70% holding.

I don't have any knowledge about the percentage of purchased shares right now. We intentionally set it up that way, right, to have the fairness to all the investors.

Maybe to give you the flavor there, it's an 8-month period from mid-June till the end of February, and so far, 1.5 months have passed on that. That's the facts that I know.

The rest, I don't know. I hope that that helps you a little bit, Falko.

Thank you.

Hi, good afternoon. Just two questions from me, please.

The first one, and sorry, this is on 2027 again, just to follow up on your thoughts around how we should be thinking of the phasing into next year. Do you believe it could be a softer start given the market dynamics are weak, essentially another H2-weighted year, or shall we think of the easier comps in H1 as favorable?

The second question is a follow-up on the Chinese refractive trends. When Aier Hospital reported recently, they were pointing to weak June refractive data partly because of the changes in the application process for the military students.

How would you extrapolate that on an annual basis? Should we think of it as demand lost or is it demand delayed?

Thank you.

Starting into next fiscal year, Anchal, typically, as Q4 is the strongest, and I think for the 8 years that I'm here, Q1 has always been the softest quarter. I would basically expect that to be fairly similar.

The question is how deep is the trough? At this point in time at least, I do have a little bit of optimism that the trough won't be that deep as it was last year, because last year was a coincidence of I think two specific factors both China and the US at the same time, but for different reasons basically guiding significantly lower into the year, and that, as triggered then ultimately also our profit warning.

Therefore, I am somewhat more confident that we see a better start into this year. China refractive, and what you were saying about the military demand, it may be slightly lower in 2026 due to less recruiting, but there is really not good data on it, yeah.

I really don't want to speculate on what it ultimately means. We have actually been surprised by it in two years to some extent, yeah, and that means it is not as trivial to predict on that properly and correctly, therefore, I would refrain from that here today, too.

Perfect. Thank you.

Thank you

Hi. Good afternoon, everybody.

I have three questions. The first one is a follow-up, a clarification regarding tariffs refund.

Because in the press release, I saw the €11.5 million refund, but I didn't see the other €9 million tariffs refund. Is it correct so that you included the €9 million tariffs refund in your adjusted EBIT and that it is included in your full-year guidance?

The second question regarding the Chinese refractive market. You said that you are aiming to achieve low-single-digit growth in I think in the last quarter of the year despite a market being down around 5% in July.

Is it correct that you are targeting low-single-digit growth in the last quarter of the year or you are referring to the full year? The third question regarding the gross cost savings.

You are targeting to achieve €200 million cost savings over the next, I assume, three years, while, on the other hand, you are targeting to have an increase of infrastructure costs in the region of €40 million. Is it fair to assume that next year, in 2027, the cost savings will be at least enough to offset the increase of the infrastructure cost?

Thank you very much.

Davide, thank you for the questions. For the clarification on the tariffs, the €9 million is what has been associated to revenues in this fiscal year and therefore has been shown not as an extraordinary income, but ultimately it's an operating income, and that's why we had the separation.

The €11.5 million refer to revenues from previous year, and therefore, in terms of accounting standards, it must be considered and shown as extraordinary. That is what I can confirm with regards to that question.

On China refractive, again, to clarify what I meant with low-single-digit growth, then first of all, this referred to where we are after 9 months. I think given that we are currently seeing a somewhat softer development going into Q4, I would clearly say that for the full year, a low-single-digit growth would be probably more reasonable, whether it's going to be further melt down or not.

Obviously, that remains to be seen. I clearly wanted not to be understood that we expect a low-single-digit growth in Q4 for our refractive business in China.

On the gross savings, your assumption of next year that potentially savings are roughly kind of on a level that is close to what we will incur as expenses for the expenses associated to the program that we have mentioned in our last call, yeah, I think from our models at least, we would probably say that this is a reasonable assumption, yeah.

Thank you.

hi. Good afternoon.

Thanks a lot for taking my questions. I have three, please.

The first one, could you just update us on the VBP assumptions you have in terms of price cuts? I think in the past, you mentioned a fiercer competition.

Has it changed recently, and do you still expect a pretty nasty one? Then secondly, could you just comment about what you're seeing in the US IOL market, maybe just in terms of procedural growth, in terms of competitive dynamic?

That would be helpful. The third one is, I'm just wondering if you factored in any potential headwind from new competition in the psych refractive space in China specifically for either 2027 or for your 2029 targets?

Do you think you will be able to keep either the big volume market share you have right now or the price intact when the new entrants will be there? I'm just asking because the consumables are tied with a very high profitability profile for refractive, and any impact on either volume or prices will have probably a pretty nasty impact on the margin assumptions.

Thank you.

Julien, thank you for your questions. VBP assumptions, actually not much more to share.

Nothing has changed in terms of our expectations. There will be, from all what we know, there will be more Chinese contenders and also in the premium segment, therefore, we would expect at least I'd say evenly harsh impact than what we have seen in the first round.

On the other side, maybe on a positive note, we have gone through the sampling by the Chinese authorities and have been fully approved and qualified to participate with our product portfolio. I don't want to speculate here, but at least from our understanding, all contenders must actually be approved through this sampling, and it remains to be seen whether everybody will actually get that approval.

From that perspective, my only message is there's so much uncertainty associated with it that we do not have another model, and it remains along the lines of what I just said. The US IOL market dynamics, maybe just to clarify again, this market is one, I think as frequently discussed in these calls, where to this date, we not really have yet conquered a meaningful stake.

Therefore, in terms of dynamics, for us, it means we clearly have to wait for the completion of our lens portfolio, and we do expect by the second half of next year then finally the approval of the hydrophobic trifocal lens that will be a meaningful change in our offering and will allow us to start bundling a more reasonable portfolio, having then a monofocal and a trifocal hydrophobic lens. Other than that market dynamics, I think there is other market contenders who can speak more with more competence on it.

New competition in China, yeah, you're absolutely correct. We are expecting a new competition to enter, and as you can imagine, what we have just spoken about today with our strategic partner, Aier Group, and the installation of another 25 lasers, the idea is, of course, to fill the market as good as possible before anybody else with a reasonable offering and a solid technology can offer the market.

We do clearly have in our midterm planning the expectations that we will have to deal with headwinds when it comes to margin realization, but I think today too early to tell or disclose here details because, again here, the question is: What will a new competitor ultimately in terms of procedures, what will that company actually be offering? Is it comparable to SMILE?

Is it more a flap-cutting process? Will they have the ability to support the application in the field, which we have learned over the last decades is a key factor, and obviously, being able to service 24/7 the systems in the field?

There's more to it than just having a technology, and that, I think, remains to be seen what will be then ultimately the character of the launch and how fast it will be changing the market dynamics. Thank you.

Perfect. Thanks.

Thanks a lot.

We have a question from UBS, Graham from UBS. We have some technical difficulties, therefore I will read the question.

Two questions, actually. I believe the second one has partially been answered, but I read both of them just in case.

First one: "Should we model refractive China down in Q4 given exit rate, which I understand was down high single digits?" Second question: "Can you grow EBIT next year given the tariff refund headwind next year versus this year and the cost savings are more back-end loaded, is next year essentially a consolidation year?"

Model refractive in China down in terms of revenues, I think I tried as good as I can, Graham, to provide you with the data that we have on hand, and they are, as just said, indicating at least June and July somewhat softer. We have seen, however, years in the past where we had then a rather stronger peak later in the season, and there's always a bit of a seasonality within the seasonality, to speak.

I would not yet completely give up on it, but I think the key message here today is do not expect any miracles in terms of a big boost for the summer peak. If that was the case, I think then we probably would have seen other numbers here in July.

On your question next year consolidation year, I would tend to say, and again, building on the impacts of the back-end loaded program, Profit Up program, I would tend to agree with you that we are clearly aiming for some margin improvement next year, but clearly not on a linear projection from here to the 15% target. I hope that gives you a little bit of flavor.

Thank you.

Then thank you very much everybody for joining the call, and the IR team will be available for follow-up questions next few days. Enjoy the summer break, everybody, and we'll be on the road again in September and talking to many of you.

Look forward to the discussions as we head into the critical year-end phase. Looking forward to staying in touch.

Thank you very much, everybody.