Signify NV

Signify NV

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Q2 FY2026 · Earnings Call TranscriptJuly 24, 2026

Operator

Welcome to the Signify second quarter and half year 2026 results conference call hosted by As Tempelman, CEO, Željko Kosanović, CFO, and Thelke Gerdes, Head of Investor Relations. For the first part of this call, all participants will be in listen-only mode, and afterwards, there will be a question-and-answer session.

If you wish to ask a question, please press *5 on your telephone keypad. Please note that you're limited to one question and a follow-up per round.

I would now like to give the floor to Thelke Gerdes. Ms.

Gerdes, please go ahead.

Thelke Gerdes

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Signify's second quarter 2026 earnings call. Before we begin, I'd like to draw your attention to forward-looking statements, risk and uncertainties, and non-IFRS financial measures disclaimers on this slide.

With me today are our CEO, As Tempelman, and our CFO, Željko Kosanović. During this call, As will discuss the highlights of the quarter and key business developments.

Željko will then walk you through the financial performance in more detail. As will then come back to discuss the outlook and closing remarks.

Our press release and presentation were published this morning at 7:00 on our Investor Relations website. A transcript for this call will be made available soon after the call.

With that, I would like to hand over to As.

As Tempelman

Thank you, Thelke, and good morning, everyone, and thank you again for joining us today. Our second quarter results reflect a mixed market environment, and we have started to implement the strategy we introduced at Capital Markets Day in June.

Now, looking first at our build portfolio, professional projects continued to grow in the United States and rest of world, where we are outperforming the market. At the same time, professional stock and flow, the trade side of the business, remained weak across most geographies, particularly in Europe.

Now, in our consumer business, the connected lighting performance needs some explaining. Sell-out, meaning the sales to consumers, remained strong and was growing, and that is also reflecting the strong underlying demand for our products.

However, the retailer destocking continued to weigh on our sell-in, as it did in the first quarter. This impacted both our top and bottom line.

On the positive side, we delivered continued growth in India and luminaires growth worldwide. Now, then moving on to the harvest portfolio, that is our more commoditized upstream manufacturing activities, including Klite and OEM, continued to face demand challenges.

Our lamps manufacturing company, Klite, was affected also by component availability and cost inflation. At the same time, consumer lamps sales were resilient, and our conventional business delivered a strong recovery in profitability, and that is a good example of an effective execution of our strategy.

Importantly, the turnaround playbooks for underperforming areas are in full execution, and we know what needs to be done. We are seeing positive traction from pricing with further targeted increases underway alongside ongoing cost actions and operational improvements.

Together, these actions support our confidence in delivering stronger profitability in the second half of the year. Finally, and important also, employee engagement and the response to our new strategy has been very positive, which is critical as we begin to execute with greater focus and with discipline.

Now, some examples of our strategy in action, you see it here on the slide. At Capital Markets Day, we shared that we would be making targeted investments in our professional business, and stadium lighting is one of the focus areas within our Professional Europe business.

On this slide, and actually throughout the presentation, you see the newly renovated Stade Armand-Cesari in Furiani in France. It is a great showcase of our integrated offering for stadium, dynamic lighting, smart controls, architectural highlights, and 3D-printed fittings.

This connected lighting project was delivered in collaboration with our certified system integrator partner, important that we are well connected in the ecosystem to help this project and bring it to life. Moving on to consumer, in line with our entertainment focus in the consumer business, we introduced a new way to enjoy match day at home, and that was particularly relevant of course during the World Cup.

Our sports live feature for Hue and Philips smart lighting triggers real-time lighting effects that react instantly to big events in the game, such as goals or yellow cards, creating an interactive, full-room experience. It's a great example of how we can use lighting to make homes more entertaining and fun.

We have a great community of highly engaged Hue customers, and this was reflected by the very high level of adoption during the World Cup tournament. Moving on to sustainability, this is actually the first progress report on our Brighter Lives, Better World 2030 program, which we launched at the start of this year.

The program focuses on improving lives, saving energy, and preserving resources. On the slide, you can see the 4 KPIs and the progress against each of them towards the 2030 targets.

Basically, we're off to a good start, on track, and just ahead of our H1 targets, which puts us on the right path towards these longer-term ambitions. Let me now hand over to Željko, who will discuss the financial performance.

Željko?

Željko Kosanović

Thank you, As, and good morning, everyone. I will now walk you through our second quarter financial performance.

Total sales were €1,332 million this quarter, with a comparable sales decline of 3.6%, as market conditions remain mixed. Pricing pressure continued to ease across the business, supporting the top line.

We saw sequential improvement across both our build and harvest portfolios. Adjusted EBITDA was at €81 million, resulting in an adjusted EBITDA margin of 6.1%.

The margin decline was mainly driven by a lower gross margin in consumer, where higher input costs outpaced price realization during the quarter, combined with lower fixed cost absorption on weaker volumes. Overall, our indirect cost resizing program remains on track, which will provide increasing support to our operating margin improvement through the second half.

Finally, free cash flow was broadly stable at €35 million, compared with €36 million last year, supported by continued working capital discipline. Moving on to the professional business, the professional business continued to demonstrate resilient profitability in a challenging market environment.

Comparable sales declined by 2.5%, mainly reflecting continued softness in stock and flow across most geographies. At the same time, project activity remained resilient in the US and rest of the world, where we continue to outperform the market, partly offsetting weaker demand in Europe.

Despite the lower volumes, the gross margin remained stable at around 40%, supported by disciplined pricing and ongoing cost management. As a result, the adjusted EBITDA margin was 7%, with the modest decline primarily reflecting lower operating leverage on reduced volumes.

Looking ahead, our cost reduction program remains on track, and the turnaround actions we have initiated in Genlyte are progressing well and are expected to provide increasing support to profitability. Moving on to consumer on slide 11, the business remained broadly resilient from a top-line perspective this quarter, with comparable sales down 0.2%.

Connected continued to see strong consumer sell-out, confirming healthy underlying demand for our products. However, lower retailer sell-in, driven by ongoing inventory normalization, continued to weigh on our reported sales.

Outside of Connected, we saw strong growth in our luminaires business and another very good quarter in India. These positive developments were partly offset by weaker performance in China and lower sales at Klite, which was impacted by component shortages, delaying the supply delivery of its order backlog.

Let me now explain the development in profitability. The adjusted EBITDA margin declined to 3%, primarily for three reasons.

First, the lower Connected sell-in resulted in lower fixed cost underabsorption and creating operating deleverage. Second, we experienced higher bill of materials and other input costs during the quarter.

We implemented targeted price increases, which started to gain traction, but there is naturally a timing lag before these fully offset the higher costs. Finally, the Klite performance area facing stronger headwinds on its profitability, both in fixed cost absorption and in higher input costs.

Looking ahead, we are implementing several actions across our different performance areas to sequentially improve the profitability of our consumer business, including additional price increases and further cost reduction measures. Turning to OEM business on slide 12, OEM continued to operate in a very challenging market environment, particularly in Europe and in the US.

Comparable sales declined by 12%, reflecting continued market softness across the business. At the same time, we continued to see encouraging dynamic on pricing, with competitive pressure easing further compared with previous quarters.

Adjusted EBITDA margin was 4.6%, despite continued headwinds in volume and also input costs. The profitability continued to improve sequentially, quarter over quarter, as the execution of the turnaround is on track, supported by the structural actions taken to significantly lower the fixed cost base.

Finally, the conventional business. Comparable sales declined by 9%, as the general lighting continued its structural volume decline in line with the market.

This was partly offset by positive pricing and also the continued growth in the specialty lighting. Adjusted EBITDA margin improved to 18.1%, with the underlying profitability restored in line with our plans.

This was supported by the normalization of manufacturing operations, pricing, and cost discipline, with additional non-recurring positive effects. Looking ahead, we remain focused on maintaining a strong level of profitability while continuing to carefully manage the structural decline of the business.

Turning to profitability on slide 14, the adjusted EBITDA bridge. The adjusted EBITDA margin declined by 170 basis points to 6.1%.

Lower volume had a negative impact of 90 basis points, reflecting reduced fixed cost absorption. On the positive side, price and mix combined contributed positively, reflecting the traction of our price increases, improved mix, and easing pricing pressure across the business.

At the same time, cost of goods sold became a larger headwind in this quarter, mainly reflecting the faster pace of input cost inflation, particularly in consumer, where there is usually a time lag before price increases fully offset these costs. In total, price, mix, and COGS had a negative contribution of 90 basis points, broadly in line with Q1, but with very different dynamics on both drivers.

Indirect cost reduction provided a positive contribution of 40 basis points, reflecting the continued benefits from our resizing action and ongoing cost discipline. Currency had a 50 basis points negative impact on the adjusted EBITDA margin in the quarter.

This was primarily driven by non-hedged currencies, including the US dollar, which was addressed and offset through pricing actions as for other cost inflation elements. That said, we have clear plans and operational efficiency initiatives in place across all our businesses and performance areas, and this gives us confidence in delivering stronger profitability performance in the second half of the year.

Finally, let me conclude with our working capital performance, slide 15. Compared with last year, working capital improved by €107 million, primarily driven by lower inventories and trade receivables.

As a percentage of sales, this translated into an improvement by 120 basis points to 6.3%, reflecting our continued focus on disciplined working capital management. With that, let me hand back to As to conclude today's presentation.

As Tempelman

Thank you, Željko, and indeed to conclude, while market conditions remain mixed, pluses and minuses, we feel genuinely positive about our strategy and the start of the execution of that strategy. We are very clear about where the opportunities and the challenges are, and we know what to do.

Target price increases are gaining traction, our cost initiatives remain on track, the turnaround actions are in place in our underperforming areas and underway. As all these measures take effect, we expect to deliver an improved profitability in the second half of the year, as also mentioned by Željko.

Accordingly, we confirm our full-year guidance of an adjusted EBITDA margin of 7.5% to 8.5% and a free cash flow generation of 6.5% to 7.5% of sales. Now, this I think concludes our prepared remarks, and operator, we are now ready to begin the Q&A session, please.

Operator

Yes. Ladies and gentlemen, we are now ready to take your questions.

If you wish to ask a question, please press *5 on your telephone keypad. Remember that you are limited to one question and a follow-up per round.

The first question comes from Daniela Costa from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Daniela Costa

Hi, good morning. I will ask the one question and a follow-up.

First, I guess, can you talk a little bit what do you think is driving the retailers to destock Connected products if the actual sell-out has been strong and, I guess, you've been talked about it being improving for some months? Why are they destocking in this type of environment?

As Tempelman

Thanks Daniela for the question. Indeed, on the back of the Q1 earnings, I did mention that I expected that convergence to happen in Q2.

It was slower than we expected. We do see the convergence, however.

Stock levels are now based on our data in the range of 8 to 9 or 10 weeks depending on the retailer. That is just I would say just on or below normalized levels.

We see now that convergence happening, and that's why we also feel more confident going into the third quarter. What is exactly behind how retailers optimize their inventory positions, they clearly came from a much higher coverage in terms of number of weeks.

Now they are at these levels, yeah.

Daniela Costa

Got it. Thank you.

Then just can you talk us through, I know IEEE was very minimal this quarter, as you've mentioned, the gain was not substantial. You obviously had a sizable imbalance, I guess, with imports into the US.

Do you expect it to become more substantial into the second half? How shall we go about quantifying it?

What do you include in guidance?

Željko Kosanović

Good morning Daniela. Maybe what I can say on the IEEPA is maybe more on the process.

As there are different phases. The Phase 1, which was completed end of April, Phase 2 end of June, and then the Phase 3 expected end of July.

We are doing the filing, as you mentioned. It was indicated in our half-year report.

Proceeds which were not material received and reflected in the first quarter. Look, for now, of course, the amount and the timing remain uncertain.

We will be communicating of course in due time on all the implications and how it will translate into the financials. For now, to your question on the guidance, the guidance, as it's being confirmed, does not include any additional impact from that side that would eventually materialize in the second half of the year.

Okay.

Daniela Costa

Thank you very much.

Operator

The next question comes from Max Yates from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

Max Yates

Thank you. Good morning.

I just firstly wanted to ask around the cost savings program. Of the €180 million, could you give us an idea of how much you recognized in the quarter?

Are we at the kind of normalized quarterly run rate, which I guess would be low €20s million if it was going to be saved over two years? Maybe any color on just how to think about that €180 million phasing this year and next in terms of when the cost savings will be allocated from a P&L perspective rather than a run rate perspective?

Željko Kosanović

Thank you for the question. On the progress, we are totally on track and even ahead of the plan and the phasing we had defined for the realization of the gross savings.

The €180 million, of course, is related to the gross savings linked to the resizing and restructuring action that we have taken. It's more concentrated on the second half of the year, right, and the reason for that is because we were of course conducting all the consultation process with the social partners, which have been satisfactory and completed across the board, hence the majority of the savings will be captured in the second half of the year, but we saw an acceleration in the second quarter.

What we said is that the intent is to get the full benefit from a let's say run-rate perspective leading to 2027. That's the goal, and that's the aim to get the run-rate exit of 2026 capturing the full benefit of the €180 million gross savings.

Of course, the gross savings are partially netted by cost inflation and target investment that we are applying specifically in our build portfolios. On track.

Max Yates

What was it in the quarter?

Željko Kosanović

I can't give you the exact amount in the quarter. I think we don't disclose the exact benefit.

What I can say is that it's way on track with the plan that leads to the full capture by the end of the year. That's what I can say on Q2.

Max Yates

Okay. Maybe my follow-up would just be if I look at the phasing of your EBIT, even to get to the low end of guidance, you're going to have to do, it'll be about 40% in the first half, 60% in the second.

You've done that kind of once in five years. The end-market environment is difficult, inflation is still happening.

Maybe if you could point us towards kind of the two or three things that really give you confidence in getting that kind of outsized second half of EBIT, because obviously, it looks like maybe there should have been a guidance reset today. There have obviously been multiple, I think people will be concerned that we have another guidance cut, which has obviously followed on from quite a few years of disappointment.

Maybe kind of the two or three things that give you confidence in getting that kind of second-half recovery in EBIT, please. Thank you.

Željko Kosanović

Thank you for the question and totally fair question, of course, looking at where we're on the first half. Look, for the second half of the year, I think three main drivers and three dynamics.

Number one, improved top line, both in nominal terms, because we do have of course, and that's the normal seasonality, a stronger second half of the year compared to the first half in nominal, and both in nominal and in comparable sales growth terms. There we do see, as was mentioned earlier by As on the dynamic in our build and harvest portfolio, a sequential improvement on the top line.

That's one. Second, gross margin resilience.

Of course, as you mentioned, but we've had those situation in the past, increased inflation on the input costs. There we do have also actions.

This is all about managing price, mix, and cost of goods sold in combination to manage the gross margin resilience, which has been the case for the first half of the year in most businesses except consumer in Q2, as we indicated. There we do have a clear plan for the gross margin resilience.

Third, the increased contribution from our cost resizing program. This is back to your previous question, where the contribution and the benefits of the cost savings will be increased in the third part of the year.

I would say, in addition, what is very important is across the board, this improvement that is expected is also linked to the strategy execution in action that As referred to. We have a very, very clear plan across all the performance areas and with all the different playbooks that do apply.

We have a clear turnaround playbook applicable for the OEM business. The OEM business profitability has been sequentially improving quarter over quarter.

We expect that to continue in the second half of the year, and a structural profitability improvement. We have performance areas where maintain high profitability applies, so that's the example of conventional, where we have restored profitability and expect to maintain that in the second half of the year.

It's also the case for consumer lamps, for example. We do have also a few performance areas where the operating leverage applies, and that's the case of Consumer Connected, professional projects, and India.

We have a very clear plan for each of the performance area, which are really supporting the development and the improvement which is behind the confirmation of the guidance for the second half of the year.

Max Yates

That's really helpful. Thank you.

Operator

The next question comes from Martin Wilkie from Citi. Please go ahead.

Martin Wilkie

Good morning. Thank you.

It's Martin from Citi. The first question is just to come back to consumer.

Obviously, I can hear what you're saying in terms of sell-in and sell-out, but when we look at the sort of headline numbers, revenue was probably better than people were expecting, but the margin weaker. Is there a mix effect inside that as well in terms of the non-connected business just having a sort of structurally lower margin than Connected, just to explain why optically the margin decreases probably more than you'd expect given the relatively muted decline you had on comparable sales growth?

Thank you.

Željko Kosanović

No look, I think there is an element of mix, but I would say the two biggest drivers, if you really look at, and this is basically 80% of the erosion is first on our let's say manufacturing, right, the lamps manufacturing business, Klite, which is also structurally on a much lower level of gross margin. I think there we've been facing a very, very tough combination of headwinds, because you've had on one hand shortage on components, which unable to deliver on the backlog.

That was a volume impact, and then in that kind of manufacturing business, the undercoverage impact was very heavy. We've seen also on the cost inflation side, this is where the components cost inflation has been particularly heavy and faster, and the time lag of addressing that through pricing obviously more difficult.

That was the second end. In combination, that had a big impact, although the size of that business for the total consumer is not that big, but the impact on the margin for that business has been quite significant.

On the other hand, for the Connected part, I think there it's intrinsically that sell-in, sell-out gap, which immediately translated on the undercoverage. I think these two components, I think they represent most of the impact, and then we have smaller impacts on other elements and some negative one-offs, but broadly speaking, this is more about the intrinsic impact on those two businesses.

I would say the Connected part is transitory, clearly. On the Klite part, the upstream manufacturing, there it's more structural, because there you really have that headwind on volumes, you have that of course headwind on cost inflation that need to be addressed.

We understand exactly what the issues are on those two areas, and we have very clear plan for the second half of the year. The mix element to your question to be fair has been limited to explain the erosion of the consumer EBITDA margin in Q2.

Martin Wilkie

Great. That's really helpful.

Just as a follow-on, and also related to destocking, in professional, you've obviously talked about stock and flow again, but just to be clear, is that also sell-in versus sell-out? Is the stock and flow levels of inventory at your distributors normalized, this is just really about the end market, or how should we think about what's driving that weakness there?

As Tempelman

That again is a mix. The destocking effect is not so evident as it is in the consumer side, Martin.

What we see on the stock and flow is that you still have some price erosion, although we see that easing. Then we've just seen also a lower demand in those channels, right?

That's both the price effect as well as the volume effect that we've seen the sales in stock and flow coming down. On the other side on projects, of course, that has been much more resilient.

Martin Wilkie

Great. Thank you.

Operator

The next question comes from Akash Gupta from JPMorgan. Please go ahead.

Akash Gupta

Yes. Hi, good morning.

Some of my questions have already been asked, but maybe just a follow-up on consumer margin development in second half. If you listen to what you have said so far, there are quite a number of moving parts here, and it looks like some of the headwinds that we have seen in first half will turn into tailwind, particularly from the channel inventory point of view.

Overall, when we add everything together, what's your conviction on second-half margin versus last year? We saw significant erosion in H1.

Could we see more of a flattish margin for consumer overall in second half, or that would be too ambitious? That's the first one.

Željko Kosanović

Look, I think as you said, there are different moving parts within the consumer business. Different performance areas, you have the upstream manufacturing part.

There it's fair to say that, as I said, you have a structural pressure both coming from volume, and that's obviously direct impacting the margin, and cost inflation. We do have of course levers to offset, but there you're in an upstream manufacturing place, this is a bit more challenging.

This, I would say, would be probably the most challenging part. Then on the other hand, we see Connected is all about leverage, right?

It plays both ways. We had an operating deleverage unfavorable impact in the first half of the year driven by this destocking, but then when it goes back into the normalization and the convergence of sell-in, sell-out, then you are back into the operating leverage, and this is a business that has a much higher seasonality in the second half of the year.

I think there we are clearly seeing that it should go back to the levels expected. Price power to offset cost inflation is of course of a different nature.

We do have also on the lamps business, right, which is more a harvest portfolio within our consumer business, where there we see strong profitability, very resilient profitability, which we do expect to maintain in the second half of the year. Then we also have the luminaires business.

It's one of our build portfolio, which has been growing strongly. This is a pure operating leverage performance area again.

I think very different dynamics, but to your question, I think we expect clearly that we are normalizing, let's say, the level of margin in the second half of the year for the consumer business after what was clearly a challenging first half with different moving pieces.

As Tempelman

If I would have to simplify it, positive India, positive luminaires and lamp sales. Then challenging in Q1 was Klite and Connected on the operating leverage, and then we had China online, which was a challenge.

Going forward, this with price management, we see margins improving. We've also seen inflationary BOM, bill of material, so that needs to be offset.

Typically, we see much higher sales on Connected in the second half, and that would give us that operating leverage and that margin uplift.

Akash Gupta

Thank you. My follow-up question is on exchange rate in the bridge.

When we look in your P&L, FX headwind on revenues have gone down quite materially in Q2 versus Q1, but headwind on margins was still in 50 basis points in the bridge. Can you tell us about how shall we think about this exchange rate impact in second half?

Is there any chance that it might turn positive in H2? Thank you.

Željko Kosanović

Thank you for the question. As it's always be difficult to project.

No, but at least what we can say, because of course we have very clear hedging mechanisms in place, right? For the hedged currency, I think puts simply, they've worked very well in the first half of the year, and they are going to continue to play their part.

Now, when you look at the non-hedged currencies, I think you do have movements, and there, if you have between the sales currency and the COGS currency, right, we have quite a large part of our supply which is China based, when you look at the dynamics of the RMB versus the dynamic of the US dollar, for example, this is basically another element of cost inflation that we are fully incorporating as such. It's really looked at, if you like, the FX movement as one other flavor of cost inflation dynamic or cost deflation, depending on how currencies go, which are embedded in the way we manage the margin.

How to tell you specifically on that element of the bridge how it will look like, but at least what I can say is that for the hedge part, under control and fully managed, and for the non-hedged currencies, it's back to gross margin management discipline.

Akash Gupta

Thank you.

Operator

The next question comes from Rajesh Patki from Barclays. Please go ahead.

Rajesh Patki

Yes, good morning. I've got a question on the cost base.

I think you said the cost savings will have a lot more meaningful impact in the second half. Do you expect the exit run rate for indirect cost as a percentage of sales to reach a 30% target by the end of this year?

Željko Kosanović

As I said, full capture of the gross savings expected as entry into 2027. Now, to your question, what we have indicated is, and this is what we mentioned during Capital Markets Day, our goal is to bring the overall indirect cost ratio to 30% or below by 2029.

I think looking of course at the dynamic of the top line, we are sequentially improving, but this is not going to lead for 2027 yet to reach the 30% that we have indicated as the objective by 2029.

Rajesh Patki

Got it. The follow-up is a slightly different cost bucket, the shipping cost, which were at 6.2% of sales last year.

Can you comment on where you stand for the first half, and what have you assumed to get to the margin guidance? Thank you.

Željko Kosanović

On the shipping cost, that's where we've seen of course much earlier in the year, right, the effect of cost inflation, because that was also to a great extent linked to the conflict in the Middle East. We've seen that transportation cost increasing.

As a percentage of sales, we see an increase in the first half, but which is of course mitigated and addressed through pricing action. I think when we look at the transportation rate, look, it's of course it's a very volatile market.

You can any given week, you can see different movement, but I think the pressure is already high in the first half, I think the ramp-up would be more limited, but we have factored that in, of course, in our guidance, but starting from a relatively high level already in the current cost for the first half of the year.

Rajesh Patki

Great. Thank you very much.

Operator

The following question comes from Thijs Chase from Van Lanschot Kempen. Please go ahead.

Yes,

Chase Coughlan

thank you, operator, and good morning, everyone. Two questions from my end.

Firstly, you mentioned that the conventional volume decline from the general market was of course offset by a strong specialty performance and some pricing benefits. Could you remind me how much of that conventional business is specialty today, even approximately?

As Tempelman

Good morning, Thijs. That is about 1/3, just below.

Chase Coughlan

1/4

As Tempelman

25% to 30%, yep.

Chase Coughlan

Perfect. Then my follow-up would be just on the pricing impact for the year.

You've of course mentioned you've already taken some pricing action, and there should be more to come in the second half. Could you give an estimate on sort of how much, let's say, the pricing impact on a sales level should be for the full year '26?

As Tempelman

If we look at what happened in the quarter, the price/mix was about neutral for all Signify. We clearly see an improvement versus the pricing erosion that we saw in the last two calendar years, 2024, 2025.

Where we push our prices in areas where we have higher differentiation and more concentration. Of course, we are careful doing that in areas where it's more fragmented and more commoditized.

If you would look at it by business, the price/mix, that professional was more or less flat year on year, and then consumer, that pricing has been lagging versus cost increases in the first half, and that should catch up in the second half. OEM continues to have pressures, then negative price/mix effect, and conventional was a positive price/mix effect.

It's really a mixed bag in the portfolio. It depends on the mix, it depends on where we have differentiation and concentration power.

It's really a bit hard to predict to average that out on the second half of the year. It's been more or less neutral effect in the first half, and yeah for now that continues.

Taking decisive action where we can to of course offset inflationary effects.

Chase Coughlan

Understood. Great, thank you.

Operator

The next question comes from Marc Hesselink from ING. Please go ahead.

Marc Hesselink

Great. Thanks.

A first question is actually on the price increases, and I think if I read it correct or listen correctly, then a significant impact is on Klite where you have to increase the prices to protect the margin, but that's also probably an area where it's more difficult to raise prices without impacting volume. Can you maybe talk about the trade-off there and what you then expect for volumes in this business for the second half?

As Tempelman

Specifically for Klite, Marc?

Marc Hesselink

Maybe in general, but I guess Klite is an area where it's a difficult market at the moment and where I think it's quite difficult to raise prices without impacting the volumes.

As Tempelman

Klite of course is really our manufacturing of lamps position in China. That was facing quite a bit of headwinds in the first half, because of the shortage of these components, which were very specific also concentrated to Klite.

Then we saw lower volumes and undercoverage. That has been the dynamic of Klite.

That should improve in the second half. Lamp sales, however, were pretty resilient in the first half, yeah.

It's also a position where we have strong brand power. We think that we can also take price actions as required on that part of the business.

Marc Hesselink

Great. It's clear.

Then second question is on the margin development, maybe a little bit per quarter, not asking guidance per quarter, but I've seen over the last few years typically the third quarter was relatively strong already relative to the first half the year, and then obviously the fourth quarter being the strongest. How do you expect that cadence then this year, because you still have quite a difficult comparable base in the third quarter?

Maybe your thoughts there.

Željko Kosanović

Look, as you said, of course, the blended answer would be difficult, because you have different dynamics at play across the different businesses. I think this year compared to previous year, I think the pacing of offsetting cost inflation through price, of course, will have an effect, right, because it will not be applied in the same way across all the performance areas or at the same pace across all the performance areas.

I think there may be a bit of a different pattern, let's say, Q3, Q4 compared to what we've seen in the previous year. The dynamic, back to what I was saying earlier, of sequential improved top line, gross margin resilience improvement, and increased contribution of our cost will continue to apply from Q2 to Q3 and then, of course, from Q3 to Q4.

Marc Hesselink

Is it then fair to assume that this year will be even more fourth-quarter geared than usual?

Željko Kosanović

That's fair to assume that, yes indeed.

Marc Hesselink

Great. Thanks.

Operator

Our final question comes from Adam Parr from Rothschild & Co. Please go ahead.

Adam Parr

Hi, good morning. Thanks for taking my question.

Could you please help us a little bit more with the split of price/mix, because I know you sort of conflate it? How much was true price increases versus mix, given one, you mentioned targeted price increases, but as well, it sounds like there's some negative mix coming from the destocking in Connected?

I just wanted to ask, was overall pricing at the group level positive?

As Tempelman

We look at price/mix always. There, I indicated it's been neutral across H1.

We are putting up prices, right, where we see a higher cost input and higher input cost, and we are more careful in areas that are more commoditized. Then that mix plays out as neutral.

That's where we are.

Adam Parr

Is that time for a follow-up if I may? I'll try it anyway.

I just wanted to ask on OEM, is there anything else we should be aware of why it sort of redeteriorated in the quarter in terms of organic sales growth? Thanks.

As Tempelman

OEM, yeah, it is a bit volatile quarter to quarter, I have to say. The second quarter, we saw weaker demand and lower sales in Europe and the US.

APAC actually sales was quite good. Now, the team is extremely agile applying the playbook, as Željko indicated earlier, really taking out the costs and taking the pricing actions.

Therefore, we see better results bottom line. Q3, right, will have its own dynamics.

I don't necessarily see this as a trend that needs to continue like we saw in Q2.

Adam Parr

Perfect. Thanks very much.

Appreciate that.

Operator

We have time for one more question, which will be from Maarten Verbeek from The Idea. Please go ahead.

Maarten Verbeek

Good morning, it's Maarten Verbeek of The Idea. What has not been presented in this current press release is the connected light points, which tends to give some indication about your performance in this area.

Could you disclose that amount of connected light points?

As Tempelman

Yeah. No, thanks for the question.

Indeed, we normally put that in. We left it out this time to focus on the strategy.

At the latest that I've seen, we stand at 175 million points. We still track it very well.

Maarten Verbeek

Thanks. Secondly, your dividend will be based on your adjusted net income going forward.

Actually, what I also missed in this press release was an adjusted net income for Signify in the first half just to get a better feel what we could expect for dividend to be paid by Signify start of next year.

Željko Kosanović

I think you're right. We mentioned it's on the continuing net income, the way has been applied in the past, because the dividend policy as has been communicated is the same as what was applied previously for Signify, 40% to 50% of the continuing net income.

I think the main element of adjustment would be relating to restructuring. It's a fair point that we perhaps could make that even more visible, but basically if you look at what has been reported, the proxy would be the net income restated of the impact of the restructuring.

That's something which we can make a bit more visible in the disclosure for sure.

Maarten Verbeek

That's feasible, but obviously there would also be tax impact, which is not that visible, at least for me.

Željko Kosanović

No, point is taken. I think we can give that visibility and add that into the disclosure.

It's a very good suggestion.

Maarten Verbeek

Great, thanks.

As Tempelman

Does that bring us to the end, yeah? Now,

Operator

I would just like to turn the call back over to Thelke Gerdes for any closing remarks. Yes,

Thelke Gerdes

ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much for joining our earnings call today, and apologies for the technical disruption at the start of the call. If you have any additional questions, please feel free to reach out to us.

Thank you very much again, and enjoy the rest of your day.