Calls
Source: S&P Capital IQ transcripts via Xpressfeed · latest indexed call 2026-05-18 · generated 2026-07-23.
Latest call digest
Sonova Holding AG, 2026 Earnings Call, May 18, 2026 · 2026-05-18T11:00:00
Sonova FY2025/26 full-year call — May 18, 2026. The prepared remarks were confident: management said it "fully met our guidance," with Hearing Instruments growth accelerating to double digits in the second half and the highest year-on-year share gain since the Marvel platform. The Virto R rechargeable in-the-ear device was framed as an outright success at roughly CHF 120 million of annualized revenue, alongside the Infinio Ultra / Sphere Ultra rollout. Cochlear Implants remained the weak spot, hit by China VBP, softer upgrades and a competitor launch. Two structural changes anchor the story: Consumer Hearing is now classified as discontinued operations pending divestment, and guidance moves to a new "core EBIT" metric. FY2026/27 guidance is sales +5% to 8% and core EBIT +7% to 10% at constant FX, plus a CHF 6 billion revenue ambition by FY2030/31.
Prepared remarks vs. Q&A reality. The scripted tone was uniformly upbeat; the Q&A exposed the load-bearing assumptions. The path to the top of the sales range depends on market acceleration, Virto R carryover and a second-half platform launch, not on visible demand today. The Cochlear Implants recovery rests entirely on a new sound processor whose timing is "subject to regulatory approvals." Management repeatedly declined specifics on Costco/VA economics and would not confirm whether EasyGuard has entered those channels. VA share was flagged near a peak (~54%) that could ebb as new entrants arrive, tempering the otherwise strong U.S. read.
Participant coverage from the latest call.
| Group | Participants | Count |
|---|---|---|
| Management | Operator; Thomas Bernhardsgruetter — Former Senior Director of Investor Relations, Sonova Holding AG; Eric Bernard — Chief Executive Officer, Sonova Holding AG; Elodie Carr-Cingari — Chief Financial Officer, Sonova Holding AG | 4 |
| Analysts | Andjela Bozinovic — Research Analyst, BNP Paribas, Research Division; Veronika Dubajova — Head of EMEA MedTech & Healthcare Services, Citigroup Inc., Research Division; Marco Pires-Cox — Research Analyst, Barclays Bank PLC, Research Division; Aisyah Noor — Equity Analyst, Morgan Stanley, Research Division; Oliver Metzger — Research Analyst, ODDO BHF Corporate & Markets, Research Division; Susannah Ludwig — Research Analyst, Bernstein Institutional Services LLC, Research Division; Daniel Jelovcan — Research Analyst, Zürcher Kantonalbank, Research Division; David Adlington — Head of Medical Technology & Services Equity Research, JPMorgan Chase & Co, Research Division; Falko Friedrichs — Research Analyst, Deutsche Bank AG, Research Division; Martinien Rula — Equity Associate, Jefferies LLC, Research Division; Urs Kunz — Senior Analyst, Research Partners AG; Niels Granholm-Leth — Head of Equity Research, DNB Carnegie, Research Division; Richard Felton — Equity Analyst, Goldman Sachs Group, Inc., Research Division | 13 |
Curated latest-call exchanges; one row per analyst topic.
| Analyst | Firm | Topic | What changed in Q&A |
|---|---|---|---|
| Andjela Bozinovic | BNP Paribas | Sales guidance composition & Virto R | Pressed on what sits at the top vs. bottom of the range and Virto R's contribution; management cited Virto carryover, VA/large-account share and the H2 platform launch, and reported no visible competitor impact yet. |
| Veronika Dubajova | Citigroup | Market recovery & H1/H2 phasing | Asked whether the modest market acceleration is actually visible and if core EBIT growth stays in range each half; CFO said within range in both halves, with CI weighting H2. |
| Marco Pires-Cox | Barclays | Share-gain composition & cost inflation | Sought the Ultra vs. Virto R split and any RIC-to-ITE structural shift; CEO said gains were broad-based with no real cannibalization. |
| Aisyah Noor | Morgan Stanley | APAC KPIs & non-core items | Asked for benchmarks on the Asia push and dilution safeguards; CEO declined specific KPIs but pointed to strong, profitable Japan growth. |
| Oliver Metzger | ODDO BHF | Retail M&A landscape & ITE ASP | Asked whether competitor distraction eases retail M&A competition and the addressable ceiling for rechargeable ITE; management saw a more favorable field and durable Virto R pricing. |
| Daniel Jelovcan | Zürcher Kantonalbank | U.S. growth drivers & new platform size | Probed Costco's U.S. contribution and whether the next platform gets smaller; CEO stressed VA share/price and hinted at size compression. |
| David Adlington | JPMorgan | Path to top-end & GN/Amplifon | Asked the biggest lever to reach 8% and the net effect of the GN Hearing / Amplifon deal; management cited market plus launches and limited direct exposure. |
| Falko Friedrichs | Deutsche Bank | Retail organic growth & CI trajectory | Asked whether retail beats end-market growth and if CI grows positively this year; CEO confirmed CI can grow positively, weighted to H2. |
| Niels Granholm-Leth | DNB Carnegie | Sam's Club conflict & discontinued-ops drag | Raised potential channel conflict with Costco and the CHB full-year drag; management deflected on channel specifics and declined to quantify. |
| Richard Felton | Goldman Sachs | APAC market share | Asked current APAC share vs. the global average; CEO indexed most of Asia at 3-6 vs. 10 elsewhere, framing it as room to at least double the business. |
Theme tracker
Themes are curator-classified across supplied calls.
| Theme | Status | Quarters mentioned | Read-through |
|---|---|---|---|
| AI-enabled hearing leadership (Infinio Sphere / Ultra, DEEPSONIC chip) | emerged | Nov 2024, May 2025, Nov 2025, May 2026 | Since the August 2024 launch, a proprietary AI speech-in-noise chip has become the core competitive narrative, replacing the generic platform-cadence story (Paradise, Lumity) of prior years. |
| Virto R / rechargeable in-the-ear category | emerged | Nov 2025, May 2026 | A rechargeable-ITE gap was flagged for years without a product; Virto R shipped in August 2025 and by May 2026 was described as a ~CHF 120m run-rate driver, filling a long-standing hole. |
| Cochlear Implants weakness awaiting a new processor | persisted | Nov 2024, May 2025, Nov 2025, May 2026 | Upgrade-cycle exhaustion (Marvel from 2021), China VBP and a competitor launch keep the segment soft; the recovery case hinges on a not-yet-approved new sound processor. |
| Costco / VA / large U.S. accounts | persisted | May 2025, Nov 2025, May 2026 | A recurring topic across the whole history; the recent return to Costco and rising VA share are named growth drivers, but management consistently guards the specifics. |
| Retail lead generation & structural cost initiatives | persisted | Nov 2024, May 2025, Nov 2025, May 2026 | Lead-generation efficiency, store-network optimization and headquarter streamlining recur; the resulting operating leverage is now a central part of the margin story. |
| Swiss franc FX headwind | persisted | May 2025, Nov 2025, May 2026 | Flagged in every call as a top- and bottom-line drag; management has moved from simply absorbing it to a structural plan to cut CHF cost exposure over the midterm. |
| Tariffs / trade disruption | emerged | May 2025, Nov 2025, May 2026 | Absent from the older calls, tariffs entered the discussion from FY2024/25 (Section 232 probe, CI-to-China, Consumer Hearing); so far described as mitigated with no material EBIT impact. |
| Consumer Hearing (Sennheiser) business | dropped | Nov 2024, May 2025, Nov 2025 | A recurring segment since FY2020/21, now classified as discontinued operations after the March 2026 divestment announcement and effectively removed from the continuing-operations narrative. |
| COVID recovery / pent-up demand framing | dropped | Nov 2020, May 2021, Nov 2021, May 2022 | Dominated the 2020-2022 calls and then disappeared, replaced by macro, inflation and tariff caution as the market-growth reference points. |
| Patent litigation (MED-EL / Cochlear Ltd.) | dropped | May 2022, Nov 2022, May 2023, Nov 2025 | An active swing item in FY2021/22-FY2022/23 (including a German injunction on AB); a settlement resolving all jurisdictions was reported by November 2025, leaving only residual normalization costs thereafter. |
Guidance ledger
Quotes, calls, and speakers are source-verified; outcomes are curator-classified.
| Verbatim guidance | Call | Speaker | Curator outcome | Outcome note |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| “we expect consolidated sales to rise 5% to 8% and core EBIT to grow 7% to 10% at constant exchange rates” | Sonova Holding AG, 2026 Earnings Call, May 18, 2026 · 2026-05-18T11:00:00 | Elodie Carr-Cingari | pending | FY2026/27 guidance issued on the latest call; no subsequent call in the supplied history to judge the result. |
| “to grow Sonova to CHF 6 billion in revenue by FY 2030, '31” | Sonova Holding AG, 2026 Earnings Call, May 18, 2026 · 2026-05-18T11:00:00 | Eric Bernard | pending | Long-term revenue ambition tied to the March 2026 renewed strategy; not testable within the supplied history. |
| “we reiterate our outlook and continue to guide for sales growth of 5% to 9% and normalized EBITA growth of 14% to 18%, both at constant exchange rates” | Sonova Holding AG, H1 2026 Earnings Call, Nov 14, 2025 · 2025-11-14T12:00:00 | Elodie Carr-Cingari | kept | On the May 2026 call, management said pro forma sales rose 5.5% and normalized EBITDA 14.5%, within these ranges. |
| “5% to 9% on the top line against a more muted market, so continuing market share gains in a meaningful way” | Sonova Holding AG, 2025 Earnings Call, May 09, 2025 · 2025-05-09T11:00:00 | Arnd Kaldowski | kept | This was the initial FY2025/26 sales range; the May 2026 call reported the year landed within it on a pro forma basis. |
Q&A pressure map
Question counts and firms are curator tallies; analyst coverage shown above.
| Topic | Questions | Firms | Pressure / response |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sales guidance drivers and path to the top of the range | 4 | BNP Paribas, Citigroup, Barclays, JPMorgan | The most-pressed topic on the latest call; analysts repeatedly asked what bridges the market assumption to the guided range, and management leaned on launches and carryover share rather than visible demand. |
| Cochlear Implants recovery and new-processor timing | 2 | Citigroup, Deutsche Bank | Recurred heavily on the prior (Nov 2025) call as well; the answer consistently defers the recovery to a new processor whose launch is subject to regulatory approval. |
| Costco / VA / large U.S. account economics | 3 | Bernstein, Zürcher Kantonalbank, DNB Carnegie | Management declined to confirm whether EasyGuard has entered Costco or the VA (order 32), a direct non-answer to a specific channel question. |
| APAC / Asia growth strategy | 3 | Morgan Stanley, Zürcher Kantonalbank, Goldman Sachs | Analysts sought KPIs and current share; the CEO gave qualitative color (Japan growth, an index of 3-6 vs. 10 elsewhere) but no formal targets. |
| Virto R / rechargeable ITE and cannibalization | 3 | BNP Paribas, Barclays, ODDO BHF | Repeated questions on whether Virto R pulls from existing form factors; management maintained the volume is largely incremental. |
Language shifts
Only language evidence verified against the referenced component is shown.
| Observation | Verbatim evidence | Call ID | Component |
|---|---|---|---|
| Management retired "normalized EBITA" as the headline profitability metric in favor of "core EBIT," a change in the guidance vocabulary itself. | “our move to core EBIT as the new guidance metric” | 1995362320 | 3 |
| Consumer Hearing shifted from a reported segment to discontinued operations following the March 2026 divestment decision, removing it from the ongoing narrative. | “the business is classified as discontinued operations” | 1995362320 | 1 |
| Language on Virto R hardened from the cautious "very positive market reception" of November 2025 to declaring an outright success at a stated run-rate by May 2026. | “It's an incredible success, and we have reached a cruising altitude of about CHF 120 million per annum of revenue from zero” | 1995362320 | 6 |
| Caution around Cochlear Implants sharpened, with management naming three concurrent pressures rather than a single soft-upgrade cycle. | “continued to face headwinds in the second half, driven by the introduction of VBP in China, softer upgrade sales and heightened competitive pressure following our largest competitor's product launch” | 1995362320 | 2 |
| The market-growth assumption was cut to a guarded 1% to 3% in November 2025 amid macro and tariff uncertainty, before improving to 2% to 4% by May 2026. | “we continue to expect overall market growth of 1% to 3%” | 1966020454 | 3 |
The call history shows a company executing well on product-led share gains while its growth story leans increasingly on items still ahead of it — a second-half platform, a not-yet-approved CI processor, an APAC build-out and a CHF 6 billion ambition — even as the market itself is only tentatively recovering.