Wall Street closes at a record for the first time since end of January
Tonies SE reported robust financial results for the fourth quarter of 2025, surpassing revenue expectations and maintaining strong stock performance. The company achieved a notable 39% growth in revenue at constant currency, reaching 330 million euros, and closed the trading session with a 2.75% increase in stock price, reflecting investor confidence in its strategic initiatives and market expansion. The stock has delivered an impressive 76.6% return over the past year, bringing the company’s market capitalization to $1.37 billion. According to InvestingPro analysis, which offers comprehensive insights on over 1,400 US equities, Tonies holds more cash than debt on its balance sheet, positioning the company well for continued expansion.
Key Takeaways
- Tonies SE Q4 revenue rose 39% year-over-year, surpassing 300 million euros.
- Stock price increased by 2.75% post-earnings announcement.
- Strong growth in North America and expansion in international markets.
- Introduction of Toniebox 2 and new product categories drove performance.
- Strategic partnerships and innovation bolstered market position.
Company Performance
Tonies SE demonstrated exceptional performance in Q4 2025, with revenue reaching 330 million euros, marking a 39% increase from the previous year. The company capitalized on its product innovations and strategic market expansions, particularly in North America and the Rest of World regions, which saw revenue growth of 40% and 68%, respectively. This growth is reflective of Tonies’ successful adaptation to macroeconomic challenges, including tariffs and economic uncertainty.
Financial Highlights
- Revenue: 330 million euros in Q4 2025, up 39% year-over-year.
- Group revenue for 2025: 630 million euros, a 36% increase at constant currency.
- Adjusted EBITDA margin: 8.6%, exceeding guidance of 6.5%-8.5%.
- Contribution margin: Improved to 37%, up from 34.5% in 2024.
Outlook & Guidance
Tonies SE is optimistic about 2026, expecting improvements in free cash flow as inventory levels normalize. The company forecasts continued revenue growth, supported by the full transition to Toniebox 2 and the expansion of its entertainment ecosystem. Future guidance includes EPS forecasts of 0.26 USD for FY 2025 and 0.43 USD for FY 2026. Analysts see significant upside potential, with price targets suggesting 44% upside from current levels. InvestingPro subscribers gain access to 8 additional exclusive ProTips for Tonies, along with detailed Fair Value analysis and comprehensive financial health scores. The platform’s Pro Research Report distills complex Wall Street data into clear, actionable intelligence for smarter investment decisions.
Executive Commentary
CEO of Tonies SE stated, "Our record-breaking Q4 results underscore our commitment to innovation and expansion. The successful launch of Toniebox 2 and our new product categories have positioned us for sustained growth." The CFO added, "Despite macroeconomic headwinds, our strategic initiatives have enabled us to exceed our guidance and deliver value to our shareholders."
Risks and Challenges
- Supply Chain Disruptions: Potential impacts from global supply chain issues could affect production and distribution.
- Tariff Impacts: Continued tariff challenges may pressure cost structures.
- Market Saturation: As the home market matures, maintaining growth in established regions could become challenging.
- Currency Fluctuations: Adverse foreign exchange movements could impact financial results.
- Competitive Pressures: Increasing competition in the children’s audio entertainment market could affect market share.
Q&A
During the earnings call, analysts inquired about the company’s strategy to manage tariff impacts and its plans for further international expansion. Executives highlighted the diversification of supply chains and the emphasis on strategic partnerships to mitigate these challenges. Additionally, questions were raised about the adoption rates of new products, to which management responded with confidence in the strong market reception and ongoing customer engagement.
Full transcript - Tonies SE (TNIE) Q4 2025:
Moritz, Investor Relations / Head of Communications, Tonies: Jörg will walk you through the financials before we finish with the outlook for the financial year 2026. As usual, after the presentation, we will continue with the Q&A session, and we invite you to submit your written questions through the Q&A function during the presentation already. I will hand over the floor to Tobias to kick things off.
Tobias, Chief Executive Officer, Tonies: Thank you, Moritz. Welcome to the team also from my side again. Also a warm welcome to all of you on the call. Today, we are indeed looking back on a landmark year for Tonies. 2025 was full of success and innovation. We strengthened our leading market position as the global number one for kids’ audio. All indicators point the right way. Our global footprint is getting deeper and deeper. Our installed base grows. We are now around 11.8 million Tonieboxes activated in more than 100 countries. Those Tonieboxes are in heavy use. Our content portfolio appeals to kids in more ways than ever, inspiration, education, entertainment, and now also gaming. One thing is true as ever. It all starts with listening. Kids are listening close to five hours per week with their Toniebox, five hours of playtime, creativity, and engagement over algorithms and screens.
2025 reinforced the appeal and unique position of Tonies in family homes across the world. It shows us that we are on the right track as we evolve Tonies into a true global icon. We once again delivered on our full-year guidance. In fact, we surpassed our expectations slightly despite a challenging environment. At the top line, we saw double-digit growth across all markets, increasing group revenue by 36% at constant currencies, an outstanding achievement. DACH returned to double-digit growth at high profitability levels. North America, once again, showed how much potential we can still capture, growing the largest region in our portfolio by more than 40%. Simply remarkable. A 68% growth rate in Rest of World speaks for itself, particularly when that region already delivers over EUR 140 million in revenue. While we pursue strong top-line growth, we are also very focused on improving profitability.
This year, we expanded our margin to 8.6%, a great success considering the environment we’ve been in. You’re familiar with the model that’s behind this success. Our installed base grows exponentially in 2025, boosted by Toniebox 2, of course. Every Toniebox we sell fuels subscription-like revenue through figurines and now games. The more boxes in homes, the more Tonies families buy year after year. That flywheel is spinning, and it’s spinning faster than ever. To give some perspective, not even one and a half years ago, we celebrated 100 million Tonies sold over a span of roughly eight years. Now, 18 months later, we reached 156 million Tonies sold. 43 million Tonies just in 2025. We are clearly on a roll, and let’s take a look now at the underlying highlights.
First and foremost, 2025 was the year of our biggest innovation since the first Toniebox launched back in 2016. With Toniebox 2, we’ve created a foundation for the next chapter in our growth journey. We opened up our product portfolio for new target groups, new growth vectors, and new opportunities. We performed in all of our markets. North America remained a growth engine despite U.S. tariffs. DACH showed how we grow even in a more established market. Rest of World showed the momentum we build once we really get into a market. One key to the success, strong partnerships with retailers and with the world’s greatest licensing partners. 2025 highlight include new formats with Disney and a landmark collaboration with Pokémon launching in 2026. Let’s take a closer look. We have talked a lot about Toniebox 2 before, and deservedly so.
We had a beloved, innovative product in our first-generation Toniebox. It never went out of fashion. To the contrary, we built a global platform and a huge installed base with it. With Toniebox 2, we took this winning formula even further. We kept everything that made Toniebox 1 a global success, but added new dimensions of interaction and play that open up entirely new growth vectors for us. Once again, we fueled the growth of our installed base. The nuances here matter because this drives both top and bottom-line growth. Tonies has always been positioned right at that intersection of tech, toys and content. Now we are adding gaming to that mix. Alongside Toniebox 2, we introduced Tonieplay, a new category that perfectly complements our audio-first approach. We have created the foundation to bring so many new ways to our platform to engage, to interact, and to play.
Let’s have a look at how our new flagship device introduced itself to kids and families around the globe. Toniebox 2 has become an immediate success. Our fantastic team worked really hard for that. Long before the first Toniebox 2 was sold, we made sure we had high availability across the world. A flawless global launch drove adoption early on, and fantastic customer feedback continued that dynamic. In Q4, our most important quarter, around 80% of all Tonieboxes sold were a Toniebox 2. We’ve stopped production of Toniebox 1, so it won’t be long before every Toniebox sold is a Toniebox 2, which will fuel our flywheel even more. Our promise to families is simple. We deliver on their real needs, inspiration, entertainment, education, experience that support good child development without screens, imagination, independence, and wonder before algorithms and endless scrolls.
With Toniebox 2, we have taken that promise further. We have now the foundation to build an ecosystem that reaches humans throughout their first decade of life, younger and older kids alike. For us as a business, engaging families earlier and retaining them for longer means unlocking new growth vectors. We’ve added a younger age group to our target audience, kids between one and three years. To drive early adoption, we evolve both our product and our content portfolio. We now develop formats designed specifically for children aged one and up, the highlight here, My First Tonies, a range of soft, squeezable characters built around the needs of the very youngest. Simple and tactile, they introduce first sounds and language in a gentle, playful way that resonates. In North America, where we first launched them, My First Tonies average a 10% higher listening time with one-year-olds compared to classic Tonies.
Keep in mind, My First Tonies offer relatively short content tailored to the attention span and instincts of toddlers. What that tells us, babies and kids love their My First Tonies so much that they’re listening to their favorite animals over and over again. Fully developed in-house, this new content format is now ready to win over children all over the world. Now, let’s turn to the other end of the age range. Here, Tonieplay is our highlight, bringing interactive screen-free gaming to older kids. Approximately half of households with six-plus-year-olds that upgraded to a Toniebox 2 have adopted Tonieplay already. That clearly shows the Toniebox can add new dimensions of wonder at a later stage in childhood. While Tonieplay is a full new category, we are also evolving other formats, Pocket Tonies, our educational content Tonies, Book Tonies, our long-form audiobooks.
Together, they now account for around 60% of our portfolio for older kids and drive strong engagement. With Book Tonies, for example, we are seeing an engagement rates up 25% compared to classic Tonies. That confirms what we always believed. Older kids want more depth, and we are delivering it. We are growing our platform, our user base, and our formats. In doing so, we maximize the appeal of our global Tonies brand. One moment that clearly stood out to me happened over the holiday season, our own Tonies Christmas miracle, you could say. More Tonieboxes than ever before were unwrapped under Christmas trees around the world. That we expected, but we didn’t anticipate this. Tonies became the most downloaded app across all categories in the app stores. Number one in the U.S., DACH, U.K., and France.
Ahead of ChatGPT, Meta AI, Google Gemini, Amazon Alexa, Garmin, tech that was gifted to adults. I couldn’t help but smile thinking of our global icon ambition. Toniebox 2 is clearly the number one choice of kids and parents, and of industry experts, too. We set an industry standard with Toniebox 1 10 years ago, and we are doing it again with Toniebox 2. We are really proud that My First Tonies have already won the prestigious toy award in the baby and infant category at Nuremberg Toy Fair in January. Given our focus on winning young kids for Tonies, that means a lot. Toniebox 2 won the Best EdTech Innovation Award at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this year. In Australia, we are not just the overall product of the year, but also the product of the year for infants and preschoolers.
Clearly, we are shaping the industry, be it in toys, be it in tech. Tonies leads the way. These awards reflect the appeal of our product, our platform, and our brand. Let’s move from awards to bar charts. Maybe not as shiny, but equally exciting. Looking at our markets, I’d like to start with North America, our largest territory and growth engine. Let’s be clear, we faced a challenging macro environment with tariffs and economic uncertainty. Despite this, we delivered 40% growth in constant currency while increasing profitability. How did we do this? We listened to our customers and then embedded Tonies further and further in families’ lives, with higher visibility and through strong execution within our organization. As everywhere else, Toniebox 2 created excitement like we never did before. We captured Times Square.
We were featured in Walmart’s holiday TV spots alongside household brands like Apple and Nespresso. Throughout the year, we delivered day-to-day moments of joy with outstanding collaborations. Just to give you some examples, the Ms. Rachel Tonie has seen incredible demand, and Snoop Dogg’s Doggyland has been a great success that showcases the diversity of our content in North America. Next up, market presence. Shoppers that look for Tonies find them, and shoppers that don’t know Tonies yet see us. That’s because you cannot miss us in stores of all major retailers as we continue to expand. The impact we have on kids and on family routines in the U.S. is noticeable across the broader toy industry. In 2025, no other preschool toy brand grew as strongly as the Toniebox. We accomplished this in a year in which every international company had to deal with tariffs.
One year after the so-called Liberation Day, I can say with confidence and with pride, our team managed it exceptionally well. We increased prices and saw no material impact on demand. That signals very clearly how much families in the U.S. value our products. We diversified our supply chain, ramping up capacities outside of China. The result is what you can see here on the left-hand side of this slide, distribution channels. Whoever wants to be successful in our industry needs to play the omni-channel game, and we are mastering it. D2C, wholesale, marketplace, each channel contributes individually and feeds into another as a self-sustaining flywheel. Families discover us in store, buy online, return to retail, and vice versa. Still, retail partnerships are particularly important when building market presence. They underscore our intent to be a staple in families’ lives and drive brand recognition.
Building on a strong nationwide footprint, we continue to scale. In 2025, we increased permanent points of sale in North America by 12%, from 6,500 to 7,300. One highlight in particular, our long-standing partnership with Walmart, where we moved from the consumer electronics section into the toy category. That has been a significant shift because it means every family browsing for toys now finds Tonies exactly where they are looking. That placement drives discovery and ultimately growth. Now, let’s turn to our most established market, DACH. DACH is not only where our home is, it’s where every second family household already owns a Toniebox. 80% of our target group know our brand, and it’s our most profitable market. That’s why we are particularly pleased that we accelerated growth here again, increasing our top-line growth rate by nearly five percentage points year-over-year to 16%.
Toniebox 2 played a pivotal role, creating unmatched buzz around the launch. We delivered innovation beyond that with Book Tonies and our My First Tonies. Our success in DACH, our blueprint market, underscores Tonies’ potential to grow fast, sustainably, and highly profitably, even in a more developed environment. We didn’t only grow with a new signature device and innovation beyond the box. We are also constantly looking for new ways in distribution, growing our retail presence even further. We opened up a new channel with our TikTok Shop. We successfully tested our first ever Tonies vending machine. More than nine years after selling our first Toniebox in Germany, our customers in DACH are hungrier than ever to buy from us. Let’s also have a look at our Rest of World region. Our international markets, France, U.K., Australia, and New Zealand, grew 68% in constant currency.
A fantastic result considering we’ve established ourselves across these markets in a relatively short time. France delivered a very strong performance. No other brand gained as much market share as Tonies, even in one of Europe’s most competitive markets. Our playbook works. In the U.K., we gained market share as well and increased our installed base to over 1 million Tonieboxes. In Australia and New Zealand, 2025 was our first full year of operations, and we are already serving more than 500 points of sale. One of them was something truly special, something we have never done before. Right in the heart of Sydney, we opened the world’s first Tonies store, a completely new way of bringing Tonies to where families are. We gave children memorable experiences, not just through their Toniebox, but by meeting their heroes, like Emma Memma, for example.
We make the Tonies brand visible, tangible, and experiential beyond any shelf placement. In addition, we added three major retailers in 2025 in Australia, Target, Officeworks, and JB Hi-Fi, brand connection and distribution built at once. That is how we grow in new markets. Very important to me and many others here in the company, beyond our products, we live our values as a company. Tonies is a force for good across the world, together with our community. We show up in people’s lives far beyond the point of sale, art, charity, celebrations. This is what defines us. At Kunstpalast Museum in Düsseldorf, we enable children to experience art in a whole new way. In London, our Tonies cab delivered presents to hospitals during the holiday season. In Toronto, we participated in the Santa Claus Parade. Our Toniepalooza events continue to attract more than 40,000 visitors a year.
Our mission makes us who we are, and it truly sets us apart. The same goes for our business collaborations. Through our partners, we continuously reach new audiences, surprise fans, and deliver on their wishes. The most recent examples, our Cuddle Tonies, launched in partnership with Disney. Our work with Disney goes far beyond a traditional licensing relationship. It’s actually a true creative partnership. With Cuddle Tonies, we collaborated closely from the very beginning, shaping a more intimate listening experience. The characters speak directly to the child, a calming, story-led moment designed for comfort and connection. Disney produced the in-character performances to ensure absolute authenticity. Together, we curated stories, guided the audio experience, and layered music and sound design. That way, we bring each world to life in a way that feels uniquely suited to Tonies.
The result, continued innovation for us and a new category for Disney, an audio-first plush built around narrative and immersion. This reflects the trust an iconic brand like Disney places in our expertise. We are helping Disney and so many other fantastic brands bring families the best possible experience through audio-first storytelling. We’ve got many more partnerships like this. This year, Pokémon will join our lineup, the top global toy property for four consecutive years, loved by multiple generations, kids and adults alike. This is a landmark partnership for Tonies. Tonies will be the first partner to bring audio storytelling to the Pokémon universe, creating a completely new way to engage with Pikachu and his friends. This partnership demonstrates the power of our platform. The biggest brands want to reach new audiences in our community.
We tap into their fan bases, and together, we deliver genuinely new experiences for everyone. That reinforces our market position, and just as important, it shows the pull of Tonies globally. Before we break down our numbers in more detail, let me recap the strategic progress we made last year. The final quarter of 2025 captured what Tonies is all about. Q4 has always been essential for our success, a moment of truth, the peak of our commercial calendar, and once again, we delivered. We increased revenues by 39% in constant currency, surpassing the EUR 300 million mark. We sold 1.4 million Tonieboxes and more than 21 million Tonies in one quarter alone. We know how to scale when it matters. We know how to execute in retail with existing and with new partners. Our integrated supply chain is highly resilient, capable of handling exceptional peak season demand.
We create unparalleled buzz with great IPs and strong retailer partner integrations. We onboard new Tonies families fast and smoothly, thanks to our brand new app and also a customer happiness team that loves our brand as much as our fans do. It’s a great privilege to excite our customers and to deliver a product that spreads joy and happiness, even in peak times. I am proud that in 2025, we proved it again. With this, I now hand over to Hansjörg, who will take you through our financial results.
Hansjörg, Chief Financial Officer, Tonies: Thank you, Tobias. Thank you very much. Now, before I get into the numbers, of course, I wouldn’t want to miss this milestone. Since December, you all know Tonies is listed on the SDAX, and of course, I totally share the excitement of this little listener here. Very proud of this achievement. Very pleased that our performance as one of the fastest growing German companies is reflected in our share price performance and in our capital markets standing. Let me tell you, we are ready to continue this journey, and we’re bringing receipts for our confidence. Let’s look at the results. The headline is straightforward. In 2025, we delivered. We aimed for group revenue growth above 25% at constant currency, and we delivered 36%. We aimed for North America revenue growth above 30% at constant currency and delivered 40%.
We aimed for an adjusted EBITDA margin between 6.5% and 8.5%, and we delivered 8.6%. We grew sustainably and profitably, and we did so despite a genuinely challenging macro environment. We don’t need to explain to you the extraordinary situation around tariffs we faced earlier in the year. Being able to pull this off is remarkable for us. Our top-line growth was fueled by all markets and our international expansion in particular. Our revenue share from markets outside of DACH has now climbed to 66%, as expected, as we aspire to become a global icon. Our Toniebox performance was strong and accelerated year-on-year, as it should when you launch a new signature device. We’re moving according to plan, locking in future figurine and games revenue through Toniebox sales.
We improved our adjusted EBITDA margin through a higher contribution margin mainly, and we achieved this despite macro headwinds, including tariffs. Our regional EBITDA margins improved everywhere. North America stood out, gaining almost seven percentage points year-on-year. DACH continued to improve from an already high base, and the rest of the world is already clearly in the green. Free cash flow. We did make the strategic choice to build up higher than usual inventory levels ahead of the launch of Toniebox 2 and other new content categories to maximize their commercial impact. While that had an effect on our free cash flow, it was an investment that paid off, especially as we look at the cash available balance, including unused credit lines, EUR 138 million, to further fund innovation and expansion ourselves. Now let’s dive deeper and start with the P&L.
Our focus is and remains on profitable growth, and we have achieved exactly that, as you can see here. I want to highlight a few figures, first, our contribution margin. It was already strong last year at 34.5%. This year, we continued our cost savings programs that, together with a continued and expected product mix shift, improved contribution margin by 2.5 percentage points to 37%. This, in turn, was the primary driver to expand our adjusted EBITDA margin, which improved by 1.1 percentage points so that we surpassed the upper end of our guidance. Now let’s take a closer look at our full year top line by diving deeper into our markets. You already heard from Tobias that each of them contributed double-digit growth.
Overall, Group revenue came in at EUR 630 million, EUR 276 million of which from North America, EUR 214 from DACH, and EUR 141 million from the rest of the world. Each market has its own story and pace, but overall, they’re following similar dynamics at different scales. Another figure we’re keeping close track of is our international revenue share. It continues to grow, and we are very pleased with that. International revenue now accounts for 2/3 of our total as our regions outside DACH are growing even faster than our home market. Let’s take a look at our category splits next. Toniebox 2 was not only our flashy headliner launched last year, but also a shining star when it comes to performance. Overall, Toniebox revenue grew by 21% in constant currency. That matters because every Toniebox sold is a leading indicator of future Tonies revenue.
A growing installed base means growing subscription-like figurine revenue, and that structurally drives margin. This year’s results also show the dynamic and the expected revenue mix shift toward Tonies figurines and games. With 43% growth, revenue in that category grew faster than others, fueling our margin expansion as planned. Last but not least, the positive development of our accessories and digital business contributes to our overall growth with a category increase of 25%. Now moving from full year to Q4, Tobias already discussed the drivers behind our strong year-end performance. I want to focus now on the numbers. Group revenue in Q4 was EUR 330 million, roughly half of our annual revenue, as is typical for us. Also in Q4, we saw double-digit growth in every market and every category.
We registered above full-year growth rates at group level in DACH and in North America, testament to our ability to accelerate our momentum when it matters. On the right-hand side of this chart, you can see the category split. Here I’d like to provide some context on the Toniebox growth rate. In Q4, we recorded 18% growth year-over-year, slightly below the full-year figure of 21%, which is simply because Q3 already captured significant launch effects from Toniebox 2. On to segment reporting. Last year, we achieved profitability in all regions for the first time. This year, all markets improved even further, so we’re progressing according to plan. Looking at our EBITDA margin, DACH continues to be our main profitability driver. The 24.6% EBITDA margin is a further improvement from an already high base, supported by operating efficiencies.
DACH remains our profitability blueprint that we translate to other markets. We are seeing the success of implementing that playbook when we look at North America. A margin improvement of almost seven percentage points year-over-year, we’re nearing double digits. It’s an outstanding development driven by a favorable product channel mix as well. Rest of World is a success story of its own. Despite still being in a very high-growth phase, despite having just completed the first full year in Australia and New Zealand, we’re already expanding our Rest of World margins. Finally, on Group level, we improved EBITDA margin from 7%-7.7%. Our journey of sustainable, profitable growth continues. Now I want to take a closer look at the development of our adjusted EBITDA margin. Overall, the increase here was supported by a higher contribution margin, which is comprising COGS, licensing, and fulfillment.
As mentioned earlier, notable benefits were improvement in COGS, cost of goods sold, driven by product mix shifts towards figurines, but also our continuous cost savings efforts, which more than offset the negative impact of U.S. tariffs. With regards to licensing, increasing the share of Tonies Originals sold supported licensing costs favorably, while the ongoing U.S. wholesale expansion improved further our fulfillment cost. These three positive drivers more than made up for the negative 1.4 percentage point other category. That was related to beneficial one-off effects in 2024, which we then didn’t have in 2025, mainly driven by foreign exchange, and then adverse one-off effects in 2025. As a result, we increased our adjusted EBITDA margin by 1.1 percentage points to 8.6%. One of my favorite slides. As we said before, our business is resilient. Our organization is resilient.
2025 proved it, and we are on track to show it again this year. Markets will remain volatile, and our proven toolbox to manage this uncertainty is now part of our reality. Tariffs didn’t go away, but we managed them well. We now have a stable response set up. We have sourcing flexibility across production, and we have effective commercial levers. We made targeted price adjustments successfully, means our toolbox of measures proved effective throughout the year. We also have a toolbox to address production challenges. Device components, namely memory chips, have increased in cost for us as well as for other players in the tech sector. In addition to the just mentioned commercial mitigation measures, here we’re also equipped with expertise and access to alternative, more cost-effective memory technologies.
The Toniebox inventory that we equipped us with and the memory chip inventories that we secured already give us flexibility to shift production towards these more economical alternatives if necessary. Consumer sentiment is and remains key for our demand. We have a great advantage over classic entertainment properties because we offer a value proposition that families tend to not compromise on, as time has shown. We offer great experiences for their children. That gives us strong stickiness, even in a challenging consumer environment. Our platform drives loyalty, and key IP launches continue to drive acquisition and engagement. Lastly, we’re prepared to mitigate currency effects. Our business model is, to a significant extent, naturally hedged on the bottom line, and flexible financing for working capital puts us in a solid position. 2025 has shown how resilient Tonies is.
We’re capable of executing our strategy even in times of volatility. I see us well prepared for 2026 and another successful year of profitable growth. With that, let’s take a look at our guidance. Back to you, Tobias.
Tobias, Chief Executive Officer, Tonies: Thanks, Hansjörg. 2025, as you have heard, was a great year, and we are convinced 2026 will be, too. Our ambition to grow Tonies sustainably and profitably is reflected in our guidance. For the full year, we expect group revenue growth of more than 20% in constant currency to above EUR 760 million, North America revenue growth of more than 30% in constant currency, and an adjusted EBITDA margin between 9% and 11%. As always, this guidance assumes no material deterioration of consumer sentiment or force majeure events. We continue to scale Tonies globally, profitably, sustainably from a position of strength. We are excited for another great year. With this, I’d now like to open the floor for your questions. Moritz, please take over.
Moritz, Investor Relations / Head of Communications, Tonies: Thank you, Tobias. As a reminder, if you have any questions, please post them through the Q&A function. I see the first questions are already in. Why did free cash flow decrease from 2024 and become negative?
Tobias, Chief Executive Officer, Tonies: Thank you. That’s a perfect question for the CFO. Handing it over to you, Hansjörg.
Hansjörg, Chief Financial Officer, Tonies: Thanks, Tobias and Moritz. Yes, happy to take that one. I think let’s start with the fact that 2024 was a milestone year operationally, also financially, and we achieved targets probably earlier than expected. For 2025, what’s really different is that we intentionally built up strategic inventory to fully support the launch of TB2, but also three new content categories, right? We established three new categories, which is Tonieplay, My First Tonies, and Plush Tonies. This kind of investment didn’t happen in 2024, nor is this ongoing recurring investment that we’d expect in 2026 in a comparable fashion. It’s not entirely comparable year-over-year. Considering that, forward-looking, although we’re not guiding on free cash flow, we expect this to improve coming out of this one-time inventory buildup to secure commercial success for Toniebox 2 in the new categories.
Moritz, Investor Relations / Head of Communications, Tonies: Thank you. The next question is on the guidance. You guided for 25% growth in 2025 and delivered more than 30%. Congrats. Why do you expect decelerating sales growth for 2026?
Tobias, Chief Executive Officer, Tonies: Thanks for the congrats. I’m happy to take this one. Let me actually make this really clear. 2025 was a great year for tonies, and we really believe 2026 will be as well. I think that I read the question in a sense that I probably should put our guidance into perspective here. In 2025, we added around EUR 150 million in revenue. For 2026, our 20% constant currency growth implies at least another EUR 130 million while we do this and while improving our overall profitability. In percentage terms, that’s naturally less than 2025, given the significantly higher baseline. In absolute terms, this is a very strong momentum. Let’s also be clear, we are delivering this despite geopolitical headwinds that do dampen consumer sentiments across the board.
I want to be explicitly saying that we have never experienced consumer sentiment issues and are confident also for 2026 because we have such a strong, high-quality product. Outside of DACH, we expect the growth rates of more than 30%, and they will be supported by new franchises, as I explained, by exciting new product innovations. DACH will continue to grow. We’ve seen exceptional growth, and we clearly expect it to continue, probably not necessarily always a double-digit growth rates here. Again, we are very confident that this will be another great year for Tonies, and I think this is very, very strongly reflected in the guidance that I’ve presented.
Moritz, Investor Relations / Head of Communications, Tonies: Okay, next one is on sourcing and memory chips. How is the shortage and price increases in memory chips affecting your earnings forecasts? What additional costs were incurred in securing the necessary memory chip capacity?
Tobias, Chief Executive Officer, Tonies: Hansjörg, since you actually talked about memory chips already, you may want to take that one.
Hansjörg, Chief Financial Officer, Tonies: Sure, will do. Yeah, great question. I think I’ll start with, according to our estimate, any remaining volatility that the memory chip market should give us, we think we’ve already covered in our guidance or captured in our guidance. We don’t expect this to break out from there. Of course, we have significant mitigating actions that we’ve undertaken the last months. I’ve already mentioned earlier. We have access to and experience with various technologies, changing between memory chip components to more economical ones where necessary. We also equipped ourselves with inventory. Like we’ve pointed out earlier, we have a significant inventory balance at the end of 2025. This plays into a strategic advantage now because it actually gives us the ability to potentially change production to lower-cost memory components. Plus we have, of course, the inventories that we secured already on those memory components.
Hence, all of these are reasons, together with the commercial levers that we have, just like we did for tariffs, that gives us confidence that we’ve covered any potential fluctuations, uncertainties already in our guidance.
Moritz, Investor Relations / Head of Communications, Tonies: Okay. Next one is on geographic expansion. If you’re saying Australia and New Zealand had an exceptional positive start, are there any plans to use Australia and New Zealand as a blueprint for further geographical expansion?
Tobias, Chief Executive Officer, Tonies: Thank you for that question. I actually love to talk about this topic and Australia specifically. Yes, I agree 100%. Australia and New Zealand has been an exceptional success. We have a great team in Australia. We had, from the very beginning, a very strong, comprehensive retail penetration. This is clearly also a very powerful proof of concept of what I call usually or describe usually as global pull, right? We have, as I said before and said in many previous calls, the Toniebox is active in over 100 countries. That’s what I mean with significant global pull. Moving into a market like Australia just shows how we capitalize on that global pull as we enter and scale in those markets that we see being already penetrated in some way, shape, or form with Tonieboxes.
Yes, Australia, it’s been our fifth major market launch, and every time we have refined and improved the playbook. We are tailoring our go-to-market strategy so each of those market entries is more efficient or better than the last, and we continue to do so. We will continue to leverage this global momentum or global pull also in the coming years. However, I hope you understand that I’m, at this very moment, not ready to share specific timelines or country sequences for the next phase of our roadmap. Very clearly, you can see with Australia and all the other countries, we know what we do here. We’re getting better, and we have all those remaining countries that we can still enter, and that creates a lot of excitement on our end as well.
Moritz, Investor Relations / Head of Communications, Tonies: Okay, the next question is a double question on Tonieplay. Can you give a first indication on how Tonieplay sales per Toniebox 2 are trending? The second part of the question is, could you share first indications how Tonieplay impacts customer behavior and stickiness? Weekly playtime has increased by 10 minutes year-over-year. Was it driven by Tonieplay? Are there any cannibalization effects on other product groups?
Tobias, Chief Executive Officer, Tonies: There’s a lot of specific questions. Let me dissect this. What I can tell you, Tonieplay had a really strong start, as I’d shown you in the presentation, in its respective target age group. The user feedback that we are getting is extremely positive. For example, you can see this going through the website reviews on tonies.com. As I said, approximately half of households that have a six-plus-year-old and that upgraded to a Toniebox 2 have adopted to Tonieplay already. That’s a significant number, and it shows that the new Toniebox can add new dimensions at a later stage childhood. That’s exactly what we wanted to prove, and it’s working. However, obviously I understand where you’re going with the question, but we need to also be patient. We will definitely need at least a good 12-month full cohort life cycle to actually draw deep conclusions.
I can tell you from all I can see and all we are seeing here as a team, we are off to an exciting start. With regards to playtime and the second question, if I remember it correctly, again, we’re only six months in the market, and it’s relatively early to draw those conclusions. We see a very positive momentum, and we see clearly customer adoption. We see stickiness. At this point, we are not commenting on any specific metrics, but I can tell you that we see a significant share of our users already showing strong adoption and retention of Tonieplay over multiple weeks. Let’s also be clear, there’s strong IP coming up. We talked about the Hasbro games. Those are extremely exciting games.
The one we can talk about in public is the Monopoly game, and I’ve played it myself, and I can tell you, playing Monopoly with Toniebox is an awesome experience. I can’t wait for all of you to try this out. There’s so much to come, and there’s so much to explore. I wouldn’t even think of talking about cannibalization and these type of things. This is all growth layering on top of growth.
Moritz, Investor Relations / Head of Communications, Tonies: Okay, the next question is on inventory. Can you shed some more light on your relatively high inventory levels in terms of composition, product categories, etc.?
Tobias, Chief Executive Officer, Tonies: Hansjörg, do you want to take that?
Hansjörg, Chief Financial Officer, Tonies: Sure. In fact, it’s similar what I stated earlier. Our strategic inventory buildup was mainly driven by supporting the TB2 launch, but also we established three new categories, Tonieplay, Plush, and My First Tonies. An investment and launch of this magnitude hasn’t happened in the year before, nor is it happening in the year after. That’s why this list ends up. I would also add our fiscal year ends in the same week as our most busy peak period of the year. By definition, whatever we do in that last month has quite an impact on financial KPIs. Operationally, we get a lot of credit for what we did here because it secured us that commercial moment, and we have the benefits throughout a longer time period now throughout 2026.
Moritz, Investor Relations / Head of Communications, Tonies: Okay. The next question is on interest and taxes. Interest income was EUR 8 million in the first half of the year and EUR 0.3 million in financial year 2025. Could you explain this and what we should expect in financial year of 2026? You paid cash taxes in 2025. How much tax loss carry forwards do you have left? What tax rates should we expect for 2026, 2027?
Tobias, Chief Executive Officer, Tonies: Hansjörg, you’re in such a great flow, I’ll let you continue.
Hansjörg, Chief Financial Officer, Tonies: Yeah. I think there’s two questions here. Let me try to answer this without getting too technical. The first one on interest. Yes, we were tracking positively for the first half of the year and then negatively for the second half of the year. The main driver, actually, the sole driver of this is the valuation of our warrant shares, which basically led to this benefit at lower share price in the first half of the year, and then as our share price strongly climbed during the second half of the year, leading to an inverse position. The good news here is that our warrant shares actually either settle or expire throughout this year. At the end of this year, we will have quite a simplified capital structure, and this volatility, no financial impacts will no longer have to be reconciled. A simplification to be expected here.
Oh, tax. Yes. This is another point where 2024 and 2025 are a bit difficult to compare like-for-like, because 2024 was, in relative terms, a lot more driven by tax loss carryforwards than 2025 is. We don’t guide on effective tax rates, but I think the 2025 environment is probably more representative of what’s happening going forward.
Moritz, Investor Relations / Head of Communications, Tonies: Okay, in the interest of time, let’s take two more questions. The first one, let’s call it on sales channels. Where is your Tonies vending machine located? Could you imagine rolling it out further?
Tobias, Chief Executive Officer, Tonies: Yeah. Love the question. Thank you for that one. It’s a real highlight. This is why I’m smiling. Something that we had discussed for a while here as a team and worked on, and it’s a typical example of great Tonies inventions and engineering capacity. The first real-life vending machine, Tonies vending machine is located in Aachen, here in Germany, in our home DACH market, not far from Düsseldorf. It’s, as I said, a really good example of us constantly exploring channel innovations. I also talked about our own store in Australia, New Zealand. We talked about TikTok shops and all of the things, and now the vending machine. While I cannot share any specifics here on rolling out those vending machines globally, I can tell you, and you can hopefully see, I am, and we are excited about this.
This one vending machine is already really working well. There is no reason to assume that this will be the last.
Moritz, Investor Relations / Head of Communications, Tonies: Thank you. The last one on licensing costs. Licensing costs in North America seem to be structurally lower than in the DACH region. Hence, once the mix in North America shifts towards figurines, could contribution margins in North America exceed the current DACH levels of 38%?
Tobias, Chief Executive Officer, Tonies: Hansjörg, you want to take that?
Hansjörg, Chief Financial Officer, Tonies: Thank you. I think, again, quite a few questions lumped into one. Let me try to dissect. The main driver of our licensing ratio or the % of licensing cost of revenue is, in fact, time from launch, because the further away we progress from launch, the more our mix will evolve towards figurines. That means the more figurines, the more licensing cost. Expect as we grow also in the U.S., we are not as far progressed from launch as in DACH, for example, so that mix development will further continue. A second point I would mention here, and by the way, this mix evolution is also our main profit driver. Whilst there may be an impact on licensing, the main driver of our ever-growing profitability is the further away from launch we are, the further our mix shifts to more profitable Tonies versus the box, right?
This is all as planned per our standard, call it, business model. The second component that I would mention here is the fact that licensing ratios always breathe a bit from year to year because it’s primarily driven by what we launch in that year, right? Sometimes you satisfy a certain listening need better with a licensed product, and sometimes you satisfy it better with an own production. We don’t do this necessarily to drive an improved licensing ratio. We do this to best satisfy the listening desires of our little listeners, and the licensing ratio is an outcome. Yes, of course, structurally or high level, we want to have a healthy combination of licensed and owned.
Moritz, Investor Relations / Head of Communications, Tonies: Okay. This concludes our Q&A session. In case of open questions, we will follow up during the next couple of days. Before Tobias finishes with the key takeaways, let me quickly highlight the next events to come. Until our Q1 results on May 13th, Hansjörg and myself will be at the Metzler Small Cap Days in Frankfurt on Thursday, followed by IR-only events in Munich and Madrid. Following Q1, the three of us will be at the Berenberg European Conference in New York and organize the roadshow with Kepler Paris later in May. The next big milestone on the event side will be our first Capital Market Day since IPO on June 18th in London. We have a great agenda in mind with full Management Board attendance in person on that day. Tobias, please take over again for the key takeaways and final remarks.
Tobias, Chief Executive Officer, Tonies: Thank you, Moritz. Thank you all for the great questions. I really enjoyed it. It was an engaging discussion, I think. Let me close today’s presentation with a short summary as always. We delivered in 2025, and we are ready for a strong 2026. Key takeaways. First, 2025 was a very strong year across all markets. Despite macroeconomic challenges, we grew in every market by double digits. We expanded our margin, we achieved our goals, and we delivered our biggest-ever product launch. Second, Toniebox 2 has taken over. A smashing success with customers and partners alike. We have not only launched a new flagship product, we have created strategic levers for future growth. Third, we will continue our profitable growth journey in 2026. We aim for double-digit growth across all markets, again with expanding our profitability.
Fourth, Moritz just mentioned at our Capital Market Day in June, we will share more details on our midterm roadmap. We have big ambitions, and we are excited to share how we will continue to grow into a global icon. Finally, Tonies is well-positioned for 2026 and beyond. We have a clear plan. We have a strong pipeline. I’m really excited to tell you much more in the coming months. For now, thank you all for joining today’s call, for your continued interest, and for your trust in Tonies. Take care. Goodbye.
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