Bechtle Ag (BHTLF) Q1 2025 Earnings Call

Investor webinar replay

Replay transcript excerpt

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to our analyst conference covering the first quarter of the current financial year 2025 at Bechtle AG. Thank you very much for your interest. We are all currently living through turbulent times. We have almost become accustomed to irritating news from the USA, but the political scene in Berlin too seems to be good for a surprise, as we were reminded this week. Having said that, some other new developments do give us cause for optimism. A Ministry of Digital Affairs endowed with far-reaching powers is, I believe, an important first step in the right direction. What matters now are reliability and dependability. Only then will our customers be prepared to invest in the future and in their European locations. Unfortunately, uncertainty still dominated in the first quarter of 2025, and this is also reflected in our figures for Q1. We will delve a little deeper in a moment. As usual, today's presentation is divided into three main sections. As usual, we'll start by looking at the key economic figures for the first quarter of the current financial year, followed by a few selected important events beyond the figures. And as usual, we're going to conclude with an outlook on the current financial year at Bechtle AG. But first, let's take a look at business development. Unfortunately, the first quarter of 2025 continued along the same lines as the previous quarters in 2024. Rarely have framework conditions been as taxing, and the first official moves of the US administration have done nothing to ease the tension. As a result, we continue to see our SME customers and the public sector holding back on investments, particularly in our two largest markets, Germany and France. Alas. In Germany, at least, we already saw the first slight improvements in...