CEWE aims to continue to increase its turnover and earnings in 2025

CEWE Stiftung & Co. KGaA delivered record sales and earnings in 2024 despite economic challenges. The company remains financially robust and forecasts further growth in 2025, driven by its core photofinishing business and strategic innovation efforts. The company reported that 2024 sales increased by 6.7% to €832.8 million, compared to €780.2 million in 2023.

CEWE Stiftung & Co. KGaA delivered record sales and earnings in 2024 despite economic challenges. The company remains financially robust, continues to grow its dividend, and forecasts further growth in 2025, driven by its core photofinishing business and strategic innovation efforts. CEWE is also planning further growth for the 2025 financial year: Group sales are expected to reach a value in the range of EUR 835 million to EUR 865 million in 2025, and Group EBIT is expected to be in the range of EUR 84 million to EUR 92 million.

“As a team, we proudly look back on a successful 2024,” explained Yvonne Rostock, chairwoman of the Board of Management of CEWE Stiftung & Co. KGaA. “Once again, we made millions of customers across Europe happy – especially during the Christmas season. In a difficult macroeconomic environment, we invested in our markets and inspired people to create and share photo products of the highest quality and full of personal memories. Our strategic focus on innovation, brand strength, efficiency, and sustainability is paying off.

“Even beyond the immediate annual results, we have significantly developed the company strategically and economically, ensuring that its success story has continued. We have driven the internationalization of the group, developed new business areas, and jointly developed a cultural mission statement within the CEWE Group. At the same time, we have successfully continued the company’s transformation into the age of artificial intelligence.”

Photofinishing results

The total number of photos across all CEWE products rose by 2.9% to 2.46 billion units in the reporting year (2023: 2.39 billion photos). Production efficiency improvements, site expansions, and new printing and shipping technologies were all successfully implemented. Thanks to the premium quality of its innovative products, the strong positioning of all CEWE brands, and substantial investments in the market, CEWE was able to repeatedly assert itself in a challenging macroeconomic environment characterized by recession, cost increases, and increasing regulation. Sales in the core Photofinishing business area rose significantly by 8.4% to EUR 714.0 million in 2024 (Photofinishing sales in 2023: EUR 658.8 million). The operating result (EBIT) in Photofinishing increased pleasingly to EUR 83.4 million (Photofinishing EBIT in 2023: EUR 80.0 million). Numerous product and software innovations, such as the panoramic page in the CEWE PHOTOBOOK, many new photo gifts, the new editor in the ordering software, and the new passport photo app, once again further strengthened the company’s position, the company said.

Commercial online printing succeeds with best price guarantee

In 2024, Commercial Online Printing (KOD) showed a slight decline in sales of -2.4% to EUR 89.9 million (2023: EUR 92.2 million), demonstrating better demand development than the current market for commercial printing products as a whole. In the past financial year, KOD very successfully integrated large-format printing and further expanded synergies with the CEWE Group’s Photofinishing business unit. KOD once again demonstrated its successfully lowered break-even threshold. Cost efficiency in production enables Commercial Online Printing to achieve a clearly positive EBIT of EUR 3.4 million based on the achieved sales. Even in the pre-coronavirus years, sales of over EUR 100 million in Commercial Online Printing would have resulted in a weaker result than today. The price-competitive environment in a declining market means that EBIT in the 2024 financial year will be slightly weaker than in the previous year at EUR -0.8 million (2023: EUR 4.2 million).

Retail continues to be well-positioned

In line with its strategy, CEWE actively further reduced sales in the hardware retail sector slightly in 2024 to EUR 30.8 million (2023: EUR 31.3 million; -1.5%). The earnings development reflects the strong positioning of CEWE’s retail business: Despite the slight reduction in sales, the Retail business segment improved its contribution to Group EBIT by EUR 0.2 million to EUR 0.7 million in 2024 (2023: EUR 0.5 million). CEWE continues to focus on the photofinishing products business (reported in the Photofinishing segment) in retail and continues to consciously refrain from lower-margin retail business in the photo hardware (cameras and accessories) segment.

CEWE aims to continue growing: Strong results also planned for 2025

Group sales are expected to increase by up to 4% in 2025 and are planned to range from EUR 835 million to EUR 865 million. Group EBIT is expected to be in the range of EUR 84 million to EUR 92 million in 2025, EBT between EUR 83.5 million and EUR 91.5 million, and earnings after taxes between EUR 58 million and EUR 63 million. CEWE’s management is basing these targets on values ​​in the upper half of the ranges; the lower end of the ranges primarily reflects exogenous uncertainties beyond the company’s control.

Full year 2024 and targets for 2025

2024 results at a glance