By Amir Orusov and Anastasiia Kozlova
(Reuters) -Sonova, the world’s largest maker of hearing aids, said on Friday that most of its products should be exempt from U.S. tariffs, as it forecast double-digit earnings growth for the current year and also announced that CEO Arnd Kaldowski was stepping down.
Kaldowski, who has been CEO for nearly eight years, will leave at the end of September due to personal reasons and be succeeded by Eric Bernard, a former CEO of hearing care company WS Audiology, Sonova said.
The Swiss company said it expects operating earnings before amortisation (EBITA) to grow by 14% to 18% and sales to rise by 5% to 9% in the year through March 2026, after it beat market expectations for 2024/25 results.
The outlook assumes no significant additional tariffs beyond those already known, Sonova said.
Kaldowski told a call with analysts that a planned new product launch later this year would help boost sales but provided no details of the product.
Sonova shares briefly jumped more than 6% as analysts said its full-year forecast was higher than their expectations. The shares were up 2.6% at 1247 GMT.
The shares have outperformed sector peers since Sonova released a hearing aid last August, named Sphere Infinio, that utilises real-time artificial intelligence to improve speech clarity from background noise, the first such product in the global market.
While Sonova projects slower hearing aid market growth in 2025 at 1% to 3%, versus 5% to 9% growth historically, it expects market share gains and strong business momentum to boost its results.
Commenting on the impact of U.S. tariffs, Kaldowski told Reuters that most of its products should be exempt from U.S. tariffs.
The Swiss group plans to leverage the so-called Nairobi Protocol, which exempts from tariffs some devices for people with long-term disabilities.
Hearing instruments and audiological care businesses, which account for 85% of Sonova’s revenue, fall under this protocol, Kaldowski added.
NEW MANAGEMENT TEAM
The change of CEO means Sonova will be moving ahead with a new leadership team, after it also appointed Elodie Carr-Cingari as finance chief in December. She will start the job in July at the latest.
While managerial changes may cause some uncertainty among investors, Kaldowski said Sonova’s strong market position made it a good time for such transition.
($1 = 0.8310 Swiss francs)
(Reporting by Amir Orusov and Anastasiia Kozlova in Gdansk, editing by Milla Nissi-Prussak and Susan Fenton)
