Prepared remarks
Good morning, and welcome to the Magnum Ice Cream Company Webcast for First Half 2026 Results. My name is Rosea, and I will be your operator for today's call. Before we begin, please note that today's presentation is being recorded. With that, I'm pleased to turn the call over to Lloyd Midwinter, Head of Investor Relations. Lloyd, please go ahead.
Hello, and welcome to the webcast for the H1 2026 results of the Magnum Ice Cream Company. My name is Lloyd Midwinter, Head of Investor Relations. And I'm here with our CEO, Peter Ter Kulve; and our CFO, Abhijit Bhattacharya. Our press release and this presentation are published on our Investor Relations website where a replay and transcript of this webcast will also be made available. Before we start, I would like to draw your attention to the cautionary statement regarding forward-looking statements and assumptions. This applies to the presentation and webcast, including the Q&A session. In a moment, Peter will share some key highlights on our business performance, showing how we are executing on our strategy. Abhijit will then run through our financial results and outlook. We will then be happy to address your questions. So Peter, over to you.
Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining. Lloyd. It's nice to have you with us. Welcome to The Magnum Ice Cream Company. Let's start with the headline first. We delivered a solid first half. The ice cream category keeps growing, and we outperformed it by achieving growth of 4.7%. Growth was balanced across volume and value in every region and each of our global brands. Importantly, our performance was driven by innovation and operational rigor. And this rigor meant we got off to a strong start for the summer season. Disciplined execution of our productivity program delivered EUR 90 million savings during the first half, helping us deliver underlying margin improvement and providing fuel for growth. Adjusted EBITDA increased to EUR 880 million, 18.7% margin and adjusted EBIT margin was 15.3%, up 50 basis points. Transformation remains on track for end of '27. Looking ahead, while we are clear-eyed on the wider external challenges, we are committed to our strategy, confident in our ability to execute and reaffirm our full year outlook. Before diving into the results of the first half, I want to take a step back and remind you of our vision and strategy. It's been almost a year since we presented this at our Capital Markets Day, and we're in the middle of our most important period of execution when you can see impact in action. Our vision for The Magnum Ice Cream Company is simple. We want to make the most loved ice cream in the world to grow the market and build a highly competitive snacking business for our shareholders and customers. And we will do that by delivering our strategy to grow the ice cream market as category leader. We are executing against that strategy, and today's results show that it is starting to work. I really do believe that life tastes better with ice cream. We have a simple but powerful value creation model that underpins our performance. Strong brands and innovation that create desire and demand, execution rigor that converts demand into results and the culture and structure that empowers our colleagues to act like owners. So on innovation, we will generate demand through building and activating our brands like the best in the beauty industry because like beauty, ice cream is a marketing and innovation-led category, and we will leverage our unique capabilities and scale to create unmatched desire for our products. Secondly, execution. Execution matters, especially in ice cream. We aim to have the rigor of our bottling and soft drinks peers, getting the right product to the right place at the right price every time at a thumb's length of desire. And lastly, an ownership culture. None of this is possible without the right culture. It is the hardest thing for people outside the company to see, but it is the most powerful change we have made in the past 24 months. We are creating a culture with clear accountability, a simple structure and aligned incentives that empower and enable every colleague. Everyone at The Magnum Ice Cream Company is an owner and everyone is here to sell ice cream. This model will enable us to deliver against our medium-term targets for growth and returns. We're off to a solid start. Now turning to our business performance during the first half. In the first half, we delivered EUR 4.7 billion revenue, achieving organic sales growth of 4.7%. We balanced volume and value to outperform the global ice cream category with 2.5% volume and price up 2.2%. It's important to remember that this performance is against strong comparisons from the previous years. In the first half of 2025, we delivered organic sales growth of 5.8%. I'm proud of the team for delivering such a strong result. It shows our strategy is beginning to work. All three of our regions contributed to growth with Europe and ANZ at 4.1%; Americas 3.2% and AMEA growing 7.6%. Our focus on operational rigor meant the key summer selling season got off to a strong start. We gained share in all regions, including the U.S., our biggest market, with $1.1 billion revenue for the first half. France and the U.K. were key growth drivers for Europe. AMEA was driven by double-digit growth for Türkiye and Pakistan as well as India included from Q2. However, we also have some markets not yet achieving their full potential, which we see as future opportunity, and we are working with the local teams to get it right into the detail of the challenges and fix the issues. For example, in Italy, we are making progress with our sales and share stabilizing after taking action to address declines. We have also renewed our team in Brazil and are making structural changes to be ready for the next peak season. This deep market focus work will take time to show in our results, but we are focused on setting ourselves up for long-term success in those countries rather than quick fixes. Our four leading brands, Magnum, Ben & Jerry's, Cornetto and the Heartbrand continue to drive organic sales growth. Magnum delivered mid-single-digit growth driven by the successful launch of Magnum Signature La Pistache, ranked as the top ice cream innovation in Europe as well as La Pêche, Bonbons in Europe and ANZ as well as cones in multiple markets of Europe, ANZ and AMEA. Ben & Jerry's gained further momentum and grew mid-single digits across the period with performance accelerating to 9.2% in the second quarter for both the Americas and Europe and ANZ with the new sticks in the U.S. and sandwich format, bringing new consumers to the brand. Stick and sandwich formats of Ben & Jerry's are as popular as our other brands, maybe even more so. But it is an innovation for Ben & Jerry's which customers are loving. It's allowing consumers on-the-go snacking with one of their favorite brands with their favorite flavors. And they are in sizes that resonate with consumers on GLP-1s. Ben & Jerry's social reach and engagements continue to grow, and our annual Free Cone Day was the most successful yet, with more than 1 million scoops shared with consumers. I also handed out scoops. Cornetto delivered low single-digit growth following high single-digit growth last year, supported by the launch of Pistachio MAX in Europe and Türkiye and an improved windmill structure for its famous topping as well as on-trend fruit sorbet variants in Europe, China and selected Southeast Asian markets. The Heartbrand delivered mid-single-digit growth driven by strong performance of Solero within the core range and newly introduced Solero Bonbons, as well as continued momentum of Volcanix in Europe and Türkiye. Our core portfolio superiority was enhanced with the success of new range additions. New pint flavors for Ben & Jerry's included strawberry doughnut-tee and churro-like flavors which are within the top 10 of new ice cream products in the U.K., Netherlands and Germany. We're also taking our premium brands increasingly multi-format, expanding occasions. Magnum sandwiches and ball cones launched strongly in Türkiye. Ben & Jerry's sticks made up four of the top 10 super premium novelties in the U.S. And Ben & Jerry's sandwiches were the number one new impulse ice cream product in the U.K. I have spent a significant part of my career in ice cream, and I cannot remember a time when this much innovation was successfully delivered into the market for Magnum and Ben & Jerry's. We also continue to create our perfect portfolio with a clear offer across all price points. This included new launches for Popsicle in partnership with Hello Kitty and Bluey in the U.S. and reinventing Kwality Wall's to lead with a new improved dairy recipe in India. This is really important in India, the biggest dairy market in the world. Our category expanding innovation continued with the launch of Yasso pints in the U.S., delivering six quarters of double-digit growth and Ice Balls in Asia or Hydro:ICE, off to a good start in Iberia and the Benelux. Our increased speed and rhythm in innovation is delivering results. We can do more than just flavor renovations. Our frontline-first model and ownership culture is driving growth in all channels. The at-home channel grew mid-single-digit, supported by improved service levels which enhanced availability. Growth was further supported by stronger in-store execution, driven by more frequent visits from our dedicated sales force and a greater focus on merchandising. In the U.S., we continue to rebuild our business in the value and club segments. The away-from-home channel delivered mid-single-digit growth, supported by continued expansion of our cabinet fleet in key markets, including India, Pakistan, China and Mexico, which sets us up for a better key summer season. Digital commerce maintained double-digit growth, driven by solid execution and supported by strong collaboration with key partners as well as improved digital assets. Across regions, we see digital commerce driving category growth, and we are positioning ourselves as the category partner of choice for leading players in the space as we partner on marketing initiatives. It is one of the biggest long-term opportunities we see with digital commerce changing consumption patterns in a way that can be structurally supportive to the ice cream category. I'm pleased with the disciplined execution driving our productivity program, which delivered EUR 90 million of savings in the first half and remains on track to deliver the planned savings of EUR 0.5 billion in the medium term. Savings in the first half included EUR 70 million in the supply chain and EUR 20 million from overheads. We continue to reduce waste, improve factory utilization and debottleneck our supply chain with a proportion of the savings being reinvested in growth. I was very pleased to see that we were able to increase market share during the last week in June when there was a heat wave; only when you get operationally really tight, you gain market share in heat waves. Our acquisitions in India and Portugal were completed on 30th of March 2026 and 1st of April, respectively, and they are successfully integrated into our results. We have appointed six strategic partners as the backbone of our future technology stack, and we're building our systems, processes and capabilities. We are now in the heavy lifting phase, and the team are doing a fantastic job. All TSA exits planned for the first half of '26 were concluded on time, and we continue working to exit remaining TSAs by the end of '27. We'll now share more details on financial results, and I will hand over to Abhijit, our CFO, to take you through the numbers.
Thanks, Peter, and hello to everyone on the call. I'm pleased to share we delivered solid financial results for the first half of 2026, driven by organic sales growth of 4.7%, balanced between volume and price. Adjusted EBIT margin was 50 basis points higher than the same period last year, and adjusted EBITDA increased from EUR 853 million to EUR 880 million, although adjusted EBITDA margin was impacted by TSAs and our acquisition in India. Free cash flow was EUR 273 million, driven by working capital movements and higher EBIT. Based on this solid performance and looking ahead, we've reaffirmed our outlook for the full year. Revenue was EUR 4.7 billion for the first half, up from EUR 4.5 billion last year, with organic sales growth across all regions. This was achieved through a competitive balance of 2.5% volume growth and 2.2% price growth, building on a solid comparator of 5.8% from the first half of 2025. Reported revenue growth was 4.2%, including 2.3% favorable impact from acquisitions and 2.7% adverse foreign currency translation effects. Forex translation effects related mainly to the strengthening of the euro against key currencies, particularly the Turkish lira and the U.S. dollar. Adjusted EBIT was EUR 716 million, up from EUR 666 million last year, and adjusted EBIT margin of 15.3% was 50 basis points higher than the first half of 2025, driven by improved gross margin resulting from productivity savings and pricing, which was partly offset by cost inflation. Adjusted EBITDA was also up at EUR 880 million compared to EUR 853 million in H1 2025. Adjusted EBITDA margin was 18.7% versus 19% last year, primarily impacted by TSAs of 70 basis points due to previously allocated depreciation charges, which are now charged as cash costs and minus 30 basis points due to the acquisition in India. We offset most of the headwinds, thanks to our productivity program and selective pricing actions. Now turning to our regions. Europe and ANZ delivered a solid performance with 4.1% organic sales growth and share gains in key markets. Growth was volume-driven, supported by innovation, better execution and favorable weather towards the end of the period. France and the U.K. were the main growth drivers in the region with France delivering double-digit growth and the U.K. posting mid-single-digit growth. In Italy, we continue to execute our turnaround plan, stabilizing share after a prolonged period of decline. Magnum and Ben & Jerry's performed strongly, delivering high single-digit and mid-single-digit growth, respectively, supported by new formats and flavors. According to Nielsen, our Magnum and Ben & Jerry's innovations together with Volcanix made up six of the top 10 ice cream innovations in Europe for the first half of the year. Growth was also enabled by improved availability and on-shelf execution with key wins, including new listings. Adjusted EBIT margin improved by 100 basis points despite the 50 basis points headwind due to lower royalties from India. Strong gross margin delivery was partially offset by previously allocated depreciation charged as cash costs according to the TSAs, which adversely impacted adjusted EBITDA margin by 90 basis points. The Americas delivered organic sales growth of 3.2% and continued to gain market share in both the U.S. and Mexico, while executing our turnaround plan in Brazil, where the business remained in decline. Reported revenue was 1.1% lower than last year due to 4.1% adverse impact from forex translation. In North America, growth was driven by our leading U.S. brands with Yasso and Popsicle continuing double-digit growth and Ben & Jerry's outperforming the broader market, resulting in market share gains. Innovations continued to revitalize our U.S. portfolio. Strategic partnerships, including with Hershey and Disney supported growth across key brands, while Popsicle benefited from successful collaborations with Hello Kitty and Bluey. Ben & Jerry's delivered strong growth, especially during the second quarter, supported by the launch of stick and sandwich formats. These launches plus Yasso pints represented six of the top 10 ice cream innovations during the first half according to Nielsen. Adjusted EBIT margin improved 140 basis points due to carryover pricing effect from the second half of 2025 and savings from our productivity program, which more than offset increased distribution costs. Adjusted EBITDA margin improved 50 basis points, driven by higher EBIT, partially offset by previously allocated depreciation now charged as cash costs. AMEA continued to deliver strong growth with sales 7.6% higher. Türkiye performed strongly with double-digit growth despite being impacted by measures imposed by the Turkish Competition Authority or TCA. These interim measures are focused on the use of cabinets in small retail outlets where no other freezer cabinet is directly accessible to consumers. Thirty percent of our freezers need to be allocated to competing products or left empty. We are cooperating with the TCA to comply with the measures imposed. Elsewhere in the region, Pakistan continued double-digit momentum, while Indonesia achieved mid-single-digit growth and significant share gains. India, which is included in the perimeter from the second quarter onwards, also delivered double-digit growth. Growth was moderated by China, which was impacted by unfavorable weather towards the end of the period. Reported revenue increased 9%, including 6.8% favorable impact from our acquisition in India and 5.2% adverse forex translation effects. Growth was driven by innovations from our global brands such as the Magnum sandwich in Türkiye and market-specific launches, including the Cornetto multilayer sticks. This was underpinned by driving consumption occasions and expanding market penetration through festive activations as well as joint business plans with retail partners, resulting in greater product availability and consumer reach. Adjusted EBIT margin declined by 190 basis points due to significant external headwinds, including material cost inflation and measures imposed by the TCA as well as our acquisition in India. Material cost inflation had a more significant impact in AMEA during the first half when compared to other regions due to the more lengthy supply chain, which means that cocoa consumption in the first half was from purchases made at higher prices. These impacts were partly mitigated by selective pricing actions and disciplined execution of our cost management program. Adjusted EBITDA margin decreased by 270 basis points, also reflecting previously allocated depreciation charged as cash costs. I'll now take you through the key margin developments compared to last year. Adjusted EBITDA margin increased 70 basis points for the first half, excluding the impact of 70 basis points related to TSAs with previously allocated depreciation now charged as cash costs and 30 basis points from our acquisition in India. Operationally, 190 basis points savings from our productivity program and 160 basis points from selective pricing actions more than offset 200 basis points commodity and other supply chain cost inflation with 80 basis points in reinvestment and other costs, including advertising and promotion, TSA markup and double-run costs. Moving to cash flow. It's important to remember the company was a division of Unilever during the first half of 2025, and we are now a stand-alone company. Free cash flow was EUR 273 million for the first half of 2026, up from EUR 138 million last year, with a year-on-year increase primarily driven by favorable working capital movement and EBIT. Interest cost was EUR 80 million higher and tax charges EUR 38 million lower, reflecting our stand-alone financing and operating structure for H1 2026 compared to operating as a division of Unilever with limited interest cost and allocated tax charges. Also, as already mentioned, previously allocated depreciation is now charged as cash costs, resulting in EUR 24 million lower depreciation and amortization. Excluding the factors related to the separation from Unilever, comparable free cash flow for H1 2026 would have been EUR 99 million, up from EUR 72 million last year. This was driven by higher EBIT, partly reinvested as additional CapEx with around 40% of CapEx for the first half related to freezer cabinets. The working capital movements were mainly related to the interim operating model with Unilever. Our net debt to adjusted EBITDA ratio was 2.5x at the end of H1, in line with our capital allocation policy. We are mindful of continued uncertainty in the global environment, and we are taking mitigating actions. Our focus is on executing our growth strategy and productivity program, and we are reaffirming our full year outlook. We expect organic sales growth to be between 3% and 5% and adjusted EBITDA margin to improve by 40 to 60 basis points on a comparable perimeter basis with 2025. Reported improvement in adjusted EBITDA margin is expected to be between 0 and 20 basis points, primarily due to the impact of our acquisition in India. For the full year, we expect adjusted items to be in line with previous estimates and the adjusted effective tax rate to be around 27%, excluding the impact of prior year tax settlements, which is at the upper end of our midterm plan. Net finance cost is estimated to be around EUR 160 million compared to the EUR 180 million previously communicated. One housekeeping point. In Q3 2026, expected customer season-end returns will be accounted for in the same quarter as related sales rather than when the returns occurred. This mainly relates to Türkiye and shifts a portion of revenue between the quarters, reducing Q3 and increasing Q4 by equal amounts. This has no impact on half year or full year reported results. We have published comparable growth rates in Appendix B of our press release to help with your modeling. And our capital allocation policy is unchanged. We will focus on delivering organic growth, productivity and cash. I'll now hand back to Peter for a short summary before the Q&A session.
Thanks, Abhijit. Our solid performance for the first half of '26 was driven by innovation and operational rigor. We delivered 4.7% organic sales growth balancing volume and value and EUR 90 million productivity savings resulting in underlying margin improvement. Looking ahead, we are committed to our strategy, confident in our ability to execute and reaffirm our full year outlook. Our key summer selling season got off to a strong start, and we look forward to sharing future updates. We'd now be happy to answer your questions. Please ask no more than two questions at one time so others can participate. And if you have further questions, please feel free to contact me in the Investor Relations team. The operator will now provide instructions and coordinate the Q&A session.
Questions and answers
We have a question from Warren Ackerman of Barclays.
So two for me. First one is just on the trading on the top line. Obviously, very strong in the quarter, but you do actually have a tougher comp in the third quarter on a two-year stack. I was just wondering how much of that volume we should move across to the third quarter. Maybe you can talk about the exit rate in July, given the heat wave, I assume, has been very strong. And maybe any kind of update to kind of market share, how you're seeing market share data, what is happening on the 12-week data versus 52-week data? Just to really understand that piece would be helpful. The second one actually is a little bit around kind of emerging markets. So on this Türkiye thing with the TCA, is there any risk that your super-normal margins in Türkiye actually need to come down now because you have to open up freezers to some of the competitors? And how do you feel about the kind of margin dynamic between very high Türkiye margins and very low margins in India and Brazil and the investment that you need to make? Are we kind of — should we be expecting kind of like a bit of a step-down in Rest of World margins? And obviously, that's going to be offset by Europe and other places. But just, is there an issue on Türkiye? And how do you feel about that versus India and Brazil?
The ice cream market is going from strength to strength. We always expected that increased penetration and new occasions and increased distribution would drive emerging markets. We were not sure, but the trend towards portion control and calorie control is driving developed markets as well, most notable in the U.S. And all the hard work stepping up execution and innovation is starting to pay off. We had share gains nine out of ten quarters since we started, and we're an innovation leader in the U.S. and Europe. Last year, we had a massive share tick-up, as you will remember. This year, we started a little bit weaker in a number of European countries, but we gained share in the U.S. We gained share in Europe overall, with massive step-ups in some countries. And China, still we are a little bit weak, but we gained share. We gained massive shares in China. So all in all, we feel good about shares. But as expected, it's a competitive market. It's hard work and it takes the best of us.
It was just on Türkiye and the margins and then what's going on.
Yes. A couple of years ago, we had an investigation by the antitrust authorities, and we complied with all this investigation, but our shares kept on growing. We believe that one of the core strengths of the Turkish business is actually its innovation rates and the way they develop new brands and expand their portfolio. We now had to open up our cabinets in the small outlets. We fully comply with that. But we gained a little bit of share in hard discounters and e-commerce. Yes, our Turkish business is extremely healthy. We believe it will go back over the full year to both volume growth and continued high value growth. So we're in good space. Margins in Türkiye indeed are very healthy. There is no reason why they should not stay healthy. We are very committed to our investments in India. Whilst we are building the business, the profitability will improve, but that's actually not the main thing. We need to build a stronger business. We need to grow very fast. In Brazil, we're in the middle of a turnaround. Yes, it's going a little bit slower than I had hoped to, but these are all structural changes that take time. Brazil is also not our largest country. Does that answer?
Yes, it does. It does. I mean on Brazil, are you able to tell us, Peter, how it did in the quarter just sequentially, just to understand that part as well?
Yes, Brazil was still flattish, slightly down, but we're now making structural changes to the portfolio, pack, price and channel. Hopefully, next season, the results will come through. Okay. Next question, please.
So we are now going to proceed with our next question. And the question comes from the line of Celine Pannuti from JPMorgan.
My first question is on the guidance. Obviously, right now on top line, H1, you came at the top end of your range. H2, as you said, you face slower — easier comp versus last year. And you mentioned that you're off to a strong start in the summer, and we can clearly see that the summer has been good so far in Europe. So first of all, am I right to expect you to be at the top end of the range? And why you don't want to quantify that in your outlook? And then my second question probably is related. On the margin front, margin came better. I presume that better top line should translate as well in better operational profitability. And so it looks to me that it's quite conservative now the margin guidance of 0 to 20 basis points. Could you take me through what are the incremental negatives versus the beat in H1 and the potential upside from the operational benefit?
Thanks, Celine. We have made good progress in H1. It's encouraging, but we still have half a year to go. Today, we affirmed our outlook to achieve 3% to 5%. We were in guidance in the first half. And we have said that we will improve EBITDA in line with guidance. We're committed to our strategy, and we're confident in our ability to execute. Yes, as we previously communicated, we expect improvement in H2. We still do. And yes, we basically stay within the guidance.
Maybe, Celine, just to add a bit on your question about the margin in the second half. It's important to know that we are 30 basis points behind at the end of the first half. So we have to actually improve in the second half for the full year. So that's why we still hold to our outlook for the year.
We are now going to proceed with our next question. And the question comes from Guillaume Delmas from UBS.
Two questions from me as well. The first one is on your commodity cost outlook. To what extent has it changed since you last updated us at the end of April since we've seen energy prices coming down? Looking at the back half, do you expect a net benefit, thanks to cocoa or still some headwinds? And if so, how will it compare to the 200 basis points adverse effect we saw in the first half? And then the second one, a question on your Cornetto brand. Out of your four leading brands, Cornetto is the one reporting a more muted organic sales growth in the first half. What has been weighing on the brand's growth? And what are your ambitions for Cornetto going forward? I would assume some acceleration.
Thanks for the question. As we have also indicated at the beginning of the year, in the first half, we were basically still running with relatively high chocolate prices. They will be easing off in the second half of the year. We had TSAs in the first half of the year, which will reverse back in the second half of the year. Energy has gone up and down and then up again. Overall, we therefore stick with guidance and will deliver a modest profitability step-up in the second half. Cornetto is very interesting. Cornetto is the leading cone brand in the world, although we do not sell cones in the U.S. The last two months in China were relatively weak. Weather was poor. Shares were good, but that weighted on the Cornetto growth figures. We actually have a really interesting innovation funnel for cones. We have premium cones, which we now do via Magnum, which is a significant premium versus normal Cornetto cones. So we have now a good, better, best portfolio. We also branched out Cornetto into sandwiches and sticks, which helps drive the brand. It's all about creamy and crunchy. So, yes, it is a very successful global brand, but it's skewed towards Europe and Asia. Cornetto, by the way, is performing very well in India, which is good to see.
We are going to proceed with our next question and the question comes from the line of Jeff Stent from BNP Paribas.
Just a quick accounting question. Could you just elaborate on what this change is to the treatment of customer returns and also, that seems to impact pricing, which I can't quite get my mind around. If you could just help us understand that, that would be great.
Abhijit, can you take that?
Yes. So typically, what happens in Türkiye is what we sell partly in Q3 and in Q4, what remains unsold, we take back at the end of the year when we also redo our cabinets. Now in the past, those returns were all accounted for in Q4. And what we are doing now is we change that to account for it in Q3 partly and in Q4, so that the returns are accounted for matching with when the revenue is booked. And then, of course, when you do that, it has a bit of effect on volume and a bit of effect on price. But for the half, it has no impact at all. So it's just more to help you in modeling Q3 and Q4.
It's also the correct accounting treatment for this.
But how did you book a return when it's not been returned? Are you making estimates of the returns in Q3?
It's a provision.
And the question comes from the line of Robert Jan Vos from ABN AMRO.
Yes. I have two questions as well. Volumes were about flat in the second quarter, same as Q1. Can you provide some color on that? For example, in Q1, you said that volume growth was 1.8% in the U.S. I understand that Brazil is down still, but may be elaborate on how volumes developed in the U.S. in the second quarter? And my second question is on AMEA and then particularly on China. You posted high single-digit organic sales growth in China in Q1, according to what you said at Q1. What was it in Q2? And was the drag purely weather or did you also see some other impacts that held back growth in China? Those are my questions.
Okay. Thank you very much. Two interesting questions. In the U.S., we see structural changes to the ice cream market. Historically, there's a lot of vanilla ice cream that is used as a topping on apple pie, they put it in soft drinks, they call it a float. That market is declining, and there is very strong growth in handhelds, calorie control, portion control, and that is driving the American market. As you can imagine, this is really good for us because that is where we have the core strength of our portfolio. Our 3.6% growth in the U.S. is driven by the growth of handheld ice cream in America. So you don't get a lot of volume lift but you get more premium pieces and price because handheld is more premium than buckets of ice cream. On China, I spent two weeks in China this year. We had a very good first quarter. Then the weather in May and June, especially in the East, where we are strong, was not very good, and that impacted sales. But structurally, you see something very interesting: the growth in the convenience channel is leveling up, and there is a new channel called the snacking channel, which is growing rapidly, with a high number of stores opening. We are pivoting our portfolio and sales approach to these channels. Growth in Tier 1 and Tier 2 cities is more muted, while growth in lower-tier cities is very strong, and we are pivoting our go-to-market more to lower-tier cities. That's why we're still very confident and bullish on the potential of the Chinese market.
We are now going to proceed with our next question. And the questions come from the line of Maxime Stranart from ING Bank.
Hope you can hear me well. One question on my side. If we look at the improvement in adjusted EBITDA margin in H1, actually on a like-for-like basis, it's way above what you expect on the medium term. So could you elaborate on what actually went well in H1? And what do you believe are the challenges going forward? Secondly, maybe moving on TSAs. Could you elaborate on what has been done so far? And what are the main building blocks still to be achieved?
Yes. If you look at the margin improvement in the first half, it's in line with what we had expected, primarily driven by the productivity program that is running and a little bit from pricing. So those are the two big drivers. We had some impact on energy prices in the first half. So it's not way above the midterm expectation; it's in line with what we had planned. On the TSAs, what we have exited so far has been most of the service TSAs that Unilever was providing us. What is left to be done is to move out of the IT-related TSAs. As we roll out our new IT stack from November and December onwards, we will then on a country-by-country basis start exiting from those TSAs as well, which will run till the end of next year.
We are now going to proceed with our next question. And the questions come from the line of Bingqing Zhu from Rothschild & Redburn.
I have two. The first one is about India. You posted double-digit growth in India in Q2, the first period in the perimeter. Can you unpack what drove that? I think in the last quarter, you mentioned some cabinet expansion, quite a lot of cabinet expansion in the market, shift to dairy ice cream and a price reset. How sustainable is that pace? And at what point do you think India will become a meaningful contribution to the group growth? That's my first question. And the second question, I want to ask about the U.S. distribution. I think in the press release, you flagged rebuilding the value and the club segment and also growing digital commerce. Can you give us an update on the progress in these channels? And when we might see meaningful contribution from these underrepresented channels in the U.S.?
Thank you, Bingqing. On India, we basically did the following: we built a new team; all the people now running the business are new, and we set a new structure. We put more resources in it. So lots of work on organization. Then we changed pricing, and we brought pricing more in line with core snacking price points. Our ice cream was a little bit overpriced. Then we moved from vegetable fat to dairy, which is very meaningful in an Indian context. We doubled down on our premium brands, Cornetto and Magnum, and the Indian market is responding very well. And last but not least, we rebuilt our sales system. Historically, the ice cream business was selling via third-party cabinets at retailers, and we are turning to a more cabinet-driven model where we place cabinets. Last year we added 50,000, this year another 50,000. We rebuilt our distributor base and put sales reps in place. So it's a wholesale change of the Indian system, and it seems to be working. It's obviously still a big investment and therefore loss-making today, but profitability will improve as we get more scale and as we build out new factories in India. What is the limit in India? I've said earlier we now have approximately 250,000 cabinets. I can imagine we have 1 million because ultimately India will be the largest ice cream market in the world. In the U.S., during our time in the previous group the business had pulled largely out of club and the value channel. We are rebuilding the value channel and distribution. In certain accounts, we are back to our historic levels; in others, we still have work to do. In clubs, we do a pretty decent job in Sam's. I would still like a broader portfolio in Costco, and we are working that with our account teams. Good progress, but we're not there yet. Over the coming years, that is a good growth opportunity for us.
We are now going to proceed with our next question. And the question comes from the line of Tom Sykes from Deutsche Bank.
I just had a couple of questions on pricing. When do you start the pricing negotiations with major retailers for next year's sell-in? And then on out-of-home, what's the difference in pricing power that you see in out-of-home versus large retailers? And do you see — if cocoa falls, do you tend to hold on to that a little bit more in the product you sell to out-of-home versus the product that you sell to larger retailers? And when we think about next year's sell-in, are you expecting next year's growth to be a bit more volume-led than pricing-led given what is likely to have happened to raw materials?
Thanks, Tom. We start discussing our full portfolio plans and marketing plans with retailers in September. That is where we evaluate the season before and take the learnings. These negotiations mostly conclude at the beginning of the year. The pricing strategies in out-of-home and in-home are different. In out-of-home, you mainly price versus broader snacking price points — a bottle of soft drink, a bag of chips, a bar of chocolate — and that drives out-of-home pricing. It's a very fragmented channel where we have millions of cabinets; the pricing power of individual retailers is a little lower, but you still want to be in bands of consumer acceptance. This business is volume-driven. We now have eight quarters of volume growth. We like that because it drives the economics of the business. In-home pricing is different: we have strategic pricing for brands versus competitive products and versus retailer-owned brands, and we stay disciplined to that.
We now have time for one final question. And the question comes from the line of Jeremy Kincaid from VLK.
I'll make it quick. With your organic growth, it was positive on the volume side and the price side for all of your regions, except for organic price growth within Europe, which was negative. I was hoping you could talk to that a little bit more. And then my second question was on your innovation rates. It's clearly very high at the moment. I'm just wondering if you have any measure of how much growth those new products contributed to your bottom line or even your organic growth this quarter? And do you think this rate of innovation is required going forward?
Clearly, innovation is one of our core growth drivers. We said that the most important thing is that your core products are better than the comparable products of the competition. So there's always a lot of renovation to keep quality lead. Then we expand. We look country by country: what are the formats, what are the price points, do we have good portfolio fill? Then we have a strategy of taking the core brands into different formats to address different occasions. Last, we address new benefits. We believe about 40% of our growth is driven by innovation. So it's very important. We have created an engine that can deliver year-on-year. Hopefully every year a little bit better, but time will tell. On pricing in Europe, we are a volume-led growth business. So we are very focused on getting our pricing right. It's dynamic. As you know, we were very proud that also last year, we grew volume even in the chocolate segment. For me, it's a sign that we are quick to deal with pricing issues to keep the volume growing; we'll continue to do that.
Okay. So that's it for the questions. Thank you very much to everyone for joining the call. If you do have follow-up questions, please get in touch with Investor Relations, and we'll be happy to help.
This concludes today's conference call. Thank you all for participating. You may now disconnect your lines. Thank you, and have a good rest of your day.