On the way to a bigger, more profitable Thule
With more product categories and more new products, Thule has once again proven that growth is possible even in a challenging market. In 2025, Thule posted its highest sales ever. We continue to build on our strengths, keeping our foot on the gas and our sights firmly set on getting to the next level – a significantly larger Thule with even higher profitability.
With more product categories and more new products, Thule has once again proven that growth is possible even in a challenging market. In 2025, Thule posted its highest sales ever. We continue to build on our strengths, keeping our foot on the gas and our sights firmly set on getting to the next level – a significantly larger Thule with even higher profitability.
New products drive growth
New products have always been the main driver of our historical growth. 2025 was another busy year with launches, with new products positively impacting on sales performance. In RV Products, for example, this year’s new products created growth despite the weaker market for RVs and camper vans. In the largest category, Sport & Cargo Carriers, we completed the largest upgrade ever of roof boxes and bike carriers with a clear positive effect on sales despite the challenging North American market. We are proud to continue winning awards for product design and product safety. And during the year, we once again came out on top in the ADAC child car seat safety test and received 17 more Red Dot and iF Design Awards.
Strategies that build on strengths
Thule’s market-leading positions and our ability to develop them is one of the company’s greatest strengths. Product categories in which we are the market leader have accounted for 90 percent of Thule’s value creation since 2014. We call these product categories “Champions”. What sets these apart is that we hold a clear position as global number one with competitors a large distance behind, usually in a niche or small market. In this niche, Thule is not only the market leader, but is also clearly able to out-innovate the competition. All our Champions are also a natural fit with our brand promise – to help outdoor enthusiasts “Bring your life.” We currently have six Champions: roof racks, roof boxes, bike carriers, multisport and bike trailers, awnings and performance phone mounts. And we also have the most impact when we focus our product development on Champions, as reflected in this year’s product launches.
Successful first year with Quad Lock
Thule’s Champion for performance phone mounts was added through the acquisition of Quad Lock. As a global market leader in its niche, with a growing market, the best products in it’s field, and a strong history of innovation and product development, the acquisition was a perfect fit with our strategy. We’ve had a very good first year, with around 15 percent sales growth for performance phone mounts and integration progressing as planned. As long as the strategic criteria are met, acquisitions are a successful way to add new product categories to Thule.
Adding more Champions
The first priority of our growth plan is to build bigger Champions, in other words, to grow the ones we already have. The second priority is to add more Champions. Our aim is to increase from the existing six Champions to ten by 2035. Thule already has several promising candidates in product categories that both meet our strategic criteria and show clear growth. Two prospects are dog transportation and child car seats, which were introduced in 2024. In terms of first year sales, dog transportation was our best new category ever in 2024. That record was then overtaken by child car seats in 2025.
Without my colleagues’ curiosity, passion and desire to constantly find even better solutions, we would not be in the position where we are today, with more than 1,000 patents and a position as the global market leader in our key product categories.”
Increased visibility to consumers
Reaching a wider consumer audience and increasing awareness of Thule’s full product offering is a prerequisite for adding and scaling up Champions. While we know that many of our customers genuinely appreciate our products, few are aware of our entire offering. This represents a growth opportunity that we want to leverage. We opened our twentieth e-commerce market in 2025 and established our own sales organization in Australia, a country with many outdoor enthusiasts and with significant growth potential for Thule.
Improved efficiency and economies of scale
Efficiency improvements play a crucial role in reaching our EBIT target of 20 percent and being
constantly cost-conscious is part of our Småland* DNA. We have recently implemented a number of cost reduction measures, including a simplified structure, lower and more focused development costs, and supply chain efficiency improvements. All of these positively impact profitability. These measures are expected to have a positive impact on the margin of 2.5 percentage points by 2028. In addition, volume growth allows us to leverage economies of scale. Thule currently has significant unused production capacity from pre-pandemic investments in our factories. Higher volumes will improve capacity utilization and directly increase the gross margin. We also benefit from increasing the operating leverage of our fixed costs as sales increase.
Our clear plan is based on building bigger and more Champions, driving efficiency improvements and leveraging economies of scale.”
New financial targets
We updated our financial targets at the end of the year with the aim of delivering growth and profitability above the historical average levels. With a focus on organic growth, our new sales target is to achieve annual organic sales growth of 7 percent compared with the historical average of 5 percent. The targets of an EBIT margin of 20 percent and a dividend corresponding to at least 75 percent of net profit remain unchanged. Our clear plan for achieving these targets is based on building bigger and more Champions, driving efficiency improvements and leveraging economies of scale. In 2025, we took several key steps in the right direction, and the path toward the long-term targets is clear.
Sustainability makes a difference
For those of us who regularly enjoy of the great outdoors, the importance of taking care of our planet is self-evident. When developing new products, we aim to reduce CO2e emissions compared with previous versions. The Thule Xscape truck rack system is one example, where ecodesign helped us reduce emissions by 61 percent compared with the previous product. As part of our Science Based Targets plan, we have already reduced absolute emissions by 25 percent, leaving us room to continue growing sales while continuing to meet our emissions targets.
Future focus
Our first priority is to grow the Champions categories through product development. In addition, we will launch many new Thule products in 2026, both to grow our existing Champions and to scale up the candidates.
We continue increasing efficiency by raising the focus of product development efforts, working with technology platforms to optimize manufacturing costs and automating our warehouse in Poland. Through more focused product development, we can increase investments in Champions while reducing overall product development costs, which will show effect already in 2026.
At the time of writing, market conditions remain challenging, but we have stepped up a gear and are moving to the next level. Despite the short term challenges in the market, more and more people want to live active lives, providing us with a long-term tailwind. And of course, we also have our strong corporate culture, with proud and driven employees across the world who constantly strive to improve Thule and our products.
Together with our employees, customers, consumers and shareholders, we are building a significantly larger Thule with even higher profitability. I look forward to another exciting year together with you!
Malmö, April 2026
Mattias Ankarberg
CEO and President