Amir Aghdaei
Analyst · Bank of America. Your line is open.
Yes, happy to do, Michael. As I mentioned, in Q3, China business grew high single-digit, almost 9%. While we had a mid-single-digit decline in the first half. Obviously, a lot of that had to do with the Shanghai lockdown and a slowing macro environment by China's Zero COVID policy. Despite of all of that, and the quality economic outlook, we expect continued growth in our specialty business in China. Imaging business is expected to have softer performance that doctor assess macroeconomic environment. But now let's talk about the VBP. On the implant side, the VBP is already underway, and we expect to see some results, hopefully, by end of November. As we have discussed before, we think that in a public sector the prices would come down materially, maybe over 50%. The price decline will come - mostly come - in return we will see a volume increase for those that they are going to be the winning bidders. And it was going to be primarily driven by given volume and more access to care in remainder of the 2023 - remainder of 2022 and 2023. What we have offered this is a risk-adjusted for 2022, the guidance that we have provided. We need to see how this volume and price dynamic plays out before we can provide any guidance in 2023. And - to answer your question, China is a self-paid to a large degree, patient process. Over 70% of our business in the implant side comes from the public - I'm sorry, private sector. We have been shifting our business to continue to the private sector on the premium side of that - and I think we have a really good position in there, and we're going to continue to build capabilities in that space and the private side is growing a lot faster. On the auto side - this is still nothing official. This is going to most likely is going to come in place piece-by-piece, and it's not only going to be on the clear aligners. We expect that the traditional bracket on wire is going to be impacted as well, but the details are still in flux. It's difficult to comment on impact for 2023, but we are considering various scenarios in here to make sure that we are able to manage through uncertainty. And continue - have that long-term view that we have communicated earlier in the year and by 2026, and to be a high single-digit, plus high single-digit growth and 22.5% and above margin. We think regardless of what we see in the short-term in China, we were going to be able to deliver on that commitment in the long-term.