Stryker - Earnings Call - Q3 2025

Executive Summary

• Q3 2025 delivered strong top-line and margin execution: net sales rose 10.3% to $6.1B and organic growth was 9.5%; adjusted operating margin reached 25.6% (+90 bps YoY) and adjusted EPS increased 11.1% to $3.19.
• Results modestly beat Wall Street consensus: adjusted EPS $3.19 vs $3.132* and revenue $6.057B vs $6.045B*; EBITDA also slightly above consensus ($1.658B vs $1.651B*) (Values retrieved from S&P Global).
• FY25 guidance raised: organic net sales growth to 9.8%–10.2% and adjusted EPS to $13.50–$13.60; FX expected to be slightly positive and pricing modestly favorable.
• Segment performance was led by MedSurg & Neurotechnology (+14.4% to $3.803B) and robust sub-segment growth (notably Vascular +59.6%); Orthopaedics rose 3.9% reported, or 12.5% excluding divested Spinal Implants.
• Catalysts: sustained procedural demand, record MEKO installations, pricing tailwinds, and raised guidance; offset by tariff headwinds (~$200M expected FY25) and lingering supply chain impacts in Medical.

What Went Well and What Went Wrong

What Went Well

• Broad-based organic growth with pricing contribution: organic sales grew 9.5% with 9.1% unit volume and 0.4% price; adjusted EPS up 11.1% to $3.19; adjusted operating margin 25.6%.
• Record MEKO installations and strong U.S. ortho momentum (knees, hips, trauma & extremities) supporting above-market growth; management reiterated strength in ASC and procedural volumes.
• CEO tone confident: “We delivered another quarter of strong sales and double-digit adjusted earnings per share growth”; commitment to ongoing margin expansion and sustained growth reiterated on the call.

What Went Wrong

• Tariff headwinds intensifying: company now expects ~$200M impact in FY25, more second-half weighted, partially offsetting margin expansion in Q4.
• Medical segment supply chain disruptions persisted, creating intra-quarter variability, with acceleration expected in Q4 to achieve ~10% organic growth for the year.
• Orthopaedics pricing showed slight pressure (organic price -0.3% in Orthopaedics), though overall company price remained positive; management emphasized continued pricing discipline and contracting execution.

Transcript

Speaker 3

Welcome to the third quarter 2025 Stryker earnings call. My name is Robbie, and I'll be your operator for today's call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Following the conference, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. This conference call is being recorded for replay purposes. Before we begin, I would like to remind you that the discussions during this conference call will include forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially are discussed in the company's most recent filings with the SEC. Also, the discussions will include certain non-GAAP financial measures. Reconciliations to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures can be found in today's press release that is in Exhibit to Stryker's current report on Form 8K filed today with the SEC. I will now turn the call over to Mr. Kevin Lobo, Chair and Chief Executive Officer. You may proceed, sir.

Speaker 7

Welcome to Stryker's third quarter earnings call. Joining me today are Preston Wells, Stryker's CFO, and Jason Beach, Vice President of Finance and Investor Relations. For today's call, I will provide opening comments, followed by Jason with the trends we saw during the quarter and some product updates. Preston will then provide additional details regarding quarterly results and guidance before opening the call to Q&A. Our third quarter results demonstrate our broad business strength and ongoing commitment to margin expansion. We delivered strong organic sales growth of 9.5% against last year's high 11.5% comparable. We also delivered double-digit adjusted EPS growth of 11.1% despite tariff headwinds, which picked up meaningfully versus Q2. Our organic sales growth was driven by widespread demand across our businesses and included high single-digit growth from MedSurg and Neurotechnology and double-digit growth from Orthopaedics. Geographically, our U.S.

organic sales growth of 10.6% included double-digit organic growth from our vascular, trauma and extremities, neurocranial, and instruments businesses, and high single-digit organic growth in hips, knees, and endoscopy. We delivered 6.3% organic international sales growth with notable contributions from South Korea, Japan, and emerging markets. We continue to view international markets as a significant opportunity for long-term growth and look forward to launching many products that have already demonstrated success in the United States. We completed two small acquisitions during the quarter. The first, Guard Medical's NP Seal products bring a simplified solution for negative pressure wound treatment that strengthens our Orthopaedic Instruments offerings. The second, Advanced Medical Balloons brings novel patient care products to our Sage business. These acquisitions demonstrate our commitment to deals that deepen our portfolio and enhance growth.

Backed by a healthy deal pipeline and strong balance sheet, we plan to stay active on the M&A front. We have good momentum exiting Q3 and expect a strong finish to the year. As a result, we are raising our full year 2025 outlook. We are firmly on track to deliver a second consecutive year of 100 basis points of adjusted operating margin expansion, backed by strong execution and conviction in the sustained growth and earnings power of our businesses. I would like to thank our teams for their dedication and passion in living our mission each and every day. With that, I will now turn the call over to Jason.

Speaker 6

Thanks, Kevin. My comments today will focus on providing updates on the current environment, the integration of Inari, and a preview of Investor Day. Procedural volumes remained healthy in the third quarter, in line with our expectations. We anticipate continued strength in procedural volumes through the end of the year. Demand for our capital products was strong once again in the quarter, and we exited Q3 with an elevated backlog. With a steady hospital CapEx environment, we expect continued strength in our order book. We delivered our best-ever Q3 for MEKO installations, both in the U.S. and worldwide. MEKO continues to see high utilization rates, further bolstering our number one position in U.S. hips and knees. In addition to MEKO4, our numerous recent product innovations continue to drive growth and interest in the marketplace. Notably, Lifepak 35 launched in Europe at the end of the quarter.

Next, the Inari integration continues to progress well. We continue to convert the business to our Stryker offense with the successful onboarding of our sales professionals. The Inari business delivered double-digit pro forma organic sales growth in the quarter, highlighting robust procedural growth in the teens, partially offset by destocking, which we continue to work through. Inari remains on track to deliver double-digit pro forma sales growth in 2025 and approximately $590 million in sales for the 10 months this year as a part of Stryker. Lastly, we look forward to hosting our upcoming Investor Day on November 13th, which will be webcast live on the Investor Relations page at stryker.com. During the event, various leaders from across our businesses will discuss our long-term strategy and illustrate how we are built for growth.

For our in-person attendees, we will conclude with a product fair that will showcase exciting products and innovations across our MedSurg and Neurotechnology and Orthopaedics businesses. Also, you will be able to interact with many of our leaders. With that, I will now turn the call over to Preston.

Speaker 7

Thanks, Jason. Today, I will focus my comments on our third quarter financial results and related drivers. Our detailed financial results have been provided in today's press release. Organic sales growth was 9.5% for the quarter compared to the third quarter of 2024, with the same number of selling days in both periods. Pricing had a 0.4% favorable impact as we continue to see positive trends from our pricing initiatives across many of our businesses. Additionally, foreign currency had a 0.7% favorable impact on sales. Our adjusted earnings per share of $3.19 was up 11.1% from the same quarter last year, driven by our strong sales growth and margin expansion, partially offset by higher interest expense. Foreign currency translation had a favorable impact of $0.03 on adjusted earnings per share for the quarter. Now, I will provide some highlights around our quarterly segment performance.

In the quarter, MedSurg and Neurotechnology had organic sales growth of 8.4%, which included 9.4% of U.S. organic growth and 5.1% of international organic growth. Instruments had U.S. organic sales growth of 11.5%, led by a double-digit performance from the Surgical Technologies business, which includes our Neptune waste management, SurgiCount, and smoke evacuation products. Endoscopy had U.S. organic sales growth of 7.9%, led by a robust double-digit performance from our Sports Medicine business and near double-digit growth from our core Endoscopy portfolio, somewhat offset by lower sales in the Communications Operating Room business due to the timing of infrastructure installations. Medical had U.S. organic sales growth of 6.5%. That included a double-digit performance in the Acute Care business, which was driven by Procurity and Vocera.

We continue to expect Medical to achieve 10% organic sales growth this year while we manage the previously discussed supply chain disruptions affecting our Emergency Care business. Vascular had U.S. organic sales growth of 13.4%, led by the recent launches of our Surpass Elite flow-diverting stent and Broadway aspiration system. As a reminder, organic sales growth figures do not include Inari Medical. Finally, Neurocranial had U.S. organic sales growth of 12.9%, led by strong double-digit growth in our IVS, cranial maxillofacial, and neurosurgical businesses. Internationally, MedSurg and Neurotechnology organic sales growth was 5.1%, despite the ongoing supply disruptions affecting our Medical business and against a very strong prior-year comparable growth rate of over 11%, which was driven by our Medical, Endoscopy, and Neurocranial businesses. The growth this quarter was led by our Neurocranial and Instrument businesses. Geographically, this included healthy performances in South Korea and Japan.

Orthopaedics had organic sales growth of 11.4%, which included organic growth of 12.9% in the U.S. and 7.8% internationally. Our U.S. knee business grew 8.4% organically, reflecting our market leading position in robotic-assisted knee procedures and continued momentum from new MEKO installations. Our U.S. hip business grew 8.7% organically, highlighted by the ongoing success of our Insignia hip stem and the continued adoption of our MEKO robotic hip platform that now has the expanded ability to address more difficult primary hip cases as well as hip revisions. Our U.S. trauma and extremities business grew 13.2% organically, with robust double-digit sales growth in our upper extremities and core trauma businesses. Our multi-year strong shoulder growth continues while our core trauma performance continues to be driven by Pangea, our differentiated plating portfolio. Our U.S.

other ortho business grew 38.5% organically, driven by robust installations in the quarter and amplified by MEKO deal mix and a strong performance in navigational technology products. Internationally, Orthopaedics organic growth of 7.8% included a strong performance from our emerging markets. Our international results also include a nominal amount of spinal implant revenue because of previously accepted tenders that we are fulfilling before exiting those markets. Now, I will focus on certain operating and non-operating highlights in the third quarter. Our adjusted gross margin of 65% was favorable by 50 basis points over the third quarter of 2024, despite tariff headwinds, which we now estimate will have a net impact of approximately $200 million for the full year 2025. The adjusted gross margin improvement was primarily driven by business mix and cost improvements as we continue to optimize our supply chain and manufacturing processes.

Our adjusted operating margin was 25.6% of sales, which was 90 basis points favorable to the third quarter of 2024, driven by the gross margin favorability I just discussed, as well as lower adjusted SG&A as a percentage of sales due to ongoing spend discipline as part of our long-term focus on continued margin expansion. Adjusted other income and expense of $116 million for the quarter was $74 million higher than 2024 due to increased interest expense from the most recent debt issuances and lower interest income. We now expect our full year 2025 adjusted other income and expense to be approximately $415 million. The third quarter had an adjusted effective tax rate of 14%, reflecting the impact of geographic mix and certain discrete tax items.

For 2025, we now expect our full year effective tax rate to be at the lower end of our previously guided range of 15% to 16%. Turning to cash flow, our year-to-date cash from operations was $2.9 billion, driven by year-over-year working capital improvements. I will update our full year 2025 guidance. Considering our year-to-date results, continued strong demand for our products, and our operational momentum, we are raising our full year guidance and now expect organic net sales growth of 9.8% to 10.2% and adjusted earnings per share to be in the range of $13.50 to $13.60. Our updated sales guidance includes a modestly favorable pricing impact. In addition, foreign exchange is expected to have a slightly positive impact on both sales and earnings per share should rates hold near current levels. With that, I will now open the call for Q&A.

At this time, we will open the floor for questions. If you would like to ask a question, please press Star 5 on your telephone keypad. You may remove yourself at any time by pressing Star 5 again. We would like to remind callers to please limit themselves to one question and one follow-up question so we can accommodate as many participants as possible. We'll pause just a moment to allow a queue to form. Okay. Our first question will come from Robbie Marcus with JP Morgan. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Oh, great. Thanks a lot for taking the questions and congrats on a nice quarter. Two for me. First, Kevin, you always have great insight into procedure volumes and the equipment market. You clearly had a great quarter on the ortho side, some bright spots on the CapEx side, also a little bit of softness, particularly in medical. Was hoping you could just walk us through what you're seeing globally in terms of procedure volume, market, and the health of it, as well as some of the puts and takes on the capital equipment side globally.

Speaker 5

Yeah, sure. Thanks for the question. I would tell you that nothing's really changed if you think about what we've said the past couple of quarters. Procedure volumes are very healthy, which affects obviously our implants as well as our small capital. The capital markets are really strong. The balance sheets are strong with hospitals. You saw this quarter, in fact, a lot of MEKO purchases, which helped. Obviously, we had strong installations, but a lot of those were cash purchases. A year ago, those were being more leased. Balance sheets are strong. Procedure growth is strong. As it relates to our business mix, sometimes you see in the communications area, there was a bit of timing. A lot of these installations of ORs are going to be delayed a little bit, but we have a very healthy order book in communications.

Medical, as you described, sometimes goes up and down. We had a big quarter last year in the third quarter. We're going to have a very strong fourth quarter, off to a fast start in October, and it'll be a very strong fourth quarter. As you've seen in the past, medical does kind of move from quarter to quarter. There can be variability, but over the full year, very strong and healthy business. Obviously, we've had some supply chain disruptions in emergency care. That's continued all year. In spite of that, still going to be a double-digit growth year. Would have been even higher if not for the supply chain challenges. I would say across the board, the markets that we play in are very healthy.

Great. Maybe one for Preston. Your business every year has a big step up third quarter to fourth quarter, both on sales and margins. Obviously, we can back into what's implied in guidance, but just help us walk through some of the things to consider, particularly on the margin side and the levers that you pull to get to the step up there. Appreciate it. Thanks a lot.

Speaker 7

Yeah. Absolutely, Rob. Appreciate it. I think the thing to keep in mind as you think about the guidance range, particularly as we talk about margins, obviously, we do have a larger sales number that we'll be building on. We're going to continue with our focus around margin improvement that's driving upside on our gross margins as well as in the SG&A lines. The big offset this year is tariffs. We look at the tariff impact. It's more second-half weighted. That is going to certainly be the offsetting piece of what we would normally see as much bigger margin expansion in the fourth quarter. We're still expecting operationally to drive better margins, but then that'll be partially offset by tariffs in the fourth quarter to get to where we've guided to.

All right. Our next question is from Larry Beagleson with Wells Fargo. Your line is now open.

Good afternoon. Thanks for taking the question and congrats on another nice quarter here. Kevin, you're guiding to 10% organic growth at the midpoint in 2025. How are you thinking about maintaining this momentum next year? What are some of the puts and takes we should consider? Can you expand margins next year with the tariff impact increasing on a year-over-year basis? I had one follow-up.

Speaker 5

Yeah, sure, Larry. We have an investor day coming up pretty soon, and we'll share kind of our longer-term outlook at that time. What I would tell you is this is our fourth consecutive year of growing roughly 10% organically. Of course, last year was a little bit higher than that, over 11%. This is a sustainable, durable, high-growth business. You're going to see more of the same for years to come.

That's helpful. Kevin, I'm sure everybody listening picked up on your M&A comments. Maybe just refresh us on areas of interest if anything has changed, deal sides, et cetera. Anything new? Thanks for taking the question.

No change, Larry. All of our businesses are lining up their targets that would help enhance their businesses. As you know, there are adjacencies that we're going to continue to explore. I've been pretty clear about what those are. As you know, Peripheral was one of those adjacencies that we pulled the trigger on in the first quarter of this year. There are no new ones. The same ones I've been talking about. We do have a strong balance sheet. We can do larger deals if they are going to be value-creating for the company. It's always hard to predict the exact timing on deals. We do plan to be active. It is the number one use of capital. That is our first priority is to use it for acquisitions. We remain on the hunt.

Yeah, our next question is from Ryan Zimmerman with BTIG. Your line is now open.

Good afternoon. Let me echo the congratulations on the quarter. Kevin and Jason, your knee number in the U.S. stands out pretty in stark contrast to your other competitor that has announced the spinout of its orthopaedics business. I'm just wondering, Kevin, how you think about the health of the orthopaedics market, how you're preparing to maybe capitalize on any disruption that may come of that, and just your outlook on orthopaedics. One thing I did notice was price pressure. We did see a little bit of price pressure in this quarter. We haven't seen that for a few quarters. Maybe comment on what was driving that as well. Thanks for taking that question.

Yeah, sure. I'll take the first part, and I'll let Preston comment on the price pressure. Listen, we're in a great position with our knee business. It's not new. This has been building over a number of years with our lead in cementless, the tremendous adoption of MEKO for knees. We also have the new hinge, which is the revision system for knees. This momentum has just been building. With every MEKO that gets installed, we know there's going to be a high adoption of our products. We've been growing above the market for quite some time. It was a terrific quarter, especially if you consider last year we had a very big Q3. The knee business is performing extremely well.

We're very excited about the additional changes that are coming, more software changes for MEKO to make it even better to use, actually some new product innovations that we'll talk about on the investor call in a couple of weeks. The knee business is really poised to continue this high growth. On price, Preston?

Speaker 7

Yeah, as far as pricing is concerned, when we think about where we are, we're pleased with the fact that we've been able to drive positive price for the overall organization over the last several quarters. That's really come out of the work that happened a few years ago. We're still driving that. The other thing to consider is now we're anniversarying some of that price improvement year over year over year. Now we're driving compounded price that we're seeing. We think about the split between the multiple business on the MedSurg side. We're certainly seeing continued price improvement on that business. With orthopaedics, we're not back to where we were historically. We're still performing above historic levels on a pricing standpoint.

We expect that we're going to continue to try to work through the pricing muscle that we've learned to develop, that we have developed, to continue to drive positive prices in the future.

Okay. Second one for me, thank you for both those answers. Appreciate that. On Inari, Kevin, as you like to say, the U.S. business is humming. Maybe if I could ask about the OUS side, and when you think you can kind of really take Inari to a bigger international presence maybe than prior when it was a standalone company? Thanks for taking the question.

Speaker 5

Yeah, thanks. Look, our focus really has been on the U.S. I mean, we've really been all hands on deck. We went through some real challenges in the second quarter. Enforcing people's non-competes, going through a lot of churn in the sales force, bringing on new Stryker leaders. We've been laser-focused. I love the recovery and the bounce back in Q3. It was really terrific, and the outlook for Q4 is very good. We launched the first arterial product. That's getting really favorable feedback. We have started to expand internationally, but it hasn't really taken off yet. That'll start to, I really think, have a big impact in the second half of next year. It's going to take a bit of time, but we do have infrastructure at Stryker that Inari did not have.

That clearly is one of the theses for us in doing the deal, that international will be very exciting. I really think it'll start to take hold in the second half of next year.

The next question comes from Travis Steed with Bank of America. Your line is now open.

Hey, everybody. Thanks for the questions. I will start with a follow-up on Inari Medical. Just curious if maybe you can elaborate on some of the integration process and the sales force. Is this quarter, you think, kind of a low point in the growth? It should kind of be sustaining this kind of double-digit growth going forward. Any comment on some of the store and PE data that came out? Curious if you had any comments on that.

Yeah. Look, we put our own Stryker sales leader in charge of the sales force, and we've been hiring pretty rapidly given the churn that we went through in the second quarter. It takes time for those sales reps to be fully productive. They had a really good Q3. I'm pleased with that. I'm not sure that I'd call this a low point. We do expect double-digit growth in Q4 and then again in Q1. However, we are still burning through some of that stocking that had occurred. The stocking will be completed. The burn-through will be completed by the end of the first quarter. We still have some more of that in Q4 as well as Q1, and then that'll be something we don't talk about anymore after that. We are excited about getting sort of the teens level of growth in procedures that translated to double-digit growth.

We do expect a strong Q4 as well as Q1 next year, and then it'll really start to take off after that without having that drag of the stocking.

That's helpful. Maybe a question on the Siemens partnership that happened over the quarter in neurovascular. If there's any more you could kind of say on the goals and timing and what you're trying to do with Siemens and neurovascular robotics.

Speaker 7

Hey, Travis, it's Jason. I would say when appropriate, we'll certainly disclose more, but at this point, really nothing else to add as far as that.

All right. The next question comes from Matthew O'Brien with Piper Sandler. Your line is now open.

Thank you. This is Samantha Ahn from Matt today. Thanks for taking our question. We'd like to start off with asking about the ortho other category that had really nice performance this quarter. Could you just talk a little bit about what all is driving the strength there and how durable do you see that growth?

Yeah, this is Jason. I'll take this one. I would say a couple of different things, and it goes back to some of the prepared remarks. If you just look at, again, another quarter of record installation of MEKO, that certainly fuels that category. There is a bit of, I'll call it, business mix. I think Kevin touched on this where outright purchases will drive revenue in that. Really, really strong strength. Is it going to grow at that level every quarter? I would say no. Certainly pleased with the performance in the quarter.

Great. Thank you for that. Could you provide a little bit more commentary on the supply chain disruption in the medical business? It was a little bit weaker than we were expecting. This will play a steep rebound in Q4. If there's any more commentary you could provide, that would be great.

Sure. It's Jason again. I would say, look, even if you go back to last quarter, we said some of these supply issues would kind of linger throughout the year. Certainly not going to quantify, but as you think about medical performance in the fourth quarter, in order to get to this 10% growth on the year that we're talking about, you can imagine there's going to be an acceleration in the fourth quarter. October was off to a good start, and we certainly expect that. We'll have positive performances as we go throughout the quarter.

Our next question comes from Vijay Kumar with Evercore ISI. Your line is now open.

Hi, this is Vijay. Would you break down the drivers of that 10% sales growth for medical for the year? What's driving that?

Yeah. I mean, when you think about medical, this is Jason. I mean, we don't really get into product-level drivers or even business unit-level drivers. When you think about products like Lifepak 35 and just launching in Europe, you'll start to see an acceleration there. We would say across the lines of business in medical, very good performance. If you look at Boseera as an example, that accelerated in the third quarter. That'll continue to accelerate in the fourth quarter. It's a big, diverse business, frankly, that we expect to perform well in the fourth quarter.

Speaker 5

Frankly, it's been a business that's performed double-digit for years. I mean, year after year after year, it tends to perform double-digit growth. They have a very strong order book as well. In spite of these supply chain challenges, still on track to deliver double digits.

Gotcha. Thank you.

All right. Our next question comes from Matt Mixett with Barclays. Your line is now open.

Hey, thanks so much for taking the question. I wanted to just get a sense of the competitive dynamics in the ASC. It's been a place where you've been leading. It's been a place where you've had great success in knees. Opportunities for bringing other businesses in there and leveraging your position across some of the other business lines. Any kind of color would be great. Thank you.

Yeah. Thanks, Matt. Listen, we love the ASC and the trend in procedures moving to the ASC because we can leverage our full portfolio. Our growth continues to be very high in the ASC. The additional products that are starting to emerge at a higher level are total shoulder, where we're the market leader. You're seeing more shoulders being done in the ASC, even some total ankles that are potentially moving to the ASC. Some of the higher acuity cases, I wouldn't say revisions, but certainly many other procedures are starting to move to the ASC where we have a very strong position. The more that procedures move to the ASC in the orthopedic world, the better it is for Stryker because we can then leverage an even broader portfolio than we're already leveraging, including our capital, our disposables, and our implants.

Okay. Our next question comes from David Floyd with Goldman Sachs. Your line is now open.

Hey, guys. This is Jenny Urbanowitz for David. Thanks for taking the question. Just a quick one from me. You mentioned briefly at the beginning of the call that you did two smaller product acquisitions in the quarter. I was just curious, could you go into any detail about what those products actually are or the markets they participate in? Are these smaller product acquisitions something we should expect going forward?

Yeah. Small-tuck-in acquisitions are clearly a part of our offense. The NP Seal product is a negative pressure wound treatment that does not require capital equipment. Today, the other options on the market have a pump that's required. This is a really elegant solution, easy to use for the customer, and a lower-cost solution that drops right into the sales bag of our orthopaedic instrument sales reps. They're already there in the procedure, so it's a beautiful tuck-in. The other product, the balloon, is for fecal incontinence, and that's part of the Sage business, which works in the intensive care units of hospitals and a very good product solution for a really troubling condition that patients have to go through. It provides them with dignity and provides really good care. We're really excited about that solution. That's new for us.

We have not been in the fecal incontinence space thus far.

Thank you.

Next question comes from Philip Chickering with Deutsche Bank. Your line is now open.

Hey, good afternoon, guys. Thanks for taking my question. One more question on ortho. There's been an investor debate around the pull forward of demand of some neglected procedures due to the uncertainties around healthcare exchanges. Just curious if you view 3Q as just the core growth you're seeing due to market share or pull forward of demand.

We see it as core growth of market. As we enter fourth quarter, we're seeing a continued strong demand. We don't really foresee any pull forward. Obviously, osteoarthritis, when you have the pain, you want to get your procedures done. I think that's the much bigger driver. I think it's more about the fact that we're growing at a robust rate. If you look at our growth rate, obviously, not everyone's reported yet, but we believe that we're growing considerably faster than the market. We're seeing order if you look at the surgery schedules and talk to surgeons, they don't really have any anxiety whatsoever about a falloff in procedures. At least we're not hearing that.

All right. Perfect. They talked about an elevated backlog, and CapEx is pretty good. Can you share the feedback they're hearing with hospitals as they're talking about the uncertainties around things like healthcare exchanges next year and their views of CapEx depending upon what will happen? Thanks so much.

Speaker 7

Yeah, Peter, it's Jason. I'll take this. When you think about feedback from a hospital perspective and you think about the categories that we play, we play in categories that are moneymakers for the hospitals, and they need our capital equipment, right? I would say, I think even Kevin said this earlier, the environment for us really hasn't changed. If you think about the mix of our capital where the majority of our capital is this smaller capital that is closely tied to procedures, we continue to believe in the feedback that we continue to get is that as long as procedures remain strong, we're positioned well in the fourth quarter and well into 2026 as well.

Speaker 5

If you look at this quarter in particular, even the large capital, MEKO was very strong with a lot of outright purchases. You look at procurement, it was extremely strong, which beds are obviously large capital and expensive, and the orders are very strong. Those orders are very rarely canceled. Our hospitals have the budgets. They have the plans. They are planning to go ahead and purchase our capital in spite of what's happening around them.

Next question comes from Joanne Winch with Citibank. Your line is now open.

Thank you. Can you hear me okay?

Speaker 7

Yes, we can.

Excellent. Good afternoon, and thank you for taking the question. I remember maybe two years ago that we were talking about sprinting back to pre-pandemic levels of margins and 200 basis points of expansion. You've hit it. The 25.6% you just did in the third quarter went to 2020, 2021. Where do you go from here? How do we think about continued margin expansion? I'm sorry if I'm sort of stealing some of the thunder from the analyst day.

We're going to just defer this question to the analyst day, Joanne. I apologize. We're going to duck the question because that for sure is going to be one of the topics that we discuss in a couple of weeks.

Okay. Can I get a second question then?

Sure you can. Yes, because we didn't answer your first one too bad.

Thank you so much. I guess I'm going to go to trauma and get a feel from you of what you're seeing in that particular industry or that particular segment of your business. Thank you.

Speaker 5

Yeah. You've seen for quite some time our trauma and extremities business is absolutely on fire. We have great leadership in that business. The shoulder business had a phenomenal quarter again in Q3. Really tremendous market-leading growth. This is really without much of impact at all for MEKO. We were still in a limited launch with MEKO shoulder. It's being very well received. We're not going to move until full launch until sometime in the first half of next year. That's still a ways out, but we're very excited about that. It's just a core underlying portfolio of products with blueprint software, really good strong leadership. Core trauma has been amazing with the Pangea. We've also launched volar plates for distal radius. Just a series of great product innovations and a tremendous commercial offense as core trauma really growing at very robust rates.

If you look at foot and ankle, it's actually a bit soft for us. We see upside in foot and ankle going into next year. Our total ankle performs well. Our augment performs well. If you think about the core plates and nails, not quite as good as we would like that performance. We're getting after it. We think that'll be better going forward, but tremendous momentum overall and great business for us. We're very excited about it.

Our next question is Michael Matson with Needham & Company Inc. Your line is now open.

Speaker 6

Yeah, thanks. I guess just a couple more on Inari Medical. The Peerless 2 trial, can you give us an update on where things stand with that and when we could potentially see the results? The Artix product, I think that's been launched. Can you maybe comment on how that's doing?

Speaker 5

I'll take the second question on Artix. It's our first arterial thrombus product that Inari Medical has launched. Everything else was venous. It's been extremely well received. It's doing well in the marketplace, performing really as good or if not better than we expected in the market. Off to a very good start.

Speaker 7

Yeah, Mike, Jason, in terms of the trial, it'll be sometime next year before we start to see results. You'll hear us talk about that as we get into next year for sure.

Speaker 6

Okay, thanks. With the Guard Medical acquisition, looking at the website, it looks like it's more for surgical incisions. Is this a sign that Stryker has interest in kind of the broader advanced wound care market?

Speaker 5

Yeah, listen, I wouldn't read too much into this. If you think about Zipline, that was a product that was for skin closure that we dropped right into the bag of the orthopaedic instruments reps. This, of course, is wound. It's wound treatment with negative pressure, but it drops right into the bag of that existing sales rep. Think about it more as a call point sale that drops right into the bag versus the creation of some new business. That's not how we're thinking about it today. That may change in the future, but for today, we're not thinking about a broader wound strategy. It's really more about optimizing the call point, dropping it into the bag, and really providing an elegant solution for the customers.

Next question is from Danielle Antalffy with UBS. Your line is now open.

Hey, good afternoon, guys. Thanks so much for taking the question. Just following a question, and I guess this goes to margins going forward. Guidance here, but we're seeing positive price in MedSurg. You mentioned new anniversaries, some price upticks in Q3 in orthopaedics. How do we think about go forward from here? You still have a pretty positive product cycle, but specifically in ortho, do you think it's more like flat going forward from here, or do you still have pricing power there too? Thanks so much.

Speaker 7

Hey, Danielle, thanks for the question. From a pricing standpoint, yes. I mean, we do believe that based on our overall execution of our business from a contracting perspective with new products and innovation across our portfolio, we will have opportunities from a pricing standpoint as we go forward. That'll be in all businesses. It won't be exactly the same across the different business lines, but across all of our businesses, we do believe we have certain levels of pricing power that we will be able to continue as we go forward.

Thank you.

Our next question is Shagoon Singh with RBC. Your line is now open.

Hi, guys. This is Kendall on for Shagoon and thank you for taking my question. I just had one question on the upcoming investor day. I know last time you gave some targets on organic growth, operating margin, EPS growth, and free cash flow conversion. I was wondering if those kind of targets will be laid out again and if you could add any other color on that. Also, if you had any update on the current tariff environment and any impact on 2026. Thank you so much.

Yeah, this is Jason. I don't want to spoil any surprises that you'll hear in a couple of weeks. You're absolutely right. We will update our long-term financial goals, including, I think Kevin mentioned earlier, kind of our current view on margins as well. Expect to see that for sure. As it relates to the tariff environment, Preston, feel free to add on here. I think Preston said in his script, we're now forecasting roughly a $200 million impact for the year. As you know, this is a fluid environment that we continue to monitor, but that's our latest outlook right now.

Okay. There are no further questions. I will now turn the call over to Kevin Lobo for any closing remarks.

Speaker 5

Thank you for joining today's call. We look forward to sharing updates on our business and strategy with you at our Investor Day on November 13th and our fourth quarter results with you in January. Thank you.

This concludes the third quarter 2025 Stryker earnings call. You may now disconnect.