Ambu, the price rise and the customers who were free to leave

Wednesday, 5 November 2025, before breakfast, Ballerup. Ambu, the Danish maker of single-use endoscopes and of the masks and breathing bags of the operating theatre, published its annual report, and on page 11 it promised that its older business would grow by “mid-single digits” this year. This column is about one mechanic, the price rise on a contract the customer is free to leave, and by the end you will see it before the room does.

The law of the day: every price is a question.

On the same page Ambu explained how it had made the older business more profitable: “raising prices in selected low-margin areas”, the products that keep the least profit from each sale. Keep that sentence.

Last Thursday, a year to the day, I read the new one. Anaesthesia and patient monitoring grew 0.4 per cent in the year.

So how does a company raise its prices, keep its contracts and still lose the sale? Hold on.

## Two companies, one canteen

Ambu is really two businesses sharing a canteen. One sells single-use cameras that doctors put inside patients, and it grew more than 16 per cent; the other sells the masks, bags and monitors that hospitals have bought for decades, and was meant to jog along behind.

In February Ambu said it “remains confident in delivering mid-single digits organic growth” in that older half, organic meaning before currency swings and purchases. Confidence costs nothing. The contracts, it turned out, cost even less to leave.

In May, somebody ordered less.

The May report blamed “lower volumes in selected U.S. accounts operating under non-exclusive contracts”. In plain words: a non-exclusive contract is a menu, not an order.

## The menu

A non-exclusive contract fixes the price but not the quantity. When the price goes up, the hospital keeps the contract and quietly buys less. The seller sees the higher price at once and the missing orders only later, which is why the first year looks like genius.

It was on page 32 of the report with the promise: “previously announced price increases had an extraordinarily positive effect” in the first half of the year. Part of the good year was the price, and a price rise only arrives once. The annual report is the only honest man in the building.

The forecast for the whole company was trimmed in May and again in August, to “around 10%”. Ambu called the second cut an update, the word companies use when a number has left without them.

Then, last Thursday, Ambu wrote the cause down itself: lower volumes in anaesthesia “following price increases”. It is the clearest sentence in Danish medical devices this year, and it fits on a sticky note.

In fairness, the whole company grew 10.1 per cent, which its chief executive, Britt Meelby Jensen, said last Thursday was “within the guidance range we set at the beginning of the year”, its own forecast. That is true, at the bottom of it. The endoscopes held the floor while the masks walked off it.

Right of reply: Ambu had not been asked for comment before publication on 10 November 2026. Any response will be added here, with the date it arrived.

Behind the flat line are factories and sales teams who did their jobs; what is judged here is a price decision, not their work.

## The verdict

Three signals to watch in any company: growth the report says came from price; contracts that let the customer leave; a forecast that assumes the customer will not.

My verdict: Ambu raised prices on customers who were free to buy elsewhere, promised growth anyway, and the customers used the freedom.

Every price is a question, and the customer answers it with the order book.

“Raising prices in selected low-margin areas,” the report said a year ago. The prices went up as selected; the hospitals did some selecting of their own.

The new forecast gets its first test with the first-quarter report; it is in my diary. Next in my queue: Ford, and the two cents of every dollar that went missing.

Law No. 16 · Build Growth That Needs No Permission

Understand Business. Better.
Max Noble