diff --git a/src/spatialdata_io/readers/visium_hd.py b/src/spatialdata_io/readers/visium_hd.py
index d6513147..424bf5a2 100644
--- a/src/spatialdata_io/readers/visium_hd.py
+++ b/src/spatialdata_io/readers/visium_hd.py
@@ -346,7 +346,7 @@ def _get_bins(path_bins: Path) -> list[str]:
     # Integrate the segmentation data (skipped if segmentation files are not found)
     if cell_segmentation_files_exist:
         print("Found segmentation data. Incorporating cell_segmentations.")
-        cell_adata_hd = sc.read_10x_h5(COUNT_MATRIX_PATH)
+        cell_adata_hd = sc.read_10x_h5(COUNT_MATRIX_PATH, gex_only=False)
         cell_adata_hd.var_names_make_unique()
 
         cell_shapes_gdf = _extract_geometries_from_geojson(