AMP Limited

Good afternoon. This is the Corusco Conference Operator. Welcome and thank you for joining the Amplifon third quarter and nine-month 2023 results conference call. As a reminder, all participants are in listen-only mode. After the presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. Should anyone need assistance during the conference call, they may signal an operator by pressing star and zero on their telephone. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Ms. Francesca Rambaudi, investor relations and sustainability senior director of Amplifon. Please go ahead, ma'am.

Thank you. Good afternoon and welcome to Amplifon's conference call on third quarter and first nine months. Before we start, a few logistic comments. Earlier today, we issued a press release related to our results, and this presentation is posted on our website in the investors section. Second, the call can be accessed also via webcast, and dial-in details are on Amplifon's website as well as on the press release. I have to bring your attention to the disclaimer on slide two, as some of the statements made during this call may be considered forward-looking statements. With that, I am now pleased to turn the call over to Amplifon CEO, Enrico Vita.

Thank you, Francesca, and good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us today for our Q3 results conference call. As always, let's begin commenting on the quarter's results, starting with the top line. We posted excellent revenue growth of more than 11% at constant exchange rates and close to 6% at current exchange rates, fueled by a very good organic growth at 9%, one of the highest organic growth ever. This performance is particularly remarkable considering we operated in a context of global market demand that is clearly moving at a different speed. In fact, we saw a strong market growth in the US at circa plus 10%, while we estimate that Europe our core market was still slightly negative, circa minus 1, minus 2%. And clearly, this development in Europe was unexpected for us, also considering the easier comparison base to the previous year. Australia and New Zealand combined are in the middle of the two regions, with a slightly positive combined growth of around plus 1, plus 2%. About Europe, we estimated that the key markets like France and Germany were in negative territory. In particular, France, the largest market in Europe, suffered a market decrease versus previous year, close to 10%. With specific reference to France, we believe that this very negative performance was mainly because of the effects of the RAC0 reform back in 2021, early 2022, that distorted the baseline for this year, and also, although to a lesser extent, to the effect of the shift from both GAPs and ENTs being able to prescribe hearing aids to new customers in 2022, to basically only ENTs in 2023. However, We are positive that for both France and Germany, the market demand will normalize and return to positive growth rates during 2024. In such market scenario, we grew very strongly, gaining a significant market share, also thanks to a clear decision that we made, the decision to accelerate investments to gain market share and strengthen our global leadership further. In fact, we are convinced that playing offense is the right choice at such times. And I'm pleased to see that this choice is paying off in terms of sales growth, as you can see from our very strong organic growth, one of the highest ever, as I said earlier on. In such a context, I cannot avoid highlighting once again our performance in Americas, in all geographies, and in particular in the U.S., where our growth, led by Miracolier Direct Network and Amplifon Hearing Healthcare, was again excellent. In the region, we reported growth of almost 25% at constant Forex. At this time, I would like also to highlight the performance in the APAC region, where we grew more than 16% at constant exchange rate, outperforming also here the markets in all key countries. And today, I'm pleased also to share the achievement of an important milestone of our journey in China. At the beginning of October, we have passed the mark of 300 stores. And today, I can also tell you that we are confident we can reach about 400 stores by the end of the year, by January at latest. Let me say that I'm very happy about the work and the execution capabilities of our team in building a very solid and future-proof platform in a country which will represent one of our sources of growth in the medium and long term. Even in EMEA, we grew faster than the market, although it was our lowest growth region, but this only because of the weaker than expected market demand I mentioned earlier. Finally, revenues from M&A continued to develop strongly and according to our plan. In fact, the contribution from acquisition was above 2 percentage points. Commenting about profitability, as said, we have taken a precise decision to invest in two key areas of our business. First of all, and mainly, in our field organization to better serve our customers. You may recall that we discussed about a tight audiologist market in some key countries, in particular in France and Australia. Here we have conducted a comprehensive recruiting plan in a few of these markets, of our markets, to ensure that audiologists are no longer a limitation to our current and future growth. Second, we have continued to invest in Europe, both in marketing and in our brands. which is the most appropriate choice at a time of lower consumer confidence. Clearly, the already mentioned lower growth in EMEA is also affecting our group profitability from a pure geographical viewpoint, being EMEA our most profitable region. With that, I now hand over to Gabriele to give you more details about our region performance. More details.