AMP Limited

Good afternoon. This is the Corusco conference operator. Welcome and thank you for joining the Amplifon first quarter 2024 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, Madam.

Thank you. Good afternoon and welcome to Amplifon's conference call on first quarter 2024 results. 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 investor section. The call can be accessed also via webcast and dial-in details are on Amplifon's website as well as on our press release. I have to bring your attention to the disclaimer of 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 CO Enrico Vita.

Thank you, Francesca, and good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. I'm pleased to comment on a simply excellent report. Definitely the best way to start 2024. I'm very happy not only for our financials, but also because we see the results of all the hard work we did last year in response to a market demand which in Europe, as you know, was weaker than expected. The further good news is that at last in Europe, in Q1, the market demand finally seems to have started to normalize and it was back to growth. We estimate something in the region of plus 1%. Also, it is important to remark that this growth was impacted by the early Easter of this year compared to last year when the Easter occurred in April. Obviously, we will have a benefit in April of this year for the same reason, but I will come back to this at the end when we talk about the outlook. So let's immediately review some of the quarter's key numbers and achievements together. Revenues were up circa 9% at constant exchange rates and circa 6% at current exchange rates. The composition of the growth was excellent. And in fact, the organic growth was at a remarkable of 5.6%, especially considering what I said about the early Easter. In addition to the usual mention of our performance in the Americas, today I would like to highlight our performance also in Asia Pacific, which delivered circa 9% of organic growth. The M&A contribution was also strong, at around 3% overall. accelerating further during this first quarter, also thanks to more targets willing to sell at attractive multiples for us. In particular, I would like to mention the continued growth of our directly operated stores network in the U.S., thanks to the recent acquisitions of two of our main franchisees. Today, we can count on a network of directly operated stores of nearly 400 stores. Hence, we are moving forward with conviction and at full speed in one of our strategic priorities. Regarding the EBITDA recurring, we delivered around 137 million euros thanks to a record margin increase of 100 business points versus 2023 while in absolute terms the increase was of circa 11 concerning profitability i wanted to mention again the apac result where we see and we are now reaping the fruits of all the work done over the past over the past month and where we now see the benefits of the full integration of bay audio Finally, we posted a net profit recurring of circa 36 million euros with a margin at 6.2%. As said, all in all, we are very happy about our results in this initial part of the year. And now I will hand it over to Gabriele to give you more information about our financials.