Ipsos U/Adr

Good evening, everyone, and welcome to AppSource 2023 first quarter results. This conference call will be hosted by Mr. Ben Page, CEO of the group, and Mr. Dan Levy, CFO of the group. As a reminder, this call is being recorded. During the call, you will be on listen only. However, later on the call, during the Q&A session, you will have the opportunity to ask questions This can be done by pressing star 1 on your telephone keypad to register your questions at any time. I would now like to turn the call over to Mr. Ben Page. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you very much, Ben. So I'm Ben Page, the CEO, and it's great to be here to talk you through our Q1 results. I think before we get into the detail, I think it's just very important to remember what I said back on the 15th of February when we released the full year 2022 results. And that is that the path of revenue recognition during 2023 at Ipsos will be completely different to 2022. And that is, of course, what we are now seeing. So let's just look at the numbers. We have positive momentum, but negative revenue at this point. So first of all, we have 532 million of revenue. That is the second highest figure that Ipsos has ever achieved. But as my colleague Dan, our CFO, will explain, we are facing a cliff edge comparator. And as a result of that, the revenue is down 2.8% because of this cliff edge effect of the major COVID contracts, which were present in 2022, but of course ended at the end of March 2022. So there's a very, very tough comparison in this quarter, which then gets much easier for the rest of the year. If you put aside the COVID contracts, the organic growth net of those is 0.6. but the order book which is basically the revenue which is visible and confirmed but not yet booked in the system and dan can explain the technicalities on that but it's visible for this year net of the covid contract is currently up 3.3 percent and has been building during this quarter. So March was up 6.4%. So we saw a deceleration at the end of last year with uncertainty. We are seeing an acceleration during Q1. But it is a very volatile situation out there. I thought the fact that the economists talk about the Mona Lisa economy, however you look at it, it looks different, was quite interesting. We'll come back to that during this presentation. But overall, we have good momentum and I'd like Dan now to take us through just some of the underlying factors with the adverse effects on the comparison and some of the other things that are going on. Dan.

Thank you very much, Ben. So obviously, as Ben just explained, the decline in Q1 revenue is first of all due to very strong adverse base effects, which were actually expected as we announced it in February for your results. The first adverse effect is obviously the fact that we had a very strong Q1 last year with an organic growth above 12%. We had more than 20% growth organic in the Americas in Q1. And we had double-digit growth in China before the lockdown that hit China in 2022. And obviously, this is a huge base effect which hits now our revenue in Q1. And the second base effect is actually the cliff-edge effect of the large COVID contract. which, as you will remember, ended at the end of Q1 last year, which were in the revenue of Q1 2022 and which are not anymore in the revenue of Q1 2023. If you strip out the effect of this COVID contract, organic growth would be in Q1 of plus 0.6%. In addition to these two base effects which were expected, we are facing in Q1 two other headwinds. The first one is a kind of wait and see attitude from our major tech clients in the US. These clients are reorganizing, which means that some of the clients of the contact that Ipsos has with them have changed. They are changing their strategy. And all of this means that some of the projects which they forecast were actually delayed. And as you see on this chart, the revenue on the big tech clients in Q1 is down by 7 million euro. Of course, there are a lot of needs that remain from these clients, because we do a lot of things with them. We do trackers, we do mystery shopping, we do corporate reputation, and we are going to keep on doing that. And also, we have new needs from them, particularly on AI, because we are currently working with some of the big tech clients on their private version of generative AI models. a lot of opportunity for growth going forward. But currently in the Q1, we have this cliff edge linked to the reorganization. The second headwind we have seen in Q1 is actually linked to the rebound in China. In China, the rebound of activity is clearly seen in our numbers in the order book. In the order book, as you can see, the order book, as you can see, is growing organically since January by more than 13%. But it is not seen yet in the revenue. The revenue are down by 3.9% because the Q1 revenue are still impacted by the lockdowns. It is important to see that when you have a recovery in the way we recognize the revenue, the recovery is always seen first in the order book and then is transformed into revenue because the recognition of revenue at Ipsos is basically from the start of the work till the end of the project. So there is always a lag between order book and revenue when there is a rebound in activity. And this is actually exactly what we see this quarter in China with a revenue down and a very strong order book. And maybe more generally speaking, I think it's important to note that the Q1 at Ipsos is the smallest quarter in revenue usually, as opposed to the other quarters. And as a consequence, Q1 revenue is not very predictive of the full year performance, whereas order book is a far better indicator because usually at the end of March, we have more than half of the order book of the year which is already booked. Despite the adverse base effect that we described before, as Ben said just before, the first quarter 2023 is the second best ever performance. As you can see on this chart, We have grown by 9% in Q1 as compared to 2021. So to an extent, if you do the bridge above the cliff edge effect of 2022, and we have grown by 25% organically as compared to 2019. I think it is important to show that because it shows the resilience of IPSO's business model. And it is always important to look at a medium and long term performance rather than to focus only on the quarter by quarter results, which can be volatile as we see in our Q1 results. If we now turn to the revenue breakdown by region, obviously we see a decline in EMEA by 6% organically, which is basically linked partly to the war in Ukraine, but more importantly by the end of the COVID contract. If you strip out the effect of this COVID contract, we would have an organic growth of more than 1% in EMEA. Organic growth in America was overall 1%, with quite different situations between Latin America, which grew organically by 9% in Q1, and North America, which was overall stable, impacted, as we said before, by the reorganization in some big tech clients. But again, this kind of stability in revenue in North America has to be put in perspective with the very strong Q1 we had last year because globally, America has grew by 22%, as you can see on the slide, in Q1 2022. And it's important to note as well that our order book in Q1 in the U.S. is positive with a 3.3% organic growth. Asia-Pacific, we have a very good momentum in India, growing by more than 20%. But obviously, Asia-Pacific suffered from the situation in China in the end of the zero COVID policy. China is the biggest country in Asia-Pacific. But I'd explained before, we are seeing a recovery in China. In terms of audience now, our performance in the clients and employees and consumers research activities remain broadly stable in Q1. Again, after a very strong performance in Q1 last year, you can see on this chart that it was respectively 20% organic growth and 70% organic growth. Again, the reorganization in big tech clients waited on the performance, but we have, on the other hand, very good performance on our brand health tracking activities, consumer experience activities, and data analytics. And Ipsos Digital as well is doing very well, and Ben will come to that in a few minutes. Citizens is decreasing by 30%. That's also expected because of the end of the last COVID contract. If you take out the last COVID contract, then the public sector would grow organically by 8%, which I think shows again the need for the governments in a multi-crisis world to inform public policy decisions with reliable data. And finally, our doctors and patients activity is down by 5%. Again, with a strong comparison to last year, which was 11%. And also due to delays in decision making in some pharmaceutical clients. And now over to Ben for some highlights on the business and for the outlook for the year. Thanks, Dan.

So the United States, as you've heard, the order book is up 3.3% over the quarter. And just to give you a bit more detail on that, because the United States is our largest market, and indeed it's the largest market for the research industry generally, So the tech sector is very mixed. So you've got retrenchment that is well publicized in several of the largest players, and that's causing people to reappraise programs, etc. At the same time, it's worth saying that one of the largest tech companies in the world has massively increased its spending with us. And I think it's actually close to our annual budget for that client. So it really does vary. But net-net spending is down in Q1. We can see visibility on big tech company spending with several contracts that have been confirmed yet to be signed coming through in the next quarter. So we're expecting an acceleration there. We've also of course got double digit growth in some of our offerings that we're prioritizing. So things like Market mix modeling, that's up 25% in our marketing management and analytics business. Our work on ad testing in the United States, again, driven heavily by Ipsos Digital, where we've automated a lot of that work, that's up 13%. And Ipsos Digital itself in the United States is up 35%. And finally, the other thing that we've seen, which also explains this slower growth this quarter, is the tension in the American government between the Senate and Congress, which is making government federal spending slow down and decision-making slow down. So again, we have some very major contracts that are definitely confirmed. but are being commissioned on a quarterly rather than annual basis because of potential cuts in government or freezes in government spending while the Republicans and the Democrats agree a budget. So that has slowed down the confirmation of contracts, but we have no concern about those in the medium term for the rest of the year. so that's the united states catching up after delays china as we've discussed is up 13 and a half percent in terms of its order book as it bounces back although a lot of that has come through in the last month and therefore isn't recognized in terms of revenue and that's important we can see growth across our business in china both in terms of food and beverage in fmcg in telecoms and also interestingly in automotive. You'll know, you may have read about the very strong competition in the EV market in China, which again is driving demand. We've also interestingly got rising demand from Chinese companies wanting to go global. And although the death of globalization is often talked about in the media, actually China is fully integrated into the global economy in most aspects, and those businesses still want to grow outside China, and we can help them. And finally, Ipsos Digital itself, our automated solution, now available in Mandarin and again growing rapidly. So that's the situation in China. So again, we are expecting the recovery, perhaps coming a little bit slower in revenue terms than we might have hoped, but certainly there very visibly in terms of confirmed orders, which will be booked as revenue in 2023. Ipsos Digital itself, we're aiming, as we've said, for revenue of 100 million by the end of this year. Currently, the revenue is up 36% and is again, like the rest of our business, has accelerated during Q1. So things that are helping drive that growth, multi-language availability now for Switzerland and Belgium, very important. The platform being live now in Mandarin, but also coming live in Japan in April. And after that, we will move to Spanish for the rest of Latin America. And then alongside expanded geographies that we're able to offer the solution in, we're also, of course, adding new products all the time. The next two that plan to go live in Q2, pack testing, very important for our innovation business, and that will go live in Q2, and creative early stage testing, and that will also go live in Q2. And as one of our biggest healthcare clients puts it, a great option for us, we can write our own survey. We're also supported by the the account team when needed. The language and the results are understood by marketing. We get benchmarks that we need. The reporting is easy, just the click of a button. So again, we're comfortable with the development of Ipsos Digital. It's an important part of what we do, and we will continue and have a clear roadmap for the next few years of putting more and more of our products onto that platform. Again, offering us faster results, more client control, and generally something that we enjoy working with our clients on. So overall, we can see in our order book a year that is in line with our guidance. And as Dan has already commented, the order book at this point in the year is a better predictor of outcome, looking back historically, than is our revenue in the quarter. So on average, for the last five years, we've had 52.5% of our full year have actually achieved revenue visible in the order book at the end of Q1. This year, it's 53% based on an organic growth of 5%. And so because of that, I think all other things being equal, this is what we are seeing. And that means that it sustains our 5% growth guidance at this point of the year. Having said that, it's a volatile world out there. The work that we do looking at consumer confidence, both for the world's largest banks, but also for media organizations around the world. You can see here, if just looking at the global aggregate data from our monthly tracker, You can see the COVID effect and the V-shaped recovery. But then, of course, and I think this is the series of things that have surprised central bankers, the war in Ukraine, nobody much could have predicted that, maybe, with the knock-on energy effects, all of that, of course, amounting to a cost-of-living crisis in many countries. You can see Latin America recovering, and that's partly explaining our very rapid growth, continued rapid growth in Latin America. But North America feeling less confident than it did before the pandemic. Europe, Asia Pacific, still not quite recovered from before the pandemic. And this general volatility which you see in the stock markets with reactions to things like the Silicon Valley Bank, I think just means that it is still an uncertain world. As I've said many times in these meetings, uncertainty is the only certainty in many ways. But having said all that, in terms of our order book and what we can see booked, the trajectory that we can see taking place in our major countries, we're confirming at this stage organic growth of 5% and an operating margin of 13%, around 30%. I know you will have some questions which we'll come to. We have an AGM on the 15th of May, our annual general meeting. There'll be some more details there. And on the 14th of June, Dan and I and some of my new colleagues who you have yet to meet, will take you through how we are going on our long-term plan for 2025 and some of the changes that are going on inside the company to try and improve productivity, make things faster, et cetera, et cetera. But with that, Dan and I are very happy to take questions. Thank you.

Ladies and gentlemen, as a reminder, if you'd like to ask a question, press star one on your phone keypad and to read your question, please press star two. The first question comes from the line of Emmanuel Matto calling from Odo. Please go ahead.

Hello, Ben. Hello, Dan. Three questions for me. Oh. Three questions. First, if I remember well, Ben, you were expecting in February a very low organic sales growth in Q1, but not a negative figure. So why Q1 was below your initial expectations and which sectors should recover the fastest in the coming quarters? Second, in case the organic sales growth will not recover as expected. Would you be ready to take quick action to protect the EBIT margin? And my last question is about the deal between Nielsen IQ and GfK. The tie-up is likely to face full-scale EU antitrust investigations with regulators demanding asset sales in return for clearing the deal. Could that be an opportunity for you to buy some of their assets in retail and consumer measurement, or it is not strategic businesses at all for Ipsos? Thank you.

Okay, interesting questions. I think it's fair to say that, as you know, we were expecting revenue to be lower than the previous year, but not to see a negative effect in that way. And I think part of the reason is that when I think about the business, I tend to think about the AOT, as we call it, the order book, which for the first part of the year really is the way in which to understand how the year is turning out. because basically the revenue as i say is not a very strong predictor so nevertheless yes it is it is a surprise and i think i think part of that is this this combined effect both of the slowdown in the covid contracts but also then the knock-on effects of the restructuring in the tech sector we do have some very major orders in the tech sector that will come through in the next quarter If we don't see the growth that we need in terms of revenue as the year pans out, we will be taking tough action on cost and payroll. We're actually employing fewer people at this point in the year already than previous years by managing attrition, etc. But absolutely, and you saw our ability to do that in 2020, and absolutely we will manage our costs to try and protect our margins. as much as we can without damaging the business. In terms of GfK and Nielsen, it depends what they have to sell. We were very satisfied with our purchase of part of GfK back in, I think, 2018. So never say never. Let's see what they're talking about. We have very little debt, and obviously we are interested in acquisitions that fit with our longer-term strategy.

Thank you very much, Ben.

next question comes from Conor O'Shea calling from Kepler Chavarro. Please, go ahead.

Yeah, thank you. Thank you. Good evening, everybody. So, a couple of questions from my side as well. Just the first question just on the growth and understanding completely the The multi-year comp in Q1 was on a different level to other quarters. But just wondering how we should look at the negative growth. I think you said in the past, Ben and Dan, that two-thirds-year contracts are index-linked to inflation or short-term contracts with current pricing. So are we seeing... In Q1 at least, price increases on most of your contracts, but much lower volume. That's the first question. And second question, just on the TMT, the tech sector comments, which makes sense, but just wondering how that ties in with – you know, EMEA being the weakest region, understanding that most of your tech clients are in the US. I know there's the COVID contracts, which are mostly in EMEA, but wondering if there are any other factors explaining that. And then just in terms of the activities, Can you just explain, I might have missed this at the start of the call, what's going on in your healthcare unit down 5%. I think we've heard from some of the other peers in this group that growth has come off quite a lot post-pandemic. So just wondering what you're seeing there.

Well, let me, Dan will help me with anything, any more details, but let's take those from the top. So we're continuing to put through price increases. In a sense, I mean, we just, I've just been, it's funny, I've just been, I was just looking at average price increases being put in by different markets. that's we're not publishing that but we are basically we are putting through price we continue to put through price increases um and so that isn't uh that in itself hasn't become uh a worry i think you know overall volume is the thing that is the thing that we need to to look for the TMT work in terms of Europe actually there is a lot of work for the tech players so yes yes there's a lot it's a very large component of the United States but it's actually also a major component uh in in across the media particularly remember the UK is our second largest market globally on its own The other thing that's going on in EMEA is that we are in a rebound situation in Germany and it's obviously one of the largest markets in Europe. We've recently appointed a new country manager, Dr. Christoph Brust. He is in the business, in the process of restructuring, reorganizing and refocusing that business. And that, I think, explains part of it. So that is certainly a factor, plus the Ukrainian ongoing war in Ukraine. on healthcare the situation and obviously we had a lot of we had good growth yesterday last year there is a slowdown with some of the major pharma companies uh post the pandemic uh post covid that some of them have been beneficiaries others are reorganizing and that again it's not as dramatic as in the tech sector but it is um leading to again some delays in decision making and um i you know we we will be sort of in a sense responding to that but um it doesn't change my longer-term confidence in the healthcare sector at all but i we need to we need to really make sure that we've got the right people in the right places dan i don't know if you want to add to any of that maybe just just one point on prices it is clear i think that ipsos has been successful in increasing prices in 2022 and facing the inflation wave

We are obviously continuing to do that every day. The point is that because of the inflation globally is decreasing a little bit, even though core inflation is not decreasing, it is true that it is a bit tougher after two years to keep on increasing prices. So we are doing that. But the discussion with the client can be a bit tougher than it used to be in the first place.

Yeah, and pay rises obviously are under pressure. We're going to be pretty disciplined about that. But you've got the full year effects of May pay rises last year now visible in our books this year. But we will be very disciplined on that.

Okay. Just one follow-up on the comments you made, Ben, on a lower headcount. Yeah. In Q1. Is that versus December or versus March last year?

Versus December.

Roughly how much in percentage?

I don't think we're publishing at the moment. But it's a little bit lower. Let's put it that way. Yeah.

Okay. Okay. Understood. Many thanks. Thank you.

We currently have no question coming through, so as a reminder, if you'd like to ask a question, please press star one now. We still have no question coming through, so as a final reminder, if you'd like to ask a question, please press star one now. We have one question coming from Peter Taster, calling from One Investment. Please go ahead.

I was just trying to ask a bit about the link between pipeline or intake and revenue. You gave a comment of accelerating in March on the signings after a period of less execution, maybe of bookings into Q1. What sort of time lag would you expect between the pickup and bookings and the pickup and revenue? Because of the slower Q1, will that be short? Do you expect it to be quicker? And then associate a follow-up for that, please.

I think it pretty much depends on the project. So, typically, we have an average maturity of project, which is a few months, four to five months. And typically, so if you have a project of three months, for instance, the recognition of revenue would be from the start of the project to the end of the project. So, it would be over the three months. If it's a project of one year, the recognition would be over the year. So typically on average, because we have a three to five months average maturity, you would expect the impact of the audiobook in revenue to lag by a few months. That's typically the average. But again, I mean, it's important to understand that if you do a project with Ipsos Digital, that's pretty much a 24 or 48 hours project. And for others, big projects like public affairs or tracking, it could be a year or many years project.

in one country we won 20 million of work but of course it's spread over the next uh three to five years so it's you know and that's just one team in one country so yeah that's that's the challenge but i think you know three three the next three to five months it should be you know what the bookings will be visible yeah okay so so the exit rate will be say visible as you in revenue terms as you execute too we should certainly see and if we we should certainly see a pickup

Yeah, okay. And the other sort of associate question is that, you know, you've been good at trying to isolate COVID work, but there's been other elements which have been harder to define. I mean, obviously, in medical pharma clients, there's been a bit of, you know, blowback and the COVID and some of the government work, there's been budget that's been reallocated. So it's a bit harder to understand, you know, how that work, that budget might get reallocated now. And I was wondering if you saw any sense on some of the customer segments which were, say, spending a fair bit on COVID who aren't, the extent to which they're now making progress and reallocating that budget into

other ipsos projects other other data projects which are important to them whether you've seen that now whether you expect to see that later well government is um as dan has mentioned if you is up eight percent of putting aside the the uh the covid work so we can and we can see actually in in some of the larger countries where we have our public affairs and government business concentrated we can actually see a pickup in demand and particularly for very major contracts. So government I think is fairly clear. What probably has been more of a surprise in a way is the disruption in both the tech sector and the I mean, I think the challenge for the tech players is that they saw accelerated growth during the pandemic and thought that there was some new paradigm that had arrived. And now they've returned to growth and they still employ many more people than they did in 2019. But it's not quite the growth that they were expecting. So they're reappraising their model. Generative AI is also... a massive disruptor for them. It's a massive, exciting opportunity for us in terms of applying it across our business. And then finally, healthcare, again, I think it's a very mixed bag depending on which clients you look at. And that certainly is slowing things down. But again, we will make some changes there and we should see that pick up.

And the last question I have was just on the comments about employee, but on the other hand, on the margin, you talked about, you know, mix and productivity. I was wondering the extent to which the employee count is reflecting business mix changes as much as any particular leaning on productivity at this stage. less people clipboards, more data and more strategic tools. They have very different headcount requirements.

It's not so much that as trying to adjust our general desire to keep pushing on productivity as a business.

Yeah. Okay. Thank you very much. Pleasure.

The next question comes from the line of Stephen Benhamou, calling from BNP Paribas Exxon. Please go ahead.

Hello, guys. Thanks for taking my question. Just one quick one, please. About your CMD in June, you're mentioning the fact that you will update your plan. Do you mean, is it a focus on a business perspective, or would you update your guidance on a quantitative basis? Thank you.

At the moment, we're not planning to change the guidance for the year or to do so on June the 14th. That day is really just about talking about some of the parts of the plan, like our plans for acquisitions, the progress on acquisitions, the progress on investments in technology and automation, further digitization. And overall, how the three-year or four-year strategy announced last year is playing out. I think there's a lot of work going on beneath the surface. We will perhaps detail some of that and some of the innovations there. So it's more that than a business update, which obviously we'll be reporting normally on Q2 in July.

All right, very clear. And one last question, please. It's about M&A. So you're mentioning that you've identified a lot of targets in several sectors. Should we expect an acceleration of the M&A strategy in the coming quarter or is it more back and loaded for the end of the year? How should we expect your strategy to be delivered?

Well, we're following the same strategy, but these deals, particularly where you're talking to owners who are selling you their baby, can take a long time. I think, as I've said before on these types of calls, when I sold my business to Ipsos in 2005, I think it was around four years from the first lunch to the final completion of the transaction. Now that may be a bit of a long courtship, but it's just an example of why the predictions are, you know, making firm predictions I think is probably not sensible. But yes, we have a lot of LOIs out at the moment, you know, letters of intent. So we will see what comes through and we'll keep you updated, you know, absolutely as and when. We can talk a bit more about the detail on that perhaps on the 14th June.

All right.

Thank you, guys. Thank you.

Thank you.

Another question coming from Kono Oshie from Kepler Chevrolet. Please, go ahead.

Yes, thank you. Just a couple of questions as there are a few on the line. Just, you may have given this number at the start of the call, but on new services, we gave the growth on Ipsos.digital 36%, but can you give us a sense of what the level for the overall group of new services was in the first quarter? The second question, just in terms of client group, I don't know if you mentioned CPG, how that's trending, any change in sort of behavior or activity noticeable in that sector. For now, that would be very useful to know. Thank you.

So on new services, we introduced the new services category in this reporting back in 2015. And I think one of the things, and we have been faithfully updating new services in these presentations since 2015, we haven't done that this time because we're reviewing what is a new service. And this is pretty important because things that were new in 2015 really probably shouldn't be defined as new in 2023. So we need to, I think there's a whole range of things that are not in there that we need to put in there. And there's a range of things that we need to take out. So we will update on that on the investor day in June on how we're defining that and probably give you a bit more detail of composition so you can see exactly what we're talking about. But generally, there's a lot of excitement that the knowledge panel work is going well. We've launched that in more countries. This is, of course, a gold standard digital product that allows you to interview representative samples very, very quickly. But that includes people who are not even online, where we install the internet in their house. in order to get fully representative coverage of the country. And it's very successful in America and in the UK. We launched in France, Germany coming up, et cetera. So we will, I think the bottom line is we'll update that on June 14th. Okay. And on CPG, I don't, basically steady as she goes you've seen the profits most of those companies have made good profits you've seen our beer clients in the news recently with improved margins uh even where the volumes have gone down because they've been able to pass through inflation so no we're not i mean we we i think we reported consumers were up 20 last year it's only up plus one percent so far but the order book of course is further ahead and we've got some we will again have some interesting things to talk about on june the 14th i'd suggest

Okay. And I guess at that stage, you'll go into a little bit more detail about the sort of practical impact of what you can see from AI's impact on the industry.

Yeah. I mean, I think, yeah, it's a really, really exciting time. And we are working at speed and pace with hundreds of people across the company using generative AI to see how it can be applied. safely and securely, respecting all privacy laws, etc. So yes, we'll update you on some of that, but it's moving pretty quickly, I think, is the bottom line. Actually, then sort of quantifying that in a definitive fashion for you may take a little bit longer, but it is one of the most exciting technologies that I've seen. I mean, it's often generative AI is as good as a graduate trainee from one of Europe's finest universities with 12 months experience. Let's put it that way.

Which means that we can foresee a lot of things in terms of client-facing business, but also internally, because generatively AI can be very useful in terms of being more efficient on the way we script the questionnaire, on the way we report to the clients. So it's both external and internal.

okay we need to we need to make sure that it's applied you know consistently safely uh etc and that obviously you know you can't put any proprietary information into chat gpt because it's it's you know it's in the public domain effectively so but we have as i say sandbox versions of some of the beta beta tests from some of the major producers or major tech companies that we're looking at at the moment. So we should have a more sort of structured update on that, I think, on June 14th. But it is really, I mean, every week I am pleasantly surprised

I just want one last question. Can you give a sense of roughly what proportion of your revenues still come from survey-based activity as opposed to observational or other?

I'd say that's an interesting observational business. I'm not sure we have a statistic on that. We think that about 68% perhaps might come from surveys as opposed to observational work.

68? 68?

Two thirds, yes, two thirds.

And how has that trended, say, the last five years?

Well, obviously the observational work is rising. The survey portion is going down slowly, but there's life in surveys yet. I think the key point, and this is a serious one, is that in a sense, if you look at the media sector, you know, there is still print. Print is suffering, but it has a place. And even in our world, and it's very, you know, part of our very deliberate strategy is to maintain the ability to speak to all of humanity. And as Google put it, a third of the world is not even online yet. So we need to be able to reach everybody. And to do that, we need good offline capabilities in some markets. And that's important to us, actually, particularly because of the requirement often for governments to be able to reach properly representative samples. So we, in the same way that the media space is fragmented, but nothing quite dies. Radio keeps going. It becomes digital, et cetera. In our business, we're obviously digitizing more and more. Online data collection rises every year, which is great because it drives better gross margin. But actually the ability to reach everybody, and that was a major feature, having that physical infrastructure to be able to do the COVID work, which was a huge opportunity for us. That's something that we won't abandon lightly.

Well understood. Makes sense. Thank you.

Very clear.

Thank you.

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It's good.