Piaggio & C Spa Unsp/Adr

Good afternoon, this is the Coruscall Conference Operator. Welcome and thank you for joining the Piaggio 9th Month 2025 Financial 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 Mr. Raffaele Lupotto, Investor Relations of Piaggio. Please, go ahead, sir.

Thank you very much. Hello, everyone, and welcome to this conference call. The conference call will be hosted by Michele Polannino, Piaggio Group Chief Executive Officer, and Alessandra Simonotto, Piaggio Group Chief Financial Officer. Today, we are also pleased to have with us Matteo Canalino, Piaggio Group Executive Chairman. You can access the slides supporting today's conference call and presentation on the Piaggio Group website. As you would expect, before we begin, I would like to remind you that during today's call, we may make forward-looking statements, which are based on Piaggio's current expectations and projections about future events. By their nature, such statements are subject to risks, uncertainties, and other factors that could cause actual results to be materially different from those expressed. These factors are discussed in the safe harbor statement on page 2 of today's presentation. I would also like to remind you that the members of the press and been invited to participate in this conference call in a listen-only mode. With that, I will now hand over the call to our CEO, Michele Colanino.

Thank you, Raffaele. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for joining our call. I would like just to introduce the call with some aspects regarding the nine months of Piaggio Group 2025. Well, first of all, it's easy to see and note to everybody that we have some of the tiny markets in U.S., Europe, and Asia. This is a fact. And it's also well known that we have external problems around the business that are affecting the worldwide situation. We have wars. We have tariffs in U.S. We have exchange rates increase. in raw material costs, and last but not least, the beginning of our Green Deal electric portal in Europe since July 2025. 2025 has been characterized in Europe by the change of regulations, as you know, from Euro 5 to Euro 5 Plus, that has determined some declining for us in the market, never saying the less that the entire market in Europe has declined since the beginning of the year. We are very satisfied with some products. We are not satisfied with other products. But what I have to say is that our strategy not to reduce price point for our four brands is confirmed, and it will be confirmed in the future. I'm also considering that, you know, Asian brands are entering the markets around the world with cheap price, sometimes consequence of not so fair competition from the Chinese, especially, answering into Europe in the, you know, also four-wheel but also two-wheel vehicles with low prices. We will not go into the price war. The second aspect that is very, very important to me is that in the nine months of 2025, if we consider that we lost 153 million of revenues we have been able to achieve two relevant targets. First of all is the 30.4 gross margin percentage on revenues, the best ever number that we ever achieved. And the second one is that if you consider the first nine months of 2024, with 153 million more in revenues, we had a cash absorption of 27 million euros in the nine months of last year, while this year we generated 6 million of cash. It means that the company is very well managed from a productivity point of view all around the world. As you can see from our slides, we have continuously invested in our factories and products up to 100, more than 100 million this year. And obviously, as a consequence of the investments done in the past, we have an increase in our amortization cost, given that the percentage of amortization is increasing because of declining revenue. but amortization is just consequence of investments. If we go market by market, I told you about U.S. and Europe that are mainly two-wheel vehicles for us moving to India. The market is slightly growing in three-wheel vehicles. It is growing in cheap products and two-wheel vehicles, and we are fairly satisfied about our sales in three-wheel markets. Considering, once again, I will never stop telling you that Electric vehicles in India are still losing money. We have the technology, we have the products, we have the dealers, but it's not the moment to push too much on electric mobility on three-wheel vehicles given that the cost is not declining as someone, not Piaggio Group, was forecasting. On the internal combustion engines, we are happy with our three-wheel cargo business in India. As you know, the passenger business is in downtown, is managed by brokers mainly, and we are, you know, starting to have a slightly, very slightly positive news about three-wheel passenger business downtown Mumbai, Delhi, and Bangalore. India is growing, so it's a place where we will invest with confidence that the country continues to grow at a stable page, so that we know that it's, you know, it's not, it's not a country where you have a peak of industrialization for the time being. Every year, they grow, and they will continue to grow, I think, in a stable way. So India interesting for the Piaggio Group, and it remains interesting for the next years. Moving to China. China is a big question mark. You know that the savings from households have touched peak for the last 22 years, rising to 39%. So Chinese people are saving money. They're not spending their money in consumer business. And that's why not only the two will be because market has been affected, but all the consumer business has been affected in China. And we are in the middle of the real estate prices over there. It will take years to be fixed. So China, even if it is a fantastic country and a big market for every business, has to be managed with the proper way not thinking of, you know, autistic for the next five years. They will come back for sure. They are a giant and the market is very interesting for us. It's known that there's a fight between China and U.S. and this is affecting also the exchange rate linked to the dollars. That's why I think, but that's my view for the future, it's better not to have too much positivity in all the countries linked to the Chinese-U.S. war. I'm especially thinking about South America, but it's an argument I will tell you later. So given a short consideration of those nine months, I cannot say I'm not satisfied because of the gross margin we have achieved. because we generated slight amount of cash instead of burning it, and because we continue to invest for the long-term period on our products. Obviously, it is difficult to predict what happens tomorrow morning. We are analyzing every aspect for the 2026 projections, especially on the cost side, because we have to analyze whether to protect ourselves, first of all, on costs, and then speak about revenues. We are building up our budget strategy, and we are foreseeing some slightly, slightly recovery in Asia, so we are not so negative for the future. India, I told you, is a place that I trust. It's not an easy place to be, but Piazza is well known. We will enter the segment of two wheel vehicles that we never touched next year and end of next year with products that can compete with the biggest part of the market that is a low street price market. As you know, we are just concentrated on the premium market, but we have the possibility now to achieve costs that are interesting for us in India also mass market. It is not such a big investment, but to invest money in India, I think it's more interesting than investing in other countries nowadays. That's what I have to say, Fraile, commenting the slightest numbers. I repeat once again, we are investing. You know we are investing in new facilities in Mandela for the Moto Guzzi brand. We will inaugurate next year. We have invested a lot. We know the processes for safety of people in our factories and also to be able to enhance every day, if it is possible, people's job place. You know that we are continuing to develop our robotic division in Boston, where we are developing the brain of our robots for delivery, and the full autonomous vehicles will be ready next year. It is an interesting market. For now, the sales are not interesting to the Piaggio Group, because we are investing with people, nothing else, to develop the software. and the brain of the robots. Robotics will be the biggest part of our world tomorrow. There will be a huge increase in technology where software will be more prominent than steel. We will be able to do both of them. As you know, we are also investing on the electromobility in parallel to the thermic one because I think and I expect that the technology of the batteries that is the driver of the electromobility will be interesting in the next 10 to 15 years, given that the autonomy will grow and the recharge time will be lower. Until that, thermic will be electric, especially in Europe and U.S. But we will be ready in Italy, where we are investing in the head and in the heart of the vehicle, so we will not invest in batteries. We will not invest in cables. Those are all from the shelves purchasing material and components. We will invest in software and in the electric engine produced in Italy for Europe, obviously, in the U.S. Then we will see in Asia. We have a lot of plans and we can do whatever we want without having the necessity to build new walls. We have the capacity in Vietnam, Indonesia, and China. We have the capacity in India. We have the capacity and installed capacity. It's everything is installed capacity in Europe. Last but not least, because I think and we think that Asia, if we go back, it takes time, but if we go back to positive time, we open a new direct presence in the Philippines. The Philippines we estimate could be the new Jakarta, especially, you know, the big town of Manila. And that's why it's intelligent to have a direct presence there instead of having importers or not controlling the dealer's distribution network. For the beginning, it would be just distributions of our vehicles. Then, you know, we never know. We can estimate to have a local production facility, but it's not forecasted for the next two to three years. We have enough in Asia to fulfill the needs of Philippines and all the surrounding areas. That's it. I think it's just a brief comment on the numbers. And, you know, I have to say that, okay, we lost revenues. It happens. The markets go down. We also lost some 1% market share here and there, but that's because we don't want to enter into price war. We want to stay with high-margin products, stay with high-margin vehicles around the world, and not to think of being able to go into the marginal net result that needs millions and millions of vehicles. It's not our job for the time being. It's not our job for the next two to three or five years, whatever you want, but it's not our job. And so it's better to have high price. It's not so high. The right price to have high margins. That's what we want to do. Maintaining or trying to maintain more than 30% of the gross margin and more than roughly 17% on the EBDA. I think that's our target, and we work for it. Once again, productivity is attacked. We manage transportation costs that, you know, were so high in the past. We now see overcapacity around the world and bigger fleets from ships coming from Asia and India, so we can think about at least a stabilization of the transportation costs but also slightly reduction for the future. Obviously, it doesn't belong just to the Piaggio Group, but, you know, bigger fleets and bigger capacity with low numbers of items to be transported means that the price could go down. Another aspect is very relevant. I was saying before, and then finish, is South America. South America is a big market for two-wheel vehicles. We're not there. We're reporters. For the time being, I'm still convinced that South America is the next place to be. But given the situation between the U.S. administration around the world, I estimate that Brazil and Mexico that are very linked to the dollar could have some impact from the situation. So it's better to wait and see what happens between the actual U.S. administration and Brazil and Mexico. I'm thinking about tariffs. I'm thinking about the exchange rate between U.S. dollar. So it's an interesting country, but it's becoming a little bit risky. We have put on hold Brazil. We have not put on hold the other countries of South America. So Brazil, just because of our relation with the United States, that is going to be difficult, I think, in the future. It doesn't mean that we're not able. We are able, but it's better to analyze deeply what can happen on the exchange rate with Brazil and on the market. So Colombia, Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, all the South American countries apart, Brazil, the value of it is very interesting as a business. It could be risky with the financial exchange rates risk with the U.S. dollar. So that's a fact, you know. The U.S. administration is targeting South America, and who knows what happens. So that's what happens on the U.S. dollar. geopolitical situation up to now as it is quite unpredictable. Thank you, Raffaele, I think.

Thank you very much. So we are ready to start the Q&A session.

Excuse me. This is the conference operator. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press start and 1 on their touchtone telephone. To remove yourself from the question queue, please press the star and two. Please pick up the receiver when asking questions. Anyone who has a question may press the star and one at this time. The first question is from Monica Bosio of Intesa San Paolo. Please go ahead.

Yes, good morning and thanks for taking my questions. I have three. The first is on Europe. I fully understand that the company is preserving values over volumes. The company lost market shares and the trend in volumes performed the market. So for the year end, my estimates point to volumes below 200,000 units. So I'm just wondering if you should see my estimates as a fair assumption. And more in general, if you can elaborate on the key factors behind Piaggio underperformance. I understand the value of a volume strategy, but could this be due also to a shift in customer behaviors or changes in the dealer network performance? That's the first question. The second one is on India. Regarding the light commercial vehicles, volumes have declined despite an overall market growth. So could you share your expectation for the fourth quarter of the year that should be stronger? And what are the strategies the company is implementing to address the increasing trend in India today? from the fourth quarter. And the very last is on the tariff impact. It was $3 million. So if you can share with us the full impact. And you also mentioned some cost savings from transportation. Should we expect this could be somewhat relevant in 2026? Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mrs. Borgio, for your questions. Well, starting from Western countries, I think that you were referring to 195 or around 200K, putting together Europe and US. It is true that we have lost here and there some zero-point market share, but it is also true that we gained market shares. So with the Prida brand, we are happy. With the Moto Guzzi brand, we have lost some market share. Piaggio brand, we have lost, especially in Italy, on the high-wheel scooters. But 50% of this is because of Euro 5, Euro 5 Plus, Piaggio plates in the year. The other are people that decided to buy Chinese products. So lower price, not interesting for us. I don't want to follow 50% discount. just to sell one vehicle that will lose money. So the strategy is clear. We obviously fine-tune commercial opportunities every month so to attract new customers and so to be attractive for them. But given that the market has gone down in all Europe, the market share that we have lost is Italy, as I told you. Germany, we didn't lost. Spain, we lost because of Chinese. UK, we are happy with Aprilia brand. Greece, we are happy. So, you know, it happens that you decide to not to follow the price wall. Obviously, we have to do something, but do something for Piaggio Group is do new products. And as you have seen at the fair in Milan of this week, we have just launched the new GT 400 from Aprilia that enters for the first time in the biggest market of scooters. So we didn't have one. We had the 125. We were not present in the high displacement of the 400 CC. Now we're there. And it's the market that is growing the most. So I am positive for next year about this market for Previa brand scooters. If you think and if you ask me if there's some change in the consumer behaviors, I would say no when you have a consumer that appreciates your work on the brand. If you have a consumer that is just searching for discounts, yes, it is changing. But if you look at some brands that were very powerful in the past with high discounts on the market, now they have disappeared because the customer has realized that he saved some money in purchasing, but then when happens something and the mechanical problems happens, There's no distributions, there's no spare parts, and there's no services. And this is one of the parts of the brand equity that we want to sustain. And here we come to the last point, dealers' partnership. We are happy with our dealers' distribution network. They are not stressed. We can manage. I mean, we don't have any particular issue. Obviously, they are entrepreneurs and they do the business, so we divide every month. we will have, you know, a positive, we are having a positive and frank collaboration with our partners. India, well, it is true that the three-wheel market has grown, but it has grown where we are not. It has grown in the electric and, you know, we are there, but we use money on electric vehicles and we don't want to lose more pushing for customers. It is growing on passengers CNG vehicles, especially in the biggest area of India, so Kolkata, Bangalore, Mumbai, and Delhi, just because they opened some permissions, and the brokers that we have are not so powerful for this kind of market in big cities. We are, you know, reinforcing ourselves, so to increase in that market, but given that the rural area is the one that the Central Bank of India declared is growing the most and the employment rate of the rural areas are growing far away faster than the urban cities. And given that the agriculture business is going very well because of a very positive monsoon period this year in India, if all those three are true, we are strong enough and we will be strong enough in the rural area to fulfill the needs. So if there will be more money in the rural areas, Piaggio will be in a good position. Tariffs. Yeah, we have the tariffs. Everybody knows, like every business has. We have managed. Obviously, we didn't, we couldn't increase the price list in all the tariffs and all the depreciation of the U.S. dollars against the euros for the customers. We managed, even if we have, and let me say in the last quarter, roughly another 1.4 million euros of tariffs. So it is roughly, with the kind of volume, it's roughly 500K per month. But U.S. is another interesting market for us, especially in the bike segment. We are tiny and we can grow. The growth in U.S., and this is what I tell to my colleagues over there, is mainly the consequence of dealer's distribution network expansion. So we have to work to expand our dealer's distribution network in U.S. Because what we have, we are happy. People are happy. They make money. But if we look at the competition, I would say we have to have We have to add another 100 dealers in U.S. in the next two to three years. When we will reach 100 dealers more, we will be happy because the penetration per dealer is good. So if you want, it's a normal calculation. If you open shops, you increase your real revenues. But what is more relevant is that the product line that we launched in the medium class with the previous specialty bike, and we will have other launches in the future, doing a good job in the U.S., especially the 457 that has been just launched and the 660. So the U.S. is interesting, given that we are small, the market is big, and we have to open new shops.

Okay.

I hope you are satisfied.

Yes, thank you. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Next question is from Emanuele Galazzi of Equita. Please, go ahead.

Good evening, everybody. From my side, three questions. The first one is a follow-up on Europe. It's very, very clear that you don't want to enter in a price war, but do you have the feeling that the competitive environment is becoming more and more challenging in with new Asian players entering or planning to enter in Europe. The second one is on the APAC market. It is the third quarter in a row with volume around 25K. Do you think the region has now stabilized around this level? And how do you basically see the region evolving in the fourth quarter and in 2026? And the last one is on the gross margin. It has been good, above 30% since the beginning of the year. I would like to understand your view on this. Do you basically see room for further improvement on the gross margin side? Thank you.

Okay, sorry, the telephone was not working for us. Thank you for your question. Follow-up on Europe. Yeah, competition is challenging like it has ever been and it will be in the future, but it is challenging on the low price. So if you have, you know, Asian brands that are entering Europe, first of all, we will see if and when they will be able to open their distribution network. One of them is doing this, but it's just one of them. I fairly trust in distribution network because it's the service that you can give to your customer. I don't think that the competition is 100% fair from entering Europe from some Chinese brands. And these, you know, is on the table of everybody. If there's no fair competition, someone will take actions against it. No fair competition as done in other businesses. I don't want to say we are open and we have files to say it, but for sure, they are selling below their cost. So I think that their companies will not be able to continue for a long period like that, even because, as I said before, China need exports. The internal market cannot sustain the big factories they have built in their land. And to sustain export, you know, they have to do big discounts on products to be attractive also for European customers. Our four brands, and I think we are doing a very good job on brand equity, I don't think we'll be affected just because you find $200 less for two wheel vehicles. If this is the case, you know, it's not a problem of Piaggio, it's a problem of Europe. But I don't think this will be the case. For Asia-Pacific market, yes, it's 25K per month, per quarter. I think that it's a positive news that market has been stabilizing over there. because as you know, I was afraid that the Chinese situation could affect also surrounding countries. It happened because we know Thailand has suffered. It happened because we know Vietnam has suffered. Now it's stable, and I can say that for the end of the year, this 25 plus can be confirmed. It's not 30. It's a 25 plus. It means that the recovery is starting in Asia. And given the high margin we have over there, we are very happy if the market from 25 goes up. 30.4% growth margin, I think it's a fantastic result. It will not be easy to increase. Obviously, we do our best to increase, but I would say if we will maintain, I would be very happy because a lot of uncertainty around the world is there. exchange rates, raw material, and logistic situation has not recovered from the wars around, you know, the Red Sea or Ukraine. So this is what has affected the transportation time and costs until there, you know, you can see some cost saving due to the capacity of shipping companies but not recover from what is working capital. So we do not want to take the risk to say that working capital will have a benefit from shortened time of transportation. So let's keep as it is. Then if we are able to have some discounts from shipping company, obviously we will beat also for $1 less.

Very clear. Thank you very much. Thank you.

The next question is from Nicolo Storer of Kepler Chevro. Please go ahead.

Good afternoon and thanks for taking my question. At the beginning of the call you talked about increases in raw materials. Can you elaborate a bit on that and on what to expect for 2026 and how to put all these, let's say, pieces of information together on the one hand, these increasing raw materials that you see on the other. We discussed about freight costs, which might come down. On the other hand, the target to keep gross margin above 30%. Thank you.

Well, I think that we demonstrated that we can manage raw material increase very good, achieving 30.4% margin. I don't know what happens in 2026. It's impossible to predict if, you know, steel will go up or down. It depends on the situation of the markets around. We cannot manage raw materials as you can imagine. And if anybody has a suggestion for us, I would take it very, very friendly. But I think that we just follow. what happens, we, you know, we do our job in protecting ourselves if we can, so not going into speculation on raw materials, but, you know, if the target is to confirm the 30.4%, it means that it's not easy. I repeat, it's not easy because perhaps you don't know and realize how tough it is to manage today the gross margin, but we have achieved the fantastic result of today. I don't know. We will have our projection in the budget. We are still analyzing the market, and I don't know which is a reliable focus to tell you. Thank you.

The next question is from Gianluca Bertuzzo of Intermonte Sim. Please, go ahead.

Good afternoon and thank you for taking my question. I saw that you launched a new GT scooter. If I'm not wrong, you were not present in that market segment. Can you elaborate on the strategy for the scooter and the expectation you have also in terms of timetable for the scooter to be on the market, volumes, etc.? ? Second one is about South America. You mentioned in the presentation that you plan to go there, but not in Brazil because of the geopolitical situation. What is the timetable for this project? I mean, it is something that will start already in 2026. It's more medium to long-term ambition. Any thoughts would be helpful. Last question is about the net debt for the end of the year. Do you see it being stable compared to the nine months or do you expect to go up or down? Thank you.

Well, thank you for your question. Very interesting. And I appreciate your interest on the Aprilia brand. Yeah, we were not there. We were not there. And it's now the biggest market in Europe. We are there with the GP400. And it's a fantastic product. I tested it. It's branded with Aprilia as a sporty brand, as you know. And that's a consequence from the MotoGP race. Well, we are very satisfied until now. I think it will boost the sales since the beginning of the year, let's say the first two months when it will be ready in the dealerships. And I think that the appreciation from the customer will be there. So we are positive on that market, and we are positive on the GT scooter 400. Yeah, we were not there, and now we are there. For South America, we will continue to have our importers. So we are there and we will remain with our partners. When I speak about South America, I think about something more than having just a local partner for distribution, just to be able to, you know, mitigate the input uses in that countries. As you know that CBU has a high end of input uses over there. So it could be interesting to have some localization of few products in the next, let's say, 12 to 15 months. Brazil was in our target because it's the biggest market, but I prefer to see what happens on U.S.-Brazil relation before putting money in the country. It is a difficult country because of the exchange rate and inflation situation, but it could also be worsening in the next six to eight months if you look at what's happening between U.S. and Venezuela. So it's better not to risk today and wait and see. It's just on hold in Brazil. The other countries, they are interesting. They have not too many risks with the United States administration and the dollar, so there are interesting opportunities. I'm not saying we will sell hundreds, thousands of vehicles. Obviously, I want to clarify. But it's an add-on that can be interesting for us. For the depth, yeah, what I can say is that we foresee a stable depth by the end of the year. We will try to do slightly better, some medium more, but, you know, let's stay on the safe part of the metal.

Okay. Thank you very much.

As a reminder, if you wish to register for question, please press star and one on your telephone. The next question is from Michele Baldelli of BMP Paribas. Please go ahead.

Hi, good afternoon to everybody. Just a quick question on the strategy for the CapEx. What do you think is the sustainable level that could be achieved in the coming years in terms of absolute number or as a percentage of sales as you prefer?

Well, given that the CapEx has a consequence, that means a motivation, we have to be very careful for the next years, given that I think that, let's say, from 140 million could be a number to have new products and to finish the projects of Mandela that will be September 2026. After Mandello, we do not have any investment in production facilities. So it will be just products and, you know, processes, let's say like this. We are investing in for better processes in our factories. But I would say if you ask me a number, 140, around 140, 145 could be the number. But what I take care of more is amortization. Because it's not a question of investing money. It's a question on having a positive return. And business plan of products, given that we had an estimation of markets that was slightly different, we estimated that the market was growing this year. Instead, they had the timing. Okay. And that's why the amortization percentage and revenues has increased. But that's a consequence of putting money in your products. We have our product range in the 2025-2030 plan. That's the time that we analyze every time. for our products, we are happy with the four-wheel. We have the thermic one and the electric one. And so we will invest in two-wheel and three-wheel mobility. So scooters, bikes, and India. India and surrounding countries, obviously, but the product line is two and is mainly three-wheel. So that's a number I have in mind for, you know, next year. Thank you.

Once again, if you wish to ask a question, please press the starting one on your telephone. Gentlemen, there are no more questions registered at this time.

Okay, so thank you very much. The conference call is over, and thank you for attending.

Thank you very much for your time, and I hope you are satisfied with our conference. Bye-bye.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining the conference. It is now over. You may disconnect your telephone.