Renault Sa Unsp/Adr

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to this Q3 Sales and Revenue Conference. The presentation will be made by Thierry Pieton, Renault Group CFO, and will be followed by a Q&A session. Thierry, the floor is yours.

Thanks very much, Philippine, and very good morning to all of you, and thank you for joining us this morning. I'm pleased to comment today our Q3 revenue and sales performance. You will see that despite the decrease in registrations in Q3, we posted revenue growth. The product offensive is starting to be reflected in our commercial and financial performance. We're continuing to improve our product mix while stabilizing the product effect, the price effect. After being pretty stable in H1 2024 versus H1 23, group revenue was up 1.8% in Q3 at 10.7 billion euros. At constant exchange rates, it was up 5%. Auto revenue increased by 2.6% at constant effects in Q3 compared to last year to reach 9.3 billion euros. Mobility services amounted to 14 million, up 3 million. Mobilized financial services revenue was up 21.6 million at 1.3 billion, mainly driven by the rise in interest rates and higher average performing assets. It increased 25.6% at constant effects. Now, let's focus on the automotive revenue. Automotive revenue stood at €9.3 billion in Q3, as I mentioned, up 2.6% at constant effects, with a negative forex impact of 3.1 points. As in previous quarters, this impact was driven by the Argentinian peso devaluation, and to a lesser extent, to the Turkish lira. As you know, though, the Turkish lira has a positive impact on production cost, though, so it's not all bad news. This quarter, revenue was also penalised by the Brazilian Real. Brazil represented 6% of our revenue in Q3, with a 7% increase in our sales compared to last year, thanks in part to the launch of Cardian. Volume effect was negative 3.1 points in the quarter due to lower registrations, partially offset by a less pronounced dealership destocking than last year. Volume-wise, the group registered 482,000 units in the quarter, a 5.6% decrease over Q3 2023. Both the market and our sales figures are to be put in perspective of tough comps in the third quarter of 2023. Last year, sales in Europe were up 15% at group level and 25% for the Renault brand, thanks to the return to availability of electronic components. This effect was particularly pronounced in July and August where accumulated sales were down 8.7% versus last year. Sales in September, however, were very stable. In Europe, Renault Group confirmed its position on the podium with sales at 328,000 units, a 5.3% decrease that still outperformed the market's decline of 6.1 points. Group sales in Italy, Spain, and the U.K. grew strongly, outperforming their respective markets and partially offsetting France and Germany lower registrations. Over the first nine months of the year, registrations stood at more than 1.6 million units, stable compared to last year. Renault brand ranked number three in Europe and number one in France. The brand consolidated its leadership in the European LCV market, excluding pickups, with sales up 9.9%. Renault Clio, whose sales in Europe rose by 5.6%, moved up three places to become the second best-selling model across all channels. In Europe, Dacia was number nine for passenger cars. It consolidated its position on the European passenger car retail podium, the brand's core customer base. Dacia Sandero, with sales up 16.3% in the first nine months of 24, was Europe's first best-selling model across all channels. All in all, we now have four cars among the top ten of retail sales in Europe, Sandero, Duster, Clio and Captur. Alpine delivered a high double-digit growth year-to-date before the effect of the new launches. Alpine is off to a good start in terms of orders for its new A290 model, which will arrive in dealerships in France during the fourth quarter. Looking at electrification in Europe, Renault Group enjoyed a very strong growth in hybrid sales, which were up 52% and contributed to achieve a 30% electrified PC mix. Bev Mix at group level stood at 8% year-to-date. This was down in a year of transition marked by the discontinuation of Zoé and Twingo Electric and the generation transition of Dacia Spring. As you know, Renault Group is launching a full range of competitive electric vehicles. Scenics for deployment and the launches of Renault 5, Alpine A290, the new Dacia Spring, Renault 4 and Alpine A390 will sharply increase our EV penetration in the coming quarters. For the Renault brand, electrified vehicles accounted for 47% of its PC, excuse me, of its passenger cars in Europe, up 7.8 points compared to the same period of 2023. Renault brand was number two in European hybrid cars with a 16% market share. Looking at the rest of the year, the negative volume effect in Q3 is expected to reverse in Q4 thanks to the growing impact of the launches, but I'll come back to this later on. Now let's move to inventories on the next slide. And as I said, this lower registration level was partially offset by the positive impact of the stock evolution. We continue to apply a strict discipline to the management of our global inventories, which stood at 528,000 units in September 2024, compared to 542,000 units last September. The independent dealer stock stood at 297,000 units, down 72,000 units versus June, back to normal seasonal patterns. The total level of stock is underpinned by a sound order book that stood at around two months of forward sales at the end of September. Keep in mind, the forward sales anticipate a strong Q4 sales number. Let's move to our sales to partners. 2024 is a transition year for our sales to partners with a discontinuation of several programs last year and before the production of new vehicles for our partners, starting with the new Micra for Nissan next year. As anticipated, sales to partners were down 2.1 points in Q3 versus last year. Now, let's have a look at our price and mix effects. In Q3, price effect was stable. As already mentioned, we entered a phase of price stabilization. We aimed to offset negative forex by pricing actions while also giving back a portion of cost reduction to our customers, mostly through content, as we had started doing in the first half. This is designed to boost competitiveness of our vehicles while protecting our margins. product mix, as expected, keeps improving gradually. After a stable impact in the first quarter and two points positive in the second quarter of 24, it reached 3.8 points in the third quarter thanks to the ramp-up of our recent launches, and this trend will continue in the coming quarters. In Q3, Renault Brand achieved a 42.4% mix on the sea and above segments, up 1.6 points versus last year, thanks to Austral and Espace, and before fully benefiting from the effects of Scenic, Symbiose and Rafale launches. The geographic mix at 1.2 points negative was explained by the ramp-up of Cardian in Brazil and by weaker registrations in France and Germany over the quarter. The last item, Other, impacted positively our revenue by 5 points. This was mainly driven by the solid performance in Renault Retail Group and by a strong performance of the after-sales business. The retreatment of sales with buyback commitments also had a positive impact in this bucket. Sales with buyback commitments decreased in the third quarter 24 versus last year due to lower short-term rental sales, which were quite high last year because of the catch-up in deliveries post-logistic issues of H-123. Now, let's comment the performance of mobilized financial services. New contracts production was almost stable over the third quarter of 24. Average performing assets increased by 8.5% at 56.5 billion euros, mostly thanks to the increase in average selling prices over the last years. All in all, mobilized financial services revenues were up 21.6% to 1.3 billion euros, mainly driven by higher interest rates and the increase in average ticket per vehicle described above. Now, let's move on to the rest of the year. In the third quarter, our launches accounted for 18% of our automotive shipments, compared to 5% in the first half. Even if we've already revealed all of our new vehicles for 2024 and most of the 2025 ones, our product offensive is not yet fully reflected in our performance. As you know, we continue to manage the company with conservative assumptions on volumes, but the current dynamic order intake supports our confidence in a strong Q4 volume effect. For Renault, our EV offensive is continuing with the ongoing launches of Renault 5, the new master EV, scheduled next month. On ice and hybrid, Symbioys joined New Capture and Rafale, launched in the European market. Outside of Europe, we will benefit from the first full quarter of sales of Cardian in Latam and Renault Duster in Turkey. Last, Grand Coleos is off to a very strong start in Korea. For Dacia, the order momentum has been supported since March by the opening of orders for the new Duster. The combined orders for the previous and new generation of Duster represent a 50% increase for the model versus last year. We're looking forward to Bicster's arrival next year. It's big stuff. Now, spring has started to arrive during the month, and it will ramp up across the different European countries during the upcoming quarters. For Alpine, the ultra-exclusive limited edition of the A110R called Ultime is an unmitigated success. The A290 will be launched in the coming weeks, and this is just the beginning of the brand, as you know. Today, we have a competitive offer, both for EV and for ICE and hybrid cars, and we know that products are even more key in this challenging environment. For sure, 2024 is challenging for OEMs and suppliers, but we can rely on a solid foundation. We have strong brands with exciting product launches, as shown in the previous slide. At the end of September, the order book stood at around two months of sales. Our current order intake is very healthy and supports our confidence for our Q4 24 volumes. We have a very disciplined inventory management process. We keep focusing on the most profitable channels. We are 23 points above market average on retail, reaching more than 68% of total sales on the group's five main European countries, gradually improving compared to the first two quarters of the year. In Europe, the Renault brand continued to sell more than one out of two vehicles on the retail channel, and Dacia, 85%. This commercial discipline, our new models, and the overall improvement of the quality of our cars also support a favorable evolution of our residual values. And you know that this is key as a competitive lever. And finally, for 2024, our industrial capacity utilization will be around 90% five days, two shifts. All in all, this should allow us to be countercyclical in this environment. And this is why we can confirm our guidance for the four-year 2024 with an operating margin above 7.5% for the four-year. and a free cash flow above 2.5 billion euros. This concludes my presentation. Thank you for your attention, and I'm now ready to answer your questions.

Thank you, Thierry. So we have a first question from Michael Jacks, Bank of America. Michael, please could you open your mic?

We can't hear you. Hi. Can you open your mic if it's not already done?

Okay, so maybe we will take the second question from Pushkar, HSBC. Pushkar, please, could you open your mic?

Hello. I hope I'm audible. Hi. Yeah. Hi. Hi. Good morning, Terry. Good morning, Philippine. A couple of questions from my side. Thanks for your comments on the retail development or expectation for retail development for the fourth quarter. If you could also maybe qualitatively talk about how this could look in 2025 based on your order book. Just continuing on the topic of order book, Two months, I understand the seasonal quirk in that. But just in terms of absolute orders, are you more or less at the same level as H1 or improving, given that you have this strong product ramp up? And then finally, on the UK ZEV mandate, That's 2024. So would you be making any provisions given your low BEV share right now, or you rely on the bank and borrow scheme within those regulations?

Thank you. Sure. Thanks for the questions. Look, on the fourth quarter and 2025 order book, so the order intake continues to be very healthy. And I'd like to say that it continues to improve sequentially over the year with the launches of the new products on all the brands. You know, the coverage is still very good with the two months. And I think, you know, going into 2025, as you know, we always take conservative assumptions from a volume perspective. So the last thing we want to do is push the teams to, you know, push some volume into the year and not make the most of the full renewal of the range that we're carrying out into 2025. So as usual, we'll be rolling out the cars progressively with the most profitable models first and in the most profitable markets. But that being said, it should drive some growth. I think what you should have in mind is sort of a mid to low single digit type of growth in the European markets and globally going into next year. We're assuming markets are more or less flat, in particular in Europe, in 2025. So we should slightly outperform the market with the new launches. But again, we're solving for profit and cash. We're not solving for market share. On the ZEV mandate, look, at this point, and you know it's a rolling sort of three years type of calculation. At this point, our calculation is that we're going to be compliant. So, no provision to be booked. Thank you.

Thank you, Thierry. So, we now have a question from George Galliers from Goldman Sachs. George, please could you open your mic?

Yeah, good morning and thank you for taking my questions. The first one, Thierry, was just with respect to the pricing. I know you normally try to price through some of the FX. Can you perhaps just break out how much of the pricing evolution was pricing through for FX versus the underlying pricing performance. And with respect to the underlying pricing performance, I know that on certain models such as the Clio, you are strategically reducing the pricing. Could you perhaps give us some sort of indication of how much of the underlying pricing performance is strategic versus incremental pressure within the marketplace? Also related to pricing, I just wanted to pick up on the strong residual value performance. Are you looking to price that through to your customers at this point or not? And with respect to RCI, are you also now reflecting stronger residual values in your financing offers? Or do you prefer to leave the customer with slightly higher monthly payments, but then a nice bit of positive equity at the end of the contract? Thank you.

Look, so on the pricing, first of all, hi, George. Secondly, on the pricing, thanks for the questions. On pricing, look, as usual, we aim at offsetting FX with pricing as much as possible. So a significant portion of FX was offset. I think you have to keep in mind that a large portion of the FX impact that we've got is due to the Turkish lira, which represents good news at the profit level as well. And so as you will see towards the publication of the four-year results, net foreign exchange impact at the profit level is going to be a positive in H2 as it was in H1. However, we do aim to continue to cover as much as possible the pricing effect in the different markets. On the rest, what we're doing is exactly in line with what we've done in the first half. So we're making significant progress from a cost-out perspective on the new models. And so again, we'll continue to take that opportunity to return a portion of that competitiveness to the customers through pricing. and obviously it's to adapt to market conditions. From an economic perspective, if you do the math between adding some content and giving rebates or going to less profitable channels, the math is very, very clear. You're much better off taking a portion of your cost reduction and returning it in competitiveness. And so that's what we'll continue to do. And I think net price ended up being basically breakeven, a very slight positive. And that's exactly what we were aiming for. So we continue to have a dynamic where price mix and cost is going to be a lift going into the second half. And then on the residuals, yeah, the difference with the competition is quite significant now. So we're talking about five points between Renault brand and some of its closest competitors. And for the Dacia brand, we're between Citroën, where we have a four points advantage, and Skoda, where we have 11 points. It's a big lever of competitiveness. And certainly the way we manage it with mobilized financial services is to try to not have an effect at the end of the contract. So we typically aim for zero gain or loss at the return of the car when we have that exposure. And so basically to embed those residual values into the rates that the customers pay on a monthly basis. And so if you take this residual value difference on the low end... 4% or 5% on the high end, on Dacia cars up to 11%. It's in fact a massive lever. And we see that it continues to develop in a positive fashion. And I think it's due to everything we've done. So the first element is the commercial policy. You know, if you want to have good residuals, then you stick to the retail channel, because then you avoid having big returns of second-half vehicles from short-term rental, et cetera, et cetera. So I think that's definitely been helpful. And I think there's obviously the new model launch schedule. And there is the general quality. You know, quality has been improving dramatically. I think if you've seen the inside of some of the new launches that we've carried out recently and you compare with previous models, it's very clear that overall quality of the build has improved. And so that's reflecting the residuals. And for us, it's a clear tailwind. And we'll try to use that as a competitiveness lever.

Great. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Thierry. So we'll try again with Michael Jacks from Bank of America. Michael? Michael, does it work? OK, so apparently not. Thomas Besson from Kepler-Chevreux. Thomas, please could you open your mic?

Well, thank you, Philippine. Good morning. Good morning. Thanks for taking my question. I'll just take two, please. First, I'd like to continue on self-financing and mobilize. Can you update us on the share of leading overall in your European business, both for the group overall and for BEVs, and explain how you plan to see the residual value risk evolve between your dealers and something else eventually as that share progresses? of BEVs increase next year, are dealers going to be willing to continue to take that, or how is it going to evolve, and do you plan to eventually go for two or three consecutive leasing on some of BEVs in your mid-term plans to ease that process? Second question. I mean, the other bucket has been a positive surprise in the quarter. Can you remind us exactly where it comes from? Is it more on the used car business, on the parts and accessories? And is it a positive relative contribution to group earnings as well? That's basically self-financing and others. Thank you, Jay.

Sure. So, look, thanks for the questions again. You know, residual value risk and the mix of leasing, so there's clearly, you know, an incremental shift in terms of the mix of the financing agreements that we do towards leasing. And I think the BEV development supports that. On average, you know, if you look at what we call taux d'intervention, so the percentage of cars that go with the leasing, it's between 8 and 10 points higher on electric vehicles as part of the financing that it is in proportion than it is on the ICE vehicle. So there's a shift, right? And I think it makes complete sense as people who buy EVs tend to be conscious of... the total cost of ownership of the car, and when they take a leasing arrangement, it appears very clearly in the rent. So, historically, you know, a lot of that risk was carried by the dealerships in our system, and I think we need to adapt to that. So, certainly, what we see coming in the coming years is a gradual increase in the portion of the exposure that we take internally, right? And I think, one, it's to respond to the request of the consumers. But secondly, the more we evolve towards EVs, the more the management of the entire life cycle of the car is important, right? So taking ownership of the residual risk for us is actually a way to ensure that we know what happens to the car in its second life, that we can control the second leasing life, the third leasing life, et cetera, et cetera. It's even a way for us to potentially redeploy some of the vehicles in our mobility business, such as car sharing. And it's also a way at the very end of the life of the vehicle to make sure that we re-inject it in our recycling future is neutral business, right? So I think we're gradually shifting towards a business model where life cycle management is becoming a key element of competitiveness. I'd like to think that the steps that we've taken with our mobility business and with the future is neutral it puts us in a favourable position from that perspective. Now, there's the topic of the risk that you take when you take that exposure. We've always been very conservative in terms of our assumptions. As I mentioned to George, we don't bank on a system that would generate a big loss or a big gain at the end of the contract. We try to return it to the consumer, number one. We basically base the residuals on external data, so either the actual data for the vehicles that are being returned or independent party forecasts for vehicles on which we don't have enough history, and then we adjust with, again, a goal to be at a zero net result at the end of the cycle, number one. Number two, as this develops, and I think I've mentioned this in the past, we're open to building a partnership with someone with who we could share that residual value risk. So if we can find a partner that has a very good credit rating and that is willing to share the risk with us, I think that's definitely something that we're open to do. And as you know, building partnerships has become part of what we do as a business. So I think we're open to that. So more to come on that topic.

Thanks. And the other question?

Oh, yeah. Sorry. The other bucket. Excuse me. So, in the other bucket, there's three things. And I think you should view them as three ongoing good news. The first one is Renault Retail Group. So, you know, the sales through our own network have been improving, you know, quite well over the quarter. And it's something that we've seen since the beginning of the year. And so I think it's also the result of some of the work that we've done there to refocus RRG on the most, you know, performing and sort of important showrooms for us. So that's a positive, and it's incrementally positive to Group's performance. The second element is after sales. So, you know, we have a good performance from after sales in the quarter. It has been pretty strong since the beginning of the year. after sales is obviously, you know, accretive to the overall margin, so that's good news. And the third element is in this bucket, you also have the accounting effect of recognizing revenue on sales with buyback agreements over the life of the contract. So typically, if sales with buybacks increase, then it's a bigger negative. If net, they decrease, it becomes a positive. This quarter, it's a positive because, in fact, in our mix, sales with buybacks have gone down. To be honest, it's the reflection of the fact that we've kept the focus on the retail channel. You saw this quarter retail was 68%, so it's the highest it's ever been. The second element is there's a bit of a comps thing. So in the first half of 2023, when there was the shortage of components and the logistics issues, We had favored retail customers as well in terms of deliveries. And in the third quarter of 23, when components became available again, we sort of caught up on deliveries to some of the short-term rental. So they were a bit artificially higher, I would say, in Q3 23. So we should see a bit less of that effect ongoing. But for this quarter, it's good news.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Thierry. So we now have a question from José Asumendi, JP Morgan. José, please, could you open your mic?

Thank you, Fabienne. Three questions, please. Good morning, Thierry. Good morning. First one, can you comment on, please, on the plan to meet the mission targets next year in Europe? Do you expect big changes on production when it comes to the powertrain mix, or do you expect sort of a steady state? move into more high share of electrified products. Second, can you comment on the impact of the Big Star? And can we see the impact already in the first half of the year? And then three very, very, I think, impressive model mix coming through the third quarter. Can you comment a bit on how you see that momentum going into the first half 25 with the product launches you have? Thank you so much.

Hi, José, and thanks for the questions. Look, on the powertrain mix and CAFE requirements, you know, I think, you know, we've been, and Luca in particular with his SEA cap has been pretty clear in terms of, you know, the dynamics at the industry level. So, look, you know, as you know, to make a long story short, today the EV mix is about 15% of the European market. Next year to get 95 grams, since a typical ICE vehicle makes 120 and above means zero, it means that you need to get to 20, 22% of the mix, right? So two things can happen. Either naturally the mix is going to improve through the demand of the customers, that'd be great. If that's not the case, then the industry is going to have to do something to make that mix evolve. And so there's three things that you can do. One is discount EVs, which is not good for residuals, prevents you from future investment in EVs, et cetera. So it's not a great solution. Second option is to cut volume on ICE vehicles. So the way you would do it is probably to raise prices so that demand naturally goes down so that EV becomes a bigger portion of the mix. To get to the EV target by just doing that, the industry would need to cut two million production on passenger cars and 700,000 productions on LCVs, which means basically shutting down eight plants and the suppliers that go with them. And the third lever is making a deal with people that have cafe credits, and they're typically Tesla or the Chinese manufacturers. which is kind of counterproductive if you think of what the European Union is trying to do. So look, I think everyone's going to have to use a combination of these levers to make the mix shift. In this environment, I think we've got three things going for us. The first one is is the product launches that we've got that are happening right now. So the full deployment of Scenic, which is not complete today because Scenic is going to start going to fleets, et cetera, as well. The rollout of Renault 5 right now. The car is hitting the showrooms. The rollout of Alpine A290 on the LCV side, master EV. We'll have the renewal of the new Dacia Spring coming as well, basically right now. Going into 2025, as you know, we'll have the Renault 4. We'll have the Alpine A390. and we'll have the rest of the range coming. So, you know, first thing is we've got a significant level of activity on EVs, and that will help change the mix. And by the way, we're already seeing our EV mix increase in the month of September, thanks to the launch of Renault 5. Second thing we've got going for us is we've got a very effective and very competitive hybrid range. You know, I mentioned the numbers in... in the presentation, but we're up 52% in terms of hybrid sales in the first nine months. We're number two in Europe, so only Toyota is in front of us in hybrids, and we've got a 16% market share. So that obviously helps significantly. The third thing that we've got going for us is that, on average, the range that we sell is such that we don't actually need to get to 20%, 22% in terms of mix, which I mentioned earlier. Our calculation is a little bit lower than that. So we've got these three advantages. That being said, the mix needs to improve towards electrification, and it's going to come with a combination of the three levers that I mentioned before. Second, your second question was on the impact of BICSTR. BICSTR will come, you know, relatively towards the second half of first half, so the first half of next year. So the impact will be relatively limited in the first half. You'll start seeing it a little bit towards the end of the semester in terms of revenue. But jokingly, I said big stories, big stuff, but it's true for us from a profitability perspective. I look forward to seeing the car hit the showrooms. because it's a car that's a little bit more expensive to produce than Duster, but it's quite significantly more expensive from a selling point perspective. It's very well placed from a competitiveness perspective. As we said during the Paris Motor Show last week, the ICE versions will start below $25,000. And the hybrid version will start below 30K. That's a lot of car at that price positioning. And so it's going to be great margins, very competitive offer for our customers. So we're excited to see it coming. And it's a car that we showed in the first resolution Capital Market Day. And so I really look forward to seeing it. And then the last part of your question was the model mix. Again, look, if you look at the history of the model mix, it was basically flat in Q1, positive two points in Q2, positive 3.8 points in Q3. And it's going to be significantly above that in Q4. So you'll continue to see improvement. And we've got seven more new vehicles coming in 2025, plus the four-year effect of some of the launches that we've done this year, such as Scenic, such as, obviously, Duster on the Dacia side, Bixter that I just talked about, but also Rafale. So it's going to continue to be a favorable element for our financials. This is no surprise, right? This is the way we build the equation. So, low reliance on revenue growth, on volume growth, but significant impact from a mixed perspective.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Thierry. So, we now have a question from Philippe Ushua, Jefferies. Philippe, please, could you open your mic?

Philippe, we can't hear you.

Philippe? Yes. Hi. Can you hear me now? Sorry about that. I've got three questions. Good morning, first. I've got three questions, if I may. The first one, can you make a comment about this new tax rates that may be applied to large corporations in France? How much does that impact your earnings, I guess, in 2025?

Sure. The impact will be non-significant. So we're talking, you know, a few million, but not anything that you will actually notice in the financials.

Right. Because you still have also tax credit, I guess, you could use as well. That's correct. Yeah. Yeah. Second question is on, now you talk about two months of order book. In previous disclosure, you talked about 2.5, 2.6. I'm trying to understand, is the volume, in the order book less or is it because as you do a forward calculation, you have a very strong quarter ahead of you and that's why the number of month kind of declines compared to Q1 and Q2?

Year over year, there's a combination of both. So at the end of September of last year, we were still at abnormally high level of order book due to component shortages and logistics, et cetera. In absolute value, it is a bit lower than it was a year ago for sure. Within this year, it's pretty stable in terms of absolute value, and it's been improving recently. But we have a strong Q4 ahead of us. And typically, if you look at end of June, we were at 2.5, 2.6. With the summer ahead of us, so a relatively slow quarter, Q4 is going to be a quarter of strong growth for us. So that's a large impact on the calculation. But, again, keep in mind that, you know, our aim is to stay at around that two months mark. So the balance of two months order book, two months inventory is the right one. It's the one that allows to optimize, you know, sort of deliveries to consumers while being able to optimize production. So it's right at the level that we like, and we'll try to keep it that way.

Right. And the last question, if I may, maybe a bit more complicated, is this one. Great. You confirm the cash flow in absolute amounts. That's great. Historically, a lot of cash flow at Renault has come from negative working capital, which helps you when you grow. We see Stellantis, massive cash burn because they have very, very high payables and very, very low receivables, which gets you into trouble when your volume declines. In your case, your payables are more than nine times your receivables. So you've got the highest, actually, risk on that metric. Now, we're talking growth here, so that's good news. But are you considering what you could do as a company to actually reduce that imbalance in your working capital and make your business more stable? And I think it probably is part of what credit agencies are looking at when they consider upgrading your credit. Thanks.

Look, the first thing I would say is if you look at the past years, the working capital effect, we lost a lot compared to prior to COVID. When volume went down, we're talking billions of working capital lost. I would say increase, right, so negative effect. And it's been the case for a while, and it gradually started getting better. First half was actually slightly negative. In the second half of this year, we will have positive working capital because volume is starting to pick up. And as I said, Q4 will be strong, so we will have favorable working capital. Look, it's the first time someone asked me to make working capital worse. I understand the volatility that it brings, but I would try to... I would say what we would try to do is make it more sustainable by, you know, I would say making it more operational. And I think you mentioned the payables versus the receivables. But we also have, you know, quite a significant amount of inventory. And we look at that as something that we need to continue to work on. You know, at any given moment, we've got... At the end of September, it's 200,000 cars on the OEM inventory. And it's something that we've got an opportunity to work on. I think we've done a pretty good job at reducing factoring that was not cost-effective and things like that to get away from things that were not optimal from a financial perspective. But I'm certainly not going to try to pay the suppliers quicker or allow the consumers to pay slower. So we'll continue to manage that prudently. And at the same time, we'll work to optimize our supply chain to reduce the amount of stock we've got. And I think we mentioned that at the end of H1, but we've got an ongoing initiative in the company called Speed of Lightness. And what Speed of Lightness focuses on is reduction of cycle time on some of the processes such as development cycle, et cetera. And one of the cycles that we're looking at is order to cash. And so we're looking at all the different portions of our order to cash and trying to reduce them. And one of those, one of the parts is inventory management. And Denis, who's here with me here, is in charge of that portion. And I think we still have an opportunity there. Denis, you want to say a couple words?

No, just to say that we are investing heavily in digitalizing the supply chain. And one of the things that we have just started doing is the downstream logistics. It now totally has a digital twin. And we are working on AI solutions in order to make it quicker and to reduce the number of cars in the ongoing inventory, which belong to the OEM, obviously.

Thank you.

Thank you, Denis. So we now have a question from Renato Gargiulio from Intesa. Renato?

Yes, good morning, Hall. Thanks for taking my question. Yes, looking at your September sales, we have seen a good trend in international markets. You said that you expect to slightly upper from the total market next year. Can you give us an idea of what kind of contribution you expect from international markets and if you see any specific market, any specific driver in terms of potential stronger market share gains going forward?

Sure. Thanks for the question. Look, yeah, the trend in September was, you know, it was better in international markets. We still had, relative to the competition, actually a pretty good month in terms of competition. registrations in Europe as well. But going forward, I think it's clear that we need some rebalancing in terms of between Europe and the international markets. Historically, and for obvious reasons, we had put a lot of investment in the renewal of the range in Europe first, because that's where the payback is the quickest and And so that's where we put the money first. But now it's time to go back and attack in some of the international markets. You started to see the first effect in Brazil with the sales of Cardian this quarter. And that's going to continue, right? And so the launches that you're going to see is, you know, we're going to have Cardian come out in overseas markets as well. You're going to see growth in Korea coming from the launch of Grand Coleos. And as I mentioned in the speech, the car is off to a pretty good start. And Korea, you know, we had lost some ground, and we're going to regain it with Coleos. We're going to gradually roll out the sales of Duster under the Renault brand in international markets as well. So, you know, you should continue to see progress in Korea, in Latin America in the relatively short term. And then in the longer term, we'll have activity from a product perspective also in India. And there it's a game that we play together with our Nissan partners where we're developing four cars together specifically for the Indian market to regain some of the share that we've lost there. So, again, it's not going to be a question of pushing volumes. We'll have the exact same approach in the international markets as the one that we're deploying in Europe, so trying to maximize the profit as opposed to just the market share. However, you should see a rebalancing of a few points with better growth in international markets versus Europe. Okay, thank you. You're welcome.

We will end this Q&A session with written questions from Michael Jacks, Bank of America. So two questions. Financial services, strong growth there, but percentage of operating margin still low via history. I understand the swap impact last year, but can you give us some steer on how you see margin developing in H2 and into 2025? This is the first question. Second question, current market situation suggests consumers are demanding more affordable options. In light of that, do you still believe that launching Renault 5 high trim versions first is the right approach? And when will the most affordable version be available at dealers?

So thanks for the question. Sorry it was so hard to get them across, and I'm glad we could hit them in writing. So on financial services, look, the revenue growth has been to a large extent driven by the interest rate hikes. So you... You know, as you saw the math in this specific quarter, you know, productive assets are up 8.5%, but the turnover, XFX, is up 25. Most of the difference is coming from interest rates. And that's almost a pass-through, right? So we have increased cost on one side, increased revenue on the other. So that means a bit of dilution from a rate perspective. From a margin and absolute value perspective, though, MFS continues to perform. I think when we look at the profitability of the new production, it's continuing to improve. So the underlying fundamentals from a profitability perspective are pretty good. The team is doing a good job at controlling the operating costs. The cost of risk is basically, you know, stable at very low levels. We saw a very slight uptick of cost of risk in Colombia at the end of H1, but nothing that you would even notice in the overall numbers. And so we'll try to keep it that way, and it remains a a very profitable franchise with an improving performance operationally. On the launch of Renault 5, look, it's a question of how do we make the payback on the car as short as possible and maximize the financial impact. And for us, typically launching the high trim versions is part of that. I mean, it's no question that we make a bit more money on high trim and larger batteries than we do on the more affordable versions. So we'll stick to that process. Between us, it's not like there's a problem in terms of the deployment of Renault 5 so far. However, it is a key product for us and it's a product You know, the difference is that it's a B-segment car, so it's much less competitive in the EV business than the C-segment. And it's a car that people will buy not because it's an EV but because it's a good car. And therefore, we will want to make it available to as many households as possible. So, you know, there will be a few months of gap between the launch of high trim and the lower battery, but the lower battery will come in the first quarter. So it'll come pretty quickly. And at that stage, you know, we'll have a very nice car, very well accepted with a starting price around 25K before incentives. So I think that will enable us to conquer a portion of people who want mobility, electric mobility, but not only, that we don't have access to today. So we look forward to it.

Thank you, Thierry. So this is now the end of this conference call. Thank you to all of you. And as always, the team is fully available to answer all your questions. Have a good day and go.

Thanks very much, everyone. Thanks for joining.