11/5/2020

speaker
Val
Conference Coordinator

Hello and welcome to Solutions30 2020 Q3 Revenue. My name is Val and I will be your coordinator for today's event. Please note, this conference is being recorded and for the duration of the call, your lines will be on listen only. However, you will have the opportunity to ask questions at the end of the presentation. This can be done by pressing star 1 on your telephone keypad to register your question at any time. If at any point you require assistance, please press star zero and you will be connected to an operator. I will now hand you over to your host, Giambetti Fortis, CEO, to begin today's conference. Thank you.

speaker
Giambetti Fortis
CEO

Thank you very much. And thank you, everybody, for being with us today. I'm assisted by Amaury Boileau, our CFO, and Nathalie Boumendil, Investor Relations. So let me take you through the presentation. I'm going to page three. As you have seen, we've had a pretty good third quarter. Last time we spoke, it was July, and I told you that we had a very strong month of June where there was very likely a catch-up effect of activities that were not done in March and April. But the tendency was confirmed over the month of July, and we were expecting a pretty good third quarter. And it has been the case. So we have had a very strong performance during the third quarter. Main driver was telecommunications, as I told you in July. Reason being that we are all at home, so we need an internet connection, we need computer and peripherals, and that means more service for us. So we had a very strong performance in France, driven by telecommunications, but also good performance in the other geographies. In Belgium, we also had a good sales performance with a negotiation that is almost concluded with Fluvius, a local utility for the deployment of smart meters. We are waiting for the last news, but we are quite positive. We believe it's going to be an important project for us in that geography. We also signed new contracts in the IT space. So after the drop related to COVID, the IT activity was stabilized and began growing again. And then we had also good news coming from the telecommunications sector with initiatives on fiber by Proximus, by Telenet that is discussing a joint venture to deploy fiber with Fluvius, and also other fiber codes that are present now in Belgium. That's the fiber and neurofiber. Also good news in Spain where the activity we began for 5G is continuing. We signed a new client, which is Celnex, and now we are talking to Celnex to follow them in other European countries in their deployment of 5G infrastructure. In Poland, we signed a small but nice contract, a very interesting contract for the deployment of 5G for Orange. And then Italy and Germany, nothing special to highlight. except the fact that we now see signs of investment in telecommunication infrastructure beginning 2021. In Italy, with the agreement signed between KKR and Telecom Italia, and now Telecom Italia working the details of a quite aggressive deployment of fiber in 2021. and also the convergence between the activities of Open Fiber and Telecom Italia that are progressing. So we expect positive things in Italy next year. And it's the same in Germany, Germany that is quite late in the deployment of fiber. There has been recent announcement that make us optimistic for 2021 with a complex total, sorry, a budget of about 14 billions that has been voted by Deutsche Glasfaser, Telefonica, and other fiber core that are now ready to deploy fiber in Germany. So, all in all, good news for us for 2021. In July, we also told you that all the M&E activity was put on hold because of COVID. Now, we are resuming this activity slowly because COVID is still there, so we have to be careful. or within brackets, our activity is considered essential. So we are operating in all of our geographies and the current measures are less strict than the ones of the first wave. So, for example, in March, April, we had to stop the deployment of smart meters in France. Now the deployment is continuing and we do not believe it will be stopped. And also certain shops were closed, including shops of the telecom operators, and it's not the case now. So at the moment, we are operating just normally, and we do not have at the moment negative signs. So I was saying M&A was put on hold, now we are resuming it. So it is very likely that in the last quarter of this year, there will be again some deals, some M&A deals that we are likely to close, being very careful and very selective to avoid taking too many risks. So given the fourth quarter, given the fact that October has been an excellent month, and now we are in November with volumes that are pretty good, we are expecting a good year of 2020. Let me then leave the floor to Amaury for the comment of our figures for the quarter.

speaker
Amaury Boileau
CFO

Thank you very much, Giambetti, and good afternoon, everyone. well at the end of this first this sales quarter 2020 the group generated a total revenue of 576.3 million euros in comparison with 484.1 million euros at the end of september 2019 as you can see the maintenance activities which are regarded as recurring revenues to represent a large part of our total revenue accounting for 59% of the total revenue. So the growth remained very dynamic. It represents 19% over the first nine months of 2020, with a strong push coming from organic growth, which accounts for 12.7% of the total growth. And I would say, especially in France, as you can see on this slide, France generated an additional 52 million euros revenue in an organic way this year. On top of that, the M&A operations that we closed in 2019 generated six points of growth over the first nine months and represent approximately one-third of the total growth. On this slide, well, you have a view on the evolution of the quarterly revenue over the last three years. And you can notice that the group keeps its track of strong growth, despite the lockdown measures that occurred in April and May, which also generated a slowdown in Q2. The activity actually recovered very fast as from the end of the second quarter. And the group performed a very strong Q3 with a revenue amounting to 212.6 million euros, up by 28.6%, of which 24% organic in comparison with the Q3 2019. Actually, this strong growth mainly results from the very good performance that we recorded in the telecom business. But I will have the opportunity to elaborate in detail on this a little bit later. If we now look at this growth across all the geographies, What we can notice on this slide is that actually all the geographies recorded double-digit growth with a large contribution of organic growth everywhere. In France, the growth accelerated during the Q3 and reached 32% and is almost 100% organic. In Benelux, where the impact of COVID was a bit lower than the other geographies, the activity keeps growing about 10%. And in the other countries, well, the activity remains extremely dynamic, growing by 30% on a year-to-date basis, and even by 34% on the last quarter. Now, deep dive into the dynamics of the business lines in the different geographies. We'll start with France. Actually, the acceleration of growth in France was mainly driven by the telecom activity, which grew by 46% during the last quarter, reflecting first the acceleration of Pfizer deployment in the country, and two, the increase of the group's market share in this segment. On the energy business, well, the group is back on track. It's back on track of growth. This is mainly explained by the restart of the rollout of smart meters in France, which was totally stopped during two months during the first half of 2020. And regarding the other activities, well, the recovery has been more progressive over the third quarter. but activity levels were back to normal at the end of the third quarter. And the sale activities remained quite good during the period. We even signed new contracts, very interesting contracts, notably with NextEra One for the deployment of IT equipment, notably in large French banks. We also signed an interesting contract with Ingenico in order to install POS equipment in the supermarket Auchan in France. So we are very positive and even if we follow carefully the situation and the new lockdown measures in France, we are positive and we think that the activity will remain very strong in the fourth quarter. Now, looking at Benelux area, well, the telecom segment is still very dynamic. Revenue grew by 12% in Q3. And in this area, we have currently very concrete discussions with the main telco operators about the acceleration of the fiber deployment, about the start of the 5G rollout, And of course, this could be very beneficial for the group in the future. On the energy segment, well, the activity was still at its early stage at the beginning of 2019 with the first small project starting in 2019 in Benelux. We actually consolidated our capabilities in the energy sector in Benelux in the second half of 2019 with the acquisition of IPG. And now we have been able to leverage on this capability since we announced recently that we were shortlisted by Frugius for the rollout of smart meters in the Flanders area. And this rollout should start beginning of 2021. Regarding other activities, well, actually we launched new offers in the field of IT assistance especially in order to address especially the remote workers. This activity is starting but is actually not able to compensate the drop in volumes regarding the demand for office assistance. However, Good news are coming from the SAFE side as well. We just signed a new contract with Dell, notably in Benelux, and we expect this contract to bring additional volumes in the coming months. Now we're looking at the other countries. Well, first, Germany, well, the revenue over the first nine months are still growing by 11% in a pure organic mode. This is mainly explained by the nice increase of volumes which are coming from Vodafone and Unity Media. We also started some fiber activities in Germany. Volumes are still low for the moment, but we are following closely, you know, all the announcements that Jean-Baptiste was mentioning at the beginning of the call coming from companies like Deutsche Kleine Spatter or the joint venture between Allianz and Telefonica. In Spain, revenue amounted to 27.8 billion euros on a year-to-date basis, going up by 35% and even up by 42% over the last quarter. In this country, fiber activities keep being very dynamic, especially with mass model. We also won recently additional activities with the Spanish subsidiary of Virgin. and regarding 5g activities well this uh this business is also doing well we have just been awarded additional activities for from cell next uh as we said in the intro and um so the telecom business is going well explaining uh the most of the growth in this country uh regarding the i.t assistance business well things are a little bit more complex since the volumes are still affected by the shutdown of offices in this country. In Italy now, where the group has the highest exposure in terms of IT assistance business, the revenue is still affected by two elements, I would say. The first being the drop in volumes in the IT business since the recovery is a bit slower in this country. And the second element is the scope effect due to the sale of Dixie activities in December 2019. However, we have good news in this country as well. CFT, the company that we acquired in October 2019, is performing well. That is good news, and we are also receiving very good signals from the telecom operators. Simulus plans initiated by the Italian government should drive significant investments in the telecom and energy networks. And in addition to that, Telecom Italia and Open Fiber finally found an agreement in September in order to build one single fiber network in Italy. So based on these elements, we are now very positive and we think that fiber deployment should finally start in 2021. Finally, Poland. Well, Poland is doing well. The revenue is actually in track with our expectations, even with our forecast before the COVID. uh we have actually a good team in poland they did a great job to to integrate uh telecom and the elmo the two acquisitions that we made at the end of 2019 and then they are now focusing on developing the business we recently announced that we won a new contract with orange for the deploy deployment of 5g equipment in poland so that is a very good news since it's this contract is also the beginning of our diversification to towards the mobile activities in this country so yeah so we are very positive for for for poland and for the next future uh I will now leave the floor to Giambetti that will elaborate on the perspectives that we see on our markets for the next month and year.

speaker
Giambetti Fortis
CEO

Thank you, Amaury. I pick it up again. So I'm going to slide 13, where basically as a summary, I just wanted to highlight that COVID has been a good crash test for us. And I think we have proven that we were able to scale down the business quite quickly without losing money and without a big impact on our margin. But then also we were capable to scale it up again quite quickly. So it's been a very useful exercise that has proven that we have a model that is robust. The other good thing is that the main verticals in which we operate, in particular telecommunications and energy, are proven to be very strong. And it's very likely that after COVID, it will be verticals in which there will be a lot of investment in the coming years. We have had a good performance in the first nine months without doing any M&As. But now we are resuming the M&A activity, and it's very likely that in the last quarter you will see again some M&A deals of the type that you have seen already in the past, so the usual Bolton acquisitions. And also we have had quite good sales activities, as I said before, in France and also in other countries. Now, for the future, what we believe is that the main sectors in which we will see growth, strong growth for several years, is all related to smart meters and smart grids, the infrastructure used to charge electrical vehicles, and in telecommunication, fast internet with fiber and also 5G. And then another topic that is important for us is going to be more important for us after COVID when certain large companies will work to reduce their costs and optimize their organization, is outsourcing deals like the ones we did in the past week. So with all of that, we are quite confident for the rest of the year, for 2020, that will be a very good year. And also we confirm our target in the midterm of reaching €1 billion of revenues. With this, we have finished our presentation, and then we let you go ahead with your questions. Thank you very much.

speaker
Val
Conference Coordinator

Thank you. And as a reminder, if you'd like to ask a question or make a contribution on today's call, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. We would like to kindly ask that you limit your questions to a maximum of three per round. You will then be advised when to ask your question. So again, that's star one on your telephone keypad. And the first question comes from the line of Julien Foucher from Societe Generale. Please go ahead.

speaker
Julien Foucher
Analyst, Société Générale

Thank you for taking my question. Good afternoon, Jean-Bepi and Amaury. Three questions on my side. The first one is on the revenue consensus for the full year. The consensus was around 780 million before the publication, which would imply around 5% growth in the first quarter. So going into the first quarter, how do you position yourself in light of this consensus? My second question is on your 1 billion euros revenue target. Could we expect the group to reach it in 2021? And my last question is on the UK market. Could you give us an update on your plans to enter this market? Thank you very much.

speaker
Giambetti Fortis
CEO

Okay. Thank you for the question. Let me begin with the last one, and then I will leave the first one for Amaury. So concerning the UK, as I said, already in July, we are very, very close to beginning operating the UK. Now the question for us is really COVID. You know, we wouldn't decide to begin a new geography in the middle of a lockdown with problems to travel. So basically, I would say with a little bit of luck, we could begin UK around the end of the year. If you are not lucky, we will try not to take risks. And then at the beginning will be first half of 2021. In any case, we are very close. Concerning the second question, which is when we will reach 1 billion target, I would say that that also depends on how it goes next year. We are going to, well, it's very likely that we are going to see COVID in the first half of 21. So I would be cautious, you know, that we're not guaranteed that we can reach 1 billion next year. But if it's not going to be 21, it's going to be 22. We are very close. We are getting very close. I leave the first question to Amaury.

speaker
Amaury Boileau
CFO

Yes, thank you. Good afternoon, Julien. Yes, your question was about the consensus. Well, as you can see, the results and the revenues that we posted for the Q3 are very, very high. The activity is actually remaining very strong over the beginning, for the beginning of the Q4. We think that Q4 should remain very dynamic. In any case, the activity will not stop. The only thing is that we may have some uncertainty on the level of revenue for the end of the year. You know, if the restrictive measures become a little bit more strict in December. But overall, we are comfortable with the conference.

speaker
Ender Aguilon
Analyst, Erasmus

Okay, thank you, Laurent.

speaker
Val
Conference Coordinator

Thank you. There are currently no further questions in the queue. Just as another reminder, please press star one on your telephone keypad if you'd like to ask a question via the audio line. Alternatively, you may submit your questions via the webcast. Thank you. We do have a few other questions in the queue. Please stand by while I transfer the next caller. Thank you. And the next question comes from the line of Patrick Josson from Societe Generale. Please go ahead.

speaker
Patrick Josson
Analyst, Société Générale

Hello, can you hear me? Yes. Okay, so sorry to take the monopoly on the question, but I guess that maybe there are other questions from other houses. So I just wanted to ask about the double-digit rules that you mentioned for 2020. First of all, is it organic? Is it including inorganic growth? And second, even if I consider it as, let's say, all-included, will double-digit just mean for the low end of the range that you might have a Q4 down? So could you be a bit more precise maybe?

speaker
Giambetti Fortis
CEO

Yes, I can take this summary. As you're seeing in the first nine months, we are up almost 13% organically. And then, as I said, October has been a very good month. And now we are just the beginning of November and volumes are normal. So I would say fourth quarter at the moment is also a good quarter of growth. The question we have is December and COVID. We do not know now if the current measures will stay in place until the end of the year, or if there will be something more stringent that will be put in place in December. So basically we have an uncertainty over the month of December. This is why we cannot be accurate as you probably would like to. But in any case, it's going to be, Double digit, you know, if you are not lucky, low double digit or high single digit, I'm talking organic. It all depends on the month of December. You mean Q4? No, over the year. Over the year, you know, it's going to be most likely double digit, low double digit. And if you are not lucky, it's going to be high single digit. It depends on the month of December. Okay. Thank you very much.

speaker
Val
Conference Coordinator

Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Ian Cordavo from BNP Paribas. Please go ahead.

speaker
Ian Cordavo
Analyst, BNP Paribas

Yes. Good afternoon, gentlemen. Maybe can you help us on your UK entry on maybe a range of sales acquired? That's my first question. And my second question is about the dynamic you experienced in October and beginning of November, especially in France. Did you see any movement thanks to a new lockdown? I mean, new offers or stuff like this in telecoms? Thanks.

speaker
Giambetti Fortis
CEO

Okay, so UK. Now, UK, the starting point for us, now it's getting clearer and clearer, is going to be a small acquisition. We need to have something to then be capable to continue our growth. And the acquisition is there. We keep it on hold, basically, waiting to see what happens with the COVID measures in the UK. We will take a decision in the coming weeks. Concerning France, I don't know if everybody has seen the release of Orange concerning the sales of fiber connections in the third quarter. They've been very strong. And that, of course, is business for us a few weeks after the sales they make. So we have begun a month of October with very good traction in telecommunications because of that. we have not seen any new initiatives related to the new rules of lockdown. But at the same time, we have not seen any drop in the volumes. It's also because I think the main difference between the measures taken now and the measures taken in the second quarter was that the shops of orange, that are an important sales channel, remain open. So now the shops are open and basically people can buy their telecommunication services as they did before COVID. So at the moment, no negative impact on volumes whatsoever. Okay, thanks.

speaker
Val
Conference Coordinator

Thank you. Before going to the next question, just as a final reminder, please press star 1 if you'd like to ask a question via the audio line. And the next question comes from the line of Ender Aguilon from Erasmus. Please go ahead.

speaker
Ender Aguilon
Analyst, Erasmus

Hi, Genevieve. Hi, Marie. Three questions on my side. First of all, I think it's quite impressive that the strongest organic growth comes from France, which is the country where you're the biggest. So I just have to have your view on any comments on that. Do you think that it's because you're already pretty big in this country that you managed to get more orders and more new customers in this country? So I would like to have your view on that. Second question, I'd like to have an update on competition and if you see any particular new player in the countries where you're operating, and especially in the UK, I would be... interested in knowing more about competition there. And the final question, you mentioned the outsource of non-coactivities as a potential growth driver. I would like to have more color on that, especially as you identify some new technologies or new potential outsourcing that could be a source of growth for you in the future. Thank you very much.

speaker
Giambetti Fortis
CEO

Okay, thank you, Enric. Okay, first question is what explains the growth of France? It's actually pretty down to earth. What happens in France is that people are working from home and, you know, we are having our cold calls from home. And France had already in place a quite aggressive program of deployment of fiber. So, basically, it's very easy for a country when the program is in place and the country is already delivering two to a million connections per year to push on the button and spin that up. And since we are one of the main players in this field, and we have a very large market share on fiber connections, basically have been pushed by this drive towards fast internet. It's been extremely fast put in place by the operators. We have seen it happening in June, and then it continued July during the summer, and then September, October. So that's the main reason why we're doing it in France. The good news for us, in our opinion, is that we are going to see something similar in the other geographies next year. This is why I was saying that the fact that Italy and Germany is putting things together and Belgium as well is putting things together is good news because we should see something similar in the other geographies beginning in 21. So that's the reason why they're going in France. Concerning competition is pretty much the same as last year. So the markets in every country, the market is quite fragmented. We are not seeing leaders emerging. Even in the UK, we see a market that is quite fragmented. When we have done our scouting to look for opportunities of external growth, we run into literally hundreds of small companies that operate in this market. So I would say no strong competition yet and the UK is the same. And then concerning the last question, which is what about large outsourcing deals? The opportunity is clearly there. The thing is that now our large clients, these large organizations are really struggling putting together remote work for their employees. So the discussions that we were having before COVID are frozen, basically, at the moment. These companies are struggling with different problems. And we will resume the discussions concerning large outsourcing deals when the situation will be more stable.

speaker
Ender Aguilon
Analyst, Erasmus

Okay. Thank you very much, André.

speaker
Val
Conference Coordinator

Thank you. We do have another question, and that comes from the line of Jaime Gainu. From there and back, please go ahead.

speaker
Amaury Boileau
CFO

Good afternoon. Thank you for the presentation. I just have two questions on my side. The first one is on cost. I think that you said during the first lockdown that additional costs related to COVID were partly offset by price increases that clients were paying for this cost. So is it still the case going into the second lockdown? And the second question is on working capital. This had a positive impact over H1 because they are going into lockdown as well. Your clients tended to support their service providers by paying early. Are you expecting to experience something similar during the second lockdown?

speaker
Giambetti Fortis
CEO

Maurice, you want to pick this up?

speaker
Amaury Boileau
CFO

Yes. Well, regarding your question on cash and working capital, Well, you know, we had a very strong cash position at the end of the first half of 2020, mainly because our working capital improved a lot under the influence of the acceleration of payments that we received from several customers. I would say that this cash position allowed us to finance the significant ramp ups that we had in the different countries, especially in France. Cash is still under control. We implemented new practices in terms of cash management during the first COVID and they have remained effective today again. So we are confident regarding our cash position. I'm not sure, or for the moment, we have no signs that the clients will accelerate the payments at the end of the year. I think they have some pressure as well to demonstrate a strong cash position, but our working capital is still at a good level. It's still under control. We don't see a standard, very significant deviation for the moment. And regarding your question on the costs related to COVID, I would say that most of the costs during the first COVID were not anticipated. There were some confusion coming from clients and some of them had to compensate some measures, you know, like, you know, the stop of some activities. For the moment, we don't see this kind of cost occurring in our countries. You know, all our technicians now have masks, so that is part now of the recurring business that is taken into account by our customers and in the prices. So we don't see an impact of the new lockdown measures on our profitability. Okay, very clear. Thank you.

speaker
Val
Conference Coordinator

Thank you. We have no further questions coming from the audio line. I would like to hand now over to the webcast questions.

speaker
Giambetti Fortis
CEO

Okay, we have a third question. You said you are enjoying a good sales activity in Italy despite the low level of activity. Could you give us an indication about how big Italy will be in 2021, €30 million, €40 million more? Do you think we'll have to wait at least a new year to see things really moving in this country? Okay. I think I've not expressed myself very well. When we said dynamic sales activity, we were more referring to Belgium, to Spain, to Poland. What I said in Italy is that the positive note was a serious process engaged now by Telecom Italia after the design with KKR. uh we are seeing a telecom italia preparing to deploy fiber seriously in 2021 that's a positive note so this is why we are positive on italy at the same time It's a bit early to assess the potential over the full year 2021. It all depends on when the deployment will really start. It's going to be early 2021. It's going to be late 2021. We still do not know. The good news is that it's beginning. So we are going to see in Italy something similar to what we are seeing in France today in 2021. Then exactly when in 2021, we do not know. Another question is, what can we expect from the energy business next year? Will the growth of EV charging points and other businesses offset the decline of smart meters? Amaury, I don't know if you want to comment this.

speaker
Amaury Boileau
CFO

yeah obviously well actually we we expect uh our revenue in the energy business to to grow next year you know and it'll be because of the the start of the smart metals rollout in new countries uh and notably in benelux with the large uh tender tender offers that we mentioned during the call with previous and regarding uh the easy charging business where the business is definitely starting It is still a low share. It's still representing a low share of our revenue in 2020, but it will grow in 2021. And given that, it should compensate, yes, the decline of smart metal activities in France.

speaker
Giambetti Fortis
CEO

Okay, we have another question. One that is directed for you, Amaury. What is the current holding of a share of Amaury?

speaker
Amaury Boileau
CFO

Well, that's a good one. My personal holding of Solution 30 shares is actually above the threshold that is set in our remuneration policy, so more than one year of revenue.

speaker
Giambetti Fortis
CEO

And then you are one of the largest beneficiaries of the long-term incentive plan that has been set up a couple of years ago.

speaker
Amaury Boileau
CFO

Yeah, absolutely. You know, I think that these stock options plans are a full component of my competition. And actually, I did sell some of my shares in October, and that was the first time that I sold shares for other reasons than tax reasons. But I remain fully committed to what solutions I see and very positive with respect to the perspective in terms of business.

speaker
Giambetti Fortis
CEO

We all count on it, of course. Another question, how much 5G and EV charging activities should represent in terms of revenues in 2021? So EV charging, we said it. Concerning 5G, so as you know, we are doing it in Spain. And as I said before, we won the first tender offer in Poland. I didn't say before, but we have begun small activities on the mobile network in Belgium and Benelux with Ericsson. And I'm pretty sure we will begin working on 5G also in Italy next year. And then we are working to have a similar situation in all the other countries. As I said before, we are in talks with Celmex to follow them all across Europe. So perspectives are good. Amaury, I don't know if you can give more colors on revenues that we can expect in 2021 concerning 5G.

speaker
Amaury Boileau
CFO

Well, concerning 5G, it will present several million euros. The activity will continue to develop in Spain in comparison with 2020. uh it will start in in different countries and we are currently you know discussing with our customers but you will have significant revenues coming from other countries especially in in in poland and benelux okay then another question does the possible mna in q4 would be the previously mentioned entering the uk not only so

speaker
Giambetti Fortis
CEO

The one in the UK we may or may not do, but then you have other things that are, I would say, more concrete in continental Europe. And this is why I'm saying it's extremely likely that you're going to see some deals in the last quarter of the year. What would be your priorities, size, place, specialization for acquisitions? How do you intend to final them? Well, priorities is going to be a mixture of geographies in places. So we are going to do acquisitions in places where we see there is potential to growth and where we need an acquisition to increase the coverage of the country. And the other one is activities. We have spoken a lot about 5G. For us, it's something new. So one of the type of targets we are trying to chase is companies specialized in 5G. So it's going to be a mixture of geography and type of business. How do we intend to finance them? Well, we are going to finance them with our own cash and then a complement of bank debt like we did in the past. Another question, in French fiber, have you already benefited from deployments in rural areas? What was the share of fiber sales? What's your target? And then another question, given your performance in France that seems to continue through H2, can we expect higher profitability for the group in H2 2020 versus H2 2019? So first question, benefiting of deployment in rural areas, the answer is yes. The main cities, I mean, there is still work to do in France in the main cities, but a lot of the activity now has moved towards the countryside. And yes, we are active there. And as a result, we have seen our average price of installations going up because we are moving towards the countryside with more individual houses than apartments. So yes, we have seen an impact of that. And then what was the share of fiber sales and what's your target? That I'm not sure I understand the question. If the question is, Fiber sales revenue is coming from that activity compared to the rest, I guess?

speaker
Amaury Boileau
CFO

If that's the question, then fiber sales represent almost 60% of the French revenue.

speaker
Giambetti Fortis
CEO

Okay. If not, the person who asked the question, please provide some details. And the second part is profitability, Amaury. Are we expecting, because France is growing stronger than Europe,

speaker
Amaury Boileau
CFO

than last year in 2020 um better better margins uh you know uh absolutely as the revenue are i've grown over the q3 then for us that's the opportunity to improve our margins the margins were back to normal and that allows to to to compensate you know part of the drop we had in profitability during the first half so yes you can expect better margins on cinema 2020.

speaker
Giambetti Fortis
CEO

but better margins compared to first half or compared to second half 2019?

speaker
Amaury Boileau
CFO

Sorry, compared I was talking in comparison with the first half of 2020, we are trying to compensate the drops that we had during the first half, but we, you know, we will, it will be hard to compensate totally the drop that we had in profitability during the first half. So I would say that we'll probably be at the level, the second half of 2020 will be at the level of 2019. But at the end of the year, on a full year perspective, we'll probably be a bit lower than last year. Okay, clear.

speaker
Giambetti Fortis
CEO

This objective of one billion euro revenues, what is the profitability that we can expect with this type of activity level in terms of EBITDA or EBIT? Well, what we can say is that profitability will improve because it's very visible in our reports, France has the highest profitability of the group. And now Benelux, that has a good size for the size of the country, is getting close. So we are seeing 15% EBITDA margin. And the other countries are smaller. So the more we grow, especially the more we grow in the other geographies, the more we are close to the 15% or 16% EBITDA margin, which we believe could be a good target once we are above 1 billion euro revenues for the group. What explains the drop of turnover in others in Belgium and in Italy in Q3?

speaker
Amaury Boileau
CFO

Yes, well, for Belgium, actually, you know, that is mainly related to the COVID and the lockdown, you know, because the drop mainly concerns our IT assistants and retail businesses. And this business is impacted by the closing of the offices and all the shops. So we have a drop in volumes. And as I was explaining, we are launching new offers addressed to remote workers, but we are not able to compensate for the moment the drop in volumes on this business because of the closing of offices for the moment. So that is for Belgium. And for Italy, well, it is basically the same reason. Italy is the country where we have the highest exposure in terms of IT assistance business. And this is the business where the recovery is the slowest, and especially in Italy.

speaker
Giambetti Fortis
CEO

And on top of that, we deconsolidated the EC as well. That's also an impact, right?

speaker
Amaury Boileau
CFO

Yeah, you're right. Absolutely.

speaker
Giambetti Fortis
CEO

Another question, how do you compare to Alphen in the immobility space? Well, Alphen is a client. Alphen is a manufacturer of immobility solutions. So basically, we provide services to Alphen outside Holland because in Holland, where it's their home country, they provide services themselves to clients. But outside Holland, they rely on us and other service partners to install, deploy, and maintain their equipment. So Alfam is a client. So it's concerning the previous question concerning fiber. In France, I meant what's the share of sales done in rural areas versus cities? I don't know if we have. that on the spot, Amori?

speaker
Amaury Boileau
CFO

Do you have an idea how much we are doing? It's a bit difficult to provide you with a very accurate answer. The only thing that we can do is that all areas represent a growing share of the installation that we are doing in Fiber, but I don't have the figure with me.

speaker
Giambetti Fortis
CEO

Okay, other question. Do you have a date for scaling up the deployment of 5G and EV charges in France? EV charges is ongoing and we are just increasing the number of clients we have in the EV charges space. It's getting quite dynamic now. There is a big push from the government because they want to see a certain number of charging stations in public places. That's 100,000, pretty fast. And then usually there is 10 times more charging stations in private places. So We are seeing a market that is very dynamic, so that activity is increasing. Concerning 5G, we are at the very beginning. The options have been done just a month ago, so things are just beginning now. We are going to see some 5G activity in France in 2021 as well, like in Italy and the other countries. Would you easily cope with the simultaneous scaling up of several businesses and in several countries? Well, the answer is yes. This is what we have done for the past 20 years. Our model is quite decentralized, so we have country managers that have to take care of their ramp-ups. And, of course, we are capable to manage more than one at the same time. It's just what we have done for the past 15 years or so. Absolutely. Okay. I think we have done or we have covered all the questions. There is no additional questions. So I thank you very much for your participation and I look forward to seeing you soon or to hearing from you soon in the coming months. Thank you very much.

speaker
Val
Conference Coordinator

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