Good afternoon or good morning to everyone, welcome to Amplifon's Capital Markets Day. I am Francesca Rambaudi, Investor Relations and Sustainability Senior Director here at Amplifon. Given the current COVID situation, we felt the safest way today was to hold our CMD virtually, we still have a truly exciting program for you. Before we start, a few practical notes. Earlier today, we issued a press release related to this event, this presentation is posted on our website. The event can be accessed via webcast and conference call, dial-in details are on Amplifon's website. I have to bring your attention to the disclaimer on slide two, as some of the statements made during this call may be considered forward-looking statements. Our capital market this year is focused on how Amplifon will innovate around the customers to fuel profitable growth.
The team talking to you today are Enrico Vita, Amplifon CEO, Giuseppe Vironda, Chief Marketing Officer, Alessandro Bonacina, Executive Vice President, Americas, who is connected from our U.S. headquarters in Minneapolis, Anthea Muir, Executive Vice President, APAC, connected from Singapore, Iacopo Pazzi, Executive Vice President, EMEA, and Gabriele Galli, our CFO. Let's now see together what we have planned for you today. First, Enrico will share with you our next journey of sustainable, profitable growth. Giuseppe will deep dive on how we will deliver a unique and unmatchable value proposition to all our customers. Followed by Alessandro, who will share with you our new ambitions for the U.S. Anthea will deep dive on two other major growth opportunities, Australia and China. Gabriele will then bring it all together in financial terms to include our 2023 targets, and Enrico will finish with the closing remarks.
At the end of the presentation, we look forward to your questions, and we have set aside one hour for it. To this regard, participants who want to ask questions during the Q&A session can do so directly over the phone line. For participants who do not plan to ask questions, you can remain on the listen-only webcast. With that, I am now pleased to introduce Amplifon CEO, Enrico Vita.
Good afternoon, everyone. Thanks for attending our Capital Markets Day. I look forward to meeting you again in person soon. Today, we are presenting the plan for the next stage of our continued journey of sustainable and profitable growth centered around our customers. Our plan starts from very solid foundations. After a very challenging 2020, a year which was also a year of a reset and many learnings for us, we are now approaching the end of another very intense and also very rewarding year for us. 2021 will be, once again, a record year full of important milestones and achievements. I'm very pleased to say that everyone, all the three regions and all the corporate functions, contributed to these results with no exceptions. I believe that 2021 is going to be an important year also for our industry.
It will be a year that I'm pretty sure will see the best players emerge stronger from the pandemic and the weakest get weaker. In other words, I expect the consolidation of our industry to further accelerate in the next years. Clearly, we feel we are very well-positioned, and we want to take advantage of this situation. We want to continue to play a leading role in this process, and today, we will share some of the initiatives that will drive this. The key pillars of our strategy, as you know, are very simple and they are not going to change. First of all, let me say that the key word is focus. From one side, our model of growth made of organic growth and acquisitions.
We aim to strengthen our leadership in all the core markets where we are already leader, and reach the leadership in those few markets where we are not leader yet. At the center of our strategy, as always, there is our customer. We will step up our effort to create a unique, unmatchable proposition able to deliver the best result to our customers. A proposition made of three key elements. First, our brands. Throughout the years, we have built the clear leading brands in our sector. Number one in awareness in many core markets, even synonymous of the category in some of them, like Italy, Spain, or New Zealand, for example. We will continue to invest heavily in our brands also in the next years. Conscious of the importance for our customers to rely on a very well-known and trusted brand.
The second element, which is about the superior customer knowledge deriving from the matchable set of data we can count on. In the last few years, we have invested in competencies, talents, leading digital technologies to leverage this asset in order to build the best insight about our customers and best serve them through a 360-degree customer-centric model. The third element, an innovative experience able to deliver the best results to our customers, where the digital technologies play a key role in enriching the experience and improving the protocols in the store, and also plays a fundamental role outside the store from the first contact to the after-sale. Giuseppe will take you through our key initiatives and plan on all the key elements in his presentation.
Finally, the last pillar of our strategy, which is represented by our people in our stores and in our offices. Our most valuable asset, the asset that made the real difference in recent years, and I'm pretty confident will continue to do so also in the future. As you will see in the next part of the presentation, all the three pillars will be underpinned by significant resources. Let's now move to the next chart. Brand, superior customer knowledge, innovative customer experience represent our engines to boost organic growth. We still have many sizable opportunities to be exploited also from a geographical viewpoint. These opportunities will represent our next waves of growth in the short, medium, and long term. First, we still have sizable room for growth in Europe, and in particular in France and Germany.
Two amongst the top three markets in the world, where our share is still far below our potential. The U.S., the biggest market in the world. With the acquisition of PJC Hearing and the exit from the wholesale business, we have begun a transformational journey, which ultimately aims to own direct relationship with end consumers and to capture a larger part of the value chain. Alessandro will take you through this exciting journey that will accelerate our growth in the U.S. Finally, let's move to APAC. In Australia, with the acquisition of Bay Audio, another key milestone in the history of our company, we have the opportunity to create a fantastic platform to boost growth and profitability and win in this core market. China, where we are building a presence, which represents an important investment and growth opportunity for the future.
We have been the first entrant in the country. In July, we completed our second JV, and we feel we are already well ahead in the learning curve to become a truly domestic player. Our plan is to accelerate the expansion fast to be the leading presence in this not easy but high potential market. Anthea will take you through our plans in these two strategic markets afterwards. Let's move to the next chart to see our financial targets to 2023. Starting from the 2021 guidance that we gave you at the end of July, on the same consolidation basis, we envisage an ambitious, high single digit compounded growth rate in sales in 2022 and 2023. As a result of a healthy combination of organic growth and small acquisitions, well-balanced across regions and core markets.
In addition to this, we will add the contribution from Bay Audio, which will be worth about EUR 100 million in 2023. At the same time, with regard to profitability, on top of the significant step up we are expecting to deliver this year, capitalizing on all the work done during 2020, we expect to further increase our EBITDA margin to at least 25.5%. This is the net result of improving operating leverage and increasing investments in our brands, in innovation of customer experience, in key competencies and capabilities, hence on what is really crucial for the medium and long-term growth of our company. In fact, you will appreciate from Gabriele presentation that this is also a plan made of significant investments.
We are accelerating our investments, as I strongly believe this is the right time to be bolder than ever and to take advantage of the current situation and further increase our competitive advantage versus our competitors. Finally, for the first time, we are also committing to a more inclusive and sustainable future for our society. In fact, as you know, last March, we published our sustainability plan within our 2020 consolidated non-financial statement. This is an important step within an organic path to sustainability that is focused on listening to our main stakeholders. Our customers and their needs, all employees and collaborators, the local communities, and future generations. The definition of our sustainability plan allow us to put into practice the commitments defined in our sustainability policy, thanks to objectives consistent with our business strategy and aligned with the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
The plan focuses on the four areas of commitment of the Group Sustainability Policy: Product and Service Stewardship, People Empowerment, Community Impact, and Ethical Behavior. For each of the four areas, our Sustainability Plan envisages ambitious objectives that materialize through the achievement of specific targets to be measured against in the three-year period 2021-2023. These include the fight against the stigmatization of hearing care through awareness campaigns, and the promotion of accessibility and technological innovation of hearing services to the older generations, thanks to free hearing test and customized digital solutions. Our Sustainability Plan also focuses on the enhancement of all the employees worldwide through the development of talents in terms of skills, professional growth, involvement, as well as on the promotion of equal opportunities.
There are also initiatives that promote social inclusion among people in situation of fragility and marginalization, and the awareness of young people on hearing prevention and wellbeing, thanks to project with a high social value in favor of future generations and the community. Particular attention is also paid to promoting responsible and sustainable practices along the value chain and reducing the environmental impact of business activities. For example, by reducing the use of batteries, thanks to the use of rechargeable hearing devices. Aware of the active role that we play in society and the importance of listening to all our stakeholders, we are proud to undertake a path that will lead us to pursue ambitious and significant objectives for our growth, while providing a tangible contribution to a more inclusive and sustainable future.
In conclusion, we are going to leverage the solid base that we have built to continue growing profitably and also with the sustainability at the core. We will strengthen our leadership position by doing what we are doing well and investing more where it really matters to deliver the best experience to our customers. With this, I now hand over to my colleagues and to Giuseppe first.
Thank you, Enrico, good morning, everyone. I am Giuseppe Vironda, Chief Marketing Officer. I joined Amplifon 18 months ago, attracted by the tremendous opportunities that our brand can express, driven by my passion for digital and customer experience. Today, I'm going to share how we are building the next wave of differentiation and growth. At Amplifon, we are obsessed with building a unique and unmatchable customer proposition, leveraging on our three distinctive assets. A top-of-mind brand, superior customer knowledge, leading innovation in customer experience. Let me take you through each of these in terms of where we are today and how we are evolving. Let's start from the brand. We are all proud that our brands stand out globally as the destination for premium hearing care, customer devotion, and expertise. An equity built through decades of work, reaching millions of customers.
Let me bring this to life through a brief video.
[Presentation]
We are the global brand platform of hearing care retail. You all know how important it is to be top of mind in our market. Consumers know 1.3 hearing care brands versus the average four of most of retail industry categories. If you think of soft drinks, for instance, I am sure all of you can come up with at least four: Coca-Cola, 7 Up, Sprite, Pepsi. Same would be with car manufacturers. When it comes to hearing aids, consumers only know 1.3. We are the undisputed number one top of mind brand in Italy, Spain, U.S., Netherlands, and New Zealand, and on the podium in other three markets. Our communication campaigns reach more than 350 million people worldwide every year. We work with the best of real global agencies on scalable formats and productions and adapt the messages to local nuances.
For instance, our real testimonial platform, Amplifon Smile, is evolving into the third phase, with new local characters and exploring with success a popular TV presenter as endorser in Portugal. We continuously monitor the ROI of all channels, giving us confidence to further accelerate the investments. This year, we are reaching the all-time high investments in awareness TV in the U.S., reopened campaigns in Germany, and successfully launched the Amplifon brand in Australia, growing by more than 50 points in brand awareness. We will pass the EUR 200 million marketing investments landmark by 2023, growing in line with revenues, delivering higher ROI. The leadership position of our brands is well reflected in the digital space. Our website has become the destination address in hearing care. amplifon.com is the number one website by organic visits in seven core markets.
Traffic has grown by 170% in three years, passing 13 million visits in H1 2021. Those milestones are the results of the strong work on search engine optimization and of the online, offline investments in awareness, creating a virtuous circle. We are also achieving excellent digital performance on paid channels. We have scaled a central digital center of excellence, attracting top talents from agencies and digital native enterprises, working with a growth hacking mindset. Our website and landing pages are continuously changed and optimized, experimenting different messages and call to actions in a relentless effort to maximize ROI. The internal content factory, as well as the campaign managers, enable quick execution and steep learning curve. In less than three years, we grew digital leads by 44%, while least reducing the cost per acquisition. Digital leads now represent more than a quarter of all leads.
Our digital efforts in communication expand beyond the Amplifon brand. We have built an unbranded platform, hearpros.com, to reach all consumers that prefer to start their journey understanding more about hearing loss and all the possible solutions. hearpros.com educate users on hearing care and drive them to an expert consultancy in one of our Amplifon shops. It allow us to honor an additional understanding of the consumer's behavior on digital channels. Hearpros.com enable us to reach an additional audience of 5.4 million users in the first half of 2021, compared to the first half of 2020. Even more importantly, it allow us to reach an audience that is four years younger than Amplifon properties, extending our reach on the consideration funnel. We are live now in seven markets, including the U.S., Italy, Spain, and we are scaling to 13 markets by the end of 2022.
Now that we have walked through our brand and our ability to reach consumers, let's look at our crucial capabilities in understanding customers and leveraging our superior data. As global leaders, we hold a unique data lake made of more than 10 million customers and 35 million feedbacks per year. We have built a customer-centric model which puts together demographic, product usage, audiological profiles, channel interactions, campaign feedbacks, and third-party data. We invested heavily in leading-edge technology, and most important, we have built a data first mindset across all the organization, embedding data scientist teams in all the commercial functions close to the customer, coordinated and grown by a central center of excellence.
To guarantee a constant focus on innovation, we have also sponsored the Amplifon Chair in Customer Science at one of the leading Italian universities, Università Bocconi, which will use textual analysis, computer vision, and audio analytics techniques to create a unique customer understanding. This chair is also giving us access to an amazing pool of talents to strengthen our data capabilities. Superior customer knowledge enables personalized life cycle management. We have deployed an advanced attitudinal segmentation, growing the number of segments from three to more than 20. For each segment, automated campaigns have been designed and deployed, involving different channels based on customer preferences.
For instance, we're able to predict, given the shape of the audiological curve, the future deterioration of hearing loss, and therefore define the most relevant time to activate a new hearing check campaign. The message will be personalized based on the lifestyle habits the customer share with us and sent through his or her preferred channel. The analysis of audiological profiles, product usage, lifestyle habits allow to fine-tune the best contact strategy with the aim to reduce the frequency of interactions while increasing their relevance, with the ultimate benefits of increasing ROI. The impact on growth is significant. The redemption of CRM campaigns is increasing double-digit, the CRM-driven revenues grow 2.7x faster than non-CRM ones on existing customers. Data is the fuel of relevant customer experience. While engaging customer experience is the enabler to enrich customer data in a virtual circle.
Let me now move to the third pillar, leading the innovation in customer experience. The Amplifon Product Experience is the first landmark of our capacity to reshape hearing care retail around the customer. APE has significantly scale up globally. It now represents around 45% of sales and 85% of the addressable market, which is made mainly by the private and top-up cluster. APE will be available in 11 countries by the end of the year across all of our footprint by 2023. The uniqueness and premiumness of the experience has translated into two, three points increase in ASP in each market. The Amplifon App is also growing consistently. Penetration has reached 17% overall, passing 40% in more digitalized markets. Even more important, ratings on both iOS and Android app stores are the highest in hearing care.
A proof that the approach we first took with a human-centered design is paying off very well. What's next in innovation and customer experience? Today, we are proud to share with you AmpliCare, our platform to completely reshape and elevate the audiological care experience, putting the customer at the center. AmpliCare will amplify the expertise and empathy of our audiologists, enable a seamless experience across channels, and empower all the people involved in the audiological care journey with the objective to deliver a unique and memorable experience. Let me show you a video to bring this to life for you.
[Presentation]
Now, let me take you through each of the three pillars that will make AmpliCare unique, starting with our stores. Our stores are a key touch point of the journey. Our customers are looking for a comfortable and advanced experience, providing a differential value compared to medical visits. An experience rather than a medical test. To enable new dimensions of interactions, we will equip our solution rooms with proprietary technology, iOS-based, developed internally, to perform all the testing in a unique way. Our technology will enable enhanced touch-based experiences, decoupling completely the more technical view of the audiologist from a friendly and engaging customer-focused view. The use of iPad will also enable future out-of-store visits and follow-up. The second pillar is about hyper-personalized solutions.
AmpliCare will also enhance the expertise of our 9,000 audiologists in finding the best solution for each of our customers. A solution builder engine powered by our unique data lake will propose the most appropriate product and service offering and fitting given the audiological and lifestyle profile collected during the visit. The experience will be highly intuitive. Again, a human-centered design, just like the app. Our customer insights are very vocal about the need to understand solution benefits without being overwhelmed with complex information. Customers want to feel part of the process, but with minimal cognitive effort. The experience of the new audiological protocol aims to be as engaging, let me say, as a Tesla configurator, compared to the older paperwork still used by many retailers. The solution builder will also lead to more productivity, driving an increase in conversion.
Last but not least, AmpliCare will call to action all the people involved in supporting our customers. The expertise of our audiologists will always be available 24/7. During store opening hours, customers will be able to easily book an online appointment via app and receive a video consultation with a personal audiologist with guided troubleshooting journeys. A centralized pool of experts will cover the remaining hours to never leave a customer alone. The caregiver will also play a more active role. We know that they represent a crucial influencer in the journey. For this reason, we will offer a dedicated profile on the app with the aim to coach and support the more delicate customers in the first weeks of usage. Caregivers could also become the recipients of caring campaigns to unload the customers from cognitive load and receive support from their closest relatives.
AmpliCare will also represent the platform to close the loop with the ENT community and create the most comprehensive medical and audiological care ecosystem. On customer's request, we will share audiological data and usage with their ENTs, including file access online. In conclusion, I am very excited by the opportunities we have ahead of us. We are reinforcing our unique and unmatchable customer proposition, leveraging three distinctive assets of ours. Top-of-mind brand, superior customer knowledge, leading innovation in customer experience. We have the talents, the vision, and the ambition to accelerate our positioning as global leader in audiological care and generate further growth opportunities, one of the biggest of which will be in the U.S. Alessandro, over to you.
Good morning, everyone. I'm Alessandro Bonacina, Executive Vice President of Amplifon Americas. Today, I would like to share with you our new ambition for the U.S., which represents the start of a completely new story, a deep transformation that will leverage Amplifon's winning DNA to accelerate our growth in the U.S. U.S. is our key growth engine for the future. It is by far the largest market in the world, accounting for more than 40% of the global retail value. Even more importantly, the U.S. has a huge growth potential. The baby boomers are on the rise, as the population of over 65 is growing at a fast pace, from being 10% of total population in 2010 to almost 25% in 2030. The hearing aids penetration is continuously increasing, proving that there is less stigma and more openness to seek proper hearing care.
There are two key healthy and growing consumer segments that we want to focus on. The first is the private retail chain segment that includes national specialty chains and big box. These account for over 40% of the market. The second segment is the managed care, and these account for around 30% of the market. Both of these segments are growing fast. High single digits the first, and over 10% the second, representing a huge opportunity to be captured. Before we deep dive into our strategy, let me first talk to you about one of the topics that are currently under discussion in the U.S. You know, 2022 will likely see the introduction in the market of OTC devices.
The OTC regulation is expected to be out for comment in November, then following the traditional FDA steps, the first product will be in the market as early as the second half of 2022. OTC must be looked at through the lenses of consumers and not just through technology. As you know, hearing loss is a complex pathology with the purchase process driven by consumer and their journey. Today, there are two key consumer segments that are interested in hearing care, and that can be mapped against hearing loss severity. The trusted guidance seekers and the do-it-yourself. These new consumer has significantly different demographic, significantly different usage attitudes, and different needs. First is the trusted guidance seekers. They have moderate to severe or profound hearing loss, with significant need for brain rehab that typically requires adaptation, repeated adjustment, and counseling. They are on average over 75.
The biggest barrier for their adoption, and even more for their usage and satisfaction, is summarized in one question: Will hearing aids work for me, implying a long journey of trust generation, a long journey of satisfaction building that cannot be done online or on shelf. The second segment is the do-it-yourself. They have mild to moderate hearing loss. They are on average much younger than 70 and typically look for convenience and value. This segment is clearly under-penetrated, only around 16%, because the biggest barrier for them is, "I do not need them yet." We do not expect OTC to have a direct impact on the market we currently serve. The opportunity for OTC is that it might potentially enlarge the market for the do-it-yourself segment. We will need to see how it plays out.
Should this opportunity arise, we will be ready to capture it, but only if it will allow us to guarantee to our end consumers a safe, effective, and high-quality service. Now let's move to look at our new U.S. strategy that we have just started to deploy. Our goal is to win in the two fastest-growing consumer segment, private retail and managed care. We are starting from a solid base, leveraging our unique assets and brands, Miracle-Ear and Amplifon Hearing Health Care. Miracle-Ear is the leading brand in the U.S., a unique asset that we will strengthen even further with an heritage that has been built over 70 years, creating the largest hearing care retail network in the U.S. We all know that the key driver of choice in hearing care for consumers are exactly those two, brand and proximity.
Amplifon Hearing Health Care is our business unit to serve insured customer, retailers, and health plans. We have a solid base of over 50 agreements in the commercial managed care segment and a huge network of affiliated retailers with more than 5,000 point of sales. A fantastic platform to capitalize on for our acceleration. Let me walk you through how we will transform Amplifon U.S. 2021 is the start of a completely new story that will allow us to accelerate our growth in the U.S., becoming the undisputed leader. There are three pillars of our transformation. The first is differentiating our value proposition to become unique in the market. The second is devoting M&A investment in the U.S. for the first time to expand our reach to become even bigger.
The third is transforming our go-to-market to capture all segment opportunities, exiting the wholesale business with the wind down of Elite, launching the direct retail model, and transforming our access to managed care. How we will make Miracle-Ear unique? By launching a new value proposition, the Miracle-Ear Advantage, by further expanding the already largest distribution network in the U.S. to widen the gap versus competitor and to be closer to more and more consumers. We will take advantage of the launch of the direct retail model to create a winning complementary mix of franchised and corporate stores. We will also step change our strategy for Amplifon Hearing Health Care to significantly widen our market access. We will launch the Amplifon Product Experience, which will make us truly unique. We will be at the forefront of innovation, launching our own eHealth platform to connect insurance, retailers, and consumers.
We will expand our reach by moving from being focused only on the commercial segment today to serve all insured segment in the future. Let me now share more color on each of these. For Miracle-Ear, which is the leading brand in the U.S., we will enrich it with innovative, personalized, and amazing customer experience to create an unmatchable value proposition that will elevate hearing care standards. We will lead innovation in customer experience by offering to U.S. consumers an immersive store and audiological experience, leveraging on our proprietary technology built to offer unique hearing care. The Miracle-Ear product experience, an unrivaled combination of our digital ecosystem, the Miracle-Ear App, and the Ecosystem Control Center, which will allow continuous interaction between consumer and hearing care professional, offering high adherence and maximizing satisfaction.
Lastly, it is all about personalized aftercare with a data-driven CRM program to accompany each customer end in end on their journey towards better hearing. This innovation will be amplified in the market, leveraging our Miracle-Ear leading brand and a giant leap in marketing investment. We will lead the TV space with a new media agency and a brand-new TV campaign capitalizing on Miracle-Ear Advantage, on air since June this year. We will accelerate on digital, leveraging HearPros, recently launched in the U.S. and aiming at doubling our digital leads and significantly increasing our marketing investment by 50% by 2023. You can understand, we are blending the leading brand with an amazing customer experience in order to elevate the hearing care standard in the U.S.
We have a clear ambition for Miracle-Ear to become the largest in every state, further expanding our reach and leveraging a winning complementary mix of franchised and direct retail. We just started this huge transformation by revolutionize our distribution model, launching direct retail in the U.S., which we aim to further scale up in order to achieve three clear goals. The first is to deliver a superior proposition to our end customers. We will leverage a fast innovation engine in order to launch and test new marketing and sales capability, pushing excellence and innovation in customer experience for the benefit of the whole network. For example, we will be able to invest in audiological tool, test machine learning to optimize marketing investment and retail productivity. We will do this faster and more efficiently, being completely under our control, and subsequently deploy this to the entire Miracle-Ear franchise network.
Second, we will be able to capture the full value of the value chain, quickly accelerating our revenues. Third, this will represent a fast expansion platform focused on the U.S. largest state. We will start for the first time to invest in M&A in the U.S., allowing us to grow faster and faster. Today, we have already a solid base of around 200 stores, and we are very, very pleased with our initial results. We delivered over 40% organic growth in H1 versus the same period of 2019, outpacing the market big time. Concluding, we have big expansion plans with franchisees as well as with our direct retail arm. A completely new chapter to accelerate revenue growth and capture all the value of the value chain just started.
Now let's turn the page and have a quick look at the second pillar of our transformation, the Managed Care segment. Managed Care is a key segment of the U.S. hearing care. It accounts for around 30% of its total value and is the fastest-growing at more than 10% per year. Managed Care is mainly divided in three clusters. Commercial, that allows consumers to take advantage from access to hearing care, thanks to employers paying for their benefit. It accounts for around 30% of the insurance hearing care market. The second is Medicare Advantage. This is the biggest and fastest-growing cluster, is made of consumers that have access to Medicare and that are paying an additional cost in order to access additional benefits, including hearing care. It accounts for half of the Managed Care market and shows the highest penetration amongst health plans and utilization amongst consumers.
The third segment is others, including mainly Medicaid. Amplifon has access today mainly to the commercial segment, and going forward, that is set to change as we are ready to expand and serve all managed care segment, unlocking an opportunity worth around EUR 1 billion. After many months of work and investment, we are ready to capture the whole managed care potential. We have built a unique value proposition for health plans, retailers, and consumers. This is built on four key pillars. First, coverage. We expanded and we will continue to expand our retail network. Today, we have already achieved more than 90% coverage of the national Medicare Advantage member, and there is more to come. Second, top-notch technology.
We launched our third-party administrator platform that will allow us to elevate the experience of health plans and retailers, to collect more data to optimize the customer journey, and to streamline our cost to serve. Distinctive capabilities. We achieved, and we will continue to achieve distinctive accreditations, testifying to our leading skill and optimized process to grant an impeccable experience. Lastly, unique experience. We are working to launch customer experience innovation for our consumers with the Amplifon product line, the digital ecosystem, and our eHealth platform, powered by proprietary technology. This value proposition will enable consumer to receive the best continuous care with significant benefit for health plans. Let me give you an example. Via our ECC, Ecosystem Control Center, we will empower health plans to monitor and foster eHearing solution utilization, so helping consumer to make the most out of the benefit they pay for.
In conclusion, a deep transformation of Amplifon in U.S. has started, capitalizing on the unrivaled platform of Miracle-Ear and Amplifon Hearing Health Care and driving a huge step change, leveraging on three new pillars: a unique value proposition, a brand-new expansion ambition, and a transformational enhancement of our distribution model. For the first time, entering boldly in the direct retail and having access to the entire managed care market. We are ready to lead a new chapter of growth. I will now leave the floor to Anthea.
Thank you, Alessandro. Good afternoon, everybody. I'm Anthea Muir, the Executive Vice President of the Amplifon Asia Pacific region. I'm delighted to talk to you about two exciting growth opportunities in the APAC region, Australia and China. These are two very different countries with two very different opportunities. Australia is an opportunity to grow our market share by leveraging our brand portfolio. In China, it's really a story of expansion. Let's start with my home country, Australia. Australia is a very important and attractive market for Amplifon. Today, it's the 10th largest hearing care market in the world. Australians are aging, but on a world scale, they're still quite young. We have a high standard of living, and the economy is growing steadily, meaning that older Australians expect a high standard of healthcare in their latter years, and the government supports this need with a high-quality scheme.
All of this means the hearing aid penetration in Australia is high and it's increasing, giving Amplifon a significant opportunity for further growth. As you know, we've recently acquired Bay Audio in Australia, and we expect to close this transaction in Q4 this year. With the addition of Bay Audio, we today have three very strong brands that we will leverage to start an exciting new chapter of growth. The three brands perfectly complement each other, giving Australians a choice of where, when, and how they choose to shop for hearing care products and services. The Amplifon brand, formerly known as National Hearing Care, it's a nationwide brand. It's located primarily in strip mall locations, and today, we have over 200 points of sale, plus over 100 visiting clinics. Amplifon generates most of its leads via its call center model, digital marketing channels, and more recently, TV.
We have invested heavily in marketing this year and successfully established a strong brand reputation. The 100 Bay Audio clinics, they're all located on the eastern seaboard of Australia. They differentiate their offering by locating the clinics in premium shopping malls using passing foot traffic to kind of drive customers into the clinics for screenings. This gives the customer the convenience of seven-day shopping and walk-in appointment availability. The Attune business, it's based primarily in the northern part of Australia and Queensland. This business relies on its strong relationships with doctors and ENT specialists to send their patients to Attune for a full suite of hearing care services. Most of these 50 clinics are located in medical precincts or within medical specialty practices. Altogether, we are now the clear number one in Australia with these three brands working together, and we still have room to grow.
Let me tell you a little bit about how. The Amplifon brand, it's nationally distributed and still has room to further grow. In the last few years, we developed a market-leading customer value proposition, which includes Amplifon's 360 audiological protocol and the Amplifon Product Experience. This unique proposition has given us the platform to invest in TV and digital channels, accelerating our growth in the private market segment. If we look to Bay Audio, this business has an incredible opportunity for us to expand the network across the country using its innovative business model to attract customers when they're in the busy shopping malls across Australia. With Attune business, we can really leverage the medical relationships we have and high quality of care to expand the model in other geographical regions, as well as to expand the services that we provide within these clinics.
In conclusion, we have a great opportunity ahead of us in Australia. Now I want to turn your attention to China. It's a super exciting market, and we're really starting to make some great progress. China might have the largest population in the world, but today it's the sixth-largest market in the hearing care world. The thing that gets me excited is the opportunity that we have ahead of us. The penetration of hearing aids is still very low. The prevalence of hearing loss is high, and the population is aging, providing an enormous opportunity for growth. The market is, in fact, expected to grow over 10% every year. In addition, the economy's booming, the market is highly fragmented, so this opens an opportunity for Amplifon to invest and grow and take the number one market position. How are we gonna maximize on this opportunity?
First, we need to create a national network of stores in all major cities across China via both M&A and greenfield clinics. To become the number one premium retailer, we will apply and scale our proven commercial model. We have the knowhow of Amplifon. We have a tried and tested model, and we know how to provide the best customer experience that will raise the service standards in the Chinese market. Then we will tell the story and back it up with marketing investments. To do this, of course, we need the best people. Leveraging Amplifon's training programs and tools with the best people, we can deliver an improved quality of hearing care to China. I'm pleased to tell you we've now opened Amplifon Greater China's headquarters in Shanghai.
If we look this year, we have already grown from our first JV in Beijing, spreading across four more provinces with the Soundbridge JV headquartered in Hangzhou in the Zhejiang Province. In addition, I'm pleased to tell you we've started our greenfield strategy in Shanghai, and we will be opening our first clinics in the coming months. By the end of this year, we will have over 100 clinics across seven provinces and growing.
Our revenue run rate for 2021 is over EUR 15 million, with double-digit EBITDA. This is really just the start of a full-bore expansion strategy that I look forward to updating you on in the future. To conclude, the APAC region is growing, both organically and inorganically, and the opportunity in front of us is exciting, and we have the knowhow and the people to bring it to life. Thank you very much, and I'll now leave the floor to Gabriele.
Thank you, Anthea, and good afternoon to everybody. Let's now deep dive on how our strategy and the key initiative you've been hearing about translate into strong financial targets in terms of top-line growth, high profitability, and a strong cash flow generation. For the next three year, we define the clear set of priority to deliver great returns to our shareholders. Healthy sales growth outpacing the market, as we have successfully done in the past. Continued EBITDA expansion, EPS acceleration, and strong cash flow generation to finance our strong plan of investments and ensure a solid balance sheet to capture any further potential opportunity. Starting from top line, our growth will be fueled by organic growth and acquisitions. The strong organic growth will be supported by both market growth and market share gains.
Our reference market, after the strong rebound in 2021 following the COVID outbreak, is in fact expected to go back to the usual historical growth rates sustained by demographic trends and increasing penetration of hearing aids. We also aim to gain market share mainly by leveraging our unique value proposition fostered by our significant investment plan. Very importantly, we also expect this growth to be well-balanced across the three regions and the core markets. M&A will also contribute and will be primarily focused on the core selected countries where we aim to consolidate our leadership position. To be specific, France, Germany, U.S., and China. Let me also remind you that large acquisition have always been a key contributor to our growth story, as demonstrated by GAES and Bay Audio. Large acquisitions, obviously, are not factored in today's plan, being opportunistic and dependent on asset availability.
Should this opportunity arise, we will be ready to capture them, thanks to our solid balance sheet. The two sales drivers, organic and M&A, will allow us to target a high single-digit revenue annual growth at constant currency in the 2021-2023 period for Amplifon on current consolidation basis. In addition, Bay Audio will provide around EUR 100 million revenue contribution in 2023. Moving to profitability, EBITDA margin expansion will be underpinned by three levers. First, increased productivity. In fact, thanks to the lesson learned during the pandemic and the action implemented starting from Q2 2020, we will continue to benefit from productivity enhancement and efficiencies in labor, marketing, and SG&A. Positive impacts will also continue to derive from the renegotiation of agreements with direct and indirect suppliers. Second, significant synergies coming from GAES integration.
In fact, the initial 2021 target of EUR 25 million synergies at EBITDA level was already achieved in 2020, one year ahead of our plan. In the 2021-2023 period, we intend to further unlock GAES' full potential, thanks to effective marketing and to our unique offering differentiation, the Amplifon Product Experience. The APE rollout will take place in Q4 2021, and we expect great results, given that Spain is a predominantly private market and our brand is very well recognized. Our ambition for GAES is clear: become one of the group's best-in-class companies, growing fast and reaching top-range EBITDA margin at the same level of or even better than Italy. Third, increased scale, both at global and local level, allowing to spread fixed cost over significantly higher revenues. The expected increase in profitability is sizable.
Of course, as we have done in the past, we will reinvest part of the profitability in the business to further enlarge the gap versus the competition. The main area of investment will be people, our most valuable asset and the real driver of our outstanding performance. Marketing planned to grow in line with the revenues at around 9% on sales while delivering a higher ROI thanks to the renegotiation done with the marketing suppliers. Corporate investment to further strengthen our global centers of excellence and our strategic initiatives. Higher productivity, GAES synergies, and increased scale will more than compensate the higher investments, allowing Amplifon to reach a recurring EBITDA margin of at least 25.5% after the sizable step-up achieved in 2021.
Our solid performance on EBITDA will be coupled with a continued focus on D&A, financial expenses, and taxes, enabling us to deliver a steady EPS growth. D&A are expected to remain stable as the ratio says, following the increased CapEx plan and PPA related amortization for our sustained M&A activity, including Bay Audio. Moving to financial expenses, the successful refinancing executed last year resulted in a cost of debt lower than 1.5%, an extension of debt maturities, and a significant increase of the financial headroom, which will enable us to execute any potential large M&A. For the period 2021, 2023, we expect around EUR 30 million of financial expenses, including both interest on financial debt and interest on lease liabilities following the IFRS 16. Moving to tax, we continue to expect a tax rate in line with the recent years, thus below 30%.
Also taking into account the potential negative impact stemming from the possible U.S. tax reform. The strong improvement of financial performance, coupled with the strict management of working capital after the excellent improvement achieved in 2020, will support a solid operating cash flow generation amounting in the three year to over EUR 1 billion. The increased operating cash flow generation will finance our strong CapEx and M&A plan. CapEx will amount to over EUR 300 million and will be mainly devoted to network refurbishment and development. Investment in IT, mainly for the innovation program and the customer data infrastructure described earlier by Giuseppe, and for our overall group backbone transformation to ensure higher effectiveness and efficiency to our global processes. M&A activity will also continue at a sustained pace in selected core countries, mainly in France, Germany, U.S., and China, with accumulated cash out of around EUR 300 million.
In addition, of course, to the EUR 340 million cash out for Bay Audio. The strong cash flow generation will support this bold CapEx and M&A plan, as well as an attractive dividend payout, while allowing a further deleverage from the around 1.8 net debt over EBITDA pro forma ratio at the end of 2021, including Bay Audio acquisition, to around 1.2 at the end of 2023. Ensuring therefore, a significant financial flexibility for potential large acquisitions. In conclusion, we have clear commitments for 2023.
We are increasing our financial ambitions while continuing to invest to further strengthen our platform for long-term sustained growth. In particular, we are targeting a high single-digit sales growth rate from 2021 guidance for Amplifon perimeter pre-Bay Audio consolidation, driven by strong organic growth and M&A, well balanced across regions and the core markets. Bay Audio will contribute to the 2023 revenues with additional around EUR 100 million. At the same time, thanks to better operating leverage, we expect to further increase our recurring EBITDA margin from the around 24.8% expected in 2021 to at least 25.5% in 2023. Even after increased investment in all our core capabilities, including marketing, people, network, and IT infrastructure. I now hand over to Enrico for his closing remarks.
We are at the end of our presentation of today. We are all very excited about the next stage of our journey of sustainable, profitable growth. I'm very confident of delivering our ambitious plan. My confidence is high, especially because we can count on a talented, motivated, ambitious group of people. Fully committed to deliver outstanding results, bonded by a culture which puts our customer first, a culture based on passion for excellence, and also based on accountability and keeping promises, but above all, a culture based on the team. Thank you for your attention. Now I hand over to Francesca.
We will now open for Q&A. Please note that we will take your questions live directly from the audience via the phone line. We want to try to get as many questions from as many people as possible, so please help us by initially limiting yourself to only two questions and eventually a related follow-up. Before I turn the call over to the operator in order to open for the Q&A, please let me remind you the details for the dial-in for the Q&A and show you a brief wrap-up video on the presentation. Thank you.
The first question is from Veronika Dubajova with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Hi, guys. Good afternoon, and thank you for taking my questions. I will keep it to two, please. My first one is just on the AmpliCare initiative, and I guess two parts here. One, would love to understand how you're thinking about what this translates into in terms of ASPs. Is this a tool for improved pricing, or is this more about a better customer experience, higher retention, and repurchases? Two, really intrigued to see you develop your own proprietary diagnostics. Is this completely standalone, or are you bringing in some tech from someone else? I guess, what's the implication from this of your desire to start developing proprietary technologies across the board, not just for diagnostics, but also more broadly going forward?
My second question, apologies, Gabriele, it's very technical, but I'm a bit surprised to see you guide to a stable D&A as percentage of sales, especially given that fact that significant proportion of your depreciation is currently being driven by leases. I would have expected that you can see some operating leverage on those. Can you just help us understand why you would expect D&A to remain stable as percentage of sales through the next couple of years? Thanks, guys.
Thank you, Veronika, and welcome to our conference call. I would ask Giuseppe to answer the first part of your question about AmpliCare. Giuseppe, to you.
Thank you, Veronika, for your question. The first one was about the ASP impact or the customer experience impact. Well, obviously, we expect an impact, especially on conversion. We think it's a bit early to express a number. The name of the game also is clearly to increase customer differentiation and therefore also returning customers. The second piece on AmpliCare, if I'm correct, was about our proprietary technology. We are very happy to say that we developed this technology internally, also through internal capabilities, which we acquired a couple of years ago through the acquisition of a startup.
All to have, it's an IP developed through internal capabilities. It is, as of now, focused on the agnostic technology and on, let's say, the audiological digital protocol that gets live in the solution room. Regarding developing technology in other areas, I don't think we have nothing to comment at the moment. We are focused on improving the audiological experience in our solution rooms, leveraging this mix of proprietary software on scalable hardware.
Gabriele?
Yeah. In terms of D&A, Veronika, of course, we have three components. The D&A coming from CapEx, the D&A coming from rents, and then the D&A coming from acquisition. As you saw, we have a bold plan of CapEx and a plan of M&A, we are following the recent acquisition of Bay Audio. Bay Audio will increase the precision charge in terms of PPA. Everything included, there will be some components decreasing. For example, rents. Some other component increasing a little bit. All in all, we expect something which is aligned to the current percentage.
Okay, thank you. I have lots of other questions, but I'll jump back into the queue before I ask them. Thanks, guys.
Sure. Thank you.
The next question is from Oliver Metzger with Oddo. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi, good afternoon. Thanks a lot for taking my question. I will also start with two questions. The first one is on the ASP increase of your own brand. You named the 2%-3% initial effect, which in my view happens primarily in the first year. In some countries, we are now in year two or even year three. Could you elaborate about the underlying price dynamics after the first year has passed? My second question is on the U.S. You have quite strong ambitions, which look great. Could you elaborate about the timeline? When do you expect to see the first results become visible?
Thank you, Oliver, for your question. With regards to the first part, which is about the ASP increase that we have seen since the launch of our APE products, I can confirm that is the range of ASP increase that we have delivered in those countries where we have already launched our APE program. Of course, we are still in the middle of the rollout in all the different countries. You know very well that still a big market like Spain is still missing, and we will launch the APE at the end of this year. We still have room for further improvement going forward. In the countries where now the APE is already live since one or two years, let's say that for sure, what we have seen is no price erosion.
Actually, we were able to keep the kind of improved ASP that we delivered since the start and since the beginning of the launch. With regards to the second part of the question, I would hand over to Alessandro.
Thanks, Enrico, and thanks for the question. Yeah, for sure, we have big ambition for the U.S. For what concern the timeline, I can tell you that it has just started. As I was telling some minute ago, 2021, with our direct retail, with the franchisee unit, is seeing very much faster than the market growth. This is just the start. The ambition will continue and be accelerated along the plan, considering that with Amplifon Hearing Health Care, we plan to launch our customer experience differentiation next year, and our M&A ambition will grow faster and faster along the plan.
Okay. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
The next question is from Ghilotti, Domenico with Equita. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon. I have two questions related to the U.S. market. The first is on the M&A strategies. I am trying to understand how much are you relying on, say, the vertical integration, so the opportunity to purchase and have a direct presence in the retail, in the market, and how much is really network expansion. How do you see, let's say, the two opportunities? The second question is still on the U.S. market. On the managed care, so it is something that you are now sharing with us a lot of details. Can you, say, really give the sense of what is the competitive advantage that is driving the target for 2023 or the competitive environment? A bit of more color on that.
Absolutely, I would ask Alessandro to answer the two questions on the U.S.
Sure. For what concern the first question, our ambition of inorganic growth, I think it will be mainly focused through competitive acquisition. I think that our model that winningly blends franchisee and direct retail will continue. We will have a healthy percentage of franchisee and direct retail, and at the same time, we will accelerate on competitive acquisition. For what concern the second question on managed care.
Sorry, Alessandro.
in terms of the market landscape, I can tell you that there are now more or less five players at national level, so with national scale, of which Amplifon Hearing Health Care is one of these. There are many others that are playing at local and regional level. For what concerns our competitive advantage, it's like I was saying during the presentation built of many pillars. The first of all is network, that we are continuing to expand. Now we are at 5,000 point of sales, and our ride is continuing. We are increasingly fast our network, because this means proximity to consumer. As well for Medicare Advantage, it's very important to have a widened network that cover all the enrollees.
For what concern our TPA. We just launched our third-party administration platform. This will enable us to provide better service to consumers and to health plan. By the way, we just add two important accreditation that very few in the market has. This can grant really our impeccable experience that we want to offer to health plan consumers and retailer. Last but not least, is our customer experience. For what concern our customer experience, we are still working to our innovation plan. This will be unleashed reasonably half of next year. This will encompass many pillars. First of all, the Amplifon Product Experience. Second, the Ecosystem Control Center. Last but not least, our eHealth platform. I think this combination will be unique in the market and will be launched around the half of next year.
Thank you, Alessandro. Perhaps I would like, with regards to the first part of the question, I would like also to add that since the acquisition, we are extremely happy about the performance of PJC Hearing, combined with our corporate stores. I think that the direct managed stores have been a big boost to our performance in the U.S. The experience that we had with this very first large acquisition in the U.S. was extremely positive. We are very happy about our corporate stores in the U.S. are performing. If in the future there will be other opportunities, for sure, we will look at them, and we will also be ready to capture if possible.
Thank you so much.
The next question is from Noor, Aisyah with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Great. Thank you for taking my questions. I have two, please. The first is on the managed care business in the U.S. What's the profitability of that business today, and what's your expectations for the profitability of that business going forward? The second one is on AmpliCare. Just two very quick ones. When do you expect to launch this, or is this already launched? I noticed that the audiometry functionality of that app appears to be more sophisticated than the standalone that we have in the iOS today. Is it your intention to address the OTC market with this, given that you've put a big slide on OTC in the markets there?
Thank you. Thank you for the question. With regards to the first one, of course, we cannot give you details about profitability of a single business unit. What I can tell you is definitely that Amplifon Hearing Health Care has a good profitability, and we aim also to improve the profitability of Amplifon Hearing Health Care going forward, also thanks to all the initiatives that Alessandro was mentioning before. With regards to the second part of the question, and therefore AmpliCare, I would hand over to Giuseppe.
Yeah. Thank you, Aisyah. I understand the first part on AmpliCare is about the launch plan. I can tell you that we're starting to roll out the audiometers in Q4 in Italy and Spain, and to roll it out in the other core markets in 2022, gradually. The solution builder will be deployed, therefore the digital audiological protocol, will be deployed in Spain in H1 2022 and deployed in all core markets in the following three years. The ENT caregiver journeys will be introduced in 2023. If I understood well, you were asking whether we will use AmpliCare capabilities on the OTC market eventually. I can tell you that AmpliCare is focused on our core proposition on APE and our core offer.
Thank you.
Great. Thanks.
The next question is a follow-up from Dubajova, Veronika with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Hi, guys. Two questions from me, please, if I can, on the sort of regulatory changes potentially happening in the U.S. One, sort of slightly intrigued, it seems to me like your commentary on OTC has evolved slightly. I'm just kind of curious if you're willing to share what would be the conditions under which you would consider participating in the market? I think there was a slight hint that there might be certain scenarios under which you would think about that. I'd love to kind of hear you articulate that. Second question is on the pending discussion in the U.S. around Medicare covering hearing healthcare, which is being discussed as part of the reconciliation bill? I guess two parts here.
One, obviously your thoughts on what that coverage could look like and what that would mean for the U.S. hearing market, both from a volume and a price perspective. Two, it's slightly left field, but I guess if we do move to Medicare covering hearing health, I suspect that diminishes some of the reasons for managed care to offer hearing health benefits. That actually could have some downside risks for the Amplifon Hearing Health Care business. Just curious kind of how you're thinking about the pluses and minuses on that, both from a market perspective, but more specifically for you guys, given the importance that hearing healthcare has, in terms of your midterm growth ambitions. Thanks.
Sure. Thank you. Thank you, Veronika, again. I would hand over to Alessandro for the two questions related to U.S.
Sure. Starting from OTC, I think that to answer this, it's always very important to consider what we were saying before. In our industry, what drives at the end, utilization, adoption, purchase, lies really in consumer behavior. How any player or any industry phenomena is capable to understand the consumer need and consumer behavior much more than technology. That's why we don't see any particular things that can happen from the OTC provision. For what concern our intention to enter the market and which will be the condition. We are working on that. No decision is taken yet, but I can tell you two things. The first condition for us to enter in the market will be that the product, the service, and the regulation will allow to really offer something that from consumer perspective, quality, customer experience will be very useful for the consumer.
Secondly, if we would at the end enter in the market, I think that we have important assets to win as well in this market. Our brands, our capability in marketing, our capability in customer experience. For what concern the second point or the second question about managed care, I can tell you that now managed care already covers hearing exams. It doesn't cover hearing aid. In previous years, many Congress has tried to introduce ancillary benefits, so hearing aid, dental, vision, but they failed. We know now, the current Congress is very on it. It is a very important priority for the current Congress. I will tell you that considering that as well, you may have heard all the news about the $3.5 trillion package and all the great scrutiny that is on it. It will not have an easy part at the end.
Let's say if it will go through, our position is for sure we are supportive on any regulatory change that could help open and widen the market. It will be very important to give something that could grant access and quality of care to consumers. For what concern the interrelation with Medicare Advantage, I don't think that, first of all, this reform will cover any kind of hearing loss and any kind of value tier. There will be always opportunity for the Medicare Advantage to offer further service to consumers.
Okay, thank you. Is it fair to say that the guidance does not contemplate changes to hearing aid coverage at the moment, and I guess you'll have to validate what these look like both to the upside and the downside once we get there?
Correct. Absolutely.
Thanks.
The next question is from Leth, Niels with Carnegie. Please go ahead.
Yes, good afternoon. This is Niels Granholm-Leth from Carnegie. My first question would be on the so-called MEMSI contract. Could you just remind us when is the MEMSI contract up for renewal? Thank you.
Yeah. The contract related to the supply to Miracle-Ear will expire at the end of 2022. Today we have an exclusive agreement with WSA.
A follow-up, if I may. Your strategic supplier for this contract would also happen to be a major player, actually the biggest player in managed care in the U.S. How do you kind of contemplate that you would be competing against a strategic supplier when it comes to managed care in the U.S.?
I'm not sure that I understood your question. If you please could say again.
Yeah. When it comes to your strategy to enter or to become a bigger player in managed care in the U.S., you would here be competing against your biggest supplier of products in the U.S. How do you keep those things separated?
Well, I don't see it as an issue, to be honest with you. We compete with all the different players in the U.S. market, also in the managed care arena. To be honest, I don't see it as an issue at all.
Okay, great. Thank you. A question on China. How many stores would be required to cover the entire Chinese country?
China, of course, it's a very big country. It's a very big market. It's a market that will grow significantly in the next few years. We are just at the start of our journey, but also we are very well determined to accelerate our expansion i n the country. Perhaps Anthea, you wanted to add something about our future plans in China?
Thanks for the question. We haven't put a number on the number of stores that we would need. A lot of it has to do with the size and location of stores, just the same in any other country that we operate. What I can tell you is we've really just started. We have 100 point of sales today, and we are really just started in seven provinces. As we know, China's a very large market with an enormous opportunity, and we have great intention to grow both organically and inorganically. I don't have a number. We don't have yet a three-year full guidance on that as we have, obviously, a lot of opportunity. It's certainly going to be many more than we have today.
Great, thank you. My final question, with regards to page 32 in your slide deck, and the scale of direct retail in the U.S. Would that also include the acquisitions of existing Miracle-Ear stores?
Includes, say again, the acquisition of?
Would your scale up of direct retailing in the U.S. also include acquisitions of existing Miracle-Ear stores?
Possibly, yes, of course. Absolutely.
Okay, great. Thank you so much.
Thank you. No, actually, thank you for your question. The next question, please.
The next question is from Metzger, Oliver with Oddo. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Thanks a lot for my follow-up. I have basically two questions. One question just for clarification. It's about the implementation of OTC legislative. I understood you expected H2 2022. Can you just confirm that? Move over to my other two questions. You highlighted at the end of your presentation that people are a very important area for investment. Could you elaborate about the shortage of audiologists, how you see that developing, and which underlying increase of salaries do you expect for the next years? Potentially also in the context of which opportunities do you see to use digital equipment to improve the productivity of employees within the store? The other question is about your lead generation. You mentioned about, I think it's almost 14 million visits on your company website, and that a quarter of all leads are generated online. How should we think about the online lead generation?
Thank you. Thank you for your questions. I will take the one related to people, and in particular, to possible shortage of audiologists or wage inflation. What I can tell you is that in most of the countries where we operate, Amplifon is considered the employer of choice. We believe that the best audiologists actually aim to work for Amplifon. I can't really tell you that overall, there is an issue for us, at least in terms of shortage of audiology. There are few exceptions, of course, which are also related to very contingent issues, like, for example, in Australia. Clearly today, the borders are closed, and there is an issue related to wage inflation, but it's not related just to audiologists. It's a much broader issue related to the situation now in Australia.
Overall, I don't see it as an issue for Amplifon, for our company. You are absolutely right. Through digital technologies also, we aim to improve the productivity of our workforce, dedicating the work of the audiologists to the high added value activities, and taking out from their duties those activities that have much lower value. With regards to the timeline related to OTC, I would ask Alessandro to answer the question. Alessandro?
Yes, you are exactly right. H2 2022 is the timing in which we expect the regulatory process will be over and the market could start.
Thank you, Alessandro. With regards to the third part of the question and lead generation, Giuseppe?
Sure. You were asking some more colors on the 13 million visits. This is organic and direct traffic, obviously, which makes it more comparable and steady. We're very proud of that number. It's the result of a strong work on search engine optimization. We are increasing our digital leads, always looking obviously at the ROI. As you know, digital leads are converted through call center or online bookings. We see obviously an increase of that and people then with strong intention, in case they drive to the stores to have a consultancy. We added also an unbranded lead generation, EarPros, to further expand our capabilities to attract different type of traffic.
Thank you.
Okay.
The next question is from Ghilotti, Domenico with Equita Group. Go ahead.
I have two very quick follow-up. The first is on your top-line guidance. Looking at your CapEx for M&A embedded in the guidance, I presume that, say, the contribution from piecemeal acquisition should be still in the range of 2%-3%. I wanted to check this number. The remaining part is coming from the organic contribution. The second, well, is a comment on the current trading. You are referring to Australia for a different reason, but we have seen clearly lockdowns here and there. We see the Delta variant, and so I wanted to have your comment on what's going on in the second half of this year.
Yeah. Thank you. Thank you, Domenico, again for your question. With regards to the guidance, the assumption related to the bolt-on acquisitions and therefore the contribution from M&A, excluding, of course, the big M&A that are not included in the plan, the assumption is about 2% of our growth will come in the next years coming from an M&A, from small bolt-on acquisitions. In consideration of the fact that compared to the past, the base is much larger. We will continue at more or less the same pace that we were used to in the past.
With regards to the second part of the question, and therefore the current trading, yes, we have some lockdowns here and there, as you said, both in Australia and in New Zealand. Nothing so far, really to be concerned. We will manage that. Of course, we believe that they are not going to affect materially our performance for the remaining part of the year. Nothing to be overly concerned as of today.
Thanks.
The next question is from Ouaddour, Julien with BNP. Please go ahead.
Thank you very much. My first question is on profitability. Is it possible maybe to give us some kind of breakdown for the EBITDA margin improvement? From 2021 to 2023, it's 70 basis points. It seems that you have, I would say multiple leverages to increase it with GAES, with economy of scale, with Australia, U.S., the APE rollout, et cetera. Just to have some breakdown, sorry about it. If it's fair to think that, I would say without heavy investment into the business, you could have probably achieved a sort of higher profitability. That's my first question. My second is about China. You mentioned, I would say, in the past that you expect China probably to reach something around 10% of group sales in the mid to long term. Is it still a valid sub-guidance for the country? Thank you very much.
Thank you. Thank you so much for the very interesting questions. For the second part of your question about China, yes, absolutely. I confirm that our medium-term goal for China is to make China represent about our fair share, I would say, of the market. Something in the region of 10%-11%. Definitely this is the plan. We are very determined to achieve this target in the medium term. I think that we are also really structuring our presence in the Chinese market in order to achieve this very interesting and very important goal for us. With regards to the first part. Sorry?
Yeah. No, just, if I may, maybe I misunderstood, is it 10% of your group sales or 10% of market share for China?
Yeah. Well, at the end of the day, they are more or less the same. We want to achieve 10% of the share of the market, and therefore, which translates more or less in 10% of our revenue. The target is definitely that one. With regards to the first part of the question, before leaving to Gabriele, I want definitely to underline what you said about the fact that this is also a plan of important investments. As I stated in my presentation, we believe that now is the right moment, really, to invest in order to take advantage of the current environment, in order to strengthen our leadership position in the market and to even enlarge, let's say, our competitive advantage versus our competition.
For sure, we are investing a lot in order to guarantee to all of us the sustainability of the performance in the medium long term. Without those kind of investments, like those ones that you have seen in terms of innovation, in terms of marketing, in order to strengthen even further our brands, et cetera. Definitely the profitability would have been much higher than that. In order to give some more colors about our target on EBITDA, I would leave to Gabriele.
Yeah. Thank you, Julien, for the question. First of all, I would like to make a point about the profitability improvement from 2021 to 2023. We are saying at least 70 basis point in two years. What should be noted is that this profitability is post-IFRS 16. Since measuring with this accounting principle, you don't have the scale on the rents reflected in the EBITDA margin improvement. If you make the same measurement pre-IFRS 16, these say at least 70 basis point in the two year would have been at least 30 to 40 basis point more. IFRS 16, as I was commenting, is dilutive. We are pretty happy about this improvement. Enrico was commenting about the investment.
Of course, when you look at the single contribution of the three main factors, each one of them is contributing much more than the at least 70 basis points in total. The three big items are basically the implementation of the measure identified and started to implement during the COVID. Basically productivity, meaning productivity on labor cost, productivity on all the main processes.
Scale, of course, is the second contributor. Of course, we have a lot of operating leverage. Our sales are growing at a fast pace, so the contribution is significant. Finally, the integration of GAES and Bay Audio, because for GAES, we did a lot. There is still the last part of the job to be done, and Bay Audio, we are just at the beginning. Difficult to say whether it is one third, one third, one third, but that's a fair assumption. Delivering much more and then reinvesting in the business.
Thank you very much.
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Hi, it's me again. I have just one follow-up maybe regarding the pent-up demand. You have some competitors that they are saying that basically pent-up demand will continue and gradually maybe in 2022, in 2023, and we should probably see, I would say higher market growth rates this year. You seem to assume that the market will be back, I would say, to normal growth rate from next year, from 2022. Is it maybe because you have a different, I would say, kind of underlying market because this comment came from, I would say, a manufacturer with exposure to public market and maybe more to emerging countries. Is it because of your geographical mix?
I cannot comment on the assumption of other competitors or other manufacturers. What I can tell you is that our assumption with regards to the market growth is the following. We estimate the market to go back to the historical, let's say, growth rate, which is in the region of 4% starting from next year. On top of that, we also estimate a certain contribution coming from pent-up demand that we estimate in the region of 1.5%. In our estimation with regards to market growth for 2022 and 2023 is something in between 5%-6%. 5.5%.
Very clear. Thank you. Thank you very much.
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Thank you.