Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Alstom conference call. I now hand over to Henri Poupart-Lafarge. Sir, please go ahead.
Hello. Good morning, everybody. Welcome to our web management conference call on the Alstom results for 2019, 2020. Good morning, everybody. I will go through the overview, and then Laurent classically will detail the financial results. As you can see, we have slightly changed the format, the colors of the branding of our slides in order to adapt our branding to our new plan, Alstom in Motion, and I hope that you will appreciate it. In terms of highlights of this first half, a few points. The first one is that we have a positive commercial momentum. I would say both reflected in our order intake at EUR 4.6 billion, but also reflected in the global market situation. I will come back to that, but we have a very good development, particularly in Europe. Past orders have translated into a sales growth of 3% or 2% on an organic basis.
Of course, as you know, and we said it in the past, this is actually more important growth, particularly in Europe and in Rolling Stock activities or in Signaling activities, which is more than compensating a decrease in our Systems activity or in the Middle East, which is the main region for our Systems activities. As you know, we are now ramping down both Dubai and Riyadh, but I will come back to that. Our EBIT margin is continuing to grow. After a number of years of growth, we continue on this improvement pattern, and we have reached 7.7%. This is the first, I would say, half year after the announcement of our Alstom in Motion strategy, and we are in line with the strategy. By the way, the strategy is being cascaded down in all the organization.
It was both a bottom-up exercise, but also a top-down exercise, and we are now going to the details of this strategy. As far as the cash is concerned, also no surprise here. The cash flow is impacted by the ramping up of the production, particularly in Rolling Stock. We knew it would happen, and this has happened. Laurent will go more into the details, but I would say that this is in line with previous statements. I will not go in the numbers as again, Laurent will detail them later on. In a nutshell, there is no surprise in these numbers. We are totally in line with our expectations, and there is no, I would say, news, no negative news in these numbers. Some positive news on the commercial front, but nothing, I would say, particular.
Just a first point on the business and in our action plan and new strategy. Just because, again, this is the first time, so I just recall everybody the three pillars of our new strategic plan. One, which is the growth, but by offering what we call greater value to our customers, i.e., to expand our portfolio of solutions and offering to our existing customers, whereas 2020 was more about geographical expansion. You will see actually that because of the weak markets in Middle East or in Latin America, actually, a large portion of our orders during the first half have come from Europe. Innovation, but innovation targeting mostly smarter and greener solutions, and you will see also some positive evolutions.
I think that every day the environmental importance is being confirmed, and I think this was the right decision to take to fully dedicate our research and development, fully dedicate our innovation to green solutions and smart solutions. Last but not least, of course, efficiency. Efficiency in the execution of our record backlog, which is even greater today with the book-to-bill above one. We have again increased our backlog during this first half, and we need to execute our projects efficiently by deploying digital tools, not for the sake of deploying digital tools, but for the sake of improving ways of working between our different sites across the world. A few elements on the market. Nothing has really changed as compared to our previous communications. By geography, again, in LatAm, in Latin America, the market is still weak.
As you know, the macro situation in Latin America is not satisfactory. We have a number of uncertainties. Middle East still weak as well. On the contrary, Asia is buoyant. Asia Pacific is buoyant. Europe, very strong pipeline. On the slide, a few examples of this good momentum. One we see is the rail passenger transport in Europe, which has grown close to 6% as compared to last year, which is a very large number. Usually, we have growth of around 3%-4% in urban network, more 1%-2% on mainline. Here, we are at 6% on mainline. This is due to the renewed interest for rail transportation from a number of European citizens. This has translated into some new orders of very high-speed trains in SNCF.
These are additional orders which were not planned, which were not forecasted, and which are entirely triggered by this increase of ridership during the summer. Similarly, other example, we have the progressive replacement of some airline operations, for example, between Brussels and Amsterdam, by train operations. As you know, there are some attempts in some national assemblies or in some regulations to prohibit any air traffic between cities which would be closer than 500 kilometers from each other. Similarly, very high speed in Lyria, similarly in Deutsche Bahn, you have probably heard in Germany, the very large investment, which is planned in order to face the transition, the environmental transition, the mobility transition, the Deutsche Bahn has received an extra EUR 20 billion to modernize, upgrade its own lines. Europe, again, a very strong pipeline, a lot of orders.
North America, still positive, both in mainline, in freight and both in, I would say, in Canada and in the U.S. Very, I would say, overall good market perspectives. As far as we are concerned, again, few orders, EUR 4.6 billion, of course, lower than last year. Last year, we recorded this exceptional order for the very high speed for France. There are not such large orders, so it's a number of smaller orders, if I may say, mid-size orders. A lot of Rolling Stock orders to EUR 2.4 billion, and a lot of orders in Europe, because Europe is representing 85% of the total order intake this year. You see on the slide a few examples.
It's also quite interesting to see that, remarkable to see that Services is continuing to grow with EUR 1.4 billion order, in line with last year. Book-to-bill, which is much larger than one. Overall, as I said, a record backlog of EUR 41.3 billion. Sales, here as well, no surprise. I think we said it in the previous period. We have a growth in Rolling Stock as some of our programs are ramping up, in particular regional trains, whether it's in France, in Germany, in Italy. We are also ramping up our very large and iconic, if I may say, orders across the globe, and mainly Amtrak in the U.S. or PRASA in South Africa. Signaling, very nice activity in Signaling. 12% organic growth. Book-to-bill also of one on the back of this growth. That's good, which is in line with our renewed focus on Signaling.
Service, we have a decrease of our service activity. As you may recall, last year, there was a very large increase of more than a double-digit increase, which was due to some renovation project in the U.S. or some midlife activities in the U.K. Here, there was not this exceptional item. In the main, we are continuing to grow our service activities. Systems, as expected, Lusail, Riyadh, Dubai, have started to ramp down. This +2% is actually hiding, if I may say, a number of shifts, both geographical shifts as well as activity shifts. A few highlights on our green mobility, hydrogen train. We have the second Coradia iLint hydrogen train contract.
As you have probably seen in the press, we are talking about 15 hydrogen trains, which are not yet booked in our order book, but which are being discussed with the French regions. As you know, I recall you that now very large fleet still running on diesel in Europe, and all operators have pledged to remove all this fleet either by 2030, 2035, or 2040 maximum. Our electrical bus is gaining momentum. We have now a number of buses which have been sold. More importantly, we are going to deliver the first bus, and the operations of the first buses will be launched in Strasbourg at the end of the year. We have also been very successful in the launch of our new recharge system.
You know we have a stationary recharge system in Nice for our tramways. We have launched an experimentation in Malaga for buses, for actually non-Alstom buses, which show that we can use these kind of systems for any kind of buses. Very important order for us, which is in line with our willingness to digitalize railway, which is the ERTMS for Paris Lyon. You may know or not know. We were not very much present on the very high-speed Signaling in France. This is for us, extremely important to penetrate this market and to show what kind of, I would say, improvement we can do through this Signaling. From 13 trains per hour, we can move to 16 trains per hour.
It's more than 20, 25% capacity, which, of course, is extremely important and much more efficient to do it through the signaling system rather than to build a new line. If you can imagine the cost of a new line versus the cost of a signaling system, you can see that this kind of digitalization is of utmost importance for railway today. We have launched now the Alstom in Motion. We are continuing our digital transformation. We are continuing to develop our own ERPs throughout the group. We are deploying what we call smart operations, which you could call Industry 4.0, which is a number of digital tools, so that all our factories worldwide are operated the same way, with the same efficiency and the same quality. As said, we are now stabilizing our footprint.
We are stabilizing our engineering model, our manufacturing model throughout the world. You will see that the CapEx are ramping down as we have no new factories being erected as we speak. We are also improving our project execution. We have a few targets, as you can see, both in development lead time, in processes, in sourcing and operations in the best countries. Again, focusing internally on our own efficiency, rather than expanding globally. Last but not least, I think we can be extremely proud of having a number of recognitions on the ESG front. We are again, I would say, certified ISO 37001, which is the anti-bribery certification, which is good. We have been again included in the Dow Jones Sustainability Index, and we are the top 4% of the assets company, which is extremely good. We have also been certified ISO 26000.
Alstom, I would say by nature, is part of the mobility transition, and I think we make all efforts to be at the leading edge of the sustainability and the development of the world. Now I will hand over to Laurent, who will detail to you the financial results.
Thank you, Henri. Good morning, everyone. Let's start with our income statement for half year. On the adjusted EBIT, we stepped up by 5%, up to EUR 319 million, driven by volume and execution. As you see on the restructuring charges, we have a limited amount of EUR 7 million, mainly in Europe. Other items of EUR 31 million includes mainly our PPA amortization for EUR 8 million and the mechanical reversal of CASCO result, which is now included in our adjusted EBIT, and this for an amount of EUR 19 million. On this basis, you see that our EBIT is stepping up by 28% to EUR 281 million. Bearing in mind that we had as well some cement Alstom cost last year for EUR 36 million. If we look below our EBIT line, financial result decreased to EUR 40 million compared to EUR 46 last year as a result of our bonds repayment.
We recorded an income tax charge of €61 million, corresponding to an effective tax rate of 25%. It was 7% last year, this is obviously in the range of the 25%-30% ETR target moving forward. In terms of the share in net income of equity investees, we had €36 million related mainly to TMH and CASCO. Last year, I will come back, there was a couple of exceptional, which I will detail on next slide. On this basis, our net income from continuing operation amounts to €213 million. In terms of group share, €227 million, including a provision restatement of €14 million related to the GE transaction. Summarizing graphically the work from H1 2018-2019, we had first an impact of the GE Energy JV for €100 million, which of course is not materialized in H1 2019-2020.
Our EBIT increased by €62 million, driven by our operational performance and the very limited one-off charge we had in 2019-2020. Tax has been normalized, as I said, at 25% of ETR, and our share of net income from JVs is now, I would say, clean of the GE transaction, and as well was including in 2018-2019, some exceptional performance related to TMH for €33 million. Leading to our net income of €213 million for this half year. In terms of adjusted EBIT, we reach 7.7%, so an uplift in line with our Alstom in Motion trajectories. The drivers were steered by, obviously, the revenue growth, but as well our enhanced operational performance on our contract. In terms of R&D, we are investing and developing our activities. We have uplifted our R&Ds by €21 million, 3.2% of sales.
This in line with our Alstom in Motion strategies, focused on Signaling and our new very high speed family development. On the backlog, our backlog profitability is continuing to improve as a result of our increased competitiveness and execution and our positive order intake momentum. Moving to the cash, as Henri said, no surprise on that. Our free cash flow has been negative at EUR -19, anticipated and impacted by our anticipated inventories increase from the ramp-up we explained on the Rolling Stock, Amtrak, Ilocos, PRASA, and our regional trains, Coradia Stream and Coradia Continental. As per the perspective we have outlined our Capital Markets Day, this ramp-up of Rolling Stock project will continue obviously along the years, and will impact our cash flow generation at full year.
We've seen as well that we had some positive CapEx phasing for H1, with an amount of EUR 60 million in terms of industrial CapEx. We are expecting to reach our order of magnitude that we have announced in the Capital Markets Day, i.e., 2.5% of industrial CapEx over sales for the full year. Finally, financial cash out has been, I would say, conditional to the coupon payment and the cost of Forex and hedging, and we had some positive contribution from dividend inflows from TMH and CASCO. As part of Alstom in Motion strategy, as outlined as well in our CMDs, we have launched our holistic cash focus program as part of our efficiencies pillar, aiming, as you know, stabilizing our working capital on the midterm and reaching our free cash flow to net income objective.
We have been progressing and implementing a number of initiatives on some of our key drivers. In terms of working capital target at tender phase, which I need to approve personally in case of deviation. In terms of operations, we are implementing vendor management inventories, and electronic invoicing, which are spread out in the group. We are launching pilots in terms of testing reduction, which will be as well expanded in the group overall. Finally, we have implemented management incentives aligned to this free cash flow target to 10,000 people in our company, supported by, of course, a strong training and communication. Altogether, cash focus is a top priority, not only now in our management team, but progressively down to the shop floor on each and every of our sites.
Moving to the gross debt and liquidities, our outstanding bonds amounts to EUR 596 million as of end of September 2019, after a repayment of EUR 300 million in July 2019. As you know, on the October 8th, we issued unsecured eurobonds for a total of EUR 700 million for seven years with, I have to say, a record fixed coupon of 0.25%, which is a record low in terms of our rating and our sectors. The rationale of this is to ensure the refinancing of our existing bond and ensure as well our long-term flexibilities. It helps us as well to reestablish us on the bond market after six years of absence. This evidence, the attractiveness of Alstom, definitively on the debt capital market with this success.
In terms of gross cash, we have a gross cash in hand of EUR 1.8 billion, after notably the distribution of our dividend in July. Finally, we have, as always, an undrawn revolving credit facility of EUR 400 million. In terms of evolution of the net cash, the key drivers is obviously the dividends payment in July. On this basis, and some adaptation of negative cash acquisition disposal related to SpeedInnov and Forex, we are enjoying a net cash position of EUR 991 million as of end of September 2019. In terms of IFRS 16, please note that this net cash does not include leasing obligation. IFRS 16 debt for EUR 410 million, which is included in our financial debt. I will now turn back to Henri for the conclusion.
Thank you, Laurent. As a general conclusion, this first half has been totally in line with our plans, both commercially and operationally, and therefore, with no surprise, we confirm the outlook which has been given to you during the presentation of Alstom in Motion for 2022, 2023. All what is happening was planned at the time, both in terms of sales ramp-up, in terms of profit generation, and in terms of net income. I think with that, we will conclude this presentation by reminding you a few, the Alstom in Motion on track, the good market perspective, and of course, our focus on the backlog. I'm ready now to answer to your questions. I think there are a number of people lining up for questions. Please, I don't know if the operators can give the floor to the ones asking questions.
Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, please signal by pressing star one on your telephone keypad. If you are using a speakerphone, please make sure mute function is turned off to allow your signal to reach our equipment. Once again, please press star one to ask a question. We will now take our first question from Gael de-Bray from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Yes. Good morning, everybody. Thanks for my question. Can I have actually two questions? The first one, and then a follow-up. Starting with the market trends, which obviously so far have been extremely strong and probably pretty strong for a number of years now, in particular in Europe. I think the market has probably grown at a higher pace than the usual 2.5%-3% CAGR that the various experts like the UNIFE have usually communicated about. Given the positive and dynamic signals that you've talked about in Europe, do you think that the rail equipment market has fundamentally become a greater than GDP growth industry? That's question number 1. Maybe quickly the second one on the cashflow side. How should we understand, how should we interpret the EUR 300 million swing in contract assets within the working cap?
Would you expect a positive reversal of this line once revenues re-accelerate perhaps in a few quarters?
Thank you, Gael, for your questions. I don't know if the second one is actually a follow-up of the first one, but we'll say that there are two questions. On the first one, you're right, that in Europe in particular, we are at a moment where the mobility transition is attracting a lot of investment and a number of countries are investing to tackle this mobility transition. In that sense, you're right by saying that this growth is probably higher than the GDP. As a side comment, as I said, there are other regions such as Middle East, Latin America, which are not doing so good. Overall, I don't know if the 2.5%-3% global market growth will have to be revised significantly upward.
Clearly in Europe, at that moment, and we don't know how long it will take for this market to completely mature, but we see a growth which is higher than the GDP, clearly. As you can see, by the way, on the ridership. If the ridership is 5%, 6%, ultimately this will drive a strong growth of our market. On the cash flow items, Laurent?
Yep. Gael, thanks for your question. As I said, we maintain our free cash flow perspective in the CMDs. This is, if I look at the working capital for H1, the numbers you are mentioning and the working capital evolution is fully, I would say, the ballistic evolution of the ramp-up of our main Rolling Stock projects, Amtrak, Iloco, PRASA, and the regional train I was mentioning. If we look ahead in the second half, as I said, this ramp-up on Rolling Stock will continue to happen and, of course, will, I would say, impact our working capital. Of course, there will be as well, and this is our midterm target, a stabilization of this in the midterm as we outlined. All in all, we are exactly in line with our capital market day perspectives.
Just remind, taking this opportunity, that there is always into our working cap, the usual short-term fluctuation related to the progress payment, not to the, I would say, inventory or the cost side of the equation, but more the progress payments.
Thank you, Laurent. Second question? No second.
We will now take our next question from Alexander Virgo from Bank of America.
Thanks very much, gentlemen. Good morning. I just wanted to get a little bit more into this cash flow question, and it's probably a little bit more around the cash focus program. Just trying to understand how you've changed the incentive program. Obviously, you've extended it down to 10,000 employees. That's encouraging. I just wanted to understand how you're linking them. Are they linked to the overall targets at the group level, or are they more business-specific targets? How much of that compensation, or how much does that play into the compensation at the end of the year? That would be really helpful because I guess I'm just trying to understand how we see the cadence of the cash flow conversion improve towards the 80% by FY 2023. Thank you.
Yep. Thank you, Alex, for this question. Indeed, aligning the management to the cash target is a critical part of the equation of our cash focus program. To give you more colors around this, we have 10,000 people which are incentivized on the group free cash flow performance for this year, for 2019-2020. This target is supplemented by some operational target, which are specific to project, site, or functions like sourcing. There is, I would say, the number part, which is one free cash flow generation as one Alstom team for everyone, and then more operational targets, which are linked to the individual objectives of our 10,000 people. In terms of weight on this, we are talking about a significant part of our, I would say, short-term incentive plan related to the cash.
We are talking about 40% of the financial targets, which are linked to this. On the mid-terms, the free cash flow to net income, this is something which is addressed by our long-term incentive targets, which are to around 1,000 people in the companies, and this is in line with our Alstom in Motion, of course, overall objectives. With this, you know that we are tying up the targets in a very consistent manner.
Thank you. Next question.
Our next question comes from Alasdair Leslie from Société Générale. Please go ahead, Mr. Leslie. Your line is now open. Please ensure that you are not on mute. It appears the participant has stepped away. We'll now take our next question from Akash Gupta from J.P. Morgan.
Hi, good morning, everybody. I have one question and one clarification of earlier answer. The question I have is about your project pipeline. If you can tell us about some of the large projects that we should be watching out in the second half of the year. Maybe also if you can talk about how is the competitive environment out there. Do you see any player which is being more aggressive than the other? Maybe if you can comment on that. I have a clarification regarding working capital comments. Are you saying that we should expect this ramp-up in working capital to continue in second half? In a sense that we should expect full year working capital build to be above what you have reported in first half? Thank you.
Thank you, Akash. There are a number of tenders around the world, whether we are in Europe or whether we talk in the world, which are currently being assessed. We can talk about the metro in Paris, for example, which is one of the largest tender being discussed as we speak for the renewal of the quasi entire fleet of the metro in Paris, at least all the steel fleet. That's one of the largest one. We have tenders in Australia, which is going on. We have in the U.S., we have the Washington Metro, which is also well-known. We have the Denmark regional trains, not for this year, but for the year after, which is also well-known. There are a few large tenders which are being currently. There's no very large turnkey projects.
As I said, the turnkey activity is relatively low today, and none of these very large projects, whether in Dubai or in Saudi Arabia or in this kind of regions, are resumed. In terms of competitive behavior, I think it's always difficult to pinpoint on one competitor versus another. It's clear that there is a continuous pressure from competition. You've seen probably in their results announcement, some wins from Stadler, from CAF, from Siemens. The market is quite good, a number of competitors are showing good results. As far as CRRC is concerned, we see them winning contracts here and there in the world. There's not been a huge change in their penetration recently. There are still some difficulties to penetrate in the U.S. and in Europe. They are more present in other parts of the world.
Yes, we see a continuous activity from competition, and I would say both the mid-size, if I can call them mid-size, even though they are quite large, and global players.
On this working cap issue, Laurent?
Yep. Akash, thanks for your question. As I said, the Rolling Stock ramp-up will continue in H2. This ramp-up will continue to impact our working cap in the second half along our perspectives, and will continue to impact our free cash flow generation.
Thank you.
Our next question comes from Daniela Costa from Goldman Sachs.
Thank you. Good morning. First, I have two clarifications and then one question. Just on the two or three prior questions. Just wanted to double-check on your free cash flow, on the point on working capital and advances earlier. Have all the advances for these 4.6 billion of orders been booked or are there some of the large orders in there for which we should expect advances to fall into the second half? One clarification regarding your large tender comments. I thought you had been shortlisted for a large contract in Perth, in Australia, but I might have missed it, but I didn't hear you talking about that large order. Can you comment whether that has been canceled or moved? My question was regarding the Fourth Railway Package, which is being introduced next in January. How will that impact Alstom?
How do you view that in terms of tendering activity, mix of orders, et cetera? Thank you.
Okay, Laurent, on the work?
Yep.
On the working capital, Daniela, thanks for your question. Indeed, we had some advanced payment for sure in H1. Bear in mind that as always, the services contracts usually does not bear any down payment. We had, I would say, the nominal down payment on the order for H1, without the services contract. On H2, as Henri explained, we are expecting to have as well a positive commercial momentum. We are not expecting, I would say, a spectacular down payment. I would say the trends will be very consistent with our first half on these subjects.
Thank you, Laurent. On your two questions. Yes, I was mentioning in our large orders coming from Australia. I had in mind, in particular, but not only this Perth order, for which, as you probably have seen, we have been shortlisted or we have not made any announcements, it has been said in the press that we are shortlisted. Yes, we are discussing on finalizing this order. It's still there. It has not shifted. We were not expecting it to be finalized before the end of H1, but we can expect it to be finalized before the end of H2. On the Fourth Railway Package, we start to see some consequences of the Fourth Railway Package. I was very much pushing for this Fourth Railway Package. I think it's a very good package. You know, there are two elements of this package.
One is a technical element, which is to try and instigate a global European homologation rather than a national homologation. We see some impact of that. We go through now the European Railway Agency to homologate our trains, so it's starting, and that, of course, simplify the processes instead of going through all the national securities agencies. The second element is the liberalization of the railways, and which is accelerating. One element of that, not entirely linked to the Fourth Railway Package because this was already launched, but still accelerating, is the deregulation of the Spanish market. Probably have seen that some operators have submitted some offers in Spain for getting access to some slots on the various speed lines in Spain. We are also talking in France about the deregulation of the market. Usually, when you have a deregulated market, you have more activities.
The ridership, as you can see the example in Italy or in the U.K., the ridership is increasing faster. It's also a good opportunity for us to do some maintenance activities, which are usually performed in-house by traditional operators, but which are usually outsourced by newcomers. It's early days, but it's moving in the right direction.
Thank you.
We will now take our next question from Jonathan Mounsey from BNP Paribas.
Hi. Yes, good morning. Thanks for taking my question. The inventory build in H1, if we look at this the other way around, obviously, you build inventory so that you can start ramping PRASA, Amtrak, the regional trains. The way IFRS 15 should work, I would imagine that as soon as you start building those trains, you'll start booking revenue. When does that start to happen? Is that an H220 event? Should we see a re-acceleration of organic sales growth, or do we have to wait till FY 2021? Roughly, I know that over the long term, you're guiding to 5% organic sales growth, but given that you've started the period over which you're targeting that slightly slowly, can we start to see us moving above 5 into 2021 or even as early as the second half of this year?
Yeah, Jonathan, thanks for your question. As you are absolutely right, IFRS 15 makes that our Services sales is linked to our cost. If we look at the Rolling Stock evolution for this half, we are already at +9%. You see that the inventories build-up is producing quite a massive ramp-up from an industrial standpoint, 9% is quite positive. On this basis, for sure, we see this sales increase in the second half in terms of Rolling Stock continuing to increase. You will see an acceleration on the Rolling Stock in the second half and of course, in 2021. Now, to your point, in terms of the average sales, this is the dynamics.
The dynamic on Signaling is as well, very positive, but as Henri explained, there is as well, another dynamic on the Systems evolution, which is rather a slowdown due to the completion of our projects. That will be the dynamic that we will see, of course, in the second half of this year.
Okay. Thank you.
We will take our next question now from James Moore, from Redburn.
Yeah. Morning, everyone. Henri, Laurent. Can I clarify one thing first? I've got three questions. Just to clarify on the working capital ramp-up effect. You said it will continue to hit the second half, will it be another year-on-year headwind next year in fiscal 2021? Maybe if we go one at a time.
On the working cap, yes, as I said, there will be still an impact in the H2. I remind everyone that we are still talking in our perspective, which has not changed since the Capital Markets Day of free cash flow generation. This is still the perspective we are having. As I explained as well, on the 24th of June, we'll see a negative evolution, or headwind in terms of working cap in total, due to the Rolling Stock in 2019, 2020 and in 2021. Nothing has changed, James, on these subjects.
Thank you.
We'll now take our next question from Ji Cheong from Citi.
Yeah. Hi, Ji from Citi. Good. Thanks for taking my question. Just one on the ramp downs, seeing both of the Services and Systems from the U.S. and the Middle East. Can you just elaborate on what this is and if the impact is confined to H1? Thank you.
Thank you for your question. The rundown is continuing in H2. Dubai, for example, as you know, it's Expo 2020. The revenue service of this metro has to happen more or less mid-2020. We have still some activities which will continue to go down. Same thing for Riyadh. It's a similar timeframe as well as for Lusail. We have still some activities. We had high activities last year because we were in a full delivery mode. Lower activity during the first half and even lower during the second half. Next year, these projects will be virtually completed.
Thank you.
Our next question comes from Alfred Glaser from ODDO BHF.
Yes. Good morning. I was just wondering about Signaling. You're doing much better in terms of revenue in the first half. That was one of your targets at the Capital Markets Day to improve dynamics here. Should we expect Signaling to continue as strongly in terms of growth in the second half and next year? Or was this kind of special acceleration in the first half?
Thank you, Alfred. I think that the momentum of Signaling is there, and we have a good order intake, and we have good perspectives for the order intake for the full year. Having said that, I will not confirm that this more than double digits will continue next year. We expect it for the full year. For next year, it's a little bit too early to say because it depends on some of the order intake. It's a much shorter cycle. In the main, the high momentum will remain at least for the full year.
Thank you.
Our next question comes from Katy Self from Morgan Stanley.
Hi, good morning. I just had a question on the order intake and the level of unannounced orders. It was incredibly high this quarter. I think it was about double the normal sort of run rate of unannounced. Could you just comment on what's going on there? Was that a couple of large orders that perhaps the customer had asked not to be pre-announced, or was that a really high level of mid-range orders?
Thank you, Katy, for your question. I think it's mostly due to the mid-size orders. As you have seen during the first half, there are very few very large orders, but a very large number of mid-size ones. I think this is probably related to this announcement. We have also a few maintenance contracts, which have not been announced, some renewal of maintenance contracts which have not been announced. You have seen that on the Services side, a number of contracts, some of them were a renewal of maintenance contracts for which there was been no announcement by the customer. Okay. Thank you. Are there other questions?
There are no further questions at this time.
Okay. Thank you everybody for your time. Thank you for your attention, and be pleased to meet some of you during the few days. Again, I think this first half was in line with our expectation, and we will strive to continue to deliver our plan in the coming quarters. Thanks a lot. Bye-bye.
This concludes today's call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.