Welcome to the Aramis Group Q1 2026 Revenues conference call. For the first part of the conference call, the participants will be in listen-only mode. During the questions and answer session, participants are able to ask questions by dialing pound key five on their telephone keypad. I will now hand over to the speakers to begin today's call.
Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today for the presentation of Aramis Group revenues for the first quarter of 2026. I'm Jules Nabeau, Aramis Group Head of Investor Relations. Today with me to comment on these results, Guillaume Paoli, Co-founder and Co-CEO of the company, and Fabien Gloaguen, Group CFO. Before handing over to Guillaume, just a few reminders. This conference is recorded, accessible both over the phone and internet. A replay will be made available on the company website. Slideshow is available on the web, on the website for download. Let me also remind you that today's presentation contains forward-looking statements, and that future results may differ materially from the statements or projection made on today's call.
In particular, the risk factors that could affect those statements are described in our 2025 Universal Registration Document filed with the French Financial Market Authority, AMF. This presentation will be followed by the usual Q&A session. Finally, I remind you that Aramis Group has a non-calendar fiscal year, which with annual results closing at the end of September. As a consequence, the Q1 FY 2026 revenues we are going to report today refer to calendar period from October- December 2025. Having said that, let me now—let's now move on the main business and market highlights for the period. Guillaume, please go ahead.
Thank you, Jules. Good morning, everyone. Happy 2026, and thank you for joining us. So we are on a journey to bring affordable, safe, sustainable mobility to all Europeans. A huge market and very fragmented. As you know, we are very ambitious, and we believe we have a superior model to ensure profitable growth. Right now, as we speak, there is some market turbulence and some fundamentals that need to be fixed here and there, and we'll get into that. So let me start with three key messages for this first quarter of fiscal year 2026. First, our volume and revenues are in line with expectations we communicated and consistent with the trajectory we outlined for the full fiscal year. So our revenues were down 4.8% at EUR 550 million.
B2C volumes were down 5.6%, broadly in line with a market that declined by 6%, but with very different dynamics across countries. Second, the transitions underway in the U.K. and Austria are having an impact on volumes as anticipated. These transitions are deliberate and necessary to restore locally strong fundamentals and sustainable profitability. Third, France once again clearly outperformed its market by around 12 points, confirming the strength of our business model. Overall, this first quarter illustrates well what 2026 is about for us: transition, execution, discipline, and building solid foundations. We are implementing our strategic roadmap, converging on our operating model across the group, leveraging the power of the group to create more value for our customers, and we continue to raise the bar by improving our operating system, in particular through data, technology, to enhance customer experience and team productivity.
We confirm our 2026 objective with at least 115,000 B2C vehicles sold and at least EUR 55 million of adjusted EBITDA. As I said when I started this call, we remain very confident in our long-term growth, supported by a massive market and strong structural demand throughout Europe for affordable mobility. A few words now on the market, on slide number four. Across our six geographies, the used car market for vehicles under eight years old, as you know, we don't look at the total used car market, we look at the market for vehicles under eight years old, has declined by around 6%. In a constrained environment, and despite the transitions on the way in certain countries, we preserved our overall market share, as you can see on the right-hand side.
Moving on to slide number 5, this brings me to the fundamentals of our model. Our growth is driven by a unique, integrated operating model built on three core strengths. First, full vertical integration from sourcing and refurbishment to sales. Second, a clear and disciplined operating system optimized through technology, data, and sharing of practices across our platform. Third, a strong performance engine at company, team, and individual level, supported by a learning culture with customer satisfaction at its core. This combination allows us to deliver superior value to customers while maintaining cost discipline and improving margins over time. Our record Net Promoter Score of 75 is the best illustration of this alignment between engaged team and outstanding customer experience. On the next slide... Well, I already have said a word on our strategy, so smart convergence and raise the bar.
Let me now illustrate these pillars with concrete examples from the quarter. On convergence, now moving to slide seven and starting with the U.K. Following the founder's departure in mid-2025, we deliberately refocused the business on strong fundamentals as we stopped non-profitable activities, we stopped buying large, slow-rotating batches, and we stopped chasing volumes for volume's sake.... We deployed group expertise to improve margins, better car selection, tighter refurbishment costs, more precise pricing and repricing, and a thorough review of marketing spend. The result is very clear: GPU increased and local EBITDA increased by 26% year-on-year, despite declining volumes. We are not done, though, and we have a lot of work ahead. Now, Austria, on slide eight, second country where we're having a significant transformation. Here, as we well see, progress, albeit we still have heavy lifting to do.
The business faced significant challenges in working capital management and supplier concentration. After the founder's departure in Q1 2025, we rebuilt the fundamentals with, among others, a new management team, a sourcing diversification. Concrete progress is already starting to be visible, with strong growth in C2B sourcing, reduced inventory aging, and better operational discipline. The effect will materialize progressively, but the foundations are now in place. Now, if we move on slide number nine, the second pillar of our strategy, Raise the Bar, is also progressing well. A good illustration is the launch of our Voice AI solution at the end of 2025 in France at first. This tool allows customers to interact with us outside of call center hours, book appointments directly, and engage seamlessly with our team.
In just a few months, we had meaningful results with hundreds of appointments, orders, and increased conversions for unknown customers attending AI-booked appointments, and this is just the beginning. Let me now hand it over to Fabien for more details on the numbers.
Thank you, Guillaume. Let's start with the revenues by segment, page 11. Overall, as Guillaume mentioned, Q1 2026 performance was in line with our expectations, with revenues decreasing by 5% year-on-year. Refurbished volumes went down by 9% in Q1, mainly impacted by the ongoing transition phases in the U.K. and in Austria, where, as explained by Guillaume, we are building strong fundamentals in order to set sound basis for profitable growth. Pre-registered volumes went up by 8%, once again, driven by our ability to seize the opportunities through our extensive network of suppliers in Europe, especially in France. B2B revenues declined by 10%, mainly driven by a decrease in volumes by 7%.
Services increased by 7% as we continue to enrich our services offering across our markets, in line with the strategy announced at the Capital Market Day, to bring ever more value to our customers. Let's now take a closer look at revenues by country, page 12, which went through diverse dynamics during the quarter. France continues to perform well, with revenues up 7% in a challenging market that was down by 7% in volumes. In France, we continue to extend our footprint with stores in several new cities, invest on our brand and our technologies to bring our competitive advantages even further. In Belgium, revenues declined by 6%. In addition to a challenging base effect, as we grew by more than 20% last year in Q1, we experienced temporary supply constraints on pre-registered vehicles, mainly at the beginning of the quarter.
The refurbished segment showed great momentum with double-digit growth. In Spain, volumes grew by 3% in a market down by 3%. We are accelerating the C2B development to boost our future growth. The specific conjunctural situations in the U.K. and in Austria, where volumes are down respectively by 20 and 35%, were described in details by Guillaume earlier. Italy is fully confirming that it is back on track with volumes up 35% year-on-year. The management reorganization and commercial adjustments from H2 2020, fiscal year 2025 are paying off. The country is fully aligned with group objectives. With that, I'll hand it over to Guillaume for the guidance.
Thank you, Fabien. Well, let me now address our outlook. Our performance is in line with our expectation in this year of transition, and this allows us to confirm our 2026 objective, with at least 115,000 B2C vehicles sold and at least EUR 55 million in adjusted EBITDA. So to wrap it up on the last slide, we have big ambitions, a huge and attractive playground, and unique assets to address it. Currently, despite the challenging market environment and the operational transition we are undertaking in certain countries, we are broadly in line with expectations, and we are maintaining our market share. We are executing our strategy with discipline. Our core country, France, continues to clearly demonstrate the strength of our model with significant market outperformance, and we confirmed our 2026 objective.
We are confident, focused, and fully committed to delivering long-term, profitable, and cash-generative growth. I thank you for your attention, and we are now ready to take your questions.
If you wish to ask a question, please dial pound key five on your telephone keypad. If you wish to withdraw your question, please dial pound key six.... The next question comes from Doyinsola Sanyaolu from Citi. Please go ahead.
Thanks for taking my question. Can you please talk us through where the U.K. transition is at the moment, and what gives you confidence that volumes will recover in the coming months or quarters? Just on that, will it return to growth, or will it kind of be an improvement on the negative trend? That's on volumes. Then on U.K. profitability, can the marketing expenses in the U.K. stay at this new low level? Then my second question is on the wider transition in the U.K. and Austria. How can we think about 1H Adjusted EBITDA? It sounds like the U.K., despite there being soft volumes, is still providing a tailwind, but Austria is a more complex situation, which looks like it's gonna continue to drag.
Should we expect a year-on-year softening in the absolute level of Adjusted EBITDA at 1H ? Thank you.
Okay. Sorry, we're just splitting the question. You want to start?
Yeah, sure. Maybe start with your, your second question regarding Adjusted EBITDA and Austria. So, a few things. First, it's a revenue update, Doyinsola, and of course, I will provide much more details during H1 financial result update. We said that we are confirming our guidance. So that's the main point I can bring to your question. Yes, it's true that we have a different situation in the U.K. and in Austria.
In Austria, we are really making some profound changes as regards to inventory management, as regards to the team, which we have explained, and of course, probably take more time in order to materialize in terms of financial results than it would be the case, for example, in the U.K. Regarding the U.K., we are asking us, I think, what gave us some confidence for the future month?
Well, first of all, what gives us confidence is that we consider that in the U.K., our strategy of getting rid of the low-margin sales really works, because as you see, our EBITDA in absolute terms is going on despite all the consequences in terms of sub-absorption, of fixed cost, and so on, that we could expect. So that, of course, gives us some confidence on the fact that we are doing the right thing. Our goal is not to do volumes, to do volumes. So now what we need to do and what we are focused on is how do we develop even further the good business in the U.K.? That's our main challenge for the coming months, and of course, we are at work to deliver that.
Maybe to add on the U.K. and answering more thoroughly your first question. Look, we had this deal with the founder of the UK subsidiary, who is a great guy, but we were not aligned perfectly on operational strategy and tactics. So we had to you know to change a number of ways of working. It takes some time. U.K., for us, it's a very big opportunity as it's the largest market. To complete what Fabien has said, we are working locally to rejuvenate the brand by implementing the group brand platform. We are working with the group IT to provide them with group tools that we have not been able to provide until now.
And we are also working with them to help them working on fundamentals on their purchasing strategy. So all of this will take some time, but as Fabien said, we are optimistic on the medium term.
That's great. Thank you.
As a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please dial pound key five on your telephone keypad.
Okay. So we have some written questions from Christophe Cherblanc. The first question is: You indicated the U.K. GPU improving. What are the GPU trends in the other geographies? Did you accept lower GPU to reduce the over 60 days car inventory mentioned in Austria? And there was a second question regarding France. What are the current trends going into Q2? Okay. Thank you, Christophe, for your questions. A few things. So on the GPU, thank you for your question. I will say, once again, the same thing, it's really a revenue update, and we will be able to provide much more details during the Q1, the H1 session.
We confirmed our guidance, but it's true, and you're right to mention it, that there are some different trends, countries by countries. And you mentioned, for example, that in Austria, we have been reducing our stock over 60 days, and of course, we know it's one of the things that is impacting the margins. We also mentioned during the guidance, back in November, that there would be some fixed cost absorption impact.
... also, on the margin, what matters for us is that all of that is expected, and, and that we, of course, anticipated that in the guidance we provided. Second, regarding France, what are the current trends regarding Q2? So in France, but I would say more in general, we are having a soft start of the year, which again, nothing unexpected from our side, but we are still globally at group level transitioning, and we know that the market environment in France is not particularly favorable for us.
The other question from Dominic on what should we expect on the agreement between Stellantis, SPOTiCAR and Cox Automotive?
Well, actually, nothing specific. It's a deal between Stellantis and Cox Automotive, mainly on so that Stellantis can use the Cox Automotive B2B platform throughout Europe. As you know, our business is a full B2C business, and we have our own solution to dispose of cars that are too old. So we're not expecting anything specific from this. As you know, we are fully autonomous from Stellantis. We have built through synergies, the most important one being sourcing cars, which more or less represent, I don't have the latest figures in mind, but it's around 10% of our supply is originated from Stellantis. I don't know if you have other questions, Jules?
No, I don't see any.
The next question comes from Shaqeal Kirunda from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Hi, guys, Shaqeal from Morgan Stanley. How are you thinking about the overall used car market environment? You know, what are the drivers of the decline in market? And, you know, while at the same time, the European new car market is finally seeing some growth. And then how do you think about the gap between your B2C volumes and the overall market? You know, usually you outperform, now you're in line. Are you seeing any pressure in the market from AUTO1's growth in the retail segment?
Okay, thank you for your question. So look, you know, this market was speaking of a quarter. In 2023, we grew by 13%. In 2024, we grew by 24%, 23%. In 2025, we grew by 6%, between 12 in France, and now it's true that we have declined by a little more than 5%. So there is no really conclusion to take from that. We are in a business that has some. We are growing in half of our geographies and decreasing in half of our geographies. So it's a kind of a mixed bag. Now, regarding the used car market, we believe that it's a very resilient market. There are some consumers invest a lot of money to buy a car, okay?
So when the environment, the geopolitical/macroeconomic environment is bad, such as it is in France, we have a government that is almost powerless. We have a... I'm not going to get into French politics, but it's quite appalling. You don't know how much to be taxed. Of course, people feel it's not the right moment to invest, okay? If you look at the broader market, which is all used cars, the market is fairly stable. It's very slightly decreasing, but it's fairly stable, which means that people have a problem of purchasing power, and people that were buying new cars, some of them are now buying refurbished recent cars. People that were buying used car are now buying very used cars to you know, to comply with their budget.
It's I would say it's, you know, like a wake... Not a wake-up call because we're fully awake, but a call for us to get into the cars, the budget that people want, and we're working on that. I can't give you any specific right now. But the global market is stable, and the underlying fact is that people need automotive mobility in all the countries. Two-thirds of European countries, two-thirds of people go to work every morning with their car, even in the U.K., even in the Netherlands. So we are very confident in the long term size of this market, and it's more up to us to be able to propose cheaper deals for our customers that can't afford more expensive cars.
So in a nutshell, we're confident on the market on the medium term. On a quarter basis, there can be some turbulence, but we're not at all worried about that. Then you ask about Autohero. Well, look, they are doing their job of investing. As you know, and we're not playing exactly by the same rules as we want to have B2C profitable growth, and they are, they have set it more like in conquest mode and kind of buying market share. But, I mean, we can compete and the market is so huge. I think I have the figures here.
In the five countries where we compete with Autohero, we have something like 1.9% market share, and they have something like 1.3%, which means that even if you combine the two, there is still a lot of growth ahead for both operators, for both transnational operators in Europe. And, and the market is very, is a very attractive market for, for all the operators, I believe. And the competition effect is, is really marginal. And back in the days, three years ago, when Cazoo was still there, I never used Cazoo as an excuse for, not doing the numbers we wanted, because the truth is that there is room for everybody on this market. Sorry, I was a bit long.
No, that was very helpful. Thank you very much.
There are no more questions at this time, so I hand the conference back to the speakers for any closing comments.
No, thank you very much for your attention. Again, have a great 2026. We'll be happy to speak to you in May for the H1 results. And until then, all the best to everybody. Bye-bye.