Good evening, everyone, for being here for this video conference for 2024. It was a tough year, as you may have seen, for our activities. Some of you may have read the press release, which was released by mistake a few hours or minutes before the closing of the stock exchange. We would like to apologize for that. I hope that this won't happen again because I think it wasn't the first time, and it may have been because of the communication agency. So, for 2024, for Alten, despite an expected rebound for the second quarter, unfortunately, there was a slowdown of the activity that we had observed in the end of 2023, worsened in the second quarter of 2024, and for all sectors of activity, even though the macroeconomic environment has deteriorated, the causes of this slowdown are heterogeneous, and it really depends on the sector.
For 2024, the activity of the group remained almost stable, while the latest expectations showed a 0.3%-0.7% recovery. We had revised our growth expectations and forecasts when we had our October publication after a September start that was more difficult than expected. At the end of December 2024, the revenue of the group was EUR 4.13 million, which is down, and in France, the activity has increased by 4.8%. On a like-for-like scope, we're down 0.2%. It's, however, up in France because we've made up 4.8% because we've made no acquisitions, but it's down by 2.6% out of France. We've had 1.5 opening days more than 2023, or a 0.5% increase on like-for-like organic growth. For the fourth quarter, we're down 0.5%, up 2% in France, but down by 3.5% outside of France.
On a like-for-like scope, we're down 2.7% in our activities and 2.6% outside of France, but up 2% in France. The activity rate is about 91.3% for the last quarter. Sur l'année, the taux d'activité is 91.8% in the fourth quarter of 2023, which is rather satisfactory, especially given the fact that we've had a lot of projects of a postponement since last September. The headcount of the group has slightly increased, 58,000 against 57,000 at the end of 2023, including 1,900 engineers, 1,580 come from acquisitions, 230 were sold, and 418 have left the group. This is because of the organic decline. So we've lost 158 people abroad and 290 people in France. 11,510 engineers are in France, while 39,390 of our engineers are working out of France.
The activity has grown across the different sectors, except for BFA and telecommunications, but major slowdown at the last for the third quarter. We didn't expect it, especially in the aerospace and automotive sector. Life science, defense, and energy have remained buoyant, however. In the Iberian region, the growth of activity is around 10%. All the sectors are growing significantly, except for life science that's slightly down. Finance, rather, and life science. In the Iberian region, you have the appendix with the growth rate per quarter. The growth has increased in 2020, or unlike Italy, and in particular in the last trimester. In Italy, the slowdown has been throughout the year, except for the banking and finance sector. In Germany, the decline of the activity has worsened throughout the year, reaching 14% year on year.
As you know, the automotive sector, which accounts for 47% of our revenue, is struggling and has been down 18%. The German manufacturers are all down in the third quarter. OEMs are down in the fourth quarter as well. In Germany, in Sweden, and in Germany, if we compare our headcount and our projects within OEMs, they're down 45% year on year, but we end the year with a slowdown that is higher than 60% if we compare to the beginning of the year. So the aeronautics, which represents 20% of our revenue in Germany, is stable but down in the fourth quarter. In the UK, activity is down 12%, mainly because of the public sector, which accounts for 45% of the revenue in the UK. Down throughout all of 2024, down up to 20%.
Civil aeronautics, which represents 18% of the revenue in the U.K., is also down by 10%, but the activity has stabilized in the second quarter. However, the automotive sector, which accounts for 15% in the U.K., has gone up. The growth has slowed down throughout the year, but globally, it remains above 15%. In Benelux, activity is stable, but the slowdown has worsened in the second quarter because of Belgium, especially for automotive and life science. In the Netherlands, activity is stable with semiconductors that have increased in the second quarter. Scandinavia, the slowdown of the activity is 12%, and it's worse and then reached 18% in the last quarter. The automotive sector in Sweden, tools, tertiary coming from Sweden, are mostly hit. Automotive in Sweden, it accounts for 52% of our revenue. Part manufacturers are significantly down, above 50%, while OEMs are also down by around 20%.
In Europe, the slowdown is 5.5%. Poland, which represents two-thirds of the revenue of the region, is growing. However, in Romania, the decline has continued to worsen in the second quarter, almost 15% down because of the tertiary and automotive sectors. In Northern America, the activity is slightly down by 1%. In the U.S., it's down 3.5% because of a decline in the automotive sector, especially with finance and life sciences in the last quarter. Canada, which accounts for 20% in the area, the activity is down across all the sectors by 20%. But a 5% growth, rather. Mexico, 25% growth on finance and automotive sector. Finally, Asia-Pacific, the activity is stable. We're still penalized by Singapore. If it wasn't for the projects that stopped last year, it would be up by 3.5%. China has gone up by 5% but slowed down because of the telecommunications and the automotive sector.
India has grown by 8%, but the growth rate has slowed down in the second quarter because of electronics and the automotive sector. Japan down by 20% until the third quarter, but in the third quarter, we managed to strike a balance thanks to an improvement of the tertiary activity. Korea, 10% of the zone, is also slightly down. It's 3% because of the automotive sector. Now, if we look at the activity by sector, I'll give you the main trends. The trends that we, however, already mentioned because I've covered most of the regions. So without surprise, the automotive sector that was up in the beginning of the year started declining. Starting September, it was up 15% at the beginning of September. At the end of September, for parts manufacturers in Scandinavia, the decline is unprecedented.
Down 20% first half of the year and down 30% in the second part of the year, mainly because of Germany. So that's a decline by 24.5% over the year. Railway is up 6%. Aerospace up 6% but started slowing down in the second quarter. That was mainly anticipated because of the announcements made by Airbus in July, but the slowdown was more important than expected and more important than what Airbus and part manufacturers had anticipated. Naval and defense have gone up 5%, but the rate of growth has slowed down by one-third in the second quarter. Energy has increased over the year, 2% at 7%, and then 2% in the first semester, and then 7% in the second semester, thanks to oil and gas, which has gone up, which is a first in 10 years, and also thanks to the nuclear sector. Energy equipment remained stable.
Life sciences, that was stable at the beginning of the year, became down in the second part of the year. Pharma equipment, electronics, semiconductors is down 1.8%, even though it went up and is now growing starting the second quarter. Other industries, mainly transformation, processing, and equipment, have remained stable throughout the year when the electronic and semiconductor sector, which were down in the first part of the year, has started growing again in the second part of the year. Telecommunications, which accounts for 5% of the revenue, is down 6.7%, both with operators and part manufacturers. Finance is down 8.5%, and the decline has started slowing down at the end of the second semester. Retail, services, public services, which accounts for 17% of our revenue, is down by more than 6% because of the budget cuts in public services.
You can see that this last quarter is in line with our latest forecast and confirmed a slowdown that is worse than what we anticipated in the summer, especially in auto and aerospace, even though the latter was up in the last quarter. Regarding mergers and acquisitions, the Worldgrid acquisition was finished at the end of November 2024. Only a small business that represents about 5 million EUR in turnover will be transferred in the second semester of 2025 because of social processes in place. The carve-out process is long-lasting. It's complicated. It is steered under TSA for the entire second semester. The company's integration in our systems is a long transition, but the operational business will be under Alten as of the first of December. Alten also divested a small business in China and Japan for strategic reasons. It represented 8.9 million EUR in 2024 and 230 consultants.
Regarding our outlooks for 2025 now, the second semester was tougher than expected because of a slowdown, an economic slowdown that was worse than expected in most sectors, including the automotive sector, the aeronautics sectors, and in the public sector. Many of our clients seem to be surprised to have been faced with such difficulties. In the other sectors, life sciences, other industries, telecommunications, and tertiary services, we had well anticipated the slowdown, and in this gloomy economics, the defense sector, the rail sector, and are continuing to grow. We'll see if the measures taken in the U.S. will give way to a rebound in the U.S. and then probably trickle down to a rebound in Asia and in Europe, but it is too early to anticipate a change in these trends. 2025 is starting just as 2024 was.
Just like every year, we're not going to provide figures in January, but we are only going to tell you about organic growth and the business days. In 2025, compared to 2024, there's one and a half less business days, and our degrowth will be about 3%. Our 2025 performances will depend on the second semester, and it is too early to say what it will look like. Alten also confirms that its operational profitability for the business in 2024 will be negatively impacted by a level of intercontract that is higher than usual, even if slightly slow. The G&A is not covered as well as during the previous years, as G&A, rather. And this will bear fruit in 2025. It started bearing fruit in 2024. We will also see results in 2026. We have made commitments for that.
We also confirmed that in October last, we made an operational margin that is over 8.6% of our turnover, 8.7%. Please open the floor so that our participants can ask their questions as usual.
We have a first question coming from Mr. Nicolas David.
Good afternoon, Bruno. Can you hear me? I had a first question. Regarding the headcount figures that you mentioned, 58,000 people at the end of the year, does this include Worldgrid then?
It's an excellent question, and indeed, I should have said so. This figure does not include Worldgrid. Worldgrid will be consolidated as of the 1st of January this year. And so the figures as of the 31st of December 2024 do not include it. So I struggle to reconcile because you were already at 58,000 at the end of September, if I remember correctly. Exactly.
There hasn't been any additional M&A impact. Yes, let me give you the figures as I usually do. If we look on organic pure, organically speaking, we have lost 448 people, 158 worldwide and 290 in France, and in Q4, we've lost 714 people in France and internationally, so 534 outside of France to cover the intercontract costs. This last quarter, we consolidated a company that we had acquired throughout the year, the VME company in Vietnam, so we thus have 694 engineers there as of the 1st of October. There's about 1,000 consultants, as a part of that business, but a lot of them are external, and we de-consolidated the business that we sold as of the 1st of December and had 230 people. That is much clearer. There were a lot of people who left in the fourth quarter. I bet mostly in the automotive sector.
Do es this mean that there will be exceptional costs for M&A for the first quarter?
We had some during the first semester. We will have some in the second semester as well, which will be at least the same. There will be restructuring costs, the cost of people leaving as well, transaction costs. There will be also the acquisition costs of Worldgrid and its integration costs that will continue throughout 2025, and they're far higher than what we us ually see at Alten. And because we're trying to rationalize premises everywhere in order to cut costs as well, we started that in 2024.
I saw in the press release that you mentioned civil aviation as being one of the growing sectors that was for the whole year, right? Not to say that during the fourth quarter, it had been doing well, that sector.
It's clearly not the case for Airbus, but I'm not sure how to understand this sentence. Civil aviation continued growing, continued its growth even through the last quarter, even for the aerospace industry, both aerospace and civil aviation, even if aerospace has decreased. So they've had a 3% growth during the last quarter. But the first semester growth dynamic was much more favorable, and it was based in part on sectors that had positive growth, as well as a much more dynamic civil aviation sector. So overall, if I only look at civil aeronautics, the first semester had a 12.5% growth, whereas the second semester, between parts manufacturers and manufacturers, is only growing by 5%. So growth has slowed more than we expected. We had anticipated a slowdown. I had explained this in July.
I explained that it was going to slow down quite significantly because Airbus had communicated on budget cuts and a lower number of projects. But actually, in September and October, at the end of September and October, many projects were postponed, and we hadn't planned on this, and the slowdown was worse than what everyone had anticipated.
So this plus 3% includes Airbus?
Yes, absolutely. Yes, of course. Airbus is still growing in the fourth quarter. In the automobile sector, Airbus was slowing down in Germany for the fourth quarter, but no t overall.
Are there reasons to believe that it might be worse for Airbus, both for France and Germany?
I don't think that we will see a slowdown.
For the automobile sector, I understand that you lack visibility, but in quarter to quarter, are there reasons to believe that we have hit rock bottom, or can it continue to go down, in particular for parts manufacturer, or does it get?
I think that for equipment manufacturers, it can continue to get worse, but that would be marginal. Now, for manufacturers, there has been a decrease, quite a severe drop during the last quarter, so I'm not sure what will happen in the first quarter. We don't expect things to bounce back quite yet, but these are different problems from one sector to another. The aeronautics sector is faced with supply chain problems, capacity to deliver, and thus cash flow issues. Whereas for the automobile manufacturers, there have been strategic decisions that are called into question. Some projects have been put on hold for that reason.
It's not my position to comment on their strategy, but our clients have all made different strategic decisions, and in Europe, they are faced with strict regulations, and some of them thus have to think about how to best abide by these new constraints and, in the meantime, to put their projects on hold. For those of you who read the specialized press, you know that. You know what is happening, and some of them are far behind the Chinese. They need to invest in technologies that already exist. Is it worth it, or should they just acquire them rather than to develop technologies that wil l only be mature in five years, so there are discussions and decisions to be made, and it's underway.
Very clear. Thank you for this information.
Another question by Mr. Laurent Daure.
Good evening, Bruno . Several points to cover with you.
When I look at your press release for 2025, you say that our business should stabilize over the first part of the year. In sequentially speaking, in your vision, are there areas where there's growth and other where there's decreases, and this cancels out, or is everything the same for Q4, rather?
Good point. When we talk about stabilization, we talk about sequential stabilization. We hope that in some areas, we've hit rock bottom. We don't necessarily expect to bounce back yet. It is going to get worse in some sectors, probably. There have been many more projects canceled or put to an end than it would have been, than is usually the case. So when I tell you that we have a negative growth, I take this into account between the 31st of December and the 1st of Jan uary. It is higher than usual.
So compared to where we start the year, there are going to be increases and decreases depending on sectors, but I hope that overall, we will manage to stabilize the business.
But which sector concerns you the most? Well, for automobile manufacturers, are there other segments, other geographical areas where you're worried about this stabilization?
Potentially all sectors. If I see life science, for instance, Sanofi has made announcements that things might get worse as well in life science. It might be compensated by an increase in nuclear energy and the energy in general. Semiconductors are restarting. We've seen this at the beginning of the year. Is it going to continue or not? I don't know. Things seem to stabilize in the banking sector. It's difficult to say as of the 20th of January. We cannot have reliable perspectives yet.
Another question regarding Worldgrid. Two questions.
First of all, what's the consolidation date? 1st of December or 1st of January?
1st of January, which is the reason why the headcount was not included as of the 1st of December. And to be even more precise, because you are professionals, Worldgrid balance sheet will be consolidated as of the 31st of December. So when you look at the accounts next year, the goodwill will be externalized for Worldgrid. Because the P&L was handed, but the P&L will not be.
I hope that now you're starting to have a better vision. So what's the starting point, in your opinion, regarding these margins?
Well, I will answer this question during the next conference because this is what we're currently working on. We just received the December information.
And you consider that we need to work on costs for this asset?
It depends what we're talking about.
We're either talking about gross margin, in which case we can probably improve our consulting activities, but we need to understand why in some places there are activity rates that are quite low. For the core business, I don't think there are huge improvements to be made on margins b ecause it's quite well managed. Honestly, these are professionals. It's a good company. Now, what is below the gross margin? So sales managers, recruitment, G&A. The company is entirely steered by Atos, which has a recharge system. But when we bought the company. So now the question is, parce qu'en fait, il n'y a que des coûts de recharge. General administrative costs. We can do it, but we don't want it to be detrimental to the way that we're working, and I think there is going to be a start-up again at one point or another.
There will be a recovery, but there are areas where we need talented people. That's not something that we can do without. So rationalize our legal entities and operational entities in order to limit costs. These are the options that we have. So we might outsource. And these are processes that are quite long before you actually start seeing the result in the account. So even though this is fruit that may be born in the long run, for now, we don't have visibility on the 2025 margin for these reasons. Anyway, we never give outlooks in January or February, but given the opening days, fewer opening days for working days rather. I think we have one less working day in France for the first half of the year and 122.5 in 2025. So we know that the margin for the first quarter will be much lower.
I know that it's hard to answer this question, but if we have to sum up, if the revenue continues on the same places right now, given the decline of organic growth by 2%, your goal is to optimize costs. If we're stable based on what we've published in 2024, yes, that would be what we're going to do.
Yes. Thank you. That was clear.
We have another question on the phone. I don't have your name or first name. Would you mind identifying yourself? And unmute, s tar six.
Emmanuel Parot speaking. Can you hear me? Emm anuel speaking. Yes. I have two questions. Just to understand well on embedded. Usually, you talk about embedded growth at this period of the year. So right now, it's an embedded decline. So, do you have the figures? Second question. To date, Intercontract. Usually we have, we're at the beginning of the year, so compared to last year, how do we stand in Intercontract? Yes. 3% embedded decline. And on top of that, we have the 0.5% working day impact. So embedded decline is volume plus price?
Yes, exactly. It also factors in the mix impact. Because when we're talking about prices, there are different effects here. Different effects. You have the price effect. So the negotiations knowing that most of the activity is a work package basis where the prices are one part of the bid that we make, and then we evolve with the negotiations with the clients. There's a mixed effect on the activity because there are sectors that are growing up, others that are going down, and we don't have the same price index depending on the sector.
You have the geography effect as well, which plays a huge role into this. Countries such as Germany, Benelux, Scandinavia, where the price per capita is higher than in Southern Europe, for instance, where we're growing more, Italy, Spain, of course, or offshore areas. The price per capita is much lower. In projects where we have an offshore part. So when we've done our analysis, to be precise in my answer, we've included the embedded elements in our mix analysis. When we posted a 3% embedded decline. For intercontract, we don't have the statistics for January yet, naturally. But if we look at the weekly reports, the intercontract levels are pretty much equivalent. Slightly higher, but not by much compared to last year. It's hard to draw conclusions right now on this. Okay. As a consequence, Q4 restructuring, you've done the job in the fourth quarter.
Wh at can we expect in the first quarter if the Intercontracts are quite managed? Expecting stability?
It will depend on the activity. I can't tell, because it will depend on the activity. If the activity remains stable, then it will be stable. But if it continues to go down, we will continue to protect the Intercontract rate. Of course, we want to keep our talents. We will have to make choices. But we accept to have profiles that are in Intercontract. I mean, we need profiles that are in high demand on the market, given that we keep another contract. Even though the Intercontract period continues to extend, we know that these are people that we need to keep. So we'll see. The turnover has gone down, but it's still quite high, around 20%, which allows us to adjust.
So to be clear, we don't have any net recruiting ambitions, especially because it's hard to give these types of ambitions in a market that is down. And we've actually slowed down our hirings to take into account the fact that we won't recruit as much in 2025 than in even in 2024, beginning of 2024, when we would recruit much more.
Okay. Très bien. Merci pour ça. Okay. Well, thank you very much for this.
My pleasure. Have a nice evening.
Have a good night. Thank you.
Hey. Good afternoon, Bruno. This is Aditya from Bank of America. Thanks for taking my questions. Just a couple from me. Firstly, on the full year performance in 2024, you did minus 0.2%. So just a bit better than actually your guidance.
Could you just talk about what actually was better than your own expectations in Q4, which geography or which sector? Second question. I know it's too early to give the guidance on the margins, but if I go back to your H1 presentation last year in September, you talked about the aim to increase your offshore capacity, the aim to deploy your technical direction model overseas, and overall internationalize your offering. So could you talk about the level of investments needed in that this year and if maybe any cost savings will be reinvested into those initiatives? That's it for me.
Okay. So first, Aditya, 0.2 or 0.4 is really very close. Even if it's better than the highest range, if I may say so, we're very, very close.
At the end, we were expecting a decrease in the growth of aeronautics higher than what we finally faced because we heard in September, October that many, many projects would be canceled. At the end, some were launched. In the energy sector, we saw some acceleration among some activities like nuclear activities that we didn't think it would be so high on one hand, and on the other hand, that we could be able to recruit the people that that type of project would require. Also, we had some additional growth among the semiconductor activities. So some plus did offset some minus. At the end, we were very close to our expectations when we did our forecast mid-October. Regarding now our offshore capabilities, yes, we did decrease our offshore capabilities in some countries, mainly India.
We also have added some capabilities in Vietnam for Japan, China, and we're going to try to rely on that company that we bought. We will position within the embedded software to develop that business. But at the end, in our business, when we rely on offshore capabilities, we don't increase our gross margin because, unlike the IT activities, the aim is to be able to cope with the productivity expectations of the customers. Meaning that if a customer launches a bid, for example, and wants to rely on an average daily rate of, let's say, EUR 300, for example, all activities included, I mean, technical management, project managers, young engineers, etc. And if you accept to answer the bid, if you don't have offshore capabilities, and of course, if you don't have the skills among your offshore capabilities to answer positively the bid, you're out of the market.
So as we did develop those offshore capabilities, we are able today to accompany our customers when they are looking for productivity gains. I'm talking, for example, of the aeronautics activities, but more and more the auto business and the offshore capabilities today are well positioned for a transition that the German automakers are today putting in place because of their search for cost reduction. But at the end, I will say that it is strategic because we save revenue or we can increase our revenue against the competition, but it does not bring additional margin to the company because the whole gross margin remains unchanged. You know what I mean? So the only way if we want to increase our margins will be to lower our structure.
I mean, in high-cost countries, but for all functions, I mean, technical, finance, marketing, HR, etc., in order to be able to maintain the same level of overall SG&A cost, to be consistent with the gross margin contribution to the P&L . Aditya, are you still there?
Are we going to move on to another question by Mr. Ines Mao? You can please turn on your microphone. What company are you from, Mr. Mao? Mr. Mao, maybe it's the name of his business or it's his last name. Otherwise, we have other questions, other hands raised . We have a question by Mr. Valentin Paul-Je han.
Bonjour, Bruno. Good afternoon, Bruno.
Good afternoon, everyone. Can you hear me? Yes. Perfect. I have several different questions. First of all, regarding the automobile sector, can you please tell us how much Volkswagen weighs in the overall turnover? And maybe just the share of the biggest clients. Which client is worth how much? To have a better idea of the main margins that could have an impact for 2025. So all of the big automobile manufacturers, but is it well divided, or do we have one big client?
Our biggest client in the automobile sector is Stellantis. To several continents. In several continents, they represent 3.4% of our turnover . There are also several brands as well: Audi, Porsche, Volkswagen, Cayenne, and so on. BMW.
Jaguar Land Rover. General Motors. So really, there's a lot of them. So there's no one client that stands out. No, no. Our main client is Stellantis, worth 3.4% of our turnover. And then the others are just below 2%.
Okay. Thank you very much. Second question. Regarding the aviation sector . So the organic variation for the turnover of the aviation sector at Q4, and then can you tell us a little bit about the growth in that sector for Q1? I have not said so, but for Q4, the aviation sector growth was 3.5%.
And there's a decrease in the space industry because we would be above 5% in the aviation sector alone. So this 3.5% is decreasing quite significantly. Does this continue during Q1, or?
I don't know that . On the headcount, that is . So there's minus 3% of growth in. We don't calculate it per sector. It's too complex because there are projects that are . And we work through several geographies, and there are projects that are . Increasing momentum throughout the quarter.
So, we calculate geography per geography in a global manner, and we start with the embedded situation as of the 1st of January.
Okay. That said, it is slightly positive, of course. Okay. An d just to make things a little clearer. Regarding your guidance . Not exactly a guidance. Yes, yes, of course. What I mean to say is that there's a stabilization. You said that it was a sequential stabilization earlier. So, what I understand from it. Is that it's going to create an organic degrowth in the first quarter of 2025 compared to the first quarter of 2024, with one less business day. Almost a multi-digit organic degrowth.
I hope that we won't reach minus 5, but indeed. We're more at minus 4.
Okay. Okay. Thank you very much for your answer.
You're welcome.
We have a question by Mr. Derric Marcon.
Good evening, Bruno. I hope you can hear me. Trois questions. Donc, sur les moins 3% de. So I have three questions regarding the minus 3% of embedded degrowth in 2024. Is this as of the 31st of December versus the average headcount and what you expected? So it's linked to the previous question. Is it the degrowth that we are going to have as of the first quarter, or is it calculated based on the average of 2024?
And can you give us more granularity between the French embedded degrowth and that of the rest of the world?
The answer to the second question is no. So that's an easy one. Calculated with the situation as of the 1st of January and not 31st of December. And as I've mentioned, it's important because there are projects that stop because the project is supposed to end by the end of quarter. So we have quite a step as of the 1st of January. So if we take into account the business situation as of the 1st of January and if we take into account the business mix as of it was at the end of last year and we bring that.
With respect to the 2024 average, we have an onboard degrowth of 3%. So, it takes into account the mixed effects. Of the businesses. Because even if there is a lot of inertia in our business, we've still had. The offshore being developed throughout the year. In Germany, we've seen a significant decrease of turnover as well as for the UK, whereas other countries such as Spain or Italy that don't contribute as much to the turnover have made pro gress, have improved. So, this takes this into account as well.
Okay. But if this is calculated based on an average, how can you reach 4?
Minus 4% of the bec ause this is a snapshot based on an average.
In the beginning of fiscal year, it was harder, then in the end, it wasn't that hard. And you reach down a 3% decline on average, so it should be worse. But for growth on board, the scenario is that the revenue is flat. We're not growing or declining throughout the year at all, right?
I know, but that's what I'm saying. But you're calculating it based on the 2024 average.
Yes, based on the 2024 average. So the more you. Time passes. The more comparisons you have, yes. And it means that by the end of the year, if you look at the trend, we should be lower than minus 3%. Right now, our forecast is m inus 4%.
Factoring in the margin is something that you used as well in the past?
What about the projects that have been stopped? Are they going to be postponed or It really depends on that?
It depends on whether the project that was started up somewhere down the line. When we're talking about projects that were stopped at the 31st of December, they're not paused. They're not on standby. No. Projects that have been finalized, that are over. And what we're seeing is that that's how the model is working and the business model is. When you have a project that ends, you usually have another project that starts. But the volume of projects that start is still lower than the ones that end. And you know the model. Starting February, usually we start getting more and more volume. But in February, we can give more forecast, more accurate.
That ended, or rather they're less that started . Compared to last year. It's just that the discrepancy between the number of projects that ended and the number of projects that are starting up again this year is larger this year than last year. Now, the automotive sector, we have competitors, and we're seeing rather positive comments in Asia, Europe, the U.S. Is this something that you're also seeing, or did you not see a difference between your business with European car manufacturers and the ones outside of Europe, and I'm not talking about the car manufacturers here, well, right now, if we look at the manufacturers, we resisted quite well with European car manufacturers. Even the German ones, except for one or two.
But right now, whether this is related to our historical positioning with this manufacturer, we don't really see a difference between what's happening in the U.S. and in China and in Europe. But I don't see a major difference depending on the continent and for the different OEMs. Going back to the cost structure of Worldgrid, which is Laurent's comment. The way that you're managing this, by definition, it's supposed to be lower than Atos, which did have a lot of costs, but with a cost structure that was supposed to be not as lean as yours or not as efficient as yours. The answer is yes. Et tu as une vision sur the structure that they're reinvoicing to Worldgrid? So when you don't see the Worldgrid right now, it means that you don't know what Atos is billing.
And we're not able to analyze them all in detail right now. So I don't know exactly, to be perfectly honest. And I don't mean to this is also Atos's business. It's difficult and sensitive to talk about it, but I don't know to what extent they consider l'exact refacturation des services supportés. The billing is accurate based on the services that have been offered. Let me give you an example to be clear. Worldgrid had to be insured when we took over when they started working within Alten. And I know exactly what his insurance cost.
But if I have to look at the insurance amount that is being recharged to Worldgrid, that is being rebuilt to Worldgrid, I don't know that. I'd have to ask the teams. We have to benchmark and see if it's consistent, etc., etc. But right now, we're doing a partition qui ne permet pas de savoir exactement, précisément, si voilà. Is such that we don't know exactly how it's split. We don't know the breakdown. So it's not up to me to look at the recharge or rebilling system. This is not our business either.
My main question is, or the main question is, what is the cost structure that is necessary? And how can we implement it so we are as efficient as possible?
Okay. That was very clear. The last question, just so we understand the seasonality between the different quarters. Last year, your assumption, or you started with a lot of bad news for the first quarter of 2024. And in itself, does it make 2025 easier than 2024 if we analyze Q1 and Q2? Or the activity rate was lower last year. And you were unpleasantly surprised, I remember, by the automotive sector. And I know that in Asia, there were tensi ons. That was the beginning of 2024, I think.
Last year, in Q1, for instance, beginning of 2024, we were at 91.5% in the first quarter. This year, the activity rate is higher for Q1 in our scenario, in our forecast, because we worked really hard on our intercontracts.
No, the comparison basis is, of course, unfavorable because we struggled throughout the year.
But your organic growth in Q1 2025, you don't think it's going to be much better than 2024. My question was really about the seasonality Q1 and Q2. Because the beginning of 2024, Q1 was really terrible, and Q2 was better. So I guess it just evens itself out with Q1 this year being not as bad as last year. I just wanted to know if you had the simulation of the forecast per quarter. I don't have it.
It's not on the top of my mind here. This was the last question . I think because we don't have any hands raised, we can close this conference. Thank you very much . This is Mr. Benoliel. Thank you for being here. We should convene on the 20th of February, rather.
Because even though it's quite early in the year, we'll still have a few figures from January. Thank you very much for your attention. Have a nice evening.