As a reminder, all participants are in listen-only mode. After the presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions by pressing star and one. Should anyone need assistance during the conference call, they may signal an operator by pressing star and zero on their telephone. Today's speakers will be Tim Albertsen, CEO; John Saffrett, Deputy CEO; Patrick Sommelet, Deputy CEO and CFO. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Albertsen. Please go ahead, sir.
Thank you. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to this Ayvens full year 2023 results conference call. First of all, thank you for joining us today. I'm hosting this call with John Saffrett and Patrick Sommelet. First, John and I will present the highlights of 2023, then Patrick will comment on our financial results, which include LeasePlan since late May 2023. As he did last quarter, Patrick will provide some additional explanations to help you understand our underlying performance. After that, I'll present our outlook for the full year 2024, and then we'll take your questions. But let's now go directly to slide five on the key takeaways. 2023 was marked by the acquisition of LeasePlan, which positions Ayvens as the leading global sustainable mobility player.
We started the integration of LeasePlan right after the closing, and I'm happy that thanks to our team's efforts, we fully reached all our 2023 milestones. 2024 is another important year and key for our transformation. At this point, we're well on track to achieve the strong synergies which we have announced. Today, we published mixed financial results for a transition year, marked by the normalization of the used car market, the impact of interest rates movements, and our hedging derivative portfolio, and significant cost to achieve the integration of LeasePlan. Our net results for 2023 reached EUR 816 million, and earnings per share of EUR 1.07. Our return on tangible equity is at 12.4%, and we have a good and strong capital position, with a core Tier 1 ratio of 12.5%.
We will propose to the next shareholder meeting on the 14th of May, the distribution of a EUR 0.47 dividend, which represents a payout of 50% in line with our policy. As the market environment is changing, we are adjusting promptly. In accordance with our strategic plan, we are tackling these challenges head-on and have undertaken decisive steps to restore our margins, reduce the volatility of our revenues, and protect the value of our assets. We should be able to see the benefits of all these efforts in the second half of this year. Let's move to page six, where we'll see the integration of LeasePlan, which is well on track. Last September, we published our Power Up 2026 plan, in which we draw up our industry leadership to shape the future of mobility.
In our strategic plan, we have a clear, ambitious, while realistic, objectives around our four priorities: clients, operational efficiency, responsibility, and profitability. This plan is supported by our new global mobility brand, Ayvens, which was launched last autumn. From the beginning, we have taken steps to ensure a seamless and rapid commercial transition, which one team facing all our shared clients. Last quarter, I mentioned a number of procurement initiative which we successfully implemented, and we have already secured EUR 38 million of cash synergies, slightly higher than the EUR 30 million of expected. These cash synergies will materialize in our P&L from 2024. We have also already finalized a number of initiatives in insurance and remarketing, which also will have a positive impact as soon as this year. 2024 is a key year for our transformation.
We will continue the alignment on pricing and products, and we have started global and local tenders for OEMs, tire fitters, roadside assistance, and end-of-life inspection, just to name a few procurement initiatives. On the restructuring front, we plan to merge our local entities starting Q2 and deploy our new central and local organizational structure in parallel. As our integration progresses according to plan, we are confirming the phasing of our Cost to Achieve and synergies. Cost to Achieve will peak at EUR 190 million this year. Meanwhile, we'll capture the first benefits of the acquisition with EUR 120 million P&L synergies this year, the majority being procurement synergies. This amount will increase to EUR 350 million in 2025 and to the run rate of EUR 440 million in 2026.
Let's now move to page seven on our actions to restore our margins. As discussed at our Capital Market Day and in Q3, in the context of high inflation and interest rates, our margins has eroded. The pressure on our margins continued in Q4, 2023. Our strategic plan includes actions to restore our profitability, and we are implementing them. We believe it's possible to restore our margins because our industry is structurally growing and because we attract clients, thanks to our unique product range and service quality, expertise and scale efficiencies, and not least our geographical coverage. Our plan to improve our profitability covers mainly four types of actions. First, increase the pricing discipline through the timely update of our pricing parameters. There was actually no inflation in most of our markets previously, and therefore, we usually did not have an inflation clause in.
Now we activate or include indexation clauses in our new contracts. We're also repricing contract extensions and modifications in the context of higher interest rates. Second, we are allocating our capital according to our profitability targets. This means that we are conducting a full portfolio review and are selectively allocating our resources to countries, client segments, distribution channels, and products. Thirdly, we want to achieve better service penetration and upselling by expanding value-added services to our clients, in particular, Ayvens Flex, light commercial vehicles, and insurance. Last but not least, we aim at excellence in operational efficiency by improving our asset utilization. This concerns mainly our flexible fleet and our terminated vehicles. These actions were launched last October already, but due to the length of the order bank, we expect that their positive impact will start materializing in our P&L from the second half of this year.
Let's now go to page eight and talk a bit about the used car markets. I'll now give an update on the trends which we expect for the used car markets in Europe. You can see that out of our 2.7 million funded fleet, 11% were full EVs, 9% plug-in hybrids, and the rest ICE cars, being petrol and diesel, and other powertrains at the end of 2023. The combination of stricter European regulations, clients' interest in environmental matters, and rising energy costs confirms the transition to electric vehicle, which is structural, we believe. However, the path of this transition may not be as linear as initially expected. Our clients are primarily corporate and SME clients, which are highly committed to reach their ESG targets through long-term leasing contracts for an average of four years.
As there has been quite some press coverage around daily rental companies and electric vehicles lately, it is important for me to stress that our business is much more stable than that of a rent-a-car companies, which are exposed to short-term leases and ride-hail companies. Full EVs have lower carbon emission, and they have a competitive total cost of ownership in most advanced countries, depending, of course, on the subsidies from the governments. However, the increase in new car deliveries and the better affordability are expected to have an impact on full EV used car prices. Meanwhile, there's been a sustained shortage of new ICE cars and plug-in hybrid vehicles over the recent years, which translates into a shortage of used cars. And in particular, there's absence of new, small, cheaper cars, which also supports used car prices.
Moreover, drivers, drivers are interested in flexibility until stricter regulation comes into force and access to charging infrastructure and technology improve. For all these reasons, we expect a gradual normalization of the ICE cars and the plug-in hybrid used car markets. Against this backdrop, the current full EV used car sales losses are actually in line with our valuation assumptions. However, we have launched a number of actions to proactively manage our risk going forward in a changing environment. We do anticipate that manufacturing cost of full EVs will reduce over the next 4-5 years. Hence, we are adjusting our pricing on new contracts, mainly through reductions of residual values. We are lengthening the duration of our contracts and promoting multi-cycle leases to reduce as well our residual value risk. And we are also seizing opportunities to actively reprice during the life of the contract.
Regarding the existing portfolio, we have a proven historical residual values on our ICE cars and the plug-in hybrids, and in case of a severe stress, which is not the case today, they'll be expected to offset any future potential deteriorations of the full EVs. Let me now hand over to John, who will update you on our NGDA IT program.
Thank you, Tim. Good morning, everyone. At the Capital Markets Day in September, we updated you on the challenge of assessing the global NGDA program, which had been constructed by the previous LeasePlan executive to address the future challenges of the industry. This program had fallen behind schedule compared to our assumptions in January 2022, and this had led to a significant cost overrun, which led to a deterioration in our cost income trajectory out to 2026. In September, we already begun a study into this program and the future direction of our digital strategy, and having completed this review, we now have a clear strategy for delivering our strategic ambitions, underpinned by a modern, efficient, global digital architecture. We have made the decision to stop any new development on the NGDA program, and we'll reuse the assets that have already been developed.
We will leverage on the ALD legacy back office systems in the majority of the large countries for our integration, and we believe these platforms are fit for purpose for our future ambitions. We will refocus our development efforts on leveraging our global integration technology layer, which has already been well proven in securing and winning a number of digital partnerships over the years. We've already begun the process of right-sizing the development teams with a reduction of circa 600 external contractors by the end of 2024 versus May 2023, and this will result in a reduction in CapEx of around EUR 100 million over the next three years. We also believe that further significant value creation will crystallize beyond 2026 as we move out of the integration phase and our operating efficiency and customer experience is continually enhanced by these digital platforms.
These actions will ensure we deliver the state-of-the-art digital architecture that our company needs to lead the mobility industry, and we are confident in delivering the integration and growing the business beyond 2026 with the platform we are creating. It should also be noted that as previously informed, the PPA process created a markdown on the NGDA assets of EUR 203 million, leading to a reduction in annual operating expenses of EUR 25 million. Let me now hand over to Patrick, who will comment on our financial results.
Thank you, John, and good morning, everyone. Let's go directly to page 11 on our earning assets and fleet. As you can see, our earning assets have increased by 14.2% year-on-year on a like-for-like basis to EUR 52 billion. This is a strong pace, which is quite similar to the one we were experiencing in Q3, and this strong pace has been taken into account in the financial trajectory to 2026, which we presented at our Capital Markets Day last September. Out of this 14.2% growth, the volume trend is positive, but only for 3% and 3.2% for the funded fleet, which reaches 2.7 million at the end of 2023. In the total passenger car deliveries by powertrain, EV penetration reached 35% for the full year, ahead of the market, which was 23%.
Our EV penetration, both BEV and PHEV, was 38% in Q4 alone. Let's now move to the next page on purchase price allocation. As announced early January, we have finalized the PPA of LeasePlan at the date of closing, May 23. This means that we now recognize LeasePlan's assets and liability, that fair value in our balance sheet. The outcome of the PPA was positive, leading us to revise upwards LeasePlan's net asset by around EUR 230 million, of which lease assets for EUR 280 million, customer relationship upward by EUR 150 million, and conversely, we marked down the IT assets of LeasePlan by around EUR 200 million and others for the amount indicated in the slide.
In total, it is important to have in mind that the impact is positive by EUR 230 million, and as such, we have adjusted slightly the acquisition price, and the goodwill is expected is decreased by EUR 220 million, with an enhancement of capital, of tier one capital by the same amount. Also, we amortize the positive impact of the PPA in our PNL. For 2023, the impact for May 22nd to December, end of year, was accounted for in our Q4 income statement. The aggregated amount is -EUR 57 million. It can be broken down between the -202.5 that you see of PPA amortization, and the recognition of the actual UCS profit of LeasePlan post PPA that had not been recognized before, during 2023, in the absence of finalization of the valuation exercise.
Let us now move to page 14 for the fiscal year 2023 reported performance. Again, we acknowledge that given the trends which are taking place in our industry, the PPA and the transaction for part of the year, our financial statement and results are very complex to read. This is why we give you a picture of reported results and like for like in the next section, to really understand the business trends at play in our industry and in our company. If I start with reported results, gross operating income was up by 12% from EUR 2.6 billion to around EUR 3 billion in 2023. The rise is mostly due, obviously, to the consolidation of LeasePlan from May 2023. LeasePlan is not in the 2022 numbers.
The leasing margin, leasing and service margin revenues have increased by 38% to EUR 2.6 billion. It is again, driven by the consolidation effect, which was, however, partly offset by pressure on margin, as well as the negative impact of the mark to market of derivatives we communicated earlier in this year, and which is due to the decrease of interest rates throughout 2023 and put to par of these instruments. Our UCS results were cut by half to around EUR 350 million, and this is mainly due to the normalization of the used car market, and the fact that we had already anticipated some used car profit through the reduction in our depreciation cost during previous quarters.
However, our UCS results per car remains at a high level, on average, 2,400 in 2023. This is excluding the impact of reduction in depreciation cost and PPA, and it compares to 3,269 per car in 2022. Our operating expenses were lifted by the integration of LeasePlan over seven months, as well as by the cost to achieve, which increased to EUR 170 million from EUR 128 million in the previous year, as announced in September 2023. Cost of risk remains low at 18 basis points over average earning assets. And as a result of all this, our net income good share, group share is down 33% to EUR 816 million.
I will now comment on the next slide, on the fourth quarter number, which are strongly impacted by the mark to market of derivatives, the purchase price allocation, and amortization, UCS prices evolution, and pressure on margin. Again, LeasePlan is not in the Q4 2022 numbers. Our Q4 2023 were strongly impacted, as I said, by those non-recurring items. Gross operating income was down EUR 18.6 million to EUR 610 million in Q4 2023, despite the LeasePlan perimeter effect. Leasing and services margin were basically stable versus Q4 last year. The entry of LeasePlan, the consolidation scope was offset by lower reduction in depreciation cost in a normalizing used car sales market, used car sales market.
The negative impact of the mark to market of derivatives for LeasePlan, -EUR 150 million, which is related to the fact that in Q4 alone, we have experienced a sharp drop in interest rates by almost one full percentage point, and also pressure on margins due to, as mentioned by Tim, higher inflation and higher interest rates, driven by contract, driven, among other things, by contract extension. In Q4 2023, all in all, Ayvens recorded a EUR 10 million loss compared to EUR 124 million gain in the same period last year in terms of used car sales results. The drop is driven by the normalization of the used car sales market, and the fact that we anticipated some results when we reduced our depreciation cost in previous quarters.
The impact of the purchase price allocation amortization on this item is minus EUR 193 million. And also, we need to mention that in Q4, we have experienced industry destocking of terminated vehicles, including at Ayvens. As you can see, UCS profit per unit was EUR 1,706 per car in Q4 2023, which is still a high level compared to the exceptionally high EUR 3,054 that we have experienced in Q4 2022. We believe, however, that the Q4 2023 number was driven downward by the industry destocking I mentioned, which was there to optimize the stock of terminated cars at year-end. Operating expenses rose to EUR 511 million due to the consolidation of LeasePlan.
The cost income ratio, excluding UCS results, deteriorated to around 69%, excluding the reduction in depreciation cost, non-recurring items, and PPA. This is basically due mostly to lower margin. We will start recording synergies in our P&L from 2024, and we therefore expect this cost income to improve each year. Cost of risk, as I said, remain low, and finally, we posted a low EUR 29 million net income, impacted by the mark to market of derivatives, the amortization of PPA, lower used car price sales, and the pressure on our margin. If we turn to page 16, as you can see on the graph, the used car sales market is normalizing, and we are giving this information for ALD standalone, as we had been guiding the market during 2023 on the numbers for ALD standalone.
UCS profits are decreasing, and it's clear that we had already anticipated some profit in the previous quarter, thanks to reduction in the prospective depreciation expenses. UCS profit per unit was EUR 444 per car in Q4 2023, versus EUR 1,919 last year. Including the impact of previous reduction in depreciation cost, this number would have been EUR 1,453 EUR per unit in Q4, compared to EUR 354 the prior year. Over the full year, ALD used UCS profit per unit, excluding the impact of reduction costs, was EUR 2,344 per unit versus EUR 3,269 per unit in 2023. This obviously reflects the normalization of the used car market.
And you can see that the number of post reduction in depreciation expense, the bottom line, UCS per unit, stands at EUR 1,312 for the full year 2023, which is within our guidance. As you can see, ALD sold in Q4 2023, about 20% more cars than during the previous quarters. The reason for that is that we optimize our stocks of terminated cars at the end of the year. We understand that other large players did the same, and it weighed on prices. Therefore, the decline in prices per unit goes beyond the usual seasonal effect, where Q4 is slightly weaker than the other quarters. I will not comment on the Ayvens aggregated data on slide 17. So the Ayvens used car sales results is also impacted by PPA and industry destocking of terminated vehicles.
On this page, we have restated the previous quarters of events to dispatch the PPA impact to each quarter, instead of allocating it to Q4 2023 only, as it is the case in our reporting numbers, in our reported numbers. In total, Ayvens recorded a slight loss for Q4 2023, which is explained by the impact of previous reduction in depreciation costs and the impact of PPA over the quarter. Excluding this impact, Ayvens would have registered a UCS profit per car of EUR 1,706, reflecting like for ALD, the normalization of the used car sales market and the seasonality in Q4, plus the industry destocking. We are now gonna get to the next section, which is the like-for-like performance analysis. So before I comment the figures, I'd like to spend some time on how we analyze the information which follows.
It is an illustration of what would be a like-for-like performance, meaning stripping out the consolidation scope effect and the non-recurring item. So we build full year 2023. We build full year 2023 in the same scope as the one we have at the end of December, meaning including LeasePlan , but excluding LeasePlan USA, which was sold in December 2022, and excluding the 600 entities, which were all also sold mid-year, August 2023. So let's move to the next page to see the like for like margin. You see on this slide, the development of the margin on a like-for-like basis. Overall, and before exceptional item, total margin revenues are stable at -0.7%. This comes on the back of earning assets increasing by 14%, which means that our margin in percentage are currently under pressure.
Again, we attribute this impact to higher inflation, higher interest rates, and a long order book. You see, in the exceptionals, you have a list of items, including reduction in depreciation costs, fleet revaluation, hyperinflation in Turkey, the Ukraine provision, the mark to market of derivatives, of which the reversal is very significant on the variation, and also the PPE impact, which is a slight positive impact. Again, I'm coming back to the mark to market of derivative that we have commented mostly in Q3. This plan was relying on a very diversified source of financing, and to adjust for interest rates and to remain hedged on an economic standpoint, it had a book of swaps. As operating leases are not qualifying under IFRS accounting as financial assets, we could not do hedge accounting on these swaps.
So we have observed the mark to market volatility, which is creating accounting noise. In appendices, we give more details on the swap book as well. Its current mark to market at the end of 2023 is positive EUR 78 million. And also, it is important to have in mind that its point in time sensitivity to interest rate has been reduced to EUR 10 million for each 10 basis points of variation, which is lower than the Q3 amount, which was 17. It is important to have in mind that should interest rates remain unchanged from today, and the book unchanged as well, the pull to par would imply a EUR 78 million downward loss, which we have taken into account in our budgets.
In Q4, we have designated some of the micro fair value hedging relation of derivatives on bonds, which has enabled to reduce the sensitivity. We will continue to proactively manage this book of swaps to have a lower impact going forward on our income statements. If we now turn to the next page, the like for like, gross operating income, total revenue. So you find, again, the evolution of the total margin, which is down -0.7%, and you have the results of used car sales before the impact of reduction in the purchasing cost and the impact on PPA. Before those impacts, it is a downward trend of 11.4% under the strict effect here of lower UCS prices.
Overall, like-for-like, excluding all the non-recurring, the PDs, the PPA impact, gross operating income underlying would be down 4.4% between 2022 and 2023. Next page, 21. There is the like-for-like operating expense, so you see that on the full year, it is a relatively dynamic 10.5% increase. But you would see in the appendices, page 42, I, I remember, I think I remember, that this increase is only plus 1.7% in Q4 2023 compared to Q4 2022, meaning that we are more in control of our expenses toward the, the year, the, the end of the year than the beginning in the midst of the integration of LeasePlan . Let us now turn to slide 23.
You see that, the risk-weighted assets are going from EUR 56 billion in Q3, at the end of Q3, to EUR 57.4 billion at the end of Q4 2023. So there is an impact of EUR 1 billion of organic growth, which is representing earning asset growth, and also a slight reduction in the order book in terms of impact of RWA. So the reduction in order book is EUR 300 million of RWA, and there is the annual date of the computation of operational risk. As you can see, under the effect of results, but also of PPA, the CT1 is increasing from 12.3%-12.5% at the end of December 2023. I will now hand over to Tim, who will comment on our full year 2024 outlook. Thank you.
Thank you, Patrick. Let's move to page 25 on our guidance for the full year. In a slow growth European economy, where inflation converges towards more normal levels and interest rates begin to decline, we expect new car registration to continue progressing compared to 2023. As a result, the used car market will further normalize. 2024 is another transition year for Ayvens. It's when our restructuring cost peaks, and it's also when we start catching the benefits from the LeasePlan acquisition. High inflation and interest rates will probably continue to weigh on our margins in H1, until our repricing materializes in the P&L by the end of the year. In this context, we expect earning asset growth between 7% and 9% versus December 2023. This means a significant slowdown compared to 2023, mainly the result of a slower transition to EV and more modest price effects.
A pre-tax P&L synergies of EUR 120 million confirmed. A cost income ratio, excluding used car sales results, non-recurring items and PPA, 65%-67%. Used car sales results per unit between EUR 1,100-EUR 1,600 on average, excluding the negative impact of reduction in depreciation cost and PPA. Cost to achieve the integration of EUR 190 million confirmed. A dividend payout at 50% in line with our policy, and a core Tier 1 ratio of circa 12%. This concludes our presentation. Thank you for listening, and we're now ready to take any questions you may have.
This is the conference operator. We will now begin the question- and- answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on the touch tone telephone. To remove yourself from the question queue, please press star and two. Please pick up the receiver when asking questions. Anyone who has a question may press star and one at this time. The first question is from Kiri Vijayarajah from HSBC. Please, go ahead.
Yes, thank you. Good morning, everyone. A couple of questions, if I may. Firstly, on the digital platform, kind of interesting slide nine. So you're showing EUR 262 million left on the balance sheet for the digital project, right? So should we think about that 262 as fairly locked down, or is that going to be subject to periodic reviews as the implementation takes shape? Then that comment on the right about reducing the CapEx by EUR 100 million, so does that mean you're still adding to the capitalized amount for the project? It just wasn't very clear from the slide, so just trying to understand the mechanics of the capitalized amount going forward for the digital platform.
And then linked to that, but I guess more a question around capital is: when you were thinking about the EUR 203 million write-down, so that, how did you triangulate on that 203 as being the correct number, in terms of trying to value the future, you know, ascertain the future value of the digital asset? And was your capital ratio a constraint at any point in terms of being more aggressive with the write-down? You know, because you've written down less than half of the amount, so I just wondered if the capital ratio was something you were concerned about in the back of your mind. And then turning to the used car sales result guidance, slide 31, and there you've got the EUR 331 million there on the bottom right.
You know, the negative impact that's expected to flow through in 2024. So just trying to understand, so does that mean there's no more extra reduction in depreciation going forward, that's going to expand that stock of EUR 622, and the P&L impact in EUR 331? So that's a fairly locked-in number that we have to sort of factor in for 2024. And presumably, is that going to be front-end loaded in the first, second quarter of 2024? So just trying to understand the mechanics around the EUR 331 on slide 31. Thank you.
Well, thanks, Kiri. I think I'll hand over to Patrick for those questions, and perhaps a quick update more on the program on NGDA from John a bit later, if necessary.
Yes, thank you, Tim. So for the digital platform, we are still building some assets, so there are still some CapEx, albeit they have been reduced significantly and will be reduced significantly. So we will increase this amount as we go progressively, probably much at a much lower pace than before. And these assets are subject to a periodic revaluation. But now that we are in full control of the IT asset, we do not expect to do again some write downs of IT assets. The EUR 203 million is a mix of bench, market benchmark and DCF valuation of the value of what we have on our books.
It has been a very detailed exercise, and we are comfortable with the level we have decreased. So it's a relatively significant amount because at closing, it was representing around 50% of the total value of the assets which were on balance sheet. Capital ratio was not really a constraint there because some of the assets were still under development and being deducted from CT1 ratio. So it's not something that we have looked at. I think overall, the PPA exercise is something which is a very controlled exercise. It had been reviewed thoroughly by the auditors, and it's still being audited.
So overall, it's mostly related to the assessment of the market prices or the value that we can extract from the balance sheet. So I would not qualify the capital as a main constraint for this exercise. And in terms of your last question on page 31, you see indeed the stock of PDs EUR 622 at the end of 2023, and the one which will reverse in 2024, meaning that the remaining part will reverse later. So your question, if I understood well, is do we expect today to take additional prospective depreciation in 2024?
In all frankness, that will depend on market prices, so we need to see the first month of 2024 develop to really see whether or not we anticipate such a prospective depreciation or the other name we use is reduction in depreciation expenses, but it is the same thing. It's a bit early to tell at present because we don't have a lot of months in 2024. You see, what we can say is that UCS prices are behaving according to plan in January 2024. We have not put any prospective depreciation in our budget because that should come as exceptional.
And we'll keep you updated as we go into 2024 on the level of the UCS sales market , which is, as you have understood, a mix of several powertrain types, ICE, which is still a quite dynamic and well-supported market. PHEV, which is, again, also, a market which is behaving well in the second-hand market, and BEV, on which, currently there have been some price decreases in the market.
Great, thank you.
The next question is from Horst Schneider of Bank of America. Please go ahead.
Yeah, good morning, and thanks for taking also my questions. Tim, just a few ones. On this UCS result, I mean, you provide a pretty big range. You have stated already, or you made already some remarks on that, and that you think the assumptions are fair. But at the moment, is it right to assume that we should rather expect a lower end? And what is the risk that this could be even undershot in the course of 2024? And then what I'm also struggling with is when we look at the declining new car prices, I mean, they also come down a lot, and you should benefit from that. And you have got now the high purchase volume. When do we see an impact of these lower purchasing costs and in your results?
So that means that when can we expect then that the lease contract margin is again turning around? I know in leasing it takes time. It's not an issue that can change from one quarter to the next, but what's your feeling when the lease contract margin, so even on an adjusted basis, take all the one-offs out, can recover again? And the last one that I have is more on this hyperinflation in Turkey, because you reported this negative item in Q4. Looking at the situation of the Turkish car market, is that a burden that we should also extrapolate into 2024? So that gives, I don't know, any guidance on the negative impact would be helpful. Thank you.
Yeah, thank you, Horst. So to your first question, about the, I mean, it's true, it's quite a big range in terms of the used car sales results, and it's reflecting a bit the volatility, you know, that we have seen in Q4. But as Patrick mentioned, actually, when we see January, it's coming in pretty much as expected, and actually at the level of October, and early November. I think the reason for quite big drop in the last part of November and December was actually that several actors, including ourselves, were actually bringing down our stocks, you know, so I think we actually overflowed the market with used cars. We know that others did the same, and some of the captives of the manufacturers had the same exercise.
So it was a bad, badly timed at the end of the day. But we have seen that the dynamics of the used car markets are actually very strong in January. Stronger than normal, because January is normally not a particular great month. And again, I think we, you know, the structural things that determines the used car prices is still very much in our favor. I think the question mark is really around the full EVs, because as Patrick said, the plug-in hybrids is actually trending quite nicely. So the question is a bit where they are.
But obviously, I mean, I would say if you should take a number, we are probably in between the range, you know, where we said 1,100-1,600, where we are today, and that's probably a good number to have in mind.
Just if I can step in here just quickly. When I look, for example, used car prices, U.K., Auto Trader reports them, they have said that used car prices are down 6%-8% on gasoline and diesel cars, 20% on BEVs. If I see these year-on-year changes, that should not alarm me about used car prices. That's not relevant for you. The prices that you see, they are better than the numbers that get reported there.
Well, I think U.K. is a particular market, as you know. First of all, you cannot actually export the cars, you know, and it's also true that if you look at the used car markets in the U.K., they went very, very high, I mean. So it's actually a natural correction of that as well. So U.K. is not representing what we see in Europe, actually. That's, that, that's quite clear, actually. So, no, I would not be alarmed for the rest of Europe. As you know, we are selling more than 25% cross-border, so we are constantly moving cars, you know, from, let's say, the, the less performing markets to the more performing markets, and then we have a very strong capacity doing that.
So, no, I think, you know, actually what we see in, I mean, even in a country like Norway, which is today, you know, a real EV market, diesel cars are actually performing extremely well, so, so we don't see that pressure on those cars. I hope that helps you, Horst, on that.
Well, what's the average used car price declines that you expect for 2024? Not speaking about your gain, but just talking about market-level used car pricing.
Well, we don't, we don't have that number. We, we don't give you that number, but obviously, what we are doing, as we have said, actually already in Q3, we anticipate a normalization of the used car sales from now up till 2026, ending on—
Yeah.
Residuals landing higher than in the past, again, because of supply and demand and other factors. So I think that's, that you can take that linear line, basically, and try to chart where we would be there.
Okay.
If I may add, and the reason why we don't give specific indication on car prices in 2024, is that it's a very diverse situation from a country to another. It's still, there's still our domestic trends, which impact mostly the prices. And add to your part of your question, we believe that in terms of margin, it is mostly the level to which of interest rates and inflation, which is taken into account, which will enable us to recover our margin, and we anticipate that this should start materializing in H2 2024.
Yeah.
Okay. Okay, and on the stuff on the purchasing costs, I mean, when is this benefit coming through? You should see already a lot of benefit from that, right? So is it something that we see then immediately in the lease car margin, or it takes also some time before that feeds through? Or how long would that take until that feeds through?
Yeah. So I think, you know, we have a big order book, and, you know, actually we're delivering the order book now, which obviously is priced, you know, typically 12 or eight months ago, and that has an impact, which means, you know, it's washing out a lot of the new contracts. So as we said, it's gonna be in the second half of the year that we anticipate to start seeing the impacts of that. And I think, of course, you know, when you, when you look at all the procurement synergies, as we have said, it's around EUR 120 million for 2024, which is part of that. And a big part is coming from the negotiations we have with the manufacturers now. Clearly, the situation is in our favor for the time being, and the manufacturers actually now have more cars than they can sell. So we are in—
Okay
A very good position there. There was a quick question on Turkey. Do you want to say, on?
Yeah. So on Turkey, there is some volatility in this market, so we expect that to continue going forward. We have valued the car stock. Actually, there's a decoupling between general inflation and the car market, so we are valuing the car market with DCF for each car, being prudent on that. We do not anticipate. The activity is healthy there, but there can be some volatility related to hyperinflation accounting in 2024. We will come back to you on that on a regular basis.
Mm-hmm. So, but, but, just that I get you right, it does not mean that you have to now, that you have got now every quarter a negative burden, the negative burden just comes up in the case you need to do additional revaluation. Is that correct?
Yes.
Okay, all right. Got it. Thank you so much. All the best for 2024.
Thank you.
Thank you.
The next question is Geoffroy Michalet with Oddo. Please go ahead, sir.
Thank you for taking my question. A few questions for me. The first one on the new indexation clauses that you mentioned, have you already phased those clauses to clients, and how can you really explain it? And, I mean, what kind of, you know, index do you use, you know, to, to link the price of the, of the, let's say, to link the billing? Because without the client being able, you know, to deduct what is the financing cost and what is the, let's say, the service cost. Also, you mentioned a more stringent capital allocation. Does that mean that we could expect some divestments of countries or, or channels? Maybe could you also elaborate on which channels are a bit more suffering at the moment?
Another question was on the, let's say, additional destocking effect that you mentioned in Q4 by you and the competition, and also the captive. Should we expect further destocking in the coming quarters, according to you? And also last question on your outlook 2024, you mentioned a growth of earning assets. Could you provide us with a bit of volume and mixed price assumptions? Thank you very much.
Right. So Geoffroy, let me start perhaps, so I mean, first of all, we have started putting inflation into our service and maintenance contracts as soon as we saw, basically, inflation. The fact is that, you know, we lock in the prices for the clients, and in Western Europe, we have not really seen, you know, inflation for the last 10, 15 years, and hence we have not had inflation factored in in those contracts. But already, I would say from mid-last year, we have been factoring in inflation covering, you know, what we have seen in the market at that point. And then it's true in some countries, we actually do have contracts in place where we can actually impose inflation during the contract or life of the contract.
We have two countries where we have done it already, and a few others are in the process. For example, Belgium, where you actually have a 4% legal requirement to increase salaries, you actually also have a position for us, a potential opportunity for us to push that, and we have done it, and the customers understand and don't object to it. And in the other countries, we have done it. Obviously, the effects have been fairly smooth, you know. I think we are not the only one, basically, who is doing that. And of course, going forward, we are now looking into some other countries where we have not had that opportunity, to ensure that, going forward, that's in there, basically.
I think in terms of the destocking, clearly, you know, our stocks are at the right level. You know, we constantly monitor the stocks, you know, and it's true that at the end of the year, we came up a bit too high and decided to push that. Now, where we are today, we are fine, and you know, it's an ongoing. So we don't anticipate a larger operation again, you know, so that's it. On the 2024 guidance, Patrick, you wanna?
So yes, it's mostly driven by prices still rather than increased, so the price increase will be lower than in 2023, and for the time being, we anticipate volume growth of around 1%.
Capital allocation?
Capital allocation.
Thank you.
Ah, yes. By the capital allocation, yeah. So as, as we said, you know, we are looking into, I mean, country, segments, clients, you know, we actually, identifying to some extent, you know, where we should put our efforts. I mean, would that mean we would divest? Could, could, could do. At this point, there's no conclusions on that. Obviously, our countries today are profitable, but again, we are looking at it, in a bit of a different light, so, we would not exclude anything from that.
Thank you very much for your answers.
Thank you.
The next question is from Matthew Clark of Mediobanca. Please go ahead.
Good morning. So a question on 2024 profitability, please. I'm struggling to kind of reconcile how your, all your individual guidance elements interact with each other for 2024. Consensus has a very wide range for net profit, I think from EUR 700 million to EUR 1.2 billion. So can you help us understand what your earnings power should be, reported basis, in 2024, whether that's as a EUR 100 million or an ROTE range? Just something so that we can understand what your profits should be this year. Thank you.
Hello, Matthew.
Yeah, go ahead, Patrick.
Good morning. It's true that, with the PPA and everything that's going on in our industry, the disclosure is fairly complex. So let us please help you to find yourself in those numbers. So I think for 2024, I would look probably on slide 42, which gives you a view of the underlying leasing contract and service margin for Ayvens as a group, so it's around EUR 650 million per quarter. We say that on the full year 2024, we anticipate margin to stabilize, so that's probably a good snapshot of what would be the average quarter in 2024. So that give you a view for the leasing margin. In terms of UCS profit, we have given a range pre-PD and PPA, which is 1,100-1,600.
Post-PD, post reversal of prospective depreciation and post PPA, this turns into EUR 100-EUR 600 level per vehicle. This is a wide range, but again, we have had volatility in this, in those levels. We will monitor that throughout the year. We do not take as a given that it should be on the bottom of the range. We more or less believe that thanks to the normalizing market condition in 2024, we would be in the upper range of the upper side of the range, but we will see. We have also given you the synergies which come on top of those numbers that you can deal. I think you have a cost-income ratio, which is clearly outlined from 65%-67%, excluding UCS and excluding also cost to achieve, which should amount to around EUR 190 million. So all in all, I think we, we didn't disclose s pecific EPS, it would be a bit too specific, but, I think with that, you have a good idea of our income statement in 2024, according to what we think today, and we will review that according to market evolution during the year. I hope it is helpful.
Okay. So just to be clear, the EUR 650 million, kind of pro forma, like, for like margins for the fourth quarter, you think is going to be indicative of the reported figure for quarterly for 2024?
We think it will be indicative of the underlying number, and we do not expect, unless we have a very sharp decrease in derivatives for which we manage the book and, but there are still a real sensitivity, it might impact. But at current, this is the best we can expect for 2024, yes.
Okay, so we still have to adjust that EUR 650 number for depreciation effects and all the rest.
We don't know, but we don't expect to take new prospective depreciation, as I said, in 2024. And the amortization of PPA come in the UCS results, not in this line.
Okay.
I gave you the UCS price per unit, post PDs. So I think-
Yeah.
We might have to take positive prospective depreciation in 2024, but it will depend on market prices, and we do not account for it in our budget, nor in the indication I give you now.
Okay. Thank you.
You're welcome.
The next question is from Julien Aulion from Stifel. Please, go ahead.
Hi, good morning, everyone. Two questions. I just wanted to come back on the EV market and secondary market. Currently, when you take in account the used car market losses you are making on this market, it's not profitable contract. And my question is, it means that somehow your contract or the depreciation you are taking on those cars are not strong enough because when you resell it, it's making a loss at the end. And the contract in line on that is not good. So what's your intention to do, how you can try to become again profitable on those markets? You're growing. There is strong demand for your clients. Do you have to basically increase your price more significantly to make it profitable, to factor and to increase the depreciations?
The question behind that, you have taken—you mentioned you take some proactive profits, when you were talking about the ICEs, when the market was very strong. Would—Why not you have not taken any losses in anticipation of the future used car market sales on EVs? That, that's the questions, and to understand really what you can do.
Yeah.
Second question, more simple. On your restructuring costs, in the EUR 190 million you are planning to pass this year, how it will sequence? Are you expecting to put those EUR 190 million suddenly one bullet in the end of the year, or everything in the first quarter, or you will be split over the different quarters? Because that, of course, it can have a difference, things can influence on your profit, on a quarterly profit. Thank you.
Yeah. Thank you, Leah. Maybe for the last question on the phasing of the Cost to Achieve, I mean, it comes throughout the year, basically. You know, it's not a one shot in any of the quarters. You know, it's a big operation, and it comes basically pretty passed all over the year as such, you know. So on the EVs, it's true that Q4 obviously, we made losses on the full EVs, not the plug-in hybrids, which are actually performing very differently. And it's important to understand that, you know, only half of our EVs is full EVs.
Now, to be very honest, we have actually, since for two years ago, we have been stressing those cars pretty much with the amount we have been losing in Q4 for two years, also on the plug-in hybrids, which is actually not seeing those losses. So, in terms of the prospective depreciation, it has been reduced basically by losses, anticipated losses, on the EVs or the full EVs as such, you know, so, so that's one thing. And of course, in terms of the contract overall, so I would say even in some markets where we've seen some really heavy losses on some particular cars, that was, well, completely out of range in terms of technology, the overall contract have actually been profitable.
Because, well, contrary to what we have heard in the market, that people are losing money on service and maintenance on EVs, for us, it's not the case. They are actually much cheaper than ICE cars. And overall, with the interest rates, because it's also more expensive cars, so the interest income we have had on these cars is fully covering the losses and more than that, actually. So, that's where it is, you know. Now, what do we do going forward? Clearly, there is a price decrease, first of all, a global price decrease anticipated over the next 4-5 years, because the cost of producing EVs will come down.
That's pretty much confirmed, that we have to, of course, price that in, so our customers will eventually have to pay more for an EV, you know, based on that. But we are working, first of all, with our clients very closely, to have potentially longer contracts, second life lease contracts, for them to absorb that as well. And of course, as the price gets cheaper, the overall cost of having a leased car is also cheaper at the end of the day. So the total cost of ownership will not necessarily reflect, you know, that to the full extent. And then, to be very honest, the manufacturers and we actually have some asset protection already with some of the manufacturers, which means if they do these very sharp decreases on prices
We are actually reimbursed for that, if it comes within a certain time frame. And all the manufacturers today needs to keep selling EVs, and they know that if they want to sell EVs to the most important EV segments, which is the corporates today, you know, you see, we are actually at 21% of EVs in the corporate sector. Whereas if you take the overall market in Europe, it's actually 13%. And if they wanna keep that trend, they have to work with us, and we then need some kind of protection from the manufacturers in terms of their future pricing, and they are actually willing to discuss that with us. So we have actually quite a few mitigants on that.
It's clearly our intention to keep serving our customers to the way they want, but clearly, the risk that is anticipated, we want to cover full, not to take any further risk or any more risk on EVs than on our ICE cars, for example. So I hope, Julien, that gives you a bit of a feel for that.
Yes, very interesting, and very interesting to hear that the manufacturer will you starting well, to pay you again to reimburse part of the difference of price when they have cut the pricing. It is something which is significant right now, which is just, an idea, when have to be reimbursed from the price differential when they cut the price?
Well, you know, as you can imagine, it's confidential information, you know. We clearly already have a few contracts in place, and we already have received checks in the past.
Okay
Weeks for that. So it's something that is existing. I think something that, you know, we—I mean, I think the manufacturers, we, our clients actually understands that, you know, EV and the transition to EV is not straightforward, you know, and we all have somehow to find the right way to do it in an orderly manner.
So your residual value right now of the EVs inventories you are in your cars you consider they are fair valued, that there are no risk of further, let's say, losses or depreciations?
Yeah. As I said, you know, for the last two years, we have actually made a stress on EVs, including plug-in hybrids, which is not affected through the same way. So yes, that's what is in our balance sheet.
Okay. Thank you.
The next question is from Sanjay Bhagwani from Citigroup. Please go ahead.
Sanjay, you might be on mute, mute.
Hi. Sorry, I was on mute. Hi.
Indeed.
Thank you very much for taking my question. I have two questions as well. My first one is just on the guidance for earning asset growth of 7%-9%. Could you maybe provide some color in terms of the split between what this means for the fleet growth versus the rest? So, let's say, should we expect the fleet growth continuing to be at somewhere around 3% or at what it was in 2023, or this probably is coming down now? That's my first question. I'll just follow up with the next one, if that is okay.
Right. So on the growth, obviously, you know, we have decided to actually now guide on earning assets growth because we think it's more relevant for the fact that we are now a regulated entity. But clearly, it's a fairly modest anticipated fleet growth of probably less than 1% at the end of the day. And it reflects, first of all, that we are still going through the integration and the fact that we want to reprice, you know, the, let's say the business to some extent. So we think it's quite a prudent number. But as we are entering out, you know, the order bank, which is to a very large extent EVs, obviously the earning assets are still growing, as we said, between 7% and 9%.
Thank you. That's, that's very helpful. And my second one is on the return on these earning assets. So if you look at, for example, the return on average earning assets, on the underlying earnings, for the full year, that comes somewhere around 5.7%. Now, if I understand it correctly, in H1, this is going to go down, but in H2, this recovers based on all of the topics we discussed around more discounts kicking in, the new legislation kicking in and stuff like that. So how should I think of this for 2024 in terms of the return? Because if you just use the previous integration you provided, that was basically 6.50 is the average quarter for the earnings.
If I multiply by that, that by four, then my average return, what, what that number implies is average return on assets of somewhere around 5.2% or something like that. Can this really be so low, or this is more like 5.7 or roughly the same what it is in 2023? That's my question.
Okay, thank you for the question. So I think that getting to the right number is difficult year-on-year, but because it depends on whether you take average or end of period assets. But what we have said for 2024 is that we expect the margin to stabilize throughout the year and maybe to recover second half of the year. So if you take the average on 2023, there has been a decrease, which is related to the emptying of the order book, to the fact that inflation was not correctly priced, and that also interest rates were keeping increasing or kept increasing with this high order book, which was especially long. But going forward, we are taking measures to stabilize that for 2024.
Thank you. So the average for 2024 is likely to be similar to what it was in average for 2023. Is that right?
No, I think the average for 2024 is likely to similar to what it was in Q4 2023.
Okay. Okay, understood. Thank you.
The next question is from Reginald Watson of ING. Please go ahead.
Morning, all. Tim, I'd like to come back to some statements that have been made in the past by ALD and the leasing industry. And that relates to residual values. I believe the last time ALD made a UCS loss was in 2008 after GFC, and I think you explained it as a sort of a disorderly market, everybody rushing to liquidate their stock. And it feels like we've seen the same again in Q4 this year. My understanding was the industry's consolidated, lessons had been learned, and we wouldn't see this occurrence again. Please, can you sort of give us a bit more flavor of why this has happened? Because if I look at your destocking, there's a significant uplift in Q4 versus the prior quarters.
Why wasn't that anticipated? And why did you and the rest of the industry choose to all destock at the same time, leading to a weaker UC, weaker used car market? That's question one. Question two is on the whole issue of EVs and residual values. You've been very clear that second life lease, the different characteristics of EVs versus ICE, mean that residual value risk on EVs should be a lot more limited than on ICE. And yet here we are in a situation where EVs, particularly BEVs, seem to be suffering more than ICE. So I'd like to understand how those protections and the second life lease and the easier maintainability and reusability of these vehicles isn't actually playing out as you had originally anticipated. Those are the first couple of questions, and I do have a couple of follow-ups, but shall we start with that, please?
Thanks, Reginald. But yeah, to your first question, I think you know, the picture of the used car sales in particular Q4 is, I mean, quite diverse, as you know, actually, the ICE cars are performing really well. As I said, the plug-in hybrids actually as well. And it's true that the EVs, the full EVs, obviously took quite a hit, you know, in Q4. But you know, again, in terms of volumes, it's quite insignificant, you know, in our overall numbers, and still is, you know, I mean, less than 10% of the fleet is full EVs, you know, and of course, it's gonna come up.
So I think the situation is very different from what we saw in 2008, you know, back in 2008 at the financial crisis. I mean, typically all markets actually stopped at the same time. This is not the case. Actually, you know, in terms of the EVs, like I said, you know, we are actually doing a lot of cross-border with these because the markets are performing very differently. Actually, in Norway, which is the most mature EV market in Europe, we are not seeing any losses on our EVs, and it's not like they have different RVs to the rest of Europe, but obviously, there is a real mature secondhand market as well for EVs. So the markets that are actually performing very differently.
And I should be honest, the U.K. was probably the worst in terms of EVs in Q4 for different reasons. I think there's been a particular EV bashing in the U.K., to be honest, which have not helped and, and obviousl, b ut so, so it's not at all the same picture as we saw in 2008, you know, and overall, our, you know, used car sales profits, if you take out the PDs and everything else, the market is, is very strong, you know? So, so there's no comparison to that. On the second life lease, I mean, we, we still believe that that is clearly one of the mitigants. Again, you know, as I said, the numbers of EVs that we're selling is not, is not that big, you know.
But if you go to Denmark, if you go to the Netherlands, I think close to 30% of our EVs is actually going on, on a second life lease today, which is two quite mature and large markets. And it's, it's, I would say, something that we definitely anticipate to be part of mitigating the potential, downfall on EVs going forward. So, we have industrialized in many countries that capacity today, but again, you know, when you, when you go to, to some of the markets, it's, it's quite limited, numbers that we are talking about. But clearly, second life lease, or third life lease for that matter, for EVs, we still see as, as a very good opportunity and, a risk mitigation on, on, on, on, on the, on the future of these cars.
Okay. Thank you. And then, just sort of as a side step on, but still on EVs, what do you think the message is that SAP has sent, by delisting Tesla from their fleet?
So, who was that?
SAP, the software company, to my understanding, is they, yeah, they delisted Tesla from their fleet, and they, they claimed that the issue was too much pricing volatility in the Tesla new car prices.
Yeah
Leading to volatility in the used market, et cetera, and it made their fleet management difficult. So I'm just wondering what your take on it is as an industry insider.
Yeah. So to be honest, the way that Tesla is pricing is very bad for residual values. I mean, having a list price in the market that goes up and down is poison for residual value setting, you know. And we have been very clear to, with Tesla on that. It means, you know, that we have to take residuals down, you know, because we don't know what's gonna happen. Now, Tesla have different ways of handling that, and is very keen on keeping working with us and other bigger players in the market, so they are coming up with solutions.
But it's true, I mean, when you basically lower the price by EUR 4,000-EUR 5,000, it has an immediate effect on residual values, and, and hence, Tesla is a difficult animal at the end of the day. Now, Tesla is having a problem because they're only having electric vehicles, and they only have quite expensive electric vehicles. So they need to push volumes because now they're actually producing a lot of cars, and hence, it's difficult for them, you know? Now, if you go to Volkswagen, I mean, they probably have given much more discount than Tesla ever did, you know, but they don't show it. They do it, hiddenly and comes to people and say, "I give you 40% discount on a product." And it's much more healthy for the residual value at the end of the day.
But obviously, and I think this is a personal thing for Elon Musk, he wants a price that is based on supply and demand, you know, to a large extent. But it's quite damaging for the market, and it's, I think for the long term, it's damaging for Tesla, the way they do it.
Yeah, because I think what a lot of the concern I'm hearing, and this is something I think you need to defend against in the equity narrative, is that, you know, EVs are gonna be the next Dieselgate, and that therefore, this is gonna weigh, I think, on investor concern. But we'll move on from that. And my final question then is thank you for the disclosure on the NGDA. I'm just wondering if you could please give us some examples of how you can stop the development of a system but still retain residual value. You mentioned that the assets of value will be re-used and redeployed. I'm not a software engineer, so I struggle to understand how you can halt something halfway through and still have something usable at the end of it.
Yeah. Hi, Reginald, it's John. Thanks for the question. NGDA is , i t's a digital architecture which actually consists of around 30 or 40 different modules. So it consists of back office, front office tools, client reporting platforms, HR platforms, accounting platforms. So when we went through the PPA process and the reset of the strategy, we basically looked at each of those modules. We looked at what we had in ALD, historically, and we selected the most appropriate module to take forward for the business.
Right.
Therefore, what we've done is we've stopped new development on the modules that we won't want to use going forward, a good example being back office. LeasePlan made a decision back in 2019 to start building their own back office platform because what they had was very old, very antiquated, and almost technology obsolescent, so they had no choice. Now, on the ALD side, we've got a more modern set of back office systems in most of the major countries, and we've proven that we can use technology to open those up and deliver these wonderful digital journeys that we do for our clients. Therefore, we stopped the new development on the modules that we don't wanna take forward, and that's reflected in the decrease in the capital expenditure going forward versus the position we were in in September, and we'll leverage the existing platforms.
But as Patrick said earlier, on some of the other modules where we do see value, and some examples of those are insurance modules, modules that support steering of SMR work to the appropriate suppliers, we will continue to invest.
Thank you.
It's not one big system. Yeah, it's not one big system.
Yeah
It's multiple systems.
No, yeah, y eah, I haven't quite understood the complexity of that. That's really helpful. Thank you.
Pleasure.
The next question is from Geoffroy Michalet from Oddo. Please go ahead.
Yes, thank you for taking the question again. Coming back on EV residual value, you don't provide the number of cars you sell at the end of the lease, the breakdown between EVs, BEVs and ICE vehicle. Could you maybe help us to quantify a bit that, maybe not now, but in the future? And also, to help us understand how much of the drag down was led by EV vehicles in terms of the pricing, while you say that ICE keep a very, let's say, healthy profit, although it's down. I mean, where in fact EV vehicles driving down the average selling price that we saw in Q4? Thank you.
Yeah. Thank you, Geoffroy. Well, I should say we don't give the we can consider giving a more clear view on the sales of the different powertrains, so we will consider that. As I said, you know, we have 10% today of our fleet, which is full EVs, so you could anticipate that one tenth of the sales is an EV, basically. So if you look at 86,000 cars sold in Q4, well, you know, you have about 7,000-8,000 EVs that's been sold to a large extent. Of course, that number will increase because, you know, the penetration of EVs is coming up in the order bank.
But clearly, the new production will be much more aligned with what we anticipate in terms of residual value, so we are already taking actions in terms of lowering residual values. It's the right time to do it because with the lowering of the prices we have seen in the market, the fact that we lower the residual value means that the customer do not necessarily see the positive impact of the lower price, but they will not see an increase necessarily very much, at least in the total cost of ownership of that car. So we are already taking action, so the future production will be in line with our anticipation that actually RVs will be low on EVs, you know, so. But you could expect that around 10% of our sales today is full EVs.
Another 10% is another 10% plug-in hybrids. And again, you know, on the plug-in hybrids, they are actually performing much more like our ICE cars for the time being.
Okay. Thank you.
Mr. Albertsen, there are no more questions registered at this time.
All right. Well, thank you. I think that, then concludes this call, so thank you very much for your questions and your time, and, do not hesitate to reach out to our IR team if you have more questions. Thanks a lot, and have a good day.
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining. The conference is now over. You may disconnect your telephone.