Hello, and welcome to the Bureau Veritas Q3 2022 revenue call. My name is Jess, and I'll be your coordinator for today's event. For the duration of the call, your lines will be on listen -only. However, there will be the opportunity to ask questions. This can be done by pressing star one on your telephone keypad to register your questions anytime. If at any point you require assistance, please press star zero and you'll be connected to an operator. On the call today, we have Didier Michaud-Daniel, Chief Executive Officer, Hinda Gharbi, Group Chief Operating Officer, and François Chabas, Group Chief Financial Officer. I will now hand over to your host, Didier Michaud-Daniel to begin today's call. Thank you.
Thank you. Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening to everyone. Thank you for joining Bureau Veritas Q3 2022 revenue on the webcast and on the call. Hinda Gharbi, our Group Chief Operating Officer, and François Chabas, our Group CFO, are here with me. In the third quarter of the year, the environment has remained volatile with the consequences of the war in Ukraine and still some mobility restrictions in China, further complicated by the zero-COVID policy. We continue to take appropriate measures to ensure the health and safety of all our employees. Employee safety is a top priority for the management team. I would like to take the opportunity to thank all our teams who remain highly mobilized and ensure efficient solutions and support for all our clients. Looking at the figures.
In Q3 2022, revenue fowr the quarter was EUR 1.46 billion, up 17% year-on-year. The organic increase was 8.7%, showing a very solid underlying performance and 7.3% year-to-date. Four of our businesses delivered particularly strong organic revenue growth, ranging from Buildings & Infrastructure at 11% to Agri-Food & Commodities at 9.6%. The scope effect was a positive 1.3%, reflecting the impact of the bolt-on acquisitions realized in the first nine months of 2022. For the last four consecutive quarters, Forex had a positive impact of 7% in Q3, primarily due to the appreciation of the U.S. dollar and peg currencies against the euro. Excluding the full-year impact from lockdowns in China and based on the year-to-date performance, we confirm our full-year 2022 outlook.
In Q3, we have continued to see the benefits of our strategic direction. Three key areas are of particular interest. First, the strength of our organic growth. Our organic revenue performance has shown a very steady growth trend, and we are reaping the rewards of our business and geographical diversification and market positioning. Secondly, we have accelerated our selective and disciplined bolt-on acquisition strategy with four promising transactions. Two extend the geographic diversification of our Consumer Products activities by expanding in the U.S. and in new markets. Another further positions the group in the sustainability services in Spain. One strengthens our exposure in public infrastructure in the U.S., a key focus for our U.S. B&I platform. Thirdly, we continue to see accelerating demand for our BV Green Line of Services & Solutions as a focus on health, safety, quality and environmental stewardship continues to gather momentum and prominence.
This includes carbon footprint verification, renewable energy, responsible sourcing or LNG fuel ships. We continue to benefit from the balanced portfolio we have established over the past few years. In the pie charts, you see a diversification benefit. First, all of our activities are fueling the growth. Each business contributes to driving the group forward. Second, our strong franchise covers all continents. In the third quarter, growth was driven across most geographies, with a significant contribution from the Americas as well as Africa and Middle East. Our growth platform is in place across the whole of the group and enables us to deliver steady organic revenue growth. This is completed by our bolt-on targeted acquisition strategy. Our strategy to grow the portfolio with bolt-on acquisitions to deliver consistent performance has continued in the third quarter.
The acquisition of CAP that we announced in September 2022 to reinforce our B&I platform in the U.S. will increase our footprint in the infrastructure sector. CAP is a company serving as one of the largest building department services firms in Florida. The company realized EUR 25 million of revenue. This complements our presence in code compliance services footprint in the U.S. Our diversification strategy in consumer goods continues with one additional acquisition to expand our offering and footprint. Alongside ATL and AMSfashion, we have acquired Galbraith Laboratories in the U.S. It is an expert in healthcare analytical testing solutions. The company based in Tennessee will further position Bureau Veritas in the consumer healthcare and industrial chemical supply chain. These four transactions in strategic areas represent EUR 67 million in annualized revenue.
The acquisitions over the last year have increased the group's revenue in the U.S. by EUR 100 million. Before handing over to Hinda Gharbi for the business review, let me say a word on our CSR achievements. Our commitment is to act responsibly in order to shape a better world. This commitment was again recognized by non-financial rating agencies during the third quarter of 2022. This is a great achievement for the constant efforts regarding sustainability. Bureau Veritas has been ranked first by Moody's ESG Solutions among 99 companies in business support services sector, with a score up four points to 70, based on 38 ESG criteria. We have also been ranked second by Sustainalytics among 62 companies in the research and consulting sector. The major improvements came from governance on social pillars.
Now, I would like to welcome Hinda, Hinda Gharbi, our Chief Operating Officer and future CEO, to the call today and hand over to her for the business review. Hinda?
Thank you, Didier. Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening, everyone. I'm pleased to be here with you today. When we look at the overall performance of the group, we have a growth that is broad-based and demonstrates again the resilience of our overall portfolio. Our top performing businesses are Buildings & Infrastructure and Industry. Both grew double digits organically in the quarter. Marine & Offshore and Agri-Food & Commodities were both up circa 10%. Certification was up 6.6%, benefiting from strong demand for sustainability-driven solutions. While Consumer Products grew moderately at 0.6%. Looking now at each business. First, Marine & Offshore. The business delivered an exceptional 9.7% organic revenue growth in the quarter. It was equally led by both in-service and new construction activity.
Our new build activity was fueled by Asia and reflected the new order intake in the prior year. Our core in-service activity benefited from several factors. The continuous increase in occasional surveys, the growth in our fleet, some price increases, as well as ship owners scheduling inspections earlier than anticipated. Our new orders continue to grow, driven by the construction of LNG fuel ships, bulk and container ships, and specialized vessels. The order book of 18.9 million gross tons gives us a positive revenue outlook for the next two years. For Agri-Food & Commodities, the business remained strong in Q3 and recorded an organic growth of 9.6% with the following dynamics. Our oil and petrochemical business further improved. The trade market benefited from higher fuel consumption, notably for aviation fuel and petrol.
The diversification of our services continues with laboratory outsourcing and with sustainable aviation fuel testing, to name just a couple. Our metals and minerals business continued to perform well. It benefited from solid growth in mining-related testing, driven by energy transition minerals. The group's successful strategy for on-site laboratories continued to contribute to the growth and resilience of this business. Our Agri-Food business showed some improvement. The Agri upstream business benefited from strong growth in Brazil and also from the recovery of the Agri trade in Europe, following agreements on shipping commodities out of Ukraine. On the Food front, we continue our expansion in the U.S. and in selected markets in the rest of the world, and we are diversifying our services in the Pacific and North America region. Moving to Industry.
Industry was among the best performing businesses within the group's portfolio in the third quarter of 2022, with organic growth of 10.6%. The strategy of diversification towards OPEX and Power & Utilities markets continues to bear fruit. Power & Utilities remain the key growth driver of the portfolio with a strong organic performance achieved in Q3. In renewables, opportunities remain significant. The pipeline continues to grow, driven by integrated energy companies as they transition their portfolio to new energy sources. We are capitalizing on our strength with these companies and providing solutions to help that transition. In oil and gas, we are leveraging our footprint to capture growth while we remain focused on growing our OPEX services in our business mix. In Q3, it represented two-thirds of our oil and gas revenue.
For buildings and infrastructure, we continue to execute our B&I growth strategy, and we are strengthening our three platforms across Europe, Asia Pacific and North America. North America, a strategic platform for B&I, grew 21%. This growth is broad-based, from data center commissioning services to project management assistance and OPEX related services. As mentioned earlier by Didier, CAP, our latest acquisition, strengthens our code compliance business and positions us well to super-support our customers with climate change implications for their buildings and infrastructure. In Europe, and specifically in France, our largest business, we delivered a steady 5.8% organic revenue growth in the quarter, driven primarily by our large portfolio of OPEX services. This resilient growth will help mitigate any potential slowdown in the new build market. Additionally, our CAPEX portfolio is designed to service different end markets and mitigate any one market weakness.
Lastly, the Asia Pacific B&I platform remains resilient and recorded single-digit organic growth despite the continuous and sporadic lockdowns in China. For certification, overall, the business achieved a solid organic growth of 6.6%, supported by both volumes and robust price increases across most geographies. Latin America, Africa, and Asia Pacific performed above the divisional average. We have diversified our services mix in many geographies, shifting from traditional scheme towards voluntary scheme and broadening our portfolio in feed, in food certification and sustainability. This resulted into double-digit organic growth in Brazil, Australia, U.K., and China. Overall, market growth is driven by increased client demand for more brand protection, traceability, and social responsibility commitments across their operations and supply chain. As a result, we have a strong momentum in corporate responsibility and sustainability services.
Specifically, we see strong demand for greenhouse gas emission verification services, namely carbon footprint assessments, neutrality or net zero goals assurance. Additionally, we have recorded strong growth in food certification as well as in enterprise risks led by cybersecurity and IT management system solutions. For consumer products, it delivered more moderate organic revenue growth at 0.6% in Q3. Our growth was primarily led by Southeast Asian countries and Turkey, reflecting a shift of manufacturing into these countries from China. Our activity levels were under pressure in Eastern China, with China facing disruptions from new regional lockdown measures and the impact of high inventory in consumer end market. Looking forward, on the China front, the zero-COVID policy continues to restrict testing activity in the near- to mid-term.
We continue to expand our sustainability services in this division, and we are seeing a strong momentum of growth led by social and governance audits across most geographies. I would like now to update you on our BV Green Line. As you have noticed on my update on the businesses, there is an acceleration of sustainability programs implementation globally and in all sectors. Our BV Green Line of Services & Solutions are gaining traction. They now represent circa 55% of our sales at the end of September this year. BV Green Line represents all our solutions and services, both in sustainability enabling sectors like the new energy space, and encompasses our sustainability customer solutions to support their sustainability management journey. I wanted to share with you a few examples of services we are offering to the market.
In resources and production, we have been awarded the project supervision and quality assurance support of the largest green hydrogen and green power solar project in China. In consumption and traceability, we were awarded a contract with Verkor, a European pioneer in electric vehicle battery. With our digital partner, OPTEL, we ensure full traceability of Verkor's batteries that bring greater transparency and sustainability to its entire supply chain. In buildings and infrastructure, we have been awarded a contract in Colombia to validate compliance with the sustainable construction standards during design and construction stages. In new mobility, as the shipping industry decarbonizes, our marine and offshore experts released a new biofuels-ready standard, helping the maritime industry address the main challenges related to this use of biofuels by ship.
Finally, in social ethics and governance, we have been selected by the Ivory Coast government to act as a control office on behalf of the National Agency for Waste Management. Bureau Veritas supports the implementation, in this case, of the cleanliness objectives and preservation of the environment for 21 cities in the country. After a few months managing operations in the company, it is clear to me that accompanying clients' sustainability journey is in the DNA of Bureau Veritas and is a continuity of what we have done for nearly 200 years. Now, as I look forward, I am confident that the fundamental strengths of our sustainability portfolio position us well to leverage the momentum in this space. I would like to hand now back to Didier for the outlook for the rest of the year.
Thank you, Hinda. Thank you. The outlook now for the rest of the year. Earlier this year, we guided on full year expectations, assuming no severe lockdowns in one of our main countries of operations due to COVID-19. As of today, we can now obviously see the repetitive lockdowns in China. Therefore, this needs to be excluded from our margin guidance. We will do what we said. Based on the year-to-date performance and excluding the full year impact of the COVID-19 lockdowns in China, we still expect to achieve mid-single digit organic revenue growth, improve the adjusted operating margin, generate sustained strong cash flow with a cash conversion above 90%. We live in volatile and uncertain world. In this environment, we delivered another steady operating performance in Q3, thanks to our agile and resilient business model. The growth platform is in place.
We are uniquely positioned to benefit from the key imperatives of sustainability and energy transition. With the 2025 strategy, we will capitalize on our strengths and continue our successful journey of creating value for BV and its stakeholders. Overall, the strong fundamentals for our business, coupled with our actual secured backlog, give us confidence to remain positive with regards to our business outlook, both near term and longer term. Thank you very much for your attention. Hinda, François, and I are now ready to answer your questions on the call or on the webcast.
If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. Please ensure your line is unmuted locally, as you will be advised when to ask your question. Once again, that's star one if you would like to ask a question. The first question comes from the line of Suhasini Varanasi from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good evening. Thank you for taking my questions. Just two for me, please. To clarify the margin guidance, is it fair to say that given the growth that you have seen in the other verticals, the margin weakness that you're seeing is mainly coming from Consumer Products division, that you saw the weakness in the growth in Q3, and therefore, that is what you're worried about to get the margin, the potential to get the margins down year-over-year? Secondly, the growth that you saw in Q3, did it soften towards the end of the quarter or at the beginning of Q4? Thank you.
Thank you for your question. I'm gonna answer the first question. You know that it's a revenue call. In fact, we should not talk about margin, but I think it's very important that we clarify the point regarding the margin guidance. In fact, to be extremely clear on that point, you know that in our capital market day in December 2021, when it comes to operating margin, we said that 16% is the floor and we commit on this. It's true for this year. I'm not going to say more than that, and of course, we will have more details in our call in February. Regarding your second question, I cannot say that it slowed down in September. In fact, there was no real change of trends from August to September.
It's quite the same type of organic growth.
The next question comes from the line of Sylvia Barker from JP Morgan. Please go ahead.
Hi, good afternoon. Can I ask on the Consumer Organic? I guess you did see quite a good Q2, and Q3 has been quite slow. Could you just talk a little bit more about, I guess, are you seeing any replenishment of samples? And maybe can you comment on what the consumer business did in China specifically? Secondly, can I please check within metals and minerals and the slowdown that you have seen sequentially, obviously you're saying that the comps were quite difficult, but could you maybe just give us a little bit of detail as to where that's coming from? In B&I in the Americas, could you comment on the U.S. a little bit and what you're seeing on the data center side there specifically? Thank you.
Yeah. Thank you for your question. I propose Hinda, you answer this question because they are very operational questions, starting with the Consumer Organic growth in Q3.
Absolutely. Thank you, Sylvia, for those questions. On the consumer front, first of all, if you look at our growth in Q3 and consider the same growth last year, Q3, these are not favorable comparables considering that last year we were basically still executing the backlog from previous slowdowns. That's the first point. The second point, we have seen, of course, sporadic lockdowns in mainland China across many more provinces than what we have seen in Q2. The third one is we have seen major retail companies in the Western Hemisphere essentially in view of that high inventory slowdown, their sourcing and their purchases which meant that many producers had to delay some of their new product launches.
We have also seen an impact on the technology front in Taiwan. All these factors together meant that slowed the growth. Now, of course, we were quite pleased that our strategy that we have put in place has kicked in. While we've seen the China slowdown and all these other factors I just mentioned, we were able to see actually growth in Southeast Asia and South Asia, and we have been working for a while there to diversify our geography footprint. We have also been working quite a bit to diversify our offering and to offer particularly new solutions in terms of sustainability, traceability.
Finally, of course, we continue to be extremely vigilant as to our efficiency in how we operate our labs in China in particular. That's on the CPS front. In terms of M&M growth, we actually have metals and the mining sector, as you know, is in an up cycle. Now of course, as there is some interest rate increases, the exploration versus production development makes it slightly different. But we have been actually thinking about this for a while, and a lot of our strategy around on-site laboratories is really to leverage basically that production shift. But we have actually continued to lead in many of these markets on the mining side.
Essentially, we haven't seen any particular concerns on the growth front, and we expect to see a lot more activity as well on green minerals and metals, and that's an area of focus for us. Finally, on the B&I question, sorry, just to be clear, you were asking about what the dynamic there?
More-
Yes. On the commissioning side, we can.
Just specifically on the U.S., I know you've spoken about.
Yes. Thank you. Look, I think our growth in the U.S. was around 21%, and it was broad-based. It goes from our data commissioning activities to our facility assessment and compliance activities, to our project management assistance. We have a number of projects and infrastructure kicking in as well. It's very broad-based B&I activity in the country. We again are very pleased to have CAP join us as well because that adds to our code compliance business, particularly in a place like Florida, which is very sensitive today to climate change risk.
Thank you very much, Hinda.
Thank you.
Okay. Ready to take another question.
The next question comes from the line of Neil Tyler from Redburn. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Good afternoon. Actually, I'll start with a follow-up to the previous question on B&I. Specifically, you called out in Europe you know the resilience of the activities that you perform. Can you sort of frame for us a little bit the shape of the U.S. B&I business and how you feel that would fare were non-resi construction to you know not that the lead indicators point to anything concerning, but you know is that more likely to track the non-resi construction output? That's the first question, please. The second one on pricing. Within your organic growth, have you been positively surprised with the extent to which your price increases have settled across the business?
Any areas where you would say there's more to do, please, to capture cost inflation? Thank you.
Okay, thank you for your question. I'm gonna start with the second question. Pricing, François, could you answer the question regarding pricing, please?
Yes, sure. Hi, Neil. On the pricing front, I think what we've seen in Q3 is that our projections we have been discussing during the H1 results are actually on track. If you remember, we said that especially in the geographies where there is an acceleration of inflation, there is kind of a lag between our pricing adjustments and when it hits the P&L. We plan for the full year a contribution of pricing in the range of, you know, a bit above 1.5% with an acceleration in Q3 and Q4. We saw it in Q3. I would say, is it an easy price adjustment? No.
We are moving our prices up everywhere where it is possible and acceptable to the clients. We are still very much working on it. I would say so far aligned with our expectations, knowing that from a cost point of view, you would remember that the biggest chunk of our cost is people driven and that remains under control.
Thank you, François. Before leaving the floor to Hinda, regarding your first question, you are right. First, I wanted to insist on the fact that our business in Europe is extremely resilient, and you are right to say so, which is good news, of course, for now and for the future. Now regarding North America, Hinda?
Yeah. In North America, I think we remain consistent in how we really engineer the mix of our business. If you look at the U.S., we have essentially a third of our business is in the CAPEX space, a third in the OPEX, and a third in the data commissioning space. We are balanced, and we are focusing on growth in these three sectors.
That's very helpful. Thanks very much.
Thank you very much for your questions.
The next question comes from the line of Arthur Truslove from Citi. Please go ahead.
Hi there. Thanks very much. Arthur Truslove from Citi. Just going back to the consumer goods performance. Just wondered how much of the impact on organic growth was driven by lockdowns in China, if you'd give us any idea about that, and potentially, what organic growth outside of China might have looked like? Secondly, if you could give us an update on the kind of wage growth that you might be seeing, you know, give us an idea of what sort of levels of wage increases and perhaps how does that compare with what you were seeing in the first half of the year?
I guess finally, just on the margin guidance, so just to confirm, it doesn't sound like on a full year basis we should expect the adjusted margin to go up any more, which obviously would've been the case at half year. Is that right, basically? Thank you.
I was very clear on the margin side. Again, the commitment we have is 16% as a floor. It's not a call for margin, it's a revenue call, as you know. On the update on salary, we could have one hour on this one, because if you think about Asia, where the salary will increase is very low. By the way, the salary increase in China is the lowest one I've seen since I'm in charge of Bureau Veritas. If you go to the U.S., of course it's a different story because, as you know, there is scarcity of manpower. If you are in Europe, you need to look at each country, which has a different story. Overall, it's a difficult. Well, it's not a difficult question.
It's an interesting question, of course, but the answer should be done with the 140 countries we are working with. The first question regarding consumer goods and the impact from China, Hinda Gharbi.
Well, I mean, we obviously, Arthur, thanks for the question, but we would rather not precisely really disclose the impact from each component. It suffices to say that the lockdowns as they stand today are quite sporadic. That our team on the ground is extremely focused to try to basically plan around them at this point.
Okay. Thank you again for your question.
The next question comes from the line of Katie Carpenter from Bank of America. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thanks for taking my question. Just one on the M&A pipeline. Could you give a bit more detail around how you expect the pipeline and M&A momentum to evolve over the next 12 months versus the last 12 months? Thanks.
As you know, regarding the M&A, we've decided to be extremely disciplined and go for bolt-on acquisitions. I'm very happy, by the way, with the last three years. I mean, we did quite a good job of it. When I say quite, in fact, we did a good job. If I had to remake one of the acquisition we made, I would do it again. We will continue to be disciplined. We have clearly a good pipeline. Just to give you an idea, we have an M&A committee every 15 days, and usually we look at one or two potential acquisitions. Showing that, again, we are first very selective, and we will continue to be disciplined and selective, but also the fact that we have a good pipeline for the future.
Have there been any new opportunities coming up just given current market conditions, or has the pipeline remained pretty much similar throughout the year?
Honestly, I cannot say that. I have two answers to this question. The first one, there are some opportunities, but maybe we don't consider them because these companies might be in difficulties. I'm thinking about some companies which are particularly linked to very cyclical business, clearly. Meaning that again, because we are very selective, in fact, strategically wise, we decide what we want to buy. We know exactly what we want to buy. We are making deals according to the strategy. Again, with Hinda now and François, we want to remain extremely disciplined. I'm extremely happy with the last three years' acquisitions, and we will continue the same way.
Understood. Thank you.
Thank you for your question.
Before we go to the next question, as a reminder, please press star one if you would like to ask a question. The next question comes from the line of Anvesh Agrawal from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Hi, good evening. I got two questions. First, just on marine and going back to your initial comments, where it seems that within in-service business, some of the growth has been sort of brought forward. So obviously the pipeline on newbuild, new order, new construction seems quite robust. But just wondering on the in-service side, is there any risk of that slowing with the growth being brought forward or you sort of remains quite confident with the outlook within the in-service part as well? Slightly longer-term question around the consumer and this trend of production being sort of pulled out of China and sort of locations like Turkey and other Southeast Asian countries. How would you define your...
The competitive dynamics in those regions and, like, how do you sort of compare your investment into labs in those regions versus your immediate peers? How far ahead you are?
Hinda, we take the first question. The second one, because it's a longer term and it's also a decision that we made in the past few years, we were right. When you see what happened, in particular in Q2, where we could clearly send samples from China to Southeast Asia, that was a good decision. You can see that we continue to diversify geographically. We made three acquisitions with CPS this year, one in Spain, two in the U.S. Showing that we want to continue to diversify, not to say that we don't want to be in China, we want to be in China clearly, but we want to continue to diversify geographically. On the first question, Hinda, maybe you can take it.
Yes, yes, absolutely. Thank you for the question there. Look, as I mentioned earlier, there were obviously some surveys that came forward, and weren't planned that our customers decided to ask for during Q3. So there could potentially be some moderation of the growth ending Q4 before because of that. But I would like to stress though that as we increase the fleet, as we have actually seen an intensity increase in the services we provide for the core in service, this baseline of growth is quite solid. We just talked about our backlog, so we see that in general continuing to be a solid growth going forward.
Thank you.
Thank you for your question.
The next question comes from the line of James Rose from Barclays. Please go ahead.
Hi, there. I've got two, please. The first is just going back to the outlook. Could you quantify the revenue impacts of the full year revenue impacts of COVID-19 lockdowns in China? Then secondly, Hinda, just would appreciate your thoughts on what Bureau Veritas could be doing better overall. Are there any opportunities it's missed? Thank you.
Okay. Thank you very much for your question. The first one on the revenue impact regarding COVID-19, there is no quantification, so this is clear. Second question, Hinda, very interesting one.
Indeed. Thank you. Thank you very much for the question. Look, I had the opportunity in the last five months to travel to 14 countries and really meet with the teams, the customers, the colleagues there. What I have seen is a company that is trusted by its customers, a company that has a lot of very proud employees serving the customers in a very customer-centric way. I've seen customers actually using us not only as a service company, but as a sounding board of technical and expert people who actually help them as they navigate their compliance, quality needs, sustainability needs.
Of course, as I spend time with customers, I've seen what they are grappling with today, which is all the imperatives of energy transition, sustainability, a lot of transformation on digitization and also supply chain, considering the geopolitics of today. I'm telling you all this to say that we have very strong competitive advantages in our space. What I'm looking at today is to understand how can I add value to that and where do we find opportunities to continue our path of growth and profitability. Very early for me to tell you exactly what they are, but I'm certainly working on finding this opportunity. Thank you very much for the question.
Thank you.
Thank you.
The next question comes from the line of Karl Green from RBC. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thank you very much. Just a couple of follow-up questions from me. Although you're not quantifying it today, do you propose to quantify the lockdown impact when you get to the full year stage? If so, will you be looking at the net impact, i.e., stripping out the benefit that some of the Southeast Asian countries may have had from some of the samples being diverted there? That's the first question. Secondly, following on from that, Q4 for CPS has a slightly tougher comp than what you saw in Q3. Is it reasonable for consensus to start baking in a negative organic progression for Q4 for CPS? Thank you.
Okay. Well, we'll start with Q4, Hinda, if it's possible. The question was, do we foresee a negative organic growth for Q4 in Q4 CPS? François will answer and clarify the quantification.
Yeah. I will start.
So-
Yes, I'll start. Thank you. Thank you for the question. Look, as we have mentioned, I think the dynamics I described for Q3 remains pretty much the same in Q4. There is no change in COVID policy. I think the retailers continue to be very vigilant on their inventory. And we from our side continue to be extremely focused on managing our labs in the most efficient way and continuing, of course, to renew our customer base to ensure that we can fill up some other parts of our footprint outside China as well. I would expect to date that we will be in line with what I've seen in Q3, considering that it's exactly the same conditions.
I would like to say, though, that in terms of Services & Solutions, we have a number of new solutions that we're continuing to work on to ensure that we create new revenue streams, specifically in sustainability and inspections beyond testing.
Excellent, Hinda . Quantification, François.
Yes. I would just take a bit of a step back when it comes to the you know the events we are facing. I mean, the last three years haven't been exactly an easy ride for all companies, but definitely this. You know, just looking on 2021, I mean, 2022, what is happening in China, you could say Taiwan as well, you could say Ukraine, Russia. I think what is important for all to understand is that the management of the company and our managers on the field, you know, they are not looking for excuses. They are looking to deliver the best of their performance this year.
I think the Q3 numbers, as you see them, are a clear evidence that we are not hiding behind, you know, events. As of today, as Didier mentioned, we do not communicate on a particular event, which, by the way, is a tricky one when it comes to financial evaluation. You know, you are not looking to. I mean, I'm the CFO, impact of China is not exactly an IFRS element. I'm sure you would understand. As of today, what I can say is we're gonna do our best to deliver the strong organic growth, keep our words compared to what we said to the market in November when it comes to the margin, which is the 4%-16%.
I'm sure that by the end of February, when we discuss again, we'll have much more questions about 2023 and what is coming next than just looking back at China.
Thank you very much, François. I think we have a last question, if I'm right, Lauren.
The last question comes from the line of Sylvia Barker from JP Morgan. Please go ahead.
Hi. Sorry, it's me again. Just two very quick follow-ups. Just on pricing. You were running at below 1% as a contribution in H1. You said you're on the way to kind of 1.5%, but I presume you are above 1% in Q3, just given the averages. Can you just confirm? Then secondly, just on Taiwan, you mentioned that is one of the reasons for consumer being, which is negative impact on consumer. What is actually happening on the ground at the moment?
Okay. I suggest we start by the second question.
After, François, we'll come back on pricing.
Absolutely. Thank you, Sylvia, for the question. Look, obviously the recent events in Taiwan meant that there was a lot of uncertainty about the situation with China and that delayed a number of new product launches, as essentially companies were trying to assess whether this is a long-term risk or can they continue to rely on that baseline of manufacturing as a manufacturing location. That really delayed quite a bit of our activity there. Of course we consider that at some point that particular risk should subside. We just don't see it in the very near term just yet.
Yeah. We agreed. François, on the pricing side?
On the pricing side, we do not disclose on a quarterly basis the impact, but, you know, to be very transparent with you, to get a full year 1.5, it does mean that we have an acceleration in Q3 and Q4, and this acceleration is happening, and I would say to make it very simple, in a linear manner. There is no, you know, sandbagging somewhere. We saw in Q3 what we were expecting to see. We could consider Q3 and Q4 being kind of even when it comes to this impact now because the price adjustments have been made and they're coming through as expected.
I think it was the last question. Thank you, François. Yes. Thank you very much for your attention. Wishing you good morning, good afternoon and good evening.
Thank you for joining today's call. You may now disconnect your lines.