Bonjour à tous. Je vous souhaite la bienvenue et vous remercie de votre présence. Merci aussi à ceux qui nous suivent en ligne. Je suis ravi d'ouvrir avec Paul et d'entourer de tous les dirigeants du groupe la 7e Assemblée générale d'EssilorLuxottica. C'est un moment important pour nous. Notre groupe a été créé il y a seulement sept ans. Cela nous rappelle que l'entreprise est jeune, mais aussi que nous avons déjà fait un chemin incroyable avec votre soutien. Dans un contexte international complexe, nous célébrons aujourd'hui des résultats records et la réussite de ce groupe que nous avons bâtie et dont nous pouvons être si fiers. Plus encore, nous célébrons notre vision, celle d'une entreprise qui ne se contente pas de regarder vers l'avenir, elle veut construire cette ville à travers les yeux de chacun d'entre nous.
Avant de passer la parole à Monsieur Alexander Luschov, Secrétaire de l'Assemblée pour les formalités et les économiques, permettez-moi de vous adresser un grand merci. Merci pour votre confiance et de votre soutien. Merci beaucoup.
Merci, Monsieur le Président. Mesdames, Messieurs, bonjour à toutes et à tous. J'attire tout d'abord votre attention sur la nature de la publication de cette assemblée, à laquelle assiste un certain nombre de journalistes. Il est interdit de filmer ou de diffuser des films ou de broadcast images de cette assemblée. Cette assemblée est transmise en direct par la société en ligne et sera aussi diffusée en différé dès aujourd'hui à 18:30, avant d'aborder les présentations de l'ensemble des présentations par tous les speakers. Je vous propose de procéder à la proposition de dépôt de l'assemblée, dont Monsieur Francesco Milleri assurera la présidence en sa qualité de Président du Conseil d'Administration en tant que Chairman du Board of Directors. J'appelle, pour remplir les fonctions de ce président, les deux actionnaires du président du plus grand nombre de votes et ayant accepté de remplir leurs fonctions scrutinières.
Monsieur Romolo Bardin, représentant de l'action de référence Delfin, Madame Virginie Mercier-Pottier, représentant de l'association Valoptec Association. Je les remercie d'accepter ces fonctions. Et je remercie Monsieur Francesco Milleri, le secrétaire de cette assemblée, de me désigner en tant que secrétaire de sécurité. Les commissaires aux comptes de notre société sont présents, notamment Monsieur Stéphane Basset, vous présentera les rapports relatifs aux résolutions soumises à votre approval. Le quorum provisoire est à 84.84% pour l'assemblée générale et 84.44% pour l'assemblée générale extraordinaire. L'assemblée générale, qui est constituée de plus de 25% des shares ayant le droit de vote, est dûment constituée et elle met validement en ordre de vous présenter les extraordinaires items on the agenda. Le quorum définitif, c'est avant le vote de l'assemblée.
Le bureau de l'assemblée tient à votre disposition les journaux dans lesquels ont été publiés les notices de votation et l'avis préalable de vote préliminaire requis par la loi et publiés. Que les documents, as all the documents required by applicable regulations. Tous les documents préalables ont été mis à la disposition. All preliminary documents have been made available at the company's registered office and on the website in accordance with legal and regulatory requirements. Shareholders were able to vote online avant l'assemblée générale sur le site dédié en. Dedicated secure website, which was opened on the 11th of April and closed yesterday at 3:00 P.M. Paris time in accordance with current statutes and regulations.
Cette assemblée, this meeting, was organized to formal take the form of presentations, including those by Monsieur Francesco Milleri, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, and Paul du Saillant, Deputy Chief Executive Officer, à suivre celles by Stefano Grassi concerning the 2024 annual results. Elena Dimitrino will review the highlights of 2024 in terms of sustainable development. The EssilorLuxottica mission, Norbert Gorny, who will present the scientific roadmap of EssilorLuxottica and the group's evolution towards medtech, and Christelle Béranger who will explain how EssilorLuxottica drives the market. Pour finir, je donnerai la parole and over to Andrea Zappia, Chairman of the Nominations and Compensation Committee, and to Stéphane Basset, Statutory Auditor, à suivre une session followed by a question and answer session and a vote on the draft resolutions. The agenda is being displayed on the screen behind me. Je vous propose donc, dans ce cas, to summarize it briefly.
The 17 resolutions proposed by the board of directors include 15 ordinary resolutions. The resolutions 1 to 3 concern the approval of the parent company and consolidated financial statements and the allocation of net income. La résolution 4 concerns the regulatory agreements and commitments submitted for your approval in accordance with regulations. Les résolutions 5 to 7 concern the approval of remuneration and compensation paid to corporate officers during 2024, the stay-on-pay or the ex-post vote. Les résolutions 8 to 10 concern the approval of the compensation policy for corporate officers, stay-on-pay or ex-ante vote. Les résolutions 5 to 10 were specifically reviewed and adopted on the recommendation of the Appointments and Compensation Committee. Monsieur Andrea Zappia will report to you on the committee's report concerning these compensation items. La résolution 11 aims to renew the term of office of Fulvio Mazzotta as Statutory Auditor.
La résolution 12 concerns the appointment of Ernst & Young Audit as Statutory Auditor following the expiry of the term of office of PricewaterhouseCoopers Audit. La résolution 13 concerns the appointment of Ernst & Young Audit as Statutory Auditor responsible for certifying sustainability information. La résolution 14 concerns the authorization for the company to buy back its own shares. Deux résolutions à caractère exceptionnel. Resolution 15 concerns the authorization to be given to the board of directors to reduce the share capital by canceling treasury shares. La résolution 16 concerns the amendment of Article 22 of the Article 17 to remove the reference to alternate statutory auditors. Finally, the last resolution, number 17, on an ordinary basis, concerns the powers to carry out the legal formalities following the decisions of the annual general meeting.
Now, I will hand over to Monsieur Francesco Milleri, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of EssilorLuxottica. Thank you very much, Andrea and Thomas.
Thank you again for joining us today. I will not use the speech that the team have written for me this morning, and this is really well done. I apologize to everybody. It is talking about the past. It is just talking about what we achieve, the fact that we doubled the size and the value of the company, that profitability has increased in an incredible way, that we really changed the shape of the market. It is about what we have done so far, and I believe that Paul and Stefano Grassi, they can really present the result much better than me. I would like today really to present our future, what we want to become.
As you know, we started as a frame company and lens company seven years ago with two wonderful enterprises that really have done so well in the past. From the combination, what we built is something totally different. Now we are very proud to be really addressed as one of the most successful medtech companies. We have been ranked eighth among the most innovative companies in the world. We have been ranked among the 10 pharmaceutical and med companies in the world. That is what the future is telling us about our company. I would like to present that future through the face and the voice of the scientists that in our labs are really building right now, also today, our future. Can you start with the video, please?
What does the future of eyewear look like?
Seamlessly integrating digital experiences and medtech solutions, we are redefining the future of human connections and well-being.
A tracking technology is opening up a lot of possibilities. For starters, it allows for on-screen interactions, meaning you can control devices just by looking at them without lifting a finger. This technology could even help detect disorders early, like dry eye, EMD, or Parkinson's, by monitoring subtle eye movements. It can also focus on what you are looking at in any moment, learning from your habits and preferences to better understand you. We are seeing how it can improve the wearer's abilities, whether it's improving focus or helping with performance. This technology will integrate into our daily lives, improving health monitoring and giving us a smarter and more connected experience. It's very exciting.
By integrating miniaturized cameras with intelligent sensors, your glasses become a tool for better understanding yourself and your surroundings. The camera works on contextual awareness, like detecting obstacles or guiding you through unfamiliar places. They can also use artificial intelligence to recognize your surroundings and automatically enable features for the particular context you are in. The sensors collect physiological parameters like heart rate or breathing or monitor the environment, giving you a lot of meaningful data for your health and well-being. At the end, the goal is to enhance the awareness and make life easier and safer. Augmented reality is coming to everyday eyewear. Think holographic mirrors and meta surfaces, super thin nanotech that lets your glasses project digital content right into your view.
Metasurfaces are nano-structured surfaces with a repetitive geometry designed to interact with light and manipulate its characteristics, like the direction of propagation, colors, and phase. With computer-generated holography, we can even create 3D content and adjust the focal plane so that everything looks more natural.
The tech gives you digital visuals that feel like they belong there. You get notifications and info without looking at a device, using a headset or straining your eyes. Just a forklift for all tech that works when you need it and stays out of the way when you do not. Many people struggle to hear conversations in a loud bar, for example, but do not use a hearing aid because of the stigma attached to it. We have developed invisible open-ear hearing solutions to address a pretty big challenge: how to hear clearly in noisy environments.
In the future, we can even address more advanced hearing loss. We use beamforming technology to amplify the voice of the person you are facing while the background noise remains unchanged. With the help of AI, we can detect what a user wants to hear based on head movement and sound localization. Through speaker extraction, we can record the voice signature of relatives and friends in advance, automatically identify them, and extract their voices to selectively amplify them. It's incredibly powerful. Alongside all the tech we are developing, we are also designing our own microchips. Right now, there is no chip designed specifically for smart eyewear on the market. Glasses have their own unique needs. By creating dedicated chips from the ground up, we can make everything work better, more seamlessly, more efficiently, and in a way that actually makes sense for glasses.
It's about pushing innovation further, making the tech feel natural.
When we ask, "What does the future of eyewear look like?" we don't need to imagine it.
We're already building it. This is eyewear that sees beyond, improving quality of life and well-being, whilst enriching the way we connect with the world around us. The future is here. Be part of it.
This is the future that we imagine, which passed through a pair of glasses, and the marketing really came out with this, I believe, a very strong claim: empowering humanity. We started from see better, be better, live your life, and so on. Now we change really the horizon that we can achieve. What we have just seen are not the labs at the big tech company worth trillions.
What you have seen are our labs around the world, in Italy, in France, in Singapore, in China, in the US, that are working today for the future. Many of those implementations, they will come into the market in a short term. That means months, that means few years. What we are telling is that we really bet on a digital society where the frame and lenses and the wearable computing, as we now define what is the core business of the company, will be the bridge among the real life, social, and augmented reality. This is what we want to do. That connection is put at the center of our company, and we have all the competencies that we need to lead this huge transformation. The word that we have in mind is really totally different from what we see now.
From your wearable, you can easily control your car, you will control your domotic in the house, you will pay the bill, you will better hear what someone in a noisy space is trying to tell you. It will monitor your healthcare. They will advise you. What we are building around these two senses is really the best companion that everyone can have. Something that someone that can be every day with us, it will control, it will really advise us what is the best for our life, what is the best for our healthcare, and it will help us to take the best decision in any moment of our life. It's a totally new perspective. Say that we are very proud of our heritage and origin.
Anything you have seen today, this future that was really so difficult even to dream 10 years ago, most of this really started from the mind of our founder, Leonardo Del Vecchio. I believe that I have to remind that we are following this vision. We are following the idea that from frame and lenses, we can go much ahead on that and transform and really help people in their everyday life. That is so important, I believe, because it has opened for us market industry functions that were not even possible to imagine years ago. You know that our beginning has been in a quite small market, the optical market worth EUR 100 billion. And now we know that just our company is worth EUR 120-EUR 130 billion. That was not possible to remain in this small industry.
What we can do now is move to new industries that are very close. That is thanks to the digital platform that we have built in the last three, four years that can really work across industry. Now we are really focused on medtech. We are entering on surgery. We are entering on domotic. We will enter on robotics. That is the message that I would like to pass. I really am so proud to have been with us on the video, the normal hero that in our lab are building every day our future and our success. That is the message that I want you to take home of our company for the future. Thanks a lot. I say that I pass over to Paul. Merci, Francesco. Mesdames, Messieurs, chers actionnaires.
Thank you, Francesco. Ladies and gentlemen.
Dear shareholders, it is a pleasure to be here with you today. You have just heard Francesco's powerful strategic vision. Very exciting. It's fascinating. I would like to share with you how this vision is deeply rooted in the unique strength that we have built and in the solid performance of our core expertise. Now, to fully understand this, it is essential to keep in mind an integrated omnichannel business model that we have built. It is so unique and so different, and it stands out in the complex world we live in. It is a strength as we are creating new visions, new categories. Mark my words. This model serves our 300,000 partners and the 500,000 consumers that we serve every year.
The solid performance of our core expertise, and Stefano Grassi will be giving you more specific details in a minute, is based on several pillars, starting with our constant ability to innovate across all of our product categories. Talking about ophthalmic lenses, 2024 was marked by the spectacular launch of Transitions Gen S, which is the continuation of the Verilux adventure with Verilux XR. We also have seen exponential growth in Stellest. Stellest plays a major role in myopia management. It slows down myopia evolution in children. It is an area that remains a key growth driver for us, alongside connected eyewear, audio, and medical technologies. These new growth platforms. Now, the three products I've just mentioned accounted for more than half of our growth in lenses. With regard to frames, our brand portfolio was enriched with new collections.
We have a very dynamic portfolio, including the first-ever collection for Moncler and the strategic acquisition of the Supreme brand. We signed a licensing agreement with Diesel while we renewed our partnerships with iconic houses such as Dolce & Gabbana, Michael Kors, the Prada Group, including new murals. More recently, we announced the renewal of our collaboration with Roger Federer. He was with us a few weeks ago for the tournament in Paris in France. He's a great guy. These numerous initiatives strengthen our ability to make our offering ever more desirable. Our iconic brands, Ray-Ban and Oakley, are on a very strong momentum. There are very many initiatives in progress. If you walk around Paris, you will see big advertising for Ray-Ban. Oakley was at the heart of the Paris Olympic Games with the athletes, and it will celebrate its 50th anniversary this year.
At the same time, as Francesco hinted, we are investing heavily in connected eyewear and medical technologies because they are changing our business and the way we work in our industry by creating new use cases. Use cases, I use the English word in French, for consumers. The key for this adventure, what Francesco just shared with us, consists in finding real use cases for consumers. In 2024, we reached a milestone unbelievable. Who would have thought this one year ago? We have sold 2 million Ray-Ban Meta units ever since the product was launched in 2023. It is a great companion, as Francesco said. I mean, that's my own personal pair with Varilux. Now, building on this momentum, we decided to increase our production capacity between now and the end of the year to 10 million units a year for connected eyewear.
Now, another major milestone is the FDA and European Union certifications for Nuance Audio, which we recently achieved, now available in the United States, Italy, and France. Christelle will tell you more about this in a few moments. She will explain how we are introducing these new categories in the market. Now, from what I just told you, I would like you to take this message home. You can see a fundamental characteristic of EssilorLuxottica and our strategy. We have this unique capacity to combine complementary businesses. I mean, the initial combination was EssilorLuxottica. Today, we're talking about hearing, vision, voice, and this has earned us a place among the 10 most innovative companies and among the 50 that are actually changing the world through their positive impact. Why am I referring to this?
To consolidate our core expertise and support our expansion in these new areas, we are continuing to strengthen our supply chain. A unique model is very powerful because it is both local and global, integrating lens and frame production, prescription laboratories, and instruments. Imagine 600 industrial sites and 120 distribution centers where we have 80,000 of our colleagues working. They work for the group supply chain. This is a key element to make sure that these products and brands are put on the market. In 2024, we strengthened this with two state-of-the-art campuses, Thailand and Mexico, as well as a new prescription laboratory in a town called Wissous, south of Paris. These investments give us both greater flexibility and more optionalities, quote unquote, and support our growth in a complex and constantly changing world.
We thank you for your support for all the resolutions that are supporting these programs. 2024 was also marking a significant step forward in our environmental roadmap, as Elena will share with you. We have made significant progress in our objective of eliminating uncorrected poor vision by 2050 through the actions of on-site EssilorLuxottica Foundation. Another step that was also significant was the foundation's collaboration with the SPEX 2030 initiative from the World Health Organization. As you can see, 2024 was a landmark year for EssilorLuxottica, in which we consolidated our core expertise while investing in strategic domains to open up new possibilities. Together with our colleagues, our partners, and with you, our shareholders, we will continue to build a very promising future. Thank you for your trust and your support.
Thank you, Francesco.
Thank you, Paul.
I'm now going to hand over to Stefano Grassi, who will speak in English, and we'll present the annual results for 2024 EssilorLuxottica.
It's a great pleasure for me, dear shareholders, to be with you, to share with you the results of this year. A year of growth, of significant growth, during which EssilorLuxottica continued to invest in product innovation and new technologies. Thank you for your constant support.
Okay. For 2024, I will start with the five highlights, five numbers that do better qualify our past year results. As usual, I will start with a number that is related to our revenue growth. 6% is our growth, at constant currency, for EssilorLuxottica for the full year 2024, which lends to a total revenue for the full year 2024 of EUR 26.5 billion.
The second important number that you have to kind of stick in your mind, it's represented by our profitability. 17%. That represents our adjusted operating profit that is up half a percentage point, 50 basis points, from the 16.5% that we deliver in the course of 2023. The third important number is represented by our net profit growth, 9.8% for the full year 2024. That is a net profit, at constant currency, delivered by EssilorLuxottica for last year. The four important metrics are represented by our free cash flow generation. Cash is important. For last year, we delivered the second strongest free cash flow generation in EssilorLuxottica history, EUR 2.4 billion for the full year 2024. Strong free cash flow generation allows us to propose today a dividend per share of EUR 3.95 with the option of the script dividend.
Now, let me have you a little bit more in detail and walk you through our results, in particular with the revenue, and then afterward, the profitability. Before concluding today's presentation, I will just give you a little preview on how we started 2025. Now, let's go back to 2024 for a second. As usual, let's look at our performance in 2024 across the four different regions of EssilorLuxottica. I would draw your attention on the middle column, the third column, that is our results at constant currency, because in this way, you can better appreciate our performance, excluding headwinds or tailwinds coming from currencies. Our overall results were up 6%. In North America, the first region, the largest one, 45% of our revenue base, we delivered a 3% growth. Pretty balanced growth between the two distribution channels, professional solution and direct-to-consumer.
The professional solution B2B business in North America was very much driven by a strong performance in our key accounts, in our large clients that we have in North America. We had a strong business on the frame side. Ray-Ban Meta was instrumental to grow in North America. While on the direct-to-consumer side, I would say low single-digit comp sales, comparable store net sales on our optical retail channel, LensCrafters, Vision, Target Optical. While on Sunglass Hut, we had kind of a two-velocity year. The first three quarters of the year, Sunglass Hut comparable sales were on a negative territory in North America. While on the last part of 2024, we saw and experienced a strong rebound on the performance in North America, and the comparable sales went up on the high single-digit territory, which led to an overall flattish performance for Sunglass Hut in North America.
The second largest region is the EMEA, 37% of our revenue base. You can see the performance, approximately 8% growth at constant currency. In the EMEA region, we deliver 15 consecutive quarters of positive growth. Out of those 15 quarters, 13 have been either high single-digit or double-digit. You would agree with me that this is probably a performance more close to a fast-growing market than a mature market like the EMEA. In EMEA, most of the countries deliver solid growth. I would probably highlight Italy, Turkey, and Eastern Europe that deliver a double-digit 2024, while Germany, Spain, the U.K., and the Middle East deliver a mid-single-digit full year 2024. If we look at our professional solution channel, I would say that we had a very strong year. We had a strong year on our frame business, where the growth was driven by price and mix.
We had a strong year thanks to a strong delivery of our premium lens portfolio in the EMEA region, with a growth that was driven by mainly volume and also supported by our price mix. Moving to our direct-to-consumer, high single-digit comparable sales on optical retail for EMEA, high single-digit comparable sales on the SUN retail for EMEA. It was an astonishing 2024 for our direct-to-consumer channel. In Grand Vision, we continue the journey of integrating Grand Vision within the EssilorLuxottica platform. Just to give you an idea, we went now through a continuous evolution of the product assortment in our stores. 70% of the lens in Grand Vision are supplied from EssilorLuxottica. 85% of the frames present in Grand Vision banners today are supplied from EssilorLuxottica. The penetration of technology and innovation is tangible, can be seen every day.
Just to give you an example, today, about 10% of the Grand Vision stores are equipped with telephotometry. In 2024, we deliver more than 140,000 eye examinations performed through telephotometry. Moving to another important region, East Asia-Pacific, with a growth that is close to 9%. Asia-Pacific, all the key countries in the region were strong positive. I would probably put on the spotlight Japan that had an extraordinary year on direct-to-consumer, on the professional solution B2B year. It was a remarkable year. In China, we deliver a solid mid-single-digit growth. I would say Mallorca Solutions, a full set of assets that were made available for Chinese consumers, for B2B clients, grew in excess of 50% during the course of 2024, and today represents 25% of the revenue base in Greater China.
Pretty remarkable performance, which obviously we hope to replicate in other parts of the world outside Greater China. The last region in the pipe is represented by Latin America. Best performance, you can see close to double-digit, 16 consecutive quarter years of growth in the Latin American region. Most of the countries were strong positive. I would probably mention here the direct-to-consumer channel, which was very much on the double-digit territory, thanks to the optical banners that we have in the Latin America region, formerly known as a Grand Vision banner. They are going through a material transformation, renovation of the stores, renovation of the assortment. That is obviously driving a strong growth at double-digit base in the Latin American region. This is the performance that you see across the four different regions.
Let me just give you a quick flavor of how our number looks like between the two distribution channels, the B2B professional solution and the direct-to-consumer. The professional solution was up mid-single digit, 4.7% at constant currency. I would say two regions on the spotlight, the EMEA and the Latin America, that both deliver high single-digit growth. In professional solution, the two most important product categories, frames and lenses, grew strongly in 2024. The growth was mainly driven by price mix, and it was very much due to a strong management of our portfolio in both product categories. The other important distribution channel, clearly, is direct-to-consumer. In the direct-to-consumer, you see a 7.1% top-line growth at constant currency. That performance was very much driven by a strong delivery of the optical retail channel. In the direct-to-consumer, we had a strong EMEA retail.
We had a strong Latin America that was double-digit. While on the SAN part, we had a strong performance, as I mentioned before, on the EMEA region. That was offset by a flat year-over-year performance in Sunglass Hut North America. Overall, 6% growth at constant currency. When we look at our number at current exchange results, you will be looking at 4.4% growth. In terms of currency in 2024, we suffered a bit of headwinds from the currency. It was not very much the US dollar. It was actually due from minor currencies like the Argentinian peso, the Turkish lira, and Brazilian real to a certain extent that devaluated against euro in the course of 2024 compared to 2023. Now, this is the picture for our revenue. Let me just give you a quick snapshot on our profitability.
As usual, in this slide, you have a lot of numbers, and I do apologize every year. I will draw your attention to really three numbers that explain to you at the best our results for 2024. Clearly, you see revenue, the first circle, 6% growth at constant currency. There is another number that is the 9.4%, the operating profit on an adjusted basis. That is the growth year-over-year of our profit before tax. As you can see, we deliver a year where profitability grew at a faster pace than our revenue. That means that our margin improved 20 basis points at current exchange, 50 basis points, half a percentage point when you look at our numbers at constant currency. How do we do that? On one side, we had a good management of price and mix. Therefore, the gross profit was actually positive, improved year-over-year.
That was good because in 2023, actually, our gross profit was slightly down. It's great to see a different trend in our profitability at the gross margin level. We also had very good management of the operating expenses, investing where it was needed, in marketing, in new initiatives, in sales force, in digital across the different channels, and at the same time, keeping a rigor on our cost base. Below the operating profit, we had a good management of our financials. The increase of our financials is not due to the cost of our debt, which is actually pretty much under control with a very marginal increase, but is more due to the application of the accounting for lease that drove to a higher implied cost for our leases.
Our tax rate broadened in line with 2023 at 23% approximate tax rate year-over-year, which leads to an overall growth of our net profit on constant currency of 9.8%. That is the third circle number at the bottom of the slide. Those outstanding results clearly have a translation in our dividend per share proposal. Before showing you the landing point, I think it's important for all of us to know and acknowledge where we started. That is the dividend per share that was granted to EssilorLuxottica shareholders back at the inception of this journey, EUR 2.04 per share. Today, 2024, we are proposing an increase of 94% dividend per share at EUR 3.95, again, payable with the option of script dividend. Now, before I pass it back to Alexander, I mentioned before just a quick highlight on how we started 2025.
Clearly, it's a year where the macro environment has a lot of uncertainty and for all the reasons that we read every day on the papers. Despite that, the EssilorLuxottica results in the first quarter of 2025 are remarkable. Our revenue grew 7.3% at constant currency. All the four regions, North America, EMEA, Asia-Pacific, and Latin America delivered strong growth in the first quarter of 2025. The other positive news is that for the first quarter, currency created some tailwinds in our number. As you can see on the bottom right, our revenue grew 8.1% at current exchange rate. The main driver for that is the US dollar that during the course of the first quarter of 2025 revaluated against euro approximately 3% year-over-year. We got, at least for the first quarter of the year, a nice tailwind in our results.
With that, I want to thank you for all your support and pass it over to Alexander. Thank you.
Merci beaucoup, Stefano. Thank you, Stefano. I'd like to give the floor to Elena Dimitrino, responsible for sustainable development, and she's going to give you an overview on the planet and the sustainable development project for EssilorLuxottica. She's going to speak English. Eyes on the planet and outstanding responsibility we give to the company culture continues commitment to shaping a better world. Facing today's global environment and social challenges driven by purpose, every step of the way, eyes on carbon, eyes on circularity, eyes on ethics, eyes on inclusion, and eyes on world sight. Discover more on eyes on the planet on our corporate channels. Bonjour, c'est un plaisir d'être ici avec.
Hello, it is a pleasure to be with you today and to share with you what we have achieved with our sustainable development program called Eyes on the Planet, as well as the progress made by the OneSight EssilorLuxottica Foundation. Eyes on the Planet is a journey. It is a journey made of responsibility, innovation, and collaboration. Our progress across all the pillars of our program, actually, has been recognized by different ESG ratings, rankings, and stock market indices, as you can see here. Among these, EssilorLuxottica entered the Dow Jones Best in Class Europe Index for the first time, ranking among the top European companies in ESG performance. Also, we were globally recognized on the Fortune Change the World list for the fourth time for our inclusive and impact-driven approach to social change.
All these recognitions clearly show that our work is making a real difference, a real difference on the environment, society, and the communities in need. Eyes on the Planet is indeed a long-term responsibility that belongs to all of us. Thanks also to the collaboration with many different teams and functions we advanced in all the five pillars. Within the most significant accomplishments of last year, the Science Based Target Initiative validated our new 2030 decarbonization targets across all our scopes: Scope 1, Scope 2, and Scope 3, making again a key milestone in our efforts to reduce the environmental impact of our group. Meanwhile, we continued to invest in the on-site production of renewable energy, up by 65% year-on-year. We are also continuing to innovate and to invest in circularity, to be more and more circular.
In 2024, over 40% of our new collections were made with responsible materials for our and the planned lenses. We continued to limit the use of single-use plastic items in our logistics packaging and in the consumer packaging for our and Oakley apparel, footwear, and accessories, resulting in a reduction of 150 tons. Through our retail network, we continue to engage our consumers in our circularity mindset, whether it is through care and repair services or collect and recycle services. Touching the social dimension of our Eyes on the Planet program, I will start with the global rollout of our internal reporting tool, Speak Up, which is available 24/7 in 19 languages. We are continuing also to strengthen our responsible sourcing program. Other key milestones include the publication of the Global Environmental Health and Safety Policy and of the Global Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Policy.
Also, I would like to mention the rollout, actually the launch of our Your Voice Listening campaign that resulted in a global participation rate of 78%. Finally, also our Leonardo platform is continuing to play a key role in building an inclusive learning culture inside and outside the organization, with hours of education that were up by 25% in 2024. Sustainability is also about awareness and local activation. We expanded philanthropic efforts from Eyes on Art, which is more focused on art accessibility, whether digitally or in a tactile manner, to the OneSight EssilorLuxottica Foundation. The foundation is indeed a key partner in advancing the social dimension of our sustainability strategy. You see here in this slide the great achievements against the group ambition to eliminate uncorrected poor vision in a generation.
Over 86 million people have been equipped with eyeglasses so far, meaning 29 people per minute. Essential vision care is brought to rural communities thanks to the over 33,000 optical points in rural communities that we've been establishing so far. As Paula mentioned before, the foundation has also been named the first global collaborating partner on the World Health Organization's PECS 2030 initiative. Through this initiative, partners will work to correct refractive errors, prevent myopia, and expand access to vision care around the world. Proud of this achievement. You know what? It's also nice to be proud of this interconnection between mission and sustainability, which is delivering a real impact, as I've shown you. You have seen that we are addressing climate change. We are implementing circularity. We are making this company a diverse and inclusive working environment.
We are engaging our partners in our ethical business approach, and we are supporting local communities. We will continue this way, fulfilling our mission and sustainability ambitions. I think we can now launch a video. Thank you. In 2024, we were recognized as a four-time company changing the world by changing how the world can see and be more. Our impact in 2024 positively changed lives and communities. 14.9 million people with new spectacles, 5,665 new rural optical points, supporting partnerships that change delivery of vision care with support from thousands of EssilorLuxottica volunteers working in 139 countries. Good vision changes how we learn, how we play, how we thrive, how we work, and how we grow. Good vision changes everything. Merci, Elena, pour cette présentation. Thank you, Elena, for your presentation. I would like to give the floor to Norbert Gorny, the Scientific Director for EssilorLuxottica.
Bonjour à tous.
Good morning, everyone. I'm truly pleased having the opportunity this morning to illustrate the scientific journey EssilorLuxottica is undertaking and, of course, our evolution towards becoming a leader in medical technology. Science and research build the foundation of innovation. Innovation is the primary fuel for growth and value creation. That is the very reason why research and innovation have always been at the heart of our group strategy. With our global scientific community of thousands of experts, chemists, physicists, neuroscientists, data scientists, and many engineers, we have built deep know-how in many important disciplines of expertise. From the invention of the progressive addition lens under the brand of Varilux to the successful market introduction of Nuance Audio, we continuously demonstrate our capability to push the borders of science and research.
While excellence in physics, applied mathematics, and physiology delivered important insights in the past, and they still do in present, these capabilities won't be sufficient to lead innovation in the future. Hence, we systematically invest in the build-up of new capabilities, for example, in neurophysiology, artificial intelligence, wearable technologies, but also in pharmacology to ensure that we continuously have a flow in place of relevant contributions from research and science. It is well reflected in today's commercial activities that our scientific engagement swiftly propels our business forward. More than that, it enables us and thereby the entire industry to establish new categories. Example given, our long-term commitment to explore myopia, and I'm talking an engagement that has lasted more than 20 years.
This engagement has enabled us to provide a clinically proven solution available in the portfolio of Stellest lenses that helps children all around the world to manage their myopia condition. It's a breakthrough innovation showing highest efficacy in myopia treatment. With Nuance Audio, we pioneer an important but still unmet patient need. There's more than 1.2 billion people in the world that suffer from a mild to moderate hearing impairment. It's a medical condition which can be managed well through the access to our over-the-counter solution that is already cleared by the Food and Drug Administration in the US. Our Ray-Ban Meta delivers more than just a successful product. It provides a platform, a platform that has the power to host a variety of technologies, meeting user expectations. Today, of course, mainly in the field of listening, capturing, and sharing, but with a potential to go far beyond.
Finally, as an early mover in using AI as a means of research and development in our industry, we have successfully demonstrated the power with our digital twin technology. The benefit of AI has delivered designs that can be experienced already today in the most recent generations of Varilux products, XR and X10C. Moving ahead, our activities will shift focus. In the area of vision and neuroscience, we will continue, of course, our effort to provide the most efficacious solutions for myopia management. Instead of only slowing down the progression, we will put more focus and emphasis on stopping the progression and, of course, putting energy on understanding how myopia as an onset can be delayed and prevented. First clinical results that we achieved in the course of 2024 give us a very positive perspective on this endeavor. Furthermore, light modulation will become an area of increasing scientific interest.
Light has a significant influence on human physiology. Certain wavelengths are responsible for hormone expression or suppression. Light manages the circadian rhythm. It could cause photophobia. It influences mood and neurological disorders. We will enhance our activities in that field. We will discover new ways of light modulation for the sake of providing opportunities for new therapies and, of course, for the development of well-being products. With the first generation of Nuance Audio, we established a completely new product category. I think it goes without saying that our research teams will continue exploring new technologies that will significantly enhance and expand today's value proposition. We look into the management of severe impairment conditions. We look into the provision of devices that can self-adjust to its environment, thereby adapting exactly the amplification function that is needed by the patient.
Of course, beyond amplification, we look into the management of other disease clusters as they are tinnitus or dyslexia management. Excuse me. As said, Ray-Ban Meta should not be considered as a product. It should be considered as a technology platform. I would even go as far as to say it should be seen as a variable real estate, a real estate that is ready to onboard new applications. Going forward, our efforts will focus more and more on sensor technology for capturing data that are relevant for the measurement and the monitoring of environmental and physiological conditions, making much better use of the richest sources of biometric information of our body, which is our head and, of course, our eyes. This leads us back to artificial intelligence, where we see an exciting future in combination with the coming generation of variables.
Moreover, AI applications are also at the core of what we declare Medtech strategy in our group. With the acquisition of Heidelberg Engineering and Cellview Imaging, we have now access to two powerful imaging platforms. Given the fact that our eyes are the window to our body, given the fact that our eyes tell stories about more than 50 important biomarkers giving a perfect condition, a real-time condition of our health status, we have the opportunity to use those imaging platforms and to make them AI-driven diagnostic tools for ophthalmic conditions, but going far beyond for multi-biomarker diagnostics. To summarize, we drive a global research network that is built on three pillars. We have a strong internal competency well organized across Europe, Asia, and the US. We have a growing network of academic and clinical partners everywhere in the world.
Through strategic acquisitions, we continuously build new competencies and capabilities to drive our agenda forward. We successfully demonstrated our ability to translate research insights into attractive business opportunities, and we are well prepared to continue this journey in the years to come. Thank you for listening.
Merci, Norbert. Thank you, Norbert, for that presentation. I'm now going to hand over to Christelle Béranger, President of Wholesale EMEA and Asia. Christelle, over to you.
Bonjour à toutes. Good morning, everybody. Je suis ravie d'être ici. I'm delighted to be here with you today to present how EssilorLuxottica is transforming the optical market on a daily basis. Notre leadership s'appuie. Our leadership is based on our unique integrated platform, which combines a global scale and local agility in 150 countries, as Paul mentioned before.
Our portfolio is at the forefront of all vision categories, from ophthalmic lenses to luxury eye to high-tech instruments, and is driven by the most popular brands among consumers and recognized by professionals. This makes it possible for us to be competitive in every market segment. Our omnichannel deployment through our 18,000 stores, our 72 e-commerce platforms, and above all, our 300,000 partner opticians worldwide enables us to respond to and often anticipate consumer needs. Thanks to our multipolar supply chain, we equip hundreds of millions of wearers quickly, with flexibility and resilience, and adapt to the market in real time. Finally, our capacity for innovation, which is growing exponentially, positions us uniquely to capture sustainable growth and strengthen our global leadership. We innovate boldly to shape the future of vision.
Today, our signature is our ability to bring to market at high speed solutions that have made a clean break that enables everyone to live life to the fullest, made possible by combining advances in technology, artificial intelligence, and science. Avec Ray-Ban Meta. In the connected eyewear category, we are completely redefining the functionality and use of eyewear, offering a more fluid, more connected life to every wearer. This second generation, as you've already heard, is already a hit with over 2 million pairs sold. With Nuance Audio that we're just starting to market, we are addressing an unmet need for those with a mild to moderate hearing loss by combining vision and hearing in a single solution. I'll come back to this later. Through Stellest, we are developing therapies to slow progression of myopia in a global pandemic and treat eye diseases.
Finally, our ambition goes further to transform eye exams into true health exams, capable of detecting early and treat eye care for comprehensive preventive healthcare approach. As you can see, from medical technologies to super smart glasses, we are moving forward with impact, with an ambitious vision for the future of the industry and with it. Et au travers de nos innovations. Through our innovations, we are revitalizing our iconic brands and amplifying their influence. The prime example is, of course, Ray-Ban, which has tens of millions of wearers worldwide and which has seen solid double-digit growth in 2024, particularly boosted by Ray-Ban Meta and its rollout and distribution. With Ray-Ban Meta, we launched the first connected glasses that perfectly combine timeless style, advanced features, and the power of artificial intelligence. That is why people love them. It's no longer science fiction.
Instant translation, real-time location information, impromptu restaurant searches, everything is now possible without taking out your phone. In some 15-20 countries, Ray-Ban Meta is transforming the way people create, communicate, and live their daily lives. The use cases are only multiplying. In-store traffic, the footfall, is also increasing. The brand is now available in optical stores, including our flagship stores and the largest electronic retailers, expanding both its territory of influence and its core audience. To further strengthen this connection with the younger generation, we have entrusted the creative direction of Ray-Ban to Rocky Bee, a major figure in contemporary culture. Ray-Ban is clearly no longer just an icon. It influences culture and, above all, it redefines the future of eyewear. Our other iconic brands will not be left behind.
We're also paving the way for a new era of value creation at the intersection of vision and hearing with Nuance Audio, glasses that help you see and hear better, a pair of glasses that can be fully controlled from a mobile phone and amplify sound thanks to technology discreetly integrated in a 42-gram frame. This is a genuine feat. Faced with this huge need, nearly one in five adults over the age of 45 has hearing loss and low uptake of traditional solutions at that age, Nuance has created a new category combining discretion, comfort, and accessibility. It makes it possible for opticians and audiologists to expand their offering, attract new customers, and generate added value, particularly when Nuance is equipped with Varilux and Transitions lenses.
After having obtained the necessary accreditations in the US and Europe and the possibility to distribute without a prescription, we recently launched the product in the US, Italy, and France. Today, Nuance Audio is already distributed in 5,000 points of sale in these three countries, and its rollout will continue throughout the year. The enthusiasm of our partners is genuine, and together we will work greater to grow and make this new brand grow at the intersection of vision and hearing. In 2024, beyond Ray-Ban Meta, Transitions Gen S and Essilor Stellest have been accelerated. Innovation is the growth engine of our core business, and today, we are amplifying its deployment thanks to the synergies enabled by our ecosystem. Transitions Gen S is a perfect example of this.
In less than a year, we launched this new generation of ultra-dynamic lenses worldwide, thanks to strategic partnerships with our lens and frame brands, particularly Essilor Ray-Ban, systematic recommendations in our stores and by our partners, and powerful activation on wearables where penetration exceeds 50%. Gen S has established itself as a standard with over 17 million wearers. Another example is the slowing down of myopia. Essilor Stellest continues to grow strongly in China and is also available in 48 countries. We are rolling it out across all channels, including hospitals and clinics. We have reached a new milestone with the addition of suitable frames and the expansion of our strategy from therapy to prevention. Our ecosystem enables us to quickly achieve mass-consumer adoption, and our ambition is to make every innovation a lever for industry transformation.
Furthermore, we operate in, as Paul said, over 600 industrial sites and facilities worldwide, and we are investing to strengthen our advantage and better serve our partners. A few words, for example, about our brand new laboratory of excellence in the Paris region. With a capacity of 6 million lenses per year, it supports 40% growth in our national production and the expansion of our Origin France guarantee certified lenses. This world-class site, combining cutting-edge technology and human expertise, is also the first industrial site in France to aim for LEED Gold certification. It illustrates our commitment to sustainable development, but it will also enable us to strengthen our ties with our Essilor experts by offering them express deliveries, new services, and in particular, the delivery of fully assembled glasses. Enfin, nous transformons et transformons the consumer experience to make it more accessible by digitizing our points of sale.
Artificial intelligence makes it possible to have ultra-precise virtual trials, making it easier to choose frames. Digital measurement of the pupillary distance ensures optimal fit for maximum comfort and visual performance. In some countries, we are integrating AI-assisted retinal diagnostic solutions capable of detecting early signs of eye disease as well as teleoptometry services, giving consumers faster and easier access to remote eye exams. By combining personalization, preventive healthcare, and easier access to care, we are helping to elevate the industry. In conclusion, nous incarnons notre leadership jour après jour. We embody our leadership every day with responsibility and commitment. Together, we are determined, with the 200,000 employees of EssilorLuxottica, to deliver results that match our potential. We are also committed to the industry, enabling it to position itself at the forefront of this technological revolution.
Finally, we are convinced that the eye will become the next gateway to greater connectivity and a valuable window on our health. Eyewear will continue to reinvent itself to offer us ever more superpowers, as you saw in Francesco's introduction. We are creating an inspiring future where technology, innovation, and people move forwards together towards a world that is more attentive to the well-being of everyone. Thank you for your trust and support. Thank you, Christelle.
I'm now going to hand over to Andrea Zappia, Chairman of the Nominations and Compensation Committee. I'll ask him to join us at the lectern to present the compensation policy for corporate officers. Andrea, over to you.
Ladies and gentlemen, I hear this year.
Before taking you through my few remarks, I'd like just to say that even as a board member, and I'm sure my colleagues here would say the same, we are privileged to follow the work done by EssilorLuxottica regularly during the year. It's still extraordinary to see what we are seeing today: the results, the vision for the future, the great innovation, the great ability to deliver to the market, the role we have with our responsibility through the planet and to the world. I think it makes us also at the board very proud to be here. Having said that, my objective today is to share with you what we have decided and worked through the year as a committee.
I have had the pleasure to chair this committee since 2021, and we have seen this progress of the company going through step by step and the ability to look at the future. Our discussion, our thoughts at the committee are always focused in trying to support this performance going forward. Therefore, what does this mean? It means that when we think about compensation, we think about rewarding performance and making sure that this performance is totally aligned with the interest of the shareholders. As you can see, therefore, the executive compensation is highly skewed towards performance with 90% of this, which is performance-based, and I would say 75%, which is towards the long term. When we look at 2024, we have seen the results that Francesco, Paul, and Stefano shared.
These have turned into the following results for the variable compensation, with a total achievement of 118% this year. As a reminder, we presented last year adjusted EPS, revenue growth, and operating profit to be the key criteria that determined these results. Again, a reflection of the excellent results of the group. If we move to the corporate office specifically, compensation in 2024, this should not surprise you and takes me to the first three resolutions you'll be asked to vote for. Resolution number five concerns the approval of the compensation report of the corporate officers, and more specifically here, resolution number six and seven cover the compensation of the Chairman CEO and the Deputy CEO. As said, the amount granted in the past year is fully consistent with the policy approved a year ago. Moving now to 2025, even here, there should be no surprises.
The resolution number eight relates to the compensation policy of the board members. Number nine and ten are about the compensation policy for Chairman CEO and for the Deputy CEO. Both are unchanged. You probably remember that last year we presented a new structure that was meant to be in place for three years. As mentioned, again, 90% of the package is performance-based. Let's now try to have a closer look at these criteria. In 2025, we have kept the variable compensation criteria exactly the same. As you can see, it's again adjusted per share revenue growth and adjusted operating profit, so no change. When we go to long-term incentive, we made some adjustments. While keeping the three criteria the same, we have adjusted their weight in order to make these criteria even more consistent with the ability to deliver for shareholders.
We have therefore increased the adjusted EPS increase, cumulative adjusted EPS increase from 40% to 50%, reduced the share price growth from 40% to 30%, and the CSR, which I'm very proud of, remains stable at 20%, remaining an important target for the top executives. What we have done, we have also removed the Eurostoxx comparison benchmark that has been present since a long time in these criteria. It was something, honestly, we should have done last year already. It was a bit of an oversight. We didn't need a fourth criteria to this, and this was actually introduced when there was only a single criteria, and we got a shareholder suggestion to move it to two.
Now, with three, we feel very confident we are in a good place to note that in order to achieve the target in the next three years, the overall company value should increase by EUR 25 billion. Last thing worth mentioning, in terms of policy, is that we introduced another tool to our arsenal in the ability to find the right move and compensation of the executive, which is the addition of, in the long-term incentive plan, of a possibility of awarding an exceptional reward to the exec. Of course, it would be something that needs to be fully justified, has to be approved by the board, and ultimately approved by this AGM. Last point from my side is touching many, many more people and has been mentioned earlier. It's really great to highlight today the success of our global employee shareholding plan.
We have reached now nearly 100,000 employees that are part of this plan. 63,500 took part to the new plan, and the total investment by the employees has tripled. Needless to say, this is the best proof of the trust that employees have towards the leadership and the commitment they have towards the success of the company, something that really should make us not only proud but also very reassured about the continuous performance of this company. Thank you so much. Merci, Andrea. Enfin, pour clôturer ces présentations.
Thank you, Andrea. In order to close now the list of presentations, I will ask Stéphane Basset de présenter la synthèse des travaux des commissions. To join us here, and he's going to share with us a summary of the work conducted by the statutory auditors. Monsieur le Président, Mesdames et Messieurs. Mr.
Secretary of the meeting, ladies and gentlemen shareholders, good afternoon, good morning. Je suis avec vous aujourd'hui. I am pleased to be here with you today to report to you on behalf of the statutory auditors on our mission and the reports we have issued for the financial year that ended December 31, 2024. Now, these reports have been made available to you by the company and are included in the universal registration documents filed with the AMF and published on the EssilorLuxottica website. Selon la pratique habituelle. As discussed to Mary, I suggest that we do not read them in their entirety, but rather provide you with a summary. S'agissant tout d'abord des comptes consolidés.
First of all, with regard to the consolidated financial statements and the annual financial statements, we remind you that our work is designed to obtain reasonable assurance that the financial statements are free from material misstatements and have been prepared in accordance with the applicable accounting standards, and that they give a true and fair view of the results of operations, financial position, and assets of the group and the company at the end of the financial year. Nous avons effectué nos travaux conformément. We conduct our work in accordance with professional standards applicable in France. Et à la conclusion, au committee, we presented our conclusions to the audit and risk committee as well as the board of directors of your company. Ces comptes, these financial statements, were approved by the board of directors on February 12th, 2025, based on the information available at that date.
In summary, we issued an unqualified opinion on the annual financial statements and consolidated financial statements of EssilorLuxottica for the financial year that ended December 31, 2024. Nos rapports sur les comptes annuels, our reports on the annual financial statements and consolidated financial statements highlight the key items of our audit. Generally speaking, these key points are areas that require us to pay particular attention due to their nature, to the risks of material misstatements associated with them, and the financial amounts involved, as well as the significant judgment required to assess the assumptions and the estimates underlying them. As you can see on the screen, these key points are for the consolidated financial statements, assessment of the recoverable amount of goodwill and other intangible assets, and assessment of provisions for litigation and contingent liabilities. For the annual financial statements, we're talking about the valuation of equity investments.
Our reports on the accounts include each of these points, a description of the risks identified, as well as the procedures we have implemented to address those risks. Enfin, nos rapports sur les comptes comportent our reports on the accounts include the conclusions of a number of specific checks that have been required by law that we carried out based on the information required in the management report, more specifically the section on corporate governance. Nous avons récapitulé la nature et les conséquences. We have summarized the nature and the scope of these verifications in the table currently displayed on the screen. In summary, we have no specific comments to make following these checks and verifications.
Cette année, your company published for the first time sustainability information in its management report in accordance with the provisions of the French transposition of the European directive known as the CSRD. PwC issued a report providing limited assurance on the compliance of the three elements presented on the screen with the applicable rules, specifically the ESRS standards. Based on our work, we concluded that we could not identify any material errors, omissions, or inconsistencies. Nous avons formulé deux observations we made two observations that do not put these conclusions into question, and will be followed up in 2025.
Si je passe maintenant à notre rapport, moving on to our report on regulated agreements, you will see that during the financial year there have been no new agreements approved by the board of directors with regard to agreements that already have been approved and which continue to be executed during the past financial year. This concerns a service contract with Provivio SA for support provided in managing EssilorLuxottica's real estate portfolio. This contract was authorized by the board of directors on May 15th, 2023. Pour finir, nous avons également émis un rapport. Finally, we also issued a special report required by law on draft resolutions relating to delegations or authorizations requested by your board of directors in connection with a capital transaction. This concerns resolution number 15 that will be submitted for your approval.
We have no specific items to bring to your attention with regard to this report. Mesdames et Messieurs, ladies and gentlemen, dear shareholders, thank you very much for your attention. I will now give the floor back to Mr. Alexander Linthoff, Secretary of the meeting.
Merci à nos commissaires aux comptes pour tout le travail accompli au cours de l'année.
Thank you to the statutory auditors for their work during the 2024 financial year. We now move on to the question-and-answer session, which will last for 30 minutes. I'd like to draw your attention to the fact that we have received a number of written questions in advance of this general meeting. Prior to the meeting, the board of directors approved the replies provided to these written questions, and they were published yesterday on the company's website. Pour laisser plus de place.
So that we have more time for discussion with the shareholders, we will not read out these replies during the meeting. I therefore encourage you to look at these replies on the company's website. Nous pouvons donc passer aux questions. We move on to the questions from the floor. Dans un souci d'organisation, je vous propose que l'on écoute. For organization purposes, I suggest that we listen to questions from five of you before responding. Et tout à la, as many people as possible to speak, we kindly request each shareholder to ask one question. Please note that questions must relate to the agenda of today's meeting. And so that we allow as many shareholders as possible to speak, please keep your questions short. When asking your question, also, please introduce yourselves. Dans la salle, des hôtes et des hôtesses sont à votre disposition pour vous présenter les micros.
Attendance circulating in the room to hand you the microphones. Commencez par trois. Make a sign to usher to obtain the.
Thank you, everyone. I'm Francesco Zorzi. I've been a shareholder since the late 1990s of Luxottica when it was still listed in Wall Street. First of all, congratulations for another year of solid growth. Really, every year you astonish us with numbers which grow better and better. I would like to ask two very short questions. There are rumors circulating that Meta might enter into the share capital of EssilorLuxottica. I'd like to ask if these are just founded rumors or if 2025 might be the year in which they will enter, as the percentage apparently is going to be very high, and you will certainly be informed of this. My second question: are you studying some dossier, some file for new acquisitions or new partnerships?
I wanted to remind you that eight years from the announcement, seven years since the merger, after this enormous merger between two very great companies. In these seven years, we've reached the 118th company in terms of capitalization. We're 13th in Europe and 4th on the Paris Stock Exchange. Yes, your number of people in the stock exchange, the share price has grown by 130%, whereas LVMH only grew by 46%, carrying a loss of 61%. This is the best answer, I believe, to all those people who, seven or eight years ago, were against this merger. Those people who, during the famous shareholders' meeting of 2019, would whistle and make comments. This is the best answer you could give them. Numbers speak for themselves.
For all these reasons, I would like to thank very much all the workers of EssilorLuxottica, the blue-collar workers, our management, those who spoke today, those who are working behind the wings, those who work all over the world. I thank the previous board of directors and the current board of directors made up of people with a very high profile. They have certainly given a helping hand to the management. I would like to thank Mr. Grassi and Mr. du Saillant. They are now pillars in this historic moment. Mr. Iannella, and last but not least, I would like to thank the person who is promoting in the very best of ways the dream, the vision of Mr. Del Vecchio. Thank you, Mr.
Milleri, for everything you have done in these years, what you are doing now, and what I hope you will continue to do in your position for many, many years to come. Thank you very much, and I wish you all the best for your work.
Une d euxième question.
Any other questions?
Numéro un. Number one. Oui. Bonjour, Monsieur le Président. Hello. Good morning, Mr. Chair, Mr. President. L'activité. The activity. And I am talking about the activity in terms of profitability of our group. Deuxième petite question. Second quick question about technical one. I wear rimless glasses since forever to make the most of the technological progress that was presented at the beginning of our meeting. Should I actually have to get up on those or not? Thank you. Merci. On va prendre une autre personne. We'll take another person. Number two. L'un des individuels. Number individual shareholder.
Are you worried about competition from lenses that make it possible that you won't have to wear glasses for 30 years, from 1982 to 2012? And what about cataract operations that make it possible that I haven't had to wear them since then? Thank you. Merci. Thank you. We'll move on to question number four. Oui, bonjour, Monsieur le Président.
Yes, good morning. Christian Chabreri. I'm an individual shareholder, and I wanted to say that congratulations, as or bravissimo, if I may, in Italian, for everything you've done, for your presence at the Works Council and at your tech, and now a world leader in wearables with your smart glasses from Ray-Ban. My first question is about copies. Quelle est votre stratégie? What's your licensing or patenting strategy? My second question is about Meta investment. And in particular, I get the feeling that Mr. Zuckerberg is a better salesman.
I'm very happy to see that you've got a vision of technological platforms. Could you say a bit more about that? Thank you. Enfin, une dernière. And finally, a final question. La gentleman there. Bonjour, Monsieur Lamme. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for your presentation focusing on the future as a private shareholder, an individual historic shareholder. I'd like to remind you of the history at the time when there was a plant in Lyon-Barrois and an optician could order lenses and be delivered by an SM with a Maserati, using a Maserati engine, in fact. There was somebody there. That was really a Franco-Italian rapprochement. My question is mostly for Mr. Gorny in the presentations that were given this morning. I'd like to know if Essilor is working on people who've lost their retinas that have been replaced by silicone and for which surgery didn't work.
Has Essilor got a solution? Thank you for your answer. Très bien, nous allons déjà répondre. We will answer these few questions before moving on to others. Concerning with regard to the investment or the arrival of Meta in our capital that was mentioned, these are factors that were mentioned in the media. We cannot comment on that from us as a company. Donc, de ce point de vue-là, from that point of view, we have nothing else to say about it. Maybe Francesco, you would like to say something. C'est un autre truc. We'll move on to another one. New acquisition. M&A is in the DNA of our company. Of course, we have many dossiers on the table. Small, midsize, big companies are on our target. We need to add much more competencies and technology to our portfolio. And we have two approaches.
One is inside lab, as you have seen, and the other is really collaboration or acquisition. In this year and the next year, I'm sure that we are able to close some good deals that will add capabilities and competencies to the group. We are looking in many directions. One is really reinforcing our chipset design capability, low consumption. Maybe this is something not familiar with many of you, but this really is a game changer on the wearable. We are also looking to expand our capability on the surgical part, looking at high clinical and hospital around the world, complementing our capability, not just to correct, but our capability to treat and really to cure pathology of the eyes. Third is really we are working a lot investing on AI. As you know, there are two approaches on that. One is muscle.
That is the big tech are investing, I don't know, $20 billion, $30 billion. We cannot do that. We are now focusing on implementing through acquisition and hiring smart people, implementing our AI center. It will mostly localize in Israel, but it will be almost everywhere in the world because AI will be the base and the complement of any other activities we are now implementing. Thank you. On tariffs.
I take the answer for the question regarding tariffs. Clearly, EssilorLuxottica is not immune from the tariffs. That said, the situation, the framework is extremely changing and evolving, I would say, on a daily basis. It is kind of hard to say and stop a point and say, "Okay, this is a stable framework." With that said, there are really three things on which the company is working as we speak.
First of all, we keep a high focus on strategy to develop EssilorLuxottica as a key leader company in the medtech sector. That has been very well explained by Francesco and Paul before. We will continue to invest and direct our investments in that direction. That plan, that strategy will not be diverted because of what's happening in the U.S. due to the tariffs. The second important aspect is related to the diversification of our supply chain. This is a journey that EssilorLuxottica undertook already a few years back, investing in countries like Thailand, simplifying and creating more efficiency in our laboratory capacity in France, developing additional capacity in Mexico on both lens mass production and RX laboratories capabilities. Our goal and objective is always one: to manufacture in the most favorable, economically speaking, country without having any compromise in quality and service level.
The third important aspect is related to pricing. We are evaluating price adjustments in the US on a single-digit territory. That is something that, as I said, we're evaluating as we speak. With that said, the combination of those three things will create a significant offset to the headwinds that we're seeing from a tariff standpoint. Clearly, this situation continues to evolve. Obviously, we will regroup periodically to understand whether in certain actions, in certain initiatives, we need to go deeper. If that is the case, we'll certainly do so. Je vais prendre les deux questions. I'll take two questions. There was a question firstly from the gentleman at the top of the room who said he had rimless glasses, wearing Vespa Carrylux very high-quality lenses. How will I be able to use these connected functions in this kind of frame?
The way of looking at all these issues is clearly the frame is part of the person's style. That is a very good thing because it means a lot of strength for our brands, for the entire design aspect. It is one of the great capacities in our group. What you see us do when we are gradually creating collections of connected frames, Ray-Ban Meta, Nuance Audio, we are trying to address style issues while including increasingly efficient, powerful functionalities, including AI, to find use cases, use cases that we have all explained. That is my case as well. I have almost rimless glasses, and I have got my second one here now all the time. That makes it possible to have my connected life, to ask questions, and to answer. It gives me a slightly different style, but that is not the issue.
The issue is that we have access to completely new functionalities. That's what our group is starting to create. While staying within a certain lens, I don't want to have something that weighs 60 grams. This is 42 grams, as Christelle said before. What we want is to put in as much as possible, as many functionalities as possible, and eliminating weight, as the Chairman, Francesco, mentioned earlier, and by our Scientific Officer. That's the first point. There was another question to do with contacts and cataracts and what have you. I think when you look at EssilorLuxottica as a platform, we are a platform company that is progressively acquiring, with its medtech capacity and high-tech capacity, the ability to address all pathologies relating to the eye.
As Norbert explained, we have this instrument platform for diagnostics and interpretation of everything that we can now do with Heidelberg technology for Cellview expansion in the last 12 months there. You can see that we created all these diagnostic platforms that can be available to clinics and hospitals and for ophthalmologists and opticians. At the same time, we have this ability in the group to distribute every solution, including—you talk about lens classes—we are the biggest distributor of contact lenses for our opticians and for our own retail channels. What you should look at, and from what we told you today, is this idea that we have a medtech platform which is increasingly becoming concerned with good vision, good hearing, and connected life for individuals. Et suite à cela, évidemment, cela implique beaucoup d'innovations.
This means that innovation and our innovations are protected by patents. We have applied global policy to protect all of our discoveries, our innovations with patents, to protect our know-how, and also to defend our copyright and all of our brands. We also actively fight against counterfeited products. When our brands are being counterfeited, but also as far as patents are concerned, we have a very active policy to avoid counterfeited products being manufactured or to avoid our innovations being used by thirds without our authorization.
We ask our scientist in chief to answer for cataract and for transplantation and other things that we are very interested in. Thank you, Commander in Chief.
Thank you for the question, and I have two answers to this question.
One is a short one, which is no, we are not engaged in therapeutic means for managing this very important aspect of the growing blindness in humans. My second answer is, you have seen we have a very strong global academic network, and I would like to mention two connections in this network that are important for the question. One is l'Institut de la Vision, Hôpital Carlsbad à Bastille, where we have a traditional strong research relationship. There are teams in Bastille working on therapies that could help people with the repair or the replacement of damaged photocells. We are building a new connection to the medical center of the University of Pittsburgh through our strong connection with Professor Sael, who is a long-term scientific partner for us. There, there are two teams working firstly on a therapy to replace damaged photocells by reprogrammed stem cells.
Secondly, another group in Pittsburgh is focusing, together with colleagues in Paris, on photocell replacement by silicon. We are exploring these opportunities at this moment in time, but we are not yet engaged in developing a medical device or a therapy.
Yeah, I tried to answer to the platform technology, Ray-Ban Meta, and many other stuff that are connected. The question is really smart. We are talking about platform. We are not talking anymore about single pieces of technology in the wearable. We refer to our activities and frame as wearable computing. That is really a wild approach to all we can do in the future through a frame activated by sensor, activated by camera, activated by many other capabilities that we can really build inside the frame.
Meta is a part of our strategy, is one of the most important partnerships that we have, is still in place. I will believe that it will remain in place for a long term, but it's just a part of our strategy. Nuance is absolutely a platform based and focused on audio that belongs exclusively to our company, is totally patented and protected, and is separate as a platform and as a technology from the Meta platform. In the future, maybe all this kind of approach will converge. It is clear that AI and quantistic calculation, that is the other part where we are looking for, and we start to understand how it will impact our industry globally, they will converge in a single platform.
What we have in mind is that the functions that now are represented or divided in different hardware will be transformed in an app application. Now you can buy the Nuance Audio frame and experience something special. You can really hear better, be focused on the people in front of you, also in a noisy, strong noisy place. You have one dedicated hardware. You can have Ray-Ban Meta and in the future many other brands with the feature that we have in Meta, but are hardware-oriented. What we see is all those kinds of functions will be transformed into services that you can buy online and pay as a service. It's like you maybe subscribe to Netflix or others or Spotify. At the same time, in the future, in your wearable computing, you have the capability to subscribe to the Nuance app.
At that point, I don't know, for $90 or EUR 90 per month, you can have that functionality. You pay for what you use. You will have a camera that can recognize. You can buy an AI application that helps you to train or whatever you want. This is the model of the future, where the hardware that now is the real focus because the technology is not really at the level that we want. We improved so much in the last three years, but we are still not there, especially for the projection. You saw that we are working to many technologies on that kind of functionality. One of the most promising is microLED, but there are many others, hologram, and that we are looking at. When the hardware platform will be stabilized, in our dream, it will replace completely the mobile.
You will not need anymore the mobile with you. At that point, the platform would be really a place where you can really buy and use the application that you need in the moment that you need and pay for what you really use. This is the vision that we have. This is, I do not know, 30 years after the first iPhone, is the same vision, but that we move in a new device. We believe that frame leaves your hands free, gives much more capability, is close to the sense that really runs your life, eyes, ear, and all the other information that we need to advise people and take people in good health. Thank you. Merci. Nous pouvons prendre quelques questions.
Thank you. We can take a couple more questions. Je vois la numéro 3. I see here a question. Geralda. Geralda. Alessandro D'Acorta, azionista.
Question to the team because I do not take it for granted that an integration of two successful entities is going to be successful. The results of the value of the share just are the picture of the situation. My question is maybe very simple. I'm going back to the tariff exposure, to the fact that maybe are you going to manufacture any product? At this point, since the business model has changed, are you going to produce services in the United States? The value of the revenues is going to change because it's going to be related to this decision. The second question, given the fact that the shares have increased so much, what is your decision? If there is any decision about repurchasing your own shares? Thank you. Okay. Perhaps number 4. Bonjour, Monsieur le Président. Could—hello, Mr. Chairman.
Forgive me, I have difficulty speaking. Thank you very much for the presentation and general communication. As far as I am concerned, I wish that everything were subtitled. The conversations were subtitled. With the new product, this could be achieved sooner than later. Thanks to artificial intelligence, subtitles in any conversation are absolutely essential for me. Ce genre de situation. When I find myself in this kind of situation, thank you very much. I remember already mentioning this last year, and I know that you have made huge efforts. Thank you. One more question. I saw number one at the back of the room.
Hello. First of all, thank you for your presentation. I have one question and one remark. My question is, you said very briefly that the Supreme company was acquired. What is the aim?
Because it seems to be quite far away from the core business of EssilorLuxottica. First question. The second one is regarding the séante. The results are excellent, no doubt. I think the salaries are also very good. There is a bonus based on the results. Excellent. I'm a little bit shocked, to be honest, regarding the number of free shares granted to you. 100,000 free shares, we are talking roughly about EUR 25 million. I would rather have you earning EUR 5 million or even EUR 10 million more, but getting 100,000 free shares. Most of the people in this room, they bought their shares. I would be also interested in knowing how many free shares EssilorLuxottica got maybe this year. Thank you. Thank you. Any additional ones? Before we start answering, I think number 3. There is one more question. Oui, bonjour, Marcus Sormani, Baleine Capital.
Marcus Sormani Capital, congratulations for the very good results. I have a question regarding an event that took place a few years ago in Thailand. It was about Essilor Thailand. You suffered from a fraud of $272 million that simply vanished. It was a cyber attack. I'd like to know where we stand now. I know that there is a litigation also with an American bank that did not really keep a check on this issue. Anything more specific about this? Have you been able to recover any of your losses? Peut-être une question numéro 2. Question with microphone number 2. Lambert à nouveau, excusez-moi. Mr. Lambert again. What experience have you drawn from the Google-connected eyewear that has been in existence for the last 10 years? Yes, and there's a gentleman here in the middle of the room. Bonjour, monsieur. Hello, Mr. Bell. I'm a former EssilorLuxottica employee.
I'm retired. Quelle est son évolution et l'avenir de l'usine et de la compasserie?
What about the future of the factory? The compassery factory.
Yeah. So far, we still have a quite huge footprint of manufacturing in the U.S. We have an entire company based in the U.S. that is Oakley in Orange County, where we produce the Oakley frame. We have a lot of transformation plants, the labs that receive from abroad the raw material, and the biggest part of the added value is already in the U.S. We have also some plants on the raw material and component. At this moment, we don't want to take a rush in decision. We would like really to wait a little bit to understand maybe in three or four months what will be going on in the future.
When the situation will stabilize, we can also understand which kind of manufacturer we can move to the US because the problem is not only of timing and investment, but it is also to find the right capabilities because we are not manufacturing simple things. We cannot move the made in Italy or the made in France or issued guarantee because they are really linked to the capability and the artisanal capability of people that live here. We can really think we can move from Mexico to the US or from Thailand to the US some frame or electronic manufacturer. Anything stays now under really strict observation. We are ready to react very quickly. So far, we do not want to move too early and then maybe to have to change again, wasting time and wasting money of our shareholder.
I'll take the answer to the other question regarding the repurchasing of shares. The company, I would say recurring, performs shares buyback. We buy our own shares from the floating market. Just to give you an idea, in 2024, we bought approximately 1.5 million shares in the market. We activated the same program also in 2025. The purchasing of share is instrumental to serve the employee shareholding plans. We buy shares to grant those shares to our employees. Just to give you an idea, in 2024, we granted to the employees a total of 2.4 million shares, which I think also answered the other question regarding how many shares were assigned. Supreme. It was quite controversial when we decided to acquire that brand. For us, it was really the best things to do. It's a great deal in terms of return and profitability.
What is attracting us is that Supreme is a wonderful communication platform for an audience that is still far from our customer base. It is talking with a great reputation to a young population from 14-24-year-old age. People that are attracted from skating or other sports. That is so important for a company like us. We need to really evolve, improve our medtech part, our technological part, our design part. At the same time, we never forget that we need to talk to the customer or patient, be understood, have the reputation. That is so important, it is as important as the product that we build. That is why the acquisition, that I repeat is a great deal in the area of profitability and sales, is much more important for communication and community that we are building through that company.
Concernant la question de la fraude dont nous avons été. With regard to the fraud that we suffered in Thailand in 2019. We made a huge effort.
We spent a lot of time trying to recover as much money as we could from the funds that vanished. $270 million vanished, and we have recovered $220 million. C'est mieux comme ça? Is it better? Et il y a encore quelques procès en cours. There are still a few cases in progress, but the biggest litigation is already settled. We do not think that we will be able to recover much more than we have already recovered. Yes.
Before Google Glass, I would like to answer to the one that is asking about subtitles. You are totally right. We are working on that.
MicroLED really has the purpose to have subtitles in the conversation. We go also behind that. We already have a service active in the US that is called Be My Eyes. That is dedicated to blind people that, if they wear our Ray-Ban Meta and that they are in very serious difficulty, they can not only exchange with the eye and through the camera. They also tell, "Hey, please be my eyes," and an operator remote. The operator remote will take—sorry. Slowly. The operator will take the control of the camera. It can see what the blind people can't and really help this person to get out of the trouble. Subtitle, use of camera, it will be fundamental in the future also to help people with some disability. That is in our DNA. We are working a lot on that.
We have also a company fully dedicated to that. Its name, HumanWear, is already focused on the braille, on the technology that can help people that are completely blind. Now we really look also at people that cannot hear very well and need subtitles. You are right. This is something that we have to do. It's important for us. It's important for our community. It's important for everybody. Thank you. Sorry. Google Glass. What we learned is that people don't want to wear glasses that are not beautiful. That is, at that time also, the technology was not at the level that we wanted, and it was not capable really to answer to the need of the consumers. What's more, no one was really asking and wearing a product that looks like Google Glass. It looks like something coming from Mars. I don't know.
That is why, first of all, I believe wearable must be a beautiful piece of frame. We started from the best of the best. That is our wise error. In the future, any brands with beautiful frames will have onboard technological capabilities because really you put the eyewear in your face. That is so important. That is why we had the ability to really merge technological capabilities and functions with a culture of fashion. That is the success of our wearable. There are thousands of wearables that also can be close to us in terms of performance but are not as good as our product. I believe people love beauty, love to express your personality through your suit, through your tie, through anything you wear, but first from what you have in your face. Je vais prendre la question sur les instruments.
I'll take the question about instruments and the compulsory facility.
The instrument division, from the basis of what you've heard said to you today, you've understood. The instrument division is now back in the core of the group strategy and the whole medtech aspect. You have seen also that the acquisitions we've made that were pointed out by Norbert in particular in 2024, in other words, Heidelberg Engineering, the world leader in this Cellview Imaging-funded expansion. Above all, everything we've to do with dealing with dry eye. When you combine these actions with the capacity the group had before. Et we think someone try également. We are also looking at bolstering this instrument platform and the whole part of the software part that can connect all these instruments, the diagnostics, and with AI tools.
Clearly, the division, the instruments, is at the core of the medtech journey of the group. The compassery site, which is a historic facility for the group, where last year we tried to have more investment to modernize it and make it much more. Dans le fil de tout ce que je viens de raconter. In line with everything I've just mentioned to you, it's part of that ecosystem. It is clearly an increasingly important point within the EssilorLuxottica medtech journey. Merci à tous. Thank you all. Je vous propose maintenant. I would propose now that we vote on the resolutions. Le quorum défini. The final quorum is 84.45% for the ordinary general meeting. Et 84,44%. And 84.4% for the extraordinary general meeting. Je vous propose. I propose that we do not read out each resolution. Dont le texte a été.
The text of which has been published on the company's website. Et adressé à tous. And sent to all registered shareholders and to all bearer shareholders who requested it. A slide summarizing the content of each resolution will be shown, and you'll be able to cast your vote using the electronic voting device issued to you at the start of the meeting. The following video will explain how it works. Je vous invite à. Please ask the ushers in the room if you have any questions on the electronic voting devices. Mesdames et messieurs les actionnaires. Ladies and gentlemen shareholders. Qui vous a été remis à l'issue de l'émergence. Point that was issued to you at the start is strictly personal. The number of votes you own or have or represent is loaded in your device and displayed on your screen.
You only have to use the green, yellow, or red buttons. The green button is a vote for. The yellow button is an abstention vote. The red button is a vote against. After each resolution has been read, there will be a vote which will be declared. When they say voting is open at that point, you'll see on the screen a rectangle that will give you a timer or countdown for the time left to you to vote on that resolution. Once you've got to the end. Le scrutin est clos. It will be said, "Voting is closed," and you'll no longer be able to vote on that resolution. The display of the results will be made a few minutes after voting has been organized. Final point, please switch off your mobile phone during the vote, and please return the device when you leave the room.
Now, for legal and technical reasons, I'm going to ask you not to leave the room while we vote on the resolutions. The first resolution. Approval of the company financial statements for the year ending 31 December 2024. Voting is open. Voting is closed. Resolution adopted with 99.71%. Resolution two. Approval of the consolidated financial statements for the year ending 31 December 2024. Voting has opened. Voting has ended. Resolution approved with 99.71% in favor. Resolution three. Allocation of earnings and setting of the dividend. Voting, as was reminded now by Monsieur Glasson, dividend of EUR 3.95 per share, given that the dividend will be paid on the 5th of June 2025. Voting is open. Voting has ended. Resolution approved with 99.55% in favor. Fourth resolution. Approval of the scope of articles regulated points. Voting is open. Voting is ended. Approved with 97.86% of votes. Resolution five.
Approval of the information relating to the compensation of corporate officers referred to in article L221091 of the French commercial code. Voting is opened. Voting is closed. Approved with 82.62% of votes in favor. Resolution six. Approval of the fixed, variable, and exceptional components comprising the total compensation and benefits in kind paid in or awarded in respect of the year ending 31st December 2024 to Monsieur Francesco Milleri, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. Voting is opened. Resolution approved with 90.66% of votes cast in favor. Resolution seven. Approval of the fixed, variable, and exceptional components comprising the total compensation and benefits in kind paid in or awarded in respect of the year ending 31st December 2024 to Paul du Saillant, Deputy Chief Executive Officer. Voting is opened. Resolution approved with 92.1% of votes cast in favor. Resolution eight.
Approval of the compensation policy applicable to members of the board of directors. Voting is opened. Resolution approved with 99.32% of votes cast in favor. Resolution nine. Approval of the compensation policy applicable to the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. Voting is opened. Resolution approved with 73.93% of votes cast in favor. Resolution ten. Approval of the compensation policy applicable to the Deputy Chief Executive Officer. Voting is opened. Voting is closed. Resolution approved with 73.94% of votes cast in favor. Resolution eleven. Renewal of the term of office of statutory auditor. Voting is opened. Voting is closed. Resolution approved with 94.42% of votes cast in favor. Resolution twelve. Appointment of Ernst & Young Audit as statutory auditor. Voting is opened. Resolution approved with 98.62% of votes cast in favor. Resolution thirteen. Appointment of Ernst & Young Audit as statutory auditor for the certification of sustainability reporting. Voting is opened.
Resolution approved with 99.1% of votes cast in favor. Resolution fourteen. Authorization to be granted to the Board of Directors to proceed with the purchase or buyback of the company's own ordinary shares. Voting is opened. Voting is closed. Resolution approved with 98.89% of votes cast in favor. Resolution fifteen. Authorization to be granted to the Board of Directors to reduce the share capital by canceling company treasury shares. Voting is opened. Voting is closed. Resolution approved with 99.68% of votes cast in favor. Resolution sixteen. Amendment of article twenty-two of the bylaws to the league to reference to the deputy statutory auditors. Voting is opened. Voting is ended. Resolution adopted with 99.99% of votes cast in favor. Resolution seventeen. Power to carry out formalities. Voting is opened. Resolution adopted with over 99.99% of votes cast in favor.
With that done, we have finished voting on the resolutions, and we can close this meeting, Monsieur Chairman. Merci beaucoup. Thank you very much. We can now end this general meeting. Thank you for attending. Merci beaucoup. Have a great day. Thank you very much.