Thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Elis Full Year 2023 Revenue Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during this session, you will need to press star one and one on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star one and one again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Mr. Xavier Martiré. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Good afternoon, and welcome to Elis 2023 Annual Revenue Presentation. I'm Xavier Martiré, CEO of Elis, and I am here in Paris with our CFO, Louis Guyot. After an overview of our annual revenue highlights, I will hand over to Louis, who will detail the 2023 revenue by geography. I will then come back to provide you with an update on our full year results, as well as our preliminary views for 2024. Finally, we'll have a Q&A session to answer your questions. And after our call, Nicolas Buron will be available to answer any of your questions offline. And before we start, please take the time to read the disclaimer. So in 2023, Elis delivered record revenue of EUR 4.31 billion, up 12.8% compared to 2022.
Full year organic growth was strong at +11.8%, including +8.1% in the last quarter. Throughout the year, we saw good commercial momentum, with many additional new contracts signed in workwear as outsourcing continues to develop. In hospitality, the comparable base was easy in Q1, but more difficult afterwards. Nevertheless, the last nine months of the year were stable overall compared to 2022 in volume, which was already a good year. We recorded a 9% price effect on the back of adjustment negotiated in 2022 and 2023 to offset inflation of our cost base. Along with these pricing adjustments, the group displayed strong pricing discipline, which led to a moderate increase in churn from around 6% - 7%.
I will come back to that later, but this discipline has helped us achieve further margin improvement in 2023. In terms of M&A, the acquisition we made in Mexico, mid-2022, overperformed our expectation and largely contributed to the close to 2% uplift from M&A in 2023. The M&A activity wasn't as busy as in the past, but 2024 will definitely be more active. Overall, this good top-line performance, along with our strong pricing discipline and some further logistics and industrial process optimization, should led, lead to better than expected 2023 full year results. We can already tell you that 2023 Adjusted EBITDA margin is estimated at 34.2%, up +120 b ps compared to 2022.
As for our 2023 free cash flow after lease payment is concerned, it should stand just above EUR 300 million, nearly EUR 40 million above our previous guidance. This is a consequence of stronger EBITDA and of better than expected cash collection at year-end. This should result in a financial leverage ratio of around 2x as of December 31st, 2023, above our expectations. Finally, all the other P&L aggregates should also be better than our previous guidance. We will release our full year numbers on March 7th. Furthermore, we enter the 2024 with confidence. We see no sign of slowdown in our clients' activity, and visibility is good, both in terms of revenue and cost base, so 2024 should be another year of profitable growth for Elis. I will come back to this at the end of the presentation.
The next slide provides the quarterly evolution of our 2023 organic revenue growth. Overall, price effect for 2023 was at +9%, in line with increase of our cost base. Secondly, inflation has been going down throughout 2023, and so did our pricing adjustments. It is therefore logical to see a progressive decrease in our quarterly organic revenue growth in 2023. On top of that, Q1 benefited from the catch-up in hospitality on the back of an easy comparable base, which represented an extra +2% growth in the quarter. As a reminder, salaries account for around 60% of our cost base and are by far the main trigger for Elis pricing adjustments.... Looking at 2024, wages continue to increase in all geographies.
This will mechanically impact our cost base, and we have already adjusted or will adjust our prices accordingly in the course of 2024, on the back of the pricing indexation formula that is in our contracts. Moving on to the next slide, I'm very satisfied with how we have been able to offset inflation in both 2022 and 2023. This clearly highlights Elis' pricing power, which is a key component of our business model and one of the group's biggest strengths. I want to give you some color on the reason for this success. Part of the reason why we have always managed to efficiently pass through inflation of our cost base to our clients, is because we always have been very transparent with them, disclosing our main cost inductors.
At the end of the day, the price of these cost items are public data, so our customers know perfectly well that our pricing adjustments are legitimate. Second, our services are essential to our clients' activity. Hotels and hospitals simply cannot operate without linen. The same goes for industrial clients. Uniforms are very often mandatory, and they need our service to properly run their business. Third, the cost of our service represent generally only around 4% of our clients' P&L. So even when we apply a +10 or +20 price increase, the increase in euros for our customers is generally not material for most of them. Fourth and last, alternative solution to our services are very limited. Re-insourcing is not really an option, and we don't see this happening in our markets, as it would result in higher costs for our clients.
Furthermore, our competitors have more or less the same cost base as ours, and there is no risk of disruption from an alternative way of providing the service. It means that everybody is facing the same inflation problem, and we have noticed overall rational behavior from our competitors in most of our markets. These four reasons, combined, explain why we have been successful with our pricing adjustments in these times of strong inflation. Nevertheless, we saw a moderate increase of our churn rate in 2023 due to our strict pricing discipline. Moving on to the next slide, the many initiatives we launched to improve Elis' organic growth profile are gradually bearing fruit, and commercial momentum was good in workwear in 2023. This reflects the accelerating outsourcing trend that we have noted since the pandemic.
This outsourcing trend had been identified by Elis early in the cycle, and we build up our sales force in many countries to capture as many opportunities as possible. We believe that this outsourcing trend will continue going forward, driven by three main topics. First, the need for more hygiene. Second, the evolution in European regulation that change market standards. And third, the re-industrialization of Europe. Now, looking at the healthcare market, we are being proactive in opening the nursing home market in both Spain and the U.K., where we launched dedicated offers with a specific sales force. Unlike other countries, such as France, those markets are still largely fragmented among small, independent players that usually in-source washing, and there is therefore growth potential for Elis there. Additionally, we also signed several significant new contracts in 2023 with some public hospitals in, France, Brazil, and U.K., for instance.
The post-COVID environment remains very favorable for Elis, with an increasing need for hygiene in general, notably for pest control and the clean room business, which delivered more than 10% organic growth in 2023, to reach cumulative revenue close to EUR 300 million. I will provide you with more detail on these two businesses on the next slide. In 2023, we also continued to roll out the offering of our services to small clients when our network density allowed it, as our ability to efficiently serve small clients is essentially linked to the density we have in a specific country. This offer recorded great success in 2023 in Sweden and in Brazil. Going forward, the improvement of our network density through M&A or organic growth will make more countries eligible for the addition of the offer for small clients.
This should contribute to margin expansion in the future, as a very efficient logistics in place with service to small clients generally leads to good margin. Moving on to the next slide, I would like to give you an update on our pest control business, which has been growing at nearly +30% per year over the last decade, and whose development has been accelerating since the end of the pandemic. Pest control is a perfect example of a margin accretive service that we added to our offer portfolio. Over time, we have signed many pest control contracts with existing customers, leveraging our strong customer relationships and second to none network density. Over the last decade, we have developed our pest control network through small bolt-on acquisition, creating local platforms able to address more and more clients in our geographies.
We today propose our pest control services in 10 countries, with around 380 specialized technicians. The business unit has, at the same time, worked to develop innovative traceability and prevention solutions, as well as more responsible alternative solutions. In some countries, the offering is also now available to individual customers. Over time, Elis Pest Control has also increased its level of professionalism, and we believe our technical know-how is comparable to what pure pest control players are offering. In 2023, Elis' revenue in pest control was at nearly EUR 60 million, and the acquisitions of Gruppo Indeco in Italy and Levante in Spain will help us create local platforms to boost the development of our pest control in these two countries.
Going forward, we hope to continue to significantly grow revenue through cross-selling, further bolt-ons, and the launch of the service in some countries of the group, where it is not offered today. Moving on to the next slide, let me talk about our clean room business, which is another fast-growing, high profitability service that we propose. We are by far the largest European player in that field, with a network of 30 clean rooms. We offer a large variety of products, such as reusable clean room garments, cleaning systems, goggles, and related contamination control solutions. Our existing client base provides us with many cross-selling opportunities in these very technical and highly profitable markets. The business has historically delivered double-digit revenue growth, with a marked acceleration seen over the last few years since the pandemic.
To support this activity growth, we have also been active on the M&A side, like in 2021, with the acquisition of Scaldis. The clean room business structurally benefits from the reopening of some pharma and microelectronics plants in Europe, and we trust Elis will get the lion's share of the market development in Europe in the coming years. Let me now hand over to Louis. He will give you more color on revenue by geography.
Thank you, Xavier. Good afternoon, everyone. Let me first go through the usual revenue breakdown by activity and market and geography, to illustrate the group's high level of diversification, which provides us with a highly resilient model in times of crisis. Whichever way you look at the graphs, you will see that Elis' positioning is well-balanced, which contributes significantly to its resilience. In terms of activity, flat linen and workwear, hygiene and well-being, represent 47%, 36%, and 17% of revenue, respectively. Looking at our end markets, hospitality is now back to a normalized level, and our four end markets, which all have different growth drivers, each roughly account for one quarter of our activity, which is a key strength in times of crisis.
In terms of geographies, France represents a bit less than a third of our total turnover, and we have a balanced mix with, on the one hand, Central Europe, Scandinavia being more mature, and on the other hand, Southern Europe, Latin America, offering higher growth prospects. This good diversification in terms of activity, clients, geographies, does not come about by chance. It is a consequence of a long-term strategy backed by M&A and commercial efficiency. Moving on to the next slide, let's have a look now at the organic growth per geography in Q4 and for the full year. All in, the 11.8% full year growth is largely driven by pricing, which accounts for circa 9%. The recovery of hospitality in Q1 stands for circa 1%, and the other volumes growth stands for circa 2%.
Pricing has been strong everywhere, but especially in the high inflation countries, like Germany and U.K.. The recovery of hospitality impacted mostly France, Southern Europe and U.K., as they are the main contributors to this market. Apart this recovery effect, the normal volume effect was largely driven by workwear, where the volume of new contracts signed was 14% above last year, especially in the Netherlands, Germany, Southern Europe, U.K. and France. Healthcare also contributed with new contracts, 3% above 2022, whereas hospitality dynamics were more subdued. All these commercial successes were balanced with a slight, circa 1% increase in churn on the back of our discipline and pricing at the beginning of the year. When looking at Q4, Xavier already explained that the organic growth has naturally declined during the year due to two elements.
First, the recovery of hospitality occurred in Q1, because you remember that the last impact of Covid and activity was in Q1 2022, which created a base effect. Second, the price effect decreased in H2 as a consequence of the carry-forward effect of price increases, passed in H2 2022, easing during H2 2023. The other volume effect, on this part, was quite consistent through the year in the region of 2%, as mentioned.... Let's have a look per geography now. For every zone, you will find the same information with organic growth for Q4 and for the full year, plus a reminder of the split of activity per segment. Starting with France, you remember that it's probably the most balanced country between the four segments.
The size of trade and service is linked to the important portfolio of small clients, which is, as you know, a good driver of future development for all those other geographies. Looking at the full year organic growth, it's 10.7% and driven by several factors. First, good pricing level, corresponding to the carry-forward effect of the adjustment negotiated in 2022 on some new adjustment to offset cost inflation in January 2023. Second, very good commercial momentum, as shown by the record number of new workwear contracts signed. It's a clear illustration of what Xavier explained on the growing trend for outsourcing in workwear, on the sales organization we have set up to address this need. As an illustration, the value of the workwear contracts signed in 2023 is 80% above 2022.
The main segments being food processing, like Bridor, pharma, like Pierre Fabre, or services, like Métropole de Lyon. Hospitality also showed a solid level of new contracts signings, with an impressive dynamic of new hotels opening. In terms of activity, after the recovery of Q1, the occupation rate were slightly below 2022 during the rest of the year, as communicated by the main hotels chains, but at a very satisfactory level. Pest control still showed impressive growth, above 20% year-on-year. Moving on to the next slide, with a reminder of the activity split in Central Europe. Healthcare is important, especially in Germany, but next in line is industry, with a strong presence in workwear in Benelux, Poland, Czech Republic and Germany. Full year organic growth stands at 15.1%, driven by several factors. First, the price effect, especially strong on the back of the inflation.
You remember that the minimum wage in Germany increased by 25% in 2022, with the biggest increase in October. It was a massive shock to pass to the clients, which were not accustomed to price increases, especially in healthcare. Workwear is very well-oriented, with strong developments going on in Germany, Netherlands, Poland, Czech Republic. We have a strong sales organization to address the needs of the clients. As an illustration, the value of the new workwear contracts signed in 2023 in Germany was 80% above 2022. In the Netherlands, it was 20% above. In Germany, the workwear segment, globally for industry, is growing by nearly 20%, and now it represents 20% of the whole portfolio of the country.
We are also very happy with the development of the hospitality market in Germany, with growth above 20% and new profitable contracts like Dorint or Premier Inn. As mentioned, healthcare development has been more subdued due to tough price discussion, with an increase in the churn for the low price customers. That's probably what it takes to discipline this market a bit. Scandinavia and Eastern Europe now. As you can see, industry is predominant in the zone, with major clients in Sweden, Denmark, but also Norway and Baltics. Full year organic growth is 8.5%, driven by several factors. Pricing policy is consistent in the region, with a lower impact than other geographies due to the share of major clients in the mix.
After some losses at the beginning of the year, commercial development has recovered, and the organic growth is higher in Q4 than in Q3, as you have noticed. This commercial development has been especially strong in workwear, with the volume of new contracts signed 9% above last year. Clean room developments are particularly strong in the region. We have also seen good momentum in healthcare development, with 40% more contracts signed in Sweden and in Denmark, mainly with municipalities, due to the structure of the Nordics market. Moving to the next slide, with U.K., Ireland, the activity is very well balanced into three parts: hospitality, healthcare, and combined industry and services, which is basically workwear. Full year organic growth is 13%, driven by several factors, of course, pricing, with great discipline, notably in hospitality, coupled with a good quality of service.
As a counterpart, we assumed a bit more contract losses at the beginning of the year. Despite that, the commercial development was strong on the back of a massive investment in Salesforce, notably in workwear, which is now delivering. The volume of new contracts signed is impressive in workwear, 30% above 2022, for example, Cemex. In hospitality, 33%-37% above 2022, with 140 significant hotels. In healthcare, 22% above last year. Healthcare is a segment where the partnership with NHS works very well. Latin America, as you remember, healthcare is a historical service, but recently, hospitality has shown better profitability and may be a growth driver, while workwear has developed over the years in Brazil, in food processing and pharma. Full year organic growth is 10.4%, driven by several factors.
Pricing, even if inflation is now below 5% everywhere. We continue to open the market in the region in healthcare, with many new clients, public or private, outsourcing for the first time. As you know, the potential market is still massive, and we see a path for long-term growth. It's interesting to note that hospitality is now a better market in Brazil. We have decided to push the sales force. As a matter of consequence, the volume of new contracts signed in 2023 was twice the volume signed in 2022. Southern Europe, to finish, hospitality is still the dominant market, but the portfolio is becoming more balanced as healthcare is developing in Spain, has been opened in Portugal, while workwear is still growing fast.
Full year organic growth is 13.6%, driven by several factors, high discipline in pricing, even at the cost of some marginal losses in hospitality. Activity was strong in hospitality, slightly above 22. Strong commercial dynamism with the volume of new contracts signed in workwear, 30% above last year in Spain, 20% in Portugal. In workwear, the main clients are food processing and pharma. The outsourcing rate is the lowest of Europe, and we are educating the market with some help from regulation and aspiration for health and safety. Same for hospitality, with the volume of new contracts 15% above last year in Spain and 20% in Portugal. Healthcare is also very dynamic.
New contracts signed in Spain are three times the volume of last year, and as you know, we have launched the service in Portugal with the integration of a new plant dedicated, dedicated to healthcare. On that, I will now hand back to Xavier.
Thank you, Louis. So moving on to the next slide, I would like, first to say again, a quick word on the Mexican acquisition we closed in July 2022, which therefore had a six month impact on scope effect for 2023. The performance delivered since the acquisition has been above our expectation, with double-digit organic revenue growth in H2 2023, along with EBITDA margin above 40%. The group is a market leader, 20 times bigger than the number two, with a very experienced management. Activity is very resilient and stable, with healthcare clients accounting for more than 85% of total revenue. Going forward, we believe we will have the opportunity to develop outsourcing in hospitality and in workwear for industry, as the current level is very low.
In 2023, M&A activity was a bit subdued, very likely because potential sellers wanted to wait for fully normalized annual results before putting their asset on the market. Nevertheless, as I told you before, we acquired a couple of nice B2B pest control business in Italy and in Spain, with operations across the world countries, which will bring additional combined revenue of around EUR 10 million per year on an annual basis. Looking at 2024, we already announced the signing of an agreement to acquire 100% of Moderna in the Netherlands, a business with top line of around EUR 50 million. This acquisition will broaden the group's offering in Netherlands, especially in flat linen for hospitality. This market, which is still very fragmented in the country, is showing significant growth.
In addition, this operation will strengthen the group's existing offer on the workwear and wipers markets, which are very profitable. The closing of the transaction is expected to come in the coming weeks. Going forward, the pipeline of bolt-on acquisitions is big, so there will certainly be more deals in 2024 than in 2023. That said, our M&A strategy remains the same, with very strict pricing discipline in terms of valuation. Let's move on to our outlook for the rest of our 2023 results that we will announce on March 7th. I'm very pleased to report that the 2023 financial results should be above targets. Our strong pricing discipline, coupled with logistics and industrial process optimization, enable us to anticipate 2023 adjusted EBITDA margin of 34.2%.
This compares to an initial guidance of 33.5% given last March, that we then upgraded to 33.7% in July. This 2023 EBITDA margin should therefore show a +120 b ps increase compared to 2022. The other P&L aggregates should also be above the previous guidance on the back of the stronger EBITDA. Furthermore, the stronger EBITDA, combined with strong cash collection at year-end, enables us to expect that 2023 free cash flow will reach a record level just above EUR 300 million, compared to a previous guidance of EUR 260 million. Consequently, the financial leverage ratio as of December 31st, 2023 should be at around 2x compared to the previous guidance of around 2.1x. This should therefore represent a leverage reduction of 0.5x versus last year.
We will, of course, give you all the details when we release our full year numbers in March, but it is fair to say that Elis has once again demonstrated the solidity of its business and its strong free cash flow generation pattern in 2023. Moving on to the next slide, after good year 2023, we can, what can we expect for 2024? What I can say today is we enter 2024 with confidence. Visibility is good. Many pricing discussions are already in the books based on the increase in minimum legal salaries in our different countries, which has, which have, in most cases, already been announced for 2024. Visibility is also good for energy, with energy pricing known for nearly 100% of the forecast volumes for the year.
And finally, in terms of activity, client activity remains steady, and we do not see any significant slowdown in any of our markets. We will provide more detail on our outlook for 2024 in March, but I am sure you understood that we expect 2024 to be another year of profitable growth for Elis. So this concludes this presentation. I thank you all for your attention, and we can now move on to the Q&A. Operator, back to you.
Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, you will need to press star one and one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one and one again. We will take our first question. Please stand by. Your first question comes from the line of Anneliese Vermeulen from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Hi, good evening. Thank you for taking my questions. I have three, please. So firstly, you've mentioned, you know, slightly higher churn in certain geographies due to selective non-renewals of contracts. I think you talked about that at the Q3 as well. Do you expect that to continue through 2024, or do you think you've now exited most of the contracts that you don't want to be in? And and then secondly, you've clearly delivered better than expected free cash performance, and your leverage is also slightly below the target you gave previously. And does this give you more optionality for deals, if you think about, you know, what you could spend annually on bolt-ons? And equally, are you reconsidering opportunities for shareholder returns?
And I think you've said previously you wouldn't go below 1.5 times. I think, on my estimates, you'll be there at the end of 2024. So how should we think about capital allocation this year? And then the last question was just on pest control. Could you give a sense as to how much of that business is is comes through cross-selling? So how many, you know, how many of the, your pest control customers are also linen or uniform workwear customers, or do you have a significant proportion that are standalone pest control customers with you? I'm just wondering how much more cross-selling opportunity there is versus where you are today. Thank you.
So good evening, Anneliese. So first question, churn some geographies. Yes, it's clear that we have seen an impact around the one point in 2023 due to the willingness of the group to be quite strict on price expectation. We will keep the same level of expectation and discipline in 2024. Nevertheless, as the level of price increase will be more moderate in 2024 on the back of less inflation of our cost base. Of course, this impact of more churn will regularly decrease all over the year 2024. Now, leverage and impact on deals. It's true that it's a better performance than expected for the cash flow and EBITDA in euro, so with a nice impact on the leverage in 2023.
In 2024, as we said, we will have more deals, more bolt-on to come, for sure, when we see that we have already signed Moderna, EUR 50 million, and we know that we have some negotiations very well advanced that should provide some additional deals in our existing geographies in the weeks to come. So probably we'll have more deals to come. It's not really linked to the level of leverage. As you know, it was more or less activity in M&A in 2023, mainly because family wanted to wait for some better performance and a full year normalized performance or end of 2023. And as expected, now we have more discussion.
All in, it's too early to say what could be the total amount of bolt-ons for 2024, because we, we don't know yet at this stage what it could be. Probably in line with what we realize in the past as a normative year of deals, so probably slightly below EUR 100 million of additional sales, as we see that we have already EUR 50 million with Moderna. So I think it's a good proxy, but as I said, it's slightly too early at this stage to to give this total figure. In terms of capital allocation, as we said previously...
...So we will give a dividend or propose a dividend to the general assembly, with in mind the fact that we want to regularly, modestly increase the level of dividend, and now we'll pay the dividend, in cash, only in cash. So the impact should be around EUR 100 million. After that, we will have the M&A, as we discussed, some minutes ago. And what will remain for the free cash flow will be dedicated to the decrease of the debt in Europe. But of course, we will give much more precision and detail, during the call, beginning of March, when we will give the full year guidance for the EBITDA, what we expect in terms of cash flow and so on, we will be more precise on the capital allocation. And the last question, pest control.
So, it's clear that important parts of the development of our business come from the cross-selling of our existing portfolio of customer, because as we deliver more or less a service for for 400,000 customer in the world, very often we sign pest control with our customer. Nevertheless, in majority of cases, the service will be delivered with a specific organization because the pest control becomes more and more technical. So that means that we leverage our bases of customer, we leverage the quality of the customer relationship, but in the majority of cases, we need a specific technicians to deliver the service.
That's very clear. Thank you.
Thank you. We will take our next question. Please stand by. Your next question comes from the line of Ben Wild from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Hi, good evening, everyone. Three questions from me, please. Firstly, just on the, on Q4, it looks like there's a slight volume slowdown relative to the 2% that you've spoken about, the normal 2% for the year. Have you seen higher churn ticking up into the year end? And I know you, you didn't talk specifically, talk specifically about no dramatic change in client activity levels, but can you just give some color around maybe more modest changes that you're seeing, quarter-on-quarter? Second question, with regards to, to the clean room business that you've outlined today, what's the kind of EBITDA margin that you're generating on those revenues? And then third question, in 2023, you delivered 120 basis points of EBITDA margin expansion.
Given the initiatives that you've discussed at length on the call today and previously, and also falling energy expenses, would you expect a similar level of margin expansion this year, or, or higher or lower? Any color that would be helpful. Thanks.
Hello. So Q4 volume, I don't share exactly your analysis because for me, we have kept increase of volume close to 2%. So we cannot say that we have seen an increase of the churn or less activity with our existing customer. And behind the 8% organic growth in Q4, it's more or less 2% and 6%. 2% in volume, 6% in the price, so no major change in the Q4. Cleanroom EBITDA, I will not be too precise at this stage for some confidential reasons that you can imagine. It's a market with some not a lot of customer but it is a very profitable market, and the level of EBITDA is above the average EBITDA of the group.
For, evolution of the margin, so 2023, we are very happy with the increase of the margin. It is at this stage, quite too early to talk precisely of what we expect as a margin expansion for 2024. Normally, it is just a call to present the revenue 2023. But we can confirm what we said, some weeks ago, we expect, an improvement of the margin in 2024, and we would give, much more color, beginning of March, so in, more or less one month, to explain what we can expect as a further margin expansion for 2024. But it is at this stage, too early to answer precisely to this question, I think.
Okay. Thank you very much.
Thank you. Once again, if you wish to ask a question, please press star one and one on your telephone. We will take our next question. And your next question comes from the line of Christoph Greulich from Berenberg. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Yeah, good evening, Xavier and Louis. Thanks a lot for taking my questions. Yeah, two from my side, please. Firstly, on that we can expect this year, if I remember correctly, back in October, you mentioned that you expect something in the range of 3%-4% pricing impact this year. Is that still the right assumption? And then secondly, on the change in the margin guidance for 2023. So, I mean, is it quite meaningful increase compared to what you were guiding for only a few months ago? So I'm just trying to understand what were really the main contributors to the higher than the previously expected margin performance.
Yes, so no change for expectation for price increase for 2024. So the range that you mentioned is still accurate. For margin expansion in 2023, it is clearly the efficiency of the group, because in terms of balance of inflation, we have been able to mitigate, as expected, the inflation of our cost, + 9% for the cost, and plus 9% for the price. And volume are more or less in line or so with what we expected. So it is really the efficiency of the group that has been quite impressive all over the year. And it's clear that in terms of volume, 2%, it's not a lot, and it explains also why we have been able to manage so efficiently this increase of volume quite everywhere.
We can see also that a lot of former low performer or less performer than the rest of the group have been able, have been able to increase the margin in 2023. We will give all the detail during the call in March, but you will see that we are quite proud to see now that all the different geographies have been able to improve their margin in 2023, reaching everywhere a level above 30%. So I think that's it is clearly there's a this very solid efficiency and solid performance everywhere that explain this margin above expectation in 2023.
Yeah. Great. Thanks a lot.
Thank you. Once again, if you wish to ask a question, please press star one and one on your telephone. There seems to be no further questions. I would like to hand back to Mr. Xavier Martiré, for closing remarks.
Yes, thank you, everybody, to have reached this conference call. And we'll have the next meeting in one month, more or less, March 7th, and it will be a pleasure for us to disclose all the detail of the reason why we have delivered such a solid performance in 2023. And of course, to give more color on what all the positive news that we expect for 2024 and to detail the profitable growth of Elis expected for 2024. Thank you, and I wish you a good evening.
This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.