[Foreign language] Good evening. Welcome to the conference call to present first-quarter revenues for 2025 for Fnac Darty. Mr. Jean-Brieuc Le Tinier, who is the CFO, will be moderating the call. Sir, over to you.
Thank you. Good evening to you all. Thanks for joining us on this call for presenting the business for Q1 2025. I'm joined this evening by Investor Relations, Domitille Vielle and Laura Parisot, who are presenting our results. We will take our questions. Slide three, I'll give you some information regarding our reporting. Acquisition of Unieuro gives new European dimension to our group. We wanted to adapt our financial information accordingly. As of today, we're releasing according to the two following geographies: France, 60% of group sales, and the rest of Europe that represents 40%. That includes Italy, Belgium, Portugal, Spain, and Switzerland. The detail of restatements, sorry, to be found at Annex of the press release already available on our website. Lastly, an estate to the country in order to better reflect the business performance of our activities.
We're going to comment like for like on a pro forma basis, as if Unieuro had been consolidated in our accounts since the 1st of January 2024. There's some major scope effects linked to store closures, either definitively Champs-Élysées in France or temporary for two stores in Spain for renovation and works. Lastly, I'd like to redetail with you the impacts on our P&L of the integration of Unieuro and the deconsolidation of ticketing. Starting with Unieuro, 100% of the Unieuro P&L will be consolidated in the Fnac Darty P&L. The minority interests you'll see in the group P&L as of June 30th will essentially represent 49% of net income Unieuro coming to our co-investor, Ruby Equity Investment. The impact on 2024 EPS, but not significant. All the impacts on the 2024 results are detailed in the pro forma information released in February 2025 and in the release.
For ticketing, we sold 17% of France Billet to CTS in 2024. If we keep 35% stake of the company, we do not have control. We can only consolidate through global integration, but at equity method, we will book our share of net income of ticketing in current operating income and group share for the same amount. You will understand, sir, the net impact on COI is visible, about EUR 10 million, but the impact on net income group share is followed because we will still consolidate 35% of the net income of ticketing against 52% previously. That is for the scope effect and methodology. Moving to slide four now, these are the key items of Q1 that I will detail throughout the presentation. Revenues are slightly up like for like pro forma, excluding unfavorable calendar effect of -1%. Integration of Unieuro is well underway.
Initiatives that will allow us to deliver synergies of at least EUR 20 million by the end of 2026 will release more broadly on this topic during our analyst day in June. Our pro forma gross margin sharply up over the period with an improvement of 60 basis points. Of course, we'll also return to the success of our bond issue maturity 2032, allowing us to buy back 77% of OCEANE in 2027 in circulation and extend our debt maturity. Slide five, as I announced in the introduction, Fnac Darty recorded an almost stable revenue, - 0.6% like- for- like pro forma, + 29% reported date, restated for an unfavorable calendar effect of 1% revenue, slightly up over the period. There were 29 days in February last year against 28 this year, showing the importance of the calendar effect.
Furthermore, the bulk of the decline in the non-comparable figures is due to the deconsolidation of ticketing and store closures in France, Champs-Élysées in Spain, provisional closures for work at Callao and Valencia Bonaire. Online sales account for 21% of revenue over the period. Click and collect, a key indicator representing 49% of sales, is called integration of Unieuro and its web and click and collect business. Less efficient than the rest of the group, it is reducing this rate that would have been higher than 52%, but there is scope for improvement going forward. By category now, services and diversification category continuing their positive momentum with double-digit growth, positive signals observed at the end of 2024 on appliance sales continuing, small appliances delivering good performance and big electro driven essentially by Italy.
Technical products booking after a drop in their activity impacted by low volumes in telephony, editorial products down, still impacted by gaming, does not benefit from the major expected launches as of the end of first half with the launch of Switch 2 in June. Europe, let's turn to the breakdown by geography. France is down 2.6% data, 1.2% like- for- like versus Q1 2024 scope effect. The final closure, definitive closure of Champs-Élysées with Unieuro, France representing Q1 59% of total group revenues against 76% same period last year. The group continued to outperform the group in Q1 after the latest figures at the end of March by the Bank of France. Our markets are down 2% in this first quarter. We're satisfied with our outperformance like for like, demonstrating the strength of our model.
Rest of sales in Europe, rather sales represent 41% of total revenue of the group, up plus 0.4% like for like pro forma, taking into account revenue from Italy in 2024 as indicated. Italy's up 1.4% like- for- like pro forma reflects the good consumer momentum of Italian households. Belgium down 3.6% like for like, impacted by strong competitive pressure. Portugal up 0.9% like- for- like, driven by dynamism of sales, up 1.7% driven by in-store sales. The scope perimeter, in fact, reflecting the closure of stores Callao and Valencia. These are temporary closures. Switzerland, pretty stable, - 0.5% like for like, driven by strong online sales. Scope effect affects the large Manor in German-speaking Switzerland. Let's look at gross margin over the quarter. Facially, it's down 110 basis points, impacted by the integration of Unieuro, margin lower than that of the group pro forma.
That is with a comparable scope, including Unieuro in 2024. The rate is up 60 basis points, good performance due to the increase in surveyed activity. Darty Max offsetting largely the dilutive effect of the franchise and the negative impact of deconsolidation of ticketing. Slide eight, debt maturity. Successfully had a bond issue for EUR 300 million maturing April 2032, an annual interest rate of 4.75%. We are going to take advantage. Good market environment, and this was welcomed by a diversified base of institutional investors. France, Germany, U.K. was oversubscribed. The gross proceeds used to buy the 2027 convertible bonds, over 77% of OCs were brought during the redemption for EUR 47 million.
In parallel, our banks agreed to extend the maturity of our RCF and DTTL for an amount of EUR 600 million March 2030, with two possibilities to extend them March 2031-2032 to cover the maturity in size and maturity for 2032. It's rated by S&P, Fitch, Scope in March 2025. S&P Standard & Poor's up the outlook for Fnac Darty to stabilize against negative. Previously confirmed the BB+ rating of the group. Its revision is based on the strength of operational performance, strengthened competitive position of the group thanks to the acquisition Unieuro and prudent and controlled financial policy. Fitch Ratings, Scope Ratings both confirmed their respective ratings, BB+ and BBB associated. We're stable. Our income we have extended maturity. We've secured our long-term liquidity. To conclude slide nine, we are, as you've understood, satisfied with our performance in Q1.
We reaffirm the targets disclosed in February last, anticipating current operating income 2025 growing mid-single digit compared to 2024, excluding ticketing. We look forward to meet you for our investor day. It will be held on invitation 11th of June. VivaTech devoted to new technology. Thanks for your attention. We're now ready to take your questions.
[Foreign language] Ladies and gentlemen, if you wish to ask a question, please press on star one on the keyboard of your phone.
[Foreign language] First question from Clément Genelot from Bryan, Garnier. Over to you.
Good evening, Jean-Brieuc. Two questions, if I may. First of all, on revenues in the Bank of France figures, we see a decrease in February and March. Was this also the case for Fnac France? Is this continuing into April? My second question is on purchase prices. Have you been approached by Asian suppliers who would be prepared to increase your monthly volume in exchange for a slightly lower price given the tariffs development? Would this be good for you? Because perhaps it would enable you to offer slightly lower prices with higher volume. Or on the contrary, would this imply short-term increases?
Right. Thank you, Clément.
Now, for your first question, the figures from Bank of France are very negative in February, but there's a strong calendar effect of minus three for February since we lost a day. The calendar effect is less three on February. This had a significant impact on sales. I'm not going to give a comment on sales month by month, but we've outperformed basically the market throughout the quarter, and I'm not going to make any comments on April. We'll go back to that in July. The second question, I would recall that our business is not to buy, it's to sell. Therefore, we may indeed be approached by suppliers who will boost volume in return for lower prices. We're extremely cautious about that, about accumulating stock. We're very cautious about our cash flow.
We'll see if that does indeed happen, but we will stay within the limits of what we think the market can absorb. We're not there to absorb ex surplus stock from our suppliers, and we will look at it if it happens, but we'll look at it very cautiously indeed in relation to our cash flow and in relation to the market capacity to absorb this.
Thank you so much. Thank you.
I recall that if you wish to ask a question, you should press on star one on your keypad. If you wish to ask a question, press on star one on your keypad. Mr. Le Tinier, the questions are over. No further questions.
I must have been extremely clear. Thank you all very much. Our next meeting will be the general meeting on the 20th, 28th of June.
Also the strategic presentation on the 11th of June. You should all have received invitations by now. Please do answer quickly because there are relatively few places for the investor day. The last meeting, 23rd of July for annual results. Thank you all for being with us, and I wish you all a very pleasant evening. Thank you. Goodbye.
[Foreign language] Ladies and gentlemen, this brings to an end today's conference call. Thank you for joining us, and you may now hang up. Thank you.