Hello everybody, thank you for being here at VivaTech, the best place possible, I think, for presenting to you our new plans. Thank you to all those who are listening remotely, because we're live and webcasting. We're obviously delighted to be able to show you our new strategic plan and to explain our group's ambitions through to 2030.
With Jean-Brieuc, in 2021, February 2021, we were under curfew. We just come out of the lockdown. We were in a studio, and there was practically nobody there to present our new plan, which was called Every Day, a very ambitious plan at the time. This seems like ancient history now, but still. Here we have all the people from the executive committee, everybody from the group and the teams, and we are going to explain our ambitions for further ahead still. We are going to be taking stock and forecasting. I would like to thank the members of the board who have supported us, who have challenged us, and validated the plans, obviously. I would like to greet Bruna Olivieri, who is someone there at the back. And Bruna, ciao from Italy. They came along to attend this presentation. We are delighted to have you here.
We're going to be presenting the plan, explain the keys of success of this plan, and this will make our teams even stronger. We have 30,000 talents in our company, and it's great to have a strategic plan, better still to roll it out on a day-to-day basis. We're going to start with communicating today, and this is just the first step on a long road of sharing, of working together, and making this plan come to life. Jean-Brieuc and myself have the privilege of presenting all of this to you today. We have thousands of people behind us who are supporting us, working hard. In 2021, when we worked out this plan, we could not have dreamed of how it was going to work out. We were just emerging from the pandemic.
We had the impression back then that people were never going to travel again, there would not be any fairs or exhibitions anymore, people would be stuck in front of their screens, e-commerce. Nobody could have dreamt there was going to be a war in Europe or the crisis of inflation, and yet it has all happened. So much so that the future looks even harder to predict than ever before. All of the predictions we made post-COVID have turned out to be wrong. The project that we designed, that we elaborated, has worked out, and that is very reassuring. There is a key to success there because our project was developed despite unfavorable context.
The economy was not buoyant, consumer trust had been eroded, and despite all of that, between 2021 and today, you've seen the group's results, which confirm that we were right to be ambitious and to put in place this plan. The 2024 results confirm this at scale and also our ability to be bold with consolidation, particularly on the Italian market. This is the fruit of all the work we've done beforehand, and we're in a completely new configuration now. We're leaders in our region, Western South Europe, around France and Italy, which are the sort of pillar countries, and the countries around them, which are significant also. We have leadership on these large markets for technological products, cultural goods. We have benchmark products around cultural goods and sustainable goods. We are powerful in terms of our business model.
We have e-commerce, so we're number two in terms of e-commerce with our brand and a unique model, which is a combination of e-commerce and stores. More than 90% of our clients use stores one way or another to get into the flow. 90% of them are less than 15 minutes away from a store. We have a very dense network of stores, and that's why we can have this unique model of both e-commerce and proximity stores. After COVID, there was a strong development of e-commerce, but people still like to go to the stores, and so we have a business model that is supported strongly by our consumers. Of course, back then in 2021, we were very ambitious and bold. We said 10 million subscribers was our goal.
Not many people thought we would get there, but we have been able to demonstrate that this was the right course of action. I think this was really a major turning point for the group, a project that has really been disruptive for the group, a turning point, a crossroads, which defines what is happening now. A lot of hard work has gone in. I mean, yes, it's good to have ambition, but you need to do the graft, you need to have the logistics that can provide, deliver tens of thousands of parcels every day. 30,000 clients were delivered in just a few seconds. A couple of days ago, we're a reference marketplace, so we have highly performing stores, a whole network of stores, stores that with Jean-Brieuc we had identified as stores that needed to be revisited. Perhaps the location wasn't great, the business model wasn't adapted.
We've sorted all of that, or we are improving the situation. We've followed up on all of the teams, the real estate teams, to get our stores to be really agile and to back up the dynamics of our unique model. A multi-channel approach. We'll come back to this, but it's the key to our success. The business model of tomorrow may be a bit more digital, but we have a model that has shown that it works well in terms of profitability, sustainability. This mix of e-commerce and stores, it's alert, it's agile, and we have the stores, which gives you a balanced approach. We talk about services a lot, putting services at the heart of our business model. That's very important, and that's part of this turnaround.
It means that we can change the historic business model, being very agile, taking risks, going from direct sales to subscription sales. Not everybody can do this. This requires strong belief, financial backing, and also all of the logistics. We've done all of this, and the figures we've been showing you indicate that we have 2 million subscribers to Darty Max and other services. It's not just Darty Max. There's perhaps the start of our services, but there are others, and we need to see a broader overview, probably of our offering model that generates services, but it creates also loyalty, recurrent sales, and generates satisfaction amongst our clients.
We are going to be forging ahead of our competitors in the future because we have clients who really attach to our brand because they're fond of the brand and also for financial reasons, and they bought into our services. All of this is integrated, and it's possible because we have a network of stores with sales staff who are able to create that loyalty with an acquisition cost that's the lowest on the market. We've got stores there, we've got well-trained sales staff, and we have the clients who go regularly to the stores, and that gives us a strong competitive edge. The 2 million we have currently would have cost a lot more to finance with a more conventional model of acquisition outside our stores, as others have done. This has forced us to scale up our capacities for delivering repairs, millions of products repaired, training.
Our technicians are well-trained. They're not on the other side of the road, as you might say. On the contrary, they're in-house. They have to be trained. More than 2,000 people have been trained in our academy, and they're part of our repair teams. Of course, as you know, we wanted to have more sustainable consumption, help consumers who in France are very attentive to trying to combine protecting the world and protecting their own income. Sustainability is a kind of major weapon we have in our arsenal. We want to have a more responsible form of consumption, and we do really better than anybody at scale in that field.
We've done an awful lot sharing our ambition for sustainable products, working with industry to increase the lifespan of components, working with our stores so that we can prescribe the right products for the right client, being able to repair the products, boosting reconditioned products. This means that we're a major player in terms of sustainable production consumption. France is at the spearhead of responsible consumption movement, and we're part of that. That's a kind of summary, the three pillars: multi-channel, omnichannel, service, scaling up service, with subscription service, and sustainability. Those are the three pillars that have guided us, and I think we can tick them off. We've made good headway in all three areas, and this means that we have very solid foundations that we can build on for the future.
Let me show you a short video from our Service and Operations Director, who together with the teams and all of the colleagues has spearheaded the transformation of our business model. Thank you.
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Thank you, Vincent. Thank you. Obviously, as Vincent said, the commitment is collective work, our teams, Françoise's teams, and of course, what's happening in the stores and the HQ, HQ team supporting the stores. Another important factor these last few years has been the fact that we've been able to use opportunities in terms of innovation and value creation.
Retail media, of course, is something that everybody's talking about now, and we've decided to share objectives and even our results on a regular basis. Already now, we have strong penetration compared with our net sales. It's over 1% of our total sales, if the figures that the market is talking about are correct, and there's potential to go beyond that, be it through data or e-commerce channels or through the power of our tools. Second, and that's something that's very important and a hallmark of the group, we have the ability to create strategic partnerships with leading players in the fields, particularly in terms of our e-commerce, logistics, and ticketing offering with the partnerships that have been announced that have already helped.
Olivier, together with his teams, really want to take this further, take this technological imprint of the group further through the cloud, of course, but of course also boosted by AI to go further in terms of value proposition and the tools that we give our teams and clients on a daily basis. This has really helped us scale up with our partnership with Google and other partnerships that we've mentioned. We've trained our teams, obviously, trained them to use AI, and of course, when we get out of this door, there will be a million people telling you about AI.
I know AI, we do realize there's a potential for disruption there, so we've trained our teams to create spaces in our stores because there are products for customers, so we need to educate them, train our people to sell those products, and also help our customers benefit from these new technologies. Finally, I'd say another symbol of this plan is the fact that we're expanding internationally. As you know, I don't speak perfect or accented French. I am not French, of course. I'm Spanish, certainly, but I'm part of the group, and since I've entered the group, the international ambition of Fnac Darty is something that's been really weighing on the mind of our teams. We've wanted to do it for a long time. With Darty, it was even less possible, seemed less possible because we reinforced the French share of our net sales, but now it's a success.
The group is much more diversified geographically than it used to be. International outside of France accounts for 40% of our total sales, so we're really getting close to the potential market, clearly using growth opportunities outside of France as well as in France. With Italy, we've created another door to help develop the group in a much more balanced way. That's been possible thanks to the results of the preceding plan, thanks to the ambition that we had for that project, and of course, the trust of our shareholders. All that made it possible. Going back to what happened in 2016, EUR 4 billion revenue just a few years ago to EUR 10 billion now with an international share that is really high.
The group has grown, has found new avenues for growth, and so clearly this has been the biggest net sales growth project since the beginning of the group. We have done that through Italy, through the champion. We have integrated the market leader that really makes sense, the most beloved brand of Italian consumers, a brand that has 5,000 committed collaborators and a lot of potential going forward. Who better than Bruna to tell you about this? She will take you into the world of Unieuro this morning.
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Thank you, grazie mille, Bruna. I'm very happy to have the Italian team with us to take this beautiful Unieuro brand even further. Now, in terms of financial performance, looking back at the results of the everyday plan, despite the pressures of inflation, supply chain disruptions, the war in Ukraine, and a difficult consumption environment, Fnac Darty has demonstrated its resilience. We've shown that we're capable of creating the conditions for our own growth. Two standout indicators in a complex economic environment are, first of all, our gross margin, which has risen significantly. We've worked on the product mix, our positioning as a leader, and also the service brand positioning, as we've said again and again.
I think it's the first time that part of our KPI, that we show this as part of our Shape. We used to talk about contribution to net sales and used to say it's around 15%, and that actually was comprised of many things. Now we're talking about contribution to the margin because that's how you see the impact. Today, service is already over 25% of the group's total gross margin, as you'll see. The ambition is to go much, much further than that. Cash flow generation has exceeded EUR 500 million, supported, of course, by our strict cost discipline in terms of purchasing, supply, and clearly also the growing centrality of services, which helps us have a better visibility over recurring cash flow.
Of course, we have, as a consequence of that, all of the cost reduction plans that are part of our daily discipline with two key indicators. First of all, debt adjustment, which is important for a retail group, having discipline in this regard, having ambition in terms of your debt, especially when the cost of debt is higher than it used to be, even though we are supported. In fact, thank you to the debt market, the levels are still higher than they were before the inflation crisis. It is important to control this KPI. Of course, we have taken commitments in terms of payout policies so that we would have stakeholders that would still be interested in supporting the group. It used to be at 30; we stayed at a payout level of almost 40% with EUR 1 as we paid in the coming weeks.
It is not just the figures; it is everything that goes within the group. It has made a huge effort in terms of positioning itself, becoming a leader, a reference on our market. I think you have heard a lot about that, positioning the groups as part of the new sustainable way of doing retail. We have continued to grow our influence within the industry, at the political level, but also within society at large. Now we are exiting this period in a stronger economic position and with stronger ambitions and commitment. All that is, good, but the question is what lies ahead? What are the opportunities going forward? How can we go even further in terms of transiting from retail to useful commerce, as we like to call it? How can we go further in terms of serving our customers and becoming central to the relation with our customers?
How can we best use the tools that we have to do that? That's really the point of this model in a world that is increasingly uncertain. We now have strong brands, and I think it's important to keep the power of our brands as something that really helps support our relation with our customers and helps also nourish our relation with our partners. The world is changing at a rapid pace, at an accelerated pace. I mean, we keep talking about acceleration, but I think there's a real acceleration. I mean, seeing the number of tweets sent out by Donald Trump every day, things are really accelerating. Something else that's important that we keep talking about is that climate change is a reality we shouldn't forget about. It's going to affect businesses, going to create risks as well.
The trajectory is over three degrees being added to the average temperature in the coming decades. Another reality is the fact that the population is aging, creates problems, but for us, it also creates needs in terms of services. The population is aging, yes, but people still want to live, and they want to make the most of the available technology and culture. Suddenly, they need to be better supported in this new world of services. Of course, there is the tech revolution, scaling up AI, automation, all the things that are going to happen necessarily. Of course, we need to be there to help and support and play a role as a mediator through technological technology. 800 million users for ChatGPT, things are going, are changing so quickly and really need to be able to follow suit.
Of course, there's all of the political and geopolitical disruption that might have an effect on the industry itself, on the world, on the global supply chain. We need to sort of anticipate what's going to happen in the next decades, what the effect is going to be in consumer trust. Those are the things that we're thinking about as part of the work that we're doing with all our teams that has led us to the plan that we are now presenting to you today. We really believe in the future of our stores. When the COVID crisis ended, we thought that there would be a global acceleration of internet sales and stores would disappear. It didn't happen.
I mean, maybe it happened in a few countries, but e-commerce remains more important than it was before COVID in our countries, but relatively lower than in other European territories. Our stores remain an important focus for our clients, for our customers. It is important to keep investing on both channels. In the next five years, I mean, we'll see where the trajectory takes us and where we land, but clearly our stores are going to remain an important focus and an important part of our business. Obviously, on technology, AI, data, and customers, all of that is really very much at the center of the strategy that we're presenting today.
Obviously, in the future, as part of the future of our markets, we need to look at our products and there are opportunities opening up, and that will be opening up in terms of refurbishing or rather people buying new or renewing their equipment. There's been a bit of a disruption these past few years in terms of large appliances, but we think at some point people are going to want to renew their appliances. We also realize that innovation is going to have a major impact on new products. It's happening on a regular basis with innovation around tech as we saw earlier on in beauty tech, for example. There's a lot happening there, automation. Obviously, the products that we're going to sell in the next few years will be very different from what we sold in the past.
I mean, this is just logical, and Fnac Darty was able to follow and will be able to do that in the coming years. There is another strong trend, sustainability, having products that can be repaired, refurbished products. We are a major player in that field, whatever the product category, and we are making further headway. In the future, that will also be the case. We have invested in human and technical capacities so that we can continue to go out for find opportunities for recycling, repairs. Consumers are very attentive to this, and our sales figures are continuing to increase in that field over the last years. Also, with a slight erosion of purchasing power, that is even more the case. We are going to continue to work on that.
There are all the other subjects related to diversification with new consumer electronics and a focus on service quality. We have ideal spaces to offer our clients what it is they're looking for and the industries we can work with to find the right new diversified products. That's a big part of our brand image. We've got growth potential, of course. I'm not trying to put too much pressure on our friends from Italy, but if you look at the benchmark of 21%, 25%, we're at 17%. That gives us the range for potential growth. Leaders are, say, at 25%, Fnac Darty at 21%. There is growth potential there, and we are going to try and make sure that we realize that potential. We have ambitions, we have projects, and we are going to put the resources in to make this happen.
Two million, Vincent, you said that was a lot, but we're just a small player, really, compared to other subscriber service providers who've already broken through the three million barrier or even the ten million barrier in other countries. We need to have a strong strategy. We have not reached a plateau. We're a long way from that, and we need to be ambitious regarding growth for the future. Strong growth potential. We have unique opportunities in a world that's looking for meaning. We have a brand that's meaningful to people, that makes sense to people. We have Fnac, which is focused around culture, but also tech, innovative capacity. It's modern. Darty is the heritage brand. It's a preferred retailer close to its clients. It's a proximity brand. Unieuro, which is respected, that is popular. It's a heritage brand, a legacy brand in Italy. We're fortunate.
We have brands that are strong, that structure the company. Our brands are there. We're going to continue to give them meaning and to strengthen them further. Our teams as well. They're very committed. We have teams that have done an amazing job of work emerging from COVID. Huge amount of work to support our leaders, all leaders' program, which transfers values, strong convictions, strong beliefs to give our leaders tools and to support them throughout the programs. This has been actually one of the great strengths of our hybrid plan. There are numerous indicators that we could quote, NPS, for instance. How have clients responded? They are satisfied to a large extent with the program. This is based on relationships, human relationships to a very large extent. Were the packages delivered on time?
That's important, but more still is the quality of the relationship, the time spent by salesforces, and the interest shown in their needs. In this world that's in constant transformation, we very much believe in our model with sustainability, an enlightened choice for our consumers. We believe in the idea of inspiring commerce that matters, that makes sense, that has meaning for our clients. It also means that people who work in the company feel their job matters also. This is part of the group's positioning on the market and opening up to a future with a more harmonious, a more robust, and a more sustainable model, better aligned with the needs of the planet and our clients. We're going to be presenting the plan. The plan's name is known, of course, but we're opening up a new chapter between now and 2030 today.
We're going to be presenting this new chapter. Welcome to the hybrid world. The world of beyond everyday. Beyond everyday, we love it. We love beyond everyday, the details, not designed by AI, but our shared human collective intelligence. We're very proud of it. I'm sure that our teams will recognize themselves in this plan, beyond everyday, with three strategic pillars. One is to go beyond repair and service, adding value, very ambitious there, going beyond digitized omnichannel, and the role of stores combined with e-commerce, and also go beyond retail, working with partners, B2C, third parties, and partners throughout Europe, and with the final consumer, of course, but also with business clients. Those are the three pillars that we're going to be presenting to you quickly today in the beyond everyday approach. Let's begin with the first one.
The idea behind this is we want to be a benchmark on the market. We are, I hope, becoming absolutely indispensable for our clients. They have to have a developer reflex. I've got a problem. I'll get in touch with Fnac Darty. They'll help. We want to scale up in putting that in the minds of the consumer. Clients have to develop a reflex. It's Fnac Darty for our service needs, our household needs, our support needs. If we manage that, that will be a natural reflex in a world in transition, and we will have been successful. We're moving into a world which is going to need services more and more. We were just saying that a little while back. It's a complex world. The way daily life is organized, clients need services. The problem is, where can you get those services?
I'm not just talking about our business line. It's a challenge for the whole of society. Who can offer services that our clients need? We would tend to say it's not just that they need those services. They have a right to those services. Clients must continue to have a right to service. That's a major commitment. It's a pledge that we're making, and our teams really believe in that. They are fully behind that belief. It's not optional. It's a right. It's a right to service, and it's up to us to deliver that service appropriately and make sure that those services are accessible and affordable. I think we can move on a little bit now. What does this mean in concrete terms? Regarding products, we're going to continue to work for better products. We've already opened up a line of action there with quality enhancement.
That's a beginning, obviously, with the open-ended service model. We aligned with our clients' interests and needs. We're going to continue to elevate the quality of the products and the services that we sell. Our ambition is to do better than the market. We're not going to give you top-line figures here because even quarter by quarter, that's difficult. We're talking about a five-year horizon here, so it's very difficult. We need to do better than the market. We want to have profitable growth in a market that may be growing, so doing better than the market. Innovation is really important, preempting durable innovations and driving sustainable choices, so sustainable products and services, but a profitable model for the group, and also engage with us, industry, our suppliers and partners. We've begun to do this. We can't do it alone.
Industry needs to be aligned with us because we have a critical size now. We have greater choice than we had in the past. If industry, if suppliers do not align, then they will find it hard to continue to work with a major player like Fnac Darty. We can have a huge impact, I think, with this critical size. We are going to be looking at all of the profitable market opportunities, integration of Italy, and also MediaMarkt. Portugal, we have Bruna here with us, and this should help us to have more own brands. This will help us to work across the whole of the value chain. We will continue to diversify on markets that may not be growing, but we are growing with White Goods, Darty Cuisine, Vanden Borre Kitchen, for instance. We have somebody here from Belgium and Luxembourg.
Strong partnerships are being developed there with significant market shares now. We are managing to get into the White Goods market strongly. We have not dropped cultural goods. Editorial products are important for us, and we have been bold and brave in defending music and videos, for instance, cultural goods. We have worked with industry to invent, this was a few years ago now, co-investment models. This was unique, working with video editors so as to use the space in our stores. That meant we did not lose market shares, unlike all of our competitors. That is how Fnac is still out there with a strong position because we worked with a number of partners with unique, innovative models. This is stimulating growth because vinyl has come back. Why has vinyl come back? It is not a coincidence. It is because we have invested in content, in formats.
We are the ones who shape the market with Korean music, for instance, all different types of music. Some people thought that the world of the future was going to be 100% digital. They got it wrong. Too bad for them, but we didn't. We believed in physical goods, vinyl, but books. And they are still significant for a brand like ours. Opportunities now around new AI goods that have AI inside. We can show you this on the stand. There are a number of goods that are ready for sale. The penetration of services in the world of products, payment, credit, affordability, use. We're testing out new solutions. Consumers are not always ready, but we're continuing to work on this. We may be penetrating these markets in different ways, refurbish goods. We'll be working on that over the coming years.
Given the trends, we seem still like a rather small player because there's been a huge development, but we need to be at the heart of these developments. There is a lot going on, a lot of innovation. We're going to continue to educate, to train, shape, personalize more sustainable product recommendation, longer life goods, repairs, diversify our offering around the whole idea of product plus service and the strong development of circular economy in our geographies. I'm going to speed up a little bit because I'm speaking at rather great length, as is often the case. Our subscribers, in 2021, we just launched this activity. Our forecasts would be big gains, not by 2025, but beyond. At the moment, our ambition is beyond Darty Max to extend it to all of our subscription programs in value added, nearly 2 million at the moment.
We gave you some figures for February. In February, we'll give you an update every year. We're a bit more now, but we'll let you know exactly by February 2026. What we're seeing is that this diversification, the launch of new services, new subscription services, we want to get to not 2 million, but 4 million by 2030. Major stride in sales. 80% of total services will be subscription services, we hope. Stores will be at the heart of these new subscriptions, but not just the stores. There will be opportunities to broaden with B2B and B2C, the White Goods market. We can have new models, innovative models. It's a program that pays out in terms of profitability. You can see the impact on our margins, but this will be also very significant in terms of consumer loyalty to our brands.
We're getting a foothold in a whole new world of long-term services. At the moment, we're only covering a small part of our clients' needs, few appliances per client, but if you look closely, the needs are much greater than that. Obviously, we need to develop this further. Once we have a client subscribed, how can we diversify and broaden the services we offer them? These are services they need, and they're finding it hard to meet that need. Extending, pushing back the frontiers to have more and more services per client. The geographies, the models all be covered, all of the channels, repairs also. We're going to be putting 3.5 million repaired products by 2030, 1 million more than currently. We're really counting on AI and on our teams.
AI will be able to predict, to preempt repairs, and to make sure the right component is available at the right time, perhaps even make sure that products do not break down because Darty Max is a maintenance contract, and ideally, the product should not break down and should not need repairing. We are hoping to have a major ramping up in this area. We are moving into a different universe from ours, which is traditionally retail, but subscriptions. KPIs may be a bit different. How can we optimize the value of these programs? Ultimately, what counts is client satisfaction. If the clients are not satisfied, then we will lose them. They have got to be satisfied with good service level. We also need to be able to combine new programs with customization, complete customization adapted to the specific needs of each client.
Darty, Fnac, or in Italy, the different appliances, make us into a service aggregator, bundling services which are customized, and to boost the performance of our plan. We want to make sure that we keep our clients, so we do not want to have a high churn. Our performance at the moment is acceptable, but I think we can do much better in terms of services. Yeah, great ambitions to continue gaining ability and professionalism, skills on these areas. As we said, in this company, there are many needs and many needs in terms of energy and energy transformation, which may open new areas where the company is not present yet. I am very happy because discovering Italy's business, we understood that Client Care is the Unieuro service department, and it goes much further than we do in terms of talking to their customers about energy efficiency, etc.
Sometimes, clearly, with the right approach and the right partners, sometimes we'll be able to penetrate that market. That will be very much part and parcel of the approach that we'll take and of the opportunities that we'll be discussing in the near future. Once again, this is something that can be done through expansion, partnership, or why not acquisition? Because one of the areas where our group might want to consolidate the market is by integrating, as Unieuro did with CoverCare, integrating an actor, a player that might help us up our game in terms of energy transformation, which is so critical and important to our customers. Again, clearly, you understand what the approach is. We're not going to invent new needs for the clients. Our customers have needs. The question is, how do we best meet those needs in the future?
Clearly, a great pillar and a major, that's a major pillar in terms of growth. We have commitments around the climate, CO2 reduction. We're still on our 50% reduction by 2030. This is very much on track. We've published our first CRD report this year, thanks to the great work done by teams in all countries, great analytical work. More important than the audit is the daily work that we're doing. We've invested massively in the store experience, which also has allowed us to cut energy consumption by 30%. It was a great exercise, I think, which has led to great impact. It costs us at the beginning, but we're very happy about the result in terms of the customer experience and also energy cost cutting.
The key in terms of impact is around the products that we sell and how we help our customers use them in a sustainable way. Also, we need to work on electrification projects, I mean, so that this transformational project continues. The first block will be continuing to grow our product base with better products, better use and reuse, going further in terms of what we sell, where, and how. At the end of the day, what our sustainability commitments are in terms of CO2 reductions in particular, 4 billion subscribers at the beginning of the plan, 80% of subscribers within B2C services, march in and - 50% carbon emissions versus 2019 and 2030. There you go. That is the end of the first block. Moving on to the second block, beyond digitized omnichannel. In this regard, imagine what is going to happen in the future.
I mean, today, or historically, our customers would find us in the stores, then Google invented the search engine, and then for 20 years, we adapted to that with a large part of the e-commerce that came from Google searches and Google tools. Clearly, in the future, the ways that customers are going to find us in the future are multiple. A lot of what Google search gives you is already AI-based today. We're creating a lot of content. That is going to be very rich, very useful to help customers in their searches because content will be there, and then they need to be ready to receive it because the transaction will then happen, and they will buy our products.
The second pillar's ambition is to really define an e-commerce and commerce standard that goes beyond the omnichannel experience, something that we've created that goes to a more conversational mode. We think that the store can become an important client relations center. We have daily proof that stores are becoming critical plays because the all-digital world is something that is psychologically exhausting for customers. Yes, this is going to be part of our transformation and the key, I think, to the success of our success in the 2025 years to come. Continuing to be identified as an omnichannel reference player with an important part of our business that will move to omnichannel. An important part of our business is going to happen because our customers are going to be faithful.
Knowing all of our clients has always been critical, but it's even more critical today in the world where technology allows us to know, retain, and adapt ourselves with services and products. It's very important to continue to boost these fidelity programs. As we speak, 42% of our net sales comes from fidelity programs of some sort, and the idea is to move to 50% in order to better serve our customers and offer them an optimized experience wherever we meet them. Of course, there are questions in terms of efficiency and fluidity of the journey. We manage millions of parcels. We have stores that deliver thousands of parcels a day. If there's any hiccup, the consequences may be huge. We need to improve because the omnichannel model is one that people like.
We need to continue investing in logistics, in the predictability of our orders so that the products are at the right place at the right time and can be delivered to the customers. It also means that we need to be able to work with our technological partners, once again, with Google. Google is partnering with us. They've really helped us in terms of transforming ourselves around the relevance of our research models. Soon, you'll have the ability to talk to your site so that you can go and get the product that you need. Doing more conversational, having more conversational models through AI, I think, is something that's going to be a much better, much more friendly tool. Our model will have to adapt to that. Technology is always at the service of people.
We know that our customers come to our stores because there is the ability to have real people, real professionals that will help them choose a product or solve their problem. Humans must be assisted by technology, and this is very much going to be the case, increasingly so going forward. I think clearly, as you will see later, we will be investing in technology massively. A store could play an even more important role as a place for what we call social retail, social commerce. Clearly, today, there is a frontier that is eroding between these channels. E-commerce is more present. It used to be, and Darty is going to be very present on TikTok and other social media. It will be everywhere. What we say is that the store is the place where you have the strongest social interaction.
We also need to take some of that conversation back to our stores by creating experiences, more presentations, more opportunities, more encounters. We need to think about how we transform our stores to make the customer journey even smoother and give our teams the ability to moderate and animate those conversations even more so than they do today. There is a strong focus on the store as being central to our customer relation. As part of this program, we also want to transform over 200 stores in various ways with more technology, for example, that will make our teams' lives easier, make the journey more efficient, create more available products and services for our customers, and also create better ways to present the products and services, and also look at the journey and what can be done through technology.
For example, we know that payment is going to be disrupted in the future, and our stores, or not all of our stores, have really converted technologically. We think in the future, we are going to be able to gain efficiency and productivity in our stores through technological transformation. As you know, we are a brand that should generate millions of content. It is a strong brand culturally, technologically, or with regard to services. In all our countries, we are a brand, or we are brands that generate trends, that set trends. This is something that we are going to be capitalizing on increasingly with our digital communications and by making our stores even stronger, with a strong focus on and by communicating more on social media, by creating more social content, etc.
As part of this pillar, obviously, is what we call the human-centric element of supporting our teams. It's something that our leaders really need to do. I think we've had the proper focus. We've done a lot already, but we need to do more in terms of having more women leaders in the group in terms of our 2030 ambition. Some countries are doing well. Some aren't doing that well. We need to catch up with the northern countries. I mean, it's going to be a great challenge for our Italian friends and other countries to get to this 33%. I mean, 33% could be higher, but it's a great first step. We need to make sure that we still have motivated teams, that we have stores that are supported by their leaders on a daily basis. We've done great investment on tech.
Olivier, I think, could tell you more about it. In order to make people's lives easier on a daily basis, we're going to also look at what efficiencies could create on all types of journeys. The journeys are increasingly complex. We need to be heavily focused on making our customers' lives easier, not more complicated. Those are the types of changes that create lots of benefits in terms of customer interactions. One last thing is our teams' commitment. As part of this plan, we wanted to have a focus on making it possible for employees to have at least 5%. I mean, that's the goal. 5% of the group's equity without diluting our stakeholders. Of course, it will be our own in-house effort. The figure right now is about 2%, and aiming for 5% employee shareholding.
It sends a strong message to our teams, telling them that we want them as partners in the company's success and that we're going to put in the resources to do that. This slide is about technology and how we want to use those strong technological changes and disruptions with a system that's going to be changing in significant ways and will make it easier for the group to create growth, efficiency, robustness, giving our teams better tools to make their work easier and more efficient. Lots of changes that we think will be very important to get us to the next step. Other avenues in terms of growth are all the avenues that we've created with our Italian partners, but of course, many other doors are open and possibilities in terms of consolidating on some of our markets.
We will be ready to be an informed but also demanding player in terms of potential consolidation on our markets. A great brand that we have is Nature & Découvertes, which is currently transforming its offering with huge support from our teams. We will tell you more about it later on. It is a beautiful brand, but its offering had been disrupted, so it needs to reinvent itself. Vincent is the sponsor of that, and there is a whole team working on that. It is also important to continue gaining new clients. There is a B2B team that allows us to get further in terms of our product and services offering. Huge ambitions going to EUR 400 million in net sales. That is an opportunity to help us grow our business and obviously our ability to continue growing online.
Today, we do have a number of reference sites that are very well structured and powerful. We have marketplaces almost everywhere. There's also an opportunity to share technology with our Italian friends because the marketplace is going to emerge in the coming half year. Digital, continuing to work on the power of our brands, continuing the good work on our service quality and logistics, particularly with our partners, fulfilling partners, and the diversification of all technological tools as we've done today. Now, in terms of expansion, 150 stores. I would say Italy First is the motto. We are going to give our Italian friends the means to grow 17% market share. There's an opportunity for doing more than that. Bruna and her team will have resources to grow the new brand in Portugal in the next few years and also in other territories.
Tactically, the last 30 stores, there's a great dynamic in terms of franchises, proximity, and we will continue doing more of that. Two countries will be clearly the focus of our efforts, which are going to be Italy and Portugal. Very quickly on this last pillar, more stores transforming our fleet, more technology, integrated, motivated teams, and stores remaining central to our Beyond Everyday plan. A third part of the plan is how we go beyond the traditional B2B, B2C retail model. In this regard, we thought perhaps we could think out of the box and make all the things that we've created available to others. Here's an example of that, something that we will launch very soon. The ability is to create those artist websites so that artists can have access to their fans and all the capabilities, logistics, the contacts.
It will be invisible to the public, but it will be done by us. That's an ability to enlarge our products to some exclusive products. It's a new avenue and a great illustration of what we want to do with this plan in that we have some extraordinary things that we do for ourselves, but that could be used in very clever ways by others, which will contribute to the solidity and robustness of our model. Of course, we're thinking about very many things: logistics, services, repairs, our ability to manage our customers because obviously we have broad capabilities to manage customers in various ways on various channels. The ability also to monetize our tools and source through retail media. That's a pillar that allows us to maximize our model by using existing assets. Now let's look at logistics.
We've got a number of good examples of how to develop a good technological, technical, and logistical tool for third parties. We've got partnerships with Weaving Logistics, but this is just the beginning of the story because they're going to be looking for new clients beyond our walls and will use these models to go further still and transform the existing model. CoverCare also, this was mentioned briefly in Italy. Part of the sales figures come from working with companies, and we can use the same model in other geographies. In France, we have a very good network for deliveries with Darty, and this is something that can be transformed and developed and be offered to new clients. Marketplace is important for us in terms of reach and relevance and top of mind and digital.
It's significant, but it has to be at the same level of quality as the direct sales. With Weaving, we can pilot logistics. A lot of our marketplace activity is refurbished products, which is an acceleration of diversification. It's growing strongly. Key capacities will be made available for our diversity in France and elsewhere. Of course, I don't need to quote all of our capacities that we can offer to others. It's already being done to some extent around telecom operators, insurance companies. This is just the beginning. It's just the beginning. Currently, we have a unique satisfaction level in the market. Let's use that to go out and find new clients. We mentioned 4 million subscriber clients, so an extra 2 million could come through new channels, B2C, B2B.
As we've said, we're continuing to work on experience management, opportunity management around products, not just technological products, but cultural goods as well. The organization of events, cultural events, which will give us opportunities to capitalize on our brands. We have subsidiaries. We have SFL, which serves 14,000 editors working with bookstores. These are tools that we want to continue to develop to continue developing our B2B and B2C offering for services. Retail media, of course, you're familiar with our ambitions. We're just at the beginning. We began to invest in media, in stores, various stores, screens, electronic goods, sites, all of which will help us find partners. We have the technological control. We have the skills. We'll be able to support our Italian colleagues who are just starting out here. There are lots of opportunities that we can develop.
Our ambition is to get to 2% with Retail Link. That is significant, but it is well within our reach on a fast-growing market. Significant investment ahead and a good return so that we can continue to enrich the wealth and diversity of our sites. To continue and to wind up with this pillar, to scale up and share our tools with others, our aim is 2% to share retail media market in the total group sales and help to really strengthen the margin for the group as a whole. I may have spoken at too great length. I do not know. Jean-Philippe, perhaps it is over to you.
Thank you, Enrique. Hello, everybody. I am now going to present the main elements of the financial trajectory of the group between now and 2030.
Every day has been very successful, and this will help continue to boost growth and performance over the coming years and generate value for all stakeholders. It's a complex environment we're working on. My predictions are based on a stable fiscal and macroeconomic environment as compared to today. That's the usual practice, if you will. On the next slide, before looking at the future, I'd like to spend a couple of minutes talking about the success of everyday strategic plans. There's a strong focus on the services, as was agreed in the everyday plan. This represents 25% of the gross margin as compared to 22% in the past. We've been developing subscription-based services, which are very important for recurrent revenue and cash flow generation. Darty Max, of course, but also Vanden Borre Life, which represent a large share of the service market.
These subscription services have contributed to the increase of our gross margin by 100 basis points since 2021. We've continued with our performance plans to compress costs because inflation has pushed up costs over the last few years. We've also maintained annual investments at EUR 160 million per year, EUR 40 million annually for Unieuro, EUR 160 million for the group as a whole, I repeat. These measures have had as a result an increase in recurrent cash flow generation with EUR 550 million of operational cash flow generated from 2021 to 2024. The financial structure of the group is robust. The leverage is continuously down since 2022. Like for like, it would be 1.65x at the end of December 2024. Our cash position is EUR 1.7 billion the same date with some non-drawn credit lines. We have been very active in managing the debt with an emphasis on cash.
Recent refinancing operations have strengthened our financial position. They've extended the debt maturity and also extended backup lines, which guarantee our liquidity over the longer term. We've had a very disciplined approach regarding dividend policy, which is in line with our financials, with a payout that has been systematically higher every year than the 30% objective. We have been selective and strategic regarding external growth with MediaMarkt in Portugal and the more transforming acquisition of Unieuro. The acquisition of Unieuro was structured with a perfect balance between shares and cash, which shows that we're truly committed to maintain our financials and to avoid or limit dilution for our shareholders whilst seizing good growth opportunities and take advantage of attractive synergies. We have very robust bases to open up a new strategic chapter for the group and to support our new financial ambition.
Enrique, I presented to you the various projects which help us to generate sustainable value for all the stakeholders and also to improve our profitability. As you can see on this slide, we are convinced that we will get to an operational margin of more than 3% by 2030. This is an increase of more than 100 basis points. It should be provided in a fairly balanced way by each of the strategic pillars beyond every day. I am going to present to you some key initiatives. First of all, we are going to optimize and renew our offering to gain market share by strengthening our leadership in premium and sustainable categories and at the same time continue our diversification strategy so as to respond to new uses such as beauty tech, entertainment, or cultural exclusivities, for instance. We are also going to continue to capitalize on subscription-based services.
Our objective is to get to 4 million subscribers across the board by 2030, thanks to a gradual broadening of the offering reaching to all households and all new geographies. The service share of the total gross margin of the group should by 2030 be 30% as compared to 25% today. As you know, the group has an excellent track record regarding cost optimization and will continue to do so. This can be seen in the performance plans rolled out everywhere, which will be stepped up over the coming years and should generate about EUR 300 million cost savings over the six years between 2025 and 2030, and that should largely offset the consequences of inflation. Deployment of expertise at European level and with our partners, particularly marketplace, logistics, and in advertising, should provide additional operational leverage. These are concrete initiatives.
We've already put some in place, capitalizing on the scaling up of our service offering. The transformative acquisition of Unieuro, which has been the only cross-border consolidation transaction on the European market over the last years, will make a major contribution to boosting our operational margin, as you could see on the slide. Now, Unieuro operational synergies have been estimated at EUR 20 million before tax and full year, so by 2026. These synergies come from economies of scale for procurement, EUR 10 million, but also integrating own brands, another EUR 10 million or so. This should help us to develop own brands and to work better with licenses and optimize our product offering and capitalize better on the existing structures of the group, particularly for sourcing offices in Hong Kong, Shenzhen. Our ambition by 2030 is to increase threefold our operational results in Italy.
Beyond the EUR 20 million of synergies I mentioned, we also hope to develop a broader service offering. To support our strategic ambition of our new European scale, we are planning to boost investment by 2030 and also improve profitability. EUR 200 million investment in CapEx on average over the six years, 2025-2030. This is more by EUR 40 million than what has been done previously. Our stores are very much at the heart of our model, as Enrique explained. Throughout the duration of the plan, we'll be investing EUR 200 million in our points of sale, 1/3 for opening new stores in Spain, Portugal, and Italy. The remaining 2/3 will be devoted to renovating existing stores and improving the client experience. We also hope to restructure by transferring some stores, closing others, and maybe reducing the size of stores.
These investments will be carried out throughout the plan. We expect a return on investment by three to five years, depending on the project. IT CapEx will remain at the normal level, EUR 90 million, and will be dedicated to improving our infrastructures and systems. We will focus more on development, in particular with simplifying and merging applications, simplifying processes, as Enrique mentioned. These investments will be made bearing in mind strict financial criteria, as has always been the case in the group, so as to make sure that we maintain recurrent cash flow generation, which is a major asset of the group. Let's look at this slide. You can see cash flow generation here, and this is the definitive indicator of long-term value creation.
We have strategic levers in our plan, and we're aiming at operational free cash flow generation of at least EUR 1.2 billion over the period between now and 2030. This is up, of course. In terms of perimeter, we don't have ticketing anymore, but we do have Unieuro, which will provide incremental cash over the coming years, and free cash flow will increase gradually as the plan is implemented. We won't provide guidance year by year, obviously here, but bear in mind that the increasing CapEx will be offset by the increase in the operational margin as we roll out the plan. Operational levers that you've been told about will be rolled out gradually over this period, and we will also optimize working capital.
We will manage inventory very carefully, and any positive development on the market will have a direct positive impact on cash generation linked to our working capital requirements. Now, let's talk briefly about our capital allocation policy with the cash generation of EUR 1.2 billion by 2030. This is essential. First of all, we're going to reinvest in the omnichannel model via the investments that I've just outlined. Secondly, and this is significant, return for shareholders, we're going to step up our distribution policy with a payout of at least 40% as compared to 30% in the previous plan and a minimum dividend, at least EUR 1 per share per year. Furthermore, if our results allow this, we will take opportunistic decisions by proposing additional return to shareholders in the form of a special dividend or by capitalizing on growth and future value generation with M&A transactions.
Any acquisition project will have to create value and strengthen our position on the market without jeopardizing our cash position or the leverage of the group. In any event, we are always aiming at a net debt over EBITDA ratio of 1.5x in the medium term in line with our approach, which is to gradually reduce this as we have done since 2022. The group has a twofold goal. First of all, secure a significant and recurrent return for shareholders while at the same time maintaining debt at sustainable levels over the long term for the group. That being so, we wish to preserve and improve the group's financial flexibility in a prudent manner, as has always been the case.
To conclude, on slide 71, you'll find a summary of key indicators for our ambitions by 2030, and Enrique will now wrap up the presentation before we answer together your questions.
Thank you very much. You can see that this is a plan that's highly ambitious, a plan that is based on past achievements and success. It's got a very solid foundation that's been built up over the last few years. We've shown you a lot of indicators, but it's based on the constant commitment of our teams. It's a collective plan. We have all of the assets to make it a success. Thank you for listening, and we'd be happy to answer any questions. Perhaps we'll begin by questions from the room, and then, of course, we can also take questions from those who are watching online. We have a roving microphone, I believe. Please introduce yourself.
Geoffrey [Daloin].
I've got three questions. Ma première question is the fact that you mentioned re-equipment, innovation, the types of innovation that might actually help you in your business in years to come. I wanted to know whether you're already seeing any top-line impacts from these re-equipment cycles or the launch of new projects you mentioned switch to during your presentation. The second question is about your margin guidance. We've seen the figure. It suggests 15-20 basis points per year. Can we expect a similar pace year after year, or will there be a ramp-up phase? The third question is on Nature & Découvertes. You just mentioned it very briefly, but I think in 2024, the net sales had gone down as well as profitability. That's what you said in your press release.
My question is, what do you want to implement in order to turn around the business, as you said you would during the presentation?
Thank you. In terms of our revenue, let's wait a few weeks. I mean, the first quarter was good, but there have been some headwinds in the past few weeks. Yes, the re-equipment cycle will happen. I mean, I'm not saying it's already there, but clearly we're seeing a lot of renewal on the Windows platforms. It's going to happen in October. That's going to affect computers, etc., for home appliances. It's ongoing. We really believe in it. It might happen at a different pace than what we expect. It will depend on a number of factors, but the trend is there. My colleague will answer the second question on Nature & Découvertes.
It's just 2% of the group's net sales.
I mean, that's why we haven't spent so much time on it. We like the brand. It's a beautiful brand that customers like. It's a model that was attacked by the flooding of the European market by Chinese platform products. So Nature & Découvertes has borne the brunt of that change. Of course, that's led us to ask a lot of questions and re-examine the value proposition and the product offering. That's an ongoing process. I think in the coming months, we're going to give you more color on this, but we're very mobilized, highly mobilized, particularly on renewing the offering and being able also to integrate new territories and renew customer confidence. We do need a little more top line so that the brand can keep growing.
On the pace of the margin, we're not giving you a multi-year plan, but the plan clearly is based on all of the pillars that we've already put in place, including the everyday plan. Some things will take more time when you're saying overhauling our stores, recreating the customer experience or journey. It takes some time to do that, to refurbish a store, etc. Services, for example, will be a bit faster. Generally speaking, we'll be looking at regular, but not necessarily linear growth.
Marine Ford Bernstein. I have three questions. The first one on store refurbishings. What do you want to do? Is it going to be Fnac Darty? You talked about a more digital environment. Can you tell us more about it? To what degree might that impact net sales, for example, if stores have to close temporarily?
The second question is on Fnac Digital. Could you tell us whether the business model is equivalent to that of Darty Max and whether Darty Max is a bigger lever in terms of the objectives that you've just shared? Last question is the free cash flow ambition of EUR 200 million a year. Should we include the operations that you've done last year that helped you reach your objective on store refurbishings?
The idea is to make stores even more relevant in a transforming world. We've reached our omnichannel objective. All the shops, their logistics are now adapted. That's been done, but I think we'll need to work on the experience itself. We're investing on lighting, the lighting experience. Our stores are fine. We don't have major technical problems, no heavy work. It's more around improving the journey, better merchandising. We're not going to be closing major stores.
It can happen. It's happening in Madrid because the whole building is being refurbished, but that rarely happens. Usually, we always make sure that our stores stay open. There won't be any major structural works happening. On digital, you're asking whether the economic model is similar to Darty Max, which, by the way, I'm not going to share with you. The reason we're doing it is because it contributes strongly to the margin. Of course, there are costs. There are real services behind it, but it's a business model that is profitable for us and has been growing strongly with the strong ambitions that you're seeing. It will keep growing, and probably that model is going to change over time and be integrated with other formulas.
Everything remains open, but soon there will be a revolution in our offering, a lot of the small products, and that change will be very much part of that. Very strong ambitions in this area as well. On your last question, we still own about 40 stores. As part of this EUR 1.2 billion, we're not thinking about selling any of them. We do it opportunistically when there's a store where we feel that we don't really have a strategic ambition there. As part of this EUR 1.2 billion, there is no significant amount that would come from that kind of sale.
Sí, sí. Three questions. Your objective is to have 100% of your fleets that would be profitable. Have you reached that objective? Second question. Services revenue, 25% of gross margin versus 21%. It seems like a small upward trend. Maybe that's to do with ticketing.
What's the contribution of maybe financial services? I mean, it feels like there's something that's absent from the equation. The third question is about investment. I think one third of that will go to openings. Talking about franchises or development of stores, I mean, what kind of stores are we talking about? I mean, this is still growing franchises. What is it? My last question, it feels this is one aggregate, one KPI that's missing on financial costs. I don't have my accounts in front of me, but I think your free cash flow is before financial cash, but there has been some refinancing in the meantime during the first year of the plan. What kind of financial costs are we looking at in order to make that free cash flow chart correct?
On stores, we had identified under 5% of the stores that were non-profitable, and all of these stores have been dealt with. I think Françoise will agree. Relocated, the surface area has been reduced, and a few of them, but very few, have been closed down. That list has been dealt with. We have a fleet of 1,500 stores. Logically, every year there will be a few stores that will do worse than others. It is part of our daily job to make sure that they're all at the same level, and that implies a lot of work in terms of organization, working on the teams, some investment. In some cases, it might lead us to close down the stores, but we do have a fleet that is doing its work well and that we can keep, in fact, growing marginally through franchises, particularly in France.
On revenue from services, very ambitious, but the reality is you can't compare with anyone's because no one communicates on those things. I know no one who's communicating how much the margin is. I mean, we're going to give you this information because we feel it's important, and we're going to see a growth of that, much faster growth and contribution to net sales. Of course, it's a different basis, but compared with the EUR 10 billion in order to grow services revenues, 10%-15%, 10% of EUR 10 billion is a lot. In terms of the services margin, it's a strong ambition. It's a strong contributor. All services, but mainly our own services, Darty Max, digital, those are. There are other things that contribute, but the bulk of that comes from our subscription-based services.
On the whole of the margin, I mean, 20% of the gross margin comes from services and going to 30%. Part of that budget, 60%, came from subscriptions, and the future is going to be 20%-30%. The rest will remain stable, and there will be strong growth of the subscription part. Just to give you a little more color on the figures we gave you. On your other question, that 6%- 32%, and then the IFRS, that varies from year to year according to the maturity of our data. There are a few other things like 4x without penalty or without excess recalls, but it is not very difficult to work out. Italy, Portugal, there will be a few stores that will expand, with sometimes CapEx being supported, sometimes even by the owners.
In France, the stores that we're seeing are a few franchise stores and a few smaller stores, which is why the expansion CapEx is not significant. As you said, it's about one third of the total. Most of it is going to be renewal and transformation of the fleet.
Valérie Lefebvre, Cogefi Gestion. You're going to have two questions. First of all, what are the first projects that you're going to implement? As far as your 4 million subscribers and 2030 objective, what will be the share of you and Unieuro within that?
I'm going to reply on behalf of the Italians. It's been a few months since we integrated the group within Fnac Darty. Obviously, a lot of work has been done in terms of knowing, understanding, sharing, and the strategic plan that you saw today was the result of that.
The first project was understanding, knowing, and having the support of these partners. Opportunities, I mean, synergies, integrating sourcing channels within our teams, sharing on the technological strategy plan, retail, media, lots of other things as well. That is what the group's bringing. That is what Unieuro is going to have as its in-house ambitions in terms of growing its business. As we said, it is a market that remains to be consolidated. We are very attentive to opportunities for consolidating, growing via regional access so that Unieuro can continue growing its business. A few days ago, we inaugurated a logistics platform close to Rome, and that is going to allow us to improve the penetration of our products and services in the center and south of Italy. That is an opportunity to grow market share in those parts of Italy.
You see, it's a strong ambition as you've seen, and it's an ambition that is shared by our Italian teams going towards a level of profitability that is higher. It's a good ambition, but at the same time, I think it's one that is very much in line with our shared project within Unieuro. That's, in fact, what led us to integrate Unieuro within our group. Out of the 4 million subscribers, you asked, I mean, I can't give you the figure, but it will be part of that because obviously, services are the heart of value creation. We're giving you country-by-country figures just like that, but it will be a major figure. Italy is 25% of our market, of our net sales today. And 25% is one very well, I can't say it just like that because otherwise we'll frighten them.
I don't want to scare them, but it's a significant going to be our second largest country. We're going to develop a service model for Italian consumers, and we think that's going to work. It starts with integration of CoverCare, which has been scaling up. The offering is being increasingly integrated, something that we want to support and accelerate. The idea is also maybe to share experience as well as its ongoing renewing the offering. This kind of service takes some time. You don't want to copy and paste what happens on different markets. I mean, with Darty Max, it took us one year to do that to make sure the level of offering, the services, the pricing was correct in terms of the French or the Belgian market. Italy, it's ongoing work. There's no emergency.
What's important is to do things correctly. Of course, we're not very patient, so we'll make sure that it happens, but it's already happening.
I have a question on circular economy. I know that you've created a digital passport as a consortium with Ecosystems in Marianni. Clearly, can you see a figure for consumers? Do they really use these digital passports, and do you see a demand there? You talked about refurbishing and secondhand and told us about the transit. Can you measure that and make projections for years to come? In light of these kinds of initiatives, can you assess the contribution of those types of initiatives to reducing CO2 emissions? Do you know if similar initiatives have been put in place by competitors?
The digital passport is something that is completely new. They are used to create a traceability standard for products throughout their life cycles.
It's a very recent thing, and we're talking to the industry so that it is adopted broadly in the sector. We want it to be used by as many industries as possible so as to have visibility over traceability and create trust on the market. What's impressive, and it's very true in France, is what appetite there is for refurbished products. Clearly, those products are trusted by customers, particularly because there are players that sell you products with the same level of guarantees or warranties as if they were new. People are talking about it, but it's hard to keep those premises and have the right level of sorting, of quality sorting, because buying and selling is something that's relatively simple, but you need to buy the right things and really monitor the products and be there for your products.
Buying a product with a breakdown rate of 20% is not what we want to do. We have strong expectations and demands. We think that the market is going to grow, and we need to make sure that we have traceability. Other industries are doing it, and technological processes need to be able to trace what the past life of those products is going to be. If you're going to sell them on, you're going to get some extra value because your product will be certified. It is very new. We are trying to influence the rest of the industry. There are other partners that are studying it. It does not cost a lot to put in place, and it will create a lot of clarity and security. I hope it will be helpful. I think in terms of our carbon impact, the biggest contribution is COP3.
It's per product use. That's fundamental. One million more repaired products over the period means as many products that won't be recycled by the industry. It is impacting in terms of millions of tons of products and material that will be used correctly. That's the best impact that we can create. Extend the life cycle of our products, make sure that they're used correctly. That's the impact that we can have.
We have some questions from online viewers. Antoine [Nangiouna] has a number of questions regarding diversification for kitchen goods. Aren't you afraid that your clients get very confused? Boulanger stopped this completely, for instance. Are other diversifications planned? Second question, what's the budget for the plan to transform the 200 stores in terms of CapEx? What are the CapEx plans over the coming years?
For kitchen goods, we have to make sure that we guide the client and we help them. We are developing a very well-known, powerful brand with communication plans, expansion plans so that we can go out and grow this market. Other players are opting out. So much the better for us. It gives us more room, and we will continue to invest. It is a very exciting market, which requires know-how, ability to advise clients of repairs. It is a good market for us to develop in Belgium, in France, and why not elsewhere? Why not in Portugal or in Italy one day? It is a market where we have strong ambitions for the future. There was a question regarding the CapEx plan. We said EUR 200 million per year on average throughout the plan. That is an increase of EUR 40 million as compared to the previous plan.
Regarding the stores, transformation plans for stores overall, we'll be investing an extra EUR 200 million as compared to the previous plan, two-thirds of which will be dedicated to restructuring and renovation.
Are there any other questions? I think we have one here in the room.
Hi, Anne [Barberanico]. I have a question about M&A and the financial policies. You have a leverage ambition of 1.5x for acquisitions. Are you thinking more in terms of bolt-on acquisitions, or are you considering that you would increase the leverage target if you had good opportunities for acquisitions?
It's always good to have a toolbox. The Italian project was done with a good mix of leverage, shares, and cash. It was custom-made for that particular project.
If we have another project of a similar scale or different scale, we'll see what needs to be done and what kind of financing would be appropriate. These projects have to contribute to profitability for the group as a whole. That's what counts. There may be M&A value generation, but there's got to be value generation and synergies. This is important so that the long-term debt indicator remains constant. We need that in a hard-to-predict market. We need to have that. It's a matter of security. We're creating something that will create more diversification and market share, and there's a momentum, and we can benefit from the momentum on the market. We will be disciplined and prudent, but there may be more opportunities than there have been over the last few years. Let's put it that way.
Jean-François Belquer.
What's the time horizon for you for the renewal of the IT equipment bought during COVID and the arrival of products which embed AI?
Thank you. Florence, you might have answered that question. Windows 11 will be running out in mid-October. We think that PCs that were bought in the past might, well, there might be renewal of those because there's a new offering coming out with a good price to market. You've got products now that used to be EUR 1,000, but now they're between EUR 800-EUR 1,000. You've got PCs that are aging, and AI is boosting and giving good opportunities. There should be at least single-digit growth.
Hello, Florence, team DP Cap. You said 3% as your margin.
Have you integrated into your plan a bit more leverage for the top line, or do you think that you will get to those 3% with your cost economy and your plan? Because in the past, services, when they increased, did not necessarily increase the margin.
The plan is based on the current conditions on the market. Flat, flat plus, slightly up. We are not expecting, in these predictions, strong growth. We have proven that we can get good growth and cash resilience even in difficult times. We are counting on ourselves to deliver those 3%, that 3% margin, not on improved market conditions.
Are there any further questions? If not, thank you very much indeed. Just a few bits of information. There will be another break around midday. You can go to the Fnac Darty stand, follow the hostesses, but the stand is U18 in Hall 2.
At 2:00 P.M., we've got two book signings. Will Women Save the World is one of the books, and we've got the AI director from Meta. Thank you very much.