Bonjour. Merci. Good morning, and welcome. Thank you for joining us for this presentation of the 2025 annual results. I have been the new Chief Executive Officer since last September. My name is Jean-Laurent Poitou. I met some of you already. Not just the 2025 annual results, but also in line with what we announced on January 22, when we presented our Horizons strategy for the next few years. We'll tell you about the outlook. I will not reiterate what was said then, but we are we'll be looking at the implications of Horizons for 2026. I have next to me, Olivier Champourlier, our Chief Financial Officer, who will give you details about the numbers. The key figures for 2025: EUR 2.525 billion in revenue. That's an organic growth of 0.6%.
That's less than the ambition that we have for future years. The profitability is in line with what we announced for 2025, since we have 12.8% in operating margin, before accounting for the dilutive effects of operations conducted in 2025, particularly the acquisition of The BVA Family and infas. Growth is less than hoped for. With a tight budget policy and our 50 operations, we're able to observe the necessary discipline to stay in line with our expectations for future years. A few words about what we announced back in September, and now the numbers as they have come out in the press release.
In the EMEA region, that's about half of our revenue, organic growth stood at 2%. It was 5.5% in 2025 compared to 2024, there's a continuing momentum on the EMEA region. If you look at the various businesses or the various markets or the audiences for the private sector, consumers, customers, patients, physicians, we find that organic growth stands at 2.1%. We emphasize this because on the citizens part, that is Ipsos's activity with the public sector decision makers, that has a significant weight on growth. Our business there in the private sector has pursued this momentum with a 2% growth.
In those areas where the automated services are most used by customers, we still enjoy good growth, including in those areas where services are automated, and that is particularly visible for the Ipsos.Digital platform. That's a platform that enables our customers, either directly or with the help of our teams, to conduct their surveys using that platform, with the questionnaires, enabling them to have access to our human response through our panels and having an automatic rendition of the results on the platform. Organic growth, 27%, about 30% since the beginning. Since this is an automated platform that generates profitability twice as high as the group's average.
That is very promising indeed, because in a world where technology, automation, artificial intelligence, make it possible to conduct a significant amount of research using these solutions, such as Ipsos.Digital, this is very promising indeed, even if we can still do better. Of course, we're returning to significant acquisitions, the BVA Family and infas, Wvia in France, or businesses in Italy. That business is growing. PRS IN VIVO, you may remember this, is assessing packaging. With PRS IN VIVO, we have a significant presence in a number of big markets, including the United States. infas, which enables us to have a reinforced presence in Germany, in the public sector.
The public sector, public affairs, this weighs heavily on growth, several hundred million EUR, but this is negative growth this year, -8%, so we're talking about EUR 30 million in decline compared to last year. Public affairs is a major strategic assets for Ipsos. We affirmed this at Capital Markets Day for a simple reason. With our better understanding of citizens, we have items of background that produce and justify not just the recommendations, the insights, in line with the responses we get from respondents, as consumers or patients, but also taking on board their own background, their opinions, and that, of course, enhances the quality of our surveys.
This is a resilient business, and that's the, of course, the unfortunate side, the, of the, well, the cyclical dimension of public affairs. This was hit, as you can well imagine by complex and challenging political situations in our big markets, in the U.S., in France, but also in Australia, New Zealand, India. The budget situations and the shutdown in the U.S. certainly didn't help. Significant ups and downs, but in some cases, this business can be countercyclical, and that is, of course, one of the reasons why we keep the business. We didn't make the most of that growth potential.
Our presence in many countries, a global presence, really, when you've conducted surveys on major public policies, transportation, health, or whatnot, we can inform decision makers in other countries, we can leverage that. Our presence in public affairs in many countries should enable us to relaunch that business. I didn't want to spend the whole time discussing public affairs, but even though the performance in was a bit disappointing. Without further ado, I'll give the floor to Olivier Champourlier, our Chief Financial Officer, who will give you details about the figures for 2025. Olivier?
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. As Jean-Laurent pointed out, total revenue for the year 2025 stood at EUR 2.525 billion. Total growth, 3.4%. You have organic growth 0.6%, scope effects 5.8%, and that is essentially related to the acquisitions, The BVA Family and infas, but also negative currency effects, -3%, and that, of course, weighed down on revenue. That is a consequence of the euro's performance vis-a-vis the US dollar and other currencies. Looking at regions, in EMEA, growth stood at 12%. This is significant growth with a positive impact from acquisitions because the main acquisitions from the previous year, infas and BVA, were in Europe. infas, Germany, BVA Family in France, Italy and Britain. Within the EMEA region, organic growth stood at 2%, and that, of course, is a good performance. In 2025, the growth stood at 5.5%.
Within that region, there are several movements. Continental Europe enjoyed significant growth, upwards of 2% in Germany, in Spain, stood at 6%, Belgium, 3%. Eastern Europe upwards of 10% and that was driven by Turkey. Same region, you have the Middle East, and this is enjoying dynamic growth, 8%. Nonetheless, it should be pointed out that you have one country with negative growth, and that's France. France suffered a 3% decline. That was mostly due to lower orders from the public sector. That is, of course, related to fiscal conditions, political uncertainty. Without that, had it not been to that, we would've had some growth in France.
Americas, 0.3%, total growth, -3.4%. The difference between the two is negative FX with the depreciation of the US dollar vis-a-vis the euro. You have Latin America with sustained growth of +5%. North America, by contrast, had a slight decline, -0.14%. That business in the U.S. was penalized because there was less public affairs business, and as Jean-Laurent pointed out, the shutdown in the U.S. and fiscal or budget restrictions had a negative impact, and the revenue was down 15% in the U.S. Restated for that in North America, growth would have been 2%.
Some businesses are resilient in the service lines, and that's consumer good, the consumers market. That did well last year. Finally, you have Asia Pacific. You have two sub-regions there. China, of course, is the largest country, the biggest country in that region. Their growth was stable last year. That in itself is pretty satisfactory in what is, after all, a challenging and indeed a shrinking market. For the rest of the region, growth was negative, -4%. That's Asia Pacific, not including mainland China, -4%, and that was impacted by less business in public affairs in Australia and New Zealand, but also India. There was, of course, a host of elections in 2024.
If you look at revenue by audience, we have service lines for consumers and clients and employees with a similar growth, 2.1%. That includes mostly understanding the markets and brands, the significance of the advertising market, and what are known as mystery customers. Citizens, that includes public affairs then, and what we call corporate and corporate reputation. That had negative growth, organic growth, minus 8%. The main markets were the U.S. and France, that suffered, as Jean-Laurent indicated, in an uncertain political environment, the shutdown in the U.S. and fiscal restrictions in a number of states. A source of satisfaction is the business on doctors and patients.
That had positive organic growth, 2.4%, compared with -3% last year. We have resumed growth there. That's mostly to do with innovation in oncology, rare diseases, and studies on GLP, which concerns the treatment of type 2 diabetes and obesity. These were the growth factors for us. The business on the digital platform also enjoyed significant growth, 27%, but that platform enables us to deliver studies, surveys for consumers, and that is the first line on this table. Restating for services to citizens, the -8%. On the private sector, growth was 2.1%, and you have to emphasize this, our business with private players remains very satisfactory indeed.
Looking at the income statement, revenue enjoyed a 3.4% growth. Gross margin was up 2%, not quite as fast as the growth of revenue. The ratio stood at 68.7%, down 90 basis points compared to last year. How do you account for that? There are two effects. You have scope effects, that is the acquisition of BVA and infas, this had an impact, gross margin to the tune of 60 basis points. infas is a public affairs business, not using online platforms, the margin there is lower than the group's average, that was to be expected, no surprises there.
At constant scope, we have a decline, a 30 basis point decline in gross margin. That's because we have a higher cost of data collection. That trend is only temporary. For the year 2026, we expect, in fact, that margin rate to improve in line with previous years. Below that, you have the wage bill in this SG&A. These were up, well, because of the acquisitions mostly, restating for that is acquisitions, the wage bill remained stable, we were able to adjust our cost structure to the scope of our business. Regarding SG&A, that remained stable as well. There are two factors there. We kept investing in technology and information technology.
That's a significant increase, we were able to offset that with the savings on other items, SG&A items, mostly on offices, on rents. There the income tax rate was 25% in line with the rate for 2024. The operating ratio is 12.8% compared to 13.1%. It's on the constant ratio, constant scope, it was 12.3% because of the acquisitions, this is in a situation we are trying to keep costs under control. A net profitable attributable to the group stood at EUR 240 million.
You have the earnings per share adjusted is 5.5 EUR per share. Regarding cash flow. Cash flow, gross operating cash flow, stood at EUR 410 million compared to EUR 430 million last year, and that is, of course, in line with the lower operating margin. Regarding change in WCRM, that was negative to the tune of about EUR 30 million, and that is for two reasons. Higher business, because the business grew 3.2% in Q4 2024. Also, we had provisions for the bonuses for variable compensation, and that was down compared to last year, and that is the disbursement that will occur in H2 2026.
The intangible and tangible assets, and that's CapEx, standing at EUR 78 million, sorry, up EUR 9 million compared to 1920, 2024. That is in line with what we told the markets. We keep investing in strategic solutions, platforms, panels, and generative AI, sorry. Free cash flows stood at EUR 181 million, to be compared with an average of about EUR 200 million. Free cash flow is more or less in line, at least close to the average performance of the last four years. If you look at below that line, on free cash flow, you have acquisitions and financial investments for the year, EUR 178 million, that is, of course, the acquisitions, The BVA Family and infas again.
We bought back some shares to deliver free shares to our employees to the tune of EUR 14 million. There was dividends paid about EUR 80 million. Regarding financing operations, there's an increase in that, about EUR 100 million, and that's You have two operations there. We issued a bond of EUR 400 million in January 2025, and in June of the same year, we paid back the previous bond EUR 300 million, so the net effect is EUR 100 million. Finally, let me conclude with the financial position, the group's financial position. It's an outstanding situation. The balance sheet is sounding good.
Net debt stand at EUR 219 million compared to EUR 57 million last year. That's because of the acquisitions. The debt to EBITDA ratios remains sound at 0.5 times EBITDA, so way above last year. That's because of the acquisitions. Regarding gross debt, it stands at EUR 525 million. Because of the refinancing of the bond, we don't have any short-term deadline. The next one is 2030. We have undrawn credit lines above EUR 400 million. We have, of course, plenty of cash available. Thank you for your attention. Now, I'll give the floor back to Jean Laurent, who will give you a more detailed analysis of our business.
Thank you, Olivier. We've discussed 2025. January 22nd, we discussed the future two-time horizons, 2026, 2028, and the longer out to 2030. We're gonna briefly return to that to focus on what it entails, both in terms of intervention and actions on our activity in terms of numbers for the current year. Our priority is a return to organic growth by continuing to maintain current margin levels, our prime obsession is that of stronger organic growth than the 0.6% that we've just mentioned.
We're in a dynamic industry, so we're continuing to see our clients, and the example of our change in our activity, excluding public affairs, continues to demonstrate that in 2025, our clients require ever more capacity to predict, to compare information from several sources to inform their decisions, investment, new products, advertising, new packaging, new points of sale, either physical or digital. We're in a market that will continue to drive our growth, and for that, we've taken six strategic choices that I'll return to briefly. It was a subject of a longer intervention, January 22nd, that I'll recall here.
We've decided to retain all the activities that we can cross all our 70 activities and 16 service lines, giving us a clear understanding of the people that we poll, and then we provide data on the basis of the surveys to our clients. Our global footprint, because it allows us to take global mandates from key accounts for Ipsos, but also it allows us, in each and every market, to have the insights of that market, to know how we poll people in villages, in towns in Peru, how we poll people online in United States. They're very specific to each market. Our global footprint guarantees the quality of our access to respondents and also the ability to deploy solutions globally.
Third conviction, third belief, we must move ever fast in supplying answers to our clients at a time where we can, with a well-crafted prompt, have a first version of a storyboard or an image for an ad campaign. It's, There's obviously no question of waiting for weeks to know what will be the impact, the possible score of a particular storyboard or image. Fourth conviction to do that, we must leverage technology and AI. Ipsos started years back to invest in contemporaneous tech and AI, but it must transform the way we work to achieve this priority of speed. I mentioned respondents and how our local as well as our global criteria was a criteria for access. Human respondents are the basis on which we can then recalibrate synthetic data.
Human respondents, through the millions of people we can poll each and every day, are quality, and relevance for our clients will obviously continue to improve, to invest in our panels, to continue to bring in-house our ability to poll people on a regular basis, and therefore grow our proprietary panel. Sixthly, our activity remains centered on data information to our clients, but we must improve our position on value-added services, predictively analyze data, integrate data from varying sources that our clients can get, either from social media or their own tools, CRM or surveys we supply them, or surveys supplied by other marketplace. These six strategic choices are key. What's important is execution.
In 2026, the first thing is to implement, in terms of technical solutions, of the systems and operating models that we're currently developing, to have Globally Managed Services that are managed consistently with the same methods, the same price ranges, the same technology, the same way of processing and retrieving the information wherever we operate. Identification, we have six heads of six Globally Managed Services. six out of 70 is a small proportion, might you say, but in fact, that's a several hundred million EUR. These are well-established services, where these GMS heads throughout the world will be responsible for driving growth and profitability of those services with local teams.
Not a matter of doing it fully centralized way, consistent with our approach, combining global presence and local relevance with the tools, and we invest, and that's where we focus our investment on new tech AI-based solutions so as to recover to the full ROI that only a uniform approach allows. We invest in the same platform across the board and develop it and deploy it consistent. We manage and leverage the ROI, making the first six of these GMSs, Globally Managed Services. First six, once we have an operating model, combining centralized management of the service and local rollout, we'll continue it, but a beginning, we'll have others over and above the seventies. We'll extend it to other products that can be deployed across the world with a more centralized model.
Secondly, we must continue to accelerate the rollout of digital and the use by our clients, EUR 140 million, a platform that has a profitability higher than double that of Ipsos growing 40%. We must do far more. When we look at our regions, the use of Ipsos.Digital is broadly dissimilar, so we're gonna strengthen usage where we consider we're not maximizing market opportunities. With the platform, we'll continue to enrich the solutions based on this platform, allow us to treat specific services, focus groups, quality, brand insights and surveys, a set of solutions, simpler and easier, essentials on the digital platform, allowing our clients to access services that they wouldn't be able to access without. Lastly, we'll open Ipsos.Digital to new audiences.
Concretely today, a client who conducts a survey with our help, but directly on Ipsos.Digital, has access to our panel, will be able to connect other sets of respondents, the data of our clients, respondents who are not just consumers, but business leaders, to supply trends on B2B or doctors and patients. We'll open this up through the APIs, the access to panels other than those currently available today on Ipsos.Digital. We believe that the accelerating growth of Ipsos.Digital is a priority within our reach this year. Thirdly, around commercial efficiency. Today, we have a growth that is lower than that we're seeking.
Obviously, we're gonna go all out on empowering all leaders, the business leaders of the main countries of the business lines in our major markets, so that each can have one, two, three clients with costed explicit targets, to which is linked their annual performance. We're going to increase empowerment on commercial efficiency. There are a number of large contracts, more efficient platforms, greater in housing, we must be even more competitive on these major contracts. We're also going flat out on what we have to retain that in terms of renewals and to leverage the contracts that we don't currently own. Commercial activity on those major contracts.
Where the economic equation of having a local development team for the smaller accounts, we will bolster our activity, continuing to conquer new logos with business development teams, where that is justified. With that, we should rely on our heightened commercial efficiency to drive organic growth. None of that is possible without the strengthening, as I mentioned, of our tech capabilities, and to leverage opportunities open to us with AI. We've strengthened our management team with the appointment of Nathan Brumby as Chief Platforms and Technology Officer of Ipsos, in charge of all our tech developments and solutions of data processing and AI, with two simple priorities. On the one hand, continue to ensure that all tools where we've already invested, major differentiating factor for Ipsos, are more widely used where they can be. It's not the case currently today.
Secondly, by investing in solutions which, for the service lines, are AI-based solutions to reach our speed target, to automate far more than is the case today. Our production chains speed, 'cause we said that tech should allow us on our production chains to accelerate and ensure, as we said at the CMD, responses provided real time, for others, less than 48 hours. It's an upheaval. It's a radical shift in the way we work and the tools that we use. Obviously, it's not gonna happen at the drop of a hat. It started in 2026. It won't end in 2026. It needs to be broken down. Service focus, where the speed factor is key for our clients, where our automation capacity must be leveraged rapidly.
We've broken down and separated this speed requirement over several years by leveraging our platforms, reinventing our production chain with agents that can automate tasks done by our teams, and by rethinking the way we work around many of our major services. For that, of course, we're capitalizing on the strengths that remain: our people, clients, and innovation. I've been in professional services for some 10 years. We have teams that measure the employee engagement rate, do that for the clients, sometimes for us. 76% engagement rate is far higher than the average engagement rate that we're seeing at 72%. That's a benchmark. We have people who have a passion for what they do. They're committed.
We have loyal clients, over all clients spending at least EUR 1 million, so that we supply inside data production services. There's one in 100 who leaves us every year, we have a churn rate of our client base that's very low. Lastly, GRIT Report, an organization that looks at the various market player, appointed, named Ipsos the most innovative company in the sector. We see this importance of innovation at this turning point of the market surveys. It's absolutely critical to have this competitive edge brought to us by innovation. On playing to these strengths, we're reaffirming our ambition to make Ipsos the world leader on actionable insights in which our clients take major decisions, product innovation, advertising, commercial rollout, with a high impact and AI-based.
What does that lead to in terms of the number? These are the targets announced CMD: average growth, 2026-2028, between 3%-4%, accelerating in the out years, 2029-2030, to exceed 5%. Operating margin of 13.5% in 2028, that must exceed 14% in the following period. Free cash flow, cumulative over those five, of the order of EUR 1.4 billion, coupled with our low leverage that Olivier mentioned, our capacity to mobilize debt, if we need to invest primarily on acquisitions, many on solutions and tech accelerators, but also on our panels and acquisitions closer to Ipsos' EUR 1.2 billion that we plan to mobilize over five years.
In 2026, our organic growth outlook is in the range of 2%-3%. We're embarking on this trajectory that will lead us to an average organic growth between 2% and 3% over the next three years. Operating margin of the order of that achieved in 2025.
Turning now to the other commitment made at the CMD, an increased return to shareholder of 40%-50% shareholder return of adjusted diluted EPS. This return will comprise two parts. One, an increase of our dividend per share, EPS, adjusted, diluted at EUR 2. In addition, we consider that we have the ability, without changing the trajectory that I've just mentioned, investing in acquisitions and in our tech and panel, to have a share buyback program cancellation, which will be submitted to the AGM in May of EUR 100 million in 2026. Those are the main outlook points that I wish to share with you before opening up for Q&A, with two items on our agenda: April 16th for the Q1 results and May 20th for our annual shareholders meeting. Thank you for your attention. We'll now take your questions.
Question number one, Emmanuel.
Good morning, gentlemen. My name is Emmanuel Matot from ODDO BHF . I have several questions. Regarding your target for organic growth for 2026, we note a significant acceleration to 3% compared to 0.6% in 2025. Do you believe that this will be for all audiences, all types of audiences, or are you looking mostly at the citizens business, which should go back to normal, having suffered an 8% decline in 2025? Are we looking at a year where with a sort of steady growth from H1 to H2, or do you expect H2 to be significantly higher than H1? That's regarding the momentum on revenue. Second question about moving parts and the operating margin expected in 2026.
Are you looking at something stable at 12.3%? Expect that is to do with the organic growth in revenue, this gross margin, where you, well, you want an improvement in margin, and yet the data collection cost went up in H2 2025, it was that only temporary? I imagine that the acquisitions, well, they're useful, but they themselves should improve their own performances. I was a bit surprised by this share buyback program, EUR 100 million. It's about 7% for the shareholder. What prompted that decision? Thank you.
Well, we'll take the question about organic growth, where is this to occur mostly? Well, we have a strategic plan where we propose to invest in what are known as Globally Managed Services. These are businesses to do with the first line of business, namely, consumers. We expect growth there to accelerate because we've been investing in GMS specifically on that line, on that business line. On public affairs, we were at -8% in 2025, and we certainly hope, expect the situation to improve. Having said that was a low ebb at -8%. We are looking at a resumption of growth, at least a better performance in public affairs and stepping up business in the other business lines.
Regarding the operating margin, we said it would be higher, well, equivalent to that of 2025, and so 2025, we published a margin of 12.3%. It should stand at about that. There, again, various factors involved. There were acquisitions, and they had dilutive effects in 2025, but the dilutive effects should peter out in 2026, and indeed, they should dwindle away in 2027. But we will keep investing, so there will be Capital Expenditure there. That's of course regarding technology acquisitions. We expect some productivity gains because we will be managing our panels and other instruments to make our tools more productive.
Regarding gross margin, historically, well, gross margin has grown over time. This year, of course, it was down because of acquisitions, but there are two types of acquisitions. You had infas. infas is mostly a public affairs business, and there's not much to be gained from synergies. The BVA Family is a more traditional line of business, covering all areas. There we do expect synergies. Indeed, with The BVA Family, we started merging our teams, and we are proposing new solutions, and the teams from BVA are joining all our organization.
We expect gross margin and operating margin in these businesses to be in line with the profitability of the rest of the group by 2027. Regarding the share buyback program, well, if you look at the present share price, this was a good opportunity. Also, we believe that the share price does not reflect the actual value of the company in terms of growth, profitability, the debt ratio. I mean, all these factors are not fully reflected in the share price.
Indeed, even though organic growth was slightly less than our expectations, we still have a good performance, and so when the share price is low, this is a good time to buy back a significant amount of shares to be canceled. Indeed, that will be proposed to the AGM later this year.
On the revenue seasonality, what are the expectations for 2026?
We are engaging in an in-depth transformation of our business and new tools, new ways of working, commercial effectiveness, and such like. We're looking at a three-year horizon. We cannot break down this. We cannot look at this on a quarterly basis.
Good morning. My name is Laurence Stoclet. Thank you for the presentation. I had two questions. A technical question first, on digital data, digital twins, new players that are banking on the fact that the digital twins may well replace panelists in the long run. Are you using that at all? I mean, that's the question. In view of productivity gains, thanks to AI, Ipsos.Digital is growing pretty fast. Why aren't you banking on the much higher growth in margin? I mean, you could be more ambitious than that, surely.
Regarding virtual data, we don't want to get into the detail of that, but we have two strong beliefs. Number one, of course, AI, in general, makes it possible to generate virtual twins or e-equivalents of individual data collected from actual respondents.
If you have a digital twin of the population, say, patients of that category, all you need to do is ask the question and you get the right answer, and you don't need to go out and actually send questions to real people with phone calls or surveys and such like. That's the theory. Well, one thing, though, is these things are changing slowly but surely. Of course, the actual people change as well. We need to recalibrate things. Some responses will need to be adjusted, and... You have audiences that are more difficult to act, to access, so we can use the virtual twins instead, but we have to control for all that.
At the end of the day, we want precise information, because if you launch a new product and the virtual respondent is left behind actual development, well, then our customers is spending money in the wrong place. We can do this, but we have to rely on actual respondents. We have academic partnerships, we're working on that, but cautiously. Regarding the impact on profitability, if you look at 2026, we will be rolling out some of the solutions we have been investing in, but we will need to keep investing to grow these solutions with to have differentiated solutions using AI with a broader and broader spectrum of services. Profitability is because, of course, some services, such as Ipsos Digital, are automated, so profitability increases.
We still need to invest in panels and in other technical solutions, so we are looking at growing margin, and we expect it to grow all the way to 2030. Nonetheless, we have to remain at the forefront of innovation.
Eric Blain of Finance Connect. About the profit margin, you say that the platform has generated a 30% growth. What's the revenue of the platform? EUR 640 million, and so with a good profit margin. That certainly drives the group's margin up, doesn't it? You said that there were dilution effects, that these should be petering out next year, and so the growth margin at the end should improve. Capital Expenditure is remaining stable. Surely, given that, you should do better than last year, not the same as last year. The second question, about EUR 100 million's worth of share buyback. Why is this? If the price, the share price goes down, in spite of that buyback program, will you delist it?
Now if you look at the profit margin by geographical area, very much like the previous presentations, where you had some granularity on margin by territory, could we have some color on that?
Well, on question number one, the operating margin in 2026, and that is a bit like the previous question. You have to keep in mind that we're looking here at a trend over three years. We have a strategic plan, and we are looking at operating margin of about 13.5% by 2028, and 14% for the years after that. As early as this year, we have been in. There will be CapEx with new solutions, and we do expect this to bring fruition later on. Right now, we are rolling out the plan. Some tools are available, others will arrive in H2. But we have to be realistic here. These new assets will bear fruition later on, maybe by 2027.
For the time being, we simply would like to confirm that, well, we're pretty confident, at least we expect to keep operating margin the same level as 2025. On the matter of profitability, because you are referring to capital expenditure, that increased significantly in 2025 compared to 2024. 18%, up EUR 80 million. We're looking at growth through innovation here, we need to keep investing. That, of course, does eat away at profit margin. If you look at the payout policy, Well, we repeat what we said. We're looking at anywhere between 40% and 50% of a net adjusted income paid back to shareholders through dividends, of course.
Having said that, we have no further comments on future buyback programs in the following years. Depends on the number of factors. I mean, we do not propose to delist the company. We do propose to remain autonomous and independent. If you look at a breakdown by geographical area, normally we do not communicate on that.
Maybe you could at least tell us about the numbers in the U.S. or specifically?
Well, the U.S. market has higher margins than other territories. The low US dollar is a dilutive factor. Yes, there was an effect on a currency effect on our.
You didn't mention?
No, we didn't mention it because it's not significant.
Marco Sormani, Varenne Capital Partners. My congratulations for this present. A question on the major tech players, such as Meta, Google, Alphabet. You mentioned in the past that you were gonna generate significant revenue with those key accounts and to be added in your services. Is that still the case today? Could you detail better for us what you're doing for the major U.S . tech clients?
Yeah. Coming from a world where I had a lot of dealings with the major tech players, the fact that they're amongst our largest key accounts, this is something that interested me keenly, and it ties in with the question about synthetic data to a certain extent.
One of the added values we're bringing is our detailed knowledge over and above the mere processing and presentation of data, the lessons learned, and access to real respondents, because these tech players have access to the people who access their platform. Each has primarily access to the people who access their platform. We have access to everyone, those who access their platforms and the others. When it's a matter of polling their reputation on the market, to have access to specific audience segments, well, they rely on our capability, and that's our fifth strategic conviction. It's a major differentiating factor in this important world through its economic and social importance to the major tech players. We're very relevant for them.
Thank you.
Question part telephone? Questions on the line?
Merci.
Thank you. The first question comes from Berenberg. Over to you.
Yes, good morning, Jean-Laurent, Olivier. Just a few questions from my side. Firstly, could you give us some insights on what you're seeing in terms of activity? Are you seeing a slight improvement over Q4 25? Secondly, what's the % of the utilization of your own panels, and what % you're targeting by 2028? Recently, in your presentation, you mentioned GMSs. You plan to extend GMS to several service lines. What is the time horizon for that unfolding, and how much might GMSs represent in 2028? Thanks.
Well, we'll be presenting the Q1 figures on April 16th, as indicated on the slide. We have no comment this stage on the activity for Q1.
On the panel percentage, well, we're not gonna disclose on the percentage utilization of our panels, but we have an internalization issues. The proportion of our own panels in the activity will increase by 28 to answer your question, this internalization in housing an important effort for us, and then after extension of GMS, today, six services which we're investing in specific platforms, where we're changing the operating model to manage them globally. We are gonna learn this model in 2026, continue to extend them in the second half of 2026, early part of 2027, depending on the speed of change. I haven't modelized in 28 what the percentage will be, but what is clear, is that we're gonna go for EUR few hundred million to a growing share that will probably top at that horizon, half our revenue.
I believe we have another question on the line. From UBS, your line is open.
Hello, it's I here from UBS. Thank you for taking my question. The first one is just a little bit beyond 2026, right? Because you guide for 2%-3% to 2026, but the average for 2026 and 2028 is 3%-4%. Now, Ipsos Digital is already growing 27% this year, so how can you help us bridge towards that gap to 3%-4%? Are you expecting Ipsos Digital to grow even further than the 27% rate, or where do you see the acceleration to get to bridge that gap? That's my first question. The second question is just how should we think about the pricing and margin dynamics for GMS versus, you know, traditional ad hoc research? The third question is on the free cash flow.
You delivered EUR 181 million this year. In your CMD, you're expecting EUR 1.4 billion to basically fund your, your acquisitions, your strategy over the next five years. Could you help us also to explain on where do you expect free cash flow to ramp up? Is that going to be back and awaited? Thank you.
On Ipsos.Digital, indeed, however remarkable this growth of 30% is, it's EUR 140 million. If I just look at the dissimilarity, heterogeneity of usage, and we can beef up the portfolio based on digital solutions. Ipsos.Digital will be far higher growth. It's a major focus areas for speed and for obvious economic reasons. On the growth profile and profitability of GMSs that drive innovation through new products, new solutions, and new products of our clients are based around creativity or the ad segment and behavior analysis. These are sectors that are both today in the portfolio, a few hundred million EUR of those three broad categories of services that we'll manage globally, growth and profitability above the Ipsos average.
On FCF, the next five years, yeah, we announced an FCF over the next five years of EUR 1.4 billion. We're comparing to what we achieved in 25. You'll see that there's an acceleration pathway versus 2025 to reach that EUR 1.4 billion over the five-year period. I think that's about it in terms of questions. It remains for me to thank you and see you on April 16 for the Q1 results. Thank you. Have a great day.