Good evening. It is my pleasure to welcome you to Quadient's nine-month and third quarter 2022 sales presentation. I am Catherine Hubert-Dorel, Quadient's Head of Investor Relations, and I am joined this evening by Geoffrey Godet, Quadient's CEO, and Laurent du Passage, Quadient's CFO, who will host this presentation and answer any question you may have at the end. As a reminder, you can submit your questions in writing through the web or ask question live by dialing into the conference call. And with that, thank you very much. And over to you, Geoffrey.
Moving to slide five. Thank you, Catherine. Good evening to you all. I am pleased to present you an overall solid Q3 performance. Quadient group revenue for the third quarter was up 8.8% on a reported basis to EUR 270 million. This was helped by strong currency gains, obviously, from our growing U.S. exposure, which represents, at the end of Q3, 61% of major operation. At group level, this represent a growth of 1% on an organic basis. We continue to enjoy solid demand for our solutions in terms of booking, leading to further growth in our subscription-related revenue, which has now reached 2.8% on an organic basis. This is for a major operation in the third quarter, which will...
which we believe further demonstrate the strengths and the recurrence of our recurring business model. This solid Q3 performance was mostly driven by our cloud software solution, ICA as you know, which continues to deliver strong double-digit increase in subscription-related revenue at close now to 18% organic growth in the third quarter, which is in line with the second quarter trend. If we move now to the Mail-Related Solutions. Mail-Related Solutions posted another resilient quarter, the seventh in a row. Let me repeat this, the seventh in a row, delivering a very limited organic decline of 0.6%. Our Parcel Locker Solutions, however, reported a small organic decline in the quarter. Clearly a weaker than expected performance, especially after the good Q2 that we had. This was linked to the delays of some of our retail U.S. projects.
On the other hand, fundamentals and demand Parcel Locker remains sound, however, and I will come back obviously to this point in details with Laurent when discussing our solutions. Our Q3 performance could have been better as our backlog continued to increase in the third quarter. It is now more than 40% higher than the same period last year. Without the supply chain issues, we could have had a better Q3 obviously, and I will naturally go in deeper explanation on this topic with Laurent as well. Moving to slide six. Before we discuss the performance of our solution, let me spend a few minutes on our key commercial successes of the quarter. At the heart of Quadient's organization, we have built a scalable and integrated go-to-market strategy. We have built an efficient, on one hand, and flexible multi-channel sales approach across our three synergistic solutions.
This organization designs provides us with a unique advantage to acquire customers, which is one of our top priority, for all of our solution, using the most efficient and cost-effective way, and such at a global and worldwide level. As part of our go-to-market strategy, the goal is to ensure that we have the most appropriate expertise and support close to our customers, right? Proximity with customers. We align our channels to optimize customer acquisition on the one hand, without sacrificing customer experience and success on the other hand. We have, obviously today, three primary methods to drive revenue and growth. The direct sales through web, telesales, and field sales. Cross-sell, number two, and upsell, which is really nurturing our existing relationship to sell additional solution and modules to our customers. The third one, indirect sales through our value-added partners and our network of partners.
If I move to the direct sales in particular. Direct sales drive, obviously, an important part of our customer acquisition, especially as this, as you can see it in this slide, 3,600 customers acquired, for example, new logos right in Q3. What is equally, if not more important, is the contribution to client retention and renewals of contracts. If we take the example for our mail business, client retention and upgrading contracts is also the responsibility of the direct sales organization. Additionally, direct sales are segmented to be efficient according to the product and deployment complexity level.
Take an example from the off-shelves purchase directly made on our website to the agility and flexibility of our telesales team and up to the larger project, longer sales cycles requiring a relatively high degree of customization, deployment, and field sales expertise. That's how we have organized the direct channel. DPD, a carrier, DHL and other international carrier for the launch of the Parcel Locker network in the U.K. If I take another example of MetLife in Japan, in insurance or PacificSource for CCM solutions are great examples of recent notable field sales deals. While telesales are very successful for Mail-Related Solutions and also our accounts payable and accounts receivable cloud automation software. They are all designed to be simpler turnkey product and installation, and this is why they're suited for telesales inside sales organization.
Once the relationship is established with our customer, our sales force is able to build on the integrated organization design. This ability to cross-sell, right, is what gives Quadient an advantage over the other providers. We're very proud of our expertise. We're regularly mentioning cross-selling to you in our past presentation as this is truly a differentiating factor in our sales success. What we call cross-selling is our ability to sell different solution, Mail-Related Solutions, ICA, and PLS to an existing customer. While on the other hand, what we call upselling is our ability to sell another service or another product or another module to an existing customer, but within the same solution. For that purpose, our platform approach for our cloud platform, ICA, is key to help upsell additional modules to an existing customers.
As a reminder, 2/3 of our cloud software customers come from our traditional mail business cross-sell. I would like to stress that cross-selling occurs in all directions across all three solutions, not just our software platform. We sell mailing solution to software customers and lockers to mailing customers. Cross-selling is a very efficient way to grow a business because it benefits from an existing customer relationship rather than acquiring a lead on the web. We intend to continue building on this as we focus on the core mid-segment size of the companies, that is the bedrock of our customer base. Finally, we also rely, which is super important, on a diverse international network of partners to sell and also implement our solutions.
This is categorized as indirect sales, again, this is a very successful way to sell mostly our cloud software and Mail-Related Solutions across the globe. We also routinely, obviously, monitor, analyze the most cost-effective channel to acquire, cross-sell, and upsell and support our more than 400,000 customers. Adopting such a sales engine setup is proving very resilient, in particular in time of recession environment, we're not dependent on a single channel nor region, nor even a customer segment. This blended and integrated go-to-market strategy enables us to continue to optimize our execution in a real and powerful way without sacrificing product delivery and customer success. Moving to slide seven. Let me now turn to the underlying driver of our successful execution of our go-to-market strategy, which goes beyond the organization design and efficiency.
One of the key drivers behind customer acquisition today, customer acquisition strategy, is the quality and the relevance of our innovative solutions. These solutions are making a tangible difference for all of our customers across all industry segments. We have summarized, here the key fundamentals benefit behind Quadient's automations offering, right? At a time when the macro environment is more and more uncertain, we are proud to have developed a portfolio of industry-leading automation solution, delivering, first and foremost, cost savings for Quadient customers, and in turn for our customers, as well, clients. Whether we automate mail delivery or we automate parcel delivery, or we automate digital communication and/or payment delivery, we fundamentally save time and money to our customers. These savings are coming together, obviously, while delivering, which is even more important, a superior customer experience.
Strong security and data integrity as well. Even a strong embedded ESG focus. Retrieving a parcel, sending personalized mail to thousands of clients, or accelerating the cash management of a subsidiary. Each and all of these examples have one thing in common. They are all delivering important and seamless services via automation to a large range of customers. The Quadient solution naturally becomes an integral and essential part of a customer's operation. As such, have a very high level of stickiness, which is why. This is also demonstrated in our very low churn level. Let's now move to slide eight and turn to the review of our three solutions, starting with ICA, our SaaS cloud platform, Intelligent Communication Automation software. Turning to slide nine, and the key business highlights for the period of our software solution.
Q3 has been another strong quarter for our cloud platform, with further growth in annual recurring revenue. Our customers' acquisition strategy, both direct and through our cross-selling and upselling effort, as I have just described, continues to deliver very good results. At the end of the first nine months, our ARR is now at EUR 179 million, up 22%, and I stress this, on the annualized organic basis, so taking the effect of currency out. Current demand for digital automation remains very strong currently. We don't see any particular change, and we expect Q4 to be strong in terms of booking and such, despite the macro environment.
Of note, over the third quarter, strong growth is seen in particular in the mid segment of enterprise, with an acceleration of adoption for accounts receivable, which we call AR, and accounts payable, which we call AP offers. We expect this positive trend in the mid segment to continue in the first quarter as well. We have also decided to rebrand, sorry, these two products, Beanworks and YayPay accounts receivable and accounts payable modules, to align their names with the Quadient brand. This changes of name is obviously the natural evolution in line with the further integration of our suites, as I have mentioned to you before, moving from independent products to a modular suite with modules. The larger enterprise segment, traditionally for software, has seen also sustained growth year to date, and we're confident that Q4 should deliver solid performance again.
The positive and increased penetration of our cloud software suite can be seen in the continuous progress we make quarter after quarter in our transformation from license to SaaS. The share of subscription revenue is standing at 75% of ICA revenue at the end of the period. As a reminder, it was only 59% in the full year of 2020. We could also see the progress in the share of our SaaS customers, which has reached now 79%. While the increase in cloud platform usage continued to be very strong at 23% in the first nine months of this year. I will now leave the floor to Laurent for more financial details and information on our performance.
Thank you very much, Geoffrey. For ICA, revenue is growing at 5.2% over nine months organically. It's standing at EUR 166 million with a reported growth at 12.7%, obviously boosted by U.S. dollar increase versus euro. If you look at Q3 stand alone, it's growing at 6.3% organically or 15% reported. The acceleration in the bookings to date, and notably in H1, is now translating well into the growth of our subscription rate of revenue at 17.2% year- to- date, as you can see on the left-hand side, and 17.8% in Q3. All modules are contributing to this growth, and with notably accounts payable and accounts receivable further accelerating at +65% in Q3. Performance in the U.S. is particularly strong for ICA.
Total growth of ICA continues to be muted by a - 43% decline to date in perpetual license revenue. This negative impact continues to be progressively reduced as license sales only accounts for 7% of revenue now. Professional services evolution reflects our change towards SaaS and our customer segment mix. Our truth for the rest of the year remains very solid. We anticipate the further growth in subscription-related revenue upcoming, thanks to the strong year-to-date AR evolution, driven by both more SaaS and also more usage from existing customers. Growth drivers remain unchanged with solid contribution from MRS cross-selling and significant customer acquisitions. Back to you, Geoffrey, on Mail-Related Solutions.
Thank you, Laurent. Let's turn now to our Mail-Related Solutions. Q3 is traditionally a quieter quarter than the rest of the year, Q3 2022 was no exception. Having said that, performance of our Mail-Related Solutions is incredibly resilient this year. After COVID and its push for more digitalization, MRS is further demonstrating the value it brings to its customers, and we're extremely proud of the quality of the execution of our teams, leveraging all the synergies with our softwares and local solution. The quote we are representing on this slide at the bottom and the left side, "We are now able to comply with regulation standards, provide higher efficiency, and reduce manual labor significantly," end of the quote from a customer, is a good illustration of the benefit Quadient solutions are bringing to customers, as discussed earlier in this presentation.
Our efficient go-to-market, the digital channels we are now promoting, as well as our cross-selling effort, also continues to deliver great result with the acquisition of new customers this quarter. We continue to push forward with our innovation and new product offering, which are very well received as evidence in the continuation increase, continuous increase in the share of our upgraded install base, but also in customers' feedback. Overall, another good quarter for MRS, which could have been even stronger if it had not been for supply chain issues driving some delays in customer orders deliveries and contributing to a further build-up of the backlog on MRS side. This backlog, together with the fourth quarter being traditionally a stronger quarter in bookings, contribute to our cautious optimism for Mail-Related Solutions the last quarter of the year.
Last but not least, revenue resilience and steady high profitability of Mail-Related solution, even under the current high inflation, macro environment that we all know, is a key contributor to Quadient integrated and synergistic portfolio of solutions.
Performance in Mail-Related Solutions continues to be extremely resilient, with sales at -0.4% organic decline over nine months and up 7.8% reported. Q3 performance is very in line with H1, with the confirmed hardware sales growth in Q3. Positive both in North America and in Europe this time, which was positively skewed still towards North America. France is the only underperforming region. Trend in subscription-related revenue is also confirmed in Q3, with steady volume-based revenue across the board. Outlook for Q4 is positive despite recent supply chain issues. Some delays in installations due to transportation and suppliers lead to a high backlog, more than 20% above last year at the end of October. Solid customer demand is expected to support a traditionally strong Q4, even in the current macro context. We also will have further indexation benefits in this coming quarter.
Thank you, Laurent. Turning to slide number 13, our Parcel Locker Solutions. Focus on expanding the install base in our main geographies remain, as you know, our key priority over the third quarter. However, lockers installation was mostly slower than expected in the U.S. due to some project delays, in particular on the retail side. We closed the quarter with over 17,300 lockers installed, mostly from the rollout of our existing contract now in Europe, in particular. In France, through our existing contract with retailers on the one hand, and in the U.K. on the other hand, with our open network rollout. We had some contribution in Japan and in the U.S. with some corporate and universities, as well as our main residential verticals.
We see good tractions of installation in our recently launched U.K. network, and we're happy to announce that we have signed a fourth international carrier in the third quarter as well. We expect the pace of installation to triple in Q4 versus the third quarter, to reach in Q4 probably around 100 installation per month. If everything continues to goes well, we'll validate that, we would expect to continue to accelerate the pace of the installation in H1 2023. In addition, we have recently launched our Parcel Locker offer in Ireland for the residential sector. In France, we have just announced a new deal with Carrefour to install between 200 and 300 lockers in its shops as well.
We continue to believe that innovation is key in the solution, as well as we continue to see good traction for our recently launched products, such as the larger lockers for the DIY, do it yourself retailers, and the new functionalities such as the Drop Box, in particular to consolidate the returns for carriers and not just do the last mile, but also the first mile optimization. The value proposition for the automation, again of both first and last mile delivery, continue to gather strength, and we see no change in the attractiveness of our Parcel Locker Solutions offer across our verticals. However, as e-commerce trends have started to show some signs of slowdown, as you know, we have seen increased cautiousness in recent investment decision. As already mentioned in H1, we have seen slower deployment of some existing retail deals.
More negatively, other deals have been pushed back into up to H2 2023, in particular, with the openings we had in the U.S. We have also suffered in Q3 from extended construction lead times for the residential sector in the U.S., which has led to delays for the installation of the constructed lockers that we had. We see no fundamental change in the attractiveness of the lockers into new residential building, and the high level of backlog, at more than 70% versus last year, is confirming the solid order intake. The delays in installation is purely due to the longer construction lead time caused by building material supplies disruptions. Laurent.
For Parcel Locker Solutions, the sales are slightly down, -1.8%, but it's up 4.8% reported. With a Q3 quarter flat in organic growth and up 7.8% reported. As you can see on the top left-hand chart, it is the business where we have the highest dependency on hardware placement, that accounts for 1/3 of revenue. Indeed, what you see on the bottom left chart is that hardware sales volatility has been high from one quarter to another, with Q3 suffering from delays in U.S. residential sectors and retail deals being postponed to 2023, as explained by Geoffrey. However, we see a high double-digit growth in Europe in Q3, albeit from a small base.
Growth in subscription-related revenue has been slower due to the lower growth of the install base in the U.S. and in Japan, despite the acceleration seen in France and in the U.K., thanks due to the current retail contract and the open network. A solid year-over-year performance is expected for Q4 with significant installs planned. We have a very high supporting backlog at the end of October 2022. It's 65% above end of October 2021. Most of this backlog is related to new construction building and is now expected to benefit also 2023, which would be good news for next year. Moving to slide 15.
If we add all three major solutions together, this bring us the major operation scope, which is EUR 749 million reported over nine months, up by 0.7% organically and +8.6% reported, with the Q3 slightly more dynamic at +0.9% and 10.8% respectively. North America is growing at +3% organically over nine months and even at 4.2% in Q3. It represents 59% of total revenue of major operations. It is the main contributor of group organic growth, as you can see on the bottom right chart. Such, despite Parcel Locker weaker U.S. Q3 performance. North America is clearly benefiting from the growing acquisition we made in the U.S., as well as the stronger performance of MRS.
Our main European countries are impacted by weaker contribution for MRS, driven by France, despite an attractive Parcel Locker organic growth, now also benefiting from the initial contribution of the U.K. open network. Subscription-relate d revenue growth in Q3 is confirmed at 2.8%, in line with the 2.9% year-to-date, with subscription representing 71% of the total. At such a growth rate, it further demonstrates the benefits of the recurring business model we have chosen, as well as the fast transition from license to SaaS we have opted for. Now let me address specifically the sales result for nine months 2022. On this slide, you can see the quarterly reported revenue evolution and the year-over-year organic change in percentage.
All solutions are well-oriented, also boosted by dollar strengths this year, notably as the U.S. represents more than half of the revenues and the largest market for each solution. From an organic standpoint, we see continuous mid-to-high single digit growth year-over-year over the past two years and next year. We also see quarter-over-quarter growth. Please note that those results suffer from approximately five points of decline due to the change in business model in the past 18 months. MRS on the bottom left chart shows a remarkable resilience for five quarters in a row, just after the first two quarters of post-COVID rebound. Parcel Locker has shown more quarter-over-quarter volatility due to the large dependency on hardware revenue.
Now as you can see on the total major operation level at the bottom right, our fourth quarter is traditionally our largest quarter of the year, as we should also expect this year. As a summary, major operations now accounts for EUR 749 million over nine months and close to 95% of group revenue. Additional operations only represent EUR 45 million of revenue over nine months. Q3 only contributes to EUR 13 million over the quarter, lower than in Q1 and Q2 for additional operation due to the divestment of graphics and shipping solutions in June this year. It is now solely comprised of Mail-Related Solutions and parcel activities in the rest of the world. We intend to regroup them into our major operations next year.
Finally, on slide 19, when bridging our nine months reported revenue of 2022 to 2021, we need to exclude the scope effect of EUR 80 million and mostly related to additional operation divestment. Of course, APS, but also graphics and shipping solutions, that we need to remove from June onwards in 2021. Add back on the right-hand side, the EUR 53 million of positive currency to reach a 5.6% reported growth for the first nine months of this year. As you know, divestment has come to an end, and we should see this scope effect reduced in the coming quarters.
Thank you, Laurent, for those explanations. Let's move now to slide 21. Not fully offsetting the weak U.S. lockers performance we had in Q3. Before moving to the guidance, let me tell you a few words regarding the dynamics that we observe in the group of Q4. Regarding our cloud software activity, the solid trend experienced since the beginning of the year and in Q3 is expected to accelerate in Q4, and this is supported by the strong ARR growth seen throughout the year. This is further evidence of, I think, the successful transition we conducted in shifting from licensed sales actually to the SaaS subscriptions. If we have a few words on our mail business, it has delivered a solid performance over the past seven quarters now, so we remain logically confident that this resilience shall continue into Q4.
The recent supply chain issues have weighed in on our ability to deliver some products and contributed to a very high level of backlog, sorry, at the end of October 2022. We are, however, cautiously optimistic that further resilient organic trends and subscription-related revenue should also support a solid performance into the last quarter of the year. A few words on our Locker Solution. It posted a weaker than expected Q3, as I mentioned in introduction and as commented before. However, I think we do expect a significant improvement of our performance in Q4 2022 versus the last quarter of last year. Existing contracts deployments, new contract recently signed, as well as some installation in the new build residential segment in the U.S., are all expected to contribute to the growth in Q4.
Importantly, I think is the last quarter of the year is traditionally an important quarter for our solutions. As I said, the group is heading into Q4 with a significantly higher level of backlog than at the same period last year. Meaning, on the other hand, that our ability to reduce this backlog, both in the mail equipment and in the Parcel Locker, will play an important part in our Q4 performance, as well as in the overall organic growth of the full year 2022. To this respect, so far, supply chain issues have not worked to our advantage. We're working very hard to mitigate this impact in Q4 like we did actually last year. I'd like also to stress that more than ever, in this more challenging macro environment, our solutions answers our customers need for further automation.
Our successful recurring business model achieves a quarter-over-quarter a solid organic growth in subscription-related revenue, and has proven especially very resilient, where the profitability of our install base has improved and continues to improve, and we're expecting it to improve in Q4 as well. We're also positively exposed to a more dynamic North American market, with strong demand from this market. However, this also come with its own challenge, as cost and sell inflation on the other hand are particularly high over there and have been weighing on the group's profitability. On the positive side, FX, foreign currency rate has had the opposite of setting impact with a significant benefit thanks to the U.S. dollar in reported revenue and EBIT. Turning now to slide 22, turning to the organic guidance for the full year. In summary, we do expect a strong Q4.
Considering the weaker than expected Q3, due to the PLS delay with the retailers project, mostly in the U.S.A. on the one hand, and the uncertainties coming with the ability to reduce the high level of backlog on the other hand, we have decided to cautiously address the full- year 2022 revenue guidance to an expected organic growth above 1% versus above 2% previously. This more cautious stance on organic revenue growth is also leading us to adopt a more prudent approach on the operating profitability of the group, as a lower revenue growth carries a direct impact on the EBIT level as well.
In addition, I will remind you that the cost of the cost and salary inflation, mostly from the U.S., have put pressure on the profitability of the group in H1, as you know. With that in mind, we still expect the second semester EBIT margin to show a significant improvement against the H1 level, thanks in particular to a higher profitability of both our cloud software and parcel or install base, where Mail-Related Solutions profit margin should remain very high. We have reviewed our group EBIT guidance naturally as well, and are now expecting a low to mid-single digit organic decline versus a low to mid-single digit organic increase expected previously. Based on the current trends, we do confirm our midterm outlook as well. This concludes our presentation.
Laurent, Catherine, and I will now be happy to take your questions.
Thank you very much, Geoffrey and Laurent. We will start with the questions on the conference call, please.
Ladies and gentlemen, please press star one to ask for question. To withdraw your question, please press star two. We'll take our first question from Patrick Jousseaume from Société Générale. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Yes, good evening. Thank you for this presentation. I have first question regarding the, what does the guidance mean for EBIT? If I understand well, the starting point for this year is EUR 145. There is some positive currency effect to the tune of 5%-6%. This guidance of low to mid-single digit decline. Is that okay?
I can take-
Do you think the right way to look at it?
I can take this one, Patrick. First, yes, you are right with the starting point. I mean, we reported last year EUR 147 million EBIT before M&A related expenses. You have more or less EUR 1.5 million-EUR 2 million of scope effect, which are the graphics and shipping solution divestment. From that we have a guidance which is low to mid-single digit decline. Now you ask the question of how do I compute a reported EBIT. I think that's basically what I hear in your question. As a reminder, the Forex impact on EBIT in H1 was about EUR 7 million. Okay?
Considering that the dollar has stayed relatively at the level of Q2 and Q3, but be careful, the evolution last year in H2, the dollar has increased a little bit as well. It's probably fair to say that over the full year, multiplying this effect by two is not so far from the reality.
Okay. Thank you for this. My question is also about, I mean, same type of question on the 2023 guidance now. Here the starting point, if I remember well, is EUR 140, which is what you mentioned at the bottom of slide 22 in the footnotes. Starting from this, I guess there is 5% during three years on average growth.
So-
In addition to that, the same positive currency impact?
Again, the guidance are all mentioned organically. The indication we give from a reported standpoint give an additional, I think, flavor around where we land. Notably as the analysts work on a reported basis mostly, it gives a little bit of color. But the guidance and the indication over the three years that we confirm on the EBIT, which is basically a mid-single digit growth on the EBIT, organic over the period of 2021 to 2023, is organic. It excludes the forex impact. In other words, Patrick, you need to start at the EUR 140 million of 2020, and you need to add between mid-single digits, probably between 4% to 6% year-over-year, to end up in the result of the year 2023.
Again, this guidance is unchanged.
Before any impact of currency.
The-
You expect to be at around 170, something like that in 2023?
It's a little bit early, I think to give a specific guidance for the next year. We'll wait for March. As we did confirm, obviously, the guidance for 2023, we did look at it, you know, for the dynamic of each of the solution that we have. If we were to just to go through each one of them, because we have given additional indication, for example, for the software side. The software side, we said, you know, we are also aiming to get to EUR 250 million in ARR. We had EUR 179 million at the end of the first nine months of this year. We expect, obviously some further improvement by the end of the year.
As we get into next year, we're gonna have a lot of embarked, basically, ARR and subscription revenue. We believe that the impact of the license change to SaaS that we have suffered from or that we have executed in 2021 and 2022 will be obviously less impactful and less meaningful in 2023. I think we see that the demand for digitization is more or less continuing to accelerate currently. We're obviously confident in the trajectory of our software business. The Mail-Related Solution in particular, we had given a floor on the decline of mail over the three- year of the plan. We're, you know, we're gonna need to wait until the end of this year and see how the beginning of the year is shaping up.
We're obviously starting the third year in a much better position than we could have hoped for at the beginning of this year or even two years ago, with a more resilient customer base. The usage, I think, on this recurring revenue, which had been weakened during the COVID, is one of the strengths that we see since the first nine months of this year. Again, as any business, we'll have to revalidate those assumptions as we get at the beginning of the year. We start from a better footage.
I think on the Parcel Locker side, as much as I am obviously disappointed, for some of the delays that we had, been surprised with on some project for Q3, we do get into Q4, with a backlog of orders that makes confident about the step-up of improvement we expect for Q4. As we get into 2023, we have obviously an acceleration, that we're expecting on the rollout of the Parcel Locker. In the U.K., we do have a embark, bigger contract, both in the U.S. and in Japan and France. A lot of it is gonna be obviously coming from existing orders.
The delays that we have suffered from to some extent also, in particular in Q3 and this year on the residential market, because we have signed a lot more bookings on new buildings, constructions. Unfortunately, a lot of those new bookings did not turn into installation being recognized in 2022, which has been a negative on 2022, which on the other hand, will become a positive for 2023. The 70% of increase in the backlog, 2/3 of it is related to those new constructions, which will really, for the most part of it, benefit next year. When we do take into account, obviously, all those positive momentum, we need to provide a level of cautiousness as well, as we need to take into account that the macro environment will be less favorable.
After reviewing those assumptions, we did confirm, those, midterm guidance.
Okay. Just if I rephrase a bit, on 2022 current year, what you are expecting is, organically is less than EUR 145 million. For 2023 is at least, I mean, it's around EUR 160 million-EUR 162 million excluding, organic growth. If I apply 5% year after year during three- year to EUR 140 million, I go to EUR 152 million.
If you apply the mid-single digit EBIT growth over the three years, and if you land at those numbers, I trust your calculation, Patrick. That would be again, and as mentioned by Geoffrey, a significant uptake for next year, which is illustrated by all the favorable elements that Geoffrey raised across the different solutions. That's correct.
I think it is safe to take for the calculation and the validation of those assumptions, the low end of our guidance, naturally, and I would do the same thing. I think I would just add that, you know, even in previous years, if we had to lower guidance, it doesn't mean that we give up on them. We are obviously working very hard to not only be within the guidance, but if we could exceed it, we're not gonna let pass the opportunity either.
Thank you for that. Another question is on your performance versus PB. If I'm not wrong, during the almost the same quarter, SendTech Solutions at PB grew 1% at constant currency. Do you see any reason to explain why your revenue was a bit down and SendTech revenue was a bit up?
Sure. I always put enough caution of not commenting our competition performance. I just remind in SendTech, this is not just the equivalent of a mass activities. They have a lot of other third-party activities included into it. I think when we look at the performance versus the market or PB, I think we have a geographical weight that always remind all of us with is that they are more exposed to the U.S. market than we are. As they are more 80% within the U.S. versus our 50%. We're more exposed to market that has a bigger decline or level pace like the French market.
Those difference help us also assess, when we apply those weights, because we obviously have our own performance in the U.S. that we could measure how we're doing on the U.S. market in particular versus PB. We're pretty confident today that we are outperforming them in this main market. That's the first thing. The second thing is, our performance in Q3, as much as it was a very good performance, and I'm quite happy even with 0.6% decline, could have been clearly better, if we had been able to reduce further the level of backlog in Q3, which actually increased and is now at 20% higher than even last year at the same period of time.
We ended up having just getting into some details, issues from having a whole series of containers stuck in custom in September for several weeks, which has prevented us to deliver some products. Some third party product like balance scale that are associated to our own product orders, the deliveries of our partners got delayed as well, which prevented us to be able to deliver our own product in particular in the U.S. We had an equipment failure in one of our supplier in Northern Europe. It's been just not a big type of issue, just many small issues that are, that pop up in Q3 in particular.
When we look at the booking, outside of the pure revenue reference that you mentioned, I think if I take into account the North American growth rate, the placement of hardware, and the level of the backlog that we have, I think we're still outperforming the market fully, and this is why I'm still fairly confident about our Q4 performance. Again, not taking into account obviously the unknown that could remain in the first, in the last two months of the year.
Thank you.
Patrick.
Once again, ladies and gentlemen, please press star one to ask for question. We'll pause for just a quick moment to allow everyone an opportunity to signal for question. There are no further question on the audio line. Please proceed.
Thank you. We'll now take the, question through the web, and we'll start with the question about guidance to stay on that topic. Can you give more details about the previous 2023 guidance?
I can take this one if you want, Geoffrey.
Sure.
I think it's just unchanged compared to what we said during Capital Markets Day 2021. The reality is the mid-single digit EBIT growth organic over the period 2021, 2022, 2023. From a starting point in 2020, that was EUR 140 million of EBIT before M&A related expenses. I think Patrick has been quite explicitly sharing his assumptions, and I think they were pretty much reflecting the guidance we gave at the time and that we confirm today.
We have never changed them since we have announced the plan.
No.
Moving to the Parcel Locker Solution, can you give detail about the delayed delivery? Is it linked specifically to U.S. or does it also impact Europe? Where are the current bottlenecks? Is it supplier? Transport? Is it linked to a specific supplier failure or linked to the general lockdown in Asia during Q3?
I can take this one, this question if you want, Laurent. The gap in revenue recognition versus what we expected in Q3 clearly is kind of, you know, related to the U.S. scope. Actually, we have seen a pretty good level of placement, recognition of revenue. Quite actually, the growth rate, you know, around more than 40% in France and the U.K. are quite impressive, even though this, the base is small because we're really relaunching those areas. It's been fairly contributive. The Japan, even though it's slowing down a little bit, is still a growing, contributing region. It's really related to the U.S.
In the U.S. in particular, this is where in term of the business model, we have the most volatility in revenue recognition because the principal verticals that we operate into in the U.S. is also related to the residential market. In this residential market versus the other market, we do place hardware versus subscription, more hardware versus subscription, relatively comparing the other region. We had mostly two effect and they're not really related to the supply chain issues. The supply chain issues are related to MRS. On PLS in the U.S., we obviously expected to further work and further implement and further win project in the retail segment.
As you know, with the e-commerce volume going down, a lot of the project we had won at the end of last year or in H1 this year, where we're in the phase of doing the proof of concept with the phase one, sometimes we're in the phase two of the project, but before major scale. A lot of them has been delayed. Even in the one we actually expected in Q3 itself, as those customers have to face additional priorities and those projects has been moved, postponed to 2023, sometimes even H2 or 2023. That's a portion of the gap.
The second portion of the gap, and it's related to our own customers, I would say life, is that in the residential market where the booking has been pretty strong generally this year or maintained at a good level, including in Q3, the booking has been skewed towards new constructions since the beginning of the year. The planning related to the install in those new constructions, keep being delayed at the customer. That's generally speaking, something that is quite frequent, because when you have a new constructions, they are dependent on raw materials coming from other region, transportation issues or getting other different contractors working together. The timing at which our installation needs to come up, we cannot be in the middle of the construction.
Construction has to be finished, the lockers don't get destroyed or impacted during the installation process. They don't stay for weeks before being installed. Those dates keep moving. That's our regular life. In particular, for the planning of installation, we had planned in Q3 because we are quite professional in the way we do our planning. We had a series of delays in those installation that had further impacted our revenue recognition for Q3 in the U.S. for Parcel Locker as well. That's the two main drivers of the gap versus what we felt was a fairly safe and secure forecast for Q3 in Parcel Locker in the U.S. This is also why we feel fairly reasonably confident that Q4 is expected to show a major increase.
We're not impacted, or we're not waiting or depending on the same project that got delayed. We're not looking at the revenue of Q3, not recognized, to be recognized in Q4. Those projects are being moved to next year. It's a whole series of other projects for which we have obviously validated the confidence level we had to be able to install them in Q4, so they're different projects.
Thank you.
I think I have addressed the...
Thank you, Geoffrey. I think we have another question on the line.
We'll take our next question from Jean-François Granjon from ODDO BHF. The line is open. Please go ahead.
Yes, thank you. Jean-François Granjon from ODDO BHF speaking. I would just want to come back on the Parcel Locker Solution business. I understand there is some delay for next year, but I think that the environment and the microenvironment should be unchanged next year for the construction, for the building, I think. Why are you so positive, optimistic, for next year and expecting some more growth next year for Parcel Locker to the micro environment, probably under pressure next year? I don't see any change compared to this year. Why are you more optimistic for the Parcel Locker business next year?
It's a fair question, and it's a rich answer because we obviously have the benefit of not being dependent on one vertical for Parcel Locker business, in either one region. We have three main region, I would say today, Japan, U.S., and obviously our key region in Europe, mostly now the U.K., because we're gonna benefit from the launch and the rollout of our U.K. network with four international carriers. We also have some traditional activities in France and some other countries. The situation is a little bit different for each one of them. If I look on the most potentially challenging one is the retail segment.
Differently, depending on what type of retailers, subverticals, if you want, some of them are facing change today, and we are expecting that they will continue to have challenge into 2023, potentially beyond. We're also re-adapting our go-to market towards segments like the DIY, into the retail segment that might be more willing to invest during this period of time because like any other people in a recession environment where less volume, cost saving is super important. Our solution, depending on how they're obviously implemented, could save money even for the retailers. This is also why we had invested in the new product features that were specifically designed for some of the retailers. We're quite happy with the reception that we got from those retailers even in Q3 and this year.
As much as we look at some retailers being clearly postponing deals into next year and beyond, we have other retailers in which we even have started new project in Q3 as POCs, and obviously validating with them before we spend time and energy with them, that they have the capacity to secure investment going into next year. I think on the retail side, if there is definitely some delays for some of the big deals that we were expecting that we're not counting for anymore, but we have other opportunities in the retail segment. You've seen the announcement on even with Carrefour and Relais Colis just in the French market in Q3.
There is other areas that still make us hopeful that the full market for us still provide some reserve opportunities, but it's definitely the most impacted. The second one globally is the residential market. On the residential market, we moved from 1/3 of our booking being linked to new constructions and 2/3 on existing building before COVID. Since COVID, more or less, we're now at 2/3 of our bookings relate to new constructions and 1/3 on existing building. I think there's a sentiment for us that this change, if it were to be sustained into next year, is that we actually have a huge backlog on new buildings that we have not been able to install and recognize this year.
This is definitely a more guaranteed windfall because those installation, we know the time frame. We usually recognize 90% of it over 15 months, and they have started even before than this year. It's definitely more backlog that will become more secure in term of recognition next year. It's a windfall for next year that is more guaranteed. If the new constructions are slowing down, which is what we see in terms of new projects, we know we can redirect our efforts on existing building. After that, we have another main vertical, which is the carrier. This one, as much as it is obviously related to the volume of parcel transactions, they are the one that don't seem to slow down in term of willing to invest.
Whether we see a relationship of existing carriers today in Japan, I feel confident that we can continue to expand the relationship with Sagawa Express, Japan Post, Yamato Transport as example there. We have the same evidence as the deal we have made with Relais Colis or other carriers in France. I think more importantly, the best explanation could say is that we have signed in the last three or four months, which is in this current context macro environment, four major carriers in the U.K. Because specifically for the carriers, as they look at the current environment, reduction of their cost to delivery, and therefore the automation that the lockers provide is clearly one of the priority that remains at least at this time, and we haven't seen any change or contrary some acceleration.
We see that outside even of the countries we have targeted. We see a lot more project related Parcel Locker in Europe, in Germany, in Netherlands, in the Nordics, where we've seen actually a competition again, but on countries that we're not targeting. We see more active projects. I think we have the chance of a more balanced portfolio of verticals, with some booked orders differently. That definitely makes us more confident we can achieve a good part of what we're looking for 2023. As of today, there will be a remaining part that we'll still need to secure in the coming months and quarters, and we'll have a full year for the activities. I think this is the main reason of our cautious optimism Parcel Locker ramp up next year.
Do you have any follow-up, Jean-François?
No.
You're welcome.
I think we can move back to the questions from the web. Could you please give us the book-to-bill ratio for the group as well as for PLS, in addition to the gross number of backlog that you've already given at the end of September 2021. Alternatively, could you give us the total number of backlog for the group?
I can take this one. This one. You have, I think so. First, it's compared to the 31st of October 2021, because obviously we end our quarters one month difference to the civil year. I think you need to distinguish two phases. One phase, which is from October 2021 to July 2022, where we have a book-to-bill ratio is probably significantly above one. Basically we recorded more booking than we billed, we have a net increase of the backlog. Now we are in Q3 in more book-to-bill ratio around one, where we have a relatively steady backlog level, where we would have expected a little further decline.
As mentioned by Geoffrey, we have some tensions, issues on the supply chain side that didn't necessarily let us reduce the backlog further. We are still, I think, in the perception that the book-to-bill ratio will be one. Hopefully we can reduce it further to get back to a more normative backlog total for the group. With all the uncertainties that we know and that Geoffrey raised, we need to be cautious over Q4.
One other thing, just before we get to the other question, but to follow up on Jean-François's question too. I think the level of reasonable confidence we have for Parcel Locker this year, next year, is that so far, even including the gaps that we had in Q3, so not sending that, we do not lose to their project in our main verticals to competition either. We also feel there is a strength of the relevance of the offering today that is obviously meeting the needs of our customers, and we feel confident about this too.
Moving to ICA, our software solution, what about organic growth for YayPay and Beanworks, our automation, accounts payable and accounts receivable automation solution, for Q3?
Gabrielle, we mentioned that in Q3 we had a strong growth again on those two modules. 65% growth organic compared to Q3 2021. To go slightly further into the details, we are around 50% for Beanworks and close to 100% just for YayPay over Q3. The weighted average gives you 65%, which is an increase compared to what we had in H1.
Moving to a question at a group level, how inflation is impacting your revenues and your margin.
I think I can go to you. I think again, we have three different solutions. The year-to-date result shows that we've been able to pass the cost increase, notably, cost of sales, but also part of the OpEx to the customer on the new contracts. That being said, we have the quality and the drawback of having a long-term contract with some index that are not necessarily inflation. We would, I would say on the recurring side, be hit by the salary quite fast and the cost of sales. It would take time, and that's what we see also in ICA, to have all the contracts being reevaluated either at the end of the commitment period or either on a yearly basis.
On the short term, I would say we have some margin squeeze. Over longer term, we should be able to continue passing on the new contracts. Finally, when we get around the, I would say, average contract length, being able to preserve the margin of all those three solutions.
We could also add just on the inflation. We had last year the impact of the supply chain, which was an impact of roughly EUR 10 million in 2021 full year, which was, you know, some portion obviously on MRS, shipment of product that we manufacture in Asia to U.S. and Europe, and same thing for the Parcel Locker. This on the other hand is something that has evolved positively now for since probably the beginning of June, July. The same way for the last, the previous 18 months, the price had increased five, six, seven, eight times fold versus what we used to pay. It is dropping now at the fastest pace.
We're not back to the level of pre-COVID, but obviously, we'll have some windfall next year, because the cost of shipment are already slower. We won't get the benefit in 2022, because by the time you receive them, you really recognize the difference when you actually install those products. That's true for the one that are crossing the oceans. There will be an additional windfall, for example, related to the inflation, contrary to the other more negative increase on salaries that we have to adapt to.
Still at group level, do you consider Quadient a company that structurally will have a negative or a positive working capital?
That's, again, I think a question for me.
You can give it to me whenever you want.
If you look at the past evolution of the working capital, we have been either close to zero or either slightly negative. I remember that let's say we're at EUR -7 million. The year before, I think we were around zero. You need to distinguish with a long-term trajectory that I think are about flat to slightly, I would say, degraded, because we know we have a very negative working cap on the mailing side because people would pay in advance, create some deferred. As the same case in ICA, it's not necessarily the case on Parcel Locker, not only on the hardware sell portion. From a mixed perspective, as MRS is declining, PLS and ICA are growing, it's slightly unfavorable, I would say, over the long run.
I think that then after that, there is the shorter term impact. I mean, that's things we can see from the seasonality. That's what we had in H1. Also that highly depends on the level of stocks, which were relatively high at the end of H1. Also sometime from a macroeconomic standpoint, the evolution of the DSO or the evolution of the amount of payables, depending on when we sit into notably the large projects. It could be IT projects, et cetera. We say that structurally over the long run, which is the question, slightly unfavorable evolution, but overall not significantly different than the historical trend.
Next question, I think for you, Geoffrey. With regard to Back to Growth strategy, Quadient committed to returning to shareholders the potentially unused share of its net M&A budget, which was at the time EUR 100 million per year net of M&A. As we're approaching the end of the three-year plan, the plan 2019, 2022, and there is still net EUR 200 million of not used M&A budget. Am I right that there will be a huge extra dividend in the first half of 2023?
I think it's a good question, and so it's good if we need to clarify. We did present a Capital Market in 2018, where those, those recommendation or commitments were taken clearly. We have since made another Capital Market Day in 2000, at the end of beginning of 2020 for the year 2021, 2022, 2023, where we have revisited based on the end of the first phase of the plan, our shareholder return policy. Obviously, we have outlined new metrics, new targets for the next years, for which we're obviously committed to deliver for 2021, 2022, 2023. Focusing, just summarizing some of the key elements.
Obviously, making sure we could sustain the organic growth trajectory of the company, really the requirements related to the CapEx that we could have, whether they are related to sustaining the new product development or the rented CapEx that we have for both MRS and PLS. Making sure we have enough room to adjust from one year to another one, the rollout of more extensive projects such as the U.K., for example, that is about to start in... I mean, has started in Q3 and will continue into next year. The second key priority that Laurent, if you're interested, could also dive into more, is our deleverage strategy.
Is making sure that as we were developing and returning Back to Growth, both on top line but also on EBIT, we would also be fiscally responsible and ensuring we deleverage of company. After the repayment of the ODIRNANE, which was a hybrid vehicle that we have reimbursed and decided to reimburse at the end of June, which was updated in our H1 presentation. We would end 2023 with a net debt to EBITDA ratio, excluding the leasing, below 1.75, and we continue to operate in this trajectory.
I think that what we had established actually now, almost two years ago, 1.5 years ago, is very relevant considering the increased cost of the debt, that it was important to make sure we focus and we allocate enough capital to that. After that, we obviously have opportunities for either obviously special project always. I mean, more importantly, we said that if our share price was low on a yearly basis, we would be looking at potentially returning additional money to our shareholders through the form of additional dividend, because we also have a dividend policy with a floor at EUR 0.50 and a minimum, I insist, 20% of the net income payout.
In addition to that, looking at the form that if we have obviously, you know, assume that we could fulfill the first three categories, would not wait the end of the plan, but look yearly what would be the opportunities for returning extra cash to our shareholders in the form of either extra dividend or a share buyback programs. That's something that we obviously gonna look very carefully at the end of this year.
With that, we have no further questions. Over to you, Geoffrey, for any closing remarks.
Thank you for being with us today. Thank you for the question that we have received. Obviously, as we had a little bit disappointment on that miss on Q3 expectation, we have obviously set expectation that we feel that we can fulfill for the rest of the year. As you know, as we are transparent, we have in past lowered our expectation, and that has not prevented us to make sure we work relentlessly to potentially meet or even exceed those guidelines. As we have some uncertainties related to the reduction of the backlog, you can imagine that everybody who's in Quadient is obviously working really hard to get the maximum of the good bookings and the good backlog orders that we have today.
Obviously, also benefiting from all the good trends that we have across our three solutions, to make sure that we could meet or exceed our targets for the rest of the year. Thank you, everybody, and looking forward to seeing you in the coming days or weeks for some of you. Thank you, Laurent. Thank you, Catherine.
Thank you.