Welcome to Quadient's half-year 2022 results presentation. I am Catherine Hubert-Dorel, Quadient's Head of Investor Relations. Today's presentation will be hosted by Geoffrey Godet, Quadient's CEO, and Laurent du Passage, Quadient's CFO. Today's presentation will be divided into our usual four parts, highlights of the period, detailed solution review, financial review, and outlook. After the presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. You can submit your questions in writing through the web, or ask questions live by dialing into the conference call. Thank you very much. With that, over to you, Geoffrey.
Thank you, Catherine. Good evening to all. I'm pleased to present you a solid set of Q2 sales figure and an overall first semester performance, which is in line with our expectation. When we reported our first quarter in 2022 for sales, we told you that the performance of the full year 2022 would be split into two phases. A smaller H1, and that we expected H2 to be significantly better, both in terms of revenue and profitability. Looking at the reported figures for the first semester and our expectation for the second semester, the year 2022 is unfolding in line with our expectation. Let me give you the headlines for the first semester.
Revenue reached EUR 524 million, which means up 4% on a reported basis, and this is the result of a strong U.S. dollar. As a reminder, as more than half of our revenues are in the U.S.A. Naturally, organically, we grew at 0.7%. Here I wanna say that there is an acceleration of growth in the second quarter versus the first quarter across each of our three main solutions. Let's go through each one of them. For ICA, the subscription-related revenue went from 9.2% into Q4 2021, if you remember well, to 15.7% in the first quarter of this year, to now 18.1% in the second quarter of 2022. Our Mail-Related Solutions delivered organic growth in Q2.
Let me just repeat the fact that our mail-related solution delivered organic growth in Q2 at 1.2% organic growth versus a decline, a small decline of 1.7% in the first quarter. Moving to our parcel locker solution, the return to a double-digit organic growth in the second quarter at 15.8% organic growth after Q1, which, as you know, was impacted by a high comparison basis. Turning now to the group profitability. As a summary, the current EBIT was EUR 65 million in the first semester versus EUR 70 million last year. Profitability in this first semester was impacted by a few things. First, our effort in further deploying both our software cloud solution, ICA, and PLS parcel locker solution in Europe for both of them, which will contribute naturally to future growth.
The second element is the impact from inflation. With higher costs, both in terms of supply chain and OpEx, but most of it or partially mitigated already by higher prices. The last item that I wanted to summarize is that we also had, as you remember, a high comparison basis for the parcel locker solution from the contribution of a large project in the U.S.A ., Last year in the first quarter. We will come back on these details and factors in more detail, when we review the performance of our solutions. In summary, this performance in the first semester is in line with our expectation. Now, in terms of outlook, we do expect revenues and profitability to increase significantly in the second semester.
Taking into account the fact that we have a strong backlog across all three solutions at the end of the first semester, we expect that the current positive business momentum to support a higher growth rate in the second semester. Combining this growth with the full benefit from price indexation and the higher profitability from our installed base across our three solutions, we're confident also that the current EBIT will significantly increase in the second part of the year. Therefore, naturally, we're confirming our full year guidance. Turning to slide 6. Let me share with you a few key events and ESG highlights for the last period. First, I'm very happy that we have reentered the SBF 120 index in June, just two years after we exited this listing.
In terms of business news, we launched our U.K., Open Network of parcel lockers, which is a fundamental, foundational and important step for our solution and for our company. For ICA, our ICA cloud platform received multiple recognition from industry research analysts just in the last few months, and I believe it is a clear testimony to the superior quality of our cloud-based platform offering today on the market. These recognitions provide further evidence of our successful execution of our cloud transformation. At group level, and as announced earlier this year, we repaid our OCEANE facility in June while maintaining a stable financial structure. Last but not least, we have also executed our last two divestments in the summer of our back to growth plan. Moving to ESG. From an ESG standpoint, the period was also rich in initiatives.
You may remember that in the first quarter we announced that we raised our climate ambition for scope one and two reduction target to align them with the 1.5-degree trajectory. We also introduced these more demanding targets as one of the criteria for our 2022-2024 long-term incentive plan. In the first semester, we have continued to make progress in our work from anywhere program, further rationalizing our office footprint and offering more flexibility and hybrid work opportunities to all our employees. At Quadient, we truly believe that improved work flexibility benefits both the work-life balance of our employees and the company, with reduced office costs and access to a wider pool of talents. Lastly, I'd like to take this opportunity to thank all of the Quadient employees who took part this year's.
In this year's, sorry, World Cleanup Day in September. With hundreds of volunteers in more than 15 locations worldwide, we collected over a ton of rubbish. This event has been a tremendous success, and it's also, I believe, a clear testimony to Quadient's commitment to sustainability in all aspects of our business strategy. Moving to slide 7. We have a summary here of the acquisitions and the disposal announced since the first Capital Markets Day in 2019. Two main goals in this asset rotation program. First, to refocus Quadient's portfolio around our three core and synergistic solutions by divesting historical activities that no longer fit into our strategy. The second is that we wanted to reinforce and strengthen and accelerate the expansion of our two growth engines. I am proud that we have executed this rebalancing and reshaping of our activities responsibly.
Responsibly, sorry for our teams. I think, thanks to the successful disposal in June of our graphic activities in the Nordic countries and of our shipping activities in France, we're pleased to have now reached the completion of the divestment and the reshaping of our company. As a reminder, the additional operations segment was originally established to house the non-core assets of Quadient and some of the non-core geographies. Revenue for additional operations originally amounted to more than EUR 200 million in 2018 when it was originally set. Today, the remaining activities represent revenues around EUR 50 million for the full year 2021, which consists only anymore about mail-related solutions activities and locker activities located outside the main group geographies. Let's move now to slide 8. Let's now turn to the review of our three solutions, starting with our cloud.
Cloud and SaaS platform, ICA, Intelligent Communication Automation business. Moving to slide nine. We are especially proud, as you can see on this slide, of being recognized in nine industry analyst ranking reports just in the last few months, where Quadient continues to hold either leading position in all those areas of the software industry. In eight out of the nine reports, Quadient is named leader or achieving leadership status, including the reports where Quadient is making its debut. These rankings are very important as they validate the security of Quadient software offering in attractive and growing markets, as you know. Also useful for future business wins and business development efforts, as it is another proof point in our vision and ability to execute our business development for our cloud business.
Interestingly, and worth pointing out, this ranking covers now a wide range of cloud platform offering, demonstrating that our transformation from license to SaaS is not only effective but a success. Congratulations to the team, partners and customers. This is a tremendous achievement. Turning now to slide 10, I'm gonna give some highlights of our software solutions. Q2 has been a strong quarter for ICA, with a further acceleration in annual recurring revenue. If you remember, at the end of 2021, ARR grew at 18%. At the end of the first quarter this year, ARR growth accelerated from 18% - 20% on an organic annual basis.
Now at the end of this first semester, we have now reached EUR 173 million, which means on an annual basis, right, it's a 28% growth rate on an organic basis. We accelerated in two quarters from 18% at the end of last year to 20% to now 28% organic growth on an annual basis. This acceleration is supported by two clear growth or go-to-market engines. Our first focus is on acquisition of new customers, and second one on expansion within existing customers. For acquisition or growing acquisition of new customers is a result of a diversified go-to-market strategy. The direct acquisition of new customers is thanks to the dedicated focus that we have for small and midsize business of our telesales organization mostly. We focus on larger enterprise, thanks to our field sales organization.
Our indirect acquisition of customers also grow, thanks to a network of partners. From our cross-selling effort, as a result of leveraging our strong MRS, mail-based solution, sales organization. Let me expand a little bit on this cross-sell initiative. What makes Quadient unique in this tremendous opportunity to cross-sell our ICA cloud-based platform within our MRS customer base, is because it represent more than 400,000 customers, as you know, in which we could cross-sell those software. We continue to intensify our effort in that domain with, in the first semester, 2022, the cross-sell revenue having increased by 30% versus a year ago. This practically allows us to acquire customers, software customers, at a lower cost of acquisitions.
This also help us win highly contributive deals between high-end MRS product and customers and ICA Impress or Inspire platforms. It makes both MRS and ICA more competitive on the market. Let me now spend a little time and explain a little our expansion focus rapidly. We expand our business within a customer by two approach. The first is naturally our customer success approach. We need to ensure that customer success is really about, you know, ensuring that a customer fully use all that our cloud platform can offer them. We monitor the success with usage. Our usage continues to grow at 24% organic growth in H1 this year. The second approach is through upselling of existing customers. I mentioned to you earlier that we were at the beginning of this new relay of growth.
Our teams have been focused on upselling in order to increase our customer penetration. The recent launch of YayPay, our AR automation solution, and Beanworks, our accounts payable automation solution in Europe, will contribute to these additional opportunities to offer our customers a complete suite of solution across all aspect of their client interaction. The share of upselling is also increasing, as it now represent more than 6% of the ARR at the end of this period. Again, just 2% a year ago, which means we have three times more benefits from the upselling strategy. In H1, we also have continued our effort to transform our software business model from license to SaaS, as you know, and the share of subscription revenue now stands at 74%. As a reminder, it was only 59% at the end of 2020.
Significant progress has already been achieved in the last 18 months. Lastly, I'm delighted to say that we have signed our 2 largest cloud subscription deals in the U.S. with revenue above EUR 1 million per year on a multi-year deal basis, obviously. I think this is another clear demonstration of the successful transition that we have been operating also into our large enterprise segment by offering cloud platform. Over to Laurent du Passage for the financial details in ICA in the period.
Thank you, Geoffrey. The acceleration in those new bookings is translating very well into the growth of our subscription-related revenue, which stands at 16.9% for H1, moving from 9.2% in Q4 2021 to 15.7% in Q1 2022, and now 18.1% in Q2 2022. Within this number, you still have accounts payable and accounts receivable, which continue to grow at about 50% per annum. Conversely, license sales are declining fast. They're at -66% in Q2, and as you can see on the left-hand chart, at -45% in H1, and that's notably due to a large deal of $4 million, which was booked last year in Q2. Professional services evolution reflects our product and customer mix. It's slightly declining at -1.5%.
This results in an overall 108 million EUR of sales for our software business for H1. It's increasing by about 5% organically and 11.5% reported. The trend of recurring revenue is accelerating, and that's what you can see on the bottom left chart. While our transition to SaaS is now very advanced. The solution profit margin stands at 7.3%. It's down 8.2 points on an organic basis and has been impacted by the additional go-to-market expenses, and notably for cross-sell efforts, but also for European product accounts, as well as higher travel costs and impact from salary inflation. The benefits from price increase are phased due to our recurring business model. On the positive side, we continue seeing the existing customer base profitability increase throughout H1 2022.
A positive outlook is expected for the rest of the year, thanks to the revenue accelerating, and notably due to the solid H1 bookings, a positive impact from the full contribution of this price increase, and which will result in an expected significant improvement in profitability. Back to you, Geoffrey, for the Mail-Related Solutions.
Thank you, Laurent. Let's turn now to our Mail-Related Solutions, as you mentioned. I'm pleased to report that Q2 has been a solid quarter for MRS. Our new high-end product range and smart software offering continue to be extremely well received on the market from our customers, as you can see in the share of the upgraded install base, which now stands at 15.9%. Our volume-based revenues also perform very well, too. I'm particularly proud of the very high level of customer satisfaction, as evidenced in this, 98% of surveyed organizations in North America that are likely to recommend our Mail-Related Solutions. Our active install base management and remanufacturing efforts enables us to continue to deliver solid performance, with North America being particularly strong among all the region.
Similarly to my previous comment on ICA, cross-selling also benefit our MRS activity. It does both. It does work both ways, as we're able to provide a combined product offering joining both the physical and digital distribution for our customers. Importantly, as a result of stronger bookings, our backlog has continued to increase, supporting a positive outlook for the rest of the year. Laurent?
Thank you, Geoffrey. This solid quarter in terms of business translate well into an outstanding resilience with H1 revenue almost stable organically. It's - 0.3%, and it's up 6.9% reported. Indeed, despite the high comparison basis, the subscription-related revenue, it stands in green, has been resilient. It has benefited notably from a normalized usage resulting in good volume-based revenue. The positive momentum in hardware sales continues despite a tough comparison basis from last year. Hardware has grown by 8.7% organically in Q2, and even double-digit growth in North America, thanks to further penetration of very well-received new products. The solution profit is stable compared to last year. First, on new placements, the price increases and remanufacturing have compensated for higher year-on-year supply chain and freight costs that we had in H2 last year, notably.
Second, we benefited from largely indexed installed base combined with tight cost control. The revenue, as you can see on the bottom left chart, keeps remarkably stable across the quarters. We are confident in our outlook for H2, notably thanks to the penetration of recently launched products, and you can cite the latest DS-700 iQ, which is expected to have a good contribution. Further indexation benefits are also expected, and focus on cost as well as remanufacture effort will stay high. We expect a dynamic H2, also fueled by declining backlog level, and we are confident that the resilience will continue into the rest of the year. Now back to you, Geoffrey, with the parcel lockers.
Thank you, Laurent. Moving on to our parcel locker solution, I would like to start by spending a few minutes on our U.K ., Open network. As you know, we launched our open network in the U.K. at the end of June. This is a significant milestones for the development of our parcel locker solution. This is a innovative proposition in the U.K., where carriers, retailers will be able to use this network for their deliveries and also, if they choose to, for the first time, for the management of their returns. We truly believe that an open network, agnostic, are very efficient and a greener way to manage more efficiently the last mile delivery. In term of business model, we're deploying this network, so we are spending the CapEx.
We're investing in setting up those lockers, and we will monetize the capacity, the infrastructure we have set up through a mix of fixed fees and fee per parcel. We expect to have 500 lockers installed by the end of the year of fiscal year 2022, and up to 5,000 as rapidly in the next few years. In terms of customers, the network is obviously quickly attracting a lot of interest since our announcements. We have already signed three leading international carriers in the U.K., two of them that we have announced, DPD and DHL, that have already officially made their announcement on their side in the network, and we have obviously already embarked a third one. From a technological standpoint, our cloud-based platform for parcel lockers integrates fully with any carriers or any merchant IT system.
We also continue to innovate with the creation of a Drop Box for carriers who now are looking to manage their returns in a more efficient way. We expect more participants, more carriers, more retailers to continue to join this network in the coming quarters. Turning to slide 15. The expansion, sorry, of the lockers installed base continued in H1, reaching now 16,900 lockers installed. We continue to experience a rise in usage of the lockers. As an example, our parcel locker solution network, mostly dedicated today to the residential and university sectors in the U.S., experienced a 9% growth in volume in H1, 2022 across all our installations. Overall, we do believe that Colis is strongly positioned thanks to its already large installed base and its agnostic approach, but we do not feel spent.
First, we continue to focus on our four main vertical segments of customers where we enjoy strong position today. Second, as we discussed before, we have also taken new step to scale the network through the investment of our U.K., open network. Third, we continue to invest in R&D to propose new features for lockers to better answer the customer needs, to differentiate ourselves from the crowd. Our U.K., network will be equipped with a Drop Box, which is a unique feature today designed to easily and efficiently manage the returns and the consolidation of returns for parcels. Fourth, we have also recently launched a new type of locker, the oversized locker, especially designed for DIY orders. These new lockers are getting significant traction, and we believe will drive further growth for the solutions.
Looking at our pipeline, we do see some deals being delayed into 2023 as customers, mostly retailers, have delayed some of their investment to 2023. We have not lost any of our big deals, and we actually continue to make progress in some key opportunities, and we're happy to be able to onboard and sign some of those key carriers in the U.K., as part of this pipeline. Back to you, Laurent, for the financial performance of the parcel locker solution.
Thank you, Geoffrey. After a declining Q1 and Q2 comparison basis, PLS business is showing a very solid Q2 growth at 16.8% organic growth. The subscription-related revenue continues to increase at a double-digit rate over H1. It's +10.2% as the blue part of the pie on the left, with an accelerating growth trend in France, thanks to the ongoing retail contracts development. As you can see on the bottom left chart, there has been a strong recovery in hardware sales in Q2, 2022. The H1 solution profit margin is down by 10 points on an organic basis. On one side, we have the specific investments that have continued to fuel, notably the launch of the U.K., Open network, as well as higher marketing spend and continued R&D in relation to product innovation and upgrade of products on the field.
On the other side, the gross margin has been improved thanks to the price increase and the mix of recurring and hardware revenue compared to last year. In parallel with the expansions and upgrades, installed base profitability has continued to increase, and it stands at 28.4% in H1. Profitability is expected to improve in H2, thanks to the high level of backlog expected to decline over the second part of the year and which is currently standing at 60% above H1 2021 level. The accelerating growth trend in the U.K., and the overall rising usage of those parcel lockers. Now moving to slide 17.
If we add all three major solutions together, this brings us to major operation scope that you can see on the left, which is EUR 492 million of revenues, is growing by 0.6% year-on-year on an organic basis, and at +7.5% on a reported basis. As you can see, this revenue is very much recurring. It's above 70% of subscription-related revenue. This part is growing by 2.9%, thanks to all our business models that are driven by subscription. Quadient is replicating within its growth engines the rollout of a recurring and predictable install base with contracts from 1 - 7 years and a strong resilience, as well as a very high predictability. North American revenue growth continues to be very solid at 2.5%.
That's what you can see on the pie on the bottom right on an organic basis, and it accounts now for 58% of Group operating revenue. It has been driven by an impressive mail performance and solid organic growth in ICA, offsetting the one-off high comparison base from the lockers due to the lost contract last year. Now, the North American reported growth with the Forex is up by 14.5% due to the dollar to euro Forex impact, and it's overall strongly benefiting to Quadient. The level of activity in Europe is down by 3% on an organic basis, is due to the weaker contribution from the mail-related solution.
It's worth noting that our locker activity was strong, thanks to ongoing contract deployment both in the U.K., and in France, while in ICA, we've been active in the rollout of the new products, accounts payable and accounts receivable. The international segment, now, it performs well at 7.7% growth organically, mainly driven by the Japanese locker base increase. Moving now to the slide 18, we'll go into the details of the financial review for H1. As a summary, major operation that we've just reviewed account for 94% of the group H1 sales. It's EUR 492 million out of the EUR 524 million, with the contribution of each business being summarized in the table on this slide. The Quadient Group current EBIT, before acquisition-related expenses, stand at EUR 65 million for H1. It was EUR 70 million last year.
It's down 17% organically, and it's entirely coming from our major operation segment. As mentioned by Geoffrey, our additional operations on the right-hand side, reshaping is now over and will only include mail and lockers moving forward, representing about EUR 50 million of business per annum and close to breakeven. Moving now to slide 20. Quadient reported 4% of revenue growth in H1. On top of organic growth at 0.7%, Quadient significantly benefits from U.S. dollar strength against euro as it weighs for the majority of our revenue. This is bringing EUR 30 million, more than EUR 30 million of currency effects H1, as you can see on the right-hand side. It's more than offsetting the -EUR 14 million scope effect over H1.
Scope effect obviously is mostly tied to the packaging solution business we divested last year, and more recently, the divestment of graphics in the Nordics and shipping software businesses, net of Beanworks acquisition from March 2021. Now, the same exercise for EBIT. When looking at the H1 2022 EBIT comparison to last year, we see, as expected, a current EBIT level impacted by phasing of inflation versus contribution from business development and price increase. The stability of the gross margin that we have been able to fully compensate the supply chain cost by positive impact from higher prices, both on MRS and PLS. We've seen the increased marketing and normalization of travel level, as well as scaling of new network of parcel locker and European product launches for ICA that are weighing on the H1 EBIT level.
A significant improvement is expected over H2, notably thanks to the stronger revenue level, an improving install base profitability, and of course, a continuous focus on cost and cross-sell synergies. No meaningful impact from energy cost increase are expected. Moving to the slide 22. The net attributable income stands at EUR 29 million. It's very much in line with last year when you exclude the EUR 15 million one-off financial gain that we had from exchange and equity participations back in H1 2021. The cost of debt and income tax, which are the two significant items, remain in line with last year level. Indeed, the appropriate and timely management of debt has allowed us to protect H1 overall cost of debt.
The M&A-related expense and optimization expense are trending down, which reflects the end of the reshaping program, but also the good performance of the lending business. Moving now to slide 23, and looking at the cash flow statement this time. While the EBITDA has been temporarily affected by Growth Engines good market acceleration, the cash flow before cost of debt and tax is in line with last year. Seasonality of working capital is back to pre-COVID levels. It's at -EUR 53 million, which was offset last year by post-COVID DSO decrease, so we were able to collect a significant amount of accounts receivable. Leasing portfolio is particularly resilient, which is a great news, for the M&S performance and future cash flow, but it's less available in the short term, within this cash flow.
However, it was offset by the reimbursement of the 2020 tax loss carryback measured in the U.S., which has happened in Q1 this year. The CapEx level is up due to the investment in software R&D, but also IT material and projects. The total free cash flow after CapEx stands at EUR 13 million, against EUR 54 million last year. Now net of acquisitions and divestments, and we had Beanworks acquisition in March 2021. We stand at +EUR 15 million free cash flow after CapEx and acquisition, where we were at -EUR 18 million last year.
Now, if we do a focus on CapEx, moving to slide 24, you can see the total capital expenditure is increasing due to higher development CapEx, which is in dark blue, related to an investment, notably in software R&D and particularly accounts payable and accounts receivable. You can also see an increase in maintenance CapEx that is tied to the new software projects, internal software projects, as well as the IT equipment spending. The rental equipment now, which is the green part and is detailed at the bottom of the slides, it's slightly down, and that's due to the lower MRS rental placements. Okay. Despite the ongoing deployment of parcel locker contracts in Japan, in France, as well as the initial lockers in the U.K.
The rental equipment CapEx is obviously expected to intensify in H2 due to the pace of the rollout, accelerating in lockers and notably in the U.K., as well as the new mailing system range deployment, the iX-Series in the U.S., and the U.K. Moving now to slide 25. The net financial debt is very stable, and despite the Forex impact, the leverage, excluding leasing, still continues to decrease compared to end of year. It was 1.9 x, now 1.8 x when excluding IFRS 16. The trajectory to our commitment at 1.75 x by end of fiscal year 2023 is all the more important as the interest rates are further increasing on the market.
It's critical to remember that our net financial debt is fully covered by our leasing receivables and rental future cash flow. Those hold a very limited default rate, hence putting Quadient in a particularly safe position regarding its financial obligations. Moving now to slide 26. With refinancing anticipated last year, Quadient enjoys a strong position with no major refinancing before 2025. The liquidity remains very strong with EUR 131 million of cash, which has normalized after the reimbursement of OCEANE, and the EUR 400 million still available of undrawn credit facility. Now we'll hand over to Geoffrey for the 2022 outlook.
Thank you, Laurent. Before we turn to the outlook, let me tell you a few words on the current macro environment. As we had anticipated, 2022 is bringing challenges that we're taking obviously very seriously. Recession risks are high, and inflation is running at levels we have not seen for decades. Yet, as you can see, we are positive regarding our outlook for H2, as we expect a significant increase in revenue in terms of revenue growth and profitability. From a macro standpoint, our exposure to North America, for more than 58% of major operations, is a positive, as we have a well-balanced and diversified exposure to different markets. Our business model is strong, as we now have more than two-thirds of our revenue, which is recurring. We have that across our three solutions.
We hold leading position in all our markets which provide us with some pricing power. Looking now specifically at some of them, at ICA, the very strong dynamic of ARR growth will translate into further acceleration of the subscription-related revenue for the second semester. We are also confident that this dynamic will not stop, and we do expect growth in ARR to continue, thanks to both our successful cross-sell approach, but also increasing in direct and up-sell momentum. The launch of our account payable and account receivable products in new markets will also participate to the steady growth from our software division in the coming quarters in the coming years. Our Mail-Related Solutions performed very well in the first semester based on the review we've done with Laurent du Passage.
We continue to build upon this positive performance into H2. We continue to invest and launch new products, and they contribute to this outperformance versus the market. In addition, ongoing contract deployments for parcel locker solution should also confirm the positive trends we've seen in the second quarter. If I summarize also one of the key items that we described with Laurent, our backlog is high at the end of this first semester. It's 59% higher than it was last year at the same period for both parcel locker solutions and mail-related solution products, which is another reason why we expect improvement in H2. Turning to profitability, we expect to benefit from the full impact from the price increase we have done, either through indexation, also through dynamic pricing.
Last but not least, the comparison basis that has been quite demanding in the recent quarter should finally return to a more normalized level. Given all these tangible factors, we're confident that H2 performance will show a sharp contrast with the first semester at profitability level as well. Naturally, moving to slide 29, for the full year 2022, we are confirming our guidance for organic sales growth of at least 2% and a low- to mid-single-digit organic growth in current EBIT for the full year. Beyond the full year 2022 guidance, we also reiterate our midterm guidance out to 2023. With this, we are at the end of this presentation, so I wanna thank you for obviously all your attention. With Catherine and Laurent and the team, we're ready to take your questions.
We will start with the questions on the line.
If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. Please ensure your line is unmuted locally as you will be advised when to ask your question. Once again, that's star one if you would like to ask a question. The first question comes from the line of Patrick Jousseaume from Société Générale. Please go ahead.
Yes. Good evening, everybody.
Good evening, Patrick.
Good evening. First off, thank you for this presentation. I have a very quick one from my side, which is on slide 17. You have 5% of the revenue of major operation outside of Europe and North America. International 5% means around EUR 25 million. Could you share with us what is approximately the part of Japan and the part of other countries?
Half is Japan, half is the rest.
Japan around 12.1, between EUR 10 million and EUR 15 million.
Correct.
Okay. Thank you a lot.
Thank you, Patrick.
We currently have no questions in the queue. As another reminder, please press star one if you would like to ask a question.
Maybe while we wait for question, we can take a question from the web. First question is, are the MRS and PLS activities in additional operations still intended to be sold?
Okay. I think we've been very clear in the Capital Markets Day of 2019 and then again in 2021, that the additional operations were not the only assets to be sold. They were the assets to be either grown, improved or exited. I think we've been moving already a part of this additional operation into international operations back in 2020. Hence the remaining activity in additional operation still is responding to this criteria. As we mentioned, the reshaping was over. Yes, the underlying statement is that both MRS and parcel locker activities within additional operation are expected to be kept within Cogedim Group. We are likely at some point to be able to merge them with our major operation now, knowing that it's only our major solutions activities.
I think we have questions on the line.
The next question comes from the line of Jean-François Granjon from Oddo. Please go ahead.
Yes, good evening. Three questions, please. Could you come back on the main cost, salaries, transport, energy, what you expect not only for the next seven months, but for sure for 2023? Do you seem to offset this increase of costs in the coming months? The second question concerns the rates for the debt. Should you amend the debt between the fixed rate and the flexible rate? How do you see the risk in terms of increase of interest rates? The last question. Due to the inflation, do you expect some increase for the CapEx plan? We expect between EUR 110 million and EUR 120 million.
Do you see an increase due to inflation for the CapEx? Thank you.
I'll take, Laurent, the first one.
Okay.
You take the second one and maybe the third one.
No problem.
On the inflation, it's a good question, Jean-François. We had experienced inflation since last year, and it continued into 2022. Last year, the real impact for us of the inflation, even though we had started to see some salary increases already in H2 last year, financially, in terms of material impact, we have summarized that as a EUR 10 million impact, mostly impacting H2, and mostly related to the increase in shipping costs, really to ship our product from Asia to Europe and Asia to the U.S. This is something that we have said, that we've seen continuing into H1 this year.
Based on the comment I believe that Laurent shared with you, when we look at the gross margin being slightly better or stable versus last year at the same period, when in H1 there was no inflation, we could see that through our price increase, we have been able to absorb the inflation coming from the supply chain cost increase. As we get into H2 or next year, it's always difficult to predict on this portion related to the inflation. We've seen since the beginning of the summer a reduction of the shipping rates.
The cost of moving containers from Asia to Europe and to the U.S., has significantly reduced, not at the same level, obviously, as it was pre-increase, but it seems that we have more, obviously, tailwinds than headwinds on that front. Knowing that we have demonstrated our capacity to have a dynamic pricing adjustment on the placement of new hardware, we feel reasonably confident at this stage that the pressure is reducing.
On the other hand, when we look at the salaries, mostly, which is the salary, I would say, in some of the marketing and travel activities, airfares cost more to retain and attract key talent, in particular on software, but not just on software. It was the case also across our three main solutions, on service, on sales engineering, on marketing. We had to increase salaries. That is roughly in line with the inflation rate you could see on the market, obviously differentiated by country. We likely, like what you could see, anticipate some continuation of those inflation getting into next year.
Whether by the beginning of next year they will be a little bit less or more, we do expect that inflation to continue and to basically translate into higher salaries for us. I think like in on the supply chain costs, you could see that we have been able to absorb those inflationary pressure on salaries on MRS, because the MRS solution profitability is being stable in H1 this year. That means they've been able to absorb not only the supply chain costs, but also the increase in salaries across the team. We are making good progress in the case of ICA to be able to translate some of those inflationary pressure on the OpEx into price increase. We expect most of the benefit to come in the second semester.
As it relates to next year, we'll look at it when we get there, but the same thing I think that we've seen is that we feel now more reasonably confident of our pricing power, if you want, or capacity to manage the inflation in cost with respect to the profitability. Not knowing exactly what it could be, we feel in more better, you know, more comfortable and better position to deal with it as it comes along.
We'll take the second one, which was on around the cost of debt. Thanks for asking this point. Today we have at the end of July a total debt standing at around EUR 854 million if I exclude the IFRS 16 debt. Out of that, you have roughly 30%, which holds a variable rate, and 70% which holds a fixed rate. The sensitivity to the change in rate exists, even if it has a somehow limited impact to that portion of 30%. In a nutshell, if I can comment, the first point is that we don't have short-term debt refinancing requirements.
Second, that, yes, this part in variable rate has an impact on the cost of debt. That is, will tend to increase. To illustrate that, basically you can do the math, but every 100 basis points of increase of the rates on the market basically will impact us by around EUR 2.5 million per year. That being said, as a quick side comment, you also have an optical effect, which is basically we are paying today the debt that was used to reimburse the OCEANE. The cost of this debt will appear in the P&L, but it will be much lower. Even with increasing rates, then the level of cash we were bringing out, which was around EUR 8.9 million per year, to pay the equivalent dividend to the OCEANE holders.
All in all, we still have a way better situation today, well, from a cash standpoint than we had yesterday. Now, we still have, yes, you're right, relatively limited exposure to the 30% of the debt that is at a variable rate. Then the last question was around the CapEx envelope, if I remember well.
Yes.
The CapEx for one specifically, you raised a very fair point, Jean-François, which is we communicated in the Capital Markets Day of 2021 of an envelope of EUR 40 million plus per annum, which is a EUR 120 million envelope for the three years. You are questioning basically the validity of this envelope to date. Last year we spent, if I can remember well, EUR 29 million of CapEx. In this one here, we only have EUR 13 million. That being said, Laurent, even if you would basically drive a slight increase of CapEx next year, because we said we are starting to roll out significantly the U.K., open network. If you assume that we'd be at the same level of last year, you will still be below the 40 million per annum.
That being said, the intensity of the rollout we expect on large projects, that some are still in the pipeline, but some are basically in a rollout mode like the U.K., for parcel locker, makes that the envelope of EUR 120 million is still valid because we expect a significant increase of deployments in 2023, but already in H2 2022.
With no impact from the inflation on the cost of manufacturing the product at this stage?
No.
Let's move to some questions on the web. There's a number of question on price increases, so I'll ask them together. To what extent have you increased your price in each segment? How is price hikes welcomed by customers? Is there a segment where it is more difficult to pass price hike? That's generally across all our segments. Specifically on MRS, what is the index used in the MRS installed base, and is it linked to the general inflation?
Sure. I'll take the first part, and Laurent you can answer the second one. We do have passed a price increase across the three solutions, and across all aspect of the business, whether they were placement or, you know, new customers or whether it's on the existing revenues. The level have been differentiated also by solution, depending on the needs and the impact that we had from inflation. I think there's also, in terms of acceptance from customers, it's a timing issue, naturally. You can appreciate that customers have been much more educated as we get into the full 2022, along the year versus the beginning of last year. I think there is a general understanding and acceptance of why the price has to increase.
We are in a very credible and legitimate position to share the reason of those increase with our customers. Generally speaking, we are not getting pushback in the sense that customers don't never like it. We don't like to do it neither. I think there's been a general acceptance around that. I think that has allowed us to remain competitive on the market and we have not degraded our win-loss ratios, for example, with our customers across the three solutions. I think the difference is that because we have a recurring business model, because we have contracts that are renewed every year or after several years, we have contract with price-based volume. The moment we increase our price list, if you want, to the moment we get the benefit.
This is where I think from a phasing perspective, there is natural delay or a period in which we make a decision in which we see the return. Last year, we definitely focus on the placement of new hardware for both MRS and PLS. We see now the benefit with a stable growth rate, or growth margin rate, sorry, for both of them. Same thing when we're on the recurring portion, whether it's for MRS, whether it's for PLS, and whether it's for ICA, we need to have the opportunity to do those price increase. When the contract renewals come, every month you have the opportunity to some extent on an annual basis, so one third of your customers, to have that discussion.
In some cases, the discussion is automatic when you have index, and I'll let Laurent respond to this one on MRS. That's part of a contract renewal. Sometimes it is capped for a few years after an initial period of time. That's all the know-how on the install base management is to do that properly. This is also why we expect some additional benefit from those actions taken into H2 profitability and contribution as we get into H2.
In terms of indices, the answer is as wide as the number of countries we operate in and the number of business we are in. Just as a sample to give you an idea, in software for France we will be indexed on the Syntec index. In the U.K., when it goes to the local business, we typically be on the RPI, the Retail Price Index. We also have on the mailing side several indexation depending on the country.
I would say that you have also by solution, some specificities, around basically the length of the contract, the initial commitment, that eventually the customer will be locked in and at the same price, at the same time have locked the price. Basically, those are the typical index we would have our contracts on.
Just a follow-up one on cost increase. How long is the lag between the cost increase and the price adjustment?
Typically, if you look at the software business, which is, I think where we see the lag because the business model is basically to have deferred revenue that will only be recognized across the period of the contract. You would expect that for a large amount of our contracts, we are on a yearly basis commitment and re-yearly price revision. Over a full year, yes, you could expect that the full contracts have been revised and will materialize into the revenue.
Moving to parcel locker. Especially our U.K., open network. How is the competition playing out in the U.K.? Are attractive locations becoming increasingly embattled as you and your competitors accelerate the rollout of the lockers?
It's a very good question. Part of the strategy for us of having a successful open network in a given country, there's a few key things that need to happen. One is definitely the density, hence why the commitment to bring 5,000 installation in the U.K. network, considering the smaller base that exists today from the competition, and it's also based on the learnings and the know-how we gain on how to manage and operate a successful network, for example, in Japan and other countries. From that density, we want obviously to have good usage, and there's many things that plays into the usage, and one of the things is obviously having a good location.
That's also how we learn, and the know-how that we have gained across several countries now is try to have a few things, how to select the right locations and work with our partners, with the carriers. This is why by being agnostic and open to work as partners with the carriers, we find together what are the best location and leverage also their insight and knowledge about where do they deliver their customers today, rather than just theoretically thinking what is a good location. Also after that is to manage the usage and therefore having also the capability to adjust up and down the capacity of a given installation or move a location from one place if it's not a good location, in terms of the usage not being per expectation and being able to relocate those installations.
That's all the know-how I believe that we have acquired on how to design and choose the right location for 5,000 installations in the U.K. As it is with the U.K., there's some penetration from the competition because we're definitely catching up with this advanced capabilities. We're differentiating ourselves to just not do the deliveries for ourselves, but manage also the returns, so that we'll have an increased benefit for the players leveraging our network. It's also the reason for the location we will pick, and that's why we have already secured half of the first 500 locations, I think this year more than 250, maybe 300 locations.
They are gonna be obviously prime location working with networks of distribution or different companies that will be able to benefit from the installation of our lockers, and we will benefit from the attractive location they also provide.
Let's turn back to the call. I think we have another question.
The next question comes from the line of Patrick Jousseaume from Société Générale. Please go ahead.
Yes, a quick follow-up for me, please. Regarding the + 60% increase in the level of backlog that you mentioned on slide 28 for PLS and MRS, could you be, I mean, a bit more specific about what this + 60% represents? What level of backlog do we speak? Do we speak about EUR 10 million or EUR 100 million? I mean, just to understand what this 60% means.
It's actually a very good question because we also have one on the line asking the same question, but in terms of how many months of activity does that represent?
In terms of the backlog, well, the 60% increase represents the value of the remaining backlog we have at the end of the period versus the same period the last period. It's the value of placement of hardware or equipment that we have for MRS and PLS that is increased by 60% versus the same thing at the end of H1 last year. As part of that, we have to give a little bit more color, and I speak under the control of Laurent. We have a backlog, usually speaking, that's probably half between, in terms of value between PLS and MRS. If you see it move a little bit. One half on for MRS, usually at the time, it used to be less than...
It used to be between around 6 weeks to be able to consume or deliver the backlog to our customers. Since the COVID happened, it usually take for MRS 3 - 4 months, a little bit more, 4 months on average, to be able to deliver all of the orders that were placed to us. In the case of PLS, it's a little bit differentiated. If we were to give it a bit more color, because most of the backlog is related obviously to the activities we have in the U.S., which is related to the property management segment. In the property management segment, we have two type of orders. Let's say 50% or 40%, 40%. 40% related to existing building, in which we're gonna retrofit the building and adding an existing building the locker.
It takes also probably around 4 months, a little bit more, not much more, to be able to deliver them. Then there's the other half of the 40% left, because we have other segment for which is related to constructions of new properties. We are dependent on this one on the time it takes sometimes for this construction to be fully finished. We could say that we take over 18 months or 15 months. Over 18, 15 months, we complete 90% of the backlog. It could come obviously much sooner during the first 8, 15 months.
That time has elongated since the COVID environment, as it takes more time for construction to be finished and get all the different activities fully in order, synchronized, and scheduled, hence the delays that we've seen during the COVID timeframe.
I think it's very clear, Geoffrey.
Staying on PLS, what is the share of fee per parcel locker in your installation?
I'm not sure about the question.
Yeah, I did not fully understand the question either.
Is the question what is the part of our revenue tied to volume?
Is the question which of our installed lockers include a portion of revenue that is a fee per parcel, which is a slightly different question. I will try to address the best I can on this question. When it comes to the revenue, today, most of our rental base, which is approximately half of our installed base in lockers, most of our rental base is in the rental mode that is not directly tied for the vast majority of this revenue to the volume of parcel flowing through this locker.
That being said, it still accounts for, I would say, negligible amount for the Japanese lockers, where we have a portion of that locker that is open to Sagawa, Japan Post that would be based on the fee per parcel. That being said, this will change in the future. Why? Because we are now rolling out a U.K., open network that again will be partially, I would say, priced per parcel. This price per parcel will account for significant portion of the revenue of these lockers. That's, I think, the first part of the answer.
The second part, I would say that based if you look at the lockers installed, the vast majority of the installed base in the rental mode holds a portion of that that is tied to the fee per parcel.
Sustainable solutions. Moving on to ICA, what is the number of new customer adds in ICA this quarter, and how much are generated by AP and AR solutions?
I'll take this one. Last quarter we mentioned we had around 12,000 customers of ICA. The additional customers for Q2 are very close to the number of additions we had in Q1, which is a bit north of 400 customers. Out of that AP and AR accounts for a significant portion, which is about one-third of those acquisitions.
Last question for the moment. A question more generally on the group.
Mm-hmm.
In terms of the consensus for current EBIT, which currently stands at EUR 157 million. Is it consistent with your guidance and your pipeline of your business pipeline?
I'll take this one, I think. The difficulty in a year for, like, 2022 is obviously to understand at which rate this consensus is basically computed. I take the example of H1. We reported EUR 65 million. Basically, at last year's rate it would have been EUR 58 million, which on the bridge. I will put it in other words, our guidance is based on organic growth of EBIT pro forma, which is basically excluding the scope and the currency effect. Last year we reported EUR 147 million of EBIT before M&A related expenses. We have made divestment, which was the APS, and now we've made divestments regarding Graphics in Nordics and Shipping Software.
All being put together, you have a pro forma EBIT. Whatever price you take, as a solution for the consensus, yes, this will be in line with our guidance.
There is no further questions.
Thank you, everybody, for your time. Thank you for your question, and we look forward to having further discussion in the coming weeks and until we have our Q3 results. Thank you, Catherine. Thank you, Laurent.
Thank you, Geoffrey. Thank you, Catherine.