Evening, and welcome to Quadient Q2 2025 sales presentation. I am Anne-Sophie Jugean, Quadient's head of investor relations, and I am here today with Geoffrey Godet, CEO, and Laurent Du Passage, CFO. We will have a short presentation followed by a Q&A. You can submit your questions in writing through the web or ask questions live by dialing into the conference call. Thank you very much, and with that, over to you, Geoffrey.
Thank you, Anne-Sophie. Good evening, everybody. For the first quarter of 2025, we posted EUR 258 million in revenue. This represents a 1.1% reported decline compared to the same period last year. As we highlighted during our last result conference call, this performance was, for the most part, anticipated. As you'll remember, I set the expectation we would have a low Q1 and a progressive improvement quarter after quarter. In terms of Q1 solution achievement, I want to highlight a few things. We have, once again, posted another strong quarter for our digital and low-cost solutions, with double-digit growth in subscription-related revenue for both solutions. Their strong performance underscored the strengths and the success of our offering against our competition, and the fast pace of innovation that we bring today to our customers.
In the first quarter, we experienced also a low point in the renewal cycle of mail equipment, impacting the performance of our mail business. This is a cyclical trend that we had expected, and we anticipate a recovery in our mail activity as we move forward. Additionally, this performance was amplified by the challenging macroeconomic environment, notably in the U.S., a factor many companies currently are navigating. Despite this mild top-line decline in Q1, I'm very pleased to say that our current EBIT has been growing organically compared to last year, and supported by the EBITDA margin positive development in all three solutions. Let me repeat: in all three solutions. Our teams have demonstrated strong operational discipline by continuing to deliver steady profitability increase in our digital solution over the last two years, and now, more recently, over the last 12 months for our low-cost solutions.
Despite its lower top line, our Mail Solution also slightly improved its EBITDA margin, as it benefited from the Frama integration. Looking ahead, we're confident in a stronger second half of 2025, and as I have just mentioned, we expect to see a progressive recovery in mail. Additionally, our momentum in digital and low-cost is set to remain strong, with further improvements in their profitability that is expected. Our order pipeline across all solutions is promising as well, indicating a healthy demand for our offerings. Naturally, based on these expectations, we are maintaining our full year 2025 guidance. Laurent, over to you.
Moving to slide six, thank you, Geoffrey. I would like to draw your attention to some noticeable movements in our shareholding. The Swiss hedge fund, Tellius, exited the shareholder base early April, after having reduced their position to below 5% on March 27. Conversely, Visa Equity Investment, our largest shareholder, controlled by Daniel Kaczynski, has further demonstrated its long-term commitment, increasing its ownership to 22.6% as of April 1, up from 16.5% at the end of January. The legal crossing notification associated with this movement can be found on the AMF website. Let me now give you the details of the Q1 sales performance.
As you can see on the left-hand side, Q1 2025 is done organically by 2.5%, explained by a lower mail placement in the U.S., while we saw continued growth in the recurring revenue, which is good news, and now represents 75% of total revenue, up from 72% last year. This reflects the strength of our subscription-based model. On the right-hand side, geographically, North America has always been positive since COVID, but indeed marks a decline this quarter, notably due to the lower point in the renewal cycle of mail equipment that was mentioned by Geoffrey, reinforced by the macroeconomic headwinds. In Europe, we can see the same trends as last year, but some countries are performing well or very well, notably the U.K., which demonstrates good performance in all solutions. Moving now to slide nine to see the bridge between Q1 last year and Q1 this year.
This waterfall chart illustrates the key driver behind the revenue evolution from Q1 last year to Q1 this year. Starting with EUR 261 million that we published last year, we see a EUR 4 million positive scope effect from the acquisition of Package Concierge. Digital and low-cost contributed positively, with digital adding EUR 4 million and low-cost adding EUR 3 million. However, the mail saw a EUR 14 million decline, the majority being related to hardware. Currency effects were neutral this quarter, as you can see on the right-hand side, with the US dollar stronger at the beginning of the quarter and the software at the end. The net result is a EUR 3 million decrease or minus 1.1% reported, bringing us to EUR 258 million. Over to you, Geoffrey, to give some details on our digital business.
Thank you, Laurent. Let me now comment on some of the key Q1 highlights for our Digital Automation Platform. In the quarter, we announced a strategic partnership to enhance our cloud payment capabilities for businesses globally and overseas. As a result, we are now providing businesses of all sizes with a unified platform to manage their B2B payments more efficiently, securely, and at a scale into our cloud-based Financial Automation solution. Looking at the bottom left of the slide, you'll see that our share of SaaS customers continued to grow consistently, now even reaching 84.6% at the end of April. This steady increase reflects the successful transition of our SaaS Digital Automation Platform. Finally, in the middle and the right section of the slide, you can see that Quadient received again multiple leadership recognitions from Independent Analyst Report this quarter.
I'm not going to detail each one, but I want to specifically highlight our recognition in Gartner and Forrester reports for Financial Automation. I want to stress that this is particularly important because for years, we've been very well positioned in the customer communication management segment, as you know, and have also successfully expanded into what we call the Customer Experience Management, or CXM. When we first launched our accounts payable or accounts receivable automation solutions, we were not even in these rankings. Now, we have achieved the same high rankings in AP and AR as we have in our established CCM and CXM offerings. These recognitions truly illustrate Quadient's strong positioning as a best-of-suite leader for the office of the CFO segment. Now, I'd like to move to the next topic. I am thrilled to share an exciting development in our digital Financial Automation strategy.
Simply put, the acquisition of Cerenzia. Cerenzia, for the one of you that don't know, is a recognized e-invoicing platform, PDP, officially registered with the French government, which is a strategic advantage as France prepares for mandatory e-invoicing. Cerenzia solutions are already widely adopted, and they process nearly 200 million invoices annually already. There are strong synergies between Quadient customers' segments and Cerenzia clients as well. Their portfolio of customers includes the marquee or major industry leaders like TotalEnergies, Dalkia, RATP, or RATP, but also small and mid-sized businesses alike. They also have a strong penetration within the established professional networks such as Dext and Cerfrance, the accounting and the business advisory network in France. Additionally, I wanted to bring that Cerenzia brings a number of valuable relationships with recognized institutional partners and key certifications for us moving forward.
This acquisition significantly enriched our IP, our intellectual property portfolio, from a software perspective, allowing us to expand our addressable market with a truly end-to-end invoicing platform embedded in our Financial Automation solution. This strategic move immediately equips us with a first-class software IP for its PDP platform, what we call in French the partner dematerialization platform, which is registered again by the French state, and is ready to meet the upcoming regulatory requirements. It also includes what we call a PEPPOL access point, which can give us access to the broader European market for invoicing standards. Naturally, this acquisition strengthens Quadient's finance automation portfolio, providing us with greater control and more autonomy, which is actually an advantage in this dynamic market environment.
It also helps us deliver what we call an enhanced value proposition for our clients, which creates for us significant upsell potential as we have more modules within the suite. As businesses transition to mandatory invoicing, we can now offer them a complete suite: our obviously newly acquired PDP capabilities, online payments, e-invoicing, accounts payable, accounts receivable, credit analysis, hybrid mail, etc. We have got one of the largest, if not the largest, platforms in this domain. Finally, I wanted to conclude that this acquisition for us unlocks significant cross-sell opportunities within our existing customer base, and obviously, I am referring to our mail customer base. Our French mail segment alone serves over 60,000 customers, small, mid-size, and large customers, many of whom will naturally transition from paper to digital invoicing.
Cerenzia capabilities perfectly position us to meet this demand, and this extends also to our European clients as well. This move further accelerates our mail customer digital transformation, providing additional pathways to adopt the invoicing solution, now soon legally mandated across Europe. Over to you, Laurent.
Thank you, Geoffrey. Now in numbers, when looking at the sales for digital, the bar chart on the left shows an acceleration in subscription-related revenue compared to last year, Q4, and also the full year of last year. It is growing now by 11.1%, and it is allowing the total revenue growth from EUR 63 million in Q1 last year to EUR 67 million this quarter. It is a 7.2% organic increase. This growth is driven by strong performance across all regions, particularly in North America and the U.K. Non-recurring revenue was down year-on-year, reflecting high comparison bases in Q1 2024 due to some perpetual deals, while professional services are up. Our annual recurring revenue has reached EUR 237 million, up 9.6% on a full year basis. This reflects robust cross-selling with mail customers and strong new customer acquisition in the enterprise segment.
While ARR evolution is affected somehow by volume, the commercial momentum remains very solid. Now, over to you, Geoffrey, for a business update on our mail division.
Of course, Laurent. I'm also very proud to announce that our solution offering Secure Mailing, a multi-carrier cloud-based platform, has received what we call the FedRAMP authorization. This designation is a major milestone for Quadient, as the FedRAMP authorization is the highest level of security review available for the federal government SaaS vendors in the U.S. This designation is significantly expanding the ability for us to serve the U.S. federal government agencies and is reinforcing our position as a trusted provider of secure, compliant solutions across all sectors. We're also seeing client success, and I'll give you one example illustrated by the expanded partnership we have with the University of Pittsburgh. Having long used our parcel locker system, they are now integrating our comprehensive mail management solution. This is another example that illustrates the cross-sell potential that exists across our diverse business segments and all our customers.
Over to you, Laurent.
As anticipated, mail revenue in Q1 2025 experienced a notable decline, with hardware sales down by 15.8%. This was largely driven by the echo effect of the COVID period. With our contract being five years long, we are seeing fewer equipment up for renewal for this quarter. It is a direct consequence of the lower hardware placement during the pandemic. In the U.S., this trend was further amplified by a strong comparison base from Q1 2024 last year, which had benefited from the decertification that drove up and gave a boost to the sales, obviously, and by the ongoing economic uncertainty, delaying some customer decisions. Despite these headwinds, Quadient continues to outperform the market. Commercial momentum remains strong, with double-digit growth in cross-sell activity to locker and a 50% increase in digital order intake.
Looking ahead, we anticipate a stronger second half, supported by a growing portfolio of contracts up for renewal, and notably due to the increase of contracts that we signed after COVID, and of course, also thanks to a robust commercial pipeline. Over to you now, Geoffrey, for our locker business.
Turning to slide 15 in our locker business, our install base reached approximately 26,100 units at the end of Q1 2025, thanks to an accelerated pace, actually, of installation within our U.K. open network. Now, I want to share that the performance in the U.K. has been quite exceptional. As you can see on the slide, our open network there has expanded nearly now four-fold over the last 15 months. If we look at it over the same period, the volume of parcels processed has been multiplied by an impressive 11 times over the same period. This strong momentum is a direct result of the strategic partnership that we have established in this country.
On this topic, I want to highlight that we have now just recently signed and extended our partnership, a significant extension with Evri, through a new deal which contemplates both an enlarged access to our lockers network and the consideration of returns via our unique Drop Box functionality. We did not stop there. We also signed another strategic partnership with Stasher, offering travelers nationwide luggage storage service directly through our smart locker network. Both of these collaborations are expected to further drive volume and support continued adoption growth for our parcel locker solutions. Over to you, Laurent.
Thank you, Geoffrey. Lockers continue to be a standout performer, with new growth from EUR 20 million to EUR 27 million this year. In fact, it's a 12.2% organic increase and a EUR 4 million scope effect that resulted in this 35.4% reported growth, with Package Concierge performing as expected. The bar chart shows strong growth in both subscription-related revenue, up 11.4%, and hardware sales, up 12.7%, as mentioned by Geoffrey. This growth is fueled by increased usage in the U.K. and France and higher monetization in the U.S. One-off placement in the international region also contributed to hardware sales. I'm also very pleased to say that we have signed another hardware sales deal in international for around EUR 5 million that will be recognized throughout H2 2025.
With this new significant contract, a growing install base and large volumes perspectives, notably in the U.K., as mentioned by Geoffrey, lockers are well positioned for continued expansion. Moving to slide 17, this slide summarizes our Q1 2025 performance across all business lines as described. Despite the overall 2.5% organic decline, the strong performance in digital and lockers, notably on recurring revenue, sets a solid foundation for the rest of the year. Now, over to you, Geoffrey, for the outlook.
Thank you, Laurent. We acknowledge that Q2 is expected to face probably similar market conditions to the previous quarter and that the ongoing global economic disruption, particularly their impact on the U.S. market, remains difficult to predict at this stage. With this said, I also want to be very clear. We remain very confident in our ability to deliver a stronger performance in the second half of the year. Obviously, our confidence is supported by clear drivers. First, we have had a good start of the year in profitability with an improved EBITDA margin across all our solutions. Moving forward, we anticipate, first, a recovery in mail, particularly in H2, as the renewal cycle of our mail equipment install base should reverse, presenting naturally greater opportunities for us to place new equipment.
We also project sustained strong momentum in digital and in lockers, and both also with further improvement in their respective profitability. We also have quite a promising order pipeline across all our solutions. Naturally, in this context, we are maintaining Quadient's full year 2025 guidance. We continue to expect an acceleration in both organic revenue growth and organic EBIT growth compared to our 2024 growth rate. Thank you. With that, we're ready to take your question with Laurent and Anne-Sophie.
Thank you. If you wish to register for a question, please dial pound key five on your telephone keypad. Our first question comes from the line of Gabriel Santier at Gilbert Dupont. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Can you hear me?
Yes, we can hear you.
Hello. Can you hear me?
Yes.
Okay. Okay, okay. Just one question on my side. We are seeing a slowdown in ARR organic growth, three points, I think, on Q1. Can you just tell us in which sector and countries, specifically the quarter, was more complicated in digital, please?
I would take this one on the other hand. Thanks for asking the question.
I can't hear you, Laurent.
Can you hear me now?
It's better.
Yes? Is it better?
Yes.
Okay.
That's good.
Good question. First thing I think is that the ARR extrapolated growth over four quarters is basically the first quarter times four. Obviously, the sensitivity is higher. Q1 is usually lower in terms of booking due to phasing. The real impact is probably the volume that, as you know, we have volume, non-committed volume, on which we take the average of the past six months. Yes, notably in France, we have lower volume, which is not necessarily a bad thing because it means that those volumes that, for part of it, are production volumes, are in fact digitalizing, which means that overall, this is probably taking us 1.4-1.5 to 2 percentage points of growth on this year.
I think that's the main topic that explains the gap between the full year last year and this Q1, which I don't think is a strategic part of the ARR. I think it's good news probably on the margin side.
Okay. If I can complement Laurent, on the regional side, we had probably double-digit growth in the U.S. The U.K., in particular in Europe, was also a very strong country, stronger than the growth rate of the ARR. That is probably the two outliers in terms of stronger growth in this first part of the year. Also, the indirect channel represented by the mail sales organization has clearly started the year from a very strong footing because they had a growth rate of their booking of more than 50%. The contribution, the channel from the mail side, the cross-sale, has definitely been stronger than the direct sales in Q1.
Okay, very clear. Thanks a lot.
You're welcome.
Thank you. Once again, if you want to register to ask a question, please dial pound key five on your telephone keypad. Our next question comes from the line of Maxence Durie at BNP Paribas. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Yeah, good evening, everyone. Thanks for the presentation. Maybe a first question for me is regarding mail. Could you give us a sense of a breakdown between the COVID echo effect that led to less equipment renewal and the end of the decertification in the U.S.?
That's a good question.
Could you give a broad breakdown?
It's a good question. For Q1, definitely, probably the vast majority of the gap is coming from the COVID effect. Really, the opportunities if you put yourself back five years ago, minus a few months, obviously, because we're not waiting for the customer contract to be renewed, right? We're engaging with customers before the renewal time. If you remember, we had those Q1, Q2 that were the deepest drop in contract renewal at the time and placement of hardware. Therefore, you see that five years later on that. That definitely is the reason why in Q3 and Q4 last year, we've seen already some dip in the placement of hardware. That being said, in Q3 and Q4 2024, it was definitely mitigated because then we had the decertification boost.
The decertification gave the opportunity, on the other hand, for salespeople to engage with customers to make sure we could obviously upgrade the machine before the decertification ends. That is why they were balancing those effects, which we are not seeing anymore in Q1. Definitely, I think it is the lack of opportunity to create in the pipeline the discussion with the customer that is probably the biggest portion of the impact that we see in Q1. It is also why we feel confident that we should, and we do expect a recovery in Q2, in Q3, in Q4. We see at the beginning of Q2, the size of the pipeline naturally increasing as we see more opportunities coming up.
Okay, very clear. Thank you. A few additional questions. It's regarding the Cerenzia deal. Could you come back and explain a bit more of the synergy, as you already had a PDP platform in France? What was lacking in your offer? Could you tell us a bit more regarding the origin of the deal? Did you approach them or they were up for sale? Maybe for the future, what is the timeline to integrate the solution into your offer?
Good question. Thank you. We're going to try to be as complete as we can. If we step back a little bit before I answer specifically the question in terms of approach on the market, when we look at customer requirements, whether they're industry-driven, like a standard for the invoicing mandate or particular features that we believe our customer needs, we always have an approach of basically make, buy, or partner. We decide from many criteria from time to time, either for tactical reason, bandwidth reason, or opportunities on the value that we see to a partner. In the case of the PDP, we had actually white-labeled and we had made partnership with people that had made the development in that PDP capabilities. Therefore, we didn't have the full IP of that particular solution. That was the driver at the time.
We felt that the partnership a few years back was a better way to spend our time in terms of R&D so that we could focus on other priorities in terms of the development we wanted to do ourselves. We came across the Cerenzia opportunity voluntarily because we obviously have we surveyed all the vendors in the market. We were quite impressed by Cerenzia on multiple fronts. One of the three players that did work actually at the time on the PDP platform for the government, even though this one was abandoned. We felt that they had a level of expertise and have demonstrated a know-how in that particular domain that we were always appreciating. They were obviously on our radar for that reason for quite some time. The opportunity came to evaluate them.
Therefore, we could see that the PDP was an opportunity for us now to switch from a partnership to actually a buy. That is giving us the opportunity to have a lot more agility to integrate this technology within our stack. We felt that the integration versus the partnership, right, with the other modules of the suite can give us more flexibility as we get into, I said, the early phases before the mandate comes. Just to remind you, the first date is going to be September 2026. We still have quite some time in front of us. We felt that we could obviously provide stronger upsell opportunities and more flexibility to our customers, especially in our suite and platform approach, where obviously a customer can use one part of the platform and buy or upsell, and we could upsell them additional module later.
That's really the core drivers. In addition to that, Cerenzia is bringing to us a PEPPOL access. Aside of just having also the capability to address the French standards for invoice, with the PEPPOL access point being built into the IP of Cerenzia, we can now have a similar approach in an accelerated view, not just for the French market, but for the rest of the European countries that benefit from the PEPPOL standard. Finally, we were also very impressed with the framework we call on ETL, the capability to handle data and data manipulation. We believe that should also provide us an advancement in the way we integrate with accounting and ERP systems because we have now more than one hundred different of those connectors built.
We believe that this should allow us to bring productivity, cost reduction, and cost reduction in terms of the new connectors, but also the connectors we need to maintain. That is a very relevant IP acquisition for us. Finally, aside from the team, is the customer synergy. We obviously have some customers that are using both our solution and theirs. We believe we could also leverage the customer base for the French market and penetrate further on that. For the last part, I forget what was the third part of the question. Laurent, if you could help me.
The timeline.
It is regarding the timeline to integrate the solution, but my guess is that it is going to be quite easy if the solution is already up to date and with a lot of connectors.
We're looking for a very fast integration because we also have looked at the architecture and the compatibility with our stack. Both on the solution level, but also from a pure corporate level, we're looking for a very fast integration over the next few months.
Okay. Very clear. Thank you. Maybe just another quick one. With Cerenzia, you have several PDP platform solutions. Are you going to keep those different PDP platforms, or is the goal to switch to only one based on the Cerenzia IP?
It was related to different, the PDP we had connected with was corresponding to different needs, particularly that PEPPOL access in Europe, but also the different platform that we have. It is true that now that we have obviously our own PDP, we probably do not have the same need for moving forward from those third parties.
Clear. Thank you.
You're welcome.
Thank you. We will now take our next question from the line of Flavien Baudemont at Bernstein. Please, sir, go ahead.
Good evening to the three of you, and thank you for taking my question. I have still two questions on the Cerenzia acquisition. May we have more detail on the acquisition, but in terms of revenue and valuation, is it fair to estimate that the company generated between EUR 2 million and EUR 3 million of revenue last year? In terms of valuation, considering that I understand that Cerenzia bottom line is negative, can we say that you acquired the company based on a low-to-mid-single EV-to-sales multiple?
For those questions, Flavien, at this time, because it's a fairly competitive market, we do not intend to share specific information as it relates to the revenue or the valuation of the company. That's probably something we could do more later on as the time passes a little bit. Your ratio in terms of revenue, it's a little less than 40 people in this environment. I think that can help you get a good guess of what the revenue could be.
Okay, great. Thank you.
Thank you. As a final reminder, if you want to ask a question, please dial pound key five on your telephone keypad. We are now taking our next question from the line of Jean-François Granjon at Oddo BHF. Please, sir, go ahead.
Yes, good afternoon. Just a question regarding the U.S. situation. You are well exposed to North America with 59% of the global sales. With the current situation and the tariffs, could you appreciate the risk for your business and the potential impact in terms of the business and the earnings for the coming months?
I can take that one, Jean-François. Hello. Thanks for the question. As you all know, the tariffs assumption has been evolving up and down and then changed, etc. It is a moving target in the end. That being said, since there was probably a couple of weeks that it was put on hold for 90 days and we got back to about 10% tariff impact, clearly for us, it is at this stage still a relatively limited impact. We are talking about a couple of million EUR. We obviously took the decision very quickly to increase our prices on the North American hardware, I mean, the U.S. hardware, mostly Dockers and mail, to offset completely that impact. For us at this stage, it is contained and I would say offset by price increase.
We might have more good news because basically U.K. for us is one of the only facilities we have because we outsource the rest. We produce the high-end products in the U.K. that negotiated a free trade. It is helping also in that front. We do not know how things will evolve, but I think we are pretty much covered. We did anticipate with more stock as well at the end of the year. It gave us a little bit of visibility to the end of the year. If I can add a different perspective, historically, Jean-François Grangeon, during the years where we had high inflation too, we have demonstrated our capability to increase the price. We do have the capability in our relationship within our contracts and with our customers to be able to deliver in what Laurent mentioned about the price increase.
Okay, thank you very much.
Thank you. I hand the conference back to the speakers for written questions sent through the webcast. Thank you.
Thank you. We have no further questions on the line. We can start by answering the questions that have been asked in writing. Starting with the questions on Cerenzia acquisition. Will Cerenzia be included in your IRA solution, or will it remain an independent solution?
The goal is clearly to have that part of the platform that we have. Our approach to the market is that we do believe that for most companies, with a few exceptions when they're very large, that companies and particularly CFO, because that's the one we're really focusing on, do not intend to have independent solutions from independent vendors that they have to integrate, connect, and have multiple training. We believe that the simplicity of having one platform that could respond to most of their requirements and their needs is what the customers are asking for today. That is why we see those accelerations in terms of the bookings and the various aspects. Naturally, we do part to offer the PDP as part of the platform.
That being said, on the PDP itself, because of the unique need in the French market, in particular for upcoming, there are other vendors that may not have a PDP. We do feel also that we could develop the business and allow other people to use our PDP technology. Therefore, we will resell the access to that PDP independently. The ballpark and the majority of what we expect is obviously on our platform. This would be a side benefit for us.
Just one comment as a CFO. For sure, being able to be equipped by acquired invoicing here acquired from Cerenzia can be a first step. We all know what is management of invoices incoming or outgoing. We need also to integrate the processes of the cash collection and the process of the payment. That is what we will offer on top of that with APR and the integration that Geoffrey mentioned that will be swift.
Okay, so next question also on Cerenzia acquisition. Will you continue to do M&A this year following the acquisition of Cerenzia? What kind of targets will be interesting for Quadient's growth?
It's a good question. As you know, today, we are one of the largest platforms in our environment. There's nothing hidden about this, but we were obviously larger even than the Esker platform in terms of revenue and size and numbers of customers. We have one of the largest in terms of module and capabilities that are being integrated today. We definitely are self more as a consolidator. That being said, in all the targets that we have shared with our community, with the investors, the 2030 target, the 2020 target, we do not need any acquisition to achieve those numbers. Our approach, and also I should add that we have also a large team of developers that is super efficient and at the edge of everything that we do today in terms of technology, integrating AI capabilities.
We feel that we have the organic capability to build the capabilities that we need. That being said, we remain opportunist. Like we've been in the past, we have integrated in the platform a few other capabilities such as the form, digital form capability a year ago. There was an acquisition that was made out of Canada. When we see some opportunities and we think that they are valuable for us and we could have a good return on them, obviously, we do not hesitate.
Now we can move to lockers. First question on lockers. What is the utilization rate of lockers in the U.K. in the first quarter of the year?
We do not share, unfortunately, the utilization by base for various reasons. What we could say is that the increase on the different flows are significant in Q1, even over Q4. We have seen now probably for six quarters in a row, almost 100% increase quarter over quarter. We see really an exponential adoption, which is the combination of the numbers of players we integrate. They were not integrated all at the same time. As the quarter passes, we integrate new partners. For each partner, or the carriers in that particular case, we do not enable all their capabilities in the same quarter, same months. If I summarize, even though there are probably 10 different points of integration, two of the main ones could be a delivery flow, or it could be the capability to manage the returns.
Those capabilities are being enabled over time. On top of that, we obviously have an install base that increased, and we've been accelerating the numbers of installation. In addition, there is obviously the patterns and the usage of the consumers that take the habit to use a locker. As you could see definitely that as there's a curve of adoption, and that makes all the reason why quarter over quarter, we still have today an increase in usage that is significant quarter over quarter. That being said, our locker are still not full, naturally in the U.K., even though some locations are already full, but not the entire network. We're looking at obviously managing the profitability of each location.
When we have a locker that has reached full profitability or usage, we look sometimes at either finding another location close by or increasing the numbers of boxes or columns in that particular location. That's the progress that we are enjoying today from the U.K. utilization.
How many lockers represent the EUR 5 million deal in the international segment?
We don't disclose for each deal that we do a number of lockers because depending on the configuration of the size of what comes into it, it would vary. It wouldn't mean that an ASP lower or higher would be better or worse. In a nutshell, it's a couple of hundred that we are talking about, but we don't disclose a specific number on that.
We have one more question on lockers. Could you elaborate on the Evri contract? Does it make a difference to the profitability of the locker base?
Let me take it. Okay, I can take it. So, Evri, as you know, is one of the carriers that is extensively using our network in the U.K. Obviously, as any open network, the more volume and the more usage we get, the more profitability we get because basically you have, apart from that, you have almost only fixed cost. That is the beauty of the model, is how do we maximize the volume. And Evri, who is already a good partner, will have the opportunity to become an even better partner in the coming time. We will generate more volume than generated for the given open network that we have. Yes, it is good news for both clearly revenue, but especially for the bottom line.
Thank you, Laurent. Now let's move to the questions on mail. Could you detail the performance in Europe? What was the performance for mail in Europe, which has not been suffering from the U.S. base effect? Is it due to, is the decline due to the, from attrition?
In Europe, the performance in mail is quite consistent with what we had in the past. There is no significant drop. As I mentioned in the first slide, the revenue by geography at the group level, you saw the NORAM segment was declining, which used to be growing in the past, and that is purely the impact of mail. In Europe, the performance has been relatively similar to the past quarters. There is nothing specific to be mentioned apart from the fact that Geoffrey mentioned the profitability for the group and by solution have been all evolving positively. That is, of course, one of the reasons is the integration of Frama, that is now delivering the benefits of the restructuring that has happened last year.
Next question still on mail. From a general perspective, the decrease in revenue is mainly from non-recurring revenues. Are those non-recurring revenues less profitable than subscriptions? Is this effect explaining the good performance of EBIT in Q1 while overall the revenue decreased?
There is a dilutive effect of hardware. That is true. That is part of the answer. The other part is the Frama integration.
Thank you, Laurent. Last question on mail. If mail customers have not renewed their subscription in Q1, does it mean they stopped using their mail equipment and returned it to you?
I'm just going to take that one as well. Olivier, thanks for the question. I'm trying to get the sense of the question behind. I will answer in two ways. The first way is here in Q1, the drop is not necessarily due to the fact that people have stopped their contract. It's really due to the fact that when we position the hardware or when we change the hardware of a customer, we recognize the hardware. Here, the phasing of the install base made the Q1 relatively low comparatively to the past in renewal, also due to the COVID effect because five years ago we had lower placements. Five years down the road after the five-year contract, we have less opportunity to replace this machine and to generate again the revenue.
That being said, in a normal situation, regardless of Q1 or any other quarter, if one day a customer decides to stop, he only has the opportunity at the end of the contract. If he wants to do before, he has penalties. He needs to pay basically the amounts to the end of the contract. If he stops, he will hand us back the machine, which is good news for us from a supply chain standpoint because we do remanufacturing for most of it.
I think formally we could say that our conciliation rate has not moved.
Absolutely. That's really what you described, which is the missed opportunity of new discussion that just didn't happen, which could be delayed, by the way. It doesn't mean that there is an end to the contract.
It's not the reason for the declining Q1 for me.
Thank you, Laurent and Geoffrey. We have no further questions at this time, so we can close the call. Thank you very much for attending this presentation and for your questions. Our next call will be on the 24th of September for our half-year 2025 results release. In the meantime, we look forward to meeting some of you in the coming days during our shows. Thank you and have a good evening.
Thank you.
Thank you.