Hello, and welcome to the Teleperformance Q3 revenue. Please note this conference is being recorded and for the duration of the call, your lines will be on listen only. However, you will have the opportunity to ask questions at the end of the presentation. This can be done by pressing star one on your telephone keypad to register your question. If you require assistance at any point, please press star zero and you will be connected to an operator. I will now hand over to your host, Olivier Rigaudy, Deputy CEO of Teleperformance, to begin today's conference. Thank you.
Thank you. Good morning, good evening, everyone, and thank you for all your presence today. For those who are in holiday, I'm happy to have you online tonight. I'm very happy, of course, to be with you through this call to comment on Teleperformance group revenue as of September 30, 2021, outlook for the full year. I'm hosting this call from Paris with Investor Relations team. Quy Nguyen-Ngoc, our head of Investor Relations, has primary comment to make before starting the presentation.
Thank you, Olivier. Hello, everybody. Financial press release related to the third quarter of 2021 revenue has been published today at 5:45 P.M. Paris time. Slides of the presentations are available on Teleperformance website in the Financial Publications page of the Investor Relations section. As usual, Olivier's presentation will be followed by a Q&A session. I remind you that a replay of the conference call will be available tonight by dialing numbers mentioned in the invitation to the presentation. Today's call contains forward-looking statements that address our expected future performance and that, by their nature, address matters that are uncertain. These expectations are subject to a number of factors and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those described in the forward-looking statements.
For a detailed description of these factors and uncertainties, please refer to the Risk and Control section in our 2020 universal registration document available on Teleperformance website. Now, I leave the floor to Olivier.
Let's start with the first slide of this presentation that gives you a light on the figures that we have just released. Two or three things to tell. First of all, we are continuing to deliver a strong revenue growth up 31% like-for-like for the nine months of 2021, and up 20.8% like-for-like in Q3 2021. We continue to deliver an exceptional growth in this quarter, even if it's a little lower than before, given the comparison basis, mainly. This strong sales momentum is driven by accelerating market digitalization. I know you heard that for some quarters in a row now, but it is always the same story, and it's happening. It's continuing.
Third point, this growth not only is solid but also is responsible. We continue to develop an efficient, responsible hybrid business model working out. In the meantime, we work from home and on-site solution. Still today, 70% of our group employees are working from home. Just a point that need to be noticed, we have been named one of the 25 world's best places to work, sorry, across all industry by Fortune Magazine in partnership with Great Place to Work. I just wanted to highlight that we are the only French company to be listed here and, of course, the only BPO company, too. We have also set new, ambitious carbon emission reduction targets that have been just approved early September by the science-based target initiative called SBTi.
Once we say that we have also committed to raise our revenue growth and margin targets for the full year. Yeah, I'll come back in a minute to that. Let's move to the following slide. This is the slide on page four, the quarter information. Again, few things to tell. Strong underlying growth in Q3, EUR 1,175 million versus EUR 1.4 million 2018 last year, which is a very good growth today. On a nine-month basis, 31% like-for-like growth. We know that the growth is less exceptional in Q3 than it was still before, but it's still astonishing.
We know that we have a higher bases comprising in H2, and we have a lower contribution from COVID contract as expected. Let's go to the next slide. If we want to analyze much more in detail the growth on page five, we still have a currency effect of EUR 153 million, which is negative. I just wanted to highlight that here that is exactly the same that we had in H1. In fact, what is explaining, showing that U.S., dollar is starting to be positive for us and will have again an impact in Q4, notably on translation, but maybe also on transaction.
You have the like-for-like growth 1.2%, EUR 20 billion, well, EUR 120 million more for the revenue for the first nine months, and the smallest change in scope of EUR 31 million coming from SSAGK that has been consolidated since the first of July. That are the main fact to be noticed. If we now move on to the following page, the quarterly information by line of business and by country and by region, what you see. We see that for the first nine months, growth of Core Services is 32.2%. I would say things are continuing to be the same.
Strong sales momentum benefiting from accelerating market digitalization, which is true in e-tailing, logistics, social media, everywhere, and consolidation positioning in the public sector. Again, like-for-like growth of Specialized Services is 21.7%. Strong growth of LanguageLine Solutions, and gradual recovery in the TLScontact business that is starting to make money starting in July. As a whole, very good growth. Just for you to know that without, I would say, so-called COVID line, the growth would have been in the range of 14%-15% in the Q3, and much closer to 20% on the first nine months. Just to give you some insight.
Let's move now to the analysis region by region on page seven. Interestingly, the English world is now growing at 22% for the first nine months or 19%, close to 20% for the Q3. What we see is growth in offshore business, notably in Philippines, with a gradual acceleration over the full period. U.K., very rapid expansion, which have been the public sector, with continued development of COVID-19 contract, even at a slower pace than before. And solid sales momentum in other segment. Also in Asia, very good growth, notably in Malaysia, as already mentioned in the past. Let's move to what I call the star, which is Ibero-LATAM, where you don't have any COVID at all.
The growth is close again to 20% in Q3, and close to 30% LFL for the first 9 months. Everything is growing fast with the client, including online assessment, consumer electronics, financial services segment. The best performer are Colombia, nearshore business with Mexico, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, but also Peru, Argentina, and also Portugal. Today we are entering high comparatives in Q3 that explains the smaller, the less important growth, exceptional growth that we had in Q3 versus nine months. EMEA, sharp LFL growth coming from 19- COVID contracts, but also fast expanding business with multinational clients in the e-tailing, consumer electronics, and logistics.
Of course, growth in Q3 was mechanically less brisk versus the previous quarter, as expected due to the high basis of comparison in H1 2020, as the time we're starting to grow again, and notably related to the startup of the COVID-19 contract. Still a good growth. If we move now to Specialized Services. Sorry, to DIBS, to India. I forgot to mention India, of course. India offshore operations are still growing fast. We are growing at 6.6% in Q3. This is monitored as a whole. We manage precisely the growth there between the international and the domestic business part. But as a whole, we have a profitable and selective growth through high value added service development. Work from home solution now applied to nearly 75% of the workforce.
Again, we had also higher basis comparison in H2 in 2020. I just wanted to remind you that this region is the best region in terms of margin achievement across the group, in Core Services. If we move now to Specialized Services. We have a growth of 20%, roughly the same for Q3 and for the nine-month. Even what happened in fact, LanguageLine continued to grow very fast, even if it is in terms of the higher comparative in Q3, while TLS is growing faster, significantly faster since April, and it continued into Q3, led by comparatives that are still modest, still easy and modest recovery in international travel to date. We have the first consolidation of Health Advocate.
All these good figures lead us to change our guidance for full year, and on the last page, with at least a growth of 20% for the like-for-like full year revenue growth versus 18% before, around 18% before. We also announced that we will be around 15% in terms of EBITDA margin versus previously more than 14.5%. We continue to believe that we will have a good growth in Q4, which will, however, be impacted by a high basis of comparison and potentially reduced contribution for government assistance as it will be hard to predict. That's what I can tell you, and I'm of course open for questions.
As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question or make a contribution, please press star one on your telephone keypad. The first question comes from Simona Sarli of Bank of America. Simona, please go ahead.
Yes, good evening, gentlemen, and thank you very much for taking my questions. You mentioned at the beginning of the presentation that you ended the quarter with roughly 70% of your workforce working from home.
Mm-hmm.
How much have you already seen in terms of benefit in your cost structure? How much still can be done in the future? How much can you optimize your investment? Secondly, related to this question, how are your discussions with clients going? Is this 70% sustainable? Are clients supportive of that? Also, if you can help us a little bit on what are the moving parts for 2022, and how should we think about it in terms of potentially organic growth momentum going into next year? Thank you.
Thank you for this question. Coming first to the work at home. Today, 70% of our people are working at home. We have between 40%-45%, a little less than 45% confirmations from the clients that they will continue with us on work at home solution. We are still. This is still growing. There are still uncertainties, but today we try to have more. Today we are around 45%, not exactly at this level, but close to. What will be the impact at the end of the year on a recurring basis? It's tough to say, but at least we should at least reach 50%, maybe a little more.
It depends, but I would assume 50% seems to me something that is achievable, reasonably achievable. I hope we can go beyond that, but it's too early to tell. On the impact, it's difficult to answer you now. We will answer you surely at the end of the year, when the figure of the full year will be released because you have different issues that are happening. Of course, you are reducing the cost of running the site or even growing without putting site in terms of CapEx.
I'm sure you will notice later on that our CapEx ratio will be significantly lower than it was in the past, given that most of the growth that has been done so far has been done with opening very few new sites versus what was the case before. That is the first point. We are going to update you later on, but clearly the impact is not immediate because you cannot release sites so quickly as you want it. Most of the time you have rent. We start to work on that. We increase our negotiations with landlords. We gave up some sites or some spaces or some places.
We will be in a better position at the end of the year to give you information. Clearly it's favorable, no doubt on that. While in the meantime, you're obliged to spend much more money to make sure that the link between the employees and the management is still there, that you are putting the right tools, that you are following precisely how you send and get back when people leave the computer or the information. Also there are some costs associated with that linked to security. We will do something much more precise at the end of the year, but clearly it's positive. About 2022, of course, I cannot give you any figure as of today.
What I have to say two things on which I'm sure. First, I don't see why the underlying growth of the recurring business will not continue. So we have a good momentum. We have a clear stance. This is pushing the pipeline is okay, no doubt on that. The other thing that I'm sure is that I'm sure, and I'm not sure what we are going to have with the COVID light. That is probably the most complex things to predict. I must confess that somehow we were totally convinced that it will totally disappear there in 2022. I'm not so sure it's going to disappear. There are still booster vaccination to be done, vaccination of younger people to be done. Still, a sixth wave, I don't know exactly where we are now.
I'm not sure it's going to disappear from totally. It's difficult to predict, but that could be a clear challenge to predict. On top of that, we have been able to develop, I would say, a vertical that was mainly developed here only in U.K. world, but now we develop it much more on a larger way with government. We do believe this is going to be a positive trend to pursue in the future. As a whole, except that we are, as you understood, reasonably confident for 2022.
Thank you. Just as a quick follow-up indeed, on these new verticals with the government agencies, can you maybe give us a little bit more details on what is the opportunity here?
The opportunity is simple, that we have shown to some governments. We were already working with the U.K. government that was used to outsource a lot of stuff. We have shown that to the French government, to the German government, to the Netherlands government, to other governments in other countries, where we're able to, I would say, to give a good service to and quick, good service, secure and solid service to citizens. That somewhere, I wouldn't say break the walls, but helps to improve the relationship with some governments that were not keen to outsource. Now some of them, and hopefully more of them in the future, have understood that they can rely on some people to make it happen.
That's opened, of course, a field to plenty of stuff. Of course, documentation, legal documentation, information, also control, a lot of things that are done at government level by civil servants that could be done or partially outsourced to us, as an example.
Thank you.
The next question comes from the line of Anvesh Agrawal from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good evening. Sorry. I got three questions. First, like, I mean, just on the U.S., I mean, you're seeing the situation is expected to sort of normalize by end of year from a labor market perspective. I was just wondering, have you seen anything already because the Fed support has ended in September, so have you seen positive development already in October with regards to the U.S. market situation? And did it have any sort of impact on the growth in Q3? The second question is like, we sort of noticed on your LinkedIn pages and website, you started to talk about BNPL, buy now, pay later market.
Right.
Is that something that is a future opportunity for you or are you sort of already active in that space? Any color you can give. Finally.
I.
Just to sort of model Q4. Sorry?
I missed your second question. Sorry. I didn't get your second question.
In the second question, we see some sort of articles or some stuff on your LinkedIn pages about buy now, pay later, BNPL market, and that's clearly growing very fast. I was wondering what sort of opportunity that is out there for you guys, or are you already active in that space? Finally, are you able to tell us what was the COVID contribution in terms of revenue in Q4 last year so that it makes the modeling a little bit easier as we go into Q4?
On U.S. attrition, the situation starts to improve even if it's still complex. The difficulty there is much more. It's not the wage inflation. Of course it happened that we are able to increase the price. Most of the people understood, most of our clients understand and they have no choice but to follow. This is not the major issue. The major issue is the disruption that you have when you have to recruit, train, and launch somebody new. This situation is a little better than it was. I think it's improving. There are still tension depending on the region. Of course, depending a lot on the region in the different, notably in U.S.
It has effect partially on domestic operation in U.S. I mean, you understood that. That's why also, and I'm sure you understood that the growth of the nearshore, offshore business, notably in Philippines but also in Colombia, are especially consequence of this situation. That is an indirect consequence. About the digitalization, because I understood it was a digitalization, we are absolutely convinced that there are plenty of opportunity ahead of us. There are plenty of opportunity and I convince that we are. If it was the question, we are putting all the means in terms of marketing, in terms of sales, in terms of client, I would say attention to get more.
There are plenty of acceleration of new possibility. In fact, the question is now all the world is coming digital. The question whether it's a new client is no more a question. Everybody has to go digital. It's a must, so you cannot avoid that. Being able to attract that is clearly a solution. About COVID in 2019 in Q4, let me find. It was, in percentage, just to be clear, very small. In fact, the difference between the growth of the last year. I know it's not the right figure. No, it's here. It was close to 6% or 7% in the growth of last year.
Okay. 6%-7% of the full year growth or just the Q4 growth?
Q4 growth.
Q4 growth.
No, it's much closer to 7%. 7%. Let's put 7%.
Okay. Fine. That helps. Thank you so much.
The next question comes from the line of Oscar Val Mas from J.P. Morgan. Please go ahead.
Yes. Good evening, everyone. Just to follow up, two questions. The first one, a follow-up on the COVID-19 government contracts. It seems like they're running at, say, EUR 80 million-EUR 100 million in Q3. Could you just provide some initial thoughts on what the Q4 numbers should be for COVID contracts? I.e., what's the exit rate? And are you seeing benefits from things like boosters? And then.
I would love to be able to tell you properly.
Okay.
I would love.
Go ahead.
Just to give you an example, we are set by the market by your clients a week or 10 days before the need. Just to give you the idea, the difficulty for us to predict even the end of the year, but also by nature, also 2022, as you can imagine. Your assumption is not totally wrong. We might say that we are going to continue to decrease in Q4, but to what level exactly, I have hard time to tell you.
Okay. That's clear. The second question is on M&A.
Mm-hmm.
Clearly, Hexaware didn't come through at the end. Could you comment on just what you see and what the pipeline is and what you're currently looking at?
Let's put it differently. We have three possibility of M&A. The first one, of course, is to add another niche, what we call specialized areas. The other one is to complement the cube of Teleperformance, and I'll come back in a minute to that. The third one is to find a company that helps to digitalize much more in the process of everything. There are some opportunities that there are in the pipeline. By nature, it's difficult to tell whether they are going to succeed or not. What I'm meaning by the cube, when you look to Teleperformance, especially the Core Services, you have four metrics, if I may say. One is geography, of course.
Whether we are missing a geography, we can buy something in a geography. The second one is what we do, what kind of product we are offering. It could be content moderation, it could be sales, it could be technical care, it could be technical support. For whom we are working, we mentioned the government, but it could be automotive, it could be whatever. Lastly, how you serve it. Is it voice, non-voice, video, whatever. When you combine these four dimensions, there are still holes in our dispositive. We might find somewhere, I'm not sure it's going to happen, but a company that works with one of the whole stacks, that is, a certain possibility.
There are the three views: niche, specialized areas, part of the cube, and the utilization of the work process. We are looking for these three dimensions, and we are seeing a lot of things. Again, to start, what are the criteria to buy a company that works, that doesn't dilute our P&L, that we are paying at a good price versus what we are valued by the market, with a good management and with a strategic fit. When you put that together, I must confess, it's more complex than it was two or three years ago, of course, we are looking at different topics and it might happen.
Great. My final question is a follow-up on what Anvesh asked on wage, kind of wage inflation. Could you give a sense as to the magnitude of kind of price inflation versus just volume growth in your Q3 numbers?
No. I'm not able to do that because I'm not sure I'm able to, you know, because you have to put the mix in the meantime. And that's probably something that is forgotten by most of the analysts, that of course, most of the time you are changing what kind of product you are selling to, or what kind of company. It's very difficult to follow that. And on top of that, you have offshore and everything is never equal. We don't follow that this way. What I'm telling you is that clearly in Anglo-Saxon world, but mainly in U.S., you have pressure on wages. It seems that, sorry, that will not surprise you.
To a certain extent, we are used to. It's not so easy, but we are used to pass it to the clients or to go to offshore and nearshore when it's not possible. We are not going to serve market with low margin. We are doing that in India already. We are going to do that in other countries. When the price is not sufficient to generate a good margin, to generate good salary to people, we prefer to back off.
Okay, that's very helpful. Thank you.
The next question comes from the line of David Cerdan from Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead.
Yeah, good evening, Olivier and Cui. First of all, I would like just to clarify your revenues related to COVID lines. What is the number for Q3? And what is the split between CEMEA and EWAP? This is my first question.
What I told you is that without COVID, the growth would have been between 14% and 15%. In terms of impact, the impact is mainly in Europe, as you can imagine, where you have probably close to half of the growth in CEMEA that is coming from COVID.
Okay. Just on the COVID lines, are you working with the U.S.?
No, not yet.
What is the problem with the U.S.?
The problem is that we have not been able to get the clients, but we might react differently. We are looking to this market. Of course, you're right. This is a good question. We are working on it.
Okay. Regarding your competitors, does it mean that your competitors have gained this contract or?
Some competitors have some contracts. In the U.S., it's more complex because you have the federal contract, you have the state contract, you have. There are different contracts, which are split differently across the different stuff. You need to have an organization for sale, which is a little different than in a centralized state like somewhere in the U.K., France, or your continental countries. Germany, and when you look, we have been better in centralized country than in federal country. Germany, it's lower than in the other country. Because you have to deal with I don't know how many, 10 Länder or 14 Länder. It's not exactly the same story as to speak to only one administration or two administrations.
Okay. Regarding your negotiation with your client, this is my last question.
Mm-hmm.
Do you think that there is now a, I would say, a stronger pressure in negotiation just because the situation is more and more normal?
I don't know if it's stronger. I'm just telling. You know, the client. Keep in mind that the client, of course, are looking to price, but they are looking more and more to, I would say, security of the data, CSR stuff. There are plenty of other, I would say, competitors are not able to follow or approach. It's a little more complex than price. Of course, the price is key. You know, I'm not mentioning it differently. I do believe that bigger you are, better you are in everything. You should be aware of everything. Doesn't mean that you win everything, far from that, but you should be aware of everything. That's what I can tell you.
Okay, thank you. Just regarding the profitability, you expect to be around 15% this year.
Mm-hmm.
Do you think that in 2022 there is an upside, or is it possible to improve again the profitability or to maintain this kind of level?
We'll see that, but there are good reason for upside. The mix with TLScontact, that should increase again with Health Advocate, with different stuff. There are good reason. Frankly, I'm not going to enter in this this debate. This is not the level we are going to stay at, of course.
Thank you very much.
The next question comes from the line of Patrick Jousseaume of Société Générale. Please go ahead.
Yes. Good evening. Yeah, two questions on my side. First, if I am not wrong, when you had this 18% organic growth guidance for full year?
Mm-hmm.
You mentioned that it was with the assumption that there will be no COVID-related revenue in Q4.
No.
Is it still the case?
No COVID, it's probably exaggerated, but probably lower COVID. That would be our.
No, I say when you had the previous guidance, 18%, right?
No, no. Even at 18%, I didn't believe we were totally at zero. In Q4, maybe we could have been. We could have thought that would be. Maybe I said it this way.
Mm-hmm.
Clearly we won't be at zero in Q4.
Okay. You have included some COVID revenue in Q4 in your guidance?
Yes.
To put it another way. Okay. Second, regarding the COVID impacts and just to be sure, if I may say. So you mentioned that in Q3, organic growth would have been 14%-15% versus the 20.2%. So this suggests something like, let's say, as one of my colleagues said, EUR 80 million-EUR 100 million of COVID revenue in Q3. And when you spoke about nine months, you said 20% growth instead of 31%, which suggests something like EUR 400 million-EUR 450 million over the first nine months of COVID related revenue. Do you confirm these two figures?
Yeah, yeah. It's not stupid. That's not totally wrong figure. But what seems important for you to understand on the COVID, maybe even we have changed. This is not on, off. It's less on, off. Because everybody was thinking, and even us, and maybe we have guided the market this way and say, "Okay, it's exceptional. It's going to be on off, meaning that it's going to disappear once pandemic is over. I don't know whether pandemic will be over a day, but this is probably more complex than that. But your figures are correct. That's what I'm trying to explain somewhere. Somewhere it starts to be, of course, 2021 has been exceptional, and we probably will not have the same level of, I would say, COVID business in 2022.
I'm not sure that in 2022 we will get zero apart from that. Frankly, maybe in 2023 also, maybe less. This is meaning that something is going to be, part of it is lost. That's what I'm telling you. How much, how long? It's a hard time to tell you on this. From what I'm seeing, it's less and less on off. That's what I can tell you.
Okay. Coming back to the non-COVID business, which is the bulk of your business.
Mm-hmm.
You mentioned a few minutes ago that you are convinced that there will be quite a strong underlying growth, let's say in 2022. In fact, the organic growth ex-COVID during the first nine months was 20%, 14%-15% in Q3. The usual type of growth that we had in the past, I may say, was high single-digit. How should we look at 2022 on this for the underlying growth ex-COVID?
Patrick, to try to give you the 2022 figure. Well, two things. 2021 is by nature complex because you have also on top of the COVID-19, you have the basis of comparison, notably in first half. It's probably complex. That's the reason why you move from 20% to 15% or 14% or whatever. That's something that is mathematical. Probably we'll have in the second part, starting 2022, the mountain to swallow of the COVID-19, notably in first half. That's no surprise, it's technical. As a whole, the underlying business is going to continue to grow at a high speed.
I would tend to believe that I'm not sure today that this could be a little higher since two years. That's what we have seen over the last two years, maybe it's going to continue. It's too early to tell, frankly. What I'm telling you, I don't want to enter 2022 figures and 2022 guidance today because it's too early, is that what we see, there is no reason why the group will not continue to grow at a high speed on this recurring business. That's the way I can tell you.
On the.
Of course. It's because that's what is important to understand. Okay, we can discuss quarter by quarter or whatever. As a whole, the underlying business regularly is going to continue to grow at a high speed. That's what I'm feeling. Does it answer your question, Patrick?
Absolutely. Thank you very much.
Not totally, but
Not totally, but.
The next question comes from the line of Nicolas David of Stifel. Please go ahead.
Good evening. Thank you very much for taking my question. The first one, very, very simple. As we say, robust sales momentum expected in Q4, so basically it's likely, unless major headwind, that it would be still positive organic growth in Q4 despite the high comparables. We try to think that?
Yeah.
Great. On the Core Services, when we think about the margin in H2 this year versus H2 last year, it was very impressive last year already.
Mm-hmm.
As we see a phase out of the COVID services and because you only have one week, 10 days of visibility and maybe you have overstaffed some of the times, should we think that the margin in the core business, the Core Services and D.I.B.S. should decline sequentially? You have such a, let's say, good optimization, a good discussion with the
No.
The government and so on?
No, no, I don't see any big sign.
Okay, great. On th.
Of course, the bit of comparison is higher, but.
Higher comparables, but no decline in margin versus last H2. That's the answer. Okay. Looking at the Specialized Services, just trying to get a better understanding for LLS, when you said strong growth and high comparables, is it more 10%, 20%? Which range should we understand when you give those comments?
No, we are much more in the range of 10%, with high teens%, but no, not 20%. No, clearly not. You know, again, we had also a base of comparison, which was very favorable.
Mm-hmm. Sure.
In the first half in LanguageLine Solutions, and LanguageLine Solutions was doing well.
Sure.
It continued to do well. It still continue to do well. You know, most of the story of the Q3, if you think a minute, we continue to have an exceptional growth, less exceptional versus before because of the high comparison and the shrinking, probably less important than what people believe in COVID business. That's what we can tell.
Okay.
To make it. Therefore, if I understand.
It's good for China, it's good for India, it's good for Ibero-LATAM, it's good for everywhere.
If I look at the Specialized Services overall, I can assume that TLScontact had a quite strong growth quarter.
Yeah.
This quarter or year-on-year, maybe 50%-100%, something like that, like on a very high, so low base, of course.
Exactly.
Okay, great. Thank you very much.
The next question.
Two questions.
Comes from the line of Nicole Manion of UBS. Please go ahead.
Hi, good evening. Thank you. I just wanted to ask a quick one on TLScontact. I know you've given some sort of qualitative commentary around that, but I wanted to get a sense of whether there's been sort of any improvement in the kind of rate of recovery since April or whether it's still sort of kind of waiting to hit that level next year. Maybe if you'd give us an update on where we are with that business in terms of breaking even, whether that's likely to be this year or into next year. Thank you.
No, of course, TLScontact is significantly better. The second half is going to be positive, as I told you, in terms of EBIT, where we were making losses before and significant losses. Of course, we grew significantly in sales in April. As I told you, people start to travel again, partially, not all of them. There are some students that can't, or different things were coming. We are still not yet at the level that we were before. Chinese people are not traveling so far. And we still have room for improvement to get back on the level of 2019. So there are still volume to be grabbed.
This is linked, of course, to the level of travel, of the global population that could be this way. I'm confident this is going to accelerate next year, at least for the first half. We should have that for the full year too.
Great. Thank you.
Let's take a last question if you have two questions. Mr. Shapif, you are there.
Hello. Do you hear me?
Oui.
Good evening, Olivier, and team. Thank you very much. Three quick ones for me. First one, could you remind us where you are regarding the visa contract in U.S.?
Mm.
It's supposed to contribute to the sale in 2022. Is there already some tender offer that you succeeded? So anything you can tell about that will be appreciated. The second one is you increase the guidance in terms of EBIT margin.
Mm.
At 16% or close to. Where is the consensus, if I may? Is the consensus already at 18%? And the last one is regarding the CSR approach.
Mm.
What is the share of the tender offer that integrate the CSR approach? Do you think you could then face lower competition, because you are very well-placed on that topic? Thank you, Olivier.
Things on the margin, I believe the consensus is a little below 15%, from what I heard. The first question was linked to?
The visa contract in U.S.
I must confess, this is probably the most blurry situation that we have had. There are, you know, there are different tenders. Some of them are delayed, some of them are advanced. Frankly, I have hard time to tell you where we are going to land in 2022. My guess, you know, I'm a careful guy, I'm from finance. My guess is not to take too much revenue in first half on this part, because the U.S. administration is sometimes difficult to read, and things are taking time, much more longer than we expected. We are progressing, but there are two tender that was supposed to be launched, one in September, one in October, that has been put now to November, maybe December.
I will have time to answer you precisely on that, to be honest. On the CSR, what's happening? A lot of companies are asking you about inclusion. You know, sourcing what they call inclusion and sourcing. Are you, in brackets, I don't know, employing people that are in a bad situation, either personally, or because they have no fixed duty, or they are coming because they are refugees or a lot of that. Having such program like that helps to some of our client. I wouldn't say to tick a box, but also to say, okay, we are part of the story. All suppliers are supporting us. It helps. Clearly, it helps. So far today, I cannot tell you that.
There are other stuff, as I told you, the price, the ability to speak the language, to train the people and to be able to have secure data. But it is clearly something that is increasing, notably in some Bay Area, Californian company, I would say.
Okay. Thank you very much, Olivier.
The last question comes from the line of Suhasini Varanasi from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Hi, thank you for taking my question. Just one from me, please. Just wanted to clarify what the margins are like on the COVID contracts in CEMEA and/or generally, because the CEMEA business did see a nice step up in first half. I think higher than group average margins.
It might be okay, a little higher in CEMEA than the CEMEA business. It's not totally true at group level, let's put it this way.
Fine.
That's what we can say. We will be clearer again when the figure will be totally released at the end of the year.
No, that's very clear. Thank you very much.
Thank you to all. I hope it has been clear. What again, I just wanted to tell is that we have a good Q3. We believe that we are going to finish a good year in 2021. Of course, there are still uncertainty for 2022, and I know you need to build your 2022 consensus, but it's too early even for us to give you something on that. As a whole, the message I want to convey is a reasonable confident message. Let's put it this way. I wish you a good night. Thank you. Thank you so much. Bye-bye.
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