Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Vantiva Third Quarter 2024 Revenue Conference Call, chaired by Tim O'Loughlin, CEO, and Lars Ihlen, CFO. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. If you'd like to register a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. Just to remind you all, this conference is being recorded. We would like to inform you that this event is also available live on Vantiva's website with a synchronized slideshow. During this conference call, statements could be made that constitute forward-looking statements based on management's current expectations and beliefs and are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from the future results expressed, forecasted, or implied by such forward-looking statements.
For a more complete list of the description of such risks and uncertainties, refer to Vantiva's filing with the French authority. Sorry, the French Autorité des Marchés Financiers. I would like to hand over the call to Tim. Please go ahead.
Thank you, Thierry, and welcome everyone to our Q3 call. I'm Tim O'Loughlin, the new CEO of Vantiva. I was previously running our strategic business unit for the Americas. I've been with the company since January, and previous to that, I have professional experience in the telecommunications equipment space with CommScope's H ome Networks division, ARRIS, and prior to that, Pace. We got off to a good start in Q3. Our Q3 2024 was better than our Q3 2023. We're in line with Q2 2024. Our shipments were slightly impacted by some logistical constraints due to the port strike on the East Coast of the United States. We are seeing some demand continuing to percolate, tied to refresh cycles with our largest customers, partially driven by the introduction of Wi-Fi 7. We have continued to see some structural decline in demand for optical discs, albeit at a slower pace.
Our diversification elements within our Supply Chain services business have continued to grow, and we continue to see success with our CommScope Home Networks integration activity. So overall, a positive quarter in Q3. All of that leads into our ability to confirm guidance for 2024. So that Adjusted EBITDA number, we should exceed EUR 140 million. Our free cash flow number before restructuring will be greater than EUR 0. So we are on target there, and we're confident that we are on a path to having sustainable and healthy free cash flow after finance tax and restructuring by 2026. If we look at some Q3 2024 highlights, we can look at the Vantiva Group overall, and then we will break down into Connected Home and Supply Chain.
First, when we look at that Vantiva Group overall, you can see the quarter-over-quarter increase from Q3 2023 to Q3 2024, and our Connected Home numbers follow along with that same trend. So we do think that overall, historically, that some of our customers are still clearing inventory. We're starting to see demand percolate, but relative to some of our historical levels, demand has remained a bit low at Connected Home. In Supply Chain Solutions, you can see some of the expected deterioration from Q3 2023 to Q3 2024, really tied to the secular demand decreases in that optical disc segment offset by some of the strengths in diversification, and in particular, our vinyl business in the United States. When we look at the nine-month view, the numbers follow along as you would expect.
We have seen this positive change of Connected Home revenue turning positive for the first nine months of the year. You can look at the comparison of the nine months from 2023 versus the nine months of 2024 for the overall group, and then specifically in Connected Home, and the trend continues in Supply Chain Solutions as expected. And if we move forward into the business update, when we look at the Q3 splits versus the nine months, I'll focus in on the Q3 splits in particular. When we look back from Q3 2023 to Q3 2024, a couple of things jump out at you off of this page that are positive for the business. We can see, obviously, the positive impact of the CommScope Home Networks consolidation.
You can see that our diversification activities within the business are starting to bear fruit, and you can see that video has now taken a more substantial share of our total shipments globally relative to broadband, so overall, just a positive trend that is allowing us to confirm guidance on a go-forward basis. You can also see that although we did have some of the shipments impacted by those logistical constraints, that we were able to maintain a positive trend overall. We do think that when you look at that quarter and you look at the nine-month window there, the inventory situation that some of our customers have are beginning to clear. We think that we're seeing a partial recovery of demand with certain customers in 2025.
A lot of that, as I mentioned earlier, is driven by refreshes of various products and various segments, and you're starting to see Wi-Fi 7 emerge, which we think will be a very positive trend for the company throughout 2025 and into 2026. When we look at supply chain solutions, we do have this secular decline of optical discs. It was slower than anticipated, which is positive for the business, and we can see that some of the diversification activities, specifically in supply chain solutions, are starting to bear some fruit. In particular, we had some customer wins in our logistics segment within supply chain solutions, and we've been able to increase our vinyl manufacturing capacities globally, and that paid dividends, especially in the U.S. market, where we had some very large artists with some very significant vinyl releases within the period. That's it from a prepared materials standpoint.
I think we'll move to Q&A now.
Absolutely. Thank you very much, Tim. And now we are opening the Q&A session. I remind you that if you want to ask a question, you have to press star one on your telephone keypad. Operator, do we have questions online?
No, for the moment, we have no question. Ladies and gentlemen, if you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. The first question is from Antoine Le Bourgeois from Bryan Garnier. Please go ahead.
Good evening, everyone. So Antoine from Bryan Garnier. I have three questions. Firstly, what is your latest visibility on the recovery for the Connected Home divisions? Does the flat quarter-on-quarter performance in Q3 indicate a slower than expected recovery, or is it mainly due to the logistical constraints you mentioned? So any additional details would be very helpful. Secondly, in the last quarter, you mentioned the impact of the dual-cost structure on H1 margins. Can you provide an update on any recent progress on that dual-cost structure? And specifically, if you anticipate positive impact to materialize as early as H2 this year? And last question. So Tim, following your recent appointment as CEO, should we expect any notable shift in strategic priorities at Vantiva, or will you mainly build on the, let's say, ongoing strategic plan?
Sure, so I'll tackle the third question first and let Lars take on the dual-cost structure question and then address the other question last, so from a strategic standpoint, the company is made up of all of these great acquisitions, including most recently CommScope. Following on some of the work that my predecessor, Luis, started, we're very focused on continuing to serve the network service providers that we do business with today with the customer premises equipment and run our supply chain services business, and then find some adjacent areas to do some diversification activity that is related to the customer premises equipment, so no, I don't think you'll see a significant change in strategy outside of a continued focus on putting our service provider customers at the center of everything that the company is working on.
Yeah, Antoine, let me answer the question on the dual-cost structure. So we are not giving any numbers on anything apart from our top line today, but we are confirming our guidance. And if you remember, even if it was not specifically mentioned in this presentation, we do also have a guidance that we will have positive synergies of more than EUR 40 million this year. Right? So we are saying that the synergies minus the restructuring cost is going to be more than EUR 40 million. And we are confirming that now, and I think that's all I can say for now. So yes, we are progressing along with the plan. We are doing all the, as we probably mentioned in H1, that most of the TSA activities are over with CommScope. So that's behind us.
We have done a fair share of the cost reductions, and we are tracking according to the plan as we have seen it at the beginning of the year. So all in all, good news.
And then, just related to the Q3 results, Antoine, and how they're tied out to the risk of a strike at the port on the East Coast of the United States. So we did have some impact there. There are certain customers that we do ship through some of the ports on the East Coast of the United States. Other customers ship through the West Coast of the United States. We've managed through that situation. It did depress the numbers for the quarter, but we're very confident that we're going to recover that in the fourth quarter and maintaining our guidance for the full year.
Thank you, Antoine, for your question.
Thank you. Very helpful.
Operator, do we have other questions in line?
For the moment, not. But as a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad.
Okay. If there are no further questions, I think we can stop this call. Thank you for being on the call tonight, and if you have further questions, feel free to contact our team whenever you want. Bye now.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes the conference call and webcast. Thank you all for your participation. You may now disconnect.