Good afternoon, and welcome to the VusionGroup Q4 and Full Year 2023 Sales Call. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question during today's event, please click the Send Request button in the On Stage window of your webcast. You will be placed in the queue to join the live presentation. Once we take your question, we will announce your name and unmute your line. Please note, this event is being recorded. I would like now to turn the conference over to Thierry Gadou, Chairman and CEO, and Thierry Lemaître, CFO. Gentlemen, please go ahead.
Thank you and good afternoon. Good evening, everyone. Thanks for joining our conference call, following the disclosure earlier today of our full year 2023 sales figures. So you can follow the slideshow if you're connected on the web conference. First of all, I'd like to start by reminding that, in 2024, a few weeks ago, a new company is born, and that is VusionGroup. And in many ways, this is the start of a new era. So why VusionGroup? First, of course, to capture a new reality. Our group has changed a great deal in the recent years, expanding its range of solutions. It's a change with continuity because SES-imagotag, as you can see on this slide, remains our ESL brand and the world leader in ESL. But we now have six families of solutions.
We're now at the cutting edge in computer vision, in artificial intelligence, in big data, and in-store retail media. Behind this range of solutions, there is the Vusion IoT cloud platform, hence the new name of the group. The last comment about this word, fusion. It's a combination of vision and fusion because our vision of the future of retail is a fusion of physical and digital. We concentrated the launch of this new identity at the world's biggest annual event in retail technology, NRF, in New York. We had there, as you can see here, one of the largest and the most crowded stand on the whole event. Some of our U.S. investors were present, by the way.
We announced not only the new group identity, and this was in itself a sudden very important clarification of the consistency of our multi-product brand strategy towards commerce digitization. We, of course, also introduced our major innovation, EdgeSense, as well as new AI applications together with Google while strengthening at the same time our strategic partnership with Microsoft and many other innovations we introduced on the six family of products. So it was really beyond expectation, start of the year. And now I'm coming back to our sales figures. So today's message is rather short and simple. Q4 was our best quarter ever. Same for H2, and overall year 2023 was a great year. 30% growth, EUR 800 million revenue. We reached both our annual objective, but also our five-year plan objective.
We posted nearly EUR 1 billion in order entries, and we are on track to cross the EUR 1 billion revenue mark this year. So before we go any further, let's talk about an IFRS restatement on revenues, on the new Walmart U.S. rollout contract, which started, as you know, and as was planned in Q4. From now on, we will publish two sets of figures, and to get into this detail, I will hand over to Thierry Lemaître for a longer explanation.
Thank you, Thierry. Hi, everyone. So yes, we decided starting Q4 2023 to disclose two sets of figures, the regular IFRS figures and the restated figures, aiming at presenting comparable figures between 2022 and 2023. 2023 Q4 figures are indeed notably impacted by two major IFRS restatements, reducing the revenue levels, also the revenues actually invoiced to Walmart U.S. We have identified separately the impact of these two restatements, and I will keep reporting consistently on both full IFRS published revenues and also restated revenues. Out of these two restatements, there is one restatement which you were already probably expecting because we discussed it in December 2023 on H1 2023 earnings. It is linked to the warrants that were granted to Walmart U.S.
Although this warrant allocation will only generate a potential dilution for shareholders, IFRS 15 standard provides that the fair value of these warrants must be amortized against the revenues generated by this contract. So the EUR 163 million fair value of the warrants started being amortized against the revenues in Q4 2023, and this EUR 163 million amount is amortized in proportion to the revenues generated by the Walmart contract over the period. So first, you can expect a larger impact in 2024 because Walmart's revenues will be higher than in 2023. And second, this impact will flow directly to the bottom line of the PNL and will impact the VCM, the EBITDA, the operating income, and the net income.
Of course, these warrants have no impact on the cash, and of course, they had and they will have no impact on the revenues actually invoiced to Walmart. That's for the first restatement. For the second restatement, it also refers to IFRS 15 standards on the Walmart contract. The Walmart contract, as you know, is a multi-year contract that should generate significant volumes of hardware. Based on the volumes that Walmart will commit to purchase, the group will, as usual, be able to scale down the cost and will agree with Walmart to apply discounted prices if, and only when Walmart reaches certain volume thresholds. If such volumes are never reached, prices will remain stable. Nonetheless, IFRS 15 standard provides that we must book the revenues based on the volume weighted average prices over the expected lifetime of the contract.
So we had to book a negative - EUR 1.7 million adjustment in deduction to the amounts actually invoiced to Walmart U.S. in Q4. This EUR 1.7 million impact should grow in 2024, and although we have to anticipate price decreases, we are not allowed to anticipate likely cost decreases. So this EUR 1.7 million negative impact will also impact all the lines of the PNL down to the bottom line. So this is the reason why we thought it was necessary to provide such information, to give a more precise and economic view of the revenues and very soon, the profitability generated by the group's operations.
So thank you, Thierry. I'm sure all the, the specialists will appreciate this magic of IFRS 15. And for the future, the next slide, I will focus discussing for better economic sense and comparability between periods and regions on restated figures. So we had, as I said earlier, a great Q4 and H2. So H2 growth was 27%, as you can see, and the full year growth 30%. The five-year compounded annual growth is 34%. Regarding order entries, we posted EUR 950 million, so it was a great momentum in Q4 again. And the overall order entries are up 39% year-on-year.
Now, if we talk about geography, it's really very interesting to see that, and it's great news, that we see the balance of growth across Europe and America. So growth in Europe was, you know, 32%. And interestingly, most regions, you know, North, Central, South, France, had strong growth in 2023. So it's a very balanced growth, strong growth throughout Europe. And the rest of world grew 22% in full year, but 44% in H2. As towards the end of the year, as was expected, growth was fueled by the acceleration in the U.S., which will continue going forward. Finally, regarding VAS, VAS continued its growth, including a strong momentum on recurring VAS.
So we are showing the breakdown now of VAS versus the professional services and other non-recurring VAS revenues, which is detailed in the press release and the recurring VAS. So the recurring VAS, so the SaaS revenues and the other recurring contract service contracts remain... represent EUR 42 million. So they reach, they had a growth that was stronger than the group growth, and they represent around 40% now of total VAS sales. I think it gives explanations on a number of questions that we had over the year. And the non-recurring VAS, which was affected by the global economic pressure on retail, as I was explained several times, reached sev, sorry, EUR 67 million, which is around 60% of total VAS sales.
And we see the trend, at least for the recurring VAS, to continue on substantial growth in the future. Talking precisely about the future and the future perspectives, we clearly begin 2024 with great enthusiasm, and again, solid growth perspectives, notably driven by an acceleration of sales in the United States, particularly from Q2 onwards, because in Q2, we have a number of new production lines which are going live, and we will accelerate the shipments to Walmart, but to other also to other retailers in the U.S. As you know, U.S. has been a very strong contributor to the order entries overall. And we will soon have in the U.S. more stores than in our second largest install base, which is France.
So it's going very well over there. Target is this year to cross the EUR 1 billion mark in 2024, and we are determined to also continue to improve our profitability. Thank you. Just a last note to say that, with you know, with this, we are entering a very selective club of the top very top growth performers in Europe. You see on this slide, the Bloomberg top 100 technology companies, and we are just taking into account our growth until 2022 on five-year period, the 14th fastest growing company. So we're very proud of that. With this, I'm handing over to questions.
Yeah. We will now open the Q&A session. As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question during today's event, please click the Send Request button in the Onstage window. You will be placed in the queue to join the live presentation. Once we take your question, we will announce your name and unmute your line. So we have a first question from Gilles Crespel from Alizés.
... I'm trying to see if you, you can connect.
So-
You can connect to the line.
Do we have Mr. Crespel on the line?
We have other people in the queue, otherwise, but all waiting to be... Yeah. Hello?
Yes. Can you hear me?
Very well.
Okay, thanks. Good evening, Thierry and Thierry. Thanks for taking my question. Actually, I had three, if you allow me, they will be really short. First one is, last year, on the same call, you gave us some guidance, not on results, because I'm sure you will do that in March, but on the gross margin you would expect for next year, and I wondered if you would do that. If not, I wondered if you could give us some clue on the gross margin. Early on the Q3 call, you mentioned that the VCM would improve in percent and that it would improve both on earlier standard and the new Walmart standard. And so my question was: could you confirm that the VCM improvement that you expect will impact both standards?
My second question would be on new orders. If you could give us some clue now as to whether you are getting new orders, whether the new orders will be deployed on the pre-existing standard or on the new standard. Thank you very much.
So maybe just to start on the gross margin. It's probably a bit early to elaborate on 2024 margin since we have not already disclosed the 2023. But nonetheless, we gave you some flavor, saying that we would increase the gross margin in 2023, and we will. Of course, it's a gross margin before the potential impact that we have over there with the warrants with Walmart, which has nothing to do with this guidance that we gave at that time. So gross margin will improve based on invoicing, and we also are considering that this gross margin should increase in 2024, first point. And then, regarding the orders, the same, we are disclosing orders which are, of course, reflecting the value of the order placed by the client.
The client doesn't know if we're going to apply some IFRS 15 restatements, so the gross of the new orders that we are reporting are, of course, orders before any self-restatement due to IFRS 15.
Sorry, I may well not have been sufficiently clear. My question was whether new orders were, in terms of standard, technically speaking, the-
Ah, okay.
Okay.
Yes, okay. Okay, Mr. Crespel. Yes, I understand your question. Yeah, well, it was, you know, it's... Of course, there was a part of these new orders on these well new standards, I would say, the new, you know, Edge Sense innovation, partly. But at this moment, you have to realize that we—we actually announced to really to the world only in NRF in New York, Edge Sense, we presented it, and it was made general available, you know, really at the beginning of 2024.
So we had, of course, orders in 2023 because we have selected, let's say, a little number of first customers to start the rollout of EdgeSense. But right now, it's only a part of our order entries, but it will be a big part because, as you know, the Walmart contract is entirely on this new standard. So it's obviously a very important part of our, you know, an important part of growth going forward, so. And given the successful show that we had, we think yes, this new generation of solution in the ESL division is going to be absolutely, you know, sort of adopted quite soon.
Great. Thank you very much. Just to clarify, because you disclosed here, EUR 950 million order book, correct?
Yes.
Could you give us a rough idea, well, inside those EUR 950 million, what is the share of the EdgeSense, if I understand the name of the new product, is it more like 5%, 10%, 50%? A rough idea.
I don't have the real number, but I would say, you know, it is, you know, it's a few hundred million EUR, because by definition, as you can imagine, there were the older Walmart orders, so... But we don't want to, you know, we don't disclose any specific customer information, so. And that has always been our policy, so since it's... But it's the order of magnitude, so we're talking about a few tens of %.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Thank you. We have another question from Valentin-Paul Jahan from Stifel.
... Hello, do you hear me well?
Yes, we hear you well.
So my questions will be regarding Recurring VAS first. You mentioned that Recurring Value Added Services revenue is growing faster than the group, but it integrate revenue from Belive and Memory that you acquired in 2023. So could you please give us more color on what was the level of organic growth of Recurring Value Added Services, please, as well as what was the growth of Belive and Memory alone, please? And since the current organic growth of Recurring VAS seems a bit far from what your 2027 objectives implies, what makes you today still comfortable with those objectives?
Well, you know, I think, the growth in VAS, and particularly in Recurring VAS, is something that is, by definition, not linear, because it is, it's installed on the first install base of cloud. So it starts with the install base of cloud, then it is essentially recurring revenues, by definition, that grow with the network, the install base of the new solutions, because it's recurring. So it starts slowly, but as a recurring revenue base, it is then piling up over the years. So we are confident on our target. Give us the time to reach our target, please.
I think we just announced a revenue which was consistent with our five-year target that not many people believed five years ago or six years ago because it was delayed one year by the COVID. So, you know, it's a bit too early to analyze. Also, we don't give any detail by product because right now, it's not our decision. So we give the detail of recurring, which is very precisely defined, and non-recurring. So this is, let's say, the new level of detail we give.
Okay, Thierry, thank you. My second question would be about order intakes. Could you remind us whether your order intake relates exclusively to electronic shelf labels, or whether it also includes future sales from value-added services?
Well, actually, it doesn't include future sales, but it increase the actuals for the software. So you've got the future sales and the one-year contract for the software-related sales.
It's possible to get the share of value-added services within your order intakes?
No.
But it would not be, again, as Thierry explained, it would not be giving you the right vision because as Thierry just explained, in VAS, especially in the Recurring VAS, we only take in order entries one year. We just in-
Yes.
But the order intake in ESL is not one year. If we sign a five-year contract, we take the five-year orders on hardware, whereas right now in VAS, we have a very conservative approach, which is to take only one year. Actually, the invoiced year we take as order entry. So we are not, for instance, we just signed a very significant cloud business, in fact, very significant. And this one has actually, no, is not taken into account, so it represents exactly zero in our order entries numbers. So I hope I'm very clear. We're not taking-
Yes
... future revenues in our order entries. Okay?
Understood.
So by definition.
Yeah
... we are understating a lot the order entries on VAS because we don't take future revenues. We only take the booked in the year, so.
Okay. Yes, very, very clear. And the last one, maybe, if you could give us more clarity about your guidance, in particular, what are the underlying assumptions in term of level of activity, and/or growth in H1 versus H2 and in Europe versus North America, maybe?
Yeah. So, absolutely. So in, as we said, we are starting the... We are accelerating deliveries, of, on the new, basically on new products because we are industrializing, this, this new product. So the, there's gonna be an acceleration in Q2, as is written in our, in our press release. So, the, especially on the world map, shipments of EdgeSense. So this will take off in Q2. So we see, you know, significantly higher growth in H2. This is, based on the shipments and the, and the, you know, the go live of, number of lines in Mexico in particular. So it will start in Q2.
So there's gonna be a smaller growth in H1, and a higher growth in H2 due to that factor. Regarding geography, I think we are still, you know, in the, well, in the same mindset. The growth is going to be stellar in the U.S., and, you know, and very significant and probably three-digit. But, you know, and the growth overall is going to be, you know, around what we said. We are crossing EUR 1 billion. We are not yet giving a more precise guidance at this stage. We are in January, remember, not even at the end.
You know, we'll have to stay with this guidance, which is already a significant, you know, sort of, milestone for us, to cross the EUR 1 billion mark with a much higher growth rate in the U.S.
... Okay, but is there any risk of a slight decrease of revenue in Europe in 2024?
It's, you know, growth has been very strong in Europe. We have, but it's on the other hand, it's still a little bit early to talk about this because we're still signing as, you know, in the months of January, a number of deals that may affect, subject to industrial capability that may benefit to the full year of 2024, even if it's signed in Q1. So, you know, it's difficult to say right now, but definitely the growth will be fueled by the U.S., and it's a very exciting moment for us.
Okay. Yeah. Thank you very much for your answers.
Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, please remember to click on the Send Request button and then click also and connect via the Audio Only button on your screen and activate your microphone. So we can wait a bit for a few questions, but please remember to click both on Send Request and then the Audio Only button. We have a first question from... or another question, sorry, from Johannes Ries from Apus Capital. Johannes, please go ahead. We cannot hear you.
We have a little problem of sound.
With the platform, yeah. Let's try with another one, maybe, Johannes, we can come back to you. We have another question from Hubert Mathet.
Am I live or not?
Yes. Yes, you are, Hubert. We, we hear you.
Good news. It works. Okay, couple of technical questions. When did you start consolidating Memory? First January 2023, or a little bit later than that?
Yes, first of January. Yes.
Oh, okay. Great. Okay, now, without being too technical on the IFRS 15, why did you book the, you know, the change in the value of the warrants in the H1 report against the financial charge of whole product, and now you're obliged to book it against the revenues? You know, what is the trick there?
No, there is no trick. The thing is that you will have both impact, actually. So when we assess the fair value of the warrants, we booked a contract asset, EUR 153 million in the balance sheet, and a liability more than EUR 53 million. And both the assets and the liabilities have their separate life. The assets, the contract asset, EUR 153 million, this one-
Okay
... is amortized against the revenues.
Okay.
Then the liability is reassessed at every closing.
Okay, great.
It has an impact on the net income that you don't see right now, but that you will also see in March.
Okay, because the last year, in H1, you didn't have any revenues to, with Walmart.
Correct.
That's why.
Right.
Okay, got it.
Right.
Okay, last one. Could you... a little bit of flavor of the CapEx trend for the future years to come. Where are you standing at present time with the completion of the Mexico plant? Is it finished or not yet?
Well, maybe let's try to disconnect the two topics, Hubert, because, Mexico plant, this is not our plant. So by definition, it has no direct impact on the CapEx so far. I think that you're referring to the CapEx, the Mexico plant, which is already used to deliver some of the goods to the U.S. So this one is, the ownership of Jabil, so it has no impact on the CapEx so far.
Okay.
Second, regarding the CapEx, as we said, you know, we said that there was a peak in the CapEx that we were expecting in 2023, leading to 8%-9% CapEx to sales ratio. We confirm the figure.
Okay.
But in H2, the amount will be much lower because we're going to get back to the guidance that was approximately 5%-7% CapEx to sales ratio. So that will be the figure for H2, 2023, and that will also be the figure for the full year of 2024.
Okay. And on the tech data side, i.e., you know, what is related to Memory and Captana, for instance, do you see, you know, CapEx to be expanded in the years to come? Or is it just maybe a good recruitment of manpower that would be the key for success and the expansion looking forward?
Yes, it's more the second. It's more the latter, definitely.
Okay. Right.
We don't anticipate a major CapEx in this area.
Okay. Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you, Hubert. So do we have Johannes now?
Yeah, we can.
Okay.
Johannes, you're on live.
Surprising that we can't hear him.
Johannes, it seems that we cannot hear you. Maybe we can try with another question, and Johannes, we can assist you in the chat if you need. We have another question from Virgile Haddad from Bernstein.
... Hi, good evening. Can you hear me well?
Yes, yes, we can. Absolutely.
Okay, perfect. Perfect. Thank you, thank you for taking the question. Just a quick one on my side: can you give us some more color on the new production lines that are expected to go live in Q2? For example, maybe some details on how much capacity will be unlocked, and are there any risks of delays, in your views as things are going right now, for these lines to be to come online in Q2?
Well, I mean, theoretically, there is always a risk unless, you know, until the quarter is over. But I would say in this case, we don't anticipate, you know, more risk than simply the one that is already anticipated in our guidance. We said, you know, that it would start only in... You know, a number of lines are going to go live in Q2, and the shipments will step up significantly in Q2. So, you know, this already takes into account, you know, a room for a margin for error or for delays. So, I mean, we're used to these kind of projects. So far, I don't think we have any reasons to fear something that we...
You know, we are rather predictable on our guidance on revenue, so we feel comfortable. It's not the first lines we go live on, so should be okay.
Got it. These are, again, if I understand correctly, lines that are developed by your supplier, correct?
Well, yeah. I mean, they are really our engineering, but this is, you know... But we are a no-fab, you know, a fabless company. So, it's very much a lot of our technology, particularly the automation concepts, et cetera, but it is not our, you know, our investments.
Got it. Thank you.
Okay. We have a new question from, Gilles Crespel again. Gilles, you're live.
But if Johannes wants to... Okay, yeah.
Oh, sorry. No, I'm okay if you have another one, but that was my-
No, no, no, it's okay. It's okay, go ahead. Yeah, yeah, go ahead.
Okay, if you can hear me. I'm sorry, going back to a difficult time, just a little question about Gotham City Research, which was an issue last year, quite substantial for a moment, and we hopefully are behind this. I wondered if you had taken any judicial action, any law action against Gotham, or whether you were considering any further step to close the matter, and possibly including appointing any other new administrator to the board.
Okay. So sorry to be very surprised by the connection between those, those two points, because there is absolutely no connection, and there will never be any connection between adding a, a board member and this, event that you are describing. So can you first explain to me why you are-
Oh, okay. Sorry.
Raising the point at the same time? Because I don't understand.
Okay, just to clarify, because it's way easier to brush aside such matters when you have well-known independent administrators, which well, which are such. If you had BPI or whoever on board,
Great
... a research that says Gotham would have been killed the moment it came out, whereas it took a little time here, hence my question.
Yeah.
Sorry for connecting the-
Okay. No, no.
... the dots.
Yeah, no.
No, no backs-
But I think there are two. Okay, so, no, it's an interesting question. And again, there was no. You know, don't, don't, don't misunderstand my remark. Those are two very interesting points, which I will answer separately. But it's just the connection. There is really no connection between the two. So I'll start with Gotham. Of course, Gotham, we have started, you know, we filed, sorry, a complaint at the PNF, Parquet National Financier. These things take time, as you can imagine. There is absolutely no way this topic will be closed. But, you know, we are dependent on the time of justice, and we are very confident on justice, but we also know it takes time.
So everything's going on, and, you know, it's behind us from a day-to-day perspective, but this will go on. And, I'm actually quite confident about the results, based on what we know now. The second point is an interesting point because actually it was delayed by Gotham. As a matter of fact, we have always been, you know, improving our governance. At the end of 2022, we have, you know, reduced the share of our majority shareholder to 32%. And as soon as that was possible, we have increased the number of independent board members, including some very famous one, because I hardly can imagine that there is, in business in Europe, somebody more famous than Peter Brabeck-Letmathe, frankly.
He has been running the largest market cap in Europe for 17 years. He's still the Vice Chairman of the World Economic Forum. He was giving us... It was a super interesting session yesterday to our board. He was giving us all the insights of what was discussed in Davos. It was absolutely fascinating. And this person is as powerful as any chief of state. You can believe me. But anyway, we have introduced him. There will be—we are continuing our, you know, ever-increasing, you know, road to higher compliance regarding AFEP-Medef. And there will be, of course, like I've already said, there will be more independent directors on the board of VusionGroup.
You see, I was even going to say SES-imagotag again, but anyway, there will be more. And you know, you have noticed a new shareholder, and so, you know, we'll discuss this in the future. This is not the time for announcing anything, but the journey was already ongoing, and it probably would have happened faster, if we had not you know, been attacked with you know, by this short seller. So because it postponed everything, the process, et cetera. So that's the two answers. Yes, there will be you know, more independent directors on the board, and that was planned, and this is a normal situation in a listed company that has no more controlling shareholder.
So it will happen, and there will probably be something around this at the next shareholder meeting, because you know that we need a shareholder meeting to add new members at the board, right? So it will it will be implemented this year, and and it will be a, you know, always ever better, you know, sort of compliance and governance. We are aiming at world-class standards. And yeah, so I, I hope I've answered the two questions and make-
Sure.
made very clear that they are absolutely unrelated.
Okay, no, very clear. I say we're connected in my question, but, are actually-
Yeah.
Independent. Thank you very much, clarifies everything.
More news on this topic soon.
Thank you, and if we can try again with Johannes?
But, can you use maybe Johannes, could-
Johannes, you're live. Otherwise, yeah.
Maybe the-
You can write your question. Yeah, you can write your question if you want in the chat, and you can also, again, click on the audio connect if you want to join the live Q&A. We have a written question in the chat from Adam Gildea of Bank of America. "Given the impact of the initial Walmart deliveries on Q4 2023 revenue, is it possible to give any indication on either the share of Q4 revenue coming from the deliveries, or what percentage on the initial 500 stores these deliveries represent?
Yes, roughly we can say that we delivered approximately 30 stores in Q4.
Thank you. And again, if you would like to ask a question, you can either click Send Request and then the Audio Only button, or ask the question through the chat. I repeat the instructions. If you want to join the Q&A session, you can click the Send Request and then click the Audio Only button to connect your microphone.
There is two written questions.
Yes. More written questions, so one from Benjamin Thielmann, from Berenberg: "Can you give us some color on your expected book-to-bill in 2024? At what year is your order backlog as of today?
So, I mean, on this, we, you know, we publish our order entries, not order backlog, but what we can say is that we have a very significant coverage on, you know, what we call the backlog and quasi-backlog, which are, you know, orders that are pending for final negotiations. The sum of that is very high, so we have a great deal of visibility for the year. And, sorry, and the book-to-bill ratio is a different question. So what's... You're asking us basically, what will be the order entries of 2024? You know, it's very difficult to assess that.
I think it would be a significantly above one, because we are, you know, we have a great pipeline in the U.S. and, so, and, and also a great pipeline in Europe, so it should be a very good year. Also, you probably note, if you follow a little bit, you know, social networks and this kind of news, you can see that ESL in particular is becoming really mainstream. And so there is a, you know, a lot of activity there. So we are at the beginning of a wave, which we had anticipated, which is, you know, a significant adoption. So order entries should be very, very exciting this year.
Another question, and so apparently now the questions are coming more on the chat.
We have one question from Yann de Partevaux from Gilbert Dupont: "Can you give us the recurring revenue per ESL?
No. We can give you the recurring revenue. I think we gave the recurring VAS revenue, that's already an important information. We also—But let's not forget that there is also a recurring revenue that comes in the ESL, because, as you know, replacements and reassortments of ESL on stores are quasi-recurring revenues, which are not counted in our recurring revenue. But the reality is, our recurring revenue is much higher than the VAS recurring revenue because, of course, as soon as you install a store or a chain or a food chain, you begin to have permanently replacements, store extensions, extension of coverage and extension of chains. So, there is a significant element of recurring revenues.
And there is-
Yeah. No, sorry,
There is another question from Yann, from Gilbert Dupont again. What are the key risks you identified for your industrialization in 2024 growth?
Well, you know, we are in the business, I mean, for 30 years and, you know, the past decade, we're under year of industrializing new products. We have a lot of experience, so in theory, there is always risk when you manufacture, for sure. But we are, you know, extremely serious about hedging this risk by multi-sourcing. So today we are producing, you know, finished goods in three geographies and several, you know, players, partners. So we are diversifying at every stage of components and finished goods manufacturing, which means we're reducing all kinds of risks.
We also have diversifying our logistic routes, which means that this is why we're not talking too much about the impact of what happens right now in the Red Sea, because we have a lot of alternative routes, road, train, including from Asia and other, of course, sea routes. So, I mean, there is always risk, and they are mentioned in our risk factors, but it's a risk we have, I would say, under stronger, let's say, scrutiny, and I would say even strong control. So we're confident on the year's guidance, or at least it's not a guidance, but at least the year's target.
We have another question from Aurélien Sivignon from Oddo. Can you share the amount of inorganic revenues recorded in 2023? In H1, you mentioned roughly 2%, if I remember well. Is it fair to assume this within the full year?
Yes, it's fair to assume approximately the same proportion on the full year. Just Aurélien, on this topic, also consider that, the revenues brought by these acquisitions in 2023 is lower than the amount of revenues generated by the China JV in 2022. So if you want to do some like for like, don't forget that, the positive impact is more than offset by the deconsolidation of the China JV in 2023.
Thank you. We have another question from Aurélien from Oddo. On the IFRS impact, as far as I understand, the price reductions are expected to be averaged over the life of the contract. Basically, if we assume 100 stores invoice to Walmart, what would be the revenue recorded based on this rule?
I'm very sure.
But I think as a general statement, we want to really, you know, re-insist on the fact that we don't give nominative information on revenues, you know, whatever the customer. So, you know, so I don't know if Thierry, you want to complete my answer, but-
No, but the difficulty is that, by definition, it assumes some volume, so it's always very difficult to be able to anticipate the volume that can be generated by the contract. So difficult to say this well, and I think that we have never calculated this way, actually, to be honest.
We have two questions from Johannes Ries from Apus Capital. The first one, will the recurring VAS revenue also outgrow the total revenue in 2024?
Sorry.
The re-
I was reading the other question, so
The question from
Question
The question from Johannes Ries from Apus Capital, will the recurring VAS revenue also outgrow the total revenue in 2024?
Ah, outgrow. Okay. So the growth rate-
Yes.
Yes, we are strongly anticipating that, too.
Another question from Johannes. Do we have feedback on the New York Retail Show? Could we expect additional larger deals in the U.S.?
We had an incredible show in New York, the best in 12 years. It was massive. You can see, I mean, again, I insist on the U.S. because it's not only the biggest retail market, it's also the most booming economy right now in the world. The fact that we are really extremely well-positioned in the U.S. is not only one good news, but two good news, because it's also the most you know, dynamic economy right now. You could feel that that you know, modernize, because it's also an economy driven by consumption, which means that retail is going to be strong, and retail is really now about modernizing the physical assets. I can tell you this is now the priority of most of the big retailers.
So we had, you know, a tremendous show. And so, yes, we... First, it sounds like we are, you know, like only having Walmart. So we already signed very big deals in the U.S., and we have, you know, I said that we are very close to having more stores in the U.S. than in France, where we have worked for 30 years, right? So, it gives you a sense of we have a lot of other customers, with a high potential. We announced some of these deals in 2023. So it's a very dynamic market, and yes, we will have, you know, other deals again, for sure. But we have already a lot.
I mean, let's not forget that, you know, if you look at the revenue on the rest of the world, North America and the U.S. is the very vast largest part of it. And Walmart, for obvious reasons, is still a small customer, you know, in 2023. So you can imagine, the size of the market is, you know, very difficult to... is very deep.
We have another question from Sébastien Ribeiro, from Amiral Gestion. You gave some color on the 2024 profitability. Can we have a word on the 2023 one, and on the Free Cash Flow?
Well, actually, we only said that we were expecting to grow the profitability in 2024, so we did not really give any guidance. We can, of course, confirm that in 2023 we will grow the profitability against 2022, but I think it's too mature to give any indication or more precise indication. That's exactly the purpose of the conference call that we'll have at the end of March.
We have another question from Aurélien Sivignon, from Oddo. Does the 2024 guidance with revenues over EUR 1 billion is restated from the twin packs mentioned?
Yes, and that is written as such, in the press release. Yes.
With this, for now, we have no further question.
Okay. So anyway, it will not be long before we are together again. We are going to talk to each other again in March, so quite soon. And then we will give, you know, further flavor, of course, the results of the full year, the full results, and then, you know, I mean, it will be a time also to give a bit more color on the year. So, we look forward to that, and for now, we wish you goodbye and a great evening.