Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome, and thank you for joining this Ceconomy AG Investor and Analyst Conference Call. Throughout today's recorded presentation, all participants will be in a listen-only mode. The presentation will be followed by a question-and-answer session. If you would like to ask a question, you may press zero followed by the one on your touchtone telephone. Please press star key followed by the zero for an operator assistance. I would like now to turn the conference over to Sebastian Kauffmann, Vice President, Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.
Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining our Q1 results call. With me today are our CEO, Karsten Wildberger, and our CFO, Florian Wieser. They'll guide you through today's presentation. Before we start, the usual formalities. Firstly, this call is being recorded. The replay will be available on our website later today. Secondly, don't forget that today's presentation and some answers to your questions may contain forward-looking statements. For additional information in this regard, please refer to the disclaimer. Now let me hand over to Karsten.
Thank you, Sebastian. Good morning, everyone. This is Karsten Wildberger speaking. Thank you for joining our Q1 results presentation. We'd like to briefly take you through our performance update of Q1, give you also a brief outlook, especially our current trading performance, and also update you on the progress we're making with regards to our strategy implementation. On slide four, an overall summary. The first quarter, and this is October, November, and December last year, was still very much affected by strong external headwinds. Although we can't choose the conditions we operate in, we can and we do choose the way we react and act as a company. I can confidently say that we remained focused, we executed, and we delivered.
We generated solid results despite supply shortages, despite being hit by a cyberattack in early November, and despite COVID restrictions in our home market, Germany, and even lockdowns in the Netherlands and Austria. At the same time, we made further operational progress and improved the omnichannel experience for our customers. I will also share a few tangible examples in this short presentation. Clearly, in absolute terms, we aren't satisfied with the outcome in these difficult times. The results do not reflect the underlying capacity of our company. Clearly, we also have more work to do, but I'm convinced that we'll emerge stronger from the current turbulence, revealing the underlying strength of our business. Let's turn to slide number 5, and let's have a closer look at our development in Q1. Firstly, it was a robust performance given the severe headwinds we faced.
Sales and EBIT were below the record-breaking level of prior year, 2021, but still in line with pre-pandemic levels two years ago. Gross margin was even up, driven besides others by our services and solutions business. All of that was achieved in spite of COVID restrictions, supply shortages in certain product categories, and a cyberattack, as I just mentioned. It's also important to emphasize that we performed particularly well in countries with no or limited COVID restrictions. EBIT in all segments, except the DACH region, was either on par or above the previous year. Finally, if we compare our development over a two-year horizon, and I'll show you in a second why we think this is a better comparison, we see total sales growing by around 3% and online sales by more than 80%.
As you can see on chart 6, last year's first quarter was one of the most successful quarters in the company's history. We benefited from high momentum in consumer electronics, driven by a boost from pent-up demand after lengthy lockdowns and a peak Christmas demand. At the same time, COVID restrictions were relaxed in that quarter, and business losses from previous periods were compensated by local government. In some countries, there were even temporary measures to stimulate demand, such as the VAT reduction in Germany. In the current year, however, the situation was completely reversed during the peak season. COVID restrictions in Germany, Austria, and the Netherlands caused a drop in frequency up to 40% of our stores during the high season. In Austria and the Netherlands, stores had to completely close for 3 weeks.
What's more, in Q1 2021, there was little or even no government support. That's why comparing this year's first quarter to the last year is difficult. In our view, the pre-pandemic level two years ago is a better standard of comparison when the business was running stably under conditions that were still normal without external headwinds. That's why we think that reaching pre-pandemic levels is a fairly good performance and a more suitable benchmark. Let's talk on the next chart about Black Friday and Black November. During the entire month of November, in particular on Black Friday itself, for the first time, we ran group-wide aligned campaigns in all our 30 country organizations. They were very successful, for we managed to double our online sales compared to the pre-pandemic level of November 2019.
Responding to short supply in some areas, we were able to reduce excess inventory in certain product categories, such as TVs by diverting demand. The results are clearly below the levels we deliver under normal market conditions, but given the circumstances, we performed respectably. Let's turn to page 8. We've received lots of questions regarding the latest sales performance. Let me give you a sneak preview of how we did from mid-December onwards until the end of January 2022. Since mid-December, and to be precise, since calendar week 50, we've seen an underlying increasing sales trend. The fundamental development over the last six weeks has been very encouraging, also on an absolute level. Relative to prior year, we've experienced a substantial uplift because last year was the period when we started to suffer from more severe COVID restrictions, including full store closures.
For the last six weeks, we've seen sales growth of almost 40% for the group and of around 75% in Germany. Thanks to that positive sales momentum, Ceconomy's total sales for the first four months of this current year are on par with previous years' level, despite the sales decline in Q1. This is largely driven by brick-and-mortar sales, which will also facilitate our profitable service and solutions business. What we are currently seeing confirms our ability to perform once our stores are allowed to open in a more stable environment. At this time, we're therefore enjoying very encouraging sales momentum and remain positive. However, we continue to live with many uncertainties and will keep alert. Overall, we remain positive because regardless of the environment, we are continuing to execute our omnichannel model.
On slide 9, I'll give you some examples and proof points of what we've executed and achieved recently. Also during Q1, we focused on implementing our omnichannel strategy further. Here are a few examples I'd like to share with you, 4 areas of progress that are important. Firstly, customer experience is super critical for business success, and we steer and monitor the business using the so-called Net Promoter Score, NPS. An NPS measures where the customers recommend us to their friends and family, called advocates, or if they are unhappy with us, called detractors. The NPS can lie between -100 and +100, and +100 means we would only have advocates or raving fans. Currently, we stand at +50, and this is a 7 points improvement versus prior year.
Our NPS improved online and offline, and we also use as an important source of insight, customer verbatim, where customers tell us where and how to improve, but they also give us increasingly positive feedback. Just three examples are shown on the right-hand side here. I will give a bit more color on the following three areas that are important when it comes to omnichannel, how we bring that to life, where we're making progress. The first one is the important and differentiating customer proposition of after sales, and here I will share progress from Spain. The second one is our important focus on creating and growing our marketplace to our existing business. The third one is the critical field of logistics and delivery. Let's talk about after sales because it's very differentiating and a relevant customer proposition for us.
This means when it comes to repairing devices, giving advice, or when it comes to refurbishing products. In Spain, our team has made big progress in this area. It's also an element to strengthen loyalty of our customers, but it's also about creating additional sales. In our newly established repair facility in Madrid, we cooperate also with several partners there. We offer all sorts of repairs, and we did repair almost 100,000 devices in Q1 with a reduced turnaround time by 35% and improved quality. In after sales, we also offer personalized service. That means the customer has a dedicated service person ensuring consistent end-to-end delivery of the after-sales process, including a final product test so that the device is really working. This has led to an NPS improvement of +17.
Now we are working on best practice sharing from our Spanish businesses into the other markets. Let's turn to the next one, the marketplace. An important pillar of our omnichannel strategy is extending our customer offer and growing our business through our own marketplace. We are running marketplaces in Germany since summer 2020, and since October last year, 2021, in Spain. If we compare our Q1 results of the marketplace to the previous year, we see that our gross merchandise value, GMV, has grown 400%. The number of sellers has grown 4.5 times, and the number of SKUs offered increased 5 times. That's a very good growth, and we are delighted that customers appreciate our marketplace offering. The marketplace is EBIT accretive, and we are working now on accelerating our marketplace further.
We have a rigorous process in place onboarding sellers to ensure that we have a great customer experience. With marketplaces running in Germany and Spain, we will further expand to the Netherlands and Austria in 2022. By the way, the marketplace broke even already in its first quarter of operation after the launch in October. Let's turn to slide 12. I'd like to give a brief update on how we are optimizing logistics and delivery and on the progress we've recently made. Overall, our customer satisfaction with our delivery promise and actually delivery performance is improving across the group. The NPS increased by six points. This is driven by many enhancements and operational improvement initiatives. For example, we reduced fulfillment lead times in our warehouses by more than 40%.
Our substantial share of online orders in Germany are now ready for store pickup within 30 minutes. That means a customer clicks online to buy, and the customer can pick up the product 30 minutes later in a store. Of course, there's more to come. New urban hubs now make home delivery more convenient for our customers and reduce also our own logistics costs. In the next sessions, when we update you, we will continue to provide more clarity on how we are improving here further. Before handing over to Florian for the financials, on slide 13, I'd like to share an important step in our sustainability strategy. We have globally launched our umbrella logo, BetterWay.
BetterWay is a critical communication and branding concept, like an umbrella, if you like, to drive awareness and consistency in the field of sustainability. BetterWay makes sustainable product offerings more visible, and BetterWay helps our customers make the right buying decisions. BetterWay highlights products that are certified along key dimensions, such as responsible manufacturing, emission and energy efficiency, the ability to recycle or to become part of a circular economy. You will find the logo in our web shops, in our stores. Today, we offer more than 1,200 products carrying that logo, and we will double this number by the end of the year. Let me now hand over to Florian to guide you through the financial section.
Thank you, and good morning, everyone. Let me guide you through our quarterly figures in more detail. With sales and EBIT roughly on pre-pandemic levels, I consider our Q1 results as solid overall. They represent a reasonable start into the new financial year. We usually apply year-on-year comparisons to put our performance into perspective. However, such analyses need to be treated with caution this year, given the extraordinary comparison base we had already discussed in our recent full year results call. Therefore, we added comparisons to pre-pandemic levels in this presentation whenever we felt it was appropriate. Now let me start with our main KPI. Two years ago, in Q1 2020, the very last quarter without COVID, our business environment was relatively calm. In this year's Q1, we are facing extremely adverse conditions.
COVID restrictions in various countries, including Germany, reduced product availability in core categories, resurging inflation, and not to mention a cyberattack. Q1 2020 and Q1 2021-22, two quarters with completely different market conditions, but roughly comparable results for sales and EBIT. This is a clear proof of our continued and relentless transformation and our increased operational effectiveness. Today, we are in far better shape than we were two years ago. Judging our performance by only comparing against prior year's record quarter would thus only be misleading and overshadow our clear involvement. Despite lower sales and EBIT compared to previous year, we are therefore satisfied with what we have achieved. Total sales came in at EUR 6.9 billion, and EBIT stood at EUR 274 million. A sales increase of +3% against pre-pandemic levels, as well as an almost stable EBIT.
Now to online sales on page 16. It comes as no surprise that the trend to shop online with us is unbroken. Thus, the online sales share remained on an elevated level of around 28% in Q1. The online channel also benefited from partial or full lockdowns and store access restrictions in various countries, including our home market, Germany. At the same time, total online sales were encumbered by general product scarcity and the temporary impact of the cyberattack in November. In Q1, 36% of all online purchases were conveniently collected in a MediaMarkt or Saturn store. This ratio is up four percentage points on previous year. We will continue to make our omnichannel shopping experience as seamless as possible and work towards our ambition of an even higher ratio exceeding 40%. Let's move to page 17 in services and solutions.
In absolute terms, our services and solutions business was stable against last year. Relative to total sales, we, however, increased the share by 0.4 percentage points. Compared to pre-pandemic levels, the reduced store traffic weighed on our services business. While we managed to generally increase the attachment rate of our services, the current situation around reduced product availability impeded a stronger performance uplift. Scarcity was particularly pronounced within telecommunications, which is a category with a relatively high attachment rate. For example, you can't offer extended warranties or ready-to-use services to a smartphone you're not selling in the first place. At the same time, we continued to extend and to improve our services and solutions offerings, both on and offline, as outlined in our previous results calls.
Building upon these enhancements and the generally improving circumstances in the upcoming quarters, we expect a further recovery of our strategically important and margin-accretive service and solutions business. Moving on to page 18. Our gross margin stood at 17.3% in Q1, an increase of 30 basis points driven by various factors. Firstly, the somewhat lower online share and the increased pickup ratio resulted in a tailwind from channel shifts. Secondly, the relatively higher share of our services and solutions business, and thirdly, the goods valuation benefited our margin. On the negative side, the reduced product availability, the competitive environment, as well as our deliberate efforts to improve our inventory structure, led to a slight decline of the goods margin.
Given the relatively low prior year basis resulting from the extended store closures, especially in Germany in 2021, we expect a further year-on-year recovery of our gross margin going forward. Let's move on to our OpEx development. The fact that we have done our homework on costs is once again evident in the OpEx development. Total costs have decreased continuously in the last years. Excluding COVID subsidies, the development versus prior year is even more pronounced. Mathematically, the cost ratio increased by 110 basis points year-on-year. Yet, given the drop in sales and the decline in COVID subsidies, this figure is not that meaningful to us. Compared to Q1 2020 with a more similar level of sales, we managed to decrease our OpEx ratio by around 50 basis points and continue to focus on cost control as a key priority.
We have introduced this slide in our recent full-year results call, and it once again nicely summarizes the diverging performance of our segments. The blended sales drop of -7% is mostly driven by the DACH region, with a decrease in sales of more than 11%. Here, you should keep in mind that both Austria and Germany suffered from lockdowns or access restrictions to our stores. Excluding those two countries, the group's EBIT result was even roughly on prior year level. Thus, the group's overall year-over-year decline in EBIT is fully attributable to these countries. With regard to macroeconomic development, we see a kind of a special situation in Turkey with very high inflation and currency devaluation. So far, the teams are staying the course and handling the headwinds well. Now very quickly on reported financials down to EPS, which were relatively straightforward this quarter.
Given the absence of major non-recurring items in both periods, reported financials are almost fully in line with adjusted one. Financial result is on prior year's level and taxes reduced in line with profitability. As a result, we see a EUR 0.09 drop to EUR 0.34 in earnings per share. Looking at our free cash flow development on chart 22, we have finally seen the expected reversal of the negative phasing effects in the past quarters. Moreover, as announced in our December call, we initiated targeted measures to improve our net working capital position. The proof is visible today. Thanks to our deliberate stock management, we achieved a nearly stable free cash flow of around EUR 1.2 billion. This is not far away from previous year's level and was achieved despite a significant cash outflow from deferred tax payments as a result of last year's COVID regulation.
As such, we are satisfied with both our free cash flow generation and our resulting liquidity position. Let's now move to the outlook on page 24. In an exceptional context marked by COVID restrictions, supply shortages and a cyberattack, the economy once again demonstrated a robust performance in this quarter. We have put the most demanding year-on-year comparison behind us and have taken an essential leap towards our full year targets, which we hereby confirm today. Given the strict lockdown situation in the last year, the upcoming quarters will have far easier comps. However, many uncertainties persist. The situation concerning our supply chains is still difficult, and from what we hear, will persist until at least our Q3. Moreover, inflation remains high. Finally, the spread of the Omicron variant is still significantly interfering with our operational business.
The situation is thus likely to remain volatile, and we will communicate a more concrete guidance to you once we have better visibility. To visualize this for you, please refer to this slide, which you probably remember from our December call. It shows our sales development versus the base year 2018/19. The substantial swings since the onset of COVID makes precise predictions very challenging. However, recent sales trends were above pre-pandemic levels, giving us confidence for the upcoming months and quarters. This completes the financial sections, and now back to Karsten.
Thank you, Florian. Well, we are going through still volatile times, but we have learned much better how to deal with external uncertainties. Given the external factors, Q1 was a robust performance. We confirmed our guidance, and we are making progress implementing our strategy. Since mid-December, we are experiencing an encouraging sales uplift, and the easing of COVID restriction means our business is performing at a higher capacity. We made further progress implementing our strategy, improving customer experience, making progress in logistics and after-sales, and advancing our omnichannel business model. Finally, I'd like to point out that I do believe that the consumer electronics market remains fundamentally attractive despite COVID, supply chain challenges, and inflationary pressure. Because I think a key driver for consumer electronics is the great innovation happening in the consumer electronics sector with great new products and services in the pipeline of our manufacturers.
Finally, we will continue to work hard to master short-term challenges, but also keep executing our strategy so that we will emerge stronger from this difficult environment. Thank you everyone for your attention. Now I'll turn the call over to the moderator for your questions.
Ladies and gentlemen, at this time, we will begin the question and answer session. One moment, please, for the first question. The first question is from the line of Kepler Cheuvreux, Fabienne Caron. The line is now open for you.
Good morning, everyone. Three questions from my side, please. The first one regarding your outlook of your slight sales increase for this year. Could you give us a bit more qualitative comment per regions? A follow-up from this question, could you give us an overview of the rules in Germany regarding shopping? Because, for example, here in Hessen, the 2G rules disappeared from today, but I think it would be useful if you could have a general viewing percentage of stores, how many stores where the consumer can go shopping without any restrictions, would be useful.
The last question, I'm sorry I ask this question again, but could you give us a breakdown of the service and solution in percentage of sales, the main building blocks, please, because it's a bit a black box for me. Thank you.
Yeah. Thank you, Fabienne. First question and the breakdown of service solutions, so Florian will take. I will give a brief update on the rules in Germany regarding shopping and stores, 2G, et cetera. The 2G means actually vaccinated or recovered. Florian, number one is for you.
Yeah, happy to do so. Looking at the outlook for the full year and the various region, we expect basically the major contribution from the segment DACH and Eastern Europe, and we expect Western Southern Europe to be on prior year's level. Obviously, as I said, many uncertainties persist. A lot will depend on the further development of the COVID regulations and inflation. That's the assessment for the outlook. Looking at the third question, service and solution breakdowns. As I said in my speech, basically our service and solutions business improved in the first quarter. The attachment rates were rising for basically all services, especially for warranties and for Smartbar business for our Smartbar business.
The reason why we are suffering or not living up to the ambition which we have set ourselves is basically scarcity of products which was especially pronounced in telecommunications and also IT. These are categories which are very well paid for services attached. If you don't sell smartphones, if you don't sell laptops, it's tough to attach to the rather stable service and solution performance is rather linked to this lack of products and scarcity in these categories than lack of improvement. That would be my breakdown. I hope that it
Yes.
Answer your question.
I was not thinking about the momentum breakdown. I was thinking about the sales mix, i.e., if you look at services and solutions, how much of it is warranties, how much of it is repairs, et cetera?
Yeah. If you look at this, the major part is still coming from the financial services. Looking at warranties and consumer financing and what we see since yes, I would say two years, is a strongly increasing performance of the Smart Bars. This would be my answer to this one. More precise split we do not provide.
Okay, thank you.
Well, a brief update on the rules in Germany regarding shopping. 2G vaccinated or recovered is broadly still the rule across most states. We have states like Bavaria in the southern German part of Germany, where we've seen some easing. Two comments to this. First, initially, it had quite a substantial decline in footfall. 30%, 35%, sometimes even up to 40%. Also currently under 2G, we see a recovery. What does that mean? Currently, footfall stands around -20% versus, say, comparable levels pre-pandemic. What is very encouraging that also the inner cities seem to recover a bit faster. Now, the hope is that the current debate around Omicron, what you see also in other countries, is easing further. We are waiting now for, say, the decisions that 2G will be lifted.
There's a bit of speculation when this will take place, maybe within February, and that should help the situation further. Important to notice, despite the lower footfall, we still see a very encouraging Click and Collect ratio, and we see a very encouraging conversion ratio in our stores because customers coming to us are actually making a more conscious decision and also the purchase value is higher. It's not just the one thing, it's actually a combination of factors with, at the moment, we are more confident and hopeful that things are improving.
Thank you.
The next question is from the line of Bryan, Garnier & Co with Clément Gignoux. Please go ahead.
Good morning. Three questions on my side. Our first one is on wage inflation. Do you see any wage inflation coming throughout Europe, obvious here, and especially in Germany with the rise of minimum wage, if I'm right, about our plan in July and October. My second question is whether on prices. Did you already implemented some price increases given inflation? And is it really feasible in countries such as Germany, where we know that Amazon is still quite aggressive. My third question is on the marketplace. Well, should we also expect the upcoming marketplace in Austria and the Netherlands to more positively contribute to EBIT this year? Thanks.
Thank you, Clément. The question on inflation and the price, prices and price increases, number one and two of your questions, Florian will answer, and I'll take the marketplace one.
Yeah, happy to do so. First of all, talking about the minimum wage, putting things into perspective. In Germany, the government is currently discussing to raise the minimum wage from currently EUR 9.82 to EUR 12 per hour, starting in October this year. For our business, because we are a tariff-bound company, we do not expect any significant financial impact coming from a higher minimum wage. What will affect us more are the tariff discussions in this year, which are taking place starting from spring, I guess. Depending on this development, the question will be whether the wages will be adjusted. To be precise, from the minimum wage discussion in Germany, we do not expect a significant financial impact.
Second question, on price increases. Well, as I said in the speech, inflation is one of the major adverse market conditions which we are facing. Luckily, in the first quarter, we did not see a significant impact yet. One reason for that is that we deliberately increased our inventory early in 2021, and we had elevated stock levels until September. Now if you look at our free cash flow development, the stock levels came down and the net working capital was improving. Looking forward, the resurgence of inflation is dangerous. Now we see that it's at 5%. How does inflation affect our business? First of all, we have higher input prices for goods and purchased services, especially in logistics and also for goods priced from suppliers.
On the other side, inflation obviously weighs on consumer sentiment, not so much on our product itself, but on energy, which is the main driver for inflation at the moment. Looking at our business, I would say there's both chances and risks. Number one, chances, as I just said, inflation is particularly pronounced in energy, and we sell a lot of products using energy, so many consumers also now buy products to save energy, to more energy efficient products. At the same time, we were able to basically pass on price increases also to the customers. At the other side, as I said, the dangerous elements, higher goods prices and as well lower consumer sentiments.
Overall, chances and risks, but overall inflation certainly not tailwind, but rather headwind.
Thank you. Clément, to your third question on marketplace. Overall, generally, very important, marketplace is EBIT accretive. Within a reasonably short period of time, in Germany as our first marketplace, that was the initial launch, turned profitable. In Spain, within actually after 1 quarter, and launching the marketplace there. Very, very fast. That also means we have some learning curve effects, I'd say. My expectation is that also in the other markets like the Netherlands and Austria, we should see positive EBIT contribution relatively soon after start. What does that mean? Within after the first quarter, I think, would be a tremendous result. Within 6 months is something that usually we plan with.
If it's EBIT accretive for those two markets in this financial year, depends obviously on the launch date, but you can assume that this will be EBIT accretive very fast, and we will also benefit from increasing learning effects.
Understood. Thanks.
Our next question is from Stephan Binamou, Exane. The line is now open for you.
Hello, good morning. I have a question regarding the Zalando move. They've decided to integrate, in their offer, Apple and Beats products . Is that a threat for you, and how do you see the competitive landscape on a general basis? Thank you.
Sorry, just to make sure, your question was regarding PayPal?
Zalando, they decided to integrate Apple and Beats products in their offer, in Germany especially, and also in DACH region. How do you see this move? On a global basis, how do you see your competitive landscape, given the resilient consumer goods sector, but also the competition and the inflationary environment? Thank you.
We are not sure we fully understood the PayPal question, maybe just on the competitive landscape. Obviously that is a part of our job to observe the competitive landscape very carefully. We see, I would say since, say, 6-7 weeks, as we said, a good recovery of brick-and-mortar sales. That also helps, of course, our performance sales and market share, which is very encouraging. We continue to grow nicely and execute well on online. You may have seen that ao.com is exiting the market, which we also observe. That also means that if you are more a pure play, it's not for every player that easy. We're accelerating our marketplace, which is also helping the customer offer, the customer demand.
We think that the omnichannel model that we are driving with very strong now recovery on brick-and-mortar and good execution and a strong focus also on online and linking the two is the right model. Apple products sold by Zalando is the question. That is well clearly something that we observe and look into. I would still say we have a very strong relationship with Apple. Of course, why they choose us, we are the biggest indirect channel, especially with the brick-and-mortar footprint in Europe. We are actually in very good discussions to strengthening that relationship further. If you take our repair services like Smart Bars, they are really going well.
We are now also going into selling the broader ecosystem, if you like, with even more services from Apple. I would say it just underlines the underlying strength and ambition of Apple. We are very happy with our relationship with Apple. As you say, we watch the space very carefully. Thank you.
Thank you.
There are no further questions at this time. I hand back to Karsten Wildberger, CEO, for closing remarks.
Well, thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your time and your questions. As usual, if you have any follow-ups, please feel free to contact our investor relations team. Now let me conclude today's results call. Take care, stay healthy, and goodbye here from actually Düsseldorf today. If you'll also be joining our annual general meeting on Wednesday, see you and hear you soon. Bye-bye.