Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome, and thank you for joining the Redcare Pharmacy Q3 2023 Earnings Release Investor Call. Throughout today's recorded call, all participants will be in a listen-only mode. The presentation will be followed by a question and answer session. Please follow the registration link on the webcast page to receive dial-in numbers. If you would like to ask a question, you may press star followed by one on your touchtone telephone. Please press the star key followed by zero for operator assistance. Your hosts today are Olaf Heinrich, CEO, and Jasper Eenhorst, CFO. I would now like to turn the conference over to Olaf Heinrich. Please go ahead.
Yes, a very warm welcome from me to everybody. As you know, it's my first time as CEO of Redcare, and I'm really looking forward to having this meeting together with you, and I think the timing is perfect because we have great numbers on the one hand, and we have also great development on eRX on the other hand. So looking forward to having a great Q3 presentation together with my colleague, Jasper.
Thank you.
So if we look into today's agenda, it's pretty straightforward. First, we would like to talk about financial performance, and then give an update on business and strategy, and the focus here is on eRX, and then outlook and guidance. Next slide. So if we talk about the financial performance, we can see in the nine-month great development across the entire P&L. If we start on the sales side, we can see fast growth, organic, but also non-organic. We have a 67% in Q3, and overall year-to-date, 45% year-to-date sales. If we exclude MediService, you know, MediService is the strategic partnership we launched in May of this year and fully consolidating since then.
We have 26% in Q3 and 24% year to date, which shows Q3 has even been slightly better than the first half of the year. If we look into the non-Rx, we can see that's even a little bit higher. So we have 28% and 27% for the first nine months of the year. If we look into the development of the customers, I mean, we are gaining active customers. We have done this over the last couple of years, but also in this quarter, we gained 400,000 additional active customers, ending up now on 10.5 million active customers. If you look year on year, we have added 1.6 million active customers, and at the same time, we kept the Net Promoter Score above 70.
But we are not only performing on the, let's say, customer or commercial side, but we are also happy to report a record EBITDA. Our adjusted EBITDA for Q3 is 3.2%, and year to date, it's 2.9%, which is four percentage points up to the period last year. And also important to say, this happens across the entire components of the P&L. And of course, that leads to a solid cash position. We have, for the first nine months of the year, a free cash flow and a cash balance well above EUR 200 million. We can confirm the raised guidance, which we raised already in mid of this year, for the full year, 2023.
That means non-Rx sales between 20% and 30%, net sales EUR 1.7 billion-EUR 1.8 billion, and adjusted EBITDA on 1.5%-3%, and a Free Cash Flow from - EUR 20 million to EUR +20 million, and I think, Jasper will later elaborate a little bit more on that one. The last point I would like to make is on MediService. I mean, I mentioned that already earlier. It's our strategic partnership, and it's focused on this market, and here, everything is on plan, and we are really happy about this development. If we can go to the next slide, please. Look, I mean, we have double-digit growth across the group, as already mentioned. I mean, there are two things I would like to point out.
If we take out the MediService, you can see that in DACH, we have a 24.4% sales, which I think is a really good number, outstanding number, and even being topped by our international sales, showing 28.7%. If we can please go to the next slide. What we can see here is the strong development on our number of active customers. I mean, 10.5 million is a really good starting point, also, when we think about going into the eRX. And what you can see is, I mean, quarter after quarter, we are adding a substantial number of new customers and number of active customers. It's 400,000 in this quarter, but also in the previous quarters have been a similar number.
And that's not only building the customer file, it is also about having happy customers, and therefore, we are really very proud of our NPS. This is how we measure customer satisfaction. For Q3, it has been 74, and at the same time, we were able to raise the basket. Here it's important to say that it's not because of MediService. That number is excluded MediService. So therefore, I'm really happy that the basket is up again. So having said this, I would like to turn over to Jasper.
Yeah. Thanks a lot, Olaf. So with all those new active, all those new active customers, how many orders did we do? Well, at the right side of this graph, you see that in total, we processed in quarter three, 7 million orders. And 7 million orders is 1.4 higher than the 5.6 million orders that we did last year. Of course, you see in the graph for all the year, the typical seasonality of an of an online pharmacy or at least of us, where you see a very strong quarter one and quarter four, and you see that Q2 and Q3 were actually this year only slightly lower than the first quarter. Those 7 million orders that we processed were actually despite the already mentioned significant gain of active customers that Olaf talked about already.
But we're coming from 86%, and that was an increase compared to the most recent quarters. 86% was coming from returning customers, a reflection of apparently we do something that satisfies our customers. If you can go to the next slide, please, because with all those orders, what are the numbers? To not repeat what Olaf said already at the start, I would like to begin with the sales in quarter three. So, we increased our sales to EUR 476 million exactly in quarter three this year, which was an increase of 67.1%.
Then immediately going to the adjusted EBITDA margin, because quarter three is also the first full quarter of the full consolidation of MediService, which is impacting both the gross profit margin and adjusted selling and distribution expenses, and I will talk about that later. But first, go to the adjusted EBITDA margin because there actually the impact of MediService is only small. Actually, there is a smaller downward impact of MediService because MediService is operating at an adjusted EBITDA margin and EBIT margin between 2% and 3%. So actually, despite the fact that there's the full consolidation of MediService, we increased our adjusted EBITDA from 0.4 in quarter three last year to 3.2 this year.
If we then go to the year-to-date number, the adjusted EBITDA was -1% after nine months last year and is +2.9%, so an increase of indeed 4 percentage points year-over-year. Then going to the absolute adjusted EBITDA, so one line lower. Last year, Q3, EUR 1 million; this year, EUR 15 million, an increase of, it's saying here, EUR 14 million rounded. Last year, the first nine months, -EUR 9 million, sorry, an increase to EUR 37 million of EUR 46 million adjusted EBITDA. To us, this is the most important line as to profitability, the adjusted EBITDA.
But for full clarity's sake, there's also the fully loaded EBITDA, as the bottom line of this table, and there you actually see that the year-over-year, year-to-date increase is not EUR 46 million, but it's even EUR 56 million, and that's because of the rapidly phasing out of the bookings, because of the non-applicability of IFRS 3 related to the business acquisitions we did in 2021. I see the footnote, it's saying business acquisition in 2022, but it should be 2021. So adjusted EBITDA, significant improvement, very significant improvement, and the fully loaded EBITDA, even EUR 10 million more improvement.
Then in the gross profit margin and S&D, and later, more details about the drivers, but Q3 is the first quarter where MediService is fully consolidated, and you see that our gross profit margin is standing at 23% for the total group, which is five percentage points lower than last year. And the S&D is standing at 7%, which is 7%, 7.3% even, better than last year. So all in all, the adjusted EBITDA, -1% last year after nine months and +2.9% this year, year to date. Please to the next one.
One additional slide here, not only talking about the year-to-date numbers that I already just said for the total group, from -1% to +2.9%, but also this slide to emphasize the segment that we report on always, and all the details are also in the interim report as always. The DACH segment, growing very fast, as Olaf explained already, improved from 1.4 to 5.2. Actually, if you would strip out MediService, it will be even above 6%. Growing organically 24% in DACH, non-organically 67% in DACH, but we are also improving our margin by 4 percentage points there.
What is also something that makes us happy as a company at the moment is the execution of our international growth strategy, where we are growing fast, and in the Netherlands, Belgium, and France and Italy combined, we actually halved our negative EBITDA margin there, 40% lower adjusted EBITDA margin, negative than the year before, from rounded -10% to -6%. Quickly to the next slide, please. That's the growth, gross profit margin bridge. In black, there are the numbers as I showed already in the table and are in the financial statements, so the gross profit margin after nine months at 25.2. No, sorry, I have to say, Yeah, 25.2, it's in the P&L, and 23%, I quoted that number already in the third quarter.
But then looking at the underlying developments of the excluding MediService business. And you see that we improved from last year after nine months, 27.4 to 28.2. Sorry, I'm quoting a lot of numbers, but the key on this slide is actually that we say, again, we were able to report improvements in our gross profit margin because on an apple-to-apple base, we are 80 basis points better, and that is driven mainly by improving the product mix of the products that we are selling to our consumers. And the development in Q3 is comparable to the year-to-date number. So gross profit margin improvement. Let's go to the next slide. The same setup here with the reported number in black and then the apple-on-apple for the comparisons.
Here, what Olaf said already, with improvement throughout the P&L, so it's not only the gross profit margin, but actually the majority is year to date, just like it was in Q2. Also in Q3 is coming from an improvement of the cost, where we see an efficiency and effectiveness and also a significant impact of scale. So marketing improving lower as a percentage of sales compared to last year, but then the other two blocks are also really noteworthy to point out. So despite the inflationary pressure on gas, on increasing labor costs, you see actually that we succeeded to have a lower last mile cost as a percentage of sales, as a total company, and also lower operational labor as a percentage of sales compared to last year. Very happy with the developments here.
That makes me come to the next slide, which is the cash flow bridge. As always, this is including everything, also short-term deposits, et cetera. Cash and cash equivalents, if you look it up in the balance sheet, it's in cash, and it is 95% of the other financial assets, but this is cash. At the start of the year, we had EUR 180 million, and at the end of quarter three, we increased this by EUR 46 million to EUR 226 million. The free cash flow, so that's the sum of the first three blocks, is +EUR 27 million year to date. That's the numbers, and I'm happy to hand it off back to you, Olaf.
Thank you very much. So now we would like to talk about business and strategy update. As I said earlier, a quick update on the branding, but then the majority of the focus should be on the e-script. Can you please go to the next slide? I mean, as you know, we successfully relaunched the brand on the corporate level, so the Redcare Pharmacy brand, and we received a lot of positive feedback from all of the stakeholders. And as a consequence, we have done this now also on our web shops in Germany and Austria, incorporating the new look and feel, and at the same time, keeping the local hero names. And overall, we see there's also a positive feedback from our customers. And you saw the sales development in Q3.
So overall, it looks very well, and it was very well received from our customers. If we can please go to the next slide. Here, I would like to highlight two points. The one thing is we see an increased acceptance among healthcare professionals in Germany on the e-script. This is pretty clear. Numbers are going up. And the second message is e-scripts will be mandatory beginning of January 2024. So those are two really great messages. Let's look a little bit more into the details. I mean, we saw that the number of scripts being issued by doctors are going up. Last week, we even had more than 100,000 scripts on one day. But to me, more, or at least equally important, is that the number of doctors who are issuing scripts is going up.
Right now, we are on 14,000, and if you look into where we have been by the end of Q2, Q2, we're talking about 4,000, so there's an additional more than 10,000 doctors within Q2 and Q3. So that's very great development. I mean, on the pharmacy side, almost 16,000 are now refilling scripts, but I mean, of course, we expected that because that's the business of the pharmacy. So, but really great development on the doctor side. And then the second topic, e-scripts being mandatory. I think it's important to point this out. We don't need any further regulation or something like this. So this is based on the PDSG from 2021 and has been reinstated by the Ministry of Health. Beginning of next year, e-script are mandatory in Germany.
So that's very good news overall, if we look into the market. If we can please go to the next slide. Let's see what that means for our business model. As you know, there are different ways to redeem an e-script. We have on the one hand, the Gematik App. It's, it's a digital solution, but it has one hurdle. You need to have the eGK, which is the German physical healthcare card, plus your PIN. And as we all know, almost nobody has the PIN. So it's an option, but it's a limited one. And then the second way to get it, it's really the paper printout.
So you receive the printout from the doctor, and then you can use the QR code, and that's what you can do currently, scan it into our app, and then we can fill the script. It's a non-digital solution. It happens on the request of the patient, but it works today. And then there's the third one, which we call the eGK plugin solution. How does it work? I mean, the patient, after having been at the doctor, has to go physically into the pharmacy and to present the same card they are using at the doctor's site and have to plug it in into the card reader of the local pharmacy. Here, you don't need a PIN, and therefore, that's a pretty good way the business for brick-and-mortar pharmacies.
The only thing, it's, it is discriminatory for online pharmacies, because as you can imagine, I mean, you cannot plug in this, this card, or you can't send in the card to us, something like this. So at the end of the day, this solution clearly takes away the patient choice, the freedom of choice on a pharmacy level. And as you know, that is a fundamental in Germany, but also in most of the European countries, that's the free choice of pharmacy, and you, in this case, you cannot really use the online pharmacy. So, therefore, if you think about maybe two use cases, let's say you are immobile or old, then you can call your doctor, and the doctor can even issue an e-script without seeing you, if that's fine with the doctor.
But then you have to make your way to the pharmacy, or if you live in rural areas, I mean, sometimes it's 10 km or more to find the way to the pharmacy. So it's really taking away freedom of choice, and that is something, of course, which is not acceptable. But the good news is, if we please turn to the next page, we have developed a solution for that, a fully digital solution. So we call that the eGK mobile solution, which is the digital twin of the plugin solution for brick-and-mortar pharmacies. How does this work? So you download the app for pharmacy, can be a brick-and-mortar pharmacy, but of course, can also be an online pharmacy. Then you present the same physical card in front of your mobile.
The mobile is reading that card via NFC technology, and then the pharmacy sees all of the scripts in the app, and then you can, as a customer, you can then choose different services. If you're with an online pharmacy, you can see in terms of if you would like to add something to the basket or different delivery options. If it's a brick-and-mortar pharmacy, you can look into, is the product available or agree on a pickup or something like this. And overall, this is a solution which works for doctors. This is a solution which works for pharmacies, for all pharmacies, and of course, it's a solution which works for consumers. Because by the end of the day, it's the real first application, or let's say, use case, of the e-script in Germany, which is full digital and has added value.
If you think about what I explained earlier, if you're immobile or if you're old or elderly or you live in rural areas, you can call your doctor. The doctor can, in the, let's say, in the case of a repeat script, the doctor can issue the e-script either without seeing you or by having a video chat with you. Then the script is in, on the e-server, and then you can just attach the card to your smartphone, and then you can choose all of the options, delivery from brick-and-mortar pharmacies, else as well as our services as online pharmacy. It's a fully digital way and works for everybody. I think, this will really help, also the acceptance on the acceptance on the e-script, in Germany. Let's have a look into the status. Where are we right now on this?
The good news is no statutory changes are needed. I mean, this can all happen within the existing legal framework. We are in ongoing talks with Gematik, the Ministry of Health, and other stakeholders on data security, for example. By the end of the day, this is supposed to be a product of Gematik, so that's the reason why we are in talks. Those talks are very positive because my understanding is everybody sees the value of this solution. From a technology perspective, we are ready, but again, we are in talks with Gematik, so purpose is that it, that this becomes an official Gematik product. If we think about timing, our target launch date is the end of this year. Why is that?
Because, beginning next year, e-script is going to be mandatory in Germany, and this is a discrimination-free way for patients to act in the German market. So overall, very good development on our eRX. And having said this, I would like again to turn this over to Jasper.
Yeah. Thanks, Olaf. And yeah, after the clear explanation of the very good developments we are seeing in eRx, actually, if you can go to the next... Yeah. Thank you. We are at the same time then here actually having the guidance for our current business, which is still excluding eRx. So eRx is at the doorstep, but in the current year, we actually are also delivering numbers that we are very proud of to present to you. On August first, we increased our guidance for the year 2023 significantly, and with the numbers of today, it will be no surprise that we reconfirm those numbers.
But to give a little bit of additional color, the non-Rx growth we raised from 10%-20% is all used to 20%-30%, and we are nicely, totally on the midpoint of that performance over there. If we go to the total sales, where we had the guidance, have a guidance of EUR 1.7 billion-EUR 1.8 billion, with the visibility we have at the moment, we have the expectation that we will end at the very upper end of this guidance that we provided to you. And the same goes actually for the adjusted EBITDA, between 1.5%-2.3% we have in total, and actually, we expect to end here also for the full year on the upper end of this guidance.
Free Cash Flow, the midpoint around zero, with a range, because there are always significant fluctuations also working capital, because we want to anticipate on stocking inventories when we think that is a good moment. We have the winter before us, and at the end of the year, with free cash flow, all I can say is that it is unlikely that we will end at the lower end of the guidance.
Okay, having set and confirmed this, this guidance for actually the full year, I always repeat that, and perhaps also with the indication of the numbers that we are achieving in DACH, is giving you increasing comfort that we are confident that in the mid-term, mid- to longer term, we have a business model with an adjusted EBITDA above 8%. That's actually everything on the numbers, I think, in the update.
Yes.
Are there any questions?
Ladies and gentlemen, at this time, we will begin the question and answer session. Please follow the registration link on the webcast page to receive dial-in numbers. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star followed by one on their touchtone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star followed by two. In the interest of time, please limit yourself to two questions only. If you're using speaker equipment today, please lift the handset before making your selections. Anyone who has a question may press star followed by One at this time. Our first question comes from Alexander Thiel with Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Hi, Olaf and Jasper. Good to see you. I hope you can hear me. A couple of questions left from my side. I would like to take them one by one. My first one is on the current run rate of the OTC business. Is there any reason this should be lower in the fourth quarter? I mean, you already indicated you will be at the upper end of your guidance, but the fourth quarter is usually your strongest quarter. And attached to that, looking at the gross margin run rate in the third quarter, is this the new run rate going forward, where we see now a full kind of consolidation of MediService for a full quarter? And also, in your financial income, there was a one-off effect, if you can touch on that for the first question. Thank you.
Yeah, sure. Morning again, Alex. Thanks, thanks for your question. Yeah, a strong quarter in Q4 in absolute terms, but last year also, so actually no impact on the growth percentage. Overall, top and bottom line, where we stand after nine months, we are not aware of any significant one-offs that we had. And we're also not aware of any one-offs that we could have in Q4 at this moment. So, I only stick to the full year guidance that we have and where the non-Rx, we didn't say upper end, but we set the midpoint in total of the growth, but the absolute sales indeed, we expect to end at the upper end of our guidance.
The gross profit margin, indeed, if you take out some seasonality, which generally is more or less rounding, then quarter three is the first quarter with the full impact of MediService. So actually those, not only gross margin, but also expenses percent of sales are a good point, I think to take a space and then to build upon that, that one. Then you talk about the one-off in the financial expenses. Indeed, yeah, it was not a highlight to us, despite that it's a significant gain of more than EUR 12 million, but to me, that is actually mainly accounting. It's a non-cash impact, but indeed, in this quarter, we had a trigger to revalue our conditional liability there, related to the acquisition of GoPuls.
At the moment, we released the discounted earn-out. So basically saying at this moment, we don't expect that we need to pay an earn-out related to GoPuls. Of course, that is also a trigger to look at the total GoPuls acquisition, and we carefully did an impairment test and everything related to the assets we have, and then we clearly come to a value which is higher than that we have in our books at the moment. So financially, it led to the release of the discounted provision we have on our balance sheet, so the release is gone and nothing else has changed. It's a one-off. Yeah.
Okay, that's very clear. My second one is on the NFC solution that you have now provided a little bit more details on. Olaf, can you talk a little bit on how the negotiations are going with the BMG? I think in some articles in the newspaper, you already stated that you would also roll out the solution without the approval of the BMG. Now, with an official Gematik product, it sounds yeah, pretty good in my opinion, finding a solution with the BMG. Maybe you can talk about-
Well, I mean, I, I understand the question, but on the other hand, I would like to not really give any details into ongoing discussions with the Ministry of Health, because that's not simply the way it works. But again, I can try to reinstate, I mean, those talks are very positive because, on the Gematik side and but also with other stakeholders, they see the advantage of that solution. But again, it's by the end of the day, the idea is to, that this becomes a product of Gematik, and there are certain rules and procedures, and we are following those and are in contact with the different stakeholders, and that's actually all I can say at this moment in time. Sorry for that.
All right. Thank you. Back into the queue.
Our next question comes from Chris Johnen, and with HSBC. Please go ahead.
Yes. Thanks, everyone, for taking my question. So first, coming back to the eGK NFC solution, I understand that this is the same solution that DocMorris has. Do you have to pay them anything for the use, or is that not going to be a topic? That's my first question. And then, on the GoPuls performance, maybe you can update us as to, you know, the performance versus initial expectations since you've acquired the asset, so that we get a better idea on the sort of earn-out liability, you know, whether this was always gonna be driven by e RX.
You know, this is basically 100% of the value here is supposedly coming from the eRX side of things and less from the OTC. Just a bit more color here would be great. Thank you.
Maybe if I can start on the first question. I mean, I don't know anything about the DocMorris product. I mean, that you clearly have to ask DocMorris. I mean, what we have is an initiative of the European Association of E-Pharmacies, and within this body, we are trying to convince the Ministry of Health of this eGK mobile solution. And here we are making, I think, very good progress. And that is supposed to be a solution which then becomes a product, hopefully, and then can work for all of the pharmacies, for online pharmacies as well as for brick-and-mortar pharmacies. So... And then how the individual setup looks like on our side or on the DocMorris side, I mean, DocMorris, I can't tell anything about.
And on our side, I mean, we are currently working on how we want to incorporate this solution into our product. We are already testing this. It looks pretty good, but again, the approach towards the Ministry of Health and Gematik is an approach via the association, and it's an ongoing process. And second question, I would like to hand over to Jasper.
Okay, yeah. Happy to take them on.
Thank you.
Yeah. No, Chris, thanks. And, yeah, actually, the thoroughly answered. The whole acquisition and the whole business case of first inventory related to GoPuls is totally related to eRX and the fact that eRX did in the end not become the nationwide standard as of the first of January 2022. And, at the moment, it's starting to increase significantly, as Olaf said, but we are not on the level that we expected. That is all what was triggering every assessment of the of the earn-out. Yeah.
Great. Thank you.
Our next question comes from Aisyah Noor with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Good morning, Olaf and Jasper. Thanks for taking the question. My first one is MediService. Given the sales results year to date are trending a bit better than perhaps our expectations, and you've now had a few more months to work with this organization, do you have any new thoughts as to how the growth outlook for this business could be for, if not next year, then maybe the midterm? And are you happy with the kind of prior assumption for the previous business of, kind of, mid-single-digit growth rates, or could we be looking at something higher for the midterm? I'll leave that until the next one.
Yeah. Okay. Yeah, so, Aisyah , there are two things with MediService. Just the MediService current business, which is a nicely profitable, reputable, a very good eRX business that they're having, and there's the business that we expect from the cooperation from us being even more B2C in our proposition that we have in Switzerland. Yeah, at the moment, we don't have any guidance on MediService besides the current year, and that we expect what the sales are next year. We expect on the second part of our cooperation, so combining their expertise, especially the eRX, with our expertise in the B2C marketing, that can lead to very nice results in the future.
That's what we expect, Aisyah, we don't have any guidance there, so I cannot share that at the moment. But there's a solid business that existed already. We have also a good business. We are combining that, and in the new situation, we also have new opportunities to grow there. That will be included, probably in the spring 2024 guidance for that year.
Okay. That's very helpful. Thanks. And then the second question was also on the NFC eGK solution. How coordinated is this effort across the industry? And are you working on some standards as to how the solution will have? And what gives you the confidence in this 31st December launch date? Are you expecting some sort of approval, a sign-off, or an announcement? Just trying to understand, given it's a new solution, you know, how, how confirmed is that date?
Well, I think that's a very good question. I mean, look, this solution, again, I mean, I was trying to explain that earlier. This is not our solution or DocMorris solution, something like this. By the end of the day, we hope that this becomes a product of Gematik, like Gematik has tons of other products. Yes, so that means also Gematik defines the rules, together with the other stakeholders, for example, on data security, and other stakeholders are involved as well. And here we try to work together with the Gematik, try to give some input, on technology, for example, but by the end of the day.
We hope that this becomes a product of Gematik, which can be used not only for online pharmacies, but also brick-and-mortar pharmacies can have an app, and customers can attach the eGK to that one. So therefore, that is, that is pretty much the story on that one. And as you can imagine, Gematik, as well as the Ministry of Health and other stakeholders, they are working on a lot of products. So there is a pipeline, like in all of other technology companies as well. Nevertheless, we think that we will have this ready by the end of the year, and what makes me feel so comfortable is that beginning of next year, eRX will be mandatory, and without that solution, the online pharmacies, also German online pharmacies, will be discriminated. And therefore, we feel comfortable that this product will be ready by the end of December.
Internally, in terms of developing the technology we need, based on the standards and which have been set by Gematik, internally, we are fine, and we feel very comfortable with the 31st of December.
That's great. Thank you so much.
Our next question comes from Volker Bosse with Baader Bank. Please go ahead.
Hello, Volker Bosse, Baader Bank. Yeah, first of all, welcome to Olaf. All the best for your new position, Olaf.
Thanks.
First question would be, yeah, in case that the e-script is going to be ramped up from January 2024 on, what we all hope, what does it mean on your plannings in regard to, marketing costs in percentage of sales, for example? Could you give us a bit of, guideline, how to look at marketing costs, going forward in the case that the e-script is going, yeah, going to come? And the second question is on the international business. I know the focus is more on DACH region. However, is there any highlight on country-specific development in regard to sales, or margin improvement, which you could share us to get a bit more granularity on the international, performance? Thanks.
Maybe should I take the first question?
Okay. Yeah.
Yes. Yeah. I mean, the answer to the first question is very simple. I mean, we, I think we will see a pretty steep increase in the number of e-scripts, not only in the remaining part of the year, but also then once the e-script becomes mandatory. And then, of course, it's about the question how to approach that market. And we have a solid customer base. We talked about our 10.5 million active customers. We have a huge marketing budget, which we have already. So we are already in the market, running campaigns right now, more focused on OTC, then probably later will be more on eRx. But how the specific go-to-market strategy is going to look like, we can, of course, not disclose this today to you.
That, that doesn't really make a lot of sense. So we first need to see how the market is developing. We are able to react in a very fast way. We have a lot of marketing budget out there. We have existing customers, but the rest we really need to see, and we'll only will not disclose in this meeting and will probably be then part of the guidance for next year. Sorry that we can't give more details into the go-to-market strategy on the eRx. And on the second question. Yeah. I would like to hand this to you. Yeah. So, yeah. Yeah. So to state your question, you want to know something nice about one of the countries. You also know we steer our business, and we report in two segments.
We don't talk about individual countries, but while you were answering, I thought, okay, perhaps there are two things that that I can still add some color there. First of all, it's very nice in quarter two. We said if we didn't make this statement in quarter three, that it's the same. We have been growing double digits in all of our seven countries. So sometimes you say, "Yeah, but in this country, there are competitor or et cetera." In all our countries, we have been growing double digits also in the first quarter. So that's something I would like to add. And then something else, which is I think that's a funny one because I recently had a presentation where I presented that our brand, we are by far the market leader in Belgium with our brand Farmaline there.
There was a survey, and actually 93% of the Belgian people apparently know the name Farmaline, and we won a prize with that, that our brand recognition was that high. So that was something nice about Belgium, and I think in the end, I heard that one out of four households or people in Belgium ever placed an order with Farmaline. So those are two nice things to shed some light on the developments in Europe.
Okay. Thank you very much, and all the best.
Our next question comes from Jan Koch with Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.
Hi, Olaf. Hi, Jasper. Thanks for taking my questions. My first one is a big-picture question for Olaf. In your view, what is Redcare doing very good already, and where do you see some improvement potential? And then secondly, on the eGK, NFC solution, once again, I understand that you're essentially waiting for an approval of the Gematik, but in case that the Gematik would take too long to launch an own product, could you implement the solution in your app without a product from the Gematik?
Well, okay. Yeah, well, very good question. So the first question is, to me, it's always, it's really difficult to answer because, of course, I do not really want to talk about the past, and therefore, comparisons are always difficult. But my first impression is really, I mean, but you can always also see it in the numbers. It's a great company, and I'm really happy that I have the opportunity to work together with this company and to lead the company into the future. So that is actually all I can say at the current moment. You know, the times are interesting, and that's also the reason why I returned. It's a great company on OTC, DTC , also on international, but we have also the eRX opportunity ahead of us.
So maybe in a year from now or so, we have a better view, and then maybe I could give some more insights into this one. And then on the second question, yes, of course. I mean, I understand your question, but, I mean, we are really working hard in a very constructive and good way to try to implement this solution. And so far, we are confident that we can reach the milestone, 31st of December. And to discuss other options, I would prefer to follow plan A rather than plan B. So therefore, we are putting all of our focus into this one. And then, of course, like always in life, you need to look into the options you have available, and our product works right now.
There are so many things that we can do, but, I mean, that's again only plan B, and we clearly focus on plan A and are confident that we will have a solution up and running. I hope that answers your question, at least to a certain extent.
It does. It does. Thank you.
Our next question comes from Gerhard Orgonas with Berenberg. Please go ahead.
Yeah, good morning. I also have two questions, please. The first question on your cash flow. It looks like after nine months, you're running well ahead of the free cash flow guidance for this year, partly because of this big increase in payables in Q2 already. Maybe you can come back to that and explain whether you expect any of this to reverse in Q4 or not. And the second question is, you said that MediService is slightly impacting your group margin on the negative side. So is this a seasonality or is it around 3%? Is it just a tiny small impact, or is it something that we should take into account seasonally at MediService?
Good morning, Gerhard. Good to hear you. Free cash flow guidance. According to our definition, free cash flow year to date stands at a positive EUR 27 million. But we will indeed have seasonality. I mean, I cannot predict the future, but we always have a very strong cash flow in quarter one and always everything else remaining the same. We have still stocking up of inventories to be ready for January and February in the fourth quarter. So free cash flow will most likely in the quarter itself, in Q4, be negative and bringing the EUR 27 million slightly down. That's, yeah. That, that... So that's where we stand. So we are happy with the free cash flow guidance. Yeah. Yep. MediService?
Maybe.
Yeah. Okay.
Yeah.
Yeah. MediService is our Rx, so what you see in the P&L is actually nothing different from what will happen when we have our Rx business. So we have euros, very nice gross margin each time that we sell the package with our Rx. Mathematically, the gross profit margin as a percentage of sales is lower. Luckily, there's the positive flip side, but also your costs are lower as a percentage of sales, and that's all what there is with MediService. So it's a very good business because the average order value is very high. But as a consequence of the very high or average order value, the margin as a percentage of sales is relatively low, but not in euros. And that's MediService, and I'm not aware of anything one-off in their numbers that is not happening in Q3.
It is what it is, and we are very happy with the strategic partnership that we have there now already, and it's only 1.5 quarters that we are cooperating.
Perfect. Thank you.
Yes.
Our next question comes from Christian Salis with Hauck Aufhäuser Investment Banking. Please go ahead.
Hey, everyone. Two questions left from my side. First of all, on your EBITDA margin guidance. So in the first nine months, you generated 2.9% EBITDA, adjusted EBITDA margin, but still you didn't raise your guidance, at least to the upper half. So should we expect any negative impact on the margin side in Q4, or is that just conservatism from your side? And then, secondly, on marketing costs, so a big chunk of the margin improvement in Q3, but also in the first nine months, is driven by more efficient marketing. So could you please talk about the reasons for this, and how much of this improvement is basically also supported by the weakness of your major competitor? Thank you.
Yep.
Okay, yeah.
As if you have a additional comment. Yeah, thankfully, a pleasant compliment, Christian, on the adjusted EBITDA. But I repeat a little bit what I said a couple of minutes ago. In this 2.9% year-to-date adjusted EBITDA margin, there are no significant one-off impacts that we are aware of, and we also don't foresee any one-offs at the moment in quarter four. So, that, that's what it is. But with our visibility that we have on the fourth quarter results, we say we will end most likely in the margin range that we give from 2%-3%.
But I also repeat what I said at the last slide of the presentation, our expectation at the moment is that we will end in the upper end of this guidance range for the full year. Yeah. So we don't expect that quarter four is higher than quarter three. That's not our expectation. We only have guidance for full year, and we think we will stay at the upper range for the full year on the adjusted EBITDA margin, but not that we want to do there something else than we did in the other quarters. Marketing?
You would like to-
Yeah. No, marketing. The only thing I can comment on there, I think everything that we explained and also all of this related to our proposition, loyal customers, happy customers, improvements we made in our last mile performance. So across the whole P&L, I think that is leading to a customer satisfaction, and a satisfied customer is a returning customer. That's an impact. But what I haven't said yet, it was also fair to say that last year, there was a significant amount of marketing as a percentage of sales that we needed specifically in quarter one and quarter two, and we are also cycling that now, which is in part explaining that we are at a lower level at the moment.
Maybe, maybe I can add-
Yeah
... a little bit to this. I mean, and we saw this also in the numbers. I mean, the Net Promoter Score is pretty high, and the higher the Net Promoter Score, the better the customer satisfaction is. And we can clearly see a direct link to the repeat rates, so that means customers are happy and are returning. We saw this earlier in the repeat order rate. I think it was even at 80, 85 or something like this. So really high number in terms of repeat orders. Customers are very satisfied, and again, there's a strong correlation between a very high Net Promoter Score and a good share of returning customers. So it looks overall, but that's what Jasper already pointed out.
The product we have is great, and we can see that it's driven by very happy customers, and because of that, we probably don't need to invest so much in marketing than having not so happy customers.
Yeah. And the last one then to add to that, is that you clearly see, Christian, the impact of scale, so pure scale. Yeah, higher sales. Because we're not reducing our marketing. It's, it's better.
Excellent. Thank you very much, Olaf.
Our next question comes from Felix Jonathan Dennl with Bankhaus Metzler. Please go ahead.
Thanks very much for taking my questions, and welcome to Redcare, Olaf. The first question-
Thanks
... relates to Q4. Perhaps you could comment on how Q4 started and whether you could give some insights on the demand that you're seeing in the DACH and the international region. And then the second question relates to the ways of redemption for the e-script. So as you showed very, very nicely in the presentation, there are three ways of redemption. Could you provide us with a breakdown of the percentage of the three ways of redemption? So how much percentage of people are using the paper print, how many are using the Gematik App, and how many are using the Elektronische Gesundheitskarte? Thanks very much.
Would you like to start on the first one?
Second one clearly for you.
Yeah.
Yeah, Felix, no, we've nothing to comment on the start of Q4. There's nothing worth mentioning there. No.
To give an answer on the second one, as you said, I pointed on the three different options. Then if we look into the history of why we have a delay in the e-script, especially on the doctor's side, then we all know that the doctors don't like the printout solution so much. That was one of the main reasons why we had a delay in the introduction of e-script. The other was that especially the assistants in the doctors' places were not ready really to support technology. But nevertheless, I mean, we see since the introduction of the eGK plugin solution, that this is somehow the preferred solution of the doctors, and therefore, we see, I mean, that the number of scripts are going up.
Doesn't mean that the patient cannot have the QR code, so you always have the right to ask for the QR—for the QR code. But since the introduction of the eGK plugin, we saw a significant increase in number of scripts. I have seen a Gematik presentation, where they are talking about that the majority is used, the majority of the scripts are redeemed via the eGK plugin solution. But again, this is on... Right now, we are probably at 7%-10% of all of the scripts being digital, so that is just initial numbers. But again, going forward, I can foresee we definitely need to have our digital twin to the plugin solution.
Very helpful. Thanks very much.
Our next question comes from Sven Sauer with Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead.
Hello, gentlemen. Thank you. I only have one question left. I was just wondering, how this new solution that you have presented goes hand in hand with the, complaint that was filed against the, European Commission. If I remember correctly, this-- it was also linked to the allegation that the, eGK redemption is discriminatory, and this, of course, if this would be approved, this would, I don't know, improve that allegation or, or alleviate it. So I was wondering if, yeah, you could provide some comments on this, if you will continue with this complaint or if, if it will be pulled back?
I mean, I think that's a good question, and that is something we have to determine throughout the way. I mean, we have to make sure that the online pharmacies are not discriminated. That is our job, and part of that is, of course, the legal part, and we are working on European law. We are working on the fundamentals of Europe, and therefore, we approach the European Commission to really say, "Look at this. We have issues on the bonus, and we think we will have issues going forward if this eGK plugin solution will actually then start to be used." So therefore, that's why we filed a complaint.
We need to keep all of our options open and but how we want to handle that complaint, we then have to evaluate going forward. So far, again, I can say we are in very positive and constructive discussions with the Ministry of Health. But nevertheless, I mean, we need to ensure that we keep all of our rights, and that's why we filed a complaint. We have so far not received any feedback, so therefore, give us some more time, and with time, we will find solutions.
Thank you.
There are no further questions at this time. I hand back to Olaf Heinrich for closing comments. Please go ahead, sir.
Well, yes, thank you very much. Well, first of all, thank you very much for all of the great questions. So I think it has been a great discussion. You guys are really also into the details, understanding the business model. That also helps us, Jasper, I can say. Absolutely, yeah. So very, very good discussions. Yeah. Thank you very much. And again, I think we have, especially when we talk about eRX, a good time ahead of us, and I'm looking forward, having, working together with the company on this endeavor. Thank you very much for joining.
Ladies and gentlemen, the conference is now concluded. You may disconnect your telephone. Thank you for joining, and have a pleasant day. Goodbye.