Good morning to everybody joining today's call. I'm very happy that I can present the quarter one numbers of Shop Apotheke Europe to you this morning, and I'm here today together with Monica Ambrosi from Investor Relations. I quickly grab the moment here. I will keep it short, but to also actually thank all the people who made it possible to have today's meeting here. As the accounting department, the finance buchhaltung, it is Investor Relations, it's IT, it is Communications, and of course, moreover, all the people across Shop Apotheke Europe that have been able to achieve the results that we achieved quarter after quarter, year after year, that are really according to my definition, impressive.
Certainly also the result of today of quarter one 2023, I'm very happy to present to you. We do so live from our headquarters here in Zevenaar, the Netherlands. As always, the business performance update an update over general business and some strategy subjects. The business please, let's go to the first slide. Quarter one, we achieved a 22% total sales growth. It's the post-corona period. We are showing that we have been growing double digits pre-corona, during corona, and after corona. This quarter one was in total 22% higher than last year. Our company grew by one-fifth in total size. We did so with an adjusted EBITDA margin, which was significantly up, and certainly in the next slides, I will explain you more about that development.
To start with the first bullet, double-digit growth, pre-corona, during corona, after corona, in our two segments and even in all our seven countries. Non-Rx and RX were both almost growing at the same pace, double digits, total 22, as I said already, and Non-Rx, 23%. The total performance was driven by a continuous growth of our active customer base. That means keeping our existing customers loyal, increasing their frequency, and at the same time, also welcoming a significant amount of new customers. Our total base of customers that are active, so placed a purchase over the past 12 months, increased in just one quarter, this quarter one, from 9.3 to end at 9.7. We had again, a quarter with a very high customer satisfaction score.
We carefully track this on a daily base. Again, total Shop Apotheke was at the Net Promoter Score north of 70. Second bullet, peculiar for this quarter. Efficiency gains significantly compared to the same quarter last year, also compared to the last recent quarter, quarter 4 last year. The adjusted EBITDA margin this year was a positive 2.4%, which is 380 basis points up from the same quarter last year. As a result, our operating cash flow was a positive EUR 44 million. Please don't do that times four, because a large part of this is the seasonality of working capital of in total EUR 37 million. For example, last year, Q1, the working capital inflow in Q1 was also EUR 30 million. As we will see later, this operating cash flow also included an EBITDA of EUR 9 million.
An EBITDA cash in of around EUR 7 million-EUR 8 million. While achieving more customers, happy customers, and significantly improved financial results, bullet number 4, we are also really happy with some external increased acknowledgment we are getting for our sustainability efforts. Later, more on that, but to keep it short for now, it's always flattering if an external renowned institution, in this case, MSCI, is increasing our rating, our ESG rating from a AA to a AAA. That's the highest possible score according to MSCI, and it brings us in the global benchmark in the top 4. There are a couple of things we can mention which we also achieved in quarter one. I point out 1, and that was our intention to start a strategic partnership with Galenica and to create together a leading online pharmacy in Switzerland. More on that later.
On this slide, the sales, as I said already, total growth 22%, Non-Rx 23%. Both well north of 20%, achieving a total EUR 372 million of sales. The DACH segment increased by 23%. Our international business consisting of the Netherlands, Belgium, France and Italy increased by 19%, and that was still 13% in quarter 4. The growth pace in international also increased as did DACH. With that, Monica, I'm happy to hand it over to you.
Thank you, Jasper. let's take a look at our customer Key Performance Indicators for the quarter, which either improved or remained at very strong levels in quarter one.
Starting with the active customer base, as Jasper already mentioned, we had an increase of 0.4 million in the active customer base from quarter four to quarter one, which was an increase of 1.4 million over the prior year's quarter. We now boast 9.7 million active customers. This was an increase seen across all of our markets. This several hundred thousand increase in active customers every quarter has been a feature over the past four quarters, a consistent increase. This continuous increase in active customers wouldn't be possible if our customers were not happy and returning customers, which is why we really focus very much on delivering strong, excellent service. We see this again from a very high Net Promoter Score over the first quarter of 71. Happy customers.
Finally, if we can just take a look at the average shopping basket value for the first quarter of the year. We also saw a slight increase compared to last year, from around at EUR 57 to around at EUR 58 in this quarter. We've been talking about customer satisfaction. It certainly builds customer loyalty, and as a result of this, the strong sales growth that we reported, was very much driven by a high rate of returning customers, which in the first quarter was at a high 84%, among the highest, and it has been in the past. These are not new customers, these are returning customers.
If we speak about our number of orders, we can see that the strong momentum which started in 2022 continued in the first quarter of the year, where our logistics facility very efficiently and seamlessly processed over 7 million orders in the first quarter of the year. Again, if we look back over the last 4 years, every first quarter, we have seen an increase in orders of around 1 million. This is a very strong underlying increase. What makes the performance even more solid, as Jasper has already mentioned about Corona, this is not demand as a consequence of Corona, this is demand after Corona. Even with a bit of seasonality, it reflects a strong structural increase. Over to you.
Happy to. Thank you, Monica. Very clear to me. Here are the key financials in the P&L, in the customary format in the table. Let's start with column 2 and 3, quarter 1 last year and this year. Our sales increased from 305 to 372, an increase of EUR 67 million compared to the same quarter last year, 22.1% up. The gross profit margin, and later a bit more on that, increased by 1.1 percentage points. In selling and distribution, all our expenses as a percentage of sales increased by even double that amount, by 2.5 percentage points, reflective of scale and efficiency. At the same time, our administrative expenses also were stable at 2.9% of sales compared to the same quarter last year.
As such, if you add up everything I just explained, you get to an increase of the adjusted EBITDA of a -1.4 to a +2.4, is an increase of 3.8 percentage points. From -4 to +9 is an increase of EUR 13 million. Just for reference sake, also the fully loaded EBITDA, which was also a positive EUR 5 million in the most recent quarter.
The columns to the right that you're seeing here, though it is an apple and an orange, because at Shop Apotheke, as with most retailers, there is seasonality in the quarters, but still, quarter four, where we also achieved for the second quarter in a row a positive adjusted EBITDA, if you compare those numbers, you see at the top that our sales were significantly higher from EUR 328 million, as Monica just explained, to a new record of more than 7 million orders, reflective of EUR 372 million of net sales. Our gross profit margin quarter-over-quarter was roughly comparable, slightly down 0.1%. You see that actually half of the year-over-year increase that we achieved in efficiency and scale and effectiveness, we achieved also from the past quarter to this quarter, in total 1.3 percentage points.
Also you see that our overhead was significantly leveraged by the very substantial increase of sales that we achieved this quarter. 1.2 percentage points lower as a percentage of sales. Compared to the past quarter, an increase of more than 2 percentage points. The gross profit, an increase year-over-year, and to the right of this slide, roughly comparable to the past quarter. The year-over-year improvement of the gross profit margin is mainly in the first bucket, and which is the product margin that we're having. The product margin is really reflective of all the optimizations we continuously try to do in having the most relevant assortment, new assortment, showing the customers the assortment that is relevant to them and is also best for us, and also having the right incentives to buy or not to buy to the right customers.
The total mix of adding assortment and showing the right assortment and other continuous optimizations in category management and in our commercial propositions have led to a higher gross profit margin because actually as you see in the second bucket, there's not any impact in the total Shop Apotheke number from country or our mix. It is really an improved total margin that we achieved in the products that we assign. Marketing was a big driver of the, if you compare it mathematically, year-over-year improvement of the selling distribution as a % of sales, but also the operating labor was something that made us really happy as total Shop Apotheke. Let me start at the start. In total, a significant better S&D as a % of sales.
Please keep in mind that quarter 1 2022, a year ago, was still a relatively marketing heavy quarter to us. We were still recovering from some low points we had in 2021 in Q3 and Q4. Also in Q1 last year, that was still the case. You're really seeing that last year, Q3, Q4, this year, Q1, we internally say the machine is running, our model is working, and we have significantly more effective marketing across all our countries, all our seven countries. That is resulting, as Monica is saying, not only from effective marketing efforts that we're having directly, let's say, mass marketing, but also the significant high share of existing customers that are loyal and more frequent shopping with us. Bucket number three, the 0.6%. The big picture is here. We are in a new facility.
We are achieving records, week after week as Shop Apotheke at a very high quality level. We are delivering our goods faster to our customers. At the same time, of course, we have also had wage inflation also in the operations, but still see the overall efficiency gains that we have been able to achieve here in this facility. The total operational labor costs were significantly better than last year, 0.6%. Again, repeating not only a year-over-year improvement, but we also saw that the scale, the effectiveness and efficiency increased from quarter four to quarter one by 1.3 percentage point. With that, we go to the cash, and we increased our cash balances by in total EUR 32 million over the past quarter. We increased from EUR 180 million to EUR 212 million.
The first two boxes together, what I said at the first slide, that he highlights the EUR 44 million increase of an operating cash flow or the cash inflow, and some EUR 7 million from the, let's say, EBITDA, our operating results, very favorable, largely from seasonality movements in our working capital. Our investments and financing expenses in total leading to the events. Before we go to the second part of our presentation, also in the financial results, I would like to reemphasize what I said in the highlights already, our recent upgrade to a AAA by the MSCI rating in ESG. A couple of comments here. First of all, October last year, 2022, we were three years ahead of plan, able to reduce our Scope 1 and Scope 2 CO2 emissions by more than 80%.
Three years ahead of our planning. It was not a reduction by 80%, but actually by 88%. At the same time, a bit later, we as a company committed ourselves to the very important reduction in Scope 3 by 2040, to try to be net zero there. ESG is not the same as only a judgment whether we are a sustainable company. ESG, in the definition of MSCI, actually also focuses on how well is the company prepared for any risk related to the 3 areas of ESG. The total of that led to an increase of last year already from a B to an AA and recently to an AAA. Let's say the 3 Michelin stars that we achieved in sustainability according to MSCI. Strategy and business.
Let's immediately go to the next one on eRX. eRX starts with the key message here. We as Shop Apotheke are totally convinced, as much as we have always been, about the opportunity, the huge opportunity, the once in a lifetime opportunity of eRX in Germany. There's a great market opportunity there. We think we are very well prepared. A lot has happened the past years. We are totally ready. Many players in the ecosystem are ready. We are receiving eScripts every day. It is going at a slower pace than we expected, let's say, two years ago, because of messaging then from the government that things would be mandatory as of the 1st of January 2022. There is new momentum in it. It's clear, for example, also in the conference of April 25, that the German Minister of Health, Mr.
Lauterbach expressed that it is really on his agenda to also adopt the laws to make it possible to have really eRx as the standard in 2024. That needs to be published. On timelines, I cannot give you any more concreteness than you had before this meeting. I can only tell you what we see from our perspective. We see the number of eScript. Last time we talked to you, that was on March when we released the full year numbers. It was 1.3 million. That increased to 1.7 million, yeah, electronic prescriptions redeemed in total Germany. The average is around 7,500 to 8,000 per day.
Some fluctuations there. We still expect as Shop Apotheke, that it is very likely that there will be a lot more concreteness, perhaps including even what we are anticipating, a significant increase in the last half or at the start of 2024. We as Shop Apotheke are ready, I think our customers are also ready for a future in Germany with e-prescriptions. Now to something completely different. That is an announcement we made on March 30. Here we expressed together with Galenica, the leading pharmacy in Switzerland, active in many aspects of pharmacy in Switzerland.
We announced there our strategic partnership, where we would combine the daughter of Galenica MediService and our shop-apotheke.ch, so our Swiss business, into one company in order to provide a very compelling and aiming for, of course, having the best possible customer proposition for pharmacy in Switzerland. In the base, you can see that Galenica is very strong with the mediservice daughter in what is named in jargon, specialty pharmacy. Galenica is saying, "We are very strong in, let's say, D, being an e-commerce pharmacy," and combining those two will lead to better products, better services, and according to us, an best B2C proposition in Switzerland. As I said already, but just to be clear, we are awaiting the regular competitive authorities approval. That timeline is unchanged compared to what we announced on March 30.
We still expect the transaction to be able to be closed before the end of the first half of the year. On the next one, please, some characteristics on the transaction. What is basically happening in one transaction is that MediService is taking over the Swiss Shop Apotheke business, and at the same time, Shop Apotheke is achieving in this MediService a 51% share in Galenica, a 49% share. It's of course clear that the current MediService business with annual sales of around EUR 450 million is significantly larger than our current Swiss business. We had to pay for this transaction, and we are doing so with an 6% increase of our share capital.
In addition to the 6%, Galenica indicated to us their wish to actually also reflect their strategic commitment to Shop Apotheke even more and wanted to acquire an additional 2% shares in Shop Apotheke, resulting in the end situation of having an 8% share in Shop Apotheke post-transaction. We of course were very happy with this commitment that was expressed by Galenica. All waiting for the approval, it's the intention to execute things. As I just explained, having a very strong B2C proposition in Switzerland, working together with two specialized partners, Galenica and Shop Apotheke, and having welcomed another very, very much wanted investor in Shop Apotheke with 8%. The last slide is a little bit preluding when we close the transaction.
It's a repetition also of what we disclosed on March 30, for those that didn't join the call. According to IFRS, that's the accounting of business combinations, we as Shop Apotheke will fully consolidate the numbers as of the closing date. If it's closing in the course of June, it will be for half a year in our numbers and then, of course, next year for the full year. A bit repeating what I just said, current business of Medservice. What's going to be on top of the Shop Apotheke numbers is on an annual base, around CHF 450 million, one-on-one with the euro, around EUR 450 million.
The business is operating at an EBITDA which is close to a free cash flow percentage of sales between 2% and 3% of sales. In addition, the last bullet is the transaction process. We expect that will happen in the coming weeks. For the 2% share in Shop Apotheke, we will receive a one-off cash in of EUR 29 million. It's about time I give it back to you.
Thank you, Jasper.
Yeah.
It's not that long ago, just over a little bit more than a month and a half ago, that you and I presented on the rebranding and renaming of SHOP APOTHEKE EUROPE, the corporate. Today, we can report that following the 100% approval by our shareholders at the annual general meeting that was held last week, we are going to move forward with this exciting change and rebrand the corporate from Shop Apotheke Europe N.V. to Redcare Pharmacy N.V. The process will be that we change the articles of association to reflect this new corporate name for the corporate. While we do that, we are not changing the names of the local Euro brands. Just to reiterate that the names of the shops across the other countries remain the same.
just maybe to summarize why the new corporate brand is very important for us is that, for us, it provides us with an improved corporate vision, which is going to unite all of our locations, and it will also position us better, and best for the future long-term growth and value creation of the business. Internally, it also means, importantly, that we will have a stronger employer brand which better reflects who we are, and that is a truly European pharmacy and the leading e-pharmacy in Europe. Meanwhile, our customers are going to continue to receive the same excellent quality service that they are used to from the local hero brand, as I just mentioned earlier, with nothing changing there. In addition to this, there will be no extraordinary costs, because the costs have already been, absorbed in the past.
Our shareholders also benefit, and all our stakeholders benefit from this in, change in the corporate brand. Jasper, do you want to maybe just touch on the way forward?
Yes.
practical steps to this?
Absolutely. Yeah. We have some checks here already. Indeed, we had the March meeting to inform all our stakeholders last week, April 26th. The formal approval with 100% of the votes, which was very nice to achieve. Now we can really start to kick off internally our employer branding, reinforcing who we are as Shop Apotheke for our existing and for potential new people who wanna join the Shop Apotheke journey. Important on this slide, because it's mainly the financial community we're talking to this morning, is that on June 13, we will also change the name and the ticker symbol at the Frankfurt Stock Exchange from STE to RDC, Redcare.
The next slide, which is the last slide of the presentation, of course, we don't have a slide on it, but we absolutely reconfirm as we do in each quarter, our mid to longer term adjusted EBITDA expectation of in excess of 8%. If you now focus on full year 2023, I think the big picture is of course that we were providing you this guidance before we had the strong results of Q1 fully in the pocket. Safe to the status quo, it's easier for us to achieve the full year guidance than at the moment we gave you the full year guidance. Having said that, the world isn't safe to the status quo, and we already gave you a guidance in a certain range.
I'm reiterating this, a growth, again, double-digit of Non-Rx at a midpoint of 15%, so that's between 10 million and 20 million, and everything here with a clearly positive adjusted EBITDA. This guidance here is excluding a potential surge, so a fast increase of e-Rx that could still happen later in the year, and it does not yet include any guidance related to the transaction with Galenica. At the expected date of the closing of Galenica will not be too far away from the presentation of our quarter two results. It's very likely that we will update you with a guidance reflecting the new situation as good as possible with the Q2 results in an updated 2023 guidance. This is our guidance.
We're very happy with the quarter one results that we achieved. I think, Monica, you said it, and I couldn't have said it better. It's not only the financial results, but all the KPIs are also positive in the countries. High customer satisfaction, increase of our active customer base everywhere, increased effectiveness that we're having, a very effective and well-working and appreciated propositions across our countries. With that, I think it's time to go to the questions, if there are any. The operator, can you introduce, please?
Yes, thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, at this time, we will begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star followed by one on the touchtone telephone. Please follow the registration link on the webcast page to receive the dial-in numbers. Please, anyone who has a question may press star followed by one at this time. 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. Our first question is from the line of Alexander Thiel from Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Hi. Alex Thiel from Jefferies. Good morning, Monica and Jasper. A couple of questions from my side. I would like to take them one by one. Firstly, very strong EBITDA numbers in Q1. How should we think about the seasonality for the upcoming two quarters? Attached to that, could you give us an indication for the full year 2023 adjustment level we will see excluding the Swiss joint venture? Thank you.
Yeah, thanks, Alex. Good to talk to you again. You said I have a lot of questions. Please try to limit them to two or three to also allow there quite so many people who ask questions, if that's, if that's possible. As to your EBITDA, yes, we had some tailwind, some benefit, of the return to normal, in certain countries of the cold and flu season. That did not explain our strong results of quarter one. It was otherwise it would have also been strong. It was a little bit better because of that. What I want to say with that, we didn't have any positive or negative significant unusuals in our quarter one results. Quarter one results was as it was. Yeah.
You ask, what does it mean for quarter two and quarter three? Well, it depends on the competitive situation, the balance of growth and margins, but actually you wanna continue as we are doing at the moment. The best prediction for tomorrow is always today, and today we're showing you the quarter one results. The only thing that we always know is that in quarter two and quarter three, our sales in absolute terms are generally lower than in quarter one and quarter four. We have a little bit less scale of our total cost. But in total, we will continue as we are doing, and we feel comfortable about the guidance of an adjusted EBITDA between 0.5% and 2.5%.
Though I don't wanna more specify the exact guidance that we're giving there, I mean, mathematically it's at the moment unlikely because we are not aware of any special actions that we will do, that we at this moment it's less likely that we will end up anywhere close to the low point of the guidance range. That's not our expectation.
Yeah, perfect. On the level of adjustment, if you could answer that one.
Oh, yeah. Level of adjustment significantly lower than the prior 2 years. We have 3 adjustments, and we try to really be conservative on adjusting. The reason that we have adjustments is that the adjusted EBITDA is actually our cash EBITDA. That's the main reason. There are 3 buckets. One has to do with the non-applicability of acquisition accounting, due to the 2021 acquisitions that we did. That will really fade away to less than half that we had last year. You have the stock options. That will also be slightly lower than it was last year. Number 3, other costs also not that much. What I will do the best prediction for this year, if you do the adjustments of the first quarter times four.
Okay, that's very clear. Coming to my last question. Could you comment on your current trading? It looks like that your web and app traffic continues to perform extremely well in April. Thank you.
We ended the year, sorry, we ended the quarter very strong, I can say that. That didn't stop immediately at the start of the next quarter. That's all I can say about the next quarter. Today it's about the results of quarter one. We have the full year guidance. I can be clear about it because it's also clear in all kinds of external resources that the momentum that we have seen for a couple of consecutive quarters, or perhaps it depends on the definition for a longer period already, that we are growing our web traffic, that we are growing our market leading positions in most of our countries, that has not stopped. That's correct.
Perfect. Thank you.
Yeah, thanks, Alex.
The next question is from the line of Volker Bosse from Baader Bank. Please go ahead.
Hello, good morning. Volker Bosse, Baader Bank. Thanks for taking my question, and congratulations on the great set of results. I would have two questions. First question is on the Rx sales, which increased by 15%, of course, coming from depressed levels. It seems that your Rx sales has bottomed out. Is it fair to assume that your Rx sales will continue to increase in the following quarters of the year 2023 again? The second question would be on Rx. You said there is a daily redemption of eScripts in the amount of 7,500-8,000 per day. I think that is a market figure. What is your share out of that market figure which you redeem on a daily basis?
Follow to that, also there was in the press some speculation that the CEO of gematik, Mr. Leyck Dieken, could be forced to leave, the position. How do you look at that, and what would that mean for the timeline of the eScript introduction as well as the, yeah, eScript rollout, which is probably to come? Thank you.
Good morning, Volker. Thanks. Thanks. Very clear. The first one on Rx. I think you're also giving a compliment to the company that we achieved the 50% Rx growth. Thanks for that. From my perspective, I wouldn't make too much out of it. To me, I mean, we're talking about whether it is 30 million or 32 million or 35. It was 35 now. Indeed, we have a 15% growth in Rx, but for me it's all foreplay before Rx starts. We're very happy with the current Rx customers that we're having, and why? Because it's also showing that indeed pre-Rx time already there are many customers who actually give that trust to shop at the Apotheke for their prescription medications, but that we have some growth there on the low base.
It's a nice-to-have, but to me it's not a key point in Q1. The key point to me is that we have been growing super strong as a total company with increasing our base of loyal and happy customers, and even so at an increased efficiency. The Rx increase with 3 million, it is what it is, yeah, and you can extrapolate that for the remainder of the year or not. I mean, it is for me, not that relevant in quarter one, I have to say.
Clear. Thank you.
Yeah. The Rx, our share in Rx, I will not disclose. The fact that there are happening some things perhaps in the gematik or the ministry, et cetera, I have not seen any official announcement there, only speculations. What to me is, taking the helicopter view, very relevant with Rx is that the system is working. With insurance companies are ready, we are ready, pharmacists are ready, doctors are ready, so it's working. That's good. That's fact we have. The other one is that, for what it's worth, also the Minister of Health, Mr. Lauterbach, is in every occasion where he can expressing his commitment to make Rx the standard in Germany as soon as possible. Okay, now we're waiting. Just let me in concrete terms, where's the timeline?
What does it mean? Okay, we don't have it, but those two are. The first one are the only facts. It is working. Those who are working are happy with it, all the stakeholders. Number two is it seems to be that on the highest level in Germany it is supported to be introduced as soon as possible.
Yeah. Yeah. Crystal clear. Thank you very much. All the best. Thanks.
Yeah. Thanks, Volker.
The next question is from the line of Jan Koch from Deutsche. Please go ahead.
Hi, Monica. Hi, Jasper. Thanks for taking my questions, and congrats on the strong start to the year. I also have 2 questions, please. The first one is on your gross margin that remained relatively stable at quarter-on-quarter. Your average shopping basket declined sequentially, but you mentioned a favorable product mix. Does that mean that you had a higher share of your own brand sales in Q1, or what was driving this? Your second question is on your allergy business. Given that we now have left the Covid cough season largely behind us, I'm wondering how important this the allergy season for you, and was this business still negatively impacted by Covid restriction or general behavior trends last year?
Yeah. Again, Monica, I think I take that, yeah. Jump in if you wish to add. Yeah. Jan Koch. It was aim for to give some guidance and place things into perspective, but perhaps it's also a little bit confusing comparing not only to the same quarter last year, but also comparing to quarter 4. There's, of course, a seasonality in its own in the quarters, and the margin was roughly stable quarter-over-quarter. That is indeed correct. The average basket for the first time since I'm presenting was year-over-year, slightly increasing from 37 to 38 EUR. What you are now referring to is the slight increase of the basket from quarter four to quarter one.
I am not aware that anything is happening there that's worthwhile mentioning. I would presume it has to be to do with the fact that we had in the quarter one even more new customers we welcomed than we had in quarter four. New customers tend to have a lower average basket. At the same time, again, our overall business was growing a bit faster than our RX business, and those two things might have dampened it a little bit. I think the key conclusions are the most important. We know what's commented on in the economy, inflation, and things like that. Those things have, until now, a very limited negligible impact on the pharmacy business as we do it. Not really an impact of customers reducing their purchases.
I have not something to mention there. The fact that our gross margin was better, that is really all summarized in this continuous focus from category management and from our commercial departments in giving the right promotion to the right people and giving the right assortment to the right people. You mentioned own brands. That is one of the many elements in order to optimize our portfolio. The last one on the allergy. I can only tell you that's not my area of expertise. I know this is. There are some important things. This morning I received from Shop Apotheke as a customer and a very attractive email on, please be prepared for the allergy season.
The other parts, how much we expect and how much impact there was, I don't doubt anybody is having the exact answer what the impact of Covid was there. We at Shop Apotheke are prepared at least to help our customers now at the start of the allergy season to find the right products. Yeah.
Great. Thank you.
Yeah. Thank you.
The next question is from the line of Sven Sauer from Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead.
Hello. Thank you, Monica, Jasper, for taking my two questions. The first would be regarding the strong customer growth and web traffic growth that we have seen. I mean, I was just wondering, of course, you probably don't have numbers to this, but to what extent do you think these numbers are inflated from the weakness of your current main peer? Do you think these impacts will fade once your peer picks up marketing again? The second question would be regarding the transmission of eScripts via the electronic health card. Are you happy with this solution that was introduced a couple of months ago with a QR code potentially being displayed on the health card terminals? Thanks.
Yes, Sven. Thank you. Answer to the first one, no. Clear. We have increased our base of active customers across our seven countries. It's really not coming from one competitor in one country. If there's some softness of a certain competitor, that will help you a little bit. At the same time, there's a lot more of competition. There's really it's not explaining our results. We are not aware of that. We don't see the impact there. No further comments on that Sven. I hope you will understand.
The e-card, the eHealth card solution, from my perspective, we are happy with everything that helps to get doctors in Germany to give eScripts to their customers, so to increase the total base of eScripts that the doctors are giving to their patients. Apparently, the health card solution is something that certain doctor associations think is helpful in their processes. In addition to the two processes that are there already, printed out QR codes and the gematik B2C app, if there would be another method which would convince doctors in order to roll it out, that is really something that we welcome as Shop Apotheke.
At the same time, it's of course very important that there is a freedom of choice for the customer so that the customer can really choose to which pharmacy they wanna go to across the street or three streets further or online. It should be as frictionless and seamless as possible. We are working there together with many stakeholders, together with both the gematik and Ministry of Health. Thank you.
The next question is from the line of Olivier Calvet from Credit Suisse. Please go ahead.
Yes. Hi, good morning, Jasper and Monica. Just one question left. I think at the Galenica JV announcement call, you weren't asked about Migros move in non-prescription in Switzerland, if I'm not mistaken. I was just wondering if you could, you know, let us know how you see the competition developing in Switzerland going forward in light of this move?
Olivier, can you repeat a little because the line was not very strong. You asked about the Non-Rx in Switzerland, is that correct?
Yeah, Non-Rx in Switzerland with Migros move.
We have nice momentum, nice proposition growing strongly in Switzerland, and we at Shop Apotheke at the moment are doing that in healthcare related assortment because the sale of OTC online at the moment is not allowed in Switzerland. In most countries in Europe, OTC is allowed and Rx not. In some countries like Germany and the Netherlands, Rx and OTC are both allowed, in Switzerland, it's just the other way around. At the moment, Rx is allowed and OTC not. How is it possible that we at Shop Apotheke have a fast-growing business there? That's the beauty and personal care, that's the vitamins and other supplements that are non medications. That's the business that we are having. Galenica is very strong in the Rx business. Actually, 99.5% of the current sales of MediService are prescription sales.
For both of us at the moment it's not possible to do OTC in Switzerland. Of course, we, and I think also many customers in Switzerland, are hoping that this will change in the near future. We are not aware of any concreteness of a timeline of having a change there.
Okay. Just to clarify the question. I meant on the non-medication assortment-
Yeah.
in Switzerland.
Yeah. Then the question to that is?
Is you've seen Migros move, in the non-prescription part. No, sorry, non-medication part. Do you have any comments there in terms of how the competition is evolving?
No. Yeah. No, not really.
Okay.
I don't know. Can you specify, are you referring to a certain specific, a specific situation? We are seeing that we at Shop Apotheke indirectly have just added all other countries are growing double digits. In the competitive landscape in the countries also in Switzerland, we have been able to grow our own business organically by more than 10%.
Okay, thanks.
Yeah. Okay. Sorry, the line wasn't really strong, so I could not hear it immediately, your question. Thank you. My answer was clear now, I hope.
Yeah.
Our next question is from the line of Miro Duzar from JMS. Please go ahead.
Yes. Hi, thank you for taking my question. I have two, if I may. The first one is, on page 11 of the presentation, you show basically the mix effect of the split between OTC and Rx being zero. On the other hand side, the strong margin increase of in the DACH segment from 26.5% to 28.5% is explained by positive mix effects. Could you please elaborate on this, what's actually happening within the portfolio, that you're able to increase or to expand your margin by this high amount? I suggest to take this first, and then I have the second question afterwards.
Okay, thanks for your question and joining the call today. What you're seeing is that in some quarters we used to see quite some mix impact of country on OTC and Rx because the growth percentages were very different. Sometimes international was growing 80% and DACH was growing 10%, for example. If you then have a different margin, you can have quite a significant impact of mix, and the same goes for OTC and Rx. Because Rx was almost growing as fast as all Rx, almost, DACH was almost the same as international was. In the end, there was no impact from mix in countries and in OTC and in Rx.
If you then go to your, probably the background of your question, what is then happening excluding this mix in the products? I'm actually reiterating what I was just saying to one of the other questions that have been asked. It is the reflection that we as Shop Apotheke continuously try to optimize our assortment. More assortment, the relevant assortment, giving the right price incentives to the right customers, giving them not to other customers, focusing on existing customers and the loyalty. And in that whole mix that we are doing, we have been able to increase the profitability. All in all, in selling our products that we were selling in quarter one, we did so at more than a 1 percentage point higher gross profit margin than we did last year.
Okay, impressive. The second one is on the selling and distribution cost in the international segment. It came down significantly versus the past from clearly above 30% now to 27% in terms of revenues.
Right.
At the same time, the growth was less pronounced. Coming down from also higher rates in the past, of clearly above, let's say 30%, not last year, but the years before, down to 18%. Obviously the two lines, they relate to each other. Can you tell us what's the strategy there and what we should expect going forward?
Yeah. Yeah. First to place it into context, the numbers of international are still of the magnitude that a change can lead quite easily to a quite significant change in the percentages. The numbers are smaller than they are in our DACH segment. Sometimes, the changes in the percentages are more pronounced, but still there is a story behind what you are asking for. In international it is clearly also the result of scale, effectiveness of marketing, and efficiency that helped us to improve the SMB as a % of sales. That's what it is. The fact that our growth was somewhat lower is not because we decided to slow down our growth. That is not that is not the situation.
With growth, it's also more the fact that we are getting there to more significant numbers. It's more difficult to grow. Let's say two years ago, the segment was still significantly smaller than it is now. It's now a clear 20% of our total business. It's not like we say we save there in order to get better margins, and that's why we reduce our growth. In all of our seven countries that we are active, we have a market leading position, or we have the ambition to get to a market leading position. In all our countries, we don't see a slowdown of the shift from off to online, we will continue to work as we always work on having those leading or getting towards a leading position, number one or two in a country.
That is the same strategy we also have in international. That did not change. A little bit of the movement that you're saying, though normally we don't comment on individual countries, is actually also explained that we successfully in quarter 3 last year, opened our own operations in Italy. At the start of opening the operations, we had to get used to the new situation. Some customers had to get used to the new situation. There we were a little bit more careful, a little bit more cost and a little bit lower growth. Now you really see, as I also commented, at Shop Apotheke in the trading update, that actually throughout quarter 1 we already saw an improvement there. That's some color I can give you on those market developments there. Our strategy is unchanged.
What you're seeing is scale and efficiency that we are getting increasingly in those countries.
Okay, thank you. If I may follow up on this one. I mean, the growth at 18.5%, was really basically, let's say, below what you've shown in the past. Now, you mentioned the base or basically the scale of the operations, the base effect.
Yeah.
Still we are talking about, you know, very small sales given the number of countries you book in this segment.
Yeah.
You grow much faster in Germany and the rest of the DACH area. Can we expect that this segment is basically going to outgrow the DACH segment excluding RX? Do you think this is going to grow in line with DACH?
Yeah.
going forward?
Yeah. We give only guidance on growth as a total company, and not on the segments. In this case, I can give some color here. If you look at growth as a %, so the % growth, of course, that can fluctuate a certain period. For example, quarter one last year, international was very strong. Perhaps the DACH was a little bit less strong at the moment there. In the longer term, the growth % organically, not taking into account the success that we're gonna achieve with Galenica as part of the transaction. I think it's fair to say that in the longer run, taking out some quarterly impacts that we're having, we see still more growth opportunities in international than we are seeing in the DACH segment. Yeah.
The % will, in the long run, in the, in the mid-term, will be higher in the international than it will be in DACH. Sometimes not, and sometimes yes, but if you take out the fluctuations, the growth % is more likely to be higher in the international than it is in DACH. Yeah.
Thank you.
You're welcome.
this concludes our Q&A session, and I hand back to Jasper Eenhorst for closing comments.
Okay. Well, thanks very much, everybody. We're exactly on time. We're saving ourselves 4 minutes. Thanks a lot for all your attention today and the questions. That's it. I would like to end with what I started. Thank everybody at Shop Apotheke for working so dedicated and motivated every day on satisfying our customers, but also focusing on having a good economic business model. Very happy to be part of it. On behalf of Monica and myself, I wish you all a great day. Bye.