Yeah, good morning, everybody, welcome from Zevenaar, the Netherlands. It's 11:00 local time here, and Monica Ambrosi and myself are very happy to be able to share with you today's numbers. We will present them, and it will be followed by a Q&A session, as always. Today, the first of August, is also the first official working day from Olaf, Olaf Heinrich, the new CEO, and as of upcoming quarter three, Olaf and myself will host the presentation together. Today, very happy that Monica is again here, just like past quarter. Presenting from here, indeed, the agenda is straightforward. It's the same structure as always, starting with the financial performance of quarter two and with that of the first half of 2023, an update on business and strategy, and then our outlook for the future.
Financial performance and the H1, 2023 financial highlights. Continued fast growth, perhaps that's a little bit a soft title because actually our growth was 46% in Q2, and with that, 34% over the first six months of this year compared to last year. If you go to an apple-on-apple comparison, excluding Mediservice, that's included in the numbers as of the mid of May, everything is still beyond 20%. The growth in Q2 was 25%, and with that, the first half of the year, 24%. The non-Rx growth, a KPI for vet care pharmacy, actually accelerated from the already above 20% growth in the first quarter to 27% in the second quarter, and with that, it's standing at 25% increase year-over-year, free organic, without any acquisitions after six months.
The driver of the increase is loyalty of our existing customers, at the same time, also an ever-increasing base of active customers. We, as a company, founded in 2001, we're very happy with the milestone that we achieved in the second quarter of more than 10 million active customers. We gained this year alone, over the first six months, 0.8 million customers. Compared to the second quarter of last year, the increase was 1.5 million active customers, and we ended at an exact number of 10.1 at the end of June. Equally important, the Net Promoter Score, indicator of customer satisfaction that we track carefully, was ever higher and was even above 70.
While we are growing as Shop Apotheke really fast and continue to grow double-digit and perhaps even increase our momentum, bullet number four is equally important. Major year-over-year EBITDA improvement. We ended Q2 at a 3.2%, which was year-over-year, and more on that later, an increase of 5.3 percentage points, and we ended the first half of the year at 2.8, which was a year-over-year increase of 4.6%. For us, it's important also, if you look at what, for example, DACH is reporting at the moment, even if you exclude Mediservice in both Q1 and Q2, the DACH adjusted EBITDA margin, while growing 25% organically, so a fast growth, was already between 5%-6%.
Everything that we report today is, for us, a proof of our longer-term and midterm guidance of an adjusted EBITDA in excess of 6%. Our strategy execution with fast growth, happy customers, and an adjusted EBITDA margin in the mid to longer term in excess of 8%, this is exactly what we are executing. Mediservice is included since middle of May. We expect a full year impact this year for the 7.5 months of around EUR 300 million and an EBITDA margin between 2%-3%. The exact numbers for H1 were EUR 60 million, and both a net profit and an EBITDA of EUR 1 million. The second to last highlight on this slide is a cash inflow of EUR 64 million. Of course, a major contributor is the positive EBITDA, the adjusted EBITDA that we achieved.
We also had a EUR 29 million one-off related to the transaction with Galenica, and there was also a part where you can see there was favorable timing and also some seasonality as to working capital movements, which will impact also, most likely, reverse in the second half of the year. With the results of the first half of the year and our estimate of what the second half of the year will bring, we were able to raise our guidance, non-Rx up from 10%-20% to a growth of 20%-30% and an adjusted EBITDA margin raised to a range of a positive 1.5%-3%. Later, more on the total guidance. Here again, it's a little bit of a repetition, so I try to add some different color here. Our fast sales growth continues.
Over the six months, an increase of 33.8% for the total company. 33.8% over the six month, 46% in the second quarter. Non-Rx fully organic had a growth for the total group of 24.9%. The non-Rx in DACH increased with 25.5%, and in international, where everything that we report is non-Rx, the increase was 23.2%. In international, it's the average where you saw that in Q1, our growth was 18%. We accelerated that to 28%, bringing it for the first half to 23%. Lxst thing for me to mention here is that Rx in DACH more than doubled, and this was mainly driven by the inclusion of Mediservice. How did we achieve those strong sales, Monica?
Thank you, Jasper. Indeed, as you mentioned in the highlights, the strong increase in some of our non-financial KPIs, including Net Promoter Score and the active customer base, supported these strong results. We see that the active customer base increased by a constant 0.4 million for the past three quarters, taking us to an active customer base of 10.1 million by the end of June, which is an increase of 1.5 million over the same period last year. Over that period, the increase was seen across all of our countries. In terms of the measure of customer satisfaction, the Net Promoter Score, as you've already said, it's been at a high level of at or above 70 in the past quarter, and also in the first half of the year, it was at 71.
In fact, anything that is 60 or above when we talk about Net Promoter Score is extremely strong and a really strong indicator of very happy and satisfied customers. The fact that for the past six quarters we have consistently been above 70 should speak for itself as to the strength of that. Then, looking at the average shopping basket value, as in the 1st quarter, in the second quarter, there was an increase in that average of around EUR 1 compared to the same period last year. Moving on to the total number of orders that were received and processed during the second quarter, it was again at a very high level of 7.1 million.
Quite an increase over the same period of last year's, which was EUR 5.8 million. We again are seeing a continuation of this upward trend in this KPI. If we look at the share of repeat orders within the total, again, at a high of 84% for the third consecutive quarter. Again, it underlines how very loyal customers that are extremely happy are supporting the strong results of the group. Over to you, Jasper.
Yeah. Thank you. Great. Here, so here all the numbers from sales up to and including the adjusted EBITDA, and for reference and transparency sake, also for reference to fully loaded EBITDA at the bottom. The header of this slide is effectiveness, efficiency, loyalty, and scale, and that is referring to the significant year-over-year achievement in improvements. I'm very happy that we included for the first time, as of the mid of May, also the sales and the total contribution of Mediservice into the numbers. Please note that because of Mediservice unit economics, which are prescription drug sales, so specialty Rx sales, with an attractive high average price and average order value, that you see that mathematically the gross profit, very attractive in EUR, is as a percentage of sales below our average gross profit.
The inverse you see at the selling and other expenses as a percentage of sales. Some impact on lowering the total group gross profit margin, but at the same time, also lowering, which is positive, the expenses as a percentage of sales. Actually, the impact on the adjusted EBITDA margin is negligible because the current performance of Mediservice and the adjusted EBITDA margin of the Redcare Pharmacy businesses is roughly in the same ballpark. On the adjusted EBITDA margin, having virtually no impact at the moment. Sales in the quarter from EUR 287 million last year, it increased to EUR 420 million this year, 46% up. In the first half of the year, we increased exactly with EUR 200 million from EUR 592 million to EUR 792 million, an increase of 34%.
The adjusted EBITDA margin increased at the same time in the second quarter from a -2.1% fully loaded adjusted EBITDA last year to a positive 3.2% this year. Later, in the bridges, we will dive a little bit deeper on the details. An increase of more than 5 percentage points. With already a strong quarter one, the total six months together with quarter two is leading to an change from last year, -1.8 to a + 2.8 this year, and that's up 4.6 percentage points. Adding the sales or multiplying the sales and the margin is bringing us to the adjusted EBITDA. Really noteworthy is that last year, due to our adjusted EBITDA was EUR -6.
This year, it's +13, so that's an increase in one quarter, year-over-year of EUR 90 million, while continuing to grow really fast. sorry, in the first half of the year, from -10 last year to a EUR 20 million is a EUR 32 million increase. In reference to the fully loaded EBITDA, you actually see that the year-over-year increase is even more than from the adjusted EBITDA, that's the fact that our adjustments have rapidly declined compared to last year, mainly related to business acquisitions we did in 2021. With that, please go to the thank you, to the gross profit margin bridge. The underlying gross profit margin, I'm referring there to the fact that we want to show the apple-to-apple comparison.
First, excluding Mediservice, and over the first six months of 2022, our gross profit margin last year stood at 27.2%, and we achieved an increase of in total 0.9% to 28.1%. This increase of 0.9% is basically the effect of an increased gross profit margin, and that's thanks to the hard work of our category management, our purchasing, our analytics, controlling, IT departments that all cooperated in improving the average margin and the total proposition to our customers with the most relevant and successful assortment. Total increase to 28.1%, including Mediservice, is 26.5%. The increase, if you go to the right side of the slide, of the apple-to-apple comparison of the gross profit margin in Q2 was 0.7% from 27.8%-28.5%.
On this slide, it's the selling and distribution expenses as a percentage of sales. Last year, after six months, it was 25.7%, and on an apple-to-apple basis, it improved year-over-year with in total 3.5 percentage points to 22.2. Three blocks are important here. Of course, it's clear that marketing as a percentage of sales is lower. I'm not saying marketing is lower, but as a percentage of sales. Please remember that last year we were also pushing really for returning to even faster sales growth, and this year we achieved a lot of sales growth. Equally important, and making us very proud, are the second and the third building block that you're seeing here.
Despite the fact that we are in an inflationary environment for labor and also for energy costs over the past years, you can see that the total of shipping and packaging was virtually equal to last year as a percentage of sales on actually increased 0.1 percentage points. You see that several initiatives and developments have worked together there. For example, you see that we work together with last mile service providers on pre-sorting the orders before we ship them to them, and you also see the benefits of us growing and the scale that we are achieving, being successful across Europe. Also, what Monica already said, the average basket value increase over Europe is helping to improve the numbers on this slide.
Operational labor, same story, is reflective of increased efficiency that we have been able to achieve in our logistics distribution centers. All in all, an apple-to-apple increase of 3.5% at this point. If you include Mediservice, it's even 1.4% better, ending after six months at 20.8%. The 3.5% over the first six months is an increase in the second quarter of 4.3 percentage points, what you see at the right side. That was a lot on margins. If we then go to the cash flow slide, please. We started the year on 1st of January with EUR 180 million of cash and cash equivalents. That's in the definition of our cash, but also including short-term fixed deposits, for example, the other financial assets.
We started with EUR 180 million, and we ended at EUR 244 million at the end of June. Building block number one of the four, the adjusted EBITDA of EUR 22 million, is resulting in a EUR 19 million inflow of operating results over the first six months. A very positive working capital development of EUR 58 million. Please note that the end of June was the favorable timing as to the payables position that we had, both at the Mediservice and at the core of Shop Apotheke. A part of that will most likely reverse in the second half of the year, but underlying developments also for working capital are developing strongly in line with the past two years. Investments in total, EUR 35 million.
Of that, EUR 18 million is really the IT and our regular investments that we have been doing as Redcare across our operations. The remainder, or to be exactly EUR 23 million, is related to the one-off of the acquisition of Mediservice. financing, actually a positive number of EUR 22 million. There are, of course, the lease payments, the interest payments are included there. It's a positive number because there's a non-recurring plus of EUR 29 million related to shares issued in relation to the transaction with Galenica for Mediservice. I repeat it, what I started, we started the year with EUR 80 million. We are standing now at above EUR 240 million of cash and cash equivalents. Switching from the finance to the general business strategy update, our highlights over the first six months.
In quarter one already, we were promoted by MSCI to a triple A rating for our sustainability. We already stood at a double A, Shop Apotheke, but in quarter one we were awarded with a triple A, which is the highest category that MSCI is applying, and with that we are, according to their standards, in the top four in our industry globally. In the top four as to sustainability, social, and governance. Also, in the, this, first half of the year, we rebranded Redcare Pharmacy after almost 20 years of Shop Apotheke to Redcare Pharmacy on the corporate level. We started a strategic partnership with Galenica, reflected in the joint venture that we are having with Mediservice in Switzerland.
We announced this transaction in March, and after the approval of the competitive authorities, we were able to close the deal as of mid-May. Later, a bit more on that. Also, in the first half of the year, uh, Stefan Feltens ended, uh, ended his period of four years CEO of Shop Apotheke, and we are happy that today is, as I said already, actually the first official working day of Olaf Heinrich as the new Shop Apotheke so Redcare Pharmacy CEO. Uh, also here, uh, reflective of our valuation, we were promoted to the MDAX. And then very important, the last bullet point, a bit more on that later, uh, in June, and then later, al- also a bit more in July, but on the twenty-second of June, all the shareholders of Kymatic, they announced the full support of making eRx the standard in Germany.
On the 22nd of June, they said, "Now that there is the healthcare solution, we will support the doctors, the pharmacies, where needed, with aim to have eRx available for everybody in Germany before the end of the year, to be ready for the expected mandatory use of e-scripts by the start of 2024." Monica?
Thanks again, Jasper. Starting off with the change of the new or the new name and the corporate brand in the second quarter. At the beginning of the quarter, the AGM, at the AGM, this change was approved, and then it was successfully executed during the remainder of the quarter. The official launch of Redcare Pharmacy occurred on the 13th of June, when at the Frankfurt Stock Exchange, where we are listed, the ticker symbol changed to RDC to reflect our new name, and this was also marked by a bell ringing ceremony on the day. At the same time, our new corporate website was launched, and this website not only reflects the new name, but also this new brand identity and logo.
Also a highlight of June, simultaneously, we were, on the 19th of June, to be precise, we were again promoted to the MDAX family of indices following the high valuation of Redcare Pharmacy. Just to remind everybody about why the new name, why the new brand, it's because we feel that it is a better reflection of who we are and what we do, and it is also a reflection of our vision that we are guided by on a daily basis as a pharmacy, which is until every human has their health. To make this vision more concrete, our role as the one-stop pharmacy is to guide people through their health.
We also want to reflect this focus that we have on care in our local brands, in our local shops, which is why from the beginning of September, starting with Germany and Austria, the new shop or, or the shops, the existing shops will receive a new brand identity. Of course, the names will remain the same, so shop-apotheke.com will remain the same, they will now better reflect the new brand identity with the new logo and coloring that you are seeing already also in today's presentation.
Jasper?
Yeah.
Yeah, looking forward to that.
Yeah.
A nice further improvement to our existing shops, so that's already happening very soon. Thanks a lot for that. This slide, this is showing this factual situation of eRx in Germany. The low points that you see there have to do with some certifications there. That's not really relevant there. What I wanted to point towards, but I saw it already covered in quite some analyst reports this morning also, is as of the 1st of July, which is totally to the right of this graph, when the healthcare solution was introduced, you saw that the average of around 8,000 e-scripts submitted in total, Germany increased, despite the fact that also holidays started in Germany, to around 13,000 or 14,000 already.
A very significant increase of the usage of Rx. But of course, it's only scratching the surface of the total opportunity that's there in Germany. It's a promising step in the right direction. It's also a clear reflection of the actions that have been taken by both the Ministry of Health, also in the draft law, and by the gematik, which I alluded to already before. Nice increase, more to be expected, most certainly in the second half of the year.
Mediservice, included in the numbers, as I said already, to remind you also here, for the rationale of the deal, we are so happy with the deal that we are with a strong partner of Galenica. Now able to work together with Mediservice, who we are really seeing as having a loyal base of our ex-customers, being experts on what we name specialty Rx. Combining that with our expertise of being a pure e-commerce pharmacy player, should lead to an even increase in proposition for our Swiss customers specifically. Really nice, and we're getting started there in the cooperation in all kinds of aspects already. To be clear on the numbers, EUR 300 million this year, that's for 7.5 months.
Even if you don't assume virtually any growth next year, there will be a sort of EUR 450 million on a full year base included in our numbers and with an adjusted EBITDA margin at the moment between 2%-3%. Very nice. One of the first things you could notice already is that at shop-apotheke.ch, part of Mediservice now, you see an increased assortment of Swiss-specific products. We go to the outlook and the guidance. It was already in our presentation this morning in Jasper's presentation, but to make things clear and put it in total perspective. We as a company, we believe in the great opportunity of an online pharmacy in Europe, in the non-Rx part and in the Rx part.
We also say that in our business that, and we've stating that for years, we have a mid to longer term adjusted EBITDA margin guidance. In the current year, we increased our guidance for non-Rx, which was last year, 90% of our total sales. Everything but Rx, non-Rx, to grow this year between 20% and 30%, quite much up from the 10%-20% that we had as a challenge at the start of the year. With that total net sales of Redcare Pharmacy would end up between EUR 1.7 billion and EUR 1.8 billion in 2023, the adjusted EBITDA margin already at the start of the year, we had the ambition on, for the first time in the history of the company, achieve a positive adjusted EBITDA since the listing.
We are increasing that now to a low point of 1.5% and a higher point of 3%, so between 1.5% and 3% of sales. The free cash flow we left unchanged between EUR -20 million and EUR +20 million. Of course, compared to the start of the year, we will get more free cash flow because of Mediservice. We will get more free cash flow because of our higher sales and our increased margin. At the same time, because the free cash flow definition is including, in our case, working capital fluctuations and the exact timing, we didn't want to limit ourselves in executing and creating the most value for all the stakeholders as to working capital.
We want to be able to also in October, November, December, if needed, that we do what's best for the company in total, and that could be a certain timing as to inventories because of the dynamic situation on the market and sometimes expected increases of prices that it can be interesting to, for example, also see the fast growth in the quarter one to build up some inventories as a certain scenario. Yes, free cash flow is looking better than it looked at the start of the year, but we kept our guidance here because we don't want to give up our flexibility to do what we think is best to do for the value creation of the company. With that, update of the guidance, we have come to an end of the presentation, and we are ready to take the first questions, please.
Ladies and gentlemen, at this time, we 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 yourselves to two questions only. If you are 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. One moment for the first question, please. The first question comes from Alexander Thiel from Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Hi, Monica and Jasper. I hope you can hear me.
Yep, clearly. Yep.
Okay, perfect. I would like to take my questions one by one. The first one is, it's very good to see that your efficiency and scale play out across all metrics. Could you talk a bit more about your future operating leverage that you see in the business for OTC and Rx?
Yeah, it's, it's, it's often also used as a sort of yardstick, the company is aiming for scale or, et cetera, advantages of scale. In our language, this is to us very concrete. It basically is that our fixed costs increase significantly less than at our sales are increasing. That's what we always expected and have been seeing over the past years also, now with the good sales development increasingly so. Scale is very clear. There are all kinds of costs, whether it's marketing related or it's head office related, that will scale when you achieve fast sales growth. That's there.
In efficiency, there are several things, but the one I would like to point out is that our two distribution centers are really running very well at the moment. Robust quality, quick delivery to the customers and also resulting in a very good number of units per hour. That's a clear one. Apart from that, there's also in all kinds of other areas where we try to, while staying as a company, as flexible as possible, to adapt our propositions as much as possible if that's needed. We try to also keep simple our operations, keep centralized what can be centralized, and if it's needed, we localize. By keeping things simple and centralized, you also achieve efficiencies.
Sometimes for that, you have to make some investments, which we did over the past years, and now we are reaping the benefits from that. More to be expected in line with our guidance, in the coming years. It will never be a straight line, eh? The direction where we're going, that's, is, is as clear as has always been.
Okay, that's understood. My second question is on your gross margin bridge that you show on page 10. Just for my understanding, the 28.1% is excluding Mediservice. Is it calculated excluding the EUR 60 million sales? We can calculate, basically the, the joint venture gross margin. Also, what is your expectation for the gross margin for the full year with the full six months contribution of Mediservice? Thank you.
Yeah. Yeah. First, I can confirm it's exactly what you're saying. The 28.1% is the core business of Shop Apotheke. And that's the year-over-year increase of, I say it now by heart, 0.9%. I think that we had there. The other one as to what the impact on the gross profit, but the same question is, of course, for the expenses, percentage of sales is. Yeah, I can there, Alexander only refer to the fact that you see in the second quarter on the same slides, on slide 10, you see what the impact of Mediservice was. That was for 1.5 months there.
1.5 month of the three months of the second quarter, and you see what the impact there was. I leave it up to you, please, to, to extrapolate what the impact then, then can be, but it depends on how fast the other parts of us are growing, how fast they are growing. That's an indication of what the impact is, also going forward.
Okay, that's understood. Maybe a last one-
Yeah.
-on the free cash flow. I understand that you didn't change the guidance, and you gave the reason for that, but could you comment on the working capital needs for Mediservice? Do you also expect some kind of inventory stack up in the fourth quarter?
I'm inclined towards saying, okay, we never comment on the individual operations, but in this case, I can only comment that I think there is less of seasonality at Mediservice than we are seeing in our own B2C business. Yeah, because it's more related to chronically ill patients, that's more stable towards the over the year, except for holiday periods and the month. Each month, there, there is a slight peak at the start of the month, but not like what we traditionally, pre-COVID, used to see in some of our major markets with the cold and flu season that is more in the first quarter of the year, what you are referring to, and we need to inventories for that at the end of quarter four.
I think directionally, you should expect less or not at all, that seasonality for the Mediservice business.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you, Alexander. Yeah.
The next question comes from Aisyah Noor from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Good morning, Jasper. Thanks for taking the question. The first one is just on the complaint you filed with the European Commission, with your peer against the use of eGK. How successful do you think you can be in this court appeal, given your mixed success with regulators in the past, and what are you hoping is the ideal outcome here? My second question is kind of related to the question around profitability over the midterm. Do you have any updated thoughts around this over 8% margin expectations? I think you previously mentioned that the Mediservice business should maintain a lower margin versus the core, in spite of the good unit economics. The 8% would imply your ex Mediservice could, you know, deliver upwards of 10% EBITDA margin over the midterm.
Is this the right way to think about it, or do you think you can improve Mediservice profitability over time as well? Thank you.
Yeah, thanks. Yeah, two very relevant questions. Thank you. The second one, yes, I can confirm that's exactly how you, how you look at it. The only thing I can add there, it's a little bit mathematical, what you're doing now, talking about the Mediservice impact, because actually from the Mediservice corporation, we also will have an improved ShopCH performance and overall the cross-fertilization. There could be a quite different margin profile of Mediservice going forward. Apart from that, what you are stating that we will compensate the lower than 8% margin in the core of Mediservice, that is, that is fully correct, Ayesha. With that to the first one, Yeah, Monica, I will also take this one, but, but, but add if you have.
It, it's, it, it's in the base, it's very simple. It is, it is a core principle in the German relevant law that there is the free choice of the end patient, the consumer, the German people, to select the pharmacy of their choice. Now, there is a new methodology in addition to the already existing paper print out of QR codes of the gematik app, and that's the health card. That's also possible to use as a patient in Germany. Technical experts say it's not at all difficult to also use this card easily with your smartphone and order online. Order online to a physical pharmacy, that you don't have to go to the pharmacy first before, and you can only pick it up or to an online pharmacy. That last part is however, at the moment, not included.
At the moment, it's only that you have to walk with your card to the pharmacy, in order to get your prescriptions. Method number one and number two stay in place. We basically say this is not the best solution for the people in Germany. You also want to open up the health card solution for easy ordering online. That now the online method is discriminated versus the physical method with the, with the card. That's what we, that's what we emphasized in, in, in asking for an, an, an adjustment of that in the, in the, respective law.
Great, thank you.
The next question comes from Bosse, from Baader Bank. Please go ahead.
Yeah, hello, Volker Bosse. Thanks for taking my question. Baader Bank. Congratulations first on the impressive results. I would also like to ask two questions. Start with the gross profit follow-up. Thanks for building the bridge here in your presentation. More general question, what would you say is the delta of the Rx product gross margin versus the non-Rx product gross margin? In other words, which impact should we calculate on the gross margin, given that the Rx share should increase going forward? A bit more your thoughts on that would be helpful. Thank you. The second question is on the private labels. Redcare is now the new name of the group, but it's also the umbrella name of your private label assortment.
I know this business is still very tiny, however, what sales contribution comes from private labels, and what is the potential would you expect to come from private label? I think this comes also with interesting gross margins, but more to hear from you would be helpful. Thank you.
Thank you, Volker. The line was not very clear. Is the first one the impact of Rx on the gross profit margin? Is that the core of your question?
Yeah, basically, right.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Rx, OTC have a quite different profile in unit economics. If you summarize it and make it simple, generally with Rx, you earn more euros for euro cents, bottom line. Rx is having attractive unit economics, but because of the relatively high value of Rx, gross profit margin as a % of sales is generally somewhat lower than OTC is. At the same time, your expenses will also be leveraged by the higher sales. That, that's, that's basically what it is. If there is a significant increase of Rx, it will mathematically lead to a lower gross profit margin as a % of sales in our total numbers. It will also improve our expenses as a percentage of sales. That's what it is.
Also internally and we mostly do that, if you, if you want to make a scenario of our future, you always have to take those two into account, and then the growth on Rx and the growth of non-Rx, and then the sum of the two is what the total company is looking like. Yeah. Yeah. But it's, yeah, it is how it is. Yeah. Yeah.
The second part of the question.
Yeah.
I think was related to Redcare as our private label.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, thank, yeah, thank, thanks for that. Indeed, we have, by the way, we have four private labels, Duodray, Beavita, Skintist, and Redcare. Redcare is really a core private label for the core of our proposition as a pharmacy. I think if you want to be a very successful retailer, that we are totally convinced that besides the very strong A, B, and C brands that we are having and that we are known for, it's also important to have a strong own brand. We have a lot of sense for our own brand, and it is successful already, but there, I think in the future, there's much more to be expected also in, in that area. Yeah.
It's an end-to-end situation and having the choice for everybody, but also all those people that trust us, that they have, for certain products, a nice own brand alternative, as an, Redcare product.
Can we say its contribution and percentage of group sales?
No.
What do you think of the potential private label?
Yeah, no, generally, generally, own brands are having a clearly above average gross profit margin. Yeah.
Okay. Thank you, and I apologize for the bad line. Sorry. Thank you.
No, bye. Thank you for the questions. Yeah.
The next question comes from Christian Salis, from Hauck Aufhäuser Investment Banking. Please go ahead.
Yeah, good morning also from my side, congrats to the fantastic results this morning. Just one question left from my side, and this is on marketing. The marketing ratio is grouped by almost 300 basis points year-over-year in the first half. My question would be: how much of this is really driven by the relative weakness of your competitors? Should we expect a sequential increase in marketing costs again in the second half? Then the second question on this topic, what would you say, how aggressive are you already in promoting the eRx at the moment? Should we expect another rebound in marketing spending also going forward in 2024 when the eRx is going to be mandatory? Thank you.
Yeah, thank you. I think in the looking at the year-over-year improvement, you could also say perhaps we are at a more normalized level now compared to the more situation where we were pushing last year, in marketing. That's also explaining, I think it's reflective of our customer base and reflective of the strength of our propositions, that we're having, that you're seeing improvements there. There's also momentum on the market. I, I, I don't comment, and I hope you understand, on competitive developments. I can only tell you that we had double-digit growth in each of our seven countries. We improved our margins and also marketing as a percentage of sales, I would say by heart, also each of the seven countries, but at least in our main markets for sure.
If it would have had any impact, on total level of Shop Apotheke, that's not even that relevant. This will also not impact or change in the second half of the year, still, we look at it as always, what is the best thing to do? It could very well be that in October or November, we increase marketing or decrease, et cetera. What is key to understand is we did not reduce our marketing. Our marketing as a percentage of sales improved. On promoting eRx, that's too much forward-looking for me. It depends too much on the scenario, and we have all kinds of scenarios that could take place. Does the end consumer understand? Is the government informing? Do we need to inform?
It is all kinds of possibilities, but I would say we are already so marketing driven as a company and specialized there, that it will largely also be a shift of our current marketing instead of an add-on. I think the building of trust for non-Rx customers and the loyalty that we are seeing and the return rates, as Monica talked about, they are actually all also let's say, nice starting point for when there is a possibility to finally, easily, also order the prescription medications in a way that is nice for the patients in Germany.
All right. Thank you very much. All the best.
Yeah, thank you, Christian.
The next question comes from Olivier Calvet from Credit Suisse. Please go ahead.
Yes, good morning, Jasper and Monica. I have a couple of questions on profitability, please. Just, you know, you've given us the new EBITDA guide for this year. Firstly, you know, it would be useful, given the integration of Mediservice, to get kind of the building blocks or how you think about building blocks of that guidance. Where should we expect gross margin, SG&A and admin as a percentage of sales? I mean, would you be comfortable with, I don't know, 26%, below 21 and below 3% would be the first one?
No, it's, it's clear, Olivier, we, we wanna have the flexibility there, and there's too much in the details also for us to, to disclose. We are giving top line and EBITDA guidance and even free cash flow guidance as a company. What we do in between, we don't give guidance on. Yeah.
Okay, fair enough. Then I just wanted to follow up, but, you know, similar question, to be honest, but, you know, maybe you can, you can add a bit of color there on, on, maybe an updated answer on, on the building blocks of your long-term guidance now with Mediservice. I mean, would you be comfortable quantifying anything on gross margin, SG&A, admin, or not at all?
I think that is, that is, that is too much for today's calls, but it's also not that difficult, and I've shared it, and also other colleagues of the company, in, in, in many occasions. I think perhaps the best answer to your question is if you already look at what at the moment, 80% of our sales are coming from DACH. DACH is growing over 30% or over 25% on an organic basis. Very much growth also, growth investments we are having in DACH at the moment still. Now already we are operating there in an adjusted EBITDA margin between 5% and 6%, and I would say that should give quite a lot of comfort about the mid to lower term guidance. I think that's really the best answer, I would say.
If you look at our international segment, where our growth accelerated to 28% last year, it was a -10% adjusted EBITDA margin in Q2. It's now a -5%, so it was halving there. You see the same thing happening there. What are the building blocks? The building blocks are the same as what we achieve now year-over-year. It's across the entire P&L, where you will both see you need to select the most effective investments that you're making, focus on efficiency, on a good gross profit margin, and efficient use of your cost and scale and loyalty.
... Okay, that, that makes sense. Then just the last one on, on, you know, how, how you're thinking about the phasing of e-scripts this year. I mean, there's been a couple of questions on this, but your EBITDA guidance implies you have some wiggle room in terms of marketing investments in H2. I'm just wondering if, if you think we should expect those, whether concentrated in Q4 or already in Q3?
Yeah, Monica, I also take this question. It's again, a financial question, so, yeah, yeah.
Sorry.
In answering your question, we are not aware in Q1 or Q2 that there were any significant negative or positive non-recurring elements there. The result that we report in Q1 and Q2 is the result as it is. Yeah? What we are now doing is that we are significantly upgrading our guidance with a low point of 0.5 down to a low point of 1.5, there is, as you can see in the number, flexibility. Perhaps we need flexibility to better execute. Perhaps there's something happening on the markets that we need... It's a dynamic market still. The overall world is dynamic, that should be looked at in the range that we are giving for the second half of the year.
The key point is we increased our expectations for the year. It's a clearly positive number, and we want some room just to reflect the dynamics of our business and also keeping the flexibility if we need any flexibility. It's not that we are aware of certain cost increases, that will for sure bring the current margin down.
The next question comes from Jan Koch from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.
Yes. Hi, Monica. Thanks for taking my questions. My first question is on your DACH segment. What were the biggest contributors to the strong sales performance in this segment in Q2? Was it a further increase in the online penetration, further market share gains, or a normalization of the allergy business following subdued demand in recent years? In relation to this, the second question is on your new non-GAAP guidance. What gives you the confidence that you can keep the strong sales momentum in H2, given that your comps are getting tougher, at least in the flu business? Finally, on your underlying book gross profit, you mentioned that your underlying margin benefited from 120 basis points due to a more favorable product margin. Does this include any price increases from your side?
Thank you. Yeah, not only DACH, it's DACH and, and international, which is in our case, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, and Italy. In all seven countries, we were growing, answering your first quest- question, significantly north of 20% in the, in the second quarter. I think you can only achieve a growth and the overall P&L numbers as we did, if you're not only focused on new customers, which rightfully you emphasized also, Monica, but if you also keep your existing customers really satisfied and, and hope that they will show great loyalty. It's, it's a sort of momentum in DACH. There's nothing peculiar, and it's across the countries in, in DACH that, that, that we are seeing there.
As to market share numbers, I prefer to not comment on that because there are no official numbers, though there are some indications what the total market is, which could lead to certain conclusions, but it's still, it's no factual information for me. I can only look at our own numbers, and in our own numbers, we are seeing that we are continuing to increase our base of active customers in Germany, that the customers are very satisfied, and that we have a great share of loyalty, and that's what I'm seeing in our numbers. That's also actually making the bridge to your second question, what is giving us the confidence? Well, it's exactly that. It's the way how we look at what the customer behavior is, how the reactions are to our proposition and to our marketing that we are applying.
We try to then make the scenario of the second half of the year, and including that estimate, we felt comfortable about the raise of the full year guidance. In other words, to make it more simple, we don't see any slowdown at the moment or any one-off events, like there was a big allergy season. That, that, that was the... I, I don't know, but that was at least not the driver for our performance there. It was overall. As to the product margin, can you please remind me what the question was? The third one.
Yeah, sure. Sure. You, you mentioned that your underlying gross profit-
Oh, yeah.
benefited.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. That allows me to comment on that. If I'm reading in the newspapers or with, with, some more specialized press, what the inflation, for example, in the supermarket business has been, I can only share with you that inflation level we have not seen, not at the purchase prices and not at our retail prices. Our inflation over the past two years has been significantly smaller. It's single digit, it's low single digit, in the, in, in, in the lower half of the single digit, directionally in total. Of course, we have increased some prices if the, if the purchase price was increasing, but in each country, we optimize what is the best at that moment. The driver of our improved performance has nothing to do with, increasing just prices because we increased prices.
That is, that is not a driver, no.
Okay, great. Thank you.
Yeah.
The next question comes from Sven Sauer from Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead.
Hello, Monica. Hello, Jasper. Just one follow-up. Hello, just one follow-up question on the appeal you filed. Did I understand that from your answer correctly, that you stated that there are technical experts who suggest it would be easily implementable for online pharmacies to have access via the electronic health card? Did I understand that correctly?
Oh, the, the, the core of the complaint is, is that we now say, "Hey, with method number one and method number two, you can clearly choose whatever pharmacy you want to go to as a consumer, as a customer, as a patient in Germany." That's clear. Now, there is a third methodology, and that is the health cards. In the health cards, it is not made possible that you can also easily order online, eh? You have to walk to a pharmacy with that. What I understood from the experts, and we cannot do that alone, because that is, of course, the technical infrastructure, that is, by the government and by the gematik, that it is not the most challenging and rocket science part to also make that possible.
Technically, it is possible, but I cannot tell you how much effort that will be or not. It is not like, "Hey, this is not possible because technically it's not possible." It's at the moment, something that is not in scope, and we think together with some other industry leaders, we think taking the perspective, this is not what is in line with the law, where it should be free choice for the end patient in Germany to select whatever pharmacy they want to go to, whether it's off or online.
All right. Thank you.
The next question comes from Christopher Cyran, from HSBC. Please go ahead.
Yes, thanks for taking my question. A quick one on eRx. I assume you would not want to comment on how many scripts you have processed in Germany. I'm just curious if you can say, for example, in July or in the recent weeks, if your own trends are sort of similar to the moving average you have, you've sort of shown on whatever chart 19 it is, as far as the growth is concerned.
Yeah. Yeah. You were implying this already by the way you asked your question. I, I, I really cannot, and I, I don't want to answer on that, Chris. Yeah.
All right. Thank you.
Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah.
Okay. In the interest of time, we have to stop the Q&A session and hand back to Jasper Einhaus.
Yeah. Thank you all very much. Thank you, Monica, and thank you for all the listeners, for your questions. Again, I repeat how happy we are to be able to report on behalf of the entire company, Redcare Pharmacy, today's numbers to you. Thanks a lot for your very high interest for Redcare Pharmacy. With that, I would like to close and looking forward to stay in touch with all of you. Have a nice day. Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, the conference is now concluded. You may disconnect your telephone. Thank you for joining. Have a pleasant day. Goodbye.