Good morning everyone, and thank you for taking the time to join us. I am Maxime Saada, CEO of Canal+, and I am joined by Amandine Ferré, Chief Financial Officer and Chief ESG Officer.
Good morning, everyone.
We have delivered a solid performance over the first nine months of the year with revenue of more than EUR 6.4 billion. That is a 37.5% increase on a reported basis, reflecting our increased scale following the MultiChoice acquisition and a 1% increase on a restated basis. Like-for-like, on a constant scope and currency basis, group revenue was down 0.3% and up 0.8% excluding MultiChoice. More importantly, as you know, our focus is on profitability and cash generation, and we remain well on track to deliver our 2026 guidance. I will hand you over to Amandine to provide more detail.
Let's start with the nine-month revenue bridge. As Maxime mentioned, group revenue was up 1% year-on-year on a restated basis, including MultiChoice. On a like-for-like basis, revenue was broadly flat with 0.8% growth in Canal+ historical perimeter offsetting the 3% decline at MultiChoice. We also recorded a positive EUR 56 million FX impact over the first nine months, essentially coming from Q3, driven by the movement of the South African rand against euro. Finally, the positive scope effect mainly reflects the acquisition of Lucky Red, the Italian producer and distributor that we acquired earlier this year. Let's turn on our three segments, starting with Europe. Revenue was down 1% to EUR 3.4 billion and down 1.5% like-for-like. In France, excluding the theater closure, revenue was very stable. Poland delivered slight growth supported by OTT and advertising.
In our other European markets, what we are calling BCE, Benelux, Central Europe, the decline mainly reflects the disposal of a loss-making DTH subscriber base in Hungary in 2025, as previously mentioned in our former communication. Now turning to Africa and Asia. Revenue increased by 3% to EUR 2.6 billion, benefiting from the positive currency impact in Q3 that I mentioned earlier. On a like-for-like basis, revenue was up 0.7%. Excluding MultiChoice, the segment delivered strong growth of 10%, driven by pay TV in French-speaking Africa. As we said also in our previous communication, the double-digit growth at Canal+ Telecom Africa, we used to call that GVA, and now it is Telecom Africa. MultiChoice revenue was down 3% like-for-like, mainly due to the lower subscription revenue. However, we saw an improvement in Q3 with the decline narrowing to 2% from 3.4% in H1.
Finally, the last segment, content production, distribution, and other. Revenue was up 9% to EUR 530 million, driven by the strong performance at STUDIOCANAL, including the continued box office success of "Pressure" and the third "Shaun the Sheep" movie, as well as the international sales. Revenue also benefited from the acquisition of Lucky Red. At Dailymotion, Q3 revenue was lower, reflecting a challenging advertising market. With that, Maxime and I are happy to take your questions.
If you wish to ask a question, please dial pound key five on your telephone keypad. If you wish to withdraw your question, please dial pound key six. The next question comes from Nicolas Langlet from BNP Paribas. Please go ahead.
Yes. Good morning, everyone. I have three questions, please. First on Europe, can you come back on the driver for the 1.6% like-for-like decline in Q3? How should we think about the factors going into Q4? Secondly, on the full year 2026 adjusted EBIT guidance. If we exclude the 120 million cost synergies, it means gross H2 headwind will be around EUR 160 million-EUR 170 million. How does that split between the content cost phasing, African Boost, and the startup cost you have in Europe? Finally, on the VAT. If the measure was to be implemented as it is in the budget draft, how long it would take for you to fully offset the negative impact on adjusted EBIT, including the price adjustment, the reduction in French cinema investment, and other restructuring? Thank you.
Okay, I can start with the two first questions. The first one was regarding the decline in Europe. We have different factors explaining that. I mentioned in the presentation the fact that we get rid of our DTH subscriber base in Hungary last year. So when you are comparing 2025 to 2026, we have this. Secondly, I know that some of you are also following our other companies like TF1 and M6, we can see a challenging advertising market, especially in France. So we have lower advertising revenue in Q3 2026 compared to what we have in 2025. This is, I think, really a market trend.
Besides that, what we've been also facing in this Q3, if some of you are soccer fans, you might have seen that we had a soccer break for three weeks end of September. So we had lower sales during September, and so a bit less traction. But the good news is that the championships are back, and so we can already see the benefits of that in the beginning of October. So this was the first question. Second question was on the EBIT impact between African Boost and content. We said during our H1 communication that we only spent a small part of the EUR 100 million that we expect to spend in full year 2026 in H1, and this part of it should be spent in H2. Actually, when you are looking at the African market, a big bulk of the new sales are done in December.
This is the festive season in Africa. People are with their family, they are subscribing to television, et cetera. So we expect to have an important volume of sales. We'll, of course, adjust the spendings depending on how the market is reacting. Maxime Saada said our ambition is not to grow revenue at all costs. Our ambition is to create profitability. So we will spend the boost plan if we believe that it's creating value for the group in 2027.
On VAT, a few things. First, we're still fighting the proposal, as you know, and so far we have been successful. You may have followed that 24 amendments were deposed at the parliament, to suppress the proposal from the government. It was voted in the first stage positively, and this was coming from nine out of the 11 parties in France. So this was really a transpartisan measure and support. So that's really strong. Now we're going to the full parliament voting, which will happen in the next few days. Then there will be the Senate. So we're really focused on getting the parliament to support our stance and suppress this proposal from the government. But at the same time, of course, we have to prepare the company should it happen. And so we are devising with Amandine and the teams an action plan to mitigate the impact.
As you may have seen, we have already since informed our subscribers from October, November, and December that they will bear, should it happen, the full impact in terms of price increase of this measure, which is approximately 7.5%-8% on average increase because the VAT rate Canal+ is currently paying subject to is closer to 12% than to 10% because, of course, we are already paying 20% on the S1 part of our offers. We are also devising a number of cost-cutting measures that we are preparing. To answer very specifically your question, we are aiming to mitigate all of it as soon as possible. Maybe not all of it by 2027, but in 2028 we should be mitigating all of it. That's the plan. Hence, we have no reason at this stage to change our medium-term guidance.
Okay, understood. Thank you.
Hello, can you hear me?
Yes.
Yes. Hi. I decided to get the intro from the compare. Three questions from my side, please. First question, just to come back on your comments on the VAT, Maxime, just so fully covered by 2028. Can we have a sense in that roughly what proportion of your subscriber base in 2027 will be on two-year contracts or would not be able to have the price adjusted until the following year? First question, then second question on MultiChoice. I think you said, Amandine, just to confirm on a like-for-like basis was down 2% in Q3 versus 3.4% in the first half. If you could just confirm that and maybe give a little bit of color in terms of the initial reaction in the market to the new offerings in SADC, which I think were launched in mid-September.
Then the third question, just on the African business, the existing footprint outside of MultiChoice. This 10% like for like growth that you achieved, again, I think in Q3, similar to the first half. How sustainable is that? I think some of it is to do with the cycling of sports events, but it seems that your growth remained very strong in Q3, even post the FIFA World Cup and so on. Just what kind of growth you are thinking moving forward? Thank you.
On the first one, approximately 25% of our customer base in France is on a two-year commitment.
Okay.
This is why we will not have full impact of the price increase before 2028 and even 2029. Then there are strong hypothesis on the impact assumptions on the impact of the price increase. This, we have a pretty good experience, but in the end, we do not know the specific number of people, how they will react, how many will churn, how many will downgrade, how many will stick to the offers. We have, again, strong assumptions, but small percentage of variation could have a big impact. We are conservative in our estimates, I would say, on this.
Okay
Because I want the mitigation to be as certain as possible. This is why we focused first on price increase, because for legal reasons, we had to do it ASAP. We even sent it before the measure was official by a few hours because we did not want to miss the October subscribers. Just so you know, because we do not want to miss that impact. But we really focused on the cost reductions, and this we will be certain, and this we will announce a number of measures as soon as the VAT thing is confirmed, if it is.
On the two questions, first one was, I guess, MultiChoice. Yes, I can confirm that we are decreasing the decrease of MultiChoice. If I am going into the quarter, we were on Q1 at -3.6% like for like. Q2, we were at -3.3%, and on Q3 we are at -2%. There are different things here. We have an improvement in some countries already at MultiChoice. Not all of them, but in some of them we can really see a real improvement of the base and the success of the back to growth. It is the case in some of English-speaking countries outside South Africa and Nigeria. We also had a boost in advertising revenue on the FIFA World Cup help, but also some more local championship like the Greatest Rivalry, which was very powerful in South Africa.
Coming to the new offer we launched the second half of September, it is a bit too early to really have a clear view on the results. To take a step back, the ambition of this new offer was really to challenge the strategy that MultiChoice had. MultiChoice used to have the strategy to really focus on premium subs and increase the prices.
Our strategy is very different. Our objective is really to be a mass market offer and so to have powerful content even in the lower offers. To give you one example, in the new offer, the PSL, so the local soccer is on the basic packaging because we think that it is really creating value and attracting new subscribers. A bit early to give you the first results, but the offer was really well-received, and then we will see in the coming months how the market really reacts.
Okay.
Your last question was regarding the historical perimeter of Canal+ regarding Africa. In this perimeter we have our activity on pay TV in the French-speaking countries like Ivory Coast, Cameroon, et cetera. We also have our telecom activity, so formerly GVA and now Canal+ Telecom Africa, CTA, and on its much smaller activity in Asia. In the three activities, pay TV, telecom, and Asia, we benefit from strong growth.
We still have growth on the pay TV market in French-speaking countries, very significant and strong content. Our telco activity still has a double-digit growth, and we have been opening new cities. So we really see the improve the revenues but also improve profitability of this telco activity. We also benefit from a significant growth in Myanmar because we now have the EPL, which is a very stronger content in Asia. We saw strong growth, and we expect to continue this growth in Q4.
Okay. Very clear. Thank you.
But maybe just a second. Q4 last year, we had AFCON, so in term of subscription, our portfolio was really high in pay TV in Africa. The lineup is going to be less strong, I would say in 2026, because we won't have this huge event in Africa. But still the trend is good.
Okay. Excellent.
Yes. Good morning, everyone. This is Adrien from Bank of America. I have got a couple of questions, please. First, trends in France. Would you expect that the French revenue, the mainland France revenue improve in Q4 relative to Q3 given the stronger lineup or an offset maybe from advertising revenue? Secondly, do you think there will be any change around your ownership of Poland given the recent establishment of Skydance? Could that trigger perhaps a reconfiguration of core shareholding structure? Would you be willing to perhaps buy out the minority shareholders there?
If we start with the first question regarding mainland France, Q3 was really low in term of advertising. We had two effects. First, the fact that the market is decreasing. Secondly, a big part of advertising was really on the FIFA World Cup in July, less revenues on the other channel. We expect to be back to a more normal situation, but in any case, the market is declining. We expect to have a, I would say, higher revenue in Q4 compared to Q3 in advertising, but still difficult market. Regarding pay TV, we are mainly in a post-paid market. Even if the line-up is really high, I am considering the current French situation difficult to predict growth.
Cautious on that.
Yeah.
On your second point, we have had no signal that Skydance may consider what you mentioned. Of course, we will discuss if they want to, but I would say we are currently happy with the situation.
Understood.
The next question comes from the line of Julien Roch from Barclays. Julien, your line is open.
Yes. First one is update on the premium launch in Europe. I believe you have done it in Belgium, Czech Republic, Slovakia. Update on progress there and some indication what would be the start-up losses this year approximately because your EBIT guidance include those relaunch, which are probably loss-making. That is my first question.
The second one on VAT, you already, Maxime, mentioned the 24 amendment, but can we have some idea of the timing? It is going to l'Assemblée now, then the Senate. How long do you think it is going to take? And also as there is a deadline for the budget to be implemented, when is that deadline so we can have an idea of the timing. And then, finally on MultiChoice, as Amandine said, you have already improved growth rate by about 2 points from Q1. Do you have a sense of when MultiChoice could go back to positive growth in terms of timing on that? Thank you.
We have not launched Canal+ in Belgium yet, Julien. We have rebranded in Czech Republic and Slovakia. It has landed very well with the local press and players and partners. We are very happy about the reception. We are launching new channels with enhanced content. And we are expecting, of course, positive results, but we just launched, so it is way too early to be able to answer your question. But Skylink had a good notoriety and a positive image, so we expect it will take some time. But it landed really very actually better than we expected. Canal+, of course, it is important for us to progressively deploy one brand over all the territories. Belgium, we are aiming at launching sometime around summer. We may have some kind of offer available before because some of the sports rights we acquired start in January.
So there will be some form of presence there, but light. Really the big launch will come around summer. And we are actively preparing, Christophe Pinard-Legry and Yacine are really actively preparing that launch. There was a number of question. VAT timing. The timing was December 10, and it has been pushed back to December 17 around that date. So we expect right before Christmas to be clear on that point. On the
MultiChoice
MultiChoice. The quick answer is no. We are not able to answer your question specifically. As I said, getting back to growth is not completely under our control. There are early signals, positive signals, but it will take some time. Plus, the plan that David is launching over there is multifaceted. We announced the new offers, but that is really step one. There is many things to come in terms of branding, in terms of content, in terms of distribution network. And in terms of distribution globally, we do not think that our offers over there, their distribution is optimized. So there will be a number of distribution partnerships, new distribution partnerships, that will probably hopefully take place before the end of 2028. Sorry, 2027. And so we will not have the impact of that before 2028.
Okay.
As a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please dial pound key five on your telephone keypad. The next question comes from the line of Eric Ravary from CIC. Please go ahead.
Yes, morning. Three questions from my side. First one is on French football rights. The LFP decided to launch a tender offer in the next month. Could we have a comment from your side? Are you expecting new global players to get in through this tender offer? Second question is on SPORT+, your new free platform in France. Is it just a marketing tool also way to diversify your revenues with more advertising in the revenue mix? Third question, could you repeat the figure of the part of the subscribers in France which have a two-year commitment? I didn't hear well the figure. Thank you.
The last one, approximately 25%.
25%-
That was the figure.
On a two-year commitment?
Yes.
On a one-year commitment?
Approximately double that.
Okay. Thank you.
The rest are not committed.
Okay. So total, 75% committed.
It's 85% committed, 15% not committed. One-third, two-third. One-third, two years. Two-thirds, one year. That's why it's approximately 25%. Okay? I think you have all the numbers now. Good job. Sorry?
Ligue 1 and Ligue 2.
Ligue 1. Ligue 1, I guess we'll see when it comes. We'll assess the situation, but what I can tell you is we will not put money that we know we will not be able to recover fast. This cannot be an expense with no profits. So if we do something there, it will be profitable. We are in a position where we don't really need those rights, so we will treat them as an opportunity and look at the conditions and the market environment. SPORT+, I really like this one because this is one where we are just leveraging what we already have. We have a platform that is beloved, the Canal+ app, but beloved by our subs. And we thought, why not leverage this app and make it accessible to people who are not yet subscribers? I remember James Murdoch speaking about future subscribers.
I really love that for non-subscribers, calling them future subscribers. The sports rights is the same. Some of the rights we have, as you know, sometimes by law or by contract, we have to make them available on a free-to-air basis. Why not do it on our platform? Why not encourage people who want to watch them to log their information so we can then upsell them on the Canal+ packages? For me, it's both a way to address a wider population than we do today with a great access to content and leveraging our sports rights, so no incremental cost. Leveraging our strong digital teams. We now have 10 billion views a year on digital on sports content in France. We went from 2 billion to 4 billion to 6 billion to 8 billion to 10 billion in the last 12 months.
The increase is very, very significant. Then, of course, there's advertising, the advertising opportunity when you have a free offer like that. The first numbers, both of viewers and of people logging their information, are really beyond our expectations. They're very, very good. We're very happy with that one.
Okay. Thank you.
There are no more questions at this time, so I hand the conference back to Maxime Saada for any closing comments.
No, I don't have any closing comments. I just want to thank you all for participating this morning.