Hello, welcome to Inchcape Q1 Results Conference Call. Please note this call is being recorded, and for the duration of the call, your lines will be on listen-only. However, you'll have the opportunity to ask questions. This can be done by pressing star one on your telephone keypad to register your question. If you require any assistance at any point, please press star zero and you'll be connected to an operator. I'll now hand over to your host, Duncan Tait, CEO of Inchcape, to begin today's conference. Thank you.
Thank you, Susan. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. With me on the call is our Acting CFO, Adrian Lewis, and our Head of Investor Relations, Raghav Gupta. I will begin by commenting on the group's performance and outlook before handing over to Adrian, who will give more details. We'll then take your questions. As detailed in this morning's announcement, the group's Q1 performance has been excellent, with continued strong business momentum reflected in our strategic, operational, and financial progress. In the first quarter, we reported revenue of GBP 2.7 billion, with growth of 50% on a reported basis, reflecting the benefit of M&A, including Derco. On an organic basis, revenue grew 13% with a continuation of the trends experienced at the end of last year and growth across all regions.
The M&A contribution was primarily driven by the consolidation of Derco, which has made an encouraging start in its first quarter within the Inchcape Group. Our other recent acquisitions, Morrico in Guam, Simpson Motors in the Caribbean, and Ditec in Chile, all continue to perform well. On Derco, I am especially pleased with the progress to date in integrating the business into our Group, and we remain firmly on track with our strategic and financial plans. We reiterated our confidence in our margin expectations for Derco at our full year results, and we stand by our expectation of delivering operating margin towards the top end of the 5%-7% range that is typical for a distribution business before the impact of synergies.
Adrian will touch on inventory shortly. From my perspective, the team has done a great job in aligning inventory management practices in Derco with those employed across Inchcape. I was in the Americas visiting the operations a few weeks ago. I'm confident about the working capital opportunities we have quantified for 2023. Finally, in relation to EPS accretion from the deal, we continue to expect at least 15% accretion in 2023 and at least 20% in 2024. This reflects the additional profit contribution and the dilution from the Inchcape shares issued to Derco's former owners. Over the past few years, we have continued to shift the group's portfolio towards distribution. During the first quarter, we have further extended our distribution footprint.
I'm delighted with the speed at which our team has expanded our presence in the APAC region, firstly with the agreement to acquire CATS, giving us access to the Philippines, adding another exciting and high growth market to the group. More recently, the agreement reached with Mercedes-Benz for us to purchase their operations in Indonesia, a business the OEM has been operating since 1970 and has now decided to hand over to Inchcape to manage and drive further growth. The two acquisitions will collectively add over GBP 320 million of annualized revenue. We anticipate completion during the second half of 2023. We were also pleased to be appointed the distributor of Tata Commercial Vehicles in Thailand, broadening our footprint in a market where we already distribute JLR.
This expansion is a great example of our accelerate strategy in action, delivering on the group's growth ambitions. The combination of our broad market footprint, strong OEM relationships, our digital and data capabilities, and our robust financial position continues to make Inchcape the natural consolidator in a highly fragmented industry. During the quarter, we continued to progress with our ambition to capture more of a vehicle's lifetime value via bravoauto and our digital pass platform. In these early days, our teams are focused on execution, and we are pleased with the progress so far. Moving to outlook. Following an excellent start to 2023 and based on prevailing market conditions, we expect to make strategic, operational, and financial progress underpinned by the integration of Derco, with full year results expected to be in line with published market consensus. Adrian, over to you.
Thank you, Duncan. Good morning, everyone. In Q1, the group generated revenue of GBP 2.7 billion. On an organic basis, revenue grew 13% with growth across all regions. Duncan referenced the significant M&A contribution driven primarily by Derco and currency also provided a small tailwind. Overall, on a reported basis, revenue increased by 50% year-over-year. Looking at our two segments. In distribution, revenue increased 70%. The M&A impact largely reflects the consolidation of Derco. Although Simpson Motors and Ditec, both acquired in Q2 2022, also supported growth. On an organic basis, distribution revenue increased 15%, supported by new vehicle supply and our aftermarket business. In retail, revenue grew 8% with performance also supported by improved supply.
The growth rate was stronger on an underlying basis, with the headline impact of the switch to agency for certain brands, from the start of 2023. Let me give you a little bit more detail. Starting with the Americas, we saw good performance despite several markets lapping challenging comparatives, but with share gains for several brands that were supply constrained in 2022. Elsewhere, aftermarket continued to grow and the bravoauto rollout in the second half of 2022 created growth in used vehicle revenue in Q1. Moving to APAC, performance in both Singapore and Hong Kong was in line with our plan and an improvement is expected in late 2023. The reopening of the border with China has led to increased order books in Hong Kong.
Other markets in Asia continued to see strong trading with a continuation of its growth trend. In Australasia, we continue to see strong momentum underpinned by improving vehicle supply and a long order book, and our bravoauto business is gaining traction. In Europe and Africa, in Europe, we saw double-digit growth in both new and used vehicles supported by better vehicle supply, with a particularly strong performance in Romania, Greece, and Bulgaria. Whilst it's early days for bravoauto, the business is progressing well. In Africa, our performance was underpinned by robust growth in the aftermarket business. Before we move to retail, I'll give you an update on Derco. First quarter revenue and profit performance was in line with our expectations.
In terms of market performance, whilst new vehicle volumes in both Chile and Colombia declined versus the prior year following a very strong 2022, but Peru and Bolivia support strong growth. In terms of brands, we saw strong performance from certain brands across LATAM and the core Inchcape group following improved supply, and this was offset by a normalization of share elsewhere following a very strong performance in 2022. The aftermarket business also performed well. As part of our transformation plan, we prioritize aligning inventory management practices with those employed across Inchcape. We've been working in collaboration with our owner partners to translate down leads to increased orders for new vehicles and parts and fleet, the progress within the Derco business.
Activation Derco inventory partners was 67% higher than our estimates. As we set out in our full year results, we have identified this as a working capital opportunity that we will deliver on for the year 2023. This will be partially offset by the second half normalized outages across the broader group. Overall, Duncan said we are pleased with the progress we've made with the integration and performance to date. Moving to retail, revenue grew 8% year-over-year on an organic basis. The underlying performance much stronger after adjusting to the impact of the agency model adoption. The change in business model will have a negligible impact on profits. As a reminder, this shift to agency will grow our profitability over the medium term. Performance was driven by growth across all our territories by new and used vehicle volumes and parts sales.
Used vehicle growth was underpinned by higher volumes in used vehicles supported by a more established bravoauto business. Overall, the group has made a fantastic start to 2023 with a strong Q1 performance demonstrating continued business momentum. Duncan, back to you.
Thank you, Adrian. Inchcape is a business with great momentum and an exciting future. With a clear and proven strategy, we are well positioned to capitalize on further opportunities for organic growth and market consolidation. I am confident we'll continue to deliver sustainable growth and long-term value for all our stakeholders. Adrian and I are now ready to take your questions. Susan, over to you.
Thank you. As a reminder, if you'd like to ask a question on today's call, please press star one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, please press star two. I'd like to repeat. If you'd like to ask a question, please press star one. The first question comes from the line of Andrew Nussey from Peel Hunt. Please go ahead.
Questions from me, please. Really aiming more at sort of the medium-term outlook. I guess, first of all, in terms of the Americas and specifically Chile and Colombia, where obviously you referenced sort of weaker market volumes in the first quarter. Really just looking, Duncan, for perhaps a little bit more comfort around your medium-term thoughts on those markets and if they have changed at all given the current market dynamics. Secondly, in terms of sort of distribution excellence, as you're sort of beginning to see improved vehicle supply, maybe some better insight on the sort of order book dynamics, whether sort of your confidence again in that sort of medium-term objective of, you know, high single digit organic sort of profit growth over the medium term, please.
Good morning, Andrew. Right. Okay. Thank you for those two questions. Adrian will take the first one, and I'll come back in for a view on our order books in the medium term.
Yeah. Thank you, Andrew, for a question around our sort of the attractiveness of the markets that we are increasingly exposed to with the acquisition of Derco. The Latin American business across Chile, Colombia, Peru, Bolivia, Costa Rica, Panama, they are all very strategically attractive. They all have the characteristics of GDP growth, low motorization rates, which means the opportunity to grow the number of vehicles in the market is over time is very attractive. Whilst we like the vehicle business that, you know, don't forget we also sell parts and servicing facilities. And we have a VLS, Vehicle Lifecycle Services strategy, which will increase our exposure to used car business. All of those streams of business remain attractive to us.
I don't think we've seen anything that changes our investment thesis behind Derco from a market perspective. They remain very attractive over the time. If you take Chile as an example, it's a 400,000 car market, roughly speaking. If you look at the local sort of automotive intelligence agents, the ANAC, they talk to a 500,000 vehicle market towards the end of the decade. That's replicated across LATAM as well when you go through the other markets. Of course, it's not gonna be a straight line. You mentioned some of the short-term market dynamics, particularly in Chile and Colombia. Chile was 17% down in Q1.
You've got to remember, we are lapping a really strong Q1 in 2022, fiscal stimulus in Chile, and also, a bit of a post-COVID tailwind giving the market a very strong comparator. The sort of the external market, and we agree with them, looks to see the full year Chile market somewhere towards -10%. Minus 17% will be the low point, and we expect a stronger growth rate as we get through the course of the year. Look, to summarize, yes, the investment thesis from a market perspective.
Please stand by while we connect your speakers. Please stay connected while we rejoin your speakers.
Hi, team. Apologies. Susan, can you hear me? Hi, team. Sorry. This is the Inchcape-.
Yes, we can hear you. You can talk now.
Thank you, Susan.
You can carry on.
Thank you, Susan. There seems to have been a technical issue. I understand there were some issues with hearing part of Adrian's script, so we'll just restart from Adrian's script if that's okay, and then close off. Sorry, and then open up for Q&A.
Hi, everyone, yeah, apologies for this. Look, I'll start from the top and just run through. Q1 the group generated revenue of GBP 2.7 billion. On an organic basis, revenue grew 13% with growth across all regions. Duncan referenced the significant M&A contributions driven primarily by Derco, and currency also provided a small tail risk. Overall, on a reported basis, revenue increased over 50% year-over-year. Looking at our two segments in distribution, revenue increased 70%. The M&A impact largely reflects the consolidation of Derco, although Simpson Motors and Ditec, both acquired in Q2 2022, also supported growth. On an organic basis, distribution revenue increased 15%, supported by improving new vehicle supply and aftermarket growth. In retail, revenue grew by 8%, with performance also supported by improved supply.
The growth rate was stronger on an underlying basis, with the headline impacted by the switch to agency to certain brands at the start of 2023. Let me provide you with some further details. Starting with the Americas, we saw good performance despite several markets lapping challenging comparators where share gains for several brands that were supply constrained during 2022. Elsewhere, the aftermarket continued to grow with the bravoa uto rollout in the second half of 2022, driving growth in used vehicle revenue in Q1. Moving to APAC, performance in both Singapore and Hong Kong was in line with our plan, with an improvement expected in late 2023. The reopening of the border with China has led to increased order books in Hong Kong. Our other markets in Asia continue to see strong trading with a continuation of the trends seen over recent time.
In Australasia, we continue to see a strong momentum underpinned by improving vehicle supply and a long order book. Our bravoauto business is gaining traction. In Europe and Africa, in Europe we saw double-digit growth in both new and used vehicles, supported by better vehicle supply and a particularly strong performance from Romania, Greece and Bulgaria. Whilst it's early days for bravoauto, the business is progressing well. In Africa, our performance was underpinned by a robust aftermarket. Before we move to retail, I'll provide you with an update on Derco. Derco's first quarter revenue and profit performance was in line with our expectations. In terms of market performance, the new vehicle volumes in both Chile and Colombia declined versus the prior year, following a strong 2022, both Peru and Bolivia saw strong growth.
In terms of brands, we saw strong performance for certain brands across both Derco and core Inchcape following improved supply. This was offset by normalizing market share elsewhere following a very strong performance in 2021 and 2022. The aftermarket business was also performing well. As part of our integration plan, we have prioritized the alignment of our inventory management practices with those employed across Inchcape. We've been working in collaboration with our OEM partners to revise down previously agreed orders for vehicles and parts. I am pleased with the progress the team has made so far. At completion, Derco's inventory balance was GBP 200 million higher than we had anticipated. As we have said in our full year results, we have identified this as a working capital opportunity that we will deliver on through 2023.
This will be partially offset by a working capital outflow across all the rest of the group as that part of the business normalizes. Overall, as Duncan said, we are pleased with the progress we have made with the integration and performance to date. Moving to retail. Revenue grew 8% year-over-year on an organic basis, with the underlying performance much stronger after the adjusting to the impact of the agency model. That change in business model will have a negligible impact on profits. As a reminder, the shift to the agency model will not impact our distribution business. Performance has been driven by growth across all their revenue streams, with higher new and used vehicle volumes and after-sales growth. New vehicles underpinned by higher volumes. Used vehicles supported by a more established bravoauto business.
Overall, the group has made an excellent start to 2023, with a strong Q1 performance demonstrating continued business momentum. Duncan, back to you.
Thank you, Adrian. Before we open for questions, Inchcape is a business with great momentum and an exciting future. With a clear and proven strategy, we are well positioned to capitalize on further opportunities for organic growth and market consolidation. I am confident we will continue to deliver sustainable growth and long-term value for all our stakeholders. Adrian and I are now ready to take your questions. Susan, over to you.
The next question comes from the line of Arthur Truslove. Please go ahead.
Hi, good morning, everyone. Thanks so much. Three from me, if I may. First question was just on the aftermarket in Chile and obviously Derco in particular. There's obviously a number of strong years of new car sales in Chile. Should we think of this as being a sort of positive driver for aftermarket performance over time? If you could comment on, you know, how that was in Q1 for Derco. Then within that also, is it reasonable to think that the aftermarket proportion at Derco is comparable with the rest of the group? Second question, I think if Adrian, if I understood you correctly, you said that you're sort of reducing orders into Derco as a result of having taken on higher inventory.
Just wondered if you could sort of provide a bit more detail on how that process works and, you know, how it's sort of going. Also on Derco, you know, really good to see that you've reiterated your guide for this year and next. I just wondered, if you could give us an idea from a sort of new car volume or revenue perspective, whatever you think is most meaningful, of the sorts of levels that would become challenging for the guidance that you've issued for this year. Thank you.
Very good. Thank you very much, Arthur. I think, those questions are all heading Adrian's way. I'll add a little bit of value towards the end. Adrian, over to you, please.
Yeah. Hi, Arthur. Thank you. Three good questions. Let me tackle the aftermarket one first. I think it's probably fair to say that the Derco business has a good exposure to the aftermarket business, probably a greater degree than we would see in the, in the normal, in our core business. There's a number of business units within the Derco acquisition that are slightly different to or expand our exposure to the broader aftermarket business with parts particularly. We're very excited about that.
The broader Chilean market, my answer to one of the questions you said earlier, you know, the Chilean market is gonna grow from around 400,000 new cars to around 500,000 new cars if you take the external market forecast for that region. With that will, you know, the car park within the market will grow, and with that will bring a tailwind for after sales and our broader VLS business as well. We're very excited about that. Proportionately, I think you can think about it slightly stronger towards our broader business than the broader business. Your question around inventory and orders and reducing orders with our OEMs and how that process works.
As I said in our statements, we have prioritized the alignment of our practices around sales and operational planning as one of the first things we've done as part of the integration. I'm super pleased with, firstly, both the mindset and change that the team have been through, but also the reaction and response to our OEMs. You know, one of the things we pride ourselves on is the way we use data to inform our decision-making. When you work with the OEMs with a data-based conversation, it becomes a very positive and constructive conversation. We're really happy with that.
What we also said at the full year results, that we would work through some GBP 200 million of inventory that would be higher than an anticipated or an expected level of working capital across 2023. We've reiterated that today. We are not taking short-term decisions that distort the market in order to solve for that challenge. We're working across 2023, and we're confident of the progress we're making, and you'll see more as we publish our more detailed numbers in July. In terms of Derco and new volumes, I think the first thing to say is it's a four-market business. With Chile and Colombia being down as we had expected them to be, but we've grown this in Peru and Bolivia.
Chile in and of itself is down about 17% in the first quarter. You've got to remember that we are lapping some pretty strong comps in the in the first quarter of 2022. Fiscal stimulus, post-COVID bounce all created quite a tough comparator. The external market commentary is talking about -10 for Chile, so we expect a better performance from a year-on-year perspective and in absolute terms in the second as we go through the year and into the second half. I don't think if you stand back any of the short-term kind of market changes that we've seen or the market positions we've seen changes our investment thesis around Derco. We're still very excited about the GDP opportunity and the low motorization rates and the growth over time that all four markets offer for us.
We're super happy with the performance to date and the midterm prospects as well.
Arthur, was that useful?
Yes. Thank you very much. That was perfect. Yeah. Thank you.
Yeah. Thanks very much, Arthur.
The next question comes from the line of Andrew Nussey. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hello again, everyone. I think you answered my first question earlier. The second question, if you remember, was around distribution excellence and sort of the medium-term profit, growth ambitions and just whether now you're beginning to see some normalization in vehicle supply as you look across sort of the order books across the region. It's just your confidence in delivering that sort of organic aspiration over the, over the medium term.
Okay. Yes. Hi, again, Andrew. Look, a couple of things. Let's just worth standing back for a moment and thinking about what we committed to the capital markets day, which we stand by. Mid-high single-digit profit CAGR in our distribution business, plus M&A, plus VLS of GBP 50 million per annum incremental profit contribution towards the end of the planning period. I think our Q1 was in terms of revenue growth, reinforced some of that proposition that we've made to you in the way to think of the growth of our business. Also in terms of M&A, since the capital markets day, let's not forget we've completed on the Morrico deal in Guam, our Simpsons business in the Caribbean, Ditec in Chile, and Derco, with two more acquisitions announced in the first quarter and more contract wins.
It's not just Carter, but it's BYD, it's Great Wall, ORA, it's Geely, and others. In terms of your specific question, Andrew, in terms of how we're seeing order banks and market performance, it's worth going through the regions one by one to give you a little bit more color. The Americas, 10 of our 12 markets, we're seeing high single digit, low double digit order intake. Those markets continue to perform really well for us, and we're seeing some supply come back from brands that were supply constrained over the last year or so. As Adrian said, in Chile, we are seeing better news in the second half according to our intelligence on the ground. Africa is steady as she goes. I've no concern about that Africa business.
Into Europe, I don't think this should be a big surprise for us, is that we are seeing lower levels of order intake in Europe. What I would say is the order bank in Europe from hitting an all-time high in the second half of 2022 is down a little bit. As of now, it's down about 10%. It's the slow unwinding of the order bank, we see that order bank taking us through the vast majority of 2023. We are actually, as we review the Europe business, we're already taking orders into 2024 in the business now. In APAC, look, let's split it into three. The Asia developing markets, Guam, Brunei, Thailand, Indonesia, we've just announced entry into Philippines. Those businesses remain pretty hot for us.
Good order intake, good growth year-over-year. Frankly, if we had more vehicles, we'd be even happier. Hong Kong and Singapore are showing signs of recovery. I wouldn't put anything in a model for this year, but I think 2024. Finally, in terms of Australasia, we're seeing strong demand, good order intake, good growth in that business, and our supply is coming back a little stronger than we expected. By and large, Andrew, if I think about our medium-term guidance, we remain committed to that. If you look at how the business is performing in the near term, I think that's supportive of what we, of what we've committed to. Hope that gives you a little bit more color.
Yeah, no, that's great. Thank you very much, Duncan.
Thanks. Thanks, Andrew.
The next question comes from the line of George Pilakoutas of Numis. Please go ahead.
Thanks. Morning, team. Maybe just one more on kind of the Americas and demand. I guess, really just the point that the monthly data has been very volatile. I was just wondering if there was anything that you think is particularly driving that. Like when we look at the last quarter in Chile, January was down 20% versus 2019, March was +20%. Like, what is kind of a truer sense for kind of what the underlying demand is? Is it kind of somewhere in the middle or somewhere towards the lower end, the upper end? Anything you can share there. Secondly, on the Derco inventory, we're just wondering if you could talk a little bit more around what that inventory is. Is it kind of new, used? Is there any particular brands?
Just to kind of give a bit more of a sense of how you're gonna manage through that. Third one is on M&A and just how you think around the group's balance sheet position versus doing further M&A. Didn't stop you in Q1, there must be a point where you feel like you need to prove things. If that is the case, what needs to be proved? Is it kind of getting towards the end of this year, where leverage is back into kind of a more comfortable position? Do you see any kind of restrictions to M&A? Final one, I don't even think I can blame the line cutting out. Can I just confirm some comments at the beginning, Duncan, that you said that the Derco consideration had been paid?
Hopefully that's a very quick one.
Yeah. George, can you just give me question 4 again, please, just so I make sure we got that clear, clearly?
That one was just around the Derco consideration being paid.
Got it. Okay, fine. Look, I'll cover how we're seeing demand specifically in Chile, and I'll hand the inventory and M&A relative to balance sheet and question 4 to Adrian. Q1 the market dropped 17% year-over-year. That was slightly better than we expected 'cause we were thinking more of a 20% drop in the first quarter, so slightly better. Commercial vehicles showed more resilience than passenger vehicles. Of course, we have exposure to machinery, construction, commercial vehicles and to passenger vehicles in that Chile market. We did see supply coming back from some of the OEMs, such as the Japanese OEMs that had struggled more in previous quarters. In terms of how to think of that Chile market for the rest of the year.
From the local intelligence we have from the agency on the ground, the motoring agency on the ground, is that Q1 is most likely to be the trough of the year, George. The indication overall is one is year-over-year for the drop to be more like 10% and for the second half to start to get back to growth. Now it's a bit early for us to forecast according to that, but that is the information that we're getting from our team on the ground, but also from the independent motoring organization called ANAC in Chile. That's the overall picture with which we are seeing so far as ever in this world, unlikely to be in a straight line.
The second half looks way more positive than Q1. We think Q1 is the trough. Adrian, over to you for question 2, 3, 4.
Sure. If I cover Derco inventory in the first instance, I think the question was, give me a sense of brands, and new versus used or parts. It wouldn't be a surprise for me to say that the inventory is largely a new vehicle inventory. That's, it's not just the Chile based inventory. Of course, we have the, you know, good sized businesses in all markets. When you go back and think about where the inventory came from, we saw strong supply in 2022, particularly from the Chinese brands, and we saw recovering supply from some of the other brands that Derco represents.
What's been really encouraging for us is that when we've gone back to all of the OEMs across the course of the first quarter of this year and worked with them using our data and our the tools that we have around, and our predictions around demand to temper that supply across the next 6-9 months, there's been an incredibly supportive response. We're very confident that we're going to make progress. We said we would not take short term actions to correct because that creates market distortion. That's what we're doing. We stand by the GBP 200 million working capital inflow that will arise as we normalize the working capital cycle in Derco by the end of the year. Your second question was M&A balance sheets.
What do we, what do we need to see before we carry on? Firstly, stand back. This group is a highly cash generative group. We will continue to be highly cash generative. We have a very, very active and full M&A pipeline. The two acquisitions that we have announced this year, in the first quarter of this year in the Philippines and in Indonesia, reflects that pipeline. It reflects our deepening relationships with our OEM partners and the opportunity that presents itself.
We also said, particularly with the Indonesia deal, that we expect to conclude the year broadly with a leverage position that is consistent with where we've started the year at around 0.6x , with the underlying free cash flow generation supporting the balance payments to Derco, to the Del Río family and also the acquisitions that we have announced today. We stand by that today. 0.6x is in a really strong position. We have a full M&A pipeline, particularly in the bolt-on space. We're continuing to pursue that. We have a capital allocation policy that caps us out at 1x EBITDA. We're not moving against that at this stage. We've still got headroom to go as that pipeline comes through.
The final point, which I've sort of touched on Derco consideration. What we said was that will be paid mostly across half one and a little bit across the second half. We are on track with that.
Thanks, Adrian. George, let's not forget, it's not just about M&A in terms of how we grow this business. There are also contract wins of which the Tata Motors is a good example. The APAC team have not just been working on building the M&A pipeline, but also on contract wins. George, how did we get on answering your questions?
Yeah, no, that's great. Thanks so much, guys.
Very good. Thank you.
Before moving to the next question. As a reminder, if you'd like to ask a question, please press star one. The next question comes from the line of Akshat Kacker. Please go ahead.
Morning, Duncan and Adrian. Akshat from JP Morgan. Just one clarification, please. On the Americas business in Q1, could you just give us more detail in terms of the overall volume and revenue development in the region organically, please? That's the question, please. Thank you.
I'll take that one. Our Americas business, as you say, has a mix of volume and price. We are exposed to Chile particularly so the volume position followed that particularly that market. I think you should also think about a stronger and growing after-sales business and increasing exposure to a strong used car business. Also what we've seen during the course of the first quarter of this year has been a skew towards higher average selling prices. Across our Americas business, our revenue performance outperformed the volume picture that we see across the picture.
As I said in my comments earlier, we've seen share gains in some brands where we're lacking supply constraints, and we've seen some normalization of some share where brands were doing really well in prior periods. It's been a mixture with the revenue overall outperforming the volume picture.
Just, yeah.
Sorry, go on. Sorry.
No, I was saying in terms of quantification, is it possible to talk about revenue development in the region?
We don't disclose rev volume by regions. We'll give you more detail around our segment of the performance at the half, but we don't disclose volumes by region.
Okay, thank you.
Thanks, Akshat.
The next question comes from the line of James Zaremba of Barclays. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good morning. I had a similar question in terms of kind of mix of price and volume, but I guess at the group level. You know, there's been quite a lot of noise in the industry about price cuts in some markets. Is the expectation for the full year still for average selling prices to be up? And I think, at the results, you mentioned you thought the market was, you know, maybe 10% below your normal levels. You know, we've got kind of mid-single digit volume this year, so I guess you've got another year of recovery in 2024. Is that sort of the right way to think about the medium term? Thank you.
Perhaps I'll take the short-term points and Duncan if you want to talk about mid-term. I think the mid-single digit volume growth is still how we see the overall market. Supply has been recovering and is broadly where we thought it was gonna be. It is improving and if you look across the industry, we are seeing an uptick in vehicle availability, which is good. Certainly our performance in Q1 reflected that across the group. What we also saw in Q1, and you've seen the organic growth of 15% in the core business, was the follow-on effect of inflation from the second half of last year, where we've seen prices higher than we saw in the first quarter of last year.
Our 15% is a combination of that mid-single digit volume and price help. As we go through the year, and as you saw in the second half of last year, a much stronger top line than in the first half because of some of those inflationary factors and acquisitions, we do expect that growth rate to normalize back towards the volume led number with a small price tailwind. I think our guidance at the year-end, or not a month ago, we, that's how we still see the full year. Pleased with Q1. A bit of price tailwind helping as a result of the second half last year inflation. Duncan, do you wanna perhaps comment on the mid-term?
Sure. Thank you, Adrian. James, in terms of 2024, let's talk about supply first. I think as an industry, supply, I think will continue to normalize during 2024. The jury is still out as to whether that's a normalization in first or second half, but it now looks much more like a 2024 normalization of supply. I would point out a few things about the Inchcape markets. Most of our markets remain below the 2019 levels. I would also say that the age of the car park in many of our markets has aged quite significantly over the last few years. You know, we think there's been about a 30 million vehicle gap generated by lack of supply over the last three or so years, which I think are positive for the group overall.
A few more detailed comments about it. Let's not forget, Hong Kong and Singapore are way off a reasonable peak, not even a peak that you would have seen for those two markets. We are seeing green shoots of recovery in Hong Kong. In fact, we're building an order bank in Hong Kong and the Great Wall ORA brand, we've pretty much sold out our business plan for the whole year, but have not yet taken delivery of vehicles. In Singapore, we can see that COE cycle start to tip upwards from 2024 onwards. You know, we continue to have an order bank in Europe. We have an order bank in Australasia.
Our Americas markets, I think will continue to give order growth into 2024, and we should see, at that point, a more of a normalization in terms of the growth of our business in Chile and also in Colombia. Supply, in summary, supply coming back to some type of normalization. Our markets are way behind. Sorry, the car park is aged, and we have some markets that are tailwind to the group as we get into 2024. James, I hope that's helpful.
That was very helpful. Just one clarification from Adrian, maybe. Would I right in reading that prices have still increased marginally year and year versus the level in the second half? I guess there's a big annualization effect, but there's also been an actual net increase as well.
I think what you're seeing in Q1 is the consequences of the second half price movements. A second round of inflation to come. We'll only really start to see as we start to get through to the balance of the year. I think it's probably getting less pressure on input prices from our OEM partners as we go into new model years. We don't see the same levels of price inflation that we saw in 2022.
Perfect. Thank you very much.
James, thanks very much indeed. Thank you very much everybody for your questions and for joining us on the call this morning. Hope you share our excitement about Inchcape's continued strategic progress and the growth opportunities we are intent on capturing. Look forward to updating you further at our interim on the 27th of July. In the meantime, please get in touch with Raghav if you'd like to follow up on anything. Thank you.