I'm informing you that I'm just starting the recording of the meeting. Okay. Welcome to our teleconference after results of the third quarter of 2025. Our meeting will be divided into two parts as usual. One part will be dedicated to the summary of the market situation and also results of Inter Cars in third quarter of 2025. Second part, we will dedicate to the questions from the participants. Our meeting will be held by Krzysztof Soszyński, Vice President of the Inter Cars, and Piotr Zamora, Member of the Board, Finance Director of Inter Cars S.A. Please, Krzysztof, Piotr.
Hello. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. We will start as usual from description of automotive market. We will start from aftermarket, our segment of the market. The spare parts market still has development prospects even though demand remains a challenge and prices are not rising. Customers are cautious, especially in Central and Eastern Europe because of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. Inter Cars is achieving a high sales growth rate, which gives it a leading position in terms of dynamics in big companies above EUR 1 billion. Organic growth has proven more effective than mergers and acquisitions. We can see as well that general situation is similar over the globe, starting from United States and ending on Far East.
If we touch our domestic, the biggest market, used car import started to decline, but still, during the first 10 months is above 800,000 vehicles imported. We see that the age of the car park, especially passenger cars, is, we could say, started to decrease and is around 12.4 years as average. It's good because it's exactly our sweet spot to sell the best offer to our customers. Older cars are losing share, which is according to our strategy. If we touch the size of the new cars, we see record increases from January to October. More than 500,000 new cars were registered, which means growth 7% year-to-year.
If we look to the new trend, the Chinese brand is growing up to 10% of the sales of the new cars. As well, something which is as well on a good percentage growth, around 8%, is the sales of electric cars. Companies dominate as buyers. It means 70% of the registrations in July. New car prices may rise as well this year. This estimation is around 15% year-to-year. What we see that the new trend is the presence of Chinese manufacturers, which I mentioned. Still in the share of wallet of car park is limited. We see as well that it's a huge amount of the brands, but only few are with the leading positions.
We can name them as MG, OMODA, JAECOO, and BYD. As well, we see that some brands will withdraw from the market. European manufacturers have not recorded declines in size if we look on Polish market. On Polish market, the Japanese and Korean still are with the big volumes, but they a little bit decrease the sales year-to-year. If we look for the global OEM perspective, touching the old markets, not including the new Chinese giants, which want to rise the market share, the best result for the nine months presenting Toyota. The second place is Audi, next is Renault, and the fourth place is Ford. What it mean that generally the sales of the new cars is below expectation of the car producers.
They invested a lot in the technology around the EV. Now, nowadays, they need to switch to the needs of the different markets, which mean that future is connected with few types of supply. We see that even by the end of October was sold around 120,000 electric vehicles in Poland. Still, it's growing more slowly than was forecast. Automotive companies are once again investing in combustion engine and hybrid technologies. As anticipating balanced growth in the market, something which as well, I think many times we mentioned that from one side are ambitious, but from the opposite side is as well the possibilities, as well the habits of the people which have a big, we could say, subtraction than the sales of electric vehicles can come.
If the people need to pay a loan, this is limited. As well, we see that the dominant role is the companies, not the private people to buy. In the end, I would like to summarize as well the results. If the car park not growing as were expected and the sales of the new cars is limited, which is not the case of Poland, we see that as well, the parts producers facing some troubles because as well, they invested in these technologies which are not perform well, including. Coming back to our market, based on the listed companies, we see that the third quarter, the first player finished with the loss of 4.7% of the market share.
The second, GPC, represented in Europe by Alliance, limited growth around one percentage point growth. In third quarter, MEKO, due to the acquisition of Elit Polska, 3.8% growth. This is similar growth which is year-to-date for the three quarters. We see that based on this data which are available, the biggest growth is from the side of the Inter Cars, 10.5% in Euro for the quarter three, and year-to-date 10%, which is exactly something which we emphasize as a success. Now I will switch the voice to Piotr, who as well present the results in details and as well the factors of these good results in the quarter three.
Thank you very much, Krzysztof. Hello, everyone. Good afternoon. A couple of highlights we would like to pay your attention to, regarding our financial statements. In the first quarter of 2025, Inter Cars once again increased its market share and recorded sales of PLN 5.4 billion. This represents a 10% increase over the third quarter of 2024. If we look on the more cumulative basis, after nine months, sales growth reached 8.4%. Our results are increasingly close to the targets we published in connection with the management program implemented by the general shareholders meeting in June 2025. Whether we're going to reach it fully, we cannot confirm it yet, but I think we are getting closer to this target.
The target for 2025 is 12%. I think the answer will be because the trend generally in sales in November is more or less the same what it was in October. It is the outcome is really very much dependent on the sales of some segments, especially tire segments. We, I mean, the seasonal products. What is also important, we would like to emphasize this, that in the first quarter of 2025, Inter Cars sales in Poland accounted for less than for about 38% of group sales, which is. This tendency continues at the end of first half of 2025.
Sales on the domestic market in Poland compared to the total group sales amounted to 39.5%. There is a decrease of 1.5 percentage points over the quarter. This rapid change simply translates into increasing geographic diversification. Over the past nine months, we have opened 19 new branches abroad and closed four branches in Poland. Overall, we had 680 branches at the end of September 2025. What are the factors to which we attribute the success of the third quarter? There are two main reasons. First of all, this is something what Krzysztof mentioned earlier, is the highest sales growth than the competition on local markets and also improved margin.
This was made possible because, thanks to maintaining by Inter Cars its competitive advantages. Especially I would like to mention some of them which are highly appraised by our customers, especially this is the product range, parts availability. Convenience of delivery. That means that, our distribution network and logistics plays an important role in the success, and also some other conditions which are highly appraised by our customers. It's ease of returns and the claim process itself. If we talk about the gross margin, the consolidated gross margin on goods sold for the first three quarters after eliminating the impact of exchange rate differences, was 29.3% versus 29.5%. There's a slight decline.
However, if we look only on the gross margin for solely quarter three and we eliminate the exchange rate differences, then the gross margin is exactly on the same level. It's 29.9% as it was last year. It is the first quarter in which we actually changed the trend of gross margin decline. A key factor, apart from these factors that I mentioned before, influencing margin was of course the scale of Inter Cars operations with individual suppliers, the portfolio of suppliers and the portfolio of products allowing us to obtain favorable purchasing terms for our customers.
Regarding the level of operating costs, the share of sales and general administrative costs in quarter three, 2025, relative to sales revenue, amounted to 14.3% and it was higher than for the same period of the previous year where it was 14%. Obviously, we noted a slight deterioration of this ratio, and it is due to two factors. First of all, slightly lower sales volume than expected compared to the cost base that we have. Of course, also the second factor is the accumulation of logistics costs related to our efforts, resulting from our efforts to accelerate finalization of some of the logistics projects to obtain earlier benefits coming from optimization of logistics processes.
We should be expecting some optimization of logistics costs in quarter three and also in 2026 coming from these expenditures. At the same time, of course, we continuously focus on reducing the cost by implementing process optimizations, particularly in the area of logistics but also in the IT. If we are talking about the finance cost in quarter three, we noted a decrease in this cost, a decrease of PLN 10 million from PLN 44 million in quarter three 2024, down to PLN 33 million in quarter three 2025. This is primarily due to the capitalization of interest costs on loans financing the investments in robotization.
Regarding the net profit, we achieved an increase of profit of 15% for the entire period of nine months. The profit amounted to PLN 238 million. This is quite a significant achievement considering the one's competitive conditions on various markets, but also the impairment loss that we have accounted for for the loss of the warehouse in Ukraine. We have published at the beginning of September the report regarding the accident or attack actually of the Russian forces indirectly on the warehouse which was in the neighboring area. Our warehouse caught fire and unfortunately we incurred the loss.
The inventory turnover rotation was 137 days, exactly on the identical level as it was in the same period of 2024. I think this is all from my side regarding the comments or highlights on the financial statements for the three quarters and the first quarter of 2025. I will now pass the voice to Krzysztof to summarize our presentation. Thank you.
Yes. Thank you, Piotr. We remain the fastest growing distributor among market leaders, even as the demand weakens in some city regions. Looking ahead to 2025, we see growth potential supported by a resilient aftermarket, especially since the vehicle fleet has historically performed well during downturns. Market sensitivity may accelerate consolidation benefiting agile companies like Inter Cars. Rising operating costs are driving this trend, and our early investment in process automation and digitalization keeps us at the forefront. We consider robotic essentials essential. Our branch of warehouse in Romania is nearly fully robotized with the transition to the new facility set for September and the old lease ending. Meanwhile, our logistics center in Zakroczym is expanding with PLN 235 million investment automated with Skypod system, of which PLN 92 million has been invested so far.
Conversion is expected in Q1 2026. Additionally, our ILS Balkan automated warehouse in Głuszyca valued at around PLN 250 million is now operational, further boosting our efficiency with Skypod technology. We're believing that based on this kind of situation, variety of the segments, good penetration and product availability from many brands giving us optimistic future, and we believe that especially demand will flow up and down, and we can use this based on our logistic footprint in 21 markets. Thank you very much, and we switch to answer the questions. Already we have the first questions. The first question is, net debt to EBITDA ratio is about two. Taking into account CapEx, cash flow generation, should we expect increase in this ratio in 2026?
Yeah, we expect a slight increase, but it should not go above 2.5. Yeah. It should be slightly less, assuming that we expect improvement of the EBITDA also in 2026. I think the fair expectation would be that it should remain more or less on the level as it is now.
You have already opened 19 branches outside Poland in 2025. What are the plans for 2026? Any new countries, special attention to some, like Germany? As we discussed as well in the meeting with the Polish investors that we generally, the first step on the new market is to build the distributors because you know that our system is based on the kind of, it's not one-to-one franchisor model. It's kind of a deal based on the distribution contract. It's something between franchisor and agency. We try always to switch the local players which have access to the garage. We believe in this concept. Why? The first is to know them, then to choose from them this one which understand our concept and which with motivation and engagement as entrepreneurs can support their growth.
Thanks to this strength, our scalability and the fast development on the market, which mean that every year we open around 10 locations-20 locations, probably next year naturally will be the case. In comparison to the number of the locations already we opened, it's not a big change and the big CapEx issue.
Yeah, the process of opening new branches on the market where we already have a distribution network is very much decentralized. Yeah. It's much more dependent on the local country manager and the franchisee partners and the how they see the market growth. Yes. From the point of view of the market share, evidently we still have quite a big space outside of Poland, especially south of Poland, where generally the market share is around 13%-16%, so much less than the market share that we have in Poland or for example, in Lithuania.
From this you can expect that, if we assume that the growth will be more or less the same level as it was in 2025, the same amount of branches should be opened outside of Poland. Yeah.
What do you think about ESOP for 2025 sales of PLN 21.7 billion and EBITDA PLN 1.47 billion still possible?
I think we already partially answered this question when we were talking about that we are getting closer to the realization of the sales target. Regarding the realization of the EBITDA versus the LTIP plan, currently, if we take the cumulative EBITDA, which was published in the report for three quarters, cumulative EBITDA for 12 months at the end of September amounted to PLN 1.376 billion, which is on the level of 95% of the LTIP target. If we even assuming that we do not deliver the results for quarter four, quarter four of 2025 will be on the same level as it was last year.
We will have simply 95% of realization. Hopefully, we will be able to improve our results also in quarter four of 2025.
Next. Could you disclose prices versus volume change year-on-year in quarter three? I think as well we a little bit mentioned that we could say declining of the prices and the gap between turnover and the cost of goods sold is more balanced.
Yes. For the entire group, the difference is 11% growth in units and 10% growth in value. However, it is very much dependent on the country.
The product group.
The product group.
The segment.
Yeah. For example, in Poland, this difference was about 2 percentage points. Thanks.
What I mentioned that for instance, the tire business is challenging in some countries. We are benefiting that we are with many countries we can balance, but we see that generally the winter season, because of the weather, is challenging and what we hear from our colleagues, it depends on the weather. When the snow will come and, we could say the, cold temperature, then for sure it will boom. As well could you elaborate on gross margin in Q4, what trends you are currently seeing? We think that this, what we see in the first three quarters will continue in the fourth quarter. This is our-
The question mark is about the tires.
Mm-hmm.
Which seems that in the sell-in, in purchasing overall on the market, there is a 4% increase, for example, in Poland, while we have noted a significantly better results. The issue is with the sell-out, so the distributors are stocked with the tires, so we will see what happen. This is a question mark. It also depends on the weather conditions, which are out of our control, obviously.
Krzysztof mentioned the prices in Poland are not increasing and the trends are changing in the near future. I think that's the understanding of our competitors, what they have in the figures on P&L. If they face that the results on net profits are even worse than last year, I think that they will change mind not to decrease the prices. The first symptom is still to have a big growth, but we see that the growth of the market is limited. I think the companies which are small, they only can play in the niche thinking about the bigger prices, less than no harm. If they will continue, the consolidation will be even faster. Could you provide us with the progress on opening German market? As we discussed, we are growing in German market double-digit, but it's the building of the distribution.
Means that the first is in each of the lands to have many distributors, then to turn them Inter Cars and the model of our distribution based on this concept of the three partners, and then switching them. For sure, next year we will open the first location to test the value we can bring to the garage, but the first is that we need to have the ready IT. It's on the way, but this is, like, not something which we want to be very fast because for us the German market is important and based on the double-digit growth this year, we need to be aware how to do this, in an efficient way. We have a German team. We build the team. We extend the sales representatives on the local markets, on the back of the German company.
We believe that we will do this slowly but in an effective way. Next question is additionally at the start, you mentioned, if I'm not mistaken, 7% year-to-year increase in new registration. 10% of the new cars are Chinese, 8% share of electric, all those data related to Poland. Yes, I spoke about Poland, but as well I mentioned the global growth of some of the producers. Like, this year, if we talk about the global, the biggest growth from old giants is Toyota, 7.7% for three quarters. The next was Audi, 4.6%. Next was 3.7, Renault and Ford. But these are data globally.
The data which as well we use for looking on the local markets always are from Polish markets as well as giving us kind of a insight of Central Eastern European car parc. Because smaller markets are in many cases similar, maybe not Czech Republic, there is a very big influence of Volkswagen Group. But in other markets, this, you know, flow is similar, why we as well always try to see description of the biggest single market for the group. As well as the data that Chinese brands in the sales of the new cars, they are about 5% of the cake in European markets, which means that it's not tendency only on the Polish markets.
If you look on the global footprint, BMW is not giving good results, but in Poland is one of the brand which is gaining the market. Which means that these changes or the we could say the market, we need to make analysis market by market. On our meetings, it's not possible, but we always try to see the global picture and then local picture. The same we compare as Inter Cars, our competitors based on segments, where it's if we are on 21 markets, and then we go to the each segments and then look only on three our competitors will be much more difficult to make any comments on this kind of the meeting.
We try to show the trends and the general input from the biggest of our market and then influence for the capital growth. This is the way of our idea how we present this kind of summary of each of the quarter. Next is total CapEx for Zakroczym Skypod project is about PLN 235 million, and accumulated investment in September amounted to PLN 92 million. More than PLN 140 million should be in 2026 from the robotization.
No, actually, the CapEx for phase two in Zakroczym was around PLN 250, and it's going to be completed in 2025. Next year, the CapEx that we are planning to invest is solely related to the investment in the new warehouse in Stęszew, in the western part of Poland, which is correlated with both the sales to the West, mainly to Germany, but also increasing demand because currently even Zakroczym, the main warehouse, is at certain limits of its operations. We need a regional warehouse in the western part of Poland.
I was not precise because.
Mm-hmm.
We found that the Zakroczym is not anymore good place to scale the business because of the efficiency in one place by the number of the people. We call internally that in Poland, we will have, like, three places, as the one places of Zakroczym divide to the three zones, which make playing role in the logistic in the future. It's the Stęszew and the Sosnowiec on the south, but we will not increase any more the Zakroczym because it's no any studies which prove us the financial guidelines to do this. We believe that much better solution is to split and extend, or we could say convert the midi hub in west of the Poland as extension of the Zakroczym-
Yeah.
For the northwest part of Poland and the west
Maybe it's worth emphasizing, Krzysztof, that in case of Zakroczym, we are already at the scale of operations that we are afraid that if we go beyond, we will not have economies of scale, but it will lead to rather, like, inefficient processes. The second point is that we have a warehouse in the south, in Sosnowiec, which supports operations of Poland, but also supports the operations of the countries south of Poland. This warehouse is located in the premises for which the lease contract ends in 2027. Now we are currently in the process of preparing or looking for the next location for this warehouse. Given this, we are not able to implement robotization in this warehouse.
That's why we need the third warehouse, which will be located in Stęszew, which I mentioned. The investment will be spent in over two years, in 2026 and 2027. Each year we're going to spend around PLN 300 million for this investment. Yes, overall, PLN 600 million.
Okay. Are there any questions?
Yes. We also have the question, what about the margin improvement in basis points can be expected in 2026 from the robotization?
As well, you can look to this LTIP because I think that for exactly 2025, 2026 and 2027, we publish this data, and we would like to be in this bracket. Yeah.
We've already made public information about the amount of logistics savings coming from these three robotization investments. We expect in 2026, the savings in logistics costs amounting to between PLN 70 million and PLN 80 million annually. You can actually compare it to the EBITDA, which is included in our LTIP program for 2026. The EBITDA is 1.6 billion PLN. This is the expectation.
If we do not have any additional questions, of course, we are always open to further dialogue. Thank you for today's teleconference results for three quarters 2025, and see you next quarter. Thank you.
For your attention.
Audience and attention to our presentation.
Thank you very much.
Thank you for participation. A recording of this teleconference will be published in our relations site. Thank you, and see you after the result of fourth quarter.