Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the VusionGroup Q3 2024 sales conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star one one on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star one and one again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Olivier Gernandt, investor relations officer. Please go ahead. Thank you very much. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to our Q3 2024 sales conference call. I'm Olivier Gernandt, VusionGroup's Investor Relations Officer. With me today are Thierry Gadou, our Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, as well as Thierry Lemaître, our Deputy Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer. Thierry Gadou will start with some remarks on the group's third quarter and nine months business highlights. Thierry Lemaître will then comment on our financial performance for the same period, and Thierry Gadou will conclude with some comments on our fourth quarter and full year outlook. After these remarks, we will be happy to take your questions. As a reminder, some of the information to be discussed on our call today is forward-looking and subject to important risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially. For these, I refer you to the Safe Harbor Statement included in our press release and on slide two of this presentation. This evening's release was issued a short while ago and is available in both French and English on VusionGroup's website, vusion-group.com. The slides of this presentation can also be found on our website in the Regulated Information section. A replay and a transcript will also be available on our website after this call. And with that, it is my pleasure to hand you over to Thierry Gadou for his opening remarks. Thanks, Olivier. Good afternoon, everyone, and thanks for joining our conference call. So before handing over the floor to Thierry Lemaître to review our figures, let me summarize the key achievements and the business momentum of the past quarter. Q3 has been our best third quarter historically. As anticipated, we started to accelerate our growth rate in Q3, now close to our full year target of around 25%, which we are confident to reach as this acceleration continues in Q4. In terms of geography, revenue growth was driven by the acceleration in North America as anticipated, while the EMEA is still showing a decrease versus last year. I'll come back to both regions in a minute. In terms of product lines, VAS revenues continue to show a similar trend as earlier in the year, with recurring VAS growing rapidly, driven by cloud and data services, and non-recurring services decreasing due to an overall difficult environment for retail. ESL division growth is increasingly driven by the growth of EdgeSense, the new digital shelf system we launched earlier this year, which is now in high scale rollout in Walmart U.S. and in pilots in other retailers, both in America and Europe. EdgeSense is our fastest growing innovation ever, by the way. Sales momentum has continued to be strong in Q3 with again high growth in new orders. We are building a strong backlog for the next quarters, which explains our confidence in our full year target and in next year's acceleration. Let's look at our dynamics per region. Briefly, North America, now our first market, is clearly the primary driver of the momentum in 2024. The Walmart contract is now in an intensive phase. We're currently rolling out the program as planned, and we will have shipped over 500 stores by the end of this year, with a target of 2,300 stores installed by the end of 2026. The rollout pace will accelerate in 2025. New production lines have been ordered during the third quarter and will be implemented in the next 9- 12 months so that we can continue to increase our output capacity throughout 2025. Our software revenues are growing rapidly as well. Furthermore, in parallel to the current rollout, new solutions and use cases are being tested to expand the strategic relationship with Walmart. We recently opened a new office in innovation, an innovation lab and a customer experience center in Bentonville, Arkansas, where Walmart is headquartered, as you know. And our board of directors and advisory board last week was in Bentonville, where they met with Walmart, discussed strategies going forward, visited stores, distribution centers, and of course, the new VusionGroup Innovation Center. As already announced, let me also remind you that there were several other successes in America during the third quarter. We signed a contract with Ace Hardware, the 21 largest retailer in the U.S. and one of the top national DIY brands. We have announced a rollout with Hy-Vee, one of the top regional grocers in America, and we hope to announce new deals in the fourth quarter, which are currently in their final contracting phases. In Europe, even if the multiple successes of recent months are not yet reflected in deliveries, which is normal due to the industrial lead times, order intake has been growing in Europe since the beginning of the year, and additional new contracts are being finalized in many countries, both in the food and the non-food retail sectors. Just a few examples to mention, the rollout of one of the world's leading sports retailers, which will reach over 20 countries soon. Travel retail is a fast growing sector too, and VusionGroup solutions will soon be in over 40 airports in 15 countries on 4 continents. So if you travel, you'll see more and more technologies. The home improvement sector is also an area where VusionGroup's leadership is undisputed, with several leading brands in the process of international deployment in many countries. Pharmacy is also a fast-growing sector, with several European chains signing Q3, including Phoenix recently announced, each comprising several thousand pharmacies in many countries, and other deals are soon to be announced in that sector. The same goes with health and beauty, with one of Europe's leading brands now to deploy in more than 10 countries and several other major chains currently being piloted, including one with our new EdgeSense platform, and that's in Europe again, and new deals in DIY and consumer electronics, which have been signed recently in Europe. So another growth driver in Europe is the modernization of our large installed base, and the pace of store renewals and migration to cloud is definitely accelerating in 2024 and will continue in 2025. So Europe has many drivers to at play to resume growth in 2025. And of course, I remind everyone that even taking into account the temporary slowdown in 2024, our European sales have been multiplied by no less than 2.5x between 2020 and 2024, which is an average annual growth rate of more than 25% over the past four years, above our European growth guidance of 20% CAGR. So I will now let Thierry Lemaître take you through our figures and be back for a few comments on our outlook. Thank you, Thierry. As you could see in the press release, and as disclosed on this slide, Q3 IFRS revenues stood at EUR 207 million, a 13% increase versus Q3 last year. Adjusted revenues corresponding to what is actually invoiced to customers, including Walmart in the U.S., amounted to EUR 222.9 million in Q3, which is a 22% increase versus Q3 2023. On a nine-month basis, adjusted revenues reached EUR 654 million, growing by 16% versus year-to-date Q3 last year. The trend in 2024 is quite similar to that in 2023, showing a Q3 lower than Q2 and a very strong expected Q4, confirming our guidance of EUR 1 billion over the full year 2024 on adjusted basis. I remind that the EUR 15.8 million adjustment in Q3 and EUR 38 million adjustment over the first nine months are relating to the IFRS 15 restatements on Walmart contract and more specifically to the warrants and the scheduled price decreases. In Q3, the split is approximately EUR 7 million for the warrants and EUR 9 million for the price decrease adjustments. We will elaborate on other entries in a few minutes. On the following slide, as mentioned previously by Thierry, Americas have become the growth driver with a 256% revenue growth over the first nine months in 2024 versus 2023. Europe is impacted this year by the completion of the rollout of our largest European customer, hence the revenue growth of 29% over the first nine months compared to last year, but a higher expected Q4 versus Q3. This trend is in line with our previous disclosures and the guidance for the full year. VAS revenues are also pursuing their evolution as for the past quarters. Recurring VAS revenues keep on increasing strongly, notably driven by a growing number of stores operating their ESLs in the cloud. As of the end of September 2024, there were 135 million tags hosted in the cloud, an 80% increase versus the end of Q3 last year, which showed 75 million tags in the cloud. Recurring VAS revenues amounted to 41 million EUR at the end of September. They increased by 37% in Q3 and 31% on a nine-month basis. This acceleration of the growth in Q3 should be further enhanced in Q4 and deliver 60 million EUR recurring VAS revenues on a full year basis in 2024. No surprise either, the trend on the non-recurring VAS revenues is also similar to the previous quarters. Non-recurring VAS revenues decreased every quarter, year-on-year, over the first three quarters in 2024 versus 2023, but are expected to grow again in Q4 this year versus Q3 this year and Q4 last year. Order entries, they continue to show a very strong momentum, confirming significant growth in the coming quarters. Q3 2024 showed a EUR 442 million order entries level. Over the first nine months of 2024, order entries reached EUR 1,156 million, which is 63% increase versus the first nine months in 2023. These order entries will obviously fuel a significant revenue growth in 2025. And I will hand over to Thierry Gadou for the outlook. Thank you, Thierry. And as discussed in September and as mentioned also briefly by Thierry, our outlook is very positive. Thanks to innovation and global market leadership, VusionGroup is at the forefront of the digital transformation of physical commerce. We confirm very good momentum in H2. Q4 will see a new sales record and confirm our target of EUR 1 billion adjusted revenues for the full year. We believe, as I mentioned earlier, that the macroeconomic situation will continue to weigh on our non-recurring VAS activity, so we now anticipate a total VAS revenue of EUR 100-110 million for the full year, which is lower than our initial target of EUR 120 million. However, we maintain our target of 60 million recurring VAS. We expect to announce robust growth in order entries again in the fourth quarter. We anticipate a further improvement of profitability with an incremental 100-200 basis points in EBITDA versus last year's 13.2%. And so, no change here. And finally, we expect a continued positive cash flow in the semester. So in conclusion, 2024 should be an excellent year, and we're already preparing for an even better 2025. I'll now hand over for questions. Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, you will need to press star one and one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one and one again. We will now take the first question. From the line of Valentin Paul-Jahan from Stifel. Please go ahead. Hello, everybody. Hello, Thierry, Thierry and Olivier. Do you hear me well? Yes, we do. Yes. Just two questions. The first one would be that I thought that for the H2, the Q3 will be stronger than Q4 because retailers are generally very busy during the Christmas period. And so while Walmart, which is a major customer, will have concentrated its rollout in Q3 rather than Q4, you are expecting a very strong Q4, like last year. That didn't particularly pose a problem last year. But on the other hand, it is possible that deployments at the end of the year could shift into January, since retailers are very busy during this period. So minor delays could lead to shifts between quarters, I would say. So my question was: What is the risk in this respect? I mean, you reiterated your guidance with confidence, but what do you think about the likelihood maybe of delivery shift into January instead of December, for example? What would be the impact if we assume, for example, all the revenue scheduled in December, shift into January? Yeah. So the one thing you have, you're right, that the end of year period is a busy period for retailers. But it's different. We need to differentiate installations, which obviously disturb stores and usually slow down absolutely in at the end of the year. But on the other hand, shipments are different, and they are the driver of our revenue. So the risk of shipments and production being delayed by the busy, you know, sort of the very busy Christmas or end of year period is very small because it's two different things. It's supply chain risk, which, you know, always can happen, let's be clear, but it's very different. You ship to warehouses as opposed to installing. But so what drives our revenue is the shipments, not the actual installations in store, which always slow down when we're arriving at the holiday season. You're right. But we are quite confident on the shipments for this year. So you would say that- Like last year. ... there's no risk in terms of the guidance is absolutely not at risk, currently, you would say that? I think you know, there's two different things you mentioned. Saying that nothing is at risk in business, talking about the future would be, I think, very, you know, very strange. There are risks, but they are not the risk you mentioned. There are always supply chain risks, you know, all of a sudden, you know, you have production or shipments. But it's not good because of the shipments are not driven by the fact that the holiday season is a busy period for retailers. That affects installations in stores, which is not what drives our revenue. I'm saying we're confident. Last year was exactly the same pattern. Mm-hmm. You know, exactly the same one. We had a Q4. This has to do with the seasonality also of our business. You know, very often you see the same, the same pattern. So we're confident on our revenue, I would say, as much as we can be, right? But, so- Okay, okay. And maybe just the last one regarding Walmart. Just wanted to get a small update on the likelihood of, or I mean, the possibility that Walmart took or taken a second provider of electronic shelf label. I know that your product is a little bit different now, it's more a rail, a digital rail, but a digital shelf, I would say. But is there any risk currently, since there is no exclusivity with Walmart, that Walmart hire a second operator, I would say, second supplier, I would say? What do you think about this risk? ... Well, you know, right now, we don't see this risks, this risk materializing. I think I mentioned a few things in my introduction comments. One is that there were further production lines ordered during the Q3, which means that we're going to continue increase the capacity for Walmart throughout the year 2025. And so until the end of 2025, we're going to continue increasing capacity. That is not really the behavior of somebody who is trying to, you know, to do what you are mentioning. Second thing, you know, we have an increasing partnership with multiple new projects going on, and we just opened an office and an innovation center in Bentonville, and we had the board last week and, you know, it's a very, very strong relationship that we have. So I more than ever, I see not this risk materializing. Okay, thank you. Thank you. We will now take the next question from Aurélien Sévignon from Oddo BHF. Please go ahead. Yes, good afternoon. Hi, gentlemen. Thanks for taking my questions. I've got some follow-up questions on order entries mainly, and the first one was can you share roughly the breakdown in Q3 between Europe versus Americas? We don't, I mean, we don't disclose the breakdown by region. Okay. All right. So maybe of- No, I mean, it's. I mean, we don't disclose it, so I mean, if we begin to disclose it, we'll do it in a press release. You know how things work, so we don't do it. But there is one thing that we have disclosed in terms of details for the order entries this year, is that we will have an order entry of roughly EUR 1 billion for Walmart in the full year of 2024. So that's giving you a, you know, an indication of that part at least. But for the rest- Okay. We don't give more. Okay, got it. This is not new. Yeah. Thank you. But then bigger follow-up on, on Europe. So basically, you still expect EMEA to confirm 50% roughly of total revenue, more or less. So I think it means roughly a flat Q4 in Europe year over year, which is still a big improvement versus previous quarter and especially Q3. So should we understand this is a combination of the multiple, I would say, new midsize contracts in many sector, as you just mentioned earlier during the call? Or are there bigger rollout expected in Europe that will lead to make you confident in Q4, but also next year for back to growth scenario, I would say? Yes, it's the result of many wins, which take time to materialize, because, you know, the supply chain times in our business is long before between signing and start of rollout. So there's been multiple successes. I think we've been talking about successes, you know, in Europe throughout the year, and still in Q3. And still, as I mentioned, new ones to be announced in Q4. So yes, the... You're right. Your calculation is right about the fact that we should be not far or around flat in Q4, so meaning, you know, and resuming growth in 25, as we already announced. Again, you know, as I said, over the past four years, Europe is 25% annual growth in average, which is above the 20% guidance. It's just that we accelerated a lot, the number of rollouts, in an unanticipated way, before, you know, in 2023. So there was, I would say, a little bit of, accelerated growth. It was more, 45% per annum, in, between 2020 and 2023. So, but we are still on our growth rate, so there is a, you know, we're still, in a growing market, and it will continue to grow. And our plan, for 2027 is also, known for, for Europe. So there is a lot of things happening in Europe, both in food and in non-food. I think, yeah, I did mention a few of them. And so, yeah. Okay, that's clear. And last one, if I may. Still on order entries, I'd like to understand if there is already a contribution from Ace Hardware in Q3. I believe it's the franchise model, so I would assume it would maybe take some time to get the orders, and that you have recorded a small amount in Q3, but please correct me if I'm wrong. No, no, you're right. There is absolutely no contribution from Ace Hardware in the order entries in Q3. Okay, perfect. Thank you very much. Thank you. We will now take the next question from the line of Laurent Gélébart from BNP Paribas Exane. Please go ahead. Yes, good day. Good evening, Thierry. Good evening, Olivier. So I have three questions. The first one relates to the guidance. So you maintain the over one billion sales for the year, even though you have cut the contribution of non-recurring VAS by 20-30 million EUR. So my question here is, do you have a large buffer in your guidance previously, or do you see acceleration of hardware deliveries this year compared to your initial expectations? That's the first one. The second one is, can you elaborate on the number of production lines being ordered by Walmart as we speak? And the last one, you were also mentioning that you are working on new use cases with Walmart regarding VAS services. Could you elaborate, if you can, on what kind of services are you developing as we speak? Thank you. I will answer the first two questions, and then I will hand over to Thierry. Just regarding the guidance, I remind you, we always stated the guidance of EUR 1 billion, and regarding the VAS revenues, we had a guidance of 100-120, and so the revision of the guidance is to move from 100-120 to 100-110, so it's a - 10 potential downwards on the guidance, so it's something that you can totally absorb by hardware, so that is not a revision by EUR 20 or EUR 30 million of the guidance. That's only EUR 10 million maximum on this guidance, and this is to be absorbable by the hardware. Just regarding the production lines, currently, Walmart ordered four manufacturing lines. And regarding the use case, Thierry? Yeah. Just for the lines. As I mentioned earlier, I mean, Walmart has announced has ordered now the lines that enable to do the plan in time and to continue to have sufficient capacity also for the future. So, the 2,300 stores are now possible with all the capacity that has been ordered, including recently in August and in September. We can maybe confirm, by the way, to answer the question from Valentin Paul-Jahan previously. Ah. That it's very unlikely that Walmart would have invested in four lines if they wanted to give the possibility to a second source to deliver that. So the reason why they invested four lines, at least they financed four lines that we have invested in, is clearly because they are granting us the totality of the deployment to come. So that will make no sense for them to finance four manufacturing lines if they wanted someone else to deliver part of the volumes of the type that they will need to equip all their stores. Yeah, and also it's not, you know, it's a very different product. You mentioned it, and it's also many years of software integration, software development. And so that leads me to the final question, Laurent. So the use cases are all around... So there are two main domains. One is always, you know, around very accurate inventory management, which is one of the big pains in retail: to have, you know, very strong accuracy in in-store inventory management and in-store inventory location. So that's one of the domains where several projects are underway. The other one is again around, so that's new also on the shopper engagement and the way that the infrastructure that we put in place with EdgeSense can communicate and develop services for the shoppers, for the consumers in the stores. So that's essentially around these two things, and there are, you know, four to five projects which are developing now. On top of obviously the different use cases that are already in rollout, which is around the price management, but also the in-store fulfillment and what we call local e-commerce fulfillment. Thank you. Thank you. As a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please press star one and one on your telephone. We will now take the next question from the line of Johannes Ries from Apus Capital GmbH. Please go ahead. Yes, good afternoon, Thierry and Olivier. Also, two very short questions. First, also on Europe, maybe can you give us an update about, maybe the countries which are the real drivers for next year? I think U.K. is one of the focus and maybe the Nordics. And secondly, you mentioned that, there's a huge acceleration, of the Walmart, sales next year, the 2025 Walmart next year. So for, the forecast line. But, what about capacity which is left for other customers in U.S.? How much capacity you have to serve further customers, and how much this holds back, maybe the signing of, contracts with other players in U.S., because maybe of a lack of capacity? Or have you enough, maybe reserves outside Walmart, even to serve these additional customers? Yes, thank you, Johannes. There are a number of countries. In fact, in Europe, you're right. U.K. is a country where a lot of things are happening. But it's not all. Germany, your country, is also a very active country in for us. South Europe, France is a country where we have signed a number of things, and we'll still announce some new deals soon. I mean, pretty much a large part of Europe, of course. Nordic is also good. We have a good dynamic in new deals, pretty much everywhere in Europe. The market is, you know, it's, let's say the economic situation of retail is not excellent, but the level of priority that store automation and store digitization is, you know, is given to is increasing. We see momentum in both countries which were lagging behind, like U.K., but also in countries that are still in the ramp-up phase, like for instance, Germany. And for the U.S., now we have spare capacity. I mean, the capacity must be analyzed by product lines, because again, they're very different. We have a chance on one hand, where we now have capacity independently from Walmart. So that's an important topic, and it's a little new. And of course, ESL capacity, which is strong too. So this will not be, let's say, something that slow us down next year. And this is why we see, you know, a very good year growth-wise next year. Great. Thanks a lot. Thank you. We will now take the next question from the line of Timofey Dovgalev from Berenberg. Please go ahead. Yeah. Hey, guys, can you hear me? Yep. Yes. This is Ben from Berenberg. Two questions from my side, please, on Walmart. I mean, if I listen to your words, Thierry, that Walmart is ramping up four different lines now, and if I see that they wanna have 50% of the U.S. stores supplied by 2026, I mean, that's a lot of capacity they're ramping up there. Is it fair to say that the 50% of the U.S. stores is just the beginning, that maybe next year they could ramp up, or that they want you to supply 100% of the stores? And then my second question would be, what is happening with the stores outside the United States for Walmart? Have they ever communicated anything to you that they would be keen to have those, sooner or later, supplied by ESL and VAS Solutions as well? Because if I look at the world map, I mean, Walmart has four and a half thousand stores in the U.S., and then they have roughly six thousand stores outside the United States, and I just wanna understand a little bit, like, what is the commitment on the whole line you get from Walmart? Like, what is their plan over the next five to seven years in terms of digitizing their stores, to get a little bit of a feeling what size of follow-up orders you could get from Walmart, maybe over the next four to five years? Thank you. Yep. So to start with the U.S., you're right, the capacity now ordered, which will take time, by the way, to be implemented, because it takes roughly, you know, from, let's say, a decision to ramp up, industrial ramp up, it's roughly a year, so it will take... So it was in Q3, but the capacity that has been ordered and will be in place at the end of 2025, is a good sign of the intention to go further than 50%. So, you know, we announce these when they're signed, but it's a sign of intention, because the capacity allows to do a lot. If there were an intention not to do that, it would be a very high capacity installed, to be frank. We see that as a very positive sign, but we have many other, you know, other signs, as I mentioned. You're right about... This is an implementation of EdgeSense. Again, EdgeSense is a very new. It's not an ESL system. EdgeSense is a very, you know, new infrastructure that, you know, goes much beyond the use of ESL. And so it's the U.S. is deploying a very new infrastructure. The rest of the world, for the group, you're right, it's a bit more than the U.S. in number of stores, but it's a lot less in terms of number of SKUs and number of ESLs or number of items in the store, right? We're talking about a much bigger part for the U.S. You know, we're talking about one to five in terms of number of SKUs per store, roughly, right? It's a smaller part. The thing is, Walmart International has started much earlier implementation of ESL with us, by the way, or mostly. You know, we have implemented the previous generations of ESLs in Canada, in Chile, and other countries. And so, you know, they are not in the same cycle. So discussions are underway about, you know, when international will be, you know, able to maybe use the capacity that's been ordered for the U.S., and then replace and swap the older technologies that we have already rolled out. And there are also countries we are still operating in paper, so which will be also in the plan. So these are still discussions, you know, underway. I don't know if I'm answering all, you know, of your question, but- Yeah. Yeah, it was perfect. Thank you very much, Thierry. I'm going back into the queue. Have a good evening. Thank you. Thank you. I would now like to turn the conference back for Thierry Gadou for closing remarks. Okay. Well, I wish you a good evening, everyone, or good afternoon for some of you. And, so we'll next now talk in- Next year. Yeah, January will be next year, so thank you very much, and talk to you soon. This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect. Speakers, please stand by.