InPost S.A. (INPST) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning. My name is Gabriela Burdach, and I'm the Investor Relations Director at InPost. Welcome to InPost's Q4 and Full Year 2023 Earnings Call. This call is being recorded and it will be available later on our IR website. Today's presenters are Rafal Brzoska, InPost's CEO, Michael Rouse, CEO, International, and Adam Aleksandrowicz, CFO. After the slides, we will have a Q&A session. A quick disclaimer. Today's call includes forward-looking statements that are subject to risks, and it is possible that the actual results may differ materially. I am now pleased to hand over to our CEO. Rafal, over to you.

Thank you, Gabi, and thank you all for joining us today. What an incredible year 2023 turned out to be. We achieved new records in volume, financial results, and most importantly, we delivered on our key strategic priorities. Let me then start with the broader perspective. We are operating in 9 countries and have exposure on the largest e-commerce markets in Europe. With over 66,000 points, we are the leading out-of-home and #1 APM network in Europe. As of the end of last year, 61% of our out-of-home points and 38% of our APMs were located outside of Poland. Moving on to the next page. I'm pleased to share with you some of our full year highlights. At the group level, InPost delivered almost 900 million parcels last year, 20% more than in the previous year, with revenue growing even faster by 25% year-on-year, hitting almost PLN 9 billion. Our adjusted EBITDA for 2023 was almost 40% higher than last year, coupled with a robust positive free cash flow at the group level and further reduction in our net leverage ratio. In Poland, our volume once again outperformed, massively outperformed the e-commerce market, which I will talk about in a second. Revenue generated in Poland grew by an impressive 27% and our adjusted EBITDA margin reached 46%. This great performance not only demonstrated our financial strength, but also resulted in the generation of substantial free cash flow with an impressive cash conversion of 49%. That's money we can invest of course in our international expansion. As for the international markets, we have some good news to share as well. Our volume increased by 28% compared to last year and our adjusted EBITDA grew by 82%. The culmination of our strategic efforts was particularly evident in the last quarter of 2023 where we not only achieved a sustainable level of profitability in the U.K. but also reached EBITDA breakeven in Italy, and that's the news of the day here. It means Q4 2023 was the first quarter when all our markets were profitable at the adjusted EBITDA level. We remain the parcel local leader in Poland. Last year, we claimed the top position in the U.K. And just recently, this quarter, we secured the #1 position APM network in France, reaching 5,000 machines in that market. Moving on to the next page. Last year, we shared with you some priorities for 2023, and we delivered on our key promises. In Poland, we solidified our leadership position by achieving volume growth that surpassed the market. The robust generation of free cash flow was strategically invested in international markets. The improvement in EBITDA resulted in a lower net leverage ratio, which was another priority for the group in 2023. In a challenging environment, Mondial Relay demonstrated the resilience of its business model, generating volumes well above the e-commerce market and we have a very decent margin. Thanks to our focus on the quality of service and wider merchant adoption, we saw remarkable growth in the B2C segment. We invested in logistics, opened new hubs and depots, and we continue to work on improving our quality and delivery time. The year 2023 marked a significant breakthrough for InPost in the U.K. We finally have more control over logistics. We have unlocked the volume growth and have become EBITDA profitable. Now it is time to accelerate the network expansion by focusing on our strengths and what we do best, customer experience and quality. On the next slide, here I would like to highlight that Q4 was another quarter of InPost outperforming the market in all key geographies. In Poland, throughout 2023, our volumes grew by 16% while the e-commerce market only grew by 11%. Despite being the market leader in Poland, we continue to gain market share. This is the effect of our long-term investments into logistics, commitment to quality and relentless pursuit of excellence in our user experience. We also successfully gained market share in Mondial Relay geographies. Mondial Relay volume increased by 13% and in the strategically important B2C sector even more, by 23%. All this while total e-commerce market volumes grew only 2% year-on-year. In the U.K., InPost is in a growth mode. Last year, our volume grew by over 2x. We are expanding our network, increasing volumes, disrupting the market and gaining market share, and the market potential in the U.K. is massive. On the next page, let's look at some ESG metrics. Delivery to InPost APM we know is the most environmentally friendly solution. What we see based on our calculations is that delivery to APM emits up to 98% less CO2 than traditional door-to-door service. And this concerns only transportation. But even taking into account branches, sorting and customer pickup, APMs are much more eco-friendly than to-door. These calculations concern InPost APMs, with our density of the network and of course the efficiency of our current operations. As you can see on the chart, 2023 was another year of declining CO2 emissions per parcel in Scope 1, 2, but also in the third one in our company. All this is getting noticed. We have just recently received higher ESG ratings, and we were also included by Euronext in the ESG index, which recognizes the top 25 companies with the best ESG practices among blue chips listed on Euronext Amsterdam. Let's move on to the business update from Poland. In Poland, we have the largest, most dense and most convenient APM network for our customers. That's the fact. In cities, 87% of the population lives within a 7-minute walking distance to InPost APM, and nationally, this ratio is already over 60%. Last year, we added over 2,500 new APMs in our domestic market. Each year, we add new APMs to our network because we see that the demand of our services remains at an outstanding level. And we know that our new machines will maintain a high utilization rate. We don't see the ceiling yet. We see that new machines adopt at a comparable level versus previous cohorts, and we will deploy new APMs as long as we see it really makes sense. Turning to the next page. In the last quarter alone, our volume grew by 17% year-on-year, underscoring our continued market share gains. What you can also see here is that our volume growth continues to outpace the capacity of our local network. The chart on the right shows InPost's high levels of utilization across our entire network. What I'd like to highlight here is that during the recent peak season, our utilization rate was even higher than last year, increased by an impressive 9 percentage points and we still successfully managed last year's peak. We believe InPost was the only company in the market that delivered before Christmas without any problems. And this shifted a lot of volume towards InPost in December more than we expected, and we still delivered with superb quality. On the next page, we have more details about our growth drivers in Poland. We have a growing and loyal customer base of over 18 million APM users, representing more than half of country's population and more than a number of households. We also have more than 11 million users of our top-rated mobile app. Frankly now, it's hitting almost 12 million. Our user base is very loyal. 20% of our APM users are super-heavy users, the most loyal group. They are responsible already for over 60% of our total volume. And what's more important, over time, these users increase frequency of orders. All customers are extremely important to us, which is why we are striving to enhance their user experience even further, for example, by adding new services. In Q1 2024, we proudly launched InPost Pay following successful beta test in 2023. It is more than just the payment service. InPost Pay represents a revolution in convenience and efficiency, providing one-click payment and easy delivery. We are early in the journey, but we already see a very positive impact in terms of conversion and checkout and much higher rate of completed baskets. Next page, please. Now I would like to share with you the recent studies that only confirm what we already see internally, that we are a beloved consumer brand. As you can see in the chart, customers in Poland favor parcel lockers over other delivery methods, and they have a clear preference for InPost brand versus other providers. When shopping online, 93% of customers that use parcel local delivery choose InPost APM. We significantly stand out compared to our competitors. We always emphasize our outstanding NPS score. This is not just a number. Behind that result is our superior quality. We have the most dense and the most convenient locker network in Poland, 22,000 APMs, and these are not just lockers. Behind them, we have the whole logistics backbone at the operational level that allows us to deliver more than 97% of parcels the next day, even during peak times. Our high focus on user experience throughout the entire parcel journey only boost the consumer satisfaction. And our competitors are far from that, and we constantly work on getting better. I will now hand over to Michael for a short update on our international business. Thank you very much.

Thanks, Rafal. Good morning, everyone. 2023 has been a strong year for the international business and all the markets that operate within it. We have continued to take market share from legacy incumbent players, we've been attracting and building new users to APMs in all markets, and we've established InPost and Mondial Relay as the leading locker solution in the U.K. and France. We're still early in this journey in all markets, but we're now breakeven in all the international segments, and we will continue to double down on our strategy on replicating the flywheel and building the leading consumer-centric e-commerce delivery option for our consumers, merchants and landlords alike. At a snapshot, 60% of the group's total out-of-home delivery points are now located outside of Poland, and this percentage will only continue to grow. In terms of volumes, 1/3 of the total group is now generated by our international markets. And in '23, these grew by 28% faster than Polish volumes, and we expect this to be the case going forward. In '23, we increased our international APM network by almost 5,000 locations or 56% year-over-year. The number of lockers increased even faster by 76% year-over-year as we deployed larger machines and also expanded the APMs already deployed. We're still adding PUDO points in order to increase the density of our network, but not at the same pace. I want to emphasize that our APMs have significantly increased utilization rates in France and the U.K. last year. However, there is still potential for further improvement, particularly when compared to Poland as a benchmark. So let's move on to Mondial Relay. Our key priorities here remain the same: one, expand our APM network; two, growing the customer and merchant adoption; and three, investing in improving end-to-end operational quality. We've made significant progress last year against these priorities. And last week, we made a significant announcement with over 5,000 lockers in France. And earlier this quarter, we reached the #1 spot in terms of APM networks in this country. In Mondial Relay markets, now over 1/3 of the population live within a 7-minute walk from an InPost location as we continue to build density and coverage. A big pillar of our transformation is ensuring the logistics backbone can service all of France with quality as well as support the increasing cross-border growth. We continue to invest in this area. And at the end of the year, we already had 41 depots in 6 hubs in France and more in total across Mondial. This larger logistics backbone, which is nearly double now from when we acquired the business, will and is definitely having an impact on our operational quality, which will continue to impact positive positively on volumes, revenue and results in the long term. Just to give you a small flavor of this, our B2C volume, which we've been super focused on growing, more than 60% of that now is being delivered D+1. Moving on to the next page. One thing I want you to take away from this slide, and Rafal has mentioned that already, Mondial Relay is operating in a very difficult environment, declining e-commerce market volumes, strong and good quality competition. However, despite those market challenges, we have delivered double-digit volume growth last year, proving that our efforts and our business model are successful and our offer is attractive for both consumers and merchants. Mondial Relay volumes grew by 13% last year, significantly surpassing the e-commerce market. This growth is driven by the B2C segment that increased year-over-year by 23% in the whole year and by 31% in Q4 '23 and now accounts for over 40% of the total Mondial Relay volumes. In total, our merchant account grew nearly over 50,000, up 16% year-over-year, providing a strong portfolio to farm in the near to medium term. Moreover, all of our new volume is an APM volume. In Q4 '23, almost 20% of Mondial Relay's volume in France was delivered via lockers, significantly from 7% in Q4 '22. You can also see it on the chart in the middle, our new cohort follows the adoption rate of the previous ones, confirming the recognition of our expanding locker network. The whole network utilization is growing. And you could see that on previous pages, and we still see space for further improvement. Finally, now I'd like to touch on the progress of the Mondial Relay brand and increasing customer satisfaction. Delighting our customers and improving on this on a continuous basis is critical for our sustainable success. In terms of brand awareness and reliability, Mondial Relay stands tall with 35% top-of-mind brand awareness now, securing the top position amongst our competitors. These are lower levels compared to Poland, but still these are top levels in the French market versus peers. And according to the recent external research, 91% of respondents affirm that Mondial Relay fulfills the delivery promise. And 83% of the Mondial Relay users express that our service is their preferred choice for deliveries, reflecting the trust and the loyalty we are building. The total number of APM users has tripled in the past year with over 3 million active users now in France. And our mobile app, albeit still early in that journey launched at the end of last year, was downloaded over 1 million times now and a strong store ratings. And our NPS is at 22, and the distance versus the closest competitor is increasing. Our building blocks and our investments are now translating into meaningful customer centricity across the Mondial Relay portfolio. Now let's turn our attention to the U.K. In the U.K., we're on a path to create a fully integrated model. Last year was a breakthrough year for InPost in the U.K. We started '23 knowing that our offer fits the market perfectly. Proof of concept was there, the demand was there, yet we could not grab the demand fully. In '23, we concentrated on resolving the bottlenecks. We finally have more control of our logistics process. We've unlocked the volume growth. We've started to speed up the network expansion because we see more demand for our services. We've engaged a new active frequent locker consumer and user, and we've become EBITDA profitable, thanks to higher volume, better logistics and economies of scale. And we expect that the last quarter profitability level is sustainable in the short term. This year, we have ambitious plans to deploying more APMs to meet the growing demand we're seeing, targeting in excess of 3,000 locations in the U.K., taking the network over 10,000 in total. We want to continue to improve operations in conjunction with Menzies, and we're now piloting our B2C offer and plan to launch B2C on a larger scale towards the end of '24. InPost has firmly secured its position as the #1 APM network in the U.K., significantly surpassing the nearest competitor. Our growth trajectory continues with a significant 62% year-over-year increase in the out-of-home points, totaling 7,800 at the end of the year. This expansion solidifies the coverage of our network, and we continue to expand now beyond the core 3 cities as we offer national 7-day a week coverage. Specifically on the 3 core cities that we've been core concentrating on, over 60% of the population now live within a 7-minute walk from our locations. Compare that to over a year ago, which was at 40%, we've made significant strides and improvement in covering cities that account for 70% of the U.K. e-commerce market. We continue to work closely with U.K. landlords and big chains, targeting high footfall traffic locations such as supermarkets and petrol forecourts, with recent partnership announcements of Lidl, BP and Shell being new additions to the footprint. Our growth is also coming from existing landlord development with over 60% of APMs strategically deployed through partnerships with existing landlords such as WHSmith, Lidl and Tesco in the past year. On the right-hand chart, you can see the utilization of our lockers across the years. It grew dynamically year by year. But as you saw on Slide 15, there is still room for growth, especially as our offering in the U.K. doesn't cover B2C, which is the largest part of the market yet we have to address. Closing the U.K. section. I'm happy to highlight the significant progress we have achieved in expanding our volume and customer base. Our mobile app launched in Q3 '23 is rapidly gaining popularity with over 300,000 downloads already. Our application significantly enhances the consumer experience, providing features such as capacity tracker, and we've already received positive customer feedback on the early development of our app. As illustrated on the column charts, our quarterly volume experienced consistent growth through '23, ultimately doubling for the entire year, resulting in the successful delivery of almost 47 million parcels. Equally remarkable is a substantial increase in our customer base, boasting 2.7 million users, more than double the number from the previous year. These achievements underscore our commitment to excellence and continuous improvement and innovation in meeting the evolving needs of our customers in this dynamic U.K. market as we establish out-of-home as a disruptor to the established to-door market. I'll now hand over to Adam to talk about the financials in more detail, and thank you.

Thank you, Michael. Good morning, everyone. As usual, I'll take you through our financial performance and then wrap up with an outlook for the current year. So moving on to Page 23, you can see the summary of our group P&L for the full year 2023 as well as for the last quarter. 2023 was a very strong performance year for us with good top line and EBITDA growth and margin expansion, underpinned by repricing and transformation of the U.K. operations, which turned sustainably EBITDA positive in Q3, all of which were reflected in visible improvement of the group margin. We have also improved our cash generation on free cash flow level and visibly deleveraged the business. At the group level, in Q4, we recorded a revenue growth of 23.7%, while for the full year 2023, our revenue grew by 25.2%. In both periods, the revenue growth was higher than the volume growth, which was an effect of the repricing as well as changing of the product mix. Our adjusted EBITDA grew by 44.5% in Q4 and over 39% in the full year. Adjusted EBITDA margin for the group has expanded by 460 basis points to almost 32% in Q4. And in the full year 2023, adjusted EBITDA margin also improved, reaching almost 31%. Key contributors here were Poland and the U.K., while Mondial Relay started to show positive margin traction in Q4 only, improving by 150 basis points. In terms of CapEx, as guided earlier, we spent less than in previous years, and CapEx intensity was reduced year-on-year and stood at 11.5% of revenue. As you can see, group free cash flow before M&A expenses was positive at the level of PLN 764 million compared to negative PLN 11 million in the previous year. This was a result of improving cash generation in Polish segment, which covers in excess capital needs of our international part of the business. Thanks to high free cash flow generation and significant adjusted EBITDA growth, we're able to reduce the net leverage ratio down to 2.2x. Moving on to Poland's results. We had a record peak season with volumes reaching 175 million parcels, up by 17% year-on-year. This was driven by an increase in demand for our locker and to-door services and was above the e-commerce market dynamics. The main catalyst for growth were fashion segments supported by positive contribution from marketplaces. By month, we have seen strong volumes throughout the whole of the Q4, maybe with some stronger dynamics in October, which directly resulted from softer September and Q3 demand partially shifting to Q4. Revenue increase in Q4 stood at 28%, which is 11 percentage points higher than volume growth. As you can see, the business has continued to reflect the strong positive effects of the repricing, while the mix impact was largely neutral. Our adjusted EBITDA grew by an impressive 36% for both the quarter and the full year, reflecting the positive impact of repricing, operational leverage and effective cost management. Now let's look at Mondial Relay performance. In the fourth quarter, the business delivered 9% growth in volumes, thereby outpacing the e-commerce market. And our strategic focus on the B2C sector resulted in a significant 31% volume growth in that segment. On the revenue side, though, Mondial Relay reported a slight decrease in the last quarter. It was the effect of strengthening of reporting currency versus last year. In constant exchange rate terms, revenues grew by 5.3% in the quarter. Revenue per parcel showed a slight decline. The reason for that was the product and customer mix. On the product mix side, it was prioritizing out-of-home over to-door, affecting revenue throughout the whole 2023. While on the merchant side, our B2C growth was mainly driven by large blue-chip customers at a lower average price versus total segment, while the SME merchant potential, which enjoys higher price point, is still unexplored. In the fourth quarter, Mondial Relay adjusted EBITDA increased by 12% when measured in Polish zloty, while the growth in euro terms was at 19%. We also saw EBITDA margin in Q4 improve by 150 basis points, thanks to operational improvements and good productivity management. Now onto the next page, a snapshot of our U.K. and Italian markets. In the U.K., we continued to grow share and delivered 17 million parcels in Q4. At the same time, we have continued to deploy APMs and to drive network coverage and better service convenience. This led to another profitable quarter in the U.K., and we believe that the margin level achieved in Q4 is largely sustainable in the short term, though it may be slightly diluted by accelerated network deployment in the coming quarters. In Italy, cross-border was a significant driver of volume growth. For the first time, we have achieved a break-even point in the Italian market on adjusted EBITDA level. This is a significant stepping stone, and we expect Italy to continue profitable in 2024. The entire international segment had a visible impact on the group margin improvement in Q4 and is on track to continue doing so going forward. Moving on to Page 27. We are now going to look at the unit economics evolution in the U.K. You've seen this chart already, you're familiar with it, and Q4 was continuation of the positive traction already marked in Q3 of last year. Our business in the U.K. was growing gradually quarter-by-quarter last year to end up with 169% year-on-year volume growth in Q4, driven by both C2C and returns channels. At the same time, our revenue per parcel has increased by 32% year-on-year in local currency due to change in the product mix, namely decline in the low-price rental product, while higher-priced C2C and returns grew. Our ability to unlock volume, the favorable changes in the product mix as well as the optimization of logistics costs all resulted in higher profitability. Adjusted EBITDA per parcel improved from a loss of PLN 4.5 in Q4 '22 to a profit of PLN 1.3 in Q4 '23. On top of this, it is worth mentioning that improvement in the U.K. was achieved ahead of starting our B2C product offering, which gives us confidence in our ability to further expand in the U.K. Now let's look at the items below adjusted EBITDA on the next page. You see here the usual bridge. I probably want to call out a few points. On the adjustments line, you will notice increased LTIP valuation. This is due to additional shares awarded under the incentive program as well as over-performance on 2023 target profits KPIs and increased assumptions around program vesting levels. There is also one-off amounting to PLN 12 million related to the acquisition costs of Menzies Distribution. Amortization related to IFRS 16 assets right of use increased by PLN 152 million, mainly driven by network scale on APM land and depot leases. We have reported EBIT of almost PLN 1.5 billion, an increase of 59% year-on-year. EBIT margin stood at 16.9% and has improved by 360 basis points. One of the main cost items below EBIT were obviously higher financial costs. Vast majority of those, which is roughly 3/4 of the year-on-year increase in absolute terms were unrealized foreign exchange debt valuation losses driven by strengthening of PLN versus euro in Q4 of 2023. The loss in associates of PLN 30.9 million resulted mainly from one-off restructuring costs at Menzies Distribution. Excluding one-off expenses, this line would have neutral impact on our results. At the net profit line, in 2023, InPost Group achieved a net profit of PLN 647 million, which was an increase of almost 42% compared to the previous year. Now let's look at the cash generation for the full 12 months of last year. Our free cash flow before M&A expenses as mentioned already stood at PLN 764 million. Including acquisition of 30% stake in Menzies last summer, our group free cash flow reached PLN 509 million in 2023. Free cash flow to EBITDA conversion rate in Poland improved to 49% end of 2023, up from 37% in the previous year, driven primarily by adjusted EBITDA growth and margin expansion. We have continued to reinvest significant part of our cash into expanding our international footprint and plan to continue doing so in 2024. Moving on to the following slide. Let's cover the group's capital expenditure. In 2023, our group CapEx experienced a 9% reduction year-on-year. This decline was mainly influenced by Poland where CapEx decreased by 18% due to a reduced scale of investment into our maturing network. Additionally, we continued to optimize our APM manufacturing raw material and component inventory as the global supply chain has returned to a more predictable pattern in terms of delivery lead times. For the first time in InPost's history, we allocated a larger portion of our CapEx to international markets rather than to Poland. Looking at the breakdown of CapEx by type, as usual, the majority, around 67% of total was allocated to APM network development, underscoring our commitment to expanding and enhancing our infrastructure coverage. Operations received the second largest portion, accounting for 16% of the total group CapEx, driven mostly by expanding our depot footprint and sorting automation in Mondial Relay markets. Now let me provide an insight into the net debt and leverage. Our gross debt at the end of December 2023 was essentially unchanged versus 2022 year-end. A slight decline of gross debt number was a result of positive ForEx valuation effects in euro-denominated debt and also lower utilization of revolving facility. The growth in group EBITDA, higher cash reserves and reduced debt have contributed to a decrease in our net debt position. Consequently, we have managed to lower our net leverage ratio to 2.2x of EBITDA, down from 3.2x recorded at the end of the previous year. And finally, let me end with the 2024 full year outlook update. As for the e-commerce market, our expectations are that in Poland, market volumes will grow by high single digit for the full year, while in France and in the U.K. we expect mid-single-digit market growth. This should be an improvement in terms of the broader market performance versus 2023. Regarding our volumes, in 2024, we expect to continue to outperform market growth and aim to increase market share across all regions. This will be driven by our strategic advantages in convenience and sustainability, cost efficiencies for merchants and continued network expansion. At the group level, revenue increase is expected to outpace volume growth by a low to mid-single digit, mainly due to repricing in Poland with no meaningful repricing impact in international markets. In terms of EBITDA, we anticipate group adjusted EBITDA growth in line with revenue growth. This will be driven by slight softening of adjusted EBITDA margin in Poland, which we expect to stabilize around mid-40s due to the fact we plan to prioritize volume growth over price growth in Poland and significant year-over-year increase in adjusted EBITDA from international markets. We expect adjusted EBITDA margin for the international segment to be low double digits, thanks to volume growth and improved unit economics. We also foresee Mondial Relay's adjusted EBITDA margin to improve by 100 to 200 basis points, while in the U.K., we expect sustained adjusted EBITDA profitability versus Q4 2023. We are committed to continue to accelerate our international APM network expansion in 2024. Our total CapEx is projected to be approximately PLN 1.3 billion with a greater focus on investments in international markets. CapEx intensity will remain at low teens. We expect stable and positive free cash flow at the group level as well as continued deleveraging, while we remain open to opportunistic nonorganic options for growth. Now to give a little insight into Q1 trading. I'd like to point out that at the group level, we have seen strong trading in terms of volumes and the growth rates for the group were slightly higher than those reported for the full year 2023. Our Q1 earnings release is due on the 15th of May. That is all from my side. Thank you all, and over to the moderator for the Q&A session.

[Operator Instructions] And our first question comes from the line of David Kerstens from Jefferies.

I've got 2 questions. First, can you please confirm that you are planning to accelerate the network expansion in 2024? I think you indicated earlier, expecting around 10,000 lockers to be added. And is that the reason for the step up in CapEx by around 30% to PLN 1.3 billion? Or does that also include maybe further expansion of the stake in Menzies? And then the second question is on the EBITDA margin in Poland. What is offsetting operational leverage and low to mid-single-digit price increases and maybe lower unit costs that you expect a softening of the EBITDA margin to around 45%? And what does that imply in terms of your medium-term objective for high 40s to low 50% EBITDA margin? Or is mid-40s now the new range?

Thank you, David. Happy to take those questions. So in terms of APM network rollout, it's true, we expect to accelerate in all key markets. I think key focus, as previously indicated, will be on France and the U.K. We will also continue to deploy, as Rafal indicated, whenever it makes sense to improve density and convenience of the end consumer. We'll continue to deploy in Poland very selectively, but still. And there will be some deployments both in Italy and Spain. So all in all, net-net, yes, the step up in CapEx '24 versus '23 will be, to a large extent, driven by the acceleration of the APM network deployment. Question number two, EBITDA margin in Poland. I think 2 key points. First one is I think we're guiding to a slight softening. But if you look actually at the '24 -- '23, sorry, full year margin, it's not meaningful. It's actually very, very marginal. And I think the main point here is, it's not really structural. It's, in our view, it's technical. So if you think how we develop the business, it's not going to be very different to previous years where we trade off price for volume. And as you know, with most of our blue-chip merchants, we have volume commitment arrangements, whereas if they hit certain thresholds on volume, they are remunerated and incentivized and then remunerated by certain price discounts. So our base case assumption for the budget is, we will grow well ahead of the market, still continue to expand market share. And if this is the case, then clearly, the price increase will be lower than you would normally expect to offset fully inflation. Now having said that, as we discussed it a couple of times back in the past, the way these volume commitments are kind of constructed and built is we have a balanced position price versus volume. So the volume growth doesn't happen, we see then an upside on the price. And effectively, what we're focused on is to make sure we deliver the absolute EBITDA number, so the focus is really to make sure we continue to grow EBITDA at pace. And our growth, as we said, is going to be, give or take, at the level of revenue growth. And therefore, if you think about this, we still expect quite a robust nominal EBITDA number and a strong growth rate. And that obviously is quite important from a strategic perspective so that it enables us to generate enough cash to continue to fund our expansion strategy and then still generate meaningful free cash flow post-expansion CapEx. So I'd say the focus is really make sure we continue to grow EBITDA profit and are able to improve our cash generation metrics in that perspective.

Yes. Understood. So more focus on volume than on price. And the 20% volume growth, 20% plus in Q1, is that what you would expect for the full year? How does that look in terms of phasing in the remaining quarters?

Well, I think we wouldn't take it as a benchmark for the full year. But clearly, if you look at the Q1, and you referred that also to some official data around retail market growth and the e-com market growth, that clearly shows that we continue to grow well ahead of the market and actually beat the market quite visibly. I would expect, as we guided, this is going to continue to be the case. But definitely, as we said, probably high single-digits growth rate is what we expect for Poland for the full year in terms of market growth.

The next question comes from the line of Sathish Sivakumar from Citi.

I've got 3 questions here. Maybe just following up on the David's question on the Poland. Just putting into concept like it's an infrastructure type setup. And given that lockers, the market is maturing, how much upside do you think there will be on margins here as we go into the medium term? Or is it mid-45 plus 1, 2 percentage is where you think it stabilizes in the medium term? And then the second one, just more around the customer mix, flat like e-commerce volume. Again, there's a lot of news flow around the Asian e-commerce coming in. So what is your overall exposure in Shein and Temu? How does it have actually progressed into Q4 and into Q1 in terms of exposure-wise? And the third one is more around the international market. But correct me if I'm wrong, I think Adam mentioned B2C offering in the U.K. Can you just elaborate more on that? Actually, what is it driven by? And then just on the international as well, I know there's 1 asset which you used to partner previously, it's up for sale. What is your take on that asset? Would that give you -- do you see that something like Mondial-type deal, you kind of gain a bigger footprint in the U.K.? Any color on that would be helpful.

Let me maybe take the first question and then the merchant makes and the B2C in the U.K., I would then leave to Rafal and Michael. So I think we do see an upside potential on the margin in Poland. And essentially, if you look at the margin development, it's not necessarily linear year-on-year. So there will be ups and downs in the bumps. I think where '24 is going to be slightly different to '23 in terms of the overall dynamic that supports margin development is, we expect inflation to start normalizing towards the second half of the year. I mean it's currently relatively low, but we expect certain government subsidies to be taken away midyear as announced. And therefore, we'll see some uptick in the inflation rate. So clearly, from the, say, cost pressure perspective, we expect some incremental cost pressure in the second half of the year. Now having said that, clearly, in the context of '21, '22, especially '22 and the first half of '23, we would expect inflation to normalize towards the end of this year and then 2025 and going forward, subject to all other elements remaining intact. And that obviously, if you think about the operating leverage and economies of scale, is very supportive in stabilizing and then growing margin going forward because if you don't have those one-off pressure elements that are impacting your cost base, then your operating leverage is much more pronounced as you have seen historically in the pre-inflation era, if that's the right term in our history prior to 2021 really or 2022. So therefore I think, we will see that progress undoubtedly, especially as we consolidate our leadership footprint, and we also increase scale. As I mentioned, 2024, we're still going to continue deploy the network and undoubtedly, '25 and '26 will continue as well. And therefore, I think high 40s is probably where we still see the potential. So I guess that probably describes a little bit how we see the runway there. And in terms of the U.K. questions, I'll leave the floor to Rafal and Michael.

Yes. So maybe let me first answer the question about Temu and Shein and then passing to Michael for the U.K. I think it's a very fair point to say that both Chinese players, Temu and Shein, are over-performing versus our initial expectations. Very strong start in Jan, continuation in Feb and March, visibly taking share among the new clients, but also existing clients of other platforms as we saw it in our surveys that only 20% of their clients are new, new clients on the Polish market, not using the other platform so far. So that's of course a very good sign for us because this means that we provide them services for new customers, but also the existing customers are increasing their volume per month per quarter per year in terms of online purchases means that the penetration of online within our own channel, thanks to those 2 players aggressively building their customer base is increasing. And also, that's why we feel this is another boost for the Polish e-com penetration and acceleration of that e-com penetration. So all in all, above expectations on both players. Passing to Michael regarding the U.K.

Thank you, Rafal. Just firstly on the B2C question, I think I've raised before. We've been testing a B2C/outbound offer since the end of Q3 and since we commenced the partnership with Menzies. That's been very much in pilot phase with less than 5 clients really testing the product and helping us understand sort of behaviors with the customer and the merchant because clearly, there's a lot of work that needs to really be developed, not just on sort of the actual product offer itself but actually working as merchants on the checkouts and how we present the locker, et cetera, to do that. The current plan, as Adam flagged and I flagged is towards the end of Q3, we plan to really expand that offer to more than 3 clients. It will still be very much early in development because still a lot of focus is going on our C2C and returns of offer. But still quite a lot of demand on that. But really, we do feel that time will be in the second half of the year to really start to actively sell the B2C offer. On the last question, Sathish, sorry, I didn't capture the...

No. Yes, Michael. Actually, let me make it straightforward actually. Every software sale, you used to partner with them previously. And what's your take on it? Do you think it brings -- basically it's a good asset or you are actually building scale with Menzies? Just color around that.

Right now, we're very much focused on building scale and offering product quality with Menzies. Obviously, we're aware of every for sale. I think it's quite public in the market. And I can't really comment at this point or any further point at this point.

Okay. So it's not something for you as things stand today, yes? Is that fair?

Yes.

The next question comes from the line of Roman Reshetnev from Goldman Sachs.

You have made significant progress on Mondial Relay EBITDA margin versus Q3. Could you please provide more details on operational improvements that you made during the quarter? And how much of this efficiencies do you expect to sustain in 2024? And how do you see the phasing of EBITDA margins for first half and second half this year? And second question would be on Italy. You have previously been refraining from providing guidance on Italy. But given the breakeven was achieved in Q4, would you expect further margin improvement versus Q4 this year? And where do we see the balance between growth and profitability going forward?

Michael, maybe about Mondial Relay operating leverage and Italy guidance.

Yes. I think, look, really, what we've seen is a number of factors start to really come to play in Mondial Relay in Q4. One, as Rafal just flagged, the operating leverage, really we've been building the scale, we've been building the critical mass, and we're starting to see that come through. Two, the operational quality itself and the productivity and the efficiency that we're seeing coming through. Thirdly, the product mix is balanced. We've seen the growth of B2C really start to play through, and that obviously comes through in our operating efficiency. So our view is, and Adam already flagged, we expect sort of 100 to 200 basis points improvement as we continue to go forward. And really the progress now we want to sustain it. When it comes to Italy, we won't be guiding specifically on Italy. Very much, it's a great important turning point. It again demonstrates the learnings we're taking from every market now, is really we're now replicating into all the other developing markets. And really this is just another proof point of the model. Even though the model here has been heavily dominant with PUDO, really the other components together really come to really create the operating leverage and the profitability. But we won't be guiding on Italy specifically.

The next question comes from the line of Marco Limite from Barclays.

The first question is on the M&A, as you mentioned that there might be some M&A this year. So are you also thinking about doing M&A in, let's call it the Tier 3 countries, so for example, Italy and Spain? Because my understanding is that at the moment, Italy and Spain are mainly cross-border volumes. So just wondering if it's part of your plan, basically starting proper domestic deliveries rather than just cross-border in Italy and Spain. Second question is on the U.K. and the Menzies sale. Just wondering whether in the call option you have got to buy the remaining stake of Menzies, there is a fixed expiry date. So is that something that we should expect this year or it's up for discussion? And my third question is about France. I think that in '23, there was some margin pressure because of the inflation versus limited price increases. And yes, I was wondering whether, I guess, your new guidance for France also includes the fact that you are increasing prices in 2024? And yes, what's the strategy on price increases in France?

Yes. I can take. Feel free to add anything, Adam or Rafal, but I think I'll take each one in turn. I think firstly, Marco, when it comes to domestic versus cross-border volume in Italy and Spain, there is domestic volume developing, albeit both markets have grown quite successfully over the last 2 years, really with cross-borders being the lead. But we do see domestic volume now starting really on the back of our pan-international European merchants that we've been working with, predominantly in markets like Poland and France. So that we would expect to continue to develop in '24. So we'd expect the mix of the business to become not dramatically domestic, but certainly a more balanced portfolio as we go forward, and that will also be encouraging to help us develop the network locally as well. When it comes to things like M&A in those markets, there's no obvious available targets. But I would say we remain opportunistic if the right opportunity came along, but I think that's a general view on all M&A for us as a company as we consider. But the priority is really to build and focus organically when it comes to that. When it comes to Menzies, we do not comment call option relative to it. I think at the time we said we had a period where we have the view to call option, and we're still very much within that, and we're developing with them. And there's no fixed window on that, more just a factor of we work together to develop and grow and really invest in the quality when it comes to it. On France, I think really, again, I'll comment on what I said with Sathish is towards the end of Q3 and Q4, we continue to see the B2C and the product mix evolve, which is exactly what we set out to do. Two, we've really started to see the operating leverage start to play through, both on sort of the network scale as well as what we're seeing in the logistics offering and the backbone that we've been investing in. When it comes to sort of revenue growth and top line and pricing, we have done a very limited price increase in a very targeted way at the beginning of this year, but very much following the formula of what we've done in Poland. The objective here is not necessarily to put prices up. The objective here is to really work with retailers to secure volume, build the right mechanism, get the right placement and the checkout and really ensure we have a full end-to-end offer, and we'll continue to make those trade-offs as really we're still in the build phase, and we want to take market share and continue to grow well ahead of the market. So therefore, the main operating leverage is not really coming from price, it's really coming from what we're doing in the logistics offering and the network offering combined with the product mix.

Okay. And if I may add a quick one on the U.K. So you are guiding for improvement in margins. But in 2024, when we think about the quarterly evolution, shall we think just about a sequential improvement quarter-over-quarter without basically considering the typical seasonality of the business?

Just to correct, I do -- I mean, sorry, we're not guiding for margin improvement, we're guiding [indiscernible] [ sustaining ] the margin. If anything, there might be some decrease because of investment to OpEx and other elements to invest further and accelerate the network. But I wouldn't be planning or guiding for increase in margin in the U.K. Very much right now is the first objective was to breakeven, demonstrate the profitability of the market. And now we clearly want to invest and accelerate, and that's really the backbone. So I would not be guiding for increases in margin at this point.

[Operator Instructions] And our next question comes from the line of Henk Slotboom from the IDEA!.

I've got a couple of questions about Mondial Relay. First of all, if I look at the B2C proposition, I'm very pleased to see the growth in volumes there. On the other hand, if I look at the total growth of Mondial Relay, although it's well above market growth, what does that tell us about C2C? Is that growing -- is my assumption correct that they're still growing at 6%, 7%-ish? And are you outgrowing the market there as well? Or are you experiencing more competition, for example, from the Vinted Go initiative that was launched? The second question relates to France specifically. If I look at the Geopost website and I look at the e-commerce barometer and all the stuff they write, then obviously, they've made a clear change in their strategy in the past year, prioritizing growth of the out-of-home market. Now to put it in geopolitical terms, if you poke the bear, you're quite likely to encounter a response. Well, in this case, the French bear, Chronopost or Geopost, how do they respond to your strong growth in France? After all, it's their home market. And so far you've been growing, yes, quite impressively as a challenger there. And then the third thing and that's also with regard to Mondial Relay. If I look at Slide 25, and I look at the third bullet points, then it says revenue per parcel declined due to the product mix and the out-of-home prioritization over to-door. Now I can understand that to-door has a higher price tag than the out-of-home route. But what about the product mix? If your B2C volume is outgrowing the overall volume, I thought that B2C margins were higher than C2C margins. Those were my questions.

Yes. Happy to answer. Nice to speak. Just coming back, yes, clearly the focus on priority has been on B2C growth. And we're clearly seeing a fairly significant market share gains in that part of the segment. Yes, C2C growth is not growing at the same pace, but that also is by design. Really, our market share in C2C is probably somewhere between 45% to 50% estimated. And really, what we have actively built the network and we continue to invest in the network is to capture and grow the B2C growth, because our market share there has more historically been in the single digit. So as we look at the medium term and look forward, very much our strategy is to maintain our C2C position and really ensure that sits. And probably that sits around single-digit growth. I think that's a good outcome. But the focus in the company is to really grow our market share on B2C because we've been so underpenetrated and now, that's really the opportunity both for share and margin in the medium to longer term. When it comes to France and sort of poking the French bear, I think the way we sort of consider it and the way I look at it right now is when we made the acquisition, I would say we were probably somewhere like a #3 in the market. There was probably an equal #3. There was 2 or 3 other companies that were similar size and scale. And really, if I look at it today, we're now a meaningful number 2. Even in our terms of scale and size, clearly, we're growing aggressively. But I think what we've done very successfully is create a meaningful distance between the other players in the market to really establish ourselves and Geopost and Chronopost as sort of the main offerings and players in the market. Our offer is still very much focused on out-of-home. We're not really trying to offer to-door solution in terms of any competitive way because really, we see that the point of differentiation, clearly lockers being at the back of that. And if I look at the footprint in the market in terms of competitive offering, I would say there's still not a lot of competitive offering when it comes to lockers, and we clearly seem to be the major player in accelerating versus sort of the incumbent players in the market when it comes to that. Do they react? Is there price competitiveness? Of course, we see that. But what I also stay focused is clearly our offering is trying to really target sort of lockers and really bring that new to the market, of which really we are not competing in terms of sort of a shop-to-shop offer. Obviously, that offer is still part of our offer from our legacy PUDO business. But the locker business is now at scale and that becomes meaningful. Coming back to your last question on Page 25, I mean, Adam commented on this. I think there's a couple of elements going on. Firstly, we have historically had quite a bit of to-door business. So clearly, as we've exited that, it is a lower price. So that's diluting the revenue for parcel. You're right, in the B2C side, clearly, there is opportunity to grow price. But as Adam already flagged on the call, we're focusing on our key enterprise merchants where maybe price is not as sort of leveraged as maybe an SME or a mid-market portfolio, where that opportunity really going into '24 and beyond is still greenfield and unexplored and we're really starting to enter into that. But that also is what's driving some of the end economics because clearly, the B2C is improving on the operational efficiency. But on the price side, maybe not driving the same mix because we're working with larger clients to accelerate on the growth.

Perhaps an add-on to your last answer. Am I correct to assume that -- and you said, I believe, in the introduction that 60% of the B2C volume was already delivered on a D+1 basis, that you -- that there's no price difference between D+1 and the rest, yes?

No, we're not -- literally, the way that is because the network has evolved and we're able to deliver. And that's also a factor of quality. I call it surprise and delight the customer. But it's not that we're actively selling D+1 in terms of that specific data point, more of that is the ability right now in the network, we're able through injection to deliver 60% to D+1 already. So clearly, that will provide opportunity as we've said in the past, in the future as we really start to evolve the product mix in the coming years.

We have no further questions on the line. So I will now hand over to [ Owen ] for some webcast questions.

Thanks, Jess. Our first webcast question comes from Pras Jeyanandhan from Downing Fund Managers. "Could you explain the commercial opportunity of InPost Pay in more detail? Is this just about generating more volumes through the network? Or is it a revenue opportunity in its own right? Will it be rolled out in international businesses?"

Thank you for that question. Let me answer that. So several times, I explained that InPost Pay for me personally but also for the company, is the biggest innovation since our first locker was deployed in Poland. And that's linked to a profound impact that this product surely will have on our business. Naturally, we start with Poland. But once it's fully landed in Poland with all the functionalities or even a little bit sooner, we want to test it as well on the other markets. And the structure of that product is to be scalable literally on all the markets, bringing us not only additional volume but as well strengthening the realization of the end user base and giving us ability to provide even higher NPS to our end users. So it's too early now to disclose all the details for all these reasons. We are closely watched by the others. But I think a fair statement is, this is really the biggest innovation since the beginning of our locker network, and this will also translate into more -- even more tech-oriented approach of the whole company than just being a strongly funded logistics innovator. So this will definitely help us to disrupt the e-commerce whole process linked to delivery much more efficiently than today.

Our next question was from Jake Barfield from Asheville Capital Management. "Last year you spoke about competition increasing in Poland and there being no visible impact in your volumes or your prices. Can you provide an update on this, please?"

I think the numbers speak for themselves. I mean we are growing ahead of the market, significantly outpacing the market growth. Just a quick reminder, you need to look at the volume because GMV is not very often translating into volume. So we are outpacing the market volume-wise, we want to continue. So that means we know some of the competitors are losing money on their development. And this is not surprising us because it's not about deploying lockers, it's all about the complex ecosystem we've built. We are continuously building. We are strengthening by adding new products like mini parcel, like InPost Pay, like Fulfillment, like InPost Fresh. So this is an ecosystem that's giving us strength, not the dense network of the locals itself. So we continuously take over the volume from door-to-door and from other players, and that's reflected in the numbers and the dynamics we have explicitly shown on the presentation.

Thanks. And the next question is from [ Maja Bodek ] from Santander. "Could you comment on the covenants that you currently have on your debt? Is the leverage ratio the only limit when it comes to acquisitions? Or is there a spending value limit as well?"

Yes. Yes, the only financial covenant that we have is the net leverage ratio. The indicative level of the covenant is north of 4x. So clearly, given where we are is this very significant headroom on this one. There are also obviously spending baskets, but they are related to the actual covenant level. So as long as the leverage is in the right space, effectively, you could say we are not constrained by the spending baskets. So yes, that's pretty much how it operates.

Next question is from Othmane Bricha from Bank of America. "You target to continue improving your market share in Poland. How do you see competition evolving in the midterm, notably with a potential merger between ORLEN and Polish State Post? Also, I appreciate it's still early in the year. Can you provide us with an outlook on interest cost and potential FX gains or losses on debt?"

Thank you. Let me answer the first part of the question, then I will hand over to Adam. So we try not to comment competitive moves and what people think, what they speculate or what they want to do because we were, we are and we want to be the trendsetter on the market. So we have our own agenda. And according to the agenda, we are realizing more and more on the markets, including Poland. And of course, the new product development on our desk should strengthen that. That's also what I said about InPost Pay, but also cross-border, for instance. So again, not speculating, not commenting, doing our own job. And I think the others are underestimating the loyalization of the consumer base, and we are fully focused on that because that's the most important element. At the end, who votes, the end users vote. And that's where we are totally focused on.

Yes. And in terms of financial costs for 2024 and most notably, foreign exchange gains and losses, the latter one obviously is a super tricky one. If you observed the impact of the FX valuation gains and losses on our financial cost line, it's been very volatile across the 2023. So you have seen a significant negative impact in the first half of the year, driven by the weakening of the Polish zloty versus euro. Then you have seen a very significant strengthening, then it weakened again in Q3 and then in Q4 on the back of political changes, new government, much more positive in terms of EU dialogue and much more, I guess, predictable as a player on the political scene. The PLN has improved again and has strengthened quite significantly, driving the valuation losses. So effectively, very difficult to say because it all depends on the geopolitics. It all depends on global markets and how the currencies play. Important to say, these are noncash valuation gains or losses. So effectively, as long as we don't pay down the whole debt that's on the balance sheet, they are not necessarily impacting our ability to run and grow the business as such. Net-net, we would expect a more predictable and stable PLN in 2024. As you know, clearly, politically, at least in Poland, there is more predictability, stability and much better pronounced, I think, economic policy and also dialogue with the EU. Obviously, the broader geopolitics and especially tensions around Ukraine-Russia war remain a bit of a question mark. So very difficult to form a very strong view. When it comes to actually financial expenses, we would expect those to reduce versus 2023. So then again, first of all, as we continue to generate meaningful cash and positive cash flow, we should actually see the utilization of our revolving facilities reduced a little bit compared to 2023. And then secondly, we have hedged part of our PLN-denominated debt, catching the right market position last year. And therefore, we continue now to pay on the interest rate, which is way below the market rate and therefore, I would expect to have a positive margin versus '23.

Our next question was from [ Jakob ], retail investor. "Will you be paying a dividend in the future?"

Well, I think we've been very consistent since the IPO. And every time we're asked this question, the answer was as long as there is an opportunity for us to invest capital with a better return for the shareholders and create shareholder value, we would not be distributing dividends. And for the foreseeable future, I think as we look at the market opportunity and growth potential, it is not definitely a scenario for the next at least several quarters for the company.

The last question we have via the webcast is from [ Mikeli ], a private investor. "When is cross-border going to be available in Poland? And when will all company's markets are going to be connected? What are your long-term goals when it comes to the number of APMs in Europe? When will you introduce InPost Pay in other countries? And are you looking forward to any new acquisitions?"

Very quickly, in terms of cross-border, one of the priorities for 2024. So I may already admit that this will go live in 2024, linking all our markets across the board. We already have cross-border between France-Italy, France-Iberia and France-Benelux. So it's nothing completely new for us. I mean the risk associated with launching that kind of service is very limited, and we want to go into that at full scale this year. In terms of long-term goals, the number of APMs, this is literally a blue ocean. So this is very linked to -- this is much I would say driven by the adoption of out-of-home per market, but also adoption of automated out-of-home per market. If you ask me about a big bold number for the markets we operate, I would say I would not be surprised with 100,000 APMs in our hands across the markets and long term. But of course, the phasing is strictly linked to the demand and the development of the market. And I think about InPost Pay, I already answered. In terms of M&As, we also commented we stay opportunistic. We are looking at everything what's around, which it doesn't immediately mean we are in any process right now. But definitely looking around is on top of our agenda.

Thanks, Rafal. And before we close today's call, I'm going to pass back to Jess, who has one further question via the phone lines.

So our next question comes from the line of Stefano Toffano from ABN AMRO.

Apologies if this question has already been answered. I was a little bit late. But there are news articles today out saying that the expectations of a softening of the adjusted EBITDA margin in Poland reflects the launch of a mini parcel offering with lower pricing. I don't know, this is the first time I'm hearing about this. I don't know if it's true, and maybe if you can say something on that. And then the second question I have is just maybe the specification on the answer that you gave to my colleague, Henk, before, the revenue per parcel declined due to the product mix in Mondial Relay. Do I understand it correctly that, yes, B2C is growing within the mix, but particularly due to the bigger anchor merchants, hence at lower pricing points? So that's the reason of the revenue per parcel decline due to the profit mix?

Happy to answer the first part of your question. So indeed, we have launched additional new products. We were preparing for it in the last 3 years, literally adding to our lockers, specifically pretty tiny lockers or tiny compartments for very small parcels. And we launched that product 2 weeks ago. Now we started a campaign around it. It's not the driver of the anchored margin around mid-40s, and then I'll explain the complexity around it. But definitely, this is a product that is giving us access to a completely new part of the market where -- for which our current services were too expensive for the size of the goods that people ship. So consumers have to compromise and simply agree on a much worse quality for lower price using traditional forms of deliveries, mostly the postal offices, so kind of economy parcel. We wanted to change that, offering literally a premium service on slightly lower prices than our small size, the A size by introducing this new mini parcel product. And we see already after those 2 weeks, a very strong traction on that, and this is a completely new area, new clients, new consumers. And this is a product for individuals. So that's also very important. So this is not a product we are offering currently for our other B2C merchants. In terms of Mondial once again, Michael would you take that?

Again, just to repeat, Stefano, the main primary driver of the revenue mix change is actually because we're not selling and we removed to-door offering. That is obviously a higher price point. There's 2 parts of that actual to-door offering just to give you a flavor. Obviously, the traditional to-door offer, which we actually did through a third party and not ourselves. And the second is actually elements where we had very, very large bulky products that in fact we don't fit in lockers anymore that may have traditionally went to a PUDO or to-door. And we've exited that, which obviously the revenue per parcel is a lot higher as well. So that is the main driver of the revenue drop. The B2C growth is good, but obviously, the B2C growth that we're selling with larger merchants is not necessarily reducing the revenue per parcel, it's just not replacing the revenue per parcel that we're exiting. So hence, the drop in that component.

We have no further questions. So I will now hand back to your host for some closing remarks.

Thank you. Thank you for all your questions, guys. A quick summary, as always, on my end, just highlighting the key developments as a summary. In 2023, we achieved record-breaking results in terms of all the metrics, key metrics, profits, revenues, but most importantly, the volumes handled, almost 1 billion parcels. Most importantly, we also accomplished our strategic goals. And despite all these challenging conditions in the e-commerce market, we reported growth in each of our key countries that outpaced the market. And now we've almost 66,000 out-of-home points, that makes us the leading out-of-home network in Europe. Our group maintains its position as the uncontested leader of parcel locker networks in Poland, but also taking the leading position in the U.K. and in France. In Poland, very important remark is that we continuously [ refine ] the quality of our offerings, leading to really very positive user ratings. And the recent November Kantar survey showing clearly that InPost once the gain received the highest NPS score in the industry at 80 points. Moreover, irrespective of all those initiatives around us in Poland, 94% of Polish customers shopping online, they choose InPost locker as their preferred delivery form, not other lockers, InPost locker, 94%. And last year's peak shopping season once again, again proved that we are the best and the most reliable and preferred partner for customers and merchants, delivering parcels literally on a Christmas day, day before Christmas as a guaranteed delivery method. In France, operating under Mondial Relay brand, we not only grew faster than the market, but also recorded this 23% year-on-year increase in B2C volumes, which is super important for us in terms of the long-term strategy. And we are expanding the network. 2023 breakthrough again in the U.K., we acquired a stake in the logistics operator Menzies, which increased our control over the whole logistics process, and we achieved definitely an increase in volumes handled and finally, the EBITDA profitability. Becoming profitable in Italy is another significant milestone for us. And at the end, we've also not neglected our commitments to reduce the negative impact of our business operations on the environment. The Carbon Disclosure Project awarded InPost a rating of minus A, well above the global average C rating for the logistics businesses, confirming really the effectiveness of the actions in combating climate change. Deliveries for InPost locker are the most ecological form of parcel delivery, just thanks to this high density, we generated up to 97% lower carbon CO2 emission. And that was this effort and this ESG strategy we have recently been -- have been recognized by the inclusion of InPost into Euronext's ESG index. Looking ahead to 2024, InPost is set, in my opinion, to outperform market growth across all regions expecting, again, profitability in every market and aiming to capture more B2C market share, especially in France, but also accelerating our U.K. expansion. In summarizing our achievement so far, I would really also like to emphasize that I look very optimistically towards the future in this realization of our strategic plans. And last but not least, at the end, as this is the last time in such room for Adam, let me say a big thank you to you for your exceptional leadership, invaluable contributions as our group CFO. Your strategic vision has been, Adam, very pivotal in our business development and your guidance as a trusted colleague, but also my close friend, will be greatly missed in the boardroom. So while we are sad to see you step down from this role, I'm super thrilled that your expertise will continue to benefit our company in your new capacity. Thank you all for your participation in our call, and have a great day, guys. Thank you.

Thank you, Rafal, for the warm words. Thanks a lot. Thank you, everyone, also for good cooperation. It's been a pleasure.