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 Second Quarter 2024 Earnings Call. A quick disclaimer that today's call includes forward-looking statements that are subject to risks, and it is possible that the actual results may differ materially. This call is being recorded, and the recording will be available on our IR website shortly after we wrap it up today. After the slides, we will have a Q&A session. Today's presenters are Rafal Brzoska, CEO; Michael Rouse, CEO, International; and Javier van Engelen, CFO of the InPost Group. I am now pleased to turn over to our CEO, Rafal, over to you.

Good morning, everyone. Thank you, Gabi, and thank you all for being here today. We are pleased to share another quarter of very strong performance by InPost Group. These results in Q2 and in the first half of 2024 demonstrate execution of our strategy across all markets. We are very proud of the progress made so far this year. At the group level, in the last quarter alone, InPost handled 264 million parcels, a significant year-over-year increase of 23% with revenue growing at a comparable rate. Our adjusted EBITDA grew by 29% year-over-year, and the group adjusted EBITDA margin reached almost 34%. Q2 was another great quarter for Poland. Our revenue grew by 22% and our adjusted EBITDA margin reached 46%, a slight Q-on-Q improvement. Our last quarter was particularly strong in international markets, where parcel volume increased by 29%, and the revenues grew by 27% in local currency. For the first time ever, our adjusted EBITDA margin outside Poland was in the double digits, reaching 15%. Javier will expand on the financials later in the call, but let me first share some highlights from operations in the international markets on the next slide. In the U.K., we have achieved new record parcel volumes with over 23 million parcels delivered in 1 quarter. In addition, this went hand-in-hand with continued margin expansion. We see huge demand for our services in the U.K. Our APM network is highly utilized, so we need to double up on our efforts in network deployment. Also in the U.K., we've continued to expand our B2C MVP pilot with encouraging initial results. You can now place orders for pickup at our APMs in around 20 online stores, and we are seeing very positive reception of this new service from both APM users and merchants. In Mondial Relay, we've finally seen the increase in profitability that we promised to deliver this year. We see increasing customer adoption of APMs as well. The volume delivered to lockers last quarter more than doubled year-on-year, and we continue to focus on our B2C strategy in the Mondial Relay markets. We were an official partner of the Tour de France race, which further strengthen our brand presence and customer engagement in France and Italy. Let's move on to the next page. One of our key strategic priorities is to continue to expand our Pan-European outlook for network with a particular focus on APM deployment. We are leading out-of-home network in Europe with over 70,000 points, including over 40,000 APMs. Our extensive APM network solidifies our position as #1 in key markets such as the U.K., France and of course, Poland. In Q2 alone, we deployed a record high number of lockers, installing 3,000 new machines across Europe or over 5,000 this year so far. This accelerating expansion is a testament to the growing demand for our services and our ability to swiftly scale operations. This robust network is not just about numbers. It's about providing unparalleled convenience and accessibility to our customers, making us the preferred solution for out-of-home delivery across the continent. Let's move on to the next slide on market trends. Just like in previous quarters, we continue to gain market share in all our key geographies. In Poland, it is even more important to highlight that we continued expanding our market share, while already being the leading player. In Mondial Relay countries, despite facing a challenging environment at a declining market, we are significantly exceeding e-commerce parcel growth. We are very encouraged by the fact that especially in the strategically important B2C sector, our volumes grew by over 20% year-over-year. In the U.K., our proven concept not only drives significant volume increases but also enhances profitability as we scale up. In Q2 2024, we were able to accelerate growth compared to Q1 2024. On the next page, let me share with you some exciting sport-related initiatives at InPost. Last quarter, we had a lot of success in the field of sponsorship. Our consistent approach is to support top sports events, teams but also individuals, reinforcing our brand presence and market leadership across key regions. In Poland, we have recently extended our contract sponsored a national football team, a partnership that continues to capture the tension of millions with each much drawing an average viewership of 10 million. We are a sponsor of the Tour de France. In June, 10 million spectators watched the race along the route. And at the July Olympics, one of our InPost sports team members won an Olympic medal. Most recently, we have shared another piece of exciting news from the world of sport. InPost Group has become the official partner of Atletico Madrid. This marks our second partnership with a major football team following our collaboration with Newcastle United. In our partnerships, we aim to strengthen local awareness of the InPost and Mondial Relay brands reinforcing our position as a market leader and cultivating the status of a brand that customers truly love. Moving on to our business update for Poland. In Poland, we have continued strengthening our leadership by consistently expanding our network and generating above-market volume growth. In the last quarter, we added more than 800 machines so we now have over 23,000 APMs. This expansion not only enhances our coverage but also solidifies our position as the undisputed leader in Poland's out-of-home delivery market. Our parcel volumes in Poland increased by 20%, reflecting strong consumer demand and again, proving our ability to meet it effectively. To door deliveries also saw dynamic growth surging by 50% year-over-year. APM volumes grew by 15% year-on-year, faster than the locker expansion, demonstrating again that we are consistently growing the utilization of our network. It is important to highlight that despite already best-in-class utilization of our network, we are still able to improve on that year-over-year. Let's move on to the next slide. Lockers are a more convenient solution for customers. This is concerned, not only by our consistent ability to grow volumes ahead of the market, but also by third-party independent market research. In Poland, consumer satisfaction remains a cornerstone of our success, as reflected in the impressive and growing number of APM users. Currently, 18.6 million people use our machines out of 24 shopping online. Additionally, our top-rated mobile app has become a vital tool for our customers with more than 12.6 million active users. Our customers have a strong connection with InPost, which has truly become a love brand across Poland. This loyalty is evident in the recent Kantar survey conducted in June where an overwhelming 94% of respondents indicated that InPost lockers are their preferred method for receiving parcels. Furthermore, 85% of respondents choose InPost lockers as their preferred method for sending parcels, leaving our competitors far behind in both categories. We are particularly proud that we have maintained our high NPS of 80, which underscores the trust and satisfaction of our customers. We see clear evidence of our customers' loyalty, reflected in our internal data as demonstrated on the next slide, where we take a closer look at who is driving our volumes. Half of the population of Poland uses InPost APMs. And this group is still growing year-over-year. More importantly, we are seeing an increase in activity among our multilayer group, the super heavy users. These are users that received at least 40 parcels in the last 12 months. Not only is this highly engaged growing in number, but the order frequency is also increasing each year. As a result, these loyal customers now generate 68% of our APM volume. We are constantly exploring new ways to enhance and expand our services for customers as well. InPost Pay is a prime example. Since our last call, the number of registered users on the app has surpassed 4 million, marking another significant milestone. I'll now hand over to Michael for a short update on our international business. Thank you, guys.

Thanks, Rafal. Good morning, everyone. As you can see on this slide, Q2 2024 has been another strong quarter for the international business and all the markets that operate within it. With a record high locker deployment, for the first time, we've deployed over 2,000 machines outside of Poland and once more in the first half of '24 we've deployed over 3,700 APMs internationally. This is more than all our competitors in these markets combined in the markets we operate within. We've continued to take market share from legacy incumbent players, attracting and building on the number of new users to APMs in all markets, and solidified InPost and Mondial Relay as the leading locker solution in the U.K. and France. Our international volume and by international, I mean all countries you operate in, excluding Poland, has increased in line with our out-of-home network expansion. But what we're most proud of and is what you can see below, the number of parcels delivered to lockers increased almost 3x more than our total APM deployment. That was a clear sign that our lockers are definitely gaining popularity in international markets. So now let's move on to Mondial Relay. Our key priorities remain consistent, expanding our APM network, increasing customer and merchant adoption and investing in enhancing end-to-end operational quality. Starting with operational improvements, in Q2 '24, we continue to invest in logistics to deliver better quality. We now deliver circa 60% of our B2C parcels the next day. And here are 3 crucial points to highlight. First, we set a new record for locker deployment in Mondial Relay markets, adding over 1,000 APMs in the last quarter and nearly 2,000 this year, significantly accelerating our network expansion. In France alone, we have just reached 6,000 APMs. Second, the number of parcels delivered to lockers has grown at a much faster rate than our APM deployment. Deliveries to lockers now account for 1/4 of all deliveries, excluding returns. Last but not least, we continue to see strong growth in our strategically important B2C and return segment, which has significantly outpaced total volume growth. While the growth rate has slowed compared with previous quarters due to the higher base in nominal terms, it has surpassed the peak of Q4 '23. The increase in B2C deliveries, higher locker volumes and overall volume growth are all positively impacting our profitability, which Javier will discuss in more detail later. In the international markets, we're on the journey to replicate the successful Polish flywheel, placing customer centricity at the core of our strategy and continue to work on improving the user experience. We've maintained the best NPS rating in the market, and we continue to receive very positive consumer and merchant feedback alike. One of the tools we're leveraging to enhance user experience is our mobile app, which has gained continuous significant traction with now over 2.1 million downloads in France alone. While the app doesn't yet offer all the features available in the Polish market, the core functionalities are now in place. And importantly, we've already observed that the app customer user is now frequently using an APM more than the non-app user. Now let's turn our attention to the U.K. on Page 17. In Q2 '24, we saw an acceleration of volume and profitability compared with both Q1 '24 and the end of last year. We have the largest APM network in the U.K. with over 7,500 APMs. In H1 '24, we added over 1,000 lockers with 700 machines deployed in the last quarter alone. The number of APMs grew by almost 40%, while the number of lockers was up by 60% year-over-year. The result of the continuously deploying larger machines and expanding existing ones within the network. As illustrated on the right-hand side, our quarterly volume experienced consistent growth throughout '23 and the first half of '24. In the last quarter, volumes more than doubled year-over-year. And it is worth highlighting that in half one '24, we generated volumes similar to the whole of 2023. In the coming quarter, we'll continue our ambitious deployment plan and expand beyond the core 3 cities that's already well underway, offering national 7-day week coverage for the U.K. market. We're also piloting our B2C offering, as I've mentioned before on previous calls. You now may have seen us at the checkout of major fashion brands throughout the U.K. We have drawn some encouraging conclusions from that project, and we hope to share later in the year some of those important findings, but I'll now move on to the next slide. In the U.K., in line with what we've seen at Mondial Relay, we're witnessing a significant increase in mobile app downloads. Last quarter, many times, the InPost app ranked amongst the top 10 most downloaded lifestyle apps in the U.K., even reaching #1 on a few occasions. But given that the app users tend to place more orders than the non-app users, the growing popularity of our mobile app has the potential to drive additional volume over time, as we continue to build the full infrastructure and user base in the U.K. While it's still too early to provide detailed insights, the initial data on user behavior and order frequency are very encouraging. I'll now hand over to Javier to talk about the financial highlights, and thank you.

Thank you, Michael, and good morning, everyone. Let's start with the summary of our second quarter financial performance on the next slide. Let's begin by taking a closer look at the group's P&L performance, focusing on our Q2 results and the dynamics driving them. While we'll concentrate on the second quarter, you can also observe the year-to-date figures for a broader perspective. At the group level, as told by Rafal and Michael, both parcel volume and revenue recorded very strong and above market growth, each increasing by 23% year-over-year. This strong performance was primarily driven by our operations in Poland and by the strong results from our international markets. Our adjusted EBITDA also showed significant growth up by 29% with substantial contributions from all markets. This increase in profitability is reflected in the improved adjusted EBITDA margin, which reached 34%. The margin expansion was particularly influenced by a very good performance of our international markets. It's worth noting that while CapEx intensity saw an uptick in Q2, the year-to-date data shows it remains relatively stable, staying within the 11% to 12% range. Group free cash flow in quarter 2, 2024 amounted to a healthy PLN 154 million. Combined with adjusted EBITDA growth, this resulted in a reduction in our leverage ratio to just below 2x. This healthy financial position reflects our ongoing focus on balancing growth with financial discipline, ensuring we continue to deliver strong results across the board. Breaking down the financial highlights by segment on Slide 21, let's begin with the results from our Polish business, which continues to be a key driver of our overall performance. The volume in Poland increased by 20% with growth coming from all market segments, the fastest expansion being in the fashion sector and in marketplaces. This growth has translated into a 22% increase in revenue, positively impacted by single-digit repricing. Our adjusted EBITDA margin in Poland reached 46%, an improvement over the previous quarter. This margin expansion is a testament to our effective cost management strategies, particularly in controlling cost of goods sold and SG&A. However, it's important to note that margins were partially diluted by the increased volume of to-door parcels, particularly from lower-priced Asian e-commerce platforms. The slight margin softening on a year-on-year basis is the effect of the high base in previous year, but is fully in line with our guidance for 2024. On Slide 22, let's turn our attention to the strong results delivered by Mondial Relay, which continues to play a crucial role in our overall group performance. Mondial Relay achieved a 9% increase in volume, noticeably outpacing the broader market. This growth was largely driven by another quarter of strong performance in the strategically important B2C segment, which saw an impressive 21% year-on-year increase. This underscores the effectiveness of our focused strategy to capture and expand our share in this important segment. Revenue growth in local currency closely matched the increase in volume, reflecting our ability to maintain pricing discipline and capitalize on growing demand. We also saw a significant improvement in our adjusted EBITDA margin, which rose to 17%. This increase was fueled by a positive mix effect, including more B2C volume in total share as well as more APM volume in total parcels delivered. That effect was strengthened by ongoing operational improvements including better middle and last mile unit costs as well as strict control over recurring SG&A expenses. On Slide 23, you can see that both volume and revenue for Italy and the U.K. combined have more than doubled compared to quarter 2, 2023. U.K. volume grew by an impressive 163%, a higher year-on-year growth than in the previous quarter, as we gain scale in C2C and returns volume. In Italy, volume reached 5.5 million parcels, up 28% compared to Q2 2023, mainly driven by B2C. In both markets, revenue growth outstripped volume growth as a result of the product mix impact. On a total segment basis, adjusted EBITDA improved from a negative PLN 24 million in quarter 2 2023 to a positive PLN 31.8 million in quarter 2 2024, generating for the first time ever a double-digit adjusted EBITDA margin. Profitability for the entire reporting segment is slightly higher than in Q1 2024 due to the improvements both by market and in the country mix. On the next slide, you see the usual bridge between adjusted EBITDA and net profit for the first half of 2024. Year-on-year adjusted EBITDA in Polish zloty for half 1 2024 is up by 32%, translating into a profit margin improvement by 250 basis points from 30.2% to 32.6%. Net profit from continuing operations in absolute terms is up by plus 143% or by 580 basis points from 5.9% to 11.7% of sales. At 29.2%, our half 1 increase in Polish zloty group operating EBITDA is broadly in line with adjusted EBITDA growth. Group EBIT is up in the first half 2024 by plus 39.7% year-on-year as the IFRS 16 amortization behind our increasing APM and depot footprint was partially offset by the longer useful life of our APMs. Between EBIT and net profit, you can see the usual interest expenses connected with debt as well as some improvement in our effective tax rate due to lower losses in the U.K. and Italy compared to last year. Slide 25 shows a healthy and improving cash generation dynamics of the InPost business. For the first half of 2024, Poland generated PLN 623 million in free cash flow, representing an increased free cash flow conversion rate of 44% compared with 41% for the same period last year. Free cash flow investment in international markets amounted to PLN 256 million, a slight decrease from PLN 262 million in half 1 2023. Altogether, the group's adjusted EBITDA to free cash flow conversion improved from 17% in half 1 2023 to 22% in half 1 2024. To close the financial highlights section, let me still say a word on net debt and leverage, as shown on Slide 26. Compared with year-end 2023, gross debt at the end of half 1 increased from PLN 6.6 billion to PLN 6.9 billion with changes mainly in IFRS 16 lease liabilities and other IFRS 16 items such as transportation fleet and office leases. Net debt increased by PLN 40.3 million, much lower than gross debt on the back of higher cash generation. The slightly higher debt combined with a 14.6% increase in the last 12 months adjusted EBITDA resulted in a decrease of our leverage ratio from 2.2x at the end of Q4 2023 to 1.95x at the end of half 1 2024. I will happy to remind you that at the end of half 1 2023, our leverage ratio still stood at 2.7x last 12 months EBITDA. With that in mind, let me close the financial highlights with the outlook on the next slide. In short, while we had a strong start in the half 1 2024, we are keeping our outlook for the full year broadly unchanged. The key reason for this is the fact that we are just in front of the most volume heavy and important phase of the year, which is the peak season. At the same time, the geopolitical situation around this is not getting any easier. Hence, we believe a fair portion of caution is still a warranted. As such, the only update is on market volume trends that we have observed. In Poland, market volume growth is slightly better than we expected at the beginning of the year, while internationally, market trends are slightly lower than we saw at the beginning of the year. This doesn't change our view on full year group results for 2024, as we are growing ahead of the market in each geography. As we are keeping the rest of the full year outlook unchanged, I will not take any more of your time to walk through the details. In closing, do let me still give you an update on Q3 volumes. So far in Q3 2024, we are running at a volume growth of around 20% at the group level with volume in Poland growing in the high to mid-teens and total international volume growing at a similar rate to Q2 2024. Thank you all. And now over to the operator for the Q&A session.

[Operator Instructions] The first question comes from Marco Limite from Barclays.

I would say the first question is on the margin at Mondial Relay, which were very, very strong also when we think about the quarter-over-quarter progression. So yes, if you could give a bit better color on what is driving this very big margin expansion quarter-over-quarter? My second question is on the Polish volumes. So the APM volumes are growing 15%, but to-door volumes are growing plus 50%, which is a very big number. I assume that's coming from international platforms. And just wondering what's your strategy there? Because clearly, in the past, you've been saying that you aim at converting all the volumes into APM deliveries. So is that also the strategy for these international volumes? And yes, the third question very quickly. By looking at some of the macro data, I spotted that inflation is actually quite normalized in Poland, while wage inflation remains quite still high single-digit level. So there is a bit of a disconnect between normal inflation and wage inflation and whether you think that's a problem, let's say, on repricing next year, as you reprice at wage inflation, while you actually -- sorry, you reprice at normal inflation while you have higher inflation from wage inflation?

Thank you, Marco. I'll probably start with the first question, and then I'll hand it over to Rafal to look at the other questions. Look, the Mondial Relay margin, let me quickly go through that. As we said in the call, the margin improvement we see in Q2 is, as we already said, it's kind of what we've been waiting for a while. And what we see is that we see higher volumes, which obviously have a positive impact. We see the mix impact and the mix impact is twofold. It's a higher share of B2C and it's also a higher share of APM and both of them obviously drives also a positive mix. At the same time, we've got cost optimization. Cost optimization is mainly on line haul and last-mile operations. We've also used some external help basically to identify where we have that opportunity. I've seen some good benefits coming from that. And then at the same time, it's also a question of controlling the total overhead cost, the SG&A, when we're growing 9% on top line, obviously, we also have to make sure that from a spending point of view, we keep spending in the control if we get efficiencies there. So I would say that you see about on the margin improvement we've seen, it's probably about 1/3, 1/3, 1/3 across mix performance and then also the SG&A control. If you look now at the results and also to just be a little bit realistic here, if you look at the half 1 results, you see that we are now up about 190 basis points versus a year ago, which is at the high end of the guidance we gave. We're going to have to see for the balance of the year. Balance of the year in the end, normally, second half is slightly less profitable, but we're going to see that we can maintain the good performance, but it looks like, indeed, we have the positive traction on the business on different elements that we now get to sustainably higher margin.

Michael, anything on top of this?

Look, I think -- just to really build on Javier's point, I think, the critical 2 things here are business mix, volume mix really developing -- that has been developing over the last few quarters on the B2C side. And two, effectively the operating leverage that we're getting now across the network, as we be building the APM density and coverage. And as I flagged, if you look at the actual volume that's now going through the APMs, clearly, aside stripping even the APM growth of deployment itself. So those things all come together, it clearly give that continued positive mix and margin improvement, while we overall maintain the cost structure.

Thank you, Michael. Answering 2 other questions. So first of all, rightly, door-to-door is growing. This is a great testament to our quality, I must say. So irrespective of our really powerful APM solution, in par, we are continuously developing best-in-class one-stop shop for our merchants having both extraordinary good services. And when you look at our NPS, you clearly notice no one else may match the quality and the customer experience on both services, including door-to-door. So clearly, door-to-door is also, for us, a kind of entry gate to provide future network, cross-border solution across all our markets. So we will be able to offer not only out-of-home delivery but also best-in-class door-to-door delivery. In terms of the inflation, rightly said it's stabilizing, but on a pretty higher level than elsewhere. So that, of course, has got an impact mostly on the energy cost. And we haven't decided yet about the pricing policy for 2025. It's too early. But definitely, I think in our Q3 results, we'll be better positioned to share our view on that.

We will now take our next question from David Kerstens from Jefferies.

Impressive results, ramping up your network and increasing utilization at the same time. I've got 2 questions, please. First, on the U.K. market, how is your U.K. strategy evolving with Menzies in the changing competitive landscape with Evri now being taken over by another private equity firm and Royal Mail potentially being taken over as well? And is there room for continued collaboration with Evri owner -- the new private equity owner? Then my second question is on the follow-up on Marco's question on the stronger-than-expected profitability improvement in international in the second quarter. I understand 17% from only overlay maybe not sustainable for the second half. Do you expect U.K. to accelerate or improve from the 10% level in the second quarter? And can you also highlight what the impact is on the tax rate at 18% in the second quarter, much lower than expected? How do you see the tax rate as a result of the better profitability in international for the full year?

I can take probably the first 2 questions, David, maybe hand over to Javier just to answer on the tax question. Look, I think first and foremost, we're very pleased about the development with the partnership with Menzies, and that's something we continue to build on and cherish. And clearly -- as a part of the option when we did the investment, clearly, we have a call option in that business. And clearly, that's something we continue to evaluate as the progress continues to develop. But obviously, for us right now, it's continuing to develop and accelerate the network. We see, as we consistently grow the network in the U.K., we're really developing consumer usage as we open up new geographies that we started at the beginning and end of last year, above the main core cities. So really great partnership. The dynamics in the market have been interesting in the last few months, but that obviously just reinforces the opportunity that's in front of us. Clearly, we're still coming from a very low base. The growth in the network is critically important in the next phase because as we've demonstrated the actual locker utilization is super high, the Menzies partnership has allowed us to really provide the market a 7-day-a-week solution. We've been testing now B2C for the last 2 quarters. We've now started to ramp up new brands onto that platform, such as H&M and Zara, as an example, and really, we're seeing continued encouraging results, but again, very early, and we need to continue to invest into the network. So link to your U.K. margin, frankly, I wouldn't expect the margins to continue to improve more. We want to continue to accelerate our investment, in particular, the network side because clearly, the opportunity is in front of us right now, as we see the consumer usage and merchant adoption from it. In terms of when you think about the profitability in international, again, clearly, we've really been focused on that journey. We have been focused on that journey now for the last 2 years. We've clearly made a lot of investments into the Mondial network in terms of both restructuring, in terms of replatforming. But also now, clearly, the APM coverage is beyond that 6,000 mark, which we've talked about in the past, becomes quite critical that allows us to get the right amount of density and operate and leverage, more importantly, really accept the parcel volume as we can start to steer away from PUDO into an APM. But again, we're coming into a critical time of the year around peak. And for us, it's really now demonstrating -- maintaining those margins as we continue to invest again in the APM network and the overall quality of service as we continue to capture more D plus 1 on volume from where we are today. And then we hand over to Javier to comment on tax.

Yes. So I think Michael comments already cover kind of the outlook question. So unless you've got a follow-up on that, we'll hold it there. On the effective tax rate, I think, it's best to look at total half 1 because there's a couple of period changes between Q1, Q2. We are now basically at 24% effective tax rate. The improvement versus last year, of course, is driven by the fact that we have less losses in international and that improves the average tax rate. I would expect for the balance of the year to stay on the mid to high 20s from an effective tax rate point of view. This will really depend on the kind of investments we do, the tax loss carryforwards we can recognize on the business. So it might be a little bit volatile, but expect somewhere between the 25% to 30% range, I think, is where we should come in.

Can I ask 1 quick follow-up on the change in depreciation policy on the longer useful life. What will be the impact on full year depreciation? I think it was down -- the decrease accelerated in the second quarter, right, as a result of that expansion policy?

I'll come back with you the exact numbers. I don't have them here at hand. There's a combination of 2 things. Number one, the longer depreciation life obviously takes our depreciation down at the same time with the IFRS 16 expansion. There's also more depreciation there. So it's a little bit of mix between both, but we can provide you more details from a technical assessment point of view.

Our next question comes from Sathish Sivakumar from Citigroup.

I've got 3 questions here. Maybe just starting off with the Shein and Temu. If you could actually help us understand like what has been the growth, say, in the Polish network versus the international? Where you're actually seeing them like as you are taking more wallet share from them? Is it in Poland or international? Just continuing with the Shein and Temu, what about across the value chain is and they've been quite aggressive in terms of buying capacity for Q4? And what has been like -- within your network, like how much of the capacity has been contracted out? And a couple of years ago, we did actually have an impact on Mondial Relay when there's a volume surge. It resulted in some margin impact. So how are you positioning actually go into Q4? And then the second question is around the minimum wage impact. Again, if I understand correctly, everything has been implemented in quarter 2, would we have to see any further increase, say, in quarter-on-quarter trends in terms of minimum wage implementation in Poland? And then the third one is around competition in Poland market. If I look at the lockers, it looks like your market share has actually been stable and is holding up well. What does this imply? Are you like to say, volumes coming from -- more from new entrants into the market? Or is actually on the competition side, like, say, Allegro, they are actually slowing down their own rollout? Yes, any color on this competitive intensity in Poland would be helpful?

Sathish, happy to answer that. So first of all, we are not disclosing exact split order saturation among certain clients. We may admit that thanks to our international contracts and the way we collaborate with biggest international clients. We always try to find the kind of framework agreement across the markets. That's why Chinese players like Shein, Temu, but also the others. They love to collaborate with us across the board, means that we are like following their developments. On some markets, one coming in stronger on the other markets, the other one. Of course, they are competing against each other. But at the end of the day, that leads to a minimum basket value decrease overall on the market, means the clients are shopping online more frequently less valuable goods, which translates to higher volumes that goes to us. And in terms of the impact of the minimum wage in Poland, yes, indeed, we have implemented that. We have consumed like the whole cost on our end. We haven't passed that to our merchants. Clearly, this was also looking at the performance and the increased EBITDA margin. That means we not only absorbed that cost but also our operating leverage, again, with the growing volume has shown a powerful impact on that. We must clearly comment that, unfortunately, already the new government had agreed the new minimum wage for 2025 increase, which again will put a pressure on the industry, but also on the merchants because most of them having their own operations, fulfillment operations. They are impacted by that as well. On the other side, the minimum wage is bringing additional tailwind for the consumer spending. So this is like balanced, and we stay positive on the impact at the end of the day. And the last question about the competition, we try recent 8, 9 quarters, not to comment what the others are doing. And the result is positive of that habit. Means we are fully focused on providing best-in-class customer experience irrespective of how many companies announcing a month rolling out network here or there across Europe. We see, we observe and recount parcels going to their lockers on a pretty big group of examples giving us clear conviction that at the end of the day, it doesn't matter how many machines you deploy here and there, it's all about customers voting for the best-in-class service and realization of those clients throughout a best-in-class service. So we see no change in that habit. And looking at the performance that we are continuously outperforming the market growth, you clearly need to understand that it's not only about the new merchants coming and the share of wallet with them, but it's also extremely high for our sales forces putting into farming of our existing client base, giving them conviction that we are best-in-class player, providing them best-in-class service for their end consumers, which drives their top line. So this is another like strong statement. We are not a logistics company. We are top line enabler for most of the merchants in 9 markets in Europe right now.

That's quite helpful. Maybe just on the Polish market itself. What is like the split now between say to-door versus say locker, just a market level actually?

If I'm not like wrong here, I think continues in door-to-door is around 1/7 of our overall volume in Poland.

Our next question comes from William Beavington from Jefferies.

Yes. Can you hear me okay?

Perfect.

Yes. Great. Yes, so it's William Beavington, Jefferies. I obviously work with David Kerstens. I'm on the spec sales. I mean, point number one, you know that we're a huge supporters of your investment case here at Jefferies from an ESG perspective as much from a, call it, global TMT perspective from where I sit. So I just wanted to give you the opportunity just highlighting, have there been any improvements as it were all developments to your ESG credentials in the last few months, which could be over the last 6 months rather than last quarter? And then my second question is, when I speak to investors, on the stock over the last probably 18 months, the biggest pushback has been on the international expansion. So I suppose my simply put, if you were to pick one maybe main challenge that you're facing now on international expansion, which clearly has a great opportunity, and clearly, you've made great inroads in this. Investors have given us very good feedback on how they feel now more reassured in terms of growth and margin and profitability development in the international businesses. But if it is 1 major hurdle that you still are focusing on in international, what would it be? So those 2 questions, please.

If I may answer the second question, and then I will hand over to Javier. So I think the main challenge in our international expansion needs, we want to grow faster. We want to deploy more workers. It's a visible acceleration when you look at Q1 where we deployed around 2,000 machines, Q2 3,000 machines. My ambition is much higher than this. Of course, this is a super complicated process because on one hand, we need to provide us best-in-class locations. So we need to deploy the machines, but then we need as well to take care of the utilization providing best-in-class IRR on every machine we deployed. So it's not about deploying machines here and there and then keeping them empty like many companies competing with us continuously make that mistake. It's all about choosing best-in-class locations, but also then redirecting the volume and the consumer flow into those locations, providing a fast ramp-up of the utilization. So definitely main challenge is all about having a very strong pipeline, best-in-class locations, deployment of the machines and then maintaining them and sourcing volume into those locations. I think current results are clearly showing that it's not the question mark, does the international markets work versus Poland? Is that a Polish phenomenon? No, it is not. And I think recent quarters proven already that the market is ready for the adoption of InPost solution and it already translated into tangible results. In terms of the ESG before I pass to Javier, just one comment to Sathish because I think I was misunderstood 1/7 of the volume was not 1/7 door-to-door volume overall in Poland, it was 1/7 of the volume of InPost. So clearly, there is still room for capturing more because the Polish door-to-door seems to be still on a level of 40% overall volume in B2C commerce. I'm passing to Javier on ESG topic.

Thanks, Rafal. Look, on the ESG credentials. Look, as far as I remember, we are currently in assessment of the ratings agencies and these things. But in the last couple of months, I don't think there's been any official new results. Having said that, I don't think we need to be focused exactly on the rating agencies. It's about what we are doing internally. And I think I would normally split ESG into 2, one is the strategic part, which is what are we effectively doing to improve our impact on society on the planet, which means that all the plans of decarbonization, electrification of the fleet. And all those initiatives are going on, clearly, as the ESG strategy is for us absolutely paramount. At the same time, all the efforts on the reporting and transparency are also going in line without distracting the actions that we need to take because the reporting piece, as you know, is significant. It's a new CSRD regulation for which we're getting ready to publish everything in line with that regulation with full year 2024 results. Double materiality assessment is being done and aligned with the taxonomy reporting. So I would say a dual approach basically making sure that the higher reporting requirements don't distract us from doing what's right in the business. And all of that together should then result in how people perceive us and rate us, but again, the focus is more on what we do and that outcome will then be whatever new credentials come out.

We will now move to our next question from Othmane Bricha from Bank of America.

First one is on your APM rollout in international markets. So the -- our rollout accelerated sequentially. And do you think that Q3 is a good run rate for the rest of the year? Then my second question is on the U.K. About your B2C pilot program? What is the feedback that you've got from the retailer? And when should we expect the formal launch of B2C later in the year? Or do you think it's more of 2025 story? And a third question, please, on Poland specifically on the door-to-door business. You're gaining significant market share there, thanks to the quality that you provide to your nation. Can you also comment on your pricing in this segment versus the rest of the market? And is there opportunity for you to significantly raise pricing in the door-to-door business?

Yes. I can take both first and second question. We've seen an increase in acceleration across the first half of the year. So we would expect that pace to continue for the balance as clearly as we've talked about really the traction that we're seeing. So we want to increase that acceleration going into '25. So I think it's a good framework to take. Two, when you look at the B2C feedback on the merchants, I think, 2 components we're seeing in the U.K. pilot that I feel very encouraged about, as we started to expand in different types of merchants. I think, first, clearly, we've been live and present now with returns so the consumer adoption and consumer usage has been super strong, and the feedback has already been built from a merchant knowledge and understanding of using lockers. But I think the earlier -- the second component we're seeing now, as we go across more merchants, not just 2 or 3, is actually we're seeing a crossover and new customer adoption. I think the other side that maybe as a nice surprise is some of the areas that are outside where we have locker densities. So I call the underserved population today, where actually B2C coverage today is quite weak, is actually we're seeing quite a good consumer uptake on a new type of consumer that maybe hasn't fitted to the core younger dynamic that we've had in the past. So really good, interesting developments, as we look to -- sort of look at the coverage for the whole of the U.K. When we look at planning, it really is a 2025 planning because we really need to make sure from a servicing point of view on a full geographic coverage, we have the offering we want to go to market with. And two, we really work with the retailer on the checkout placement to really ensure its fully optimized the way we've done it on returns to make sure we have the right share of checkout. So those are the sort of comments I would add. Maybe hand over on the last one.

Yes, happy to answer the last question about pricing. So clearly, pricing in Poland versus other competitors is I would say, price level is higher. Some of the competitors desperately try to go below the literally logistics cost to win some volume. We have our own pricing policy, clearly supporting long-term relationship with the merchants, giving them visibility, quality, peak support and of course, one-stop shop solution, both on door-to-door and out-of-home. So Poland is a kind of North Star as well as a case study for our international markets, means we clearly try to navigate properly on the other markets with a few critical factors where price is only one of them, density of the lockers, customer care, NPS, service variety and speed of delivery. That's just a few of them. So in terms of the pricing, as I said at the beginning, we are not currently already decided where we will be heading in 2025, we observe the cost inflation, we observe the market sentiment, we observe as well competitive moves before we make that cautious decision. But the logic behind is very simple. We try to absorb as much of our -- of the external cost as possible on us, not to pass the whole inflation coming from the CPI/minimum wage, not to pass it to completely to the merchants. And that was the logic behind recent 3 years repricing waves.

Our next question comes from Henk Slotboom from the Idea.

I've got a couple of questions about Poland and 1 on the acquisition strategy. To kick off with the last one. Rafal, the name of InPost popped up a couple of occasions in the case of the Evri deal, which happened, was it around a month ago. I always understood that you were interested in making strategic bolt-on acquisitions, while an acquisition as it shows now of PLN 2.6 billion is more than just a bolt-on. Was this an opportunity you saw? Or is this something you'd define as a bolt-on acquisition? Then to Poland. Well, first of all, a clarification, maybe I misinterpreted what you said about the door delivery, that part of the growth in to-door was caused by the volume increase from the Chinese platforms. I always thought that the Chinese platforms were interested in the cheapest way of delivery and that would seem to me to be the APM delivery, but maybe I understood that incorrectly? A final question on Poland is the cross-border ambitions you had. Earlier this year, you said that you were -- one of your ambitions was to connect the cross-border roots of the Polish business with the rest of the business in Europe. Where are we in that respect? Because if I read the press release, I see a lot of talks about the domestic volume, but this could add something extra. Those were my questions.

So happy to take those questions. First of all, in terms of Evri deal, as we are not commenting on specific deals happening on the European market, we maintain our strong interest in looking at those where we have conviction will bring us really an acceleration of our strategy. For price, we believe, is a good price. So the combination of strategic importance, ambitious business plan of a potential target or probability that this will bring us on the next level in our journey must be linked to certain pricing that we feel is attractive as a combination of all those factors so not only price. That's why I'm not commenting do we believe the price Evri was acquired, was a good price, bad price, high price, low price. It must be a combination. We all believe we'll push you us to the next level in our journey. And of course, we are continuously looking at several different opportunities, trying to diligence them, dropping some of the occasions being engaged in the others because we strongly believe that we are really well positioned currently in Europe to make such M&As to boost our development. In terms of Poland, to-door delivery is partially fueled, of course, with the new commerce to Polish market. And you rightly said everyone, specifically players from Asia, a super important factor is price, but at the end of the day, who is choosing the solution. People, who are choosing as they are our loyal customer base, but also people who never use APMs, they are very attractive consumer base for the Chinese players. So they are somehow activating new consumer base and the new consumer base is choosing door-to-door as a more trusted, if they never used APMs, never used out-of-home. But as you learned already several times, I think we are pretty good at conveying that kind of traffic from door-to-door to APM. So what you may expect now extraordinary growth in door-to-door may result in a midterm will -- the same traffic will translate from our door-to-door to out-of-home. And also, we observed that literally where more and more clients after first trial using door-to-door from Chinese players, they -- in the next purchase, they switch to our out-of-home solution. That's why this is linked together with out-of-home in a midterm as a new tool for boosting that volume into APMs. In terms of cross-border ambitions, nothing has changed here. This year, we will launch our fully fledged cross-border delivery. Moreover, I can say we already are in the testing phase, a kind of quiet silent launch of our cross-border solution. We always -- before we launch any service, it was the same with InPost Pay. We did a kind of family in France testing, which is already in motion, giving us conviction that this will be a milestone in our European journey.

Perhaps a brief follow-up on the last remark you made. This can contribute to extra growth in Poland? Or is that included in the guidance you gave?

No, it's too early. It's too early to assess the impact. But for our 2025 budget, we already are working on the assumptions of the cross-border solution, as a new growth opportunity. But just bear in mind that we already have cross-border solution between France, Spain, Italy, Portugal and Belgium. So that's already an existing service we offer to a few clients. But of course, it's not comparable to the fully fledged solution where, including individuals, people will have an ease access to very competitive pricing and cross-border.

And how big is the cross-border market in Poland. This was something like 30% of the total market?

No, currently, because the pricing is extremely high, not only in Polish market, but overall pricing for cross-border is ridiculously expensive, is less than 10%. But what I strongly believe in is if we may offer a very compelling pricing, including great quality and speed of delivery, we'll somehow democratize cross-border in a way that people will start using it more frequently, starting literally using French, Spanish, Italian, British shops, to buy stuff online. And that should be another enabler for the merchants across Europe to speed up with their cross-border expansion as well. So we want to transform that market, and we can transform that market based on the assumption that speed, price, quality are completely not comparable to what the consumers have seen so far on European markets.

Marco Limite, Barclays.

Talking on future opportunities. There are still quite a few countries in Europe where you have got a fairly small presence, for example, Portugal, only 27 APMs. So I think it will be quite good to refresh about the strategy for those minor countries. So like what's the energy you are putting at the moment in those countries? And yes, where we are there. And the second question, maybe very quickly on the Q3 outlook. You do expect volume growth to slow down compared to Q2. So just wondering, any visibility you might have specifically on how volumes have progressed throughout Q2 by month and the exit rate in Q3?

Marco, I'll take the first question and then maybe just turn back to Javier on Q3. The strategy very much has been the same model we've been deploying over the last few years. The focus in those smaller markets today is very much PUDO development and that's how we've been growing and really building the network similar to what we did in Italy going back 2 or 3 years and most recently in Spain. So very much that sort of plan A, and we'll continue to do that. What we have done is clearly we put some small concentrations of lockers in some of those markets really to help test, understand, validate any local nuances we need to adjust for, just in case there's any variations. But clearly, what we have done in markets like Italy and Spain, in particular, this year as we started to accelerate really because of proof of concept and profitability is there in those markets. And now we start to invest to accelerate. So I would look -- for future strategy, you would see going into '25, continued increase in particular, Italy and Spain, where markets like Portugal, Belgium, and Netherlands right now will still dominantly still be PUDO. However, I would still expect we will start to see some locker deployment in those markets, but not at the same pace as maybe Italy or Spain for the next 12 months, again, really following the same playbook and really deploying that methodology that's proven us successful to this point.

Marco, I will take the outlook. Look, I think we're already pretty specific in what we say in terms of Q3. So no, we're not going to give you a month-by-month breakdown, and I think you should know that. In terms of what we say in the outlook, it's pretty clear, I think, right? It's an international business in line with where we see Q2 going. We see Poland mid- to high teens, which could be slightly slower than the 20% that we have realized in Q2, but it will continue being significantly outpacing the market. And I think that's still the most important part of it, but I don't think we can give you any more color than what we're already doing.

Othmane Bricha, Bank of America.

My follow-up question. Yes, it's -- sorry, on Italy, you are accelerating your APM out there too. And do you think that at one point, maybe in a year or in 2 years, we have to do an acquisition to really cement your market share? An acquisition similar to the Mondial Relay or to the Menzies one or can you really grow and get significant scale organically?

Now let me comment. I think it comes back to the same comment Rafal mentioned earlier. Firstly, I would comment that the Italian market has scaled very efficiently and very effectively organically in terms of location and full geographic footprint. And really, in the near term, I would still continue to see that being a very effective strategy. We are starting to move from what I'd call outsourcing to insourcing for some of the locations now that we've got presence in visible scale, and we understand the flows at this point so that we can even further enhance our efficiency and take control of the quality and service. Relative to M&A, I won't comment specifically on Italy, more comment on to build on Rafal's point, M&A is potentially an important pillar, as it has proven for Mondial and proven for Menzies. And if the right opportunity is presented, then clearly, we will look to execute on that, assume it ticks the boxes we want to evaluate, whether that's Italy or another market at this point, but we remain quite dynamic and active in looking for opportunities that clearly we think can accelerate all the components of our flywheel.

We'll now take our next question from Robert Joynson from BNP Paribas.

I have 3 questions for me, please. First question on the average revenue per APM parcel in Poland. So in Q2, you saw the fourth consecutive quarter during which real pricing versus Polish inflation was positive. Now obviously, that's consistent with your guidance for this year. But could you maybe just provide some color on how we should think about inflation-adjusted pricing in Poland going forward? Should we assume it will remain positive or in normal circumstances, when inflation is more stable, should we expect that metric to be neutral or maybe negative? So that's the first question. Second question on international e-commerce parcel market growth. You're now guiding the negative to mid-single digit. Could you clarify what you're assuming for the final 4 months of the year specifically? I'm just conscious that the year as a whole that guided what range is quite wide, but obviously, for the remaining 4 months of the year, that the guidance is extremely wide. So maybe just some color on what you're seeing directionally there. And then just a follow-up on Mondial Relay on the OpEx. It declined sequentially by almost EUR 4 million in Q2 versus Q1. And I know you've referenced some efficiency gains. And obviously, that side is the opposite of what you see seasonally for OpEx, Q2 versus Q1. It was certainly a good cost reduction. Could you maybe just maybe clarify, is all of that cost reduction sustainable? You did mention some one-offs on Slide 22 of the presentation. So I'm just trying to get a sense of the sustainability of the Q2 OpEx.

Do you want me to start in reverse Rafal, do you want to take the Polish question first?

Yes, I can. So we are not commenting specific price moves on our -- around our parcels, both in APMs and door-to-door. My expectation is that -- and I think it's in part with some comments recently published by few other Polish big competitors that Polish delivery price is way below the expected one. So it means the market is very competitive. So I'd rather feel the other players thinking in the same way that taking a hit on the very high CPI, very aggressive minimum wage increase is very limited. So I expect that market pricing is going to be up in coming 2, 3 years' time horizon. The speed of that price increase across the board -- I'm not saying about InPost, across the board is a big question mark how we will behave because typically, we are the price setter and the others are following us. So as I commented already before, we haven't decided yet about our pricing strategy for next year, but the logic behind our current thinking is the same like in the past. We want to support our merchants and take as much as possible on our shoulders, trying continuously to improve, innovate and provide operating leverage, thanks to which we create a real win-win scenario between our merchants and us. Michael?

Yes, I'll come back just on, I think, 2 questions and maybe Javier want to comment on top. But when it comes to the market split across international. Clearly, we're using a various level of different international data sources, Robert. So clearly, we're given an international range, but obviously, by market, there are variations within that, hence, the range itself. And obviously, with the Mainland Europe Mondial business, quite a bit of that business does do cross-border. So clearly, there is an impact between markets since. To give you an exact number or pin it down, clearly, it's not logical because clearly, you have to work within that range, albeit the numbers we're seeing are more negative than positive at the market level, which is counter to our growth. When it comes to Mondial itself, I think we've gone through a fairly significant transformation of that business over the last 2 to 3 years, both in terms of network development, in terms of overall coverage within the market to really deliver the service and quality of product, as we continue to improve it. And clearly, a big part of that is how we reconfigure the local operations and really maintain that. We're now coming to a point where clearly -- where we see other markets at a group level we can absorb and sort of manage our overhead, then clearly, we don't need the same level of resource to support where we can support at the group level. And that's another thing, that's really helping us drive to really manage efficiency at the local level, but we do see that we can maintain a tight control on that OpEx now locally because really, we put the investment in and we can support from a group operating level to really maintain those costs and allocations across the board.

As there are no further questions in the phone, I'd like to hand the call over to [ Danielle ] for any webcast questions. Over to you, [ Danielle ].

We just have time for a few questions from the webcast. So our first 1 comes from Andrea [indiscernible]. Great results. Have you considered publishing monthly volumes?

You're on mute Javier.

Yes, I'll take that. So look, -- as you can understand, we have a very, very detailed track of our business not by week, by day. And of course, that's how we can go, from this point of view, you run the business day by day. The value on publishing monthly results, I think, will be very interesting for our competition, but I'm not sure it will basically help our investors a lot of understanding the business. So the answer is no, we're not going to produce monthly results, not disclosed in the market. I think we have to focus internally on making sure we keep on driving the business and not getting to more detailed reporting, which probably helps more than anyone else by competitors.

We have a few questions from Prashant Premkumar from Buffalo Thorn Capital Management, well done on a fantastic quarter. How should we think about pricing in the U.K. and France, particularly as volumes and usage pick up in B2C, our international markets using contract frameworks similar to what we use in Poland, early growth. And what is the price per parcel for B2C -- what is the per parcel B2C price differential versus what we are receiving in Poland? And is there a level of B2C volumes where we can expect our international pricing power to substantially increase?

Yes. Let me comment on that. I think, first and foremost, I think the ambition and clearly the direction that we're on right now is we're not going to comment on specific pricing. We would expect that clearly, the differential between to-door and out-of-home. We try to end the similar to what we've done in Poland in the past. Two, I would comment the U.K. probably is where the differential is the most -- is probably the least at this point in time versus the other markets, the differential is more similar more because of the nature of the U.K. market, but there is room for differential and that's quite important. International framework contracts are a critical part of how we see our pan-European strategy. And clearly, that is something we think is a complete -- is a very important point and differentiation really because when you integrate with InPost, you're integrating in 9 markets, and we provide that value proposition as an important part of that solution rather than trying to work on a merchant by country by country level. And clearly, as e-commerce continues to develop across all markets, orders are sort of not relevant to e-commerce and we see that as an important leverage point. If you look at then sort of the price differential, clearly, on a B2C versus, let's say, the typical core mix of the C2C parcels today, I would expect probably our B2C parcels today in the near to medium term be at a lower revenue per parcel than a C2C parcel just because of the general nature of the product and the mix. But as we develop more D+1 in each market, that can evolve and clearly, we'll see a different premium. But as a general rule, the strategy of what we've done in Poland is one we think has worked exceptionally well. We really go out to win market share. We create operating leverage. And as we build that scale, we will look to how we share those efficiency with the merchants in the future. So really a similar playbook that we see there's no need to change at this point.

Our next question comes from Francesco Roberto at JPMorgan. Are you having discussions with rating agencies about a possible upgrade to investment grade? Do you have any time line and which metrics to be improved?

I'll take that one. So the answer is yes and no. Yes, we have regular conversations with the rating agency and that's back to the principle that we have full transparency towards all of you, towards investors, towards the rating agencies. So just like we discussed results with you, we have regular communication with the rating agencies to explain the results where they can get more clarity on the results and how we see the business and that's, again, the transparency we want to give. Then how that relates in their assessment to the rating that is their responsibility. And of course, we don't want to influence that, as their objective and their objective assessment. So again, we can just do what we're doing is improving our business, improving our leverage, making sure that they understand that we are a very sound business going forward and it will be their committees that we'll decide what that results to in terms of rating. But yes, we have a very transparent communication towards them.

Thank you. That's all the time we have for webcast questions. So Rafal, I'd like to hand over to you for closing remarks.

Thank you. I think in a nutshell, we may say that another strong quarter delivered. We are working hard or even harder to provide and handle the key challenge, which for us is now the pace of the development, the first mover advantage on critical geographies, securing locations, deploying and then acquiring end users. You may notice that the adoption about our mobile app, for instance, the adoption of new services like InPost Pay are progressing, means that we focus not only on the new markets, but we also continuously build our competitive advantage on our home market, which at the end translates into the performance you may observe today. And we have a few new ideas, new services still under development, like, for instance, cross-border. So I would say the split is very clear, strengthening and defending the position on our home market as long as possible with the market in Poland, although our position in the market, we may say, we are already a market, so that becomes more and more challenging, but seeing first weeks of Q3, we are on track in the journey. And of course, the second focus is strengthening our market leader position in APMs in the geographies outside of Poland, where literally, we have a lot to do. So pretty positive, well done InPost team. And yes, stay tuned guys, more to come.