Ipsos SA (IPS) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

We're live. Good day -- good morning, everybody, and thank you for struggling to the Peninsula today to be with us. And I'm very pleased to see so many of you here and so many colleagues. It's my pleasure to take you through the annual results for 2022 for Ipsos and then perhaps to talk a little bit about the outlook for 2023. So overall, in terms of what was achieved last year by our teams, it's a very solid performance and very good profitability. So we have overall 12% growth. If you take out the currency effects, we are closer to 6% than 5% at 5.6%, despite a slight softening at the end of last year. And the organic growth, which is really important given the huge COVID effects that we have seen in the business over the last few years where we had a rush of major government contracts, which ended at the beginning of 2022, the organic growth and without that is 8%. So again, we feel pretty comfortable about that. The operating profit at 13.1% is in line with what we were aiming for, and we've got plenty of free cash flow, again, to give us flexibility. And the leverage is absolutely under control and very low, again, giving us more opportunities to invest in acquisitions as part of the growth strategy. So that's the headline figures. I'd like to hand over to my colleague, Dan Levy, who's going to take us through the detailed financial results. And then perhaps we'll talk a bit more about the outlook, Dan?

Thanks, Ben. Ladies and gentlemen, good morning. So let's dive deeper into the numbers, starting with the revenue breakdown by region that, in fact, reflects a pretty contrasted situation. 5.6% growth in '22, total growth of 12%. EMEA region, the business was relatively flat with organic growth close to 0%, which essentially reflects on the one hand war in Ukraine, but the end of the major COVID government contracts mentioned by Ben that ended in Q1 '22. If we move the impact of those major COVID contracts, organic growth across the EMEA region comes in at just over 4%. Good performance within EMEA, achieved by both France and Italy. Americas overall delivering very strong performance, double-digit growth, both in Latin America, North America. North America is essentially driven by Ipsos' digital Do It Yourself platform, but also driven by public affairs and major tech clients. Lastly, Asia Pacific delivering very good performance coming in at 9% organic growth with a mixed bag. On the one hand, China heavily impacted by lockdowns and the Zero COVID policy, hardly any growth. And then a 5.6% growth in '22. Rest of Asia coming in with strong organic growth at 15%. Turning now to the performance by sector business in the major consumer sector. An 8% organic growth, whereas we might have expected inflation to affect consumer behavior, and there were supply chain issues at the start of the year. That's good performance, reflecting the need for our major CPG clients to continue to understand the consumer dynamics at play in a world that was -- where lockdown down was removed, inflationary pressures, but also a need on the part of consumers to turn to solutions products that are -- serve to preserve the planet. So this CPG sector remains very important for Ipsos. It represents just under 1/4 of our total revenue, very fine performance in the tech, media, telecoms sector. Organic growth achieved 12%, particularly strong in the U.S. across 22 good performance of our pharma activities, 6% growth, whereas business in '21 was already good. So we had an unfavorable base effect public sector, pretty mechanically down minus 18% organic owing to the end of the COVID contracts mentioned. When we remove the impact of those major government contracts, public sector growth comes in at 12% in '22. Once again, reflects the need of our major government clients to understand public opinion, the need for reliable data for public policymaking. Excellent results. Financial Services, 18% organic growth. Automotive sector is more challenging, not just for Ipsos, but more globally, 2% organic growth. The reopening of economies versus '21 delivered very good retail performance as well as travel and leisure even if the revenue shares are far smaller. I won't dwell too long on the next slide, which is revenue breakdown by audience, given that a number of things I've said on sectors could equally apply here. Consumer audiences up organic growth 11%. Clients and employees, after reopening of economies, up 6.5%. Citizens audience decreased due essentially to the end of COVID contracts. Doctors and patients growing like the pharma business by 6%. Now in '22, we continued to have very good dynamic on new services. Let me remind you that we have 4 categories of new services measured differently to begin with everything around passive measurement, all the web listening activities to interpret data on social networks will notably [indiscernible] subsidiary. Secondly, Do It Yourself, Ipsos.Digital, the analysis of big data to integrate with AI, huge quantities of structured and unstructured data quickly. And then client advisory services. All these new services posting very good growth, 11% that's twice total group growth and [ hence force ] accounts for 21% of the group's revenue. Now for a number of years, we're seeing a transition between face-to-face and online in our collection modes. This transition increasingly online in our quantitative studies was accelerated during COVID for obvious reasons. This is still happening. We were at 62% of online studies in '21, we've grown to 65% in '22. It's not so much face-to-face. It's down -- only down slightly, it's the postal services. In certain geographies, face-to-face remain dynamic, and the recovery of market research in certain developing countries in which the recovery of market research was face-to-face, in India, typically, market research has redeveloped extensively after the crisis to face-to-face. Turning now to the P&L. I've already amply discussed revenue growth coming in a 10%, 12% growth. Gross margin is up 160 basis points last year, coming in at 66.3% of revenue due to 3 factors, essentially. The first is the group's ability to maintain its prices in '22 against an inflationary backdrop that obviously has a favorable effect on gross margin. Second reason is we just see the transition to online continuing and mechanically is driving gross margin. Third region is the end of COVID contracts mentioned earlier. These COVID contracts, you'll no doubt recall, for those of you who've been following us for quite some time now that they're very profitable in terms of operating profit, but less so in terms of gross margin because the associated collection costs were quite high. So when those major COVID contracts stop, as in '22, it automatically leads to an increase in gross margin. And the payroll up slightly 16% in '22. That's due to catch-up effects on hires because we had a hiring freeze in '20 and that took time to recover during the course of '21. And secondly, inflationary effects on salaries, but the 16% increase in personnel costs remains acceptable. And so far as the payroll to gross margin ratio remains below what it was precrisis, notably in 2019, you have the figures and the details in the press release. There were also catch-up effects on overheads, notably on current IT spend and of course, travel expenses that picked up again in '22 after '21, travel expenses and IT expenses and overheads in general remain constrained if overall, they're up 17% because we start from the gross margin, these are ratios that are below what they were precrisis. So cost control is well managed in the company all in all. The operating margin comes in at 13.1%. That's the best level for Ipsos, up 20 basis point versus 12.9% the previous year. Finance costs are slightly down by about EUR 600,000. Good cash generation from the groups. And the full year effect in '22 of renegotiation down of Shuldschein loan at the end of 2021. And net profit, EUR 15 million (sic) [ EUR 215 million ] as against EUR 184 million in '22 (sic) [ '21 ]. And net profit -- adjusted net profit remove the noncash effects linked to IFRS, adjusted net profit attributable to owners comes in at EUR 232 million as against EUR 209 million in '21. A few items to explain the change in operating margin that goes from 12.9% in '21 to 13.1% in '22. On the right-hand side of the slide, you have the scope data that contribute by 10 basis points to the operating FX, 20 basis points to the increase in operating margin, which in '22 comes from the rising dollar and a number of other currencies versus the euro. Conversely, a negative contribution linked to the end of the major COVID contracts to the tune of 60 basis points because these COVID contracts, as Ben said, ended in Q2 '22. There'll still be items in the financials when we compare to Q3. And the rest 50 basis points due to the factors previously mentioned, that's to say good gross operating margin, maintaining prices and the shift to online and the catch-up on payroll and overheads. A few words on the cash flow, very good cash flow generation in '22. Gross operating cash flow, EUR 402 million. Change in WCR negative because of the impact of growth on WCR linked to the fact that in '22, we paid higher bonuses than usual linked to the very good earnings generated by the group in '21. We continue to invest -- PPE intangibles and financial assets, EUR 57 million, essentially investing in our platforms, Askia, Infotools, Ipsos.Digital. Science and data, the strategic plan presented just over 6 months. Free cash flow comes in at EUR 214 million against EUR [ 204 ] million because we've begun a share back program in view to cancellation at the end of '22. And in '22, we bought back EUR 10 million that we canceled at the end of December '22. We paid back borrowings EUR [ 31 million ] USPP loan last September. We paid EUR 51 million in dividends. So all in all, cash at the end of period comes in at EUR 386 million, sharply up versus cash position at the end of 2021. The group is in a very sound financial situation, very solid financial. EUR 69 million net debt as against EUR 180 million the previous year. So the gearing, as Ben said earlier, went for [ 0.25x ] EBITDA to 0.2x EBITDA. So we're essentially in a deleverage position, and the group has a significant credit lines over a year above EUR 480 million of undrawn credit lines to fund our investments, growth, acquisitions going forward and of course, to reimburse our long-term debt shown here. The debt by maturity split year-by-year, EUR 77 million, to be repaid in '23 showed shy nothing in '24 and then we'll have to refinance in '25, EUR 300 million, from a public bond issued in 2018. Maybe just to close this presentation, the financial part of the presentation before handing back to Ben to say that this first year -- this first half year of strat plan execution is going according to plan. In terms of organic growth, the group has achieved 5.6% organic growth. If we remove the COVID effects, underlying growth is 8%. Fully in line with the '25 strat plan target of 5% to 7%. Operating profit 13.1%, in line with what was announced above 13% in '25. Very good free cash flow generation, $214 million, also in line with the plan. That's to say, EUR 900 million between '22 and '25. Back to Ben now for the business-related aspects.

Thanks, Dan. So just to take you through recent developments. The first thing is that the CEO exec team, which is now leading the company, is in place. And it's a combination of 3, I suppose, heritage people, like myself. My colleague, Jennifer Hubber; my colleague, Christophe Cambournac. But also 3 new people. So Dan Levy, who joined us last June, but also my colleagues in the front row here, Valérie Vezinhet. Valérie, our new Chief People Officer. And very importantly, Michel Guidi, who has joined us recently as our Chief Operating Officer, a new role that brings together our operations, tech and all data collection activities and IT, and that's incredibly important in terms of the evolution of the business. In terms of the client satisfaction that has been maintained at an average 9 out of 10 on each project that we complete, and that's something that I personally look at every single day. And our employees -- and remember, we are ultimately a people business all over the world and are more motivated than ever. So we have seen 2 consecutive years of rises in staff engagement. The average for a professional services company is 72% across these 9 questions. We're currently at 79%. We have record confidence in the company. 9 out of 10 people saying they like the culture of the business. And that's fundamentally important because my job as the leader of this business is to make -- encourage our people to deliver and to go the extra mile. And the fact that they find it a rewarding and interesting place to work is incredibly important. So in terms of the spread of activities that we are involved in, of course, as I said in June last year, the public sector and government is an area that Ipsos is particularly focused on. We believe that, structurally, there is real growth there. Governments all over the world under pressure to deliver more. We are in an era of activist government, active industrial strategies all over the world. America [ shoring and reshoring ]. All of that activity and the need of populations for support and reassurance means that government needs to do more. And so we are investing in products like knowledge panel, very successful in the United States and now in the U.K., being rolled out across Europe, launching in France very soon. And just as examples of those sorts of projects, looking at quality of life across the European Union in 84 different cities, looking at access to vaccines all over the world for Gavi, checking water quality in thousands of locations in India. You name it. Government is involved in it. And government, in some ways, is catching up with the private sector in its use of these techniques. So our 12% organic growth in 2022, I'm very confident about the prospects for this year. We can already see some very, very large contracts. Healthcare, another key part of our plan. We had organic growth of around 6% after a very strong year in 2021. We are working for the 10 largest pharma companies in the world, over EUR 120 million of revenue last year. And again, the drivers behind this sector that we are one of the global players in, again, the aging population, the development of new technologies. And of course, for those clients working on the syndicated studies in areas like COVID-19 and vaccines, respiratory diseases, really understanding where the markets are at on those treatments, helping our clients develop their business strategies, how they go to market. And this year, investing in noninterventional studies as a new area. It requires a different approach. But again, it builds on our existing strengths. So again, healthcare, I think really, really positive opportunities for us, and we're only just beginning. America, of course, is one of our key geographies. We remain relatively smaller in the United States compared to our position in many other markets. We had 12% organic growth last year. Strong growth in healthcare. Again, for the biggest government in the world, the American government, very strong growth. Strong adoption of Ipsos.Digital and, of course, a lot of work for Big Tech, one of the world's largest tech companies, for example, just asking us to help them in thinking about their strategy on generative AI, which will change the world, will also change our business in due course. So again, this is making good use of new technologies, recognized by Forrester as the leader in marketing measurement and optimization and more gold awards than any other company at the ARF David Ogilvy Awards last year. So again, positive growth in America. My colleagues just got together in New Orleans earlier this week. I know that Michel was with them and very, very strong forward momentum. And I think the thing that I take from our American business is that confidence in the future, particularly given their relatively small market share of only, I think, about 5% in America at the moment. Ipsos.Digital met its targets last year. We grew from EUR 35 million to EUR 65 million. This is our platform. Our Software-as-a-Service solution that allows people to very quickly and easily launch surveys. As you can see, L'Oreal saying it's a really useful platform, easy to use, very intuitive, very rapid, et cetera. So again, we're feeling really confident about that, particularly as the [ gateway ], we haven't yet got it out across the world. Going launching now in Japanese, in Korean and Spanish, which gives us more opportunities in faster-growing markets like Latin America. Moving more products onto that platform, again to improve productivity. Remember that the margin on this platform is roughly double what it is on work done in a more in the traditional fashion. And we had 400 new clients last year. We're targeting 1,000 this year. Then, of course, we're gradually reinventing the development and launching of surveys across Ipsos bringing together the Panel One technology with Askia and Infotools. Again, I've just come back from Romania where we have over 1,100 people working on delivery here. And again, I think the changes that we're making will help continue to drive productivity. And of course, one of the reasons for bringing in Michel to help with that. So again, we've seen the rise in the gross margin this year, which has helped by the switch to digital, but also more productive digital research. And then finally, another initiative that we've taken this year and really reflecting the way the world is changing as a renewed emphasis on ESG. Very pleased to have appointed my colleague, Lauren Demar as our Chief Sustainability Officer. Because while Ipsos is changing, and we have reduced our carbon footprint, we have cut our travel compared to before the pandemic. We are also, of course, increasingly working for our many clients around the world on how they approach carbon reduction, how they approach social issues. So whether it's understanding for a large mining company, how they're working with their local populations in terms of minimizing disruption and creating opportunities for local populations, whether it's looking at how dairy is marketed and sold in America. Across the world, our clients need help in understanding the strategies and also actually some -- the amount of money that is being deployed in carbon reduction on social programs by large companies around the world is enormous. If you take BHP, I think it's 1% of their profits that they want to spend -- they're spending on these types of initiatives. So they need to understand what is the impact. And our role there is fundamental. So Ipsos in a sense has 3 things that it does on ESG. We have our own -- reducing our own footprint, doing our own work in terms of making Ipsos more inclusive and diverse company. And again, we've made good progress in terms of gender balance at the senior levels in the company. By the end of this year, we will be more equal than we have ever been in the senior ranks at Level 1 and 2 in the business. But also, of course, talking to -- sharing the world where the world is on ESG and helping our clients react and make the changes that they need to do in their own organizations. And then finally, of course, we've recently announced the acquisition of Xperiti. Business-to-business research is a huge opportunity for us. It's a very large part. The B2B market in general is a huge part of the economy. In many countries, we have very strong practices in a number of individual markets. And the acquisition of Xperiti is about really making sure that we can have access to the samples that we need cost effectively and quickly to help us grow that business. One of the biggest challenges is often actually reaching important people like the people in this audience. The Xperiti acquisition helps us do that better. So that's some of the things that are going on. In terms of 2023, I think the key thing to remember about 2023 is that the profile of the year will be different in terms of revenue acquisition than last year. We went into 2022, and we delivered, I think, about 12% growth during Q1. We ended at 5.6%. This year, we will see more growth, I suspect, in the second half of the year than the first. We still face the levels of uncertainty that we have lived with last year. And in a sense, Ipsos is built for uncertainty. We have got through the war in Ukraine, incredibly disruptive in Europe. But anybody who said geopolitical tension was over would be a fool. Inflation is still here, we have coped well with it in 2022, but it is pernicious. We need to continue putting up our prices, our employees, of course, are noticing that things cost more. So we have to manage that. We obviously have all the ongoing shocks from climate change. This has just been the hottest -- we just had the hottest January -- one of the hottest Januarys ever. We have all over the world inequality and disruption. You can -- if you pay any attention to what is happening in Latin America, the number of people just killed in civil disturbances is phenomenal given the disappointment of those populations at growth. We have obviously technology, things like generative AI, huge opportunities to improve productivity across businesses like ours, but also huge challenges to many of our clients. And of course, we have China. China was very disrupted, particularly towards the end of last year with the massive sudden shift and then the -- of course, letting -- effectively letting COVID rip in the population. This year, we are expecting that China will return to something much more like its traditional growth. And that, again, is an opportunity. So all of these things drive both some challenges in navigating the world, but also the need to actually have data to help navigate the world. Even the war in Ukraine, we are actually working -- flying drones around Ukraine to measure the level of damage there for a major international institutions. So all of these things create opportunities as well as challenges. We, of course, have a very strong relationship with our clients. 99% of our clients are spending over EUR 500,000 every year. If you look back over '21, '22, it's very, very strong retention, but also not too dependent on any 1 client. So the top 10 clients are only 17% of our revenue. Only 1/4 of -- our top 20 clients are only 1/4 of our revenue. And the geographic spread of Ipsos has been proven to be -- to really help us in a time when you have China closed down by COVID, a war in Europe, and we are still able to deliver growth because of strengths in other parts of the world. And so whatever 2023 throws at us, I am confident that we will be able to continue taking advantage of opportunities that we have all over the world. Countries like India or even a more developed economy like Korea showing very, very strong growth. And again, as well as the geographic distribution, we also have the diversification by sector. So our pharma business has seen an average compound growth over the last 3 or 4 years of 8%. Government, of course, is often countercyclical. And again, that helps us, up 9%. The large tech GAFAs up 15%. And of course, the mainstay of Ipsos, the CPG companies that have driven the consolidation in our industry, growing -- still growing by 6%. You can see the overall proportion of our business over the last 8 years, growing in pharma, nearly doubling in government, 6x more in GAFA and of course, in a sense, rebalancing in terms of CPG. So overall, the company, if anything, is more balanced in terms of the spread of sectors that it's operating in and where it's getting its revenue and profits from. And again, that gives me confidence for the future. So in terms of how we are deploying our cash. Obviously, we have talked about organic growth of 5% to 7% on average for each of the years, 2022 to 2025. We are targeting the operating profit of over 13%. And we are aiming at over 900 -- around EUR 900 million free cash flow, and we are on target to deliver this. So in terms of 2023, I think we would say that we were looking at growth of around 5% this year. We are budgeting that and that's what we will be aiming for a margin that is similar to this year at around 13% and increased dividend up to EUR 1.35 a share and around EUR 50 million returned to investors and shareholders in share buybacks during this year. So that's the headlines. Very happy to take some questions now with Dan, and thank you again for coming along this morning.

A question from me [ Marcus Romani ] [indiscernible] you mentioned share buybacks. Any comment on dividends?

The dividend is going up to EUR 1.35, yes.

And in the future, so what will be our return to shareholders strategy between dividends and share buybacks? So my question is more mid, long term, not just this year.

I think, I mean, to a certain extent, it would depend on the size of the acquisitions that we make, which has a certain level of uncertainty. But I don't know, Dan, do you want to...

If we just come back to the previous slides, so you have here what we forecast for the 2022, 2025 period. So dividend should be between 25% and 30% of the earnings per share. And we also plan to do some share buyback with a view of consulting that. That's the second part of the bottom line for roughly EUR 185 million over the period. So that would be share buyback with view of consolidation. So that's the boost way we use to give back money to shareholders.

On this slide, the EUR 185 million share buyback, don't include the cancellation of EUR 115 million of free shares.

No, the free shares is share buybacks and not shares that we cancelled. You've got 2 things. The EUR 115 million shares for -- that's the free share program for Ipsos employees over the period. And you have EUR 185 million over the period also that we're going to buy back with a view to cancellations. So 2 separate things. EUR 300 million total on the EUR 115 free share by buying them. We buy them back on the market to deliver to Ipsos people as part of the bonus share line.

So just on this point, could you give us an idea of the share capital structure to date if it's changed or not?

The capital ownership structure hasn't fundamentally changed. You have still the holding of [indiscernible] Holding company that represents about 9% of the share capital and then just over 1% for the employees. The rest is the free flow split across a number of investors for the most past European investors and a few U.S. investors. And so I just have 3 points of granularity. The profitability per geographic segment would appear that the U.S. is significantly more profitable because the rising dollar is improving your gross margin.

Could you give us an idea not necessarily [indiscernible] but a ranking of the other geographies? You mentioned price hikes in '22 and in '23 because you said that you're going to maintain. I know that it's -- it's a combination of mix, product and price. Could you give us an idea of price inflation that you're facing and salary inflation that you've had and will have in '23? And final point, recruitment. There's talk of tension. That doesn't seem to be affecting you too much. Could you give us an update on that? And outsourcing or freelancing, -- is that something that you're expanding?

The first 2 questions and then maybe -- so on profitability by zone, it is true -- it is actually true for most of the professional services that the U.S. is more profitable than the rest of the world by 200 or 300 basis points roughly. But we are not commenting more about profitability by geography. In terms of the impact of inflation, so one thing is that given the performance we have on the gross margin, it is clear that I think we have been quite successful in increasing our pricing in the inflationary world in 2022. The question is -- and we need to keep on doing that in 2023 because even if inflation starts to decelerate, underlying inflation and particular wage inflation, might actually increase in 2023. So we need to keep on increasing our prices. But you need to have in mind that the CPI is not the right measure of Ipsos cost. Obviously, Ipsos cost is mainly payroll. So the right measure would be something which is closer than then the wage increase. Globally, we have probably increased our salaries in 2022 by something which is closer than 3%. But this we'll have a full year effect in 2023 because the wage inflation in the group happened usually in May. And I think there was a question of how difficult is it to recruit?

There is no difficulty in recruiting. That is not the issue. The market -- and I think the market has fundamentally changed, and you can actually see that even in many markets, unemployment starting to tick up again from a very, very low level after the pandemic. So no recruitment isn't -- the recruitment isn't the problem.

Increase of any numbers.

Yes. So that's very difficult to measure. Why is it difficult to measure because we are in a sector in which the average maturity of project is actually quite short as compared to other sectors. It's typically a few months. So project comes, starts, ends and come again. And so we are most of the time faced with new projects. And when you have a new project, most of the time is not exactly the same than the previous one. For instance, if I want to test this product, I can change it in different colors. It's not going to be the same product as before. And because the specification of the product change, it's difficult to see in the price, what is the volume, if you like, and what is the price effect. So it's difficult...

Also the number of markets we're in, I mean, because Turkey is very different to Italy.

The way we measure it is to have a look at the way gross margin improves and the results show that we are probably successful at increasing prices in 2022.

Stefan [indiscernible] First, it's on the COVID impact on the EBIT margin. If -- from my understanding, it's a tailwind on the EBIT margin, but headwind on the gross margin. On your previous slide, you -- there's a headwind of 60 bps in 2022. So can you please come back on this point? Second question is about your expectation in terms of gross margin. Gross margin was up 160 bps in 2022. What's your assumption for 2023? And if we do the math, you're close to your like-for-like growth in 2022. There should be a tailwind on the gross margin. You say that you're able to pass a price increase to customers. So I'm not sure to understand where the headwind in terms of EBIT margin, why we shouldn't expect a higher EBIT margin? And last question is about M&A. You made a small acquisition, bolt-on acquisition in 2022. What's your strategy for 2023, given that on your midterm road map? This is one of the key pillars.

Okay. Am I taking the...

Do you want to do margin? I'll talk about rest of the issues.

So on your first question different types of margin, right?

Yes.

Okay. So as I said before, I think the COVID contracts are associated with high collection costs, which means that they tend to be lower in terms of gross margin, but they're hardly no -- just a lot -- a little bit of payroll, which means that in terms of operating profit, they are actually higher than the rest of the group. So that's the reason why when you take out -- when you finish the COVID contract, you tend to have a higher gross margin and a lower operating profit. So on this slide, I showed before the bridge on margin. So it's coming -- so the 60 basis points is the impact of the end of COVID contract between 2021 and 2022.

But there is a further 0.2%, I think, coming this year.

Exactly. So because you still have a bit of COVID contract at the beginning of 2022, just at the first quarter because it ended at the end of the first quarter, you will have still a decreasing impact of around 20 basis points in 2023 linked to the end of COVID contract, which brings me to your third question, which is why shouldn't we have in 2023 a higher EBIT margin than in 2022? So the first reason is this one, which is that we still had some COVID contract in '22. And so there is a downsize on EBIT margin of around 20 basis point to be expected in 2023. And the second was the question that I mentioned before, which is the inflation. So we have recruited in 2021 and 2022, we have increased salaries as well. So there is some embarked payroll from 2022 to 2023 that we need to tackle with, and that's the reason why we are going to be cautious in terms of recruitment as well in 2023. And we need, again, to keep on increasing our prices in front of our clients.

And you have the -- I think the unknown factor is the sort of employee expectation around pay rises because inflation is really only just getting going at the beginning of '21. It's now very established and it's something we track for the central banks. And so it's looking at that sort of lag effect of how inflation plays out in the economy. There are some signs that the transmission is faster than, say, in other periods of inflation because of the digitization of the economy. But nevertheless, it's something we're very, very aware of. And that's another reason for not coming out with a higher margin.

And maybe on your second question on gross margin. So I'm not going to be more precise or to guide on the gross margin. What I can say is that there are effects coming from, first of all, the shift from off-line to online that I explained before, which is kind of structural shift, if you like, which structurally improve the gross margin. And the second is a question of business mix. There are some businesses in which we are depending on the relative growth of the different businesses that can improve or decrease the gross margin depending on the business mix.

And finally, on acquisitions, clearly, we would like to, and we -- as you can see, we have planned to make much more substantial ones. I think there is a balance. We are in conversations with a number of privately held businesses, and we would hope that we would be able to get something over the line. My good colleague Jean-Michel Mabon, who leads acquisitions and M&A is here, and you can talk to him. But it's always an uncertain process. And what we don't want to do is do anything that's very dilutive or overpay. I think the market and valuations are still quite inflated in many cases, but they are clearly starting to change.

Who are your competitors? And how do you compete with them? Are they big? Are they little? And what makes you win a contract? What is a nice thing in Ipsos?

Okay. I mean, it's a combination, but we have a few -- the way the market is structured is there are a few large global competitors, Nielsen, Kantar. Kantar is probably the one that in some ways is closest to Ipsos. And then, of course, a great many local national competitors. And so in terms of how we win, it is ultimately about the added value that we can demonstrate in terms of what we're doing, the quality of the data collection, but also the quality of the people. When I look at the feedback from our clients about where they're -- when they're pleased. What they mention is getting things done quickly and the responsiveness of the teams. So it's -- it is a people business, but also that the quality of the relationship, the quality of the team. And it's that -- it is ultimately that as well as the geographic footprint and the ability to deliver competitive prices because of the global infrastructure that we've created, but that is what lets us win particularly often against local. We're often faced with purely local competitors. But that -- but this -- one of the things that I always say internally is Ipsos knows -- our small local competitor knows this much stuff. We know all this, if I can make the network and which is why collaboration is one of our key values to share that so that when somebody goes to pitch in India, they aren't just an Indian with Indian staff pitching. They are bringing behind them. They have all our expertise, for example, in working for governments on similar projects in different parts of the world. And that's what Ipsos brings essentially.

We have some questions from the online audience. [Operator Instructions] We'll now take our first question from Emmanuel Matot from ODDO.

Four questions for me, please. First, why is [indiscernible] faced by some GAFAs, Uber, Amazon, et cetera, don't lead to significant cuts in their market reserve budgets. Second, what about your order book at the beginning of 2023? Is it growing in line with your sales guidance of plus 5%? Third, due to the very challenging basis of comparison, could we have a scenario of a negative organic sales growth in Q1 2023? And my fourth and last question, do you confirm an additional investment CapEx of EUR 200 million in your road map for 2025, meaning EUR 50 million per year because I don't see any significant change in your CapEx last year as a percentage of sales? And could you detail a little bit additional we should expect in the coming years?

Let's take those in order. So the GAFAs, the large clients, you have to remember that these are enormous businesses. And even if you look at the headcount reduction that they have made, they are still employing many, many more people than they were in 2019. The other thing is that the spend -- on their spend on market research is a tiny fraction of their overall expenditure. And again, without being too specific, they need data. So you may see -- we may see some chopping and changing, but I don't -- we are not seeing any sort of massive drawback. And things like the arrival ChatGPT, the need to invest in marketing cloud services, generative AI, new solutions, actually, again, drives potential spend. So we're not anticipating huge cut. The order book, we're not doing sort of running commentary, but we are on absolutely on track at the end of January for our budget of 5% growth. We can see there is nothing in the order book that we can see that makes us worry at this stage at the end of January. We will see a weaker organic growth during Q1. We aren't going to grow by 12% in Q1 of this year as we did the previous year. But I would very -- I'm not anticipating it going negative at this stage. So absolutely not. And on CapEx, again, we are -- one of -- Michel, our new COO, is working on the detail of our investments and our strategy in this space. We have actually committed some more money to 5 data science solutions this year, exactly -- but exactly the profile and spend -- the profile of that spend over the next period is still being determined, I suppose.

We'll move on to our next participant Muros Guillaume Societe Generale.

Just one for me. It's on Ipsos.Digital. So if we make the math, looking at the implied growth from Ipsos.Digital, other new services and traditional services in 2022, it seems that what is growing at like triple-digit trades Ipsos.Digital. However, other new services seem to be growing at a similar pace, at least in 2022 compared to the traditional services, approximately 10% growth year-on-year. So my question here is what differentiates Ipsos.Digital from the other new services? And if you could perhaps elaborate on the, let's say, different growth rate from Ipsos.Digital versus the other new services going forward?

Okay. So the other new services is a definition that we've had, I think, for about 7 years. And it's a combination of a wide range of, well, what are new services, the new services. So -- and that's why it's quite. In a sense, it's a basket of innovations that we are tracking. And their adoption and their proportion in our revenue. Ipsos.Digital is one thing, which is a Software-as-a-Service platform, which is the main -- in one sense is the main focus for automation inside the company, and we need to push more of our work onto that platform, both for our clients and our teams. But it's -- so it's really like comparing -- you're effectively comparing one very specific product that is in a sense of flagship with a basket of more innovative other solutions. So I hope that sort of makes that clearer for you.

Yes. But it's just -- if you could as well explain if there are in this basket of other new services, let's say, other platforms or services that are growing as fast as Ipsos.Digital? And if not, what makes Ipsos.Digital growth prospects, let's say, better?

They are a really diverse basket of services. So I think the reason -- so the reason Ipsos.Digital grows more quickly is because of its -- the speed and the simplicity that it's able to offer our clients, but also the focus, the management focus that we decided to put behind that. So the other services are spread across the company in our individual service lines. This one has its own leadership team. It's something that we look at on a weekly basis in terms of where it is. So it's not really -- they're not completely comparable if you see what I mean. And one question that we've been asking ourselves is, should we revise the basket of services because we've been using the same one for some time and some things that were brand-new in 2015 are no longer brand new anyway.

And it is true that the growth of Ipsos.Digital is actually very high. As you've seen on the slide, it's 78% in 2022 organically. So obviously, it's a very fast-growing part of our business, yes.

[Operator Instructions] We have no further questions at this time. I'd like to turn the conference back to the host for any additional or closing remarks.

Any more in the room? Okay.

One question for me. So maybe some thoughts about China. So what is the environment there? What are your competitors in this market? And do you think to go back to growth there?

So we estimate that we're #1 in China. We have -- they are still in the throes of COVID. But I think one of the things that we've seen with COVID in every economy around the world is that after a period of closure, you then get this very rapid rebound. And we have no reason to believe that China will be different in that case. So we are expecting much more growth in China than we saw last year. It's just exactly when does that happen, but that's our position on China. I mean the team there are very confident.

[indiscernible]

I mean, there are a number of local competitors. And the data that I have -- again, we're not publishing our position in every single market in the world. But -- between you and me. The information that we have is that we have actually come through the COVID crisis in China stronger than our local competitors.

We've delivered plus 12% like-for-like growth in Q1 2022. Excluding COVID contract, would you please give us the price [indiscernible] growth, please?

In 2022?

In Q1 2022, it was plus 12%. What's the COVID effect, please?

Well, I don't have the number here. I'm trying to remember. Yes -- so it's -- yes, it's a bit difficult to answer that. Maybe we can do that virtually.

Okay. Because you gave us this information for Q2, Q3 and Q4.

Yes.

I would assume that you had December for Q1 as well.

We do, but not at our fingertips.

We had already those contracts in Q1 2021. So in Q1 2022, there was no impact because we had them at the same level in Q1 2021. And that's only when they stopped at the end of Q1 2022 that we started to have an impact. Do you see what I mean?

I was just trying to work out the underlying growth effects with those contracts, yes. Thank you. [Portions of this transcript that are marked [Interpreted] were spoken by an interpreter present on the live call.]