NHOA S.A. (NHOA) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary
October 14, 2022
Earnings Call Speaker Segments
Operator
operatorGood morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to our investor call regarding our Q3 2022 trading and operational update in the context of Master Plan 10x. The investor call will be opened by Mr. Carlalberto Guglielminotti, CEO of NHOA Group, and with him to explain all digits about the Q3 2022 trading and operational update will be Mr. Giuseppe Artizzu, CEO of NHOA Energy; and NHOA Group, General Manager; Mr. Roberto Di Stefano, CEO of Free2Move eSolutions; Mr. Stefano Terranova, CEO of Atlante; Mr. Gabriele Tuccillo, Chief of Strategy, Staff and Investor Relations; and Mr. Alessio Caruso, Deputy CFO of NHOA Group. Mr. Guglielminotti will open the call and then we'll leave the floor to Mr. Artizzu for the global business line, Energy Storage; Mr. Stefano for the global business line, e-Mobility and Mr. Terranova for Atlante, the global business line dedicated to EV Fastcharging Infrastructure. At the end of the call, the management team will be available to answer all questions you may have. Please note that this investor call will be recorded. If you could not attend the whole call, the webcast and the presentation will be available on our corporate website on the dedicated page. Please note that all participants will be in listen mode. [Operator Instructions] Before we begin, I just want to point out that any forward-looking statements made during today's call are subject to the risks and uncertainties mentioned in the safe harbor statement, which is included on Page 2 of today's presentation. This also includes the risk that the transactions discussed during today's call remains subject to standard conditions for these type of transactions as well as any other risks and uncertainties associated with the execution of transactions of this type. And as customary, the call will be governed by that language. So with that, I will leave the floor to Mr. Carlalberto Guglielminotti.
Carlalberto Guglielminotti
executiveThank you, Tiara. And if I can make congratulations also for your new role of Head of Institutional Relations and Financial Communication at NHOA, but even more importantly, please let me first congratulate with our CFO, Ilaria Scarinci that cannot be with us today as she become mum literally tonight. So congratulations from all of us, Ilaria. Well, good morning, first, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for being with us today. We are today here to present to you as customary in the context of our Master Plan 10x, our Q3 2022 trading and operational update and the results, obviously, as of September 30. I would now give you the usual general overview of the main results that my colleague will dive later on and more in detail, obviously. I'm going to say our third quarter was another record quarter for NHOA. It was actually driven again and again, if I may, by Energy Storage. As you say, NHOA Energy coupled with a booming rollout in the Atlante, the EV Fastcharging network. So revenues at September 30 reached EUR 100 million at group level for the first time. And this is a record for NHOA. I mean, from the one hand, this is mainly thanks to an impressive 20x growth year-on-year in Energy Storage, but this is also the confirmation of our vision. I mean you will all remember that EUR 100 million revenues was the target we set back in 2017 for our 2020 results, so 5 years ago. And 2020 -- the 2020 revenues and 2020 target eventually turned into something that was unachievable even if the backlog was almost there because of the travel restrictions related to COVID-19 pandemic, if you will all remember. And then eventually, we achieved exactly the same results, so EUR 100 million of revenues, essentially 1.5 years later. And I will never be grateful enough to present our piece with the whole NHOA Energy teams for having achieved this amazing role today after 15 years of technology investments, commitment and if I may also, sacrifice. Because this target has been essentially achieved, thanks to NHOA Energy, our Energy Storage division, the tech heritage of our group, and this is before the potential we have for and we still believe in for Free2Move eSolutions, and this is before the successful rollout of Atlante. Anyway, this is a growth that sees over 200 megawatts online, 100 megawatt hours under construction with now full visibility towards approximately 1 giga online in the coming months. The foreselling our positioning in a solid positioning in the top 5 energy storage system integrators worldwide. And again, thanks to [indiscernible] there and most importantly to our CTO, Daniele Rosati, together with [indiscernible], I mean, along with your amazing teams, you turn this target set back in 2017 into reality. Having said that, on its turn, Atlante keeps accelerating further with now 1,300 fast points of charge online and under construction in Southern Europe, mainly in France and Italy, coupled with almost 2,000 sites in pipeline. And you will easily understand that this is well beyond the pace envisaged 1 year ago in the Master Plan. This isn't the most conservative 2 to 3x faster than planned and expected those. And this is, again, thanks to a world-class management team, led by Stefano Terranova that together with John Arabia Jacqueline, their respective teams are accelerating the Atlante network rollout at the pace that nobody would have ever imagined. Well, finally, generally speaking, this has not happened out of the blue. I mean, the execution of our project portfolio in this third quarter has run according to schedule in all 4 continents, irrespective of the macro headwinds, irrespective of the increasingly complex geopolitical scenario and not to mention the supply chain, global constraints that still are there. And all these give us an increased visibility towards our 2022 revenues, I mean with our H1 results, we already revised upward our guidance from EUR 140 million to EUR 160 million. And what they can now say to you is that we now have full visibility towards the high end of that EUR 140 million, EUR 160 million guidance range and despite the slower-than-expected ramp-up in eMobility. Ramp up in eMobility that, yes, I mean that's a bit disappointing. I can disappoint many of you. But the reality is that fundamentals did not change. Conversion rate is slightly lower, but fundamentals are there. I mean our commitment and the Stellantis commitment did not change. And even if the real volumes are not yet there, we still are committed and confident towards a step change in revenue generation. Starting from Q1 next year with the first concrete signal in this year, but Roberto and Stefano will elaborate on that in a few minutes. Anyway, conclusion is that group top line results are driven by our stationary storage business line, where the continuous increase in backlog and order intake for NHOA Energy, coupled with a stable pipeline of around EUR 1 billion give us full visibility on the NHOA's growth and the growth that NHOA will have in 2023 despite, as I said, the global scenario. And even more importantly, this confirms our Energy Storage business line, NHOA Energy as the growth energy of the group. But anyway, I would like to thank all again and again all our extraordinary people for the amazing job they have done and they are doing and they will do whatever -- whether they work in NHOA Energy or Atlante or Free2Move eSolutions. And I mean, as usual, I don't want to spoil too much of our results and the floor -- I'm very glad to leave the floor to Giuseppe Artizzu, our Group General Manager and CEO of NHOA Energy to give us his insights around the results of NHOA Energy and our global storage business line. Giuseppe, the floor is yours. Thank you.
Giuseppe Artizzu
executiveThank you, Carlalberto, good morning, everybody. So in the third quarter, we have reported revenues of EUR 15 million, which in our new words, it sounds like a low number in reality as much as we did throughout 2021. I mean the reason by now you are familiar a little bit with our revenue accrual on a work-in-progress basis. So simply we did not have a major battery deliveries for the large projects. And therefore, this is the result, but the projects are all progressing on schedule. So this is exactly what we were expecting. We have more than replaced the backlog converted into sales. So the backlog has increased. And overall on a rolling basis also, our order intake over the last over 12 months is over -- is well over EUR 200 million and it has also increased. Our objective from a commercial perspective in the fourth quarter is to preserve this trend. So we expect a good quarter, a very strong quarter in the fourth quarter and from a revenue-generation perspective, and our objective is to offset that with a new order so that -- to maintain strong visibility as we get into 2023 with a lot of trust in continuing this exceptional growth path that we have undertaken approximately 1.5 year ago. Capacity online has moved to over 200 megawatts. This is given by the commissioning of the first phase of our HePing project in Taiwan. So it's 13 megawatt projects that has been commissioned and has been authorized to provide frequency-regulation services on the Taiwan high-voltage repeat by Taiwan Power Corporation. This has occurred over the last weeks of October. We are now entering from an execution perspective into a way of commissioning. We have 3 or 4 commissionings that are occurring over the next 2, 3 months, including the startup of the commissioning of synergy project in Australia where installation is essentially completed, and it's going to be a long commissioning process, cost commission and precommissioning, we have a substation to commission. So it's quite longer commissioning progress, but installation activities and substantially completed, we have commissioned 3 or 4 other projects, but we have a wave of commissioning between now [Technical Difficulty] next year. We no longer have under construction, the HePing project that is -- that has been moving to online capacity. Our pipeline is stable at around EUR 1 billion. We are working a lot on the quality of -- not only the quality of the pipeline. And we are being extremely selective. So we are not -- we are deliberating not increasing disproportionately the pipeline in order to target projects that are sufficiently large to justify rational allocation of resources. And on the other hand, they are not too large to challenge our financial capacity. We are striking the right balance to have an ambitious path but disciplined growth profile. So again, another great quarter, and I congratulate my team, and I'm grateful to our shareholders for the support that is providing so far, so good. We'll continue on this track.
Carlalberto Guglielminotti
executiveThank you, Giuseppe. And let's now move to comment on Free2Move eSolutions results. I hand over to Roberto Stefano for a comment on our figures and industrial challenges behind the challenges that as I anticipated, and please let me reiterate, do not change fundamentals of the project, do not change our commitment, do not change the Stellantis commitment ambition, I mean, sometimes, we -- some projects need just some patience to happen, and we are convinced and we still are convinced that this project will be successful. Roberto, feel free to elaborate, floor is yours.
Roberto Stefano
executiveThank you, Carlalberto. And using your comments, clearly, I can confirm that I'm personally disappointed on the result, but there are reason and we are fully trusted that the execution that we are -- in these last 2 quarters implemented will give us what we were expecting since time now. So let's first comment the numbers. So we -- you can see that we did a growth of 23% versus H1 this year and plus 31% versus the similar quarter of last year. But what I want to comment is the conversion rate on Stellantis that you can see that this 16%. And remember in our comments that we spent during last trading update -- quarter 2 trading update, I was commenting that the expectation was for quarter 3 to have a rebound starting from September because clearly, July and August, we all know that at least in Europe, the automotive market is not the most important month as weight of sales and our cost and services are clearly paired with the sales of the vehicle. But remember in that I was forecasting that a rebound in September, I can confirm you that just looking at September, the conversion rate result on Stellantis perimeter is above 30%. That means we are achieving -- we are more or less achieving what we were forecasting in quarter 3 starting from September to be back in a decent number. If I want to -- if I comment on my expectation -- the expectation of the company, as Carlalberto said, thanks even to the support of the 2 shareholders. My expectation for quarter 3 folks, sorry, will be to achieve a conversion rate. Again, on Stellantis perimeter in a range between 20%, 30% with a certain stability during the quarter 4. Clearly, this is not just because of rebounds. We did in quarter 1, 2 and 3, a lot of activity jointly with clearly all Stellantis brands and Stellantis customer experience to completely redesign a new seamless customer journey, both for the main 2 channels that we are using to distribute and sell in the market, our product and services that are the dealer channel and for the sales online. These are start to give us a result how we are feeling in -- we are already seeing in September. And last but not least, the important -- one important information, we commented also in the last 2 trading update, the problems that all the automotive industry, not only the automotive industry, the overall industry is having in terms of disruption or supply chain for electronics mainly that was impacting even us. And I can confirm you that this is for us now out of the table. We are fully allocated for the following months. That means our -- my attests to the activity done by the team. Now we are in a safe situation for this for such type of program. Some additional comments that I would like to spend another achievement that we got during quarter 3 that are clearly the start of sale in U.S. because as we commented, we are in parallel, executing the activities in U.S. And I can confirm you that we have already got a relevant backlog and we start officially put the first sales in U.S. field in quarter 2 2022. And clearly, we got [ all the way ] and that means backlog both for the deelectrification where we need to electrify in U.S. and Canada more than 2,500 point of sales -- dealer point of sales. And we're already filling the pipe for the retail customer in U.S. The second important achievement that was an activity, not a simple activity in September -- during September, in 30 days, we did -- and we completed the migration for the whole Stellantis customer from the previous digital MSP, the mobility service provider to our eSolution charging MSP. That means that now from September onwards from 1st of October, all Stellantis customers in Europe are using our MSP. And from the third one that is another important factor for September onward with all Stellantis brand, we are executing by market, by brand dedicated call to action-pairing vehicles with our charging solution. Finally, that is an achievement that is really -- was not so easy to meet with the team of Free2Move eSolution. Our IPO [ Mark Wallbox ] in August got the official certification for safety, conformity and quality from [indiscernible] on top of the clearly official full validation from the automotive industry. So this is the reason why we are confirming our commitment on the plan. We are keep executing even more than before because we are seeing that the growth will be achievable. And as Carlalberto said, what for will be the -- let's say, the achievement of all the action, so the first result of all the actions that we are executing to be ready from quarter 1, 2023 to have a stable growth for the future step of the company. Carlalberto, back to you.
Carlalberto Guglielminotti
executiveThank you, Roberto. We can now move to comment and investigate more on Atlante booming results, then I will leave the floor to Stefano. Stefano, floor is yours.
Stefano Terranova
executiveYes. Good morning, everyone. Thank you very much for the attention. And thank you Carlalberto for the introduction. Just a few days ago, we completed our first year of operations here at Atlante. And I can probably say that this has been a first year of operations full of satisfactory results. First of all, there are many things that went on behind the scenes that you cannot see clearly that do not show up in the numbers that you see, but they were absolutely essential for the results. And for the results that you see today and even more so for what you will see, the results that we will be posting tomorrow. And when I say tomorrow, I mean a very nearby future. The first measure of our success has been on the people front. We have onboarded 80 professionals who are now 80 Atlantes as we like to call ourselves, highly qualified and highly motivated professionals. They have joined us in those last 12 months, when we started with initial endowment of only 5 people from NHOA, 40% female-to-male ratio, which I'm very proud of. And having onboarded both very experienced people from renowned companies around the 4 continents we operate in as well as the young talents, including the onboarding of people coming straight from University, which is another point of pride, I would say. Of course, while hiring people, we have set up the organization and this was only possible at the speed in which we have done, thanks to the full support of NHOA. I want to thank a few colleagues in particular. Ilaria Scarinci, first of all, while congratulating her again, complementing her for the birth of her first child. She was essentially in -- for all the financial-ready process, they had support and acting support. Ludovica Solera supported all the human talent processes, Roberta Romano for the legal and compliance, Chiara Cerri, Teresa Pogliani, the communication pillars -- and by the way, all female colleagues maybe just a coincidence of -- I don't believe in coincidences. So this is -- without them and without the leadership under the leadership of Carlalberto, which has always been inspiring, challenging, of course, but inspiring. And with the stellar support of Giuseppe and Rosati, this will not have been possible. So this is another element of success is NHOA incubated successfully, the second company after having incubated Free2Move eSolution, albeit [ preliminary ] solution, obviously, with the support of Stellantis as well. Then another key factor of the speed at which we operate is the fact that we have a very close need management team. It's only 4 of us. I decided early on to have a small senior management team, myself, Joanne Lavin and Francesco Lamberti where they are at the inception. And then Jacques who joined us from 1st of January. The 4 of us, we work very, very closely together, and I think this formula was essential for us to move at this speed. Of course, we will expand the senior management team. But for the first year, I think this was a very good position. Then, besides the people organization, of course, we had to set up the development platforms. The most obvious to showcase is the business and project development platform. These are the results. You see the numbers you see on this slide. But what you don't see is the other platforms, which are equally important for our [ ACO ] processes and for the -- especially for the future of Atlante. Let me mention, for example, the digital and the technological platforms, both led by our CTO, Francesco. On the digital front, we have set up the Atlante Cloud, which is an ecosystem, let's say, an edifice inside which we will be housing -- we already house them, we will be housing all of the core-operational platforms, digital platforms. For example, the energy management system, which is being developed will be housed inside the Atlante Cloud and will allow to link all of our stations and transform them into energy assets stand-alone and also each of our plants when linked together. Then on the technology side, Francesco's worked on our tech road map, especially closely with Roberto Di Stefano and his teams and Free2Move eSolution. They are, obviously, as you know, they are developing the platform for our e-station, the first one of which with storage will be tested and installed in Q4 and then just a few weeks from now, basically. And then we have an exciting massive rollout plan for 2023. This is on top of the Drosso -- the Drosso project, a unique world-class asset being developed -- being built as we speak -- finalized as we speak, by Free2Move eSolution again with their own proprietary B2G fast-charging technology, a platform upon which the e-station is based, by the way, and which Atlante will acquire as soon as completed. This is -- again, it's such a unique measure of the synergies that we create within the NHOA Group. What [ encology ] road map, obviously also includes working with supply outside the group other than Free2Move eSolution, I mean. And we have a tech watch that covers pretty much all of the relevant hardware and software provided around the globe. Execution was, frankly, the big test that we had to pass in Atlante. Last year, when we launched the Atlante with no real estate assets and no real estate or retail background in the NHOA Group. This was a big challenge, and that was something that we had to prove to you all, to our investors and our shareholders, first of all. And a challenge that we have to prove on 4 countries, by the way. Well, the numbers, again, this allows me to go back to the slide, these numbers, I think, and the map you see underneath clearly shows that we have passed that test. We have passed this, also thanks to Joanne and Jacques efforts in the respective geographies, not at all to be taken for granted because we had said we would start from it and slowly move westwards, but we accelerated and we decided to accelerate at a time when we were still learning. We met with lots of disappointments, of course, in the development phase, especially again for the lack of strong background in that field. But the disappointments, we always use them as learning exercises, learning opportunities. And this learning process will be a continuous one. This is in the DNA of Atlante as in the DNA of the NHOA Group. Meanwhile, I can say that we have found the right formulas, the right partners to work with, and therefore, we have secured enough sites to build out our network in 2022, 2023 is very much, if not all secured, very much advanced for our 2022 rollout. So, in fact, we are developing the sites at a pace which is outstripping our initial plans. So I'm very happy to report the biggest challenge we were facing is past. Not to be -- I don't want to obviously rest on the lower end and think it's over. As I explained, this will be a continuous learning exercise, and we will continue to put lots of efforts in the development and build out. Talking about building, in particular, building, putting stations online is also an area where we had to learn a lot. Although, of course, we have a strong know-how and strong support from NHOA in terms of building out energy assets. But this was a different scale. Many small assets distributed in 4 countries rather than bigger storage systems. So we had to learn and we have to face challenges such as supply chain delays, all the very long lead times that we have to embed in our processes in terms of connecting the stations with local grids once they are constructed. However, these factors are, I would say, they have a one-off effect -- one-off effect in the sense that, of course, after the first year of operations, the opening up and putting stations online will be on a rolling basis, and therefore, the initial delays will be forgotten soon. Finally, I would like to mention one particular achievement, one achievement that I'm particularly proud of the fact that we have been selected and awarded with approximately EUR 23 million of funding under the Connecting Europe facility program. This is a very important program that the European Union has launched to fast track, to accelerate the electrification of the mobility sector, to facilitate the installation of charge infrastructure. And of course, we had to prepare the file at the same time as we were growing the organization. So you can imagine how challenging the exercise was. The final application went in early June, just to give you an idea. Well, receiving those funds will, first of all, accelerate the rollout in all 4 countries because we presented the program covering 4 countries. And even more importantly, it's a sign -- a very important sign of recognition at EU level that Atlante is already a key player for the electrification of Southern Europe. So that, to me, was a very nice way to conclude my short speech is to say also thank you to my teams that worked on this important achievement as well as everything else that we have done in the past 1 year. And of course, again, to say that thank you to the European authorities that have recognized the value of what we're trying to do. And then I think the numbers speak for themselves. What I like very much is the map that we are showing for the first time underneath with the stations in the various stages of development. You see in red, the ones which are online and under construction. Of course, we do not have online any station yet in France, Spain or Portugal, but you can see that we have pretty much covered the 4 geographies already in a quite nice way that shows that our customers will be able to travel freely. This is just the start. The map will soon be more and more densely populated with dots. And that's it, I would like just, once again, to thank all of the amazing people that decided to join Atlante, to join the mission of Atlante, which is an extension of the NHOA mission, fostering the fast-paced change towards an energy world at the remission in our case, the mobility part of the energy portion and be prepared for more excitement to come. Thank you very much.
Carlalberto Guglielminotti
executiveThank you, Stefano. And I think we can now move to our Q&A session and together with Giuseppe, Roberto Stefano, together with [indiscernible] for all financial aspects, we are now ready to take any questions you may have. So Tiara, floor is yours to open the Q&A session. Thank you.
Operator
operator[Operator Instructions] The first one will be told by Mr. Pozzi from Mediobanca.
Alessandro Pozzi
analystI have 3. First of all, I think in your opening remarks, you mentioned that strong progression in terms of revenues year-on-year. But in Q3, as you pointed out, they were down versus Q2. If I look at the midpoint of the guidance, you probably still need to make EUR 50 million in Q4 to get there. You sound very confident, you can achieve that, and I was wondering if you can give us more color why you're confident. Is it because you have already the delivery schedule for the batteries have firmed up? Or is it because of projects in the Energy Storage are moving through the commissioning phase or you have more visibility on the milestone and revenue recognitions or anything that can give us more confidence to us for the full year guidance that will be appreciated. As a follow-on on this one, maybe in e-Mobility, there's a lot of things going on, as you mentioned in the presentation. I was wondering what is the main driver of growth in the next few quarters? Is it the conversion rate of Stellantis, is it the electrification of the dealerships in North America or the launch of the new product, e-Pro as well that potentially could support the revenues there? And also lastly, the third question, just a recast how many charging points you have at the moment online? And wonder you can give us a sense of the economics there. What I mean by that is do you have an estimation of what utilization rates could be or where they can go on your charging points and how many customers you have per day going through your charging points? That would be helpful. And also lastly, the third question, just a regard how many charging points you have at the moment online -- and wonder you can give us a sense of the economics the -- what I mean by that is do you have an estimation of what utilization rates could be or where they can go on your charging points and how many customers you have per day going through your charging points, that would be helpful.
Carlalberto Guglielminotti
executiveThank you think Alessandro. Let me introduce and then handing over to the teams for a more detailed analysis. So on the first one, revenue progression, If you look into the Q3 that is down compared to Q2. Yes, you're right. And you're right also when you say that we do expect approximately EUR 50 million revenues in Q4. And you're right also when you say that we are absolutely confident on achieving that. So the question is why I can anticipate that everything is simply according to the schedule. Yes, obviously, battery deliveries is essential. I'm handing over to Giuseppe to elaborate on that. But let me say that we do have a project, and we are delivering at an execution speed that goes beyond the consequent quarter, okay? So the reason why we share on a quarterly basis, our trading and operational update, and we have always been clear and saying, okay, please do expect volatility because we want to lead in the market for the level of transparency and for the level of financial communication, okay? And so we are prepared for that. But please do not focus too much on that. There's a [indiscernible] to make question because the level of content we had, the level of pipeline we have really goes beyond the concept of quarter volatility. But anyway, I will leave to Guiseppe just elaborate a bit on the level of content that we have for Q4. So Guiseppe and over to you.
Giuseppe Artizzu
executiveYes. So the answer is quite obvious. We are in the mid-October. So we have a high degree of visibility on the delivery real schedule of equipment that we are receiving and on the actual of other milestone progress including the commissioning of projects. So on a 2-month basis, we are -- I agree of volatile visibility and the potential, so there are some deliveries that are scaled in the second half of December, but the magnitude of those is relatively limited compared to what is instead well inside this year. So we have a high had degree of visibility. And as I said before, we are focusing in this quarter, we are focusing in particular on commercial exports. So the machine is going. So given that the battery environment has stabilized, we are putting a lot of effort on riding the wave in this period to commercialize on other legion price is stabilized and the other commodities that are actually going down. So we are trying to capture that opportunity.
Carlalberto Guglielminotti
executiveThen on your second question on standard immobility, what is the trigger between the conversion rate is sales, North America and prelaunch I mean all of them are contributing, we'll elaborate on that. But yes, any single point you mentioned is crucial. So maybe slightly less in the short term North America because of the maturity of the market, if you look short term, okay? But in principle, conversion rate, globally sales, the lands and the stability of the Pro and launch of the Pro are essential that the stone all those 3 KPIs compared to between integrators.
Giuseppe Artizzu
executiveNo. But like you said in the question there was already almost the answer because clearly, the composition of these 3 factors are giving us the confidence that what we did so far will give us results and growth. There is another factor that I was commenting, I don't remember, it's in quarter 1 or quarter 2, that clearly in Europe, we have been created where in Stellantis there was already in some market relationship with other partners, suppliers. And for sure, these period of time, we even use with Stellantis to, let's say, to migrate from them to us. That means the composition of the growth of the automotive market in electrification our product readiness, the dealer electrification in U.S. and the start of sales in U.S. where the situation is totally different because there was no any partnership, present partnership or something so small that we start really from ground 0 with us. All the composition of this factor and in giving us the confidence that our plan is consistent and solid enough to confirm our commitment on the growth.
Alessandro Pozzi
analystOn the supply chain, can you give us maybe an indication of the bottlenecks that you had experienced have now been sorted out and we will see a more seamless, let's say, supply chain in Q4?
Unknown Executive
executiveYes. It's pretty simple. The answer. Thanks to the support of our 2 shareholders, clearly, when we bought that was May 2021, clearly, there was already a bit of swing, I can say, on the electronic or microchip market industry and there were a company, big corporations that were asking, let's say orders with more than 13, 14 months in. Clearly, at that moment, we were not present in the market, and we were not in our location. Now thanks again to the support of our 2 shareholders we fix the discussion and now we are in allocation with this big corporation. That means that now we are monthly allocated by them and we are monitoring weekly with all this company, everything according with the schedule. Clearly, like I said last time, we are even increasing a bit our stock because this is normal in this period of time to ensure us continuity in production. This was not possible like the previous month, the previous quarter because, again, it was something said that we were entering in a period of time that was very critical, now this has been fixed. We are in allocation. We are receiving confirmation monthly of our allocation and now the stability of the supply chain for us is really in a good shape. And was only electronic, our issue.
Carlalberto Guglielminotti
executiveAnd then on your third question, when online utilization rate. I mean I hand over to Stefano for some detail, but really, again, I -- we don't feel that even if that's important, it's obviously, from your perspective, don't feel the pressure of monitoring the utilization rate and some. For the simple reason that what we are doing in a [indiscernible] is not to show that we have the highest utilization rate of the market on the lowest. Obviously, you see how much iconic are the locations that we have secured. Stefano will comment on that. So that's an obvious conclusion. But my point is that -- we are rolling out an infrastructure that would be essential in the next coming years to drive for all mobility and new mobility drivers, okay? The important aspect is not how much conversion rate we have because the conversion rate obviously will be in line or likely or tremendously higher than the others. But really, the point is that in Italy, we have 600, 800 fast chargers online. We have over 1,300 under construction. I mean, utilization rate depends on EV penetration depends from be factor might be sooner or later, the achievement of the target utilization rate we have in mind, but eventually, what really matter is how many charges will we have and in which location. The utilization rate will follow and the electronics we sold are all automatic. That's my view. But Stefano, feel free to integrate and to give some color on such aspects.
Stefano Terranova
executiveYes, yes. In terms of precise numbers, you will have to be patient as we always said we will not be giving out numbers until we have a solid portfolio of stations in operation for a relatively long period of time so that the numbers make sense, right, especially, just to give you an example, over the summer, there's been a spike in utilization, thanks to many foreigner tourists, especially for northern countries that come visit Italy and they have and they have goals that boost the utilization rates of our stations. But again, if we reported those numbers, they were slightly misleading because it's just -- there is a seasonality effect that needs to be captured with a relatively long period of time. So please be patient for precise numbers. But what I can say to add color, to what Carlalberto said is that, indeed, remember in our plans, what we said before, we started the rollout plans was that we expected very conservative utilization rate on realistic i.e.. Starting from low single-digit percentages going up to 15% towards 2023 -- sorry, 2030. So there is a long road to build in terms of the enough electrical vehicles being there to utilize fully the stations. But on the other hand, don't forget our technological approach, which means that I don't want to give out too many spoilers, but at a certain point, you may see different type of KPIs that are more relevant to our business model in a sense that, for example, Again, I'll try to say something that is useful to you without spoilers. But you can imagine that with storage the concept of utilization factor needs to be adaptive to how big is the connection that you require vis-a-vis a standard operation without storage, right? That's an example. But in a nutshell, we have -- we had set out this plan with being very realistic in the fact that especially in the 4 countries where we operate, where we decided to launch the EV penetration rates are very low, and therefore, we should expect low utilization rates, single digit, even low single digit at the beginning and then growing up to double digit with time. Italy, in particular, we even -- it's going even worse in the sense in terms of the EV penetration rates because the EV sales have gone down shockingly between this year and last year. But nonetheless, what I can say is that whenever we open stations, we see clients that come, we see customers and we see them being utilized very nicely. I'm also surprised by the numbers even in a situation where, as I said, in Italy, that the number of vehicles right now is almost miniscule. But the point is -- I think it's -- the trend shows what we have in our mission, build the stations and people will be reassured that they can make the switch to electric mobility. Yes. And then the other part is that, of course, as we mature, we do -- we developed -- before I mentioned the digital platforms. One of the operational tools that we have developed is, of course, the Geo-localization tools, several because we have tested several different tools and that allow us to select stations that have a better future ahead, right? Locations where we can predict of course, based on a lot of data and a lot of data analytics, where we can predict that there would be more EV penetration and more usage. And finally, another aspect which goes the other way around is the CHP program that I mentioned before. In that case, the European Union says I give you some money to invest in stations along the most important mobility [corridors] right? And that goes very well with our concept on the go. However, of course, those corridors right now are full of cars but a full of internal combustion engine cars, right? So we are building stations there with the support of the European Union accelerated the plan -- so building them before they would make sense without the funding of the European Union. So, when those stations will come online, which is from late 2023 and '24 and '25, on those stations in the first few years, the utilization rates will be low, but that's by design in a sense because we have selected sites which have a huge potential. In the coming few years, but not immediate. And thanks -- we can do that, thanks to the support of the European Union that says please build the stations because people have to be able to move across Europe and across the high traffic routes.
Carlalberto Guglielminotti
executiveThank you to because Stefano, I mean utilization right now, really, I reiterate that we have to focus to our projections that were in the massive plan. From 4% to 15% because now utilization rate would be extremely misleading. And given example, your [indiscernible] just on high-power charging station, right? And now I mean, obviously, in the city center, utilization rate there, I would expect not 20%, 30%. But that's totally misleading because then once you install add further station, this will decrease. So the question is, is our business model sustainable with a 4% to 15% utilization rate. Yes it is. Why? Because we do have a utilization rate that is higher than the other? Certainly having installed in iconic location, It helps, okay, because we have the airports we have the major corridors within the European Union. So I do expect a slightly higher utilization rate compared to the others, but it doesn't really change the picture. What does change the picture is the fact that we are going to install storage that we're going to do energy management. And for that reason, our financials will be dramatically better than our competitors, than other TPOs, not because we have highest utilization rate. Utilization rate really depends from the location and depending on EV penetration and dependent from EV progression on the road and would be exactly the same for anyone else. So it's not a real distinctive factor. It's just a way to, let me say, convince ourself that mobility is there, but the mobility will be there even without immediate higher or lower utilization rate.
Operator
operatorYes. Sure. We have a question coming from Mr. Paternoster from Kepler. I will just now ask him to open his mic on.
Hugo Paternoster
analystYes. Okay. My first question is kind of a follow-up on the sales for the full year and mainly the sale for E-Mobility segment free-to-move solution. What kind of growth do you expect in Q4 the magnitude of rebound for the sales. It would be my first question. The second one would be more a vague question on Atlante and in terms of the number of location pipeline of new sites under assessment, what is your expected win rate or transformation rate out of those site. How many do you expect to convert into online or under construction by 1-year horizon? And also what kind of location do you particularly target in France, Spain, Portugal, is that mainly iconic location as you have done so in Italy or mainly you account on the PSA or [stelantisa] concession? And my third question would be on the guidance. So I know this is mostly a call for revenue, but would it possible to add some color on the profitability guidance, the breakeven? Any color on that would be helpful.
Carlalberto Guglielminotti
executiveOkay. Thank you. So let me take very quickly the first one. In Q4 we do not communicate on any specific progression on the single business line. Obviously, you see the picture and you have seen how much revenues we have made at the level of Free-to-move solution. So Roberto has been very clear in saying we do expect the real progression coming in the early 2024 in terms of volumes expecting the minor everybody -- sorry, starting from Q1 next year, in Q4, we will have the first signal. So the first signal means that best-case scenario we're going to do in Q4, essentially certainly more than the revenues that we have done in the last 3 quarters, yes, this is a scenario certainly not going to change in the overall picture of the guidance. So we will see. But I would say, as Roberto said, our real growth is expected in 2023. Please be patient. You will see the first signals in Q4, and this will contribute marginally to the group level of revenues. Then our plant conversion rate on the pipeline and over to Stefano and what kind of locations. What I can tell you is that -- I mean you already have a public information on that because we got EUR 23 million from the European Union in order to install within the major corridors, right? So this is obviously the most important aspect that Stefano has been very clear in saying that we have geo-localization tool AI data analytics to map everything, so there are specific analysis around each single site. On the conversion rate, I leave to you, Stefano to comment on the expected the conversion rate of the pipeline.
Stefano Terranova
executiveYes. We started with a very, I would say, traditional view on low conversion rates, like the building -- having to build up a large amount of leads with a high death rate and therefore, very low corresponding survival rate so that was the initial plan and say, okay, let's bring in sites by the 10s, those and so even hundreds and then we will only if you will survive. Now one year after, as I said that we have learned so much. We have refine and fine-tuned our formulas. And now we are focusing more on going to sites where we have a very high possibility of success. We still have -- so for example, we have -- we tend to focus on accounts on that would sign up to the Atlante network beforehand and only after we would do the feasibility studies. For this, the -- I would expect now the -- initially from the origination to execution, we would have had maybe a conversion rate of 10% now we would expect that to be very much higher, much in the 30% to 40%. But the -- so you will see some evolution in our pipeline in the year to come. What is important is that we can plan ahead. We have a plan which goes, of course, to 2025, first of all. That's the first target that we're coming into the market. we break it down by a year ahead and then, of course, on a rolling basis, a quarter ahead. Therefore, we can plan very much the number of sites we need according to the ramp-up that we have required. What I said before is that the -- in essence for 2023, we have a very assuring pipeline that allows us to set up locations not all done, but a great part of the job for 2023 is already in the pipe literally.
Carlalberto Guglielminotti
executiveOkay. And then I think to Stefano. So the adjustment was 30% to 40%, but it's not really telling. But in any event, I mean, you remember our targets, right? It was 5000 points of charge by 2025 in 1,500 sites that maybe the ratio between sites and points of charge might change. But I mean, we already secured approximately 30% of this target with sites that are already online or under construction the pipeline size we have is already well beyond the target we have by 2025. So as I said, we are 2x to 3x faster than expected in terms of delivery. Then on the third question on the guidance, profitability. Again, I reiterate that the targets are the targets. Sometimes we revise the targets typically upwards, so has been the case for revenues. This has not been the case for EBITDA, but we are anticipating in H1 for energy, the profitability at the EBITDA level, so essentially, the EBITDA breakeven we made a couple of million EBITDA in H1. We have confirmed the EBITDA breakeven at the for positive EBITDA at the end of the year for energy we will see at the level of [indiscernible] solution. This still is possible. That's the reason why we have not yet -- we have not yet revised the guidance. We will see this will depend from the volumes, obviously, and from revenues, Atlante is another story. The target was the EBITDA, [indiscernible] EBITDA target has been achieved advance for no LNG, we are committed to achieve it at the level of free-to-move solution by the year end. In any event, we're not going to achieve for any reason because volumes will turn to be not enough to sustain with the current margins, the EBITDA breakeven in the event, we would be very close to it. So that's the picture. The profitability is not a charter, but there's never been have been a real target for the simple reason that this depends also from the investments we are making in Atlante. In Atlante, we are accelerating the investment and before we are absorbing more resources than expected on the single year, okay, even if it is absolutely according the plan in terms of CapEx. So that's the reason why we look at EBITDA. EBITDA is confirmed certainly at the level of NHOA energy. Let's see for free-to-move solutions. But in any event, it doesn't change the fundamentals because targets are there, and we are delivering a replan. I think we have another question, Kara even if we are to we can take them.
Operator
operatorYes, exactly. We have one question coming from Mr. Muros from Societe Generale. I will now ask him to activate his microphone.
Guillaume Muros
analystI have a couple. One, just to reiterate here on the guidance. Perhaps moving on to 2023, I know you haven't issued any guidance yet but going to play a bit safe here. Given the lack of visibility that financial markets are implying so 2023 also, given the current high commissioning rate that you have on the storage division and current backlog as well that you have also considering [ Tavares ] comments regarding supply chains lasting until end 2023. How much visibility do we have going on into fiscal year 2023 in terms of sales at the other group level. And then I have perhaps one question. I'll ask just the questions on Atlante and [indiscernible], I'll come back to storage. But on Atlante, can you please -- because we -- the analyst consensus might have perhaps overestimated a bit your cost regarding fast chargers and point of charge, there might be some misunderstanding there from our side. So if you can just remind us the average cost for the deployment of your atlante network in terms of fast-charging blocks, points of charge or stations. So it is clear for everyone.
Carlalberto Guglielminotti
executiveSo let me choose the first one, and then I'll leave Guiseppe to comment -- I mean the guidance 2023 when I would say we are showing now the confidence on the growth at the group level in 2023, okay? So growth will be there even if this year, we have a level of revenues that would be very, very high. We are confident on a continuous growth in 2023. Question is when we are going to release the guidance I would say when we will release the next quarterly trailing and operational update. It will be Q4, so we will be end of January, beginning of February at the regulator. This is the time in which we will have enough visibility, enough visibility to communicate and to take commitment on that. We will arrange obviously. But in line with last year. So this will be the time to be patient for just another quarter, and we will give full visibility, but we pass the message that we see growth. We see continuous growth, and we see feasibility and sustainability of that growth even in 2023, irrespective of the macro headwinds. But Guiseppe feel free to give more color on that on why we are confident on that.
Giuseppe Artizzu
executiveDegree of confidence is based on the fact that we know where we are from a commercial common origination perspective and the combination of stabilizing battery markets. And growth in the demand associated, in particular in Europe associated to the macro situation in the energy market, That makes us extremely confident in origination activities over the next 6 months. So as I said, we are targeting to enter the new year with a level of backlog comparable to what we have at play, of course, in plus or minus. And strong confidence in the momentum of the commercial activities as we enter the new year. This is essentially the basis upon which we foresee a very satisfactory growth rate in 2023. Whether they are going to be very satisfactory or exceptional that will depend on our ability to ride the sway and of course, also macro conditions, et cetera. But I think this is a discussion that we're going to have a few months down the road.
Carlalberto Guglielminotti
executiveAnd thank you for that. And just a comment on the cost for fast charge per points of charge, again, as we said, I think also last quarter. There has been a bit of confusion, but this confusion that is still in the market. Even at the European Union level, I mean -- when we talk about chargers and points of change, there is a lot of confusion for what they can tell you is that we do have a target that has been communicated in terms of CapEx and has been communicated in the context of the master plan a year ago. The reference is 140K so essentially EUR 140,000 per charger. The number usually sometimes we refer to 2 points of charge like the market. But if you look specifically look at the CapEx, so if you want to analyze the fast charger is the reference, okay, because it depends on the fast charger we install how many points of charge we have, okay? So that's the most important aspect. Fast charges we still with one point of change, others with two, others with three. So essentially, we can serve 3 parking lots with the same fast charge. The CapEx purpose charger is essentially the same. Your reference, you may take for that cost is as we indicated in the master plan. And then even including storage and canopy disease, solar canopy disease, this is the reference point. Then if you look at what we are doing, obviously, we are optimizing IRR and optimizing CapEx, which means that for the first tensions, we are going to install just fast charging, then points of charges depend from the technology we sold from the kind of eStation and then progressively, we integrate the fast chargers with storage. We add new fast chargers new points of charge the new parking lots. And this will be a progressive roll out so the first fast charges with storage. One is already online. The other will become online in Q1, but there's a progression, okay? Before these CapEx extremely, for your purposes, is extremely difficult to model the very beginning of the plan with that amount of money. So if you want to plan in next 6 months and you want to have one single number, it is not easy. While through 2025 is absolutely the right reference to refer from 100 to 140 per charger, meaning that per let me say, machine while the number of points of charge depend from multiples considerations and depending on the location. If you want to simplify for modeling purposes, you can use as a reference, 100 to 130 just around 140 per fast charger and assuming 2 points of change in -- for each single fast charger. That's a good way to model. But yes, not for cash planning in the next 6 months, but for modeling purposes through 2025. And through 2030, if you want to have a bit more color on -- in respective of the master plan range, okay? We do see the lower end of this range as absolutely feasible because of the huge investments we have made in engineering and technology optimization and therefore, using the lower end for modeling purposes is something that we could suggest easily. So using the 100,000 as a reference, for a CapEx deployment on a number of charger that is, again, one in [indiscernible], so 1 charger, 2 points of charge and the cost the average cost of these electrical vehicle supply kit coupled with storage and solar canopy. Might be easily in the low end of this range. Is that clear?
Operator
operatorYes. Thank you very much for your answer. I think we've run out of time, and we have no more questions right now. So Carlalberto, back to you.
Carlalberto Guglielminotti
executiveThank you, Kiara. Thank you, Guiseppe. Thank you, Stefano Roberto and [indiscernible] . Thank you all for your time. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for attending, and next chapter will be the Q4 trading and operational update, in which obviously, we will release the full year key KPIs, including sales and look forward to see you at the end of January, beginning of February at the very latest. Thank you very much.
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