Piaggio & C. SpA ($PIA)

Good afternoon. This is the Chorus Call conference operator. Welcome, and thank you for joining the Piaggio First Quarter 2026 Financial Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Raffaele Lupotto, Investor Relations of Piaggio . Please go ahead.

Thank you very much. Hello, everyone, and welcome to Piaggio Group First Quarter of 2026 Financial Results Conference Call. Conference call today will be hosted by Alessandra Simonotto, Piaggio Group CFO; and myself. The slides supporting today's presentation are available on Piaggio Group website. Before we begin, I would like to remind you that during today's conference call, we may use forward-looking statements based on Piaggio's current expectations and projections about future events. By their nature, these statements are subject to risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied. These factors are discussed in the safe harbor statement on Page 2 of today's presentation. With that, I would like to turn the call over to Alessandra.

Good afternoon to everybody, and welcome to our conference call. After what you have already read in our presentation and in our press release, I should like to point only 4 things about our results on this first quarter. The first one, volume and net sales. As you have already read the volumes of these 3 months of 2026 are growing up versus the first quarter of 2025. It is only 2,000 vehicles, yes, but it is the beginning of a different moving of the market and the consumer confidence on our product. The Indian market has had a very good results in this period. The APAC market is in line on our expectation. On the EMEA market, we have done a different choice because we have preferred not to push up too much on our dealers, waiting the new products that are arriving in the market in April, May and June on top of that [indiscernible] and the new Vespas. About the net sales, as you already read, we lost the 7.8%, but the effect is mostly connected to the ForEx. As you know, our region, India, APAC, U.S. are all connected to the ForEx of the USD. And so having in mind what the U.S. dollar has done in this period, we have this negative effect on ForEx. This is not something connected on the sales or on promotion and bonuses. And so it's a healthy net sales result. The second one is the cash flow. As you've seen in the first quarter on 2026, we have absorbed only EUR 19 million against the EUR 58 million of last year in the same period. As you know, because a lot of you is in charge of analysis of Piaggio for a long time, the first quarter of the year is normally the period in which we absorb the maximum part of the cash flow because we are buying components for the second and third quarter, and we have not such a lot of quantity of sales so of revenue and credit and cash. So in this period, having these result for us is a very good result because we put in place from the beginning of September, a lot of activities to contain inventory, first of all, and to get better results on trade receivables. So if you take a look at the results on trade receivable and inventory, you can see that we have done a good job, in my view, on this part, very important of our financial statement. The first thing is that in the EBIT result of the first quarter, we have 2 things that are a one-off versus what happened in the first quarter on 2025. The first one as tariff. In the first quarter 2025, we do not have tariffs in U.S. while in the first quarter 2026 in this EBIT that you see in our closure, we have EUR 1.5 million of impact for the new tariff on the U.S. market. The second one is that we have the agreement we have depreciated a land in India after the closing on the basis of agreement we have in this period. So the 2 different things that more or less EUR 3 million negative impact on our EBIT. Without this, more or less, the EBIT at end of period is equal in terms of percentage, but also in terms of absolute results to the one we had in 2025. The first thing is the April results. We have closed 2 years ago the month of April in all our markets. We had the first release of volume and revenues we have seen in April for all the markets a good results in terms of volume and revenues versus what happened in 2025, and it is in line also with our forecast and our budget. So we've seen in the beginning of the second quarter in line with our expectation and with a better result on what happened last year. On top of this, I think that it is helpful for everyone of you to open the Q&A session and answer to your questions. Thank you.

Alessandra. So yes, we are ready to start the Q&A session.

[Operator Instructions] The first question is from Monica Bosio of Intesa Sanpaolo.

The company....

Monica, Raffaele speaking. We missed the first part of your question. Probably you were in mute -- can you ask again the question, please?

Yes. I will just thank you for anticipating the trend of April. What I would like to say is if amid the model changeover, the company expects sell-in to materially outpace sell-out in the quarter, a material outpace. And if so, if you could provide a rough indication of the expected sell-in growth in units for the second quarter. My second question is on the Philippines. Can you confirm whether sales from the new subsidiary will start contributing from the second quarter? And the third question is on India. India had a strong growth in the first quarter and the momentum keeps going. What are the group's expectation for light commercial vehicles for the first half.

Monica concerning your question on April sales, yes, I can confirm that we started Q2 in April on the right foot. And at group level, volumes grew double digit, I mean, close to 20% -- close to 20% and we have 20% and with a positive contribution from all geographic areas. So this give us the confidence for the remainder part of the quarter and also because we see demand trends to remain supportive as you have seen in Europe. Concerning the second question, yes, we confirm that the new company that we made in the Philippines start selling the first vehicle in April and we have very good results in -- and then there was the third question concerning India. Yes, if we see a positive trend, yes.

Yes, we see the positive trend, and you have seen also the market share in these states. So we believe that this positive trend will be the same in the next months -- I think the second quarter in India is not better for the seasonality of the weather, as you well know.

Yes. And if I can squeeze another one is about the tax rate, which was quite high in the first quarter. What is the group's expectation for the full year?

Okay. As you know, we used for the tax rate in all the quarter closure, what we had defined for the budget of the year. And we have -- in this year, we have more or less considered an amount equal to EUR 38 million. So in this first quarter, we have begun with the same that we have put in our budget, just like the accounting principle as for any one of us. We will work in the next month to review this. Yes, this is one of our tasks just like the financial position, the cash flow and so far. But in this moment, the safest view that we have is the 38%.

The next question is from Davide Zappa of Banca Akros.

The first one, do you still see the 2026 company collected consensus aligned with your internal targets? And the second one, if you can give us a little bit of color on pricing and cost inflation, how you see them entering into 2Q and for the remaining part of 2026?

About the consensus, we believe and we think that the actual consensus is in line on our expectations. More or less, if you take in account the 2 one-offs that we have in the closing of the first quarter, the consensus and the results are more or less the same. It's clear that no one of you have thought to weigh impact of tariff in the first quarter of 2026 against the first quarter of 2025 and no one of you know the depreciation we have in India. So you put in place -- if you take in consideration the total amount of EUR 3 million on EBIT of the first quarter 2026, we are in line with the consensus. And so I think that in this moment, the consensus we have for the rest of the year is in line with our expectation, yes. On the second point, pricing and cost inflation. As Mr. Colaninno has said in a different occasion, and he has confirmed this also today during our Board of Directors. In this moment, we do not consider any the price of our product. And we have to work as we have already done now in the last 2 or 3 years to contain the cost of inflation on our product and to maintain our margin. It is clear that gross margin of 31.6% is a very tough result. But as you have seen more or less, we were able in the last quarter in the last year to maintain 30%. We believe that the 30%, 35% is a safe result for us, and we will work in the next period for maintain this target even if the cost of inflation is something that we have in mind and we have to approach.

The next question is from Gianluca Bertuzzo of Intermonte.

The first one is on the price environment and competition in Europe. Compared to a few months ago, is something changed? And what are the drivers that led you to a stable market share year-over-year in a growing market? Second question is about the mix. Do you expect a positive impact from new launches? And third one is on the international growth. I read the press release and you said to continue to pursue international growth. Do you have something more to share maybe relating to South America or other international growth projects?

Raffaele is speaking, concerning your last question about Latin America, yes, we can confirm that Latin America remains a key strategic focus for the group, and we continue to see strong untapped potential and opportunities across those growing markets. So we are actively evaluating several initiatives, and we hope to provide a more detailed update in the near future.

So about the price environment, we do not change anything till now in our view, as I already said before, we do not have in our view to change something. We have to maintain this level of pricing. We do not want to run in a cart where the only thing in mind is the reduction of pricing just like the Chinese products and the Chinese competitors are working in. This is not our product. This is not our market. We are working on a different level, as you well understand, on the basis of our brand and our product. So with Vespa, with [indiscernible], with [indiscernible], we do not want to work in a different way just what we have done until today.

And on mix, do you expect a positive impact from new launches?

Yes. Yes, because as I have already said, the new launches are made with Vespa. And with the new SRGT400, that is a product that we do not have until now. And it will cover a new part of the market that is a very interest segment. So we believe and we see in our forecast that these launches will have good results in our sales and margin.

[Operator Instructions] Mr. Lupotto There are no more questions registered at this time.

So thank you. So at this point, I think that the call is over. And as usual, if you have other questions, you can contact me later. Thank you very much for attending the call.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining. The conference is now over. You may disconnect your telephones.