We aim at further strengthening our leadership in all the core markets in which we are already leader, such as Italy, France, Spain and Australia, and reaching leadership in those few markets where we are not leader yet, such as Germany, United States, Canada and China. fostered by both strong organic growth and bolt-on acquisitions.

In the three-year period 2021-2023, particular focus will be placed on the US, by far the largest market worldwide, where we are implementing a new strategy to accelerate growth and capture more value in the value chain leveraging its strategic businesses: Miracle-Ear and Amplifon Hearing Healthcare.

Two other compelling growth opportunities are Australia and China. With the recent acquisition of Bay Audio, we have built another Company stronghold to win in the core Australian market. While in China, where our network counts over 400 points of sale, we will continue to pursue our growth path via M&A in new areas and organic growth around the two existing hubs in 13 mega-cities and provinces.

After having launched the Amplifon Product Experience, our proposition will be further enriched leveraging three distinctive assets:

• the undisputed leading brands in the industry;
• a superior customer knowledge deriving from the unmatchable set of data we possess to build the finest customer insights and best serve them through a 360° customer centric model;
• an innovative experience, in which digital technologies play a key role in enriching the experience and improving protocols both within our stores and outside, from the first contact to the after-sale.

The Company continued along its strong growth path in the first quarter of 2024, outpacing the reference market, thanks to the strengthening of its competitive positioning in the core markets, and profitability benefitted from the field productivity measures taken in the second half of 2023.

In the first three months of the year the demand in the US hearing care market remained strong, while the European market showed a progressive normalization and was back to slightly positive territory, confirming the Company’s expectations for the entire 2024.

The second quarter also started very well: in April the Company, in fact, recorded high-teens revenue growth at constant exchange rates, also due to the 2024 early Easter effect.

In light of the above and assuming that there are no further slowdowns in global economic activity due to, among others, the well-known inflation related issues and the geopolitical situation, Amplifon confirms its previously disclosed expectations for strong growth in the full-year 2024. More in detail:  

• Consolidated revenues are expected to grow high-single-digit at constant exchange rates^[1], supported by market share gains and bolt-on acquisitions, the latter contributing to revenue growth for at least 2%;
• Recurring EBITDA margin above 24.6% thanks also to the field productivity measures taken in the second part of 2023, which already benefitted the Group in the first quarter.

In the medium-term the Company remains extremely positive on its prospects for sustainable growth in sales and profitability, thanks to the secular fundamentals of the hearing care market and its further strengthened competitive positioning.  

[1] Except for the exchange rate EUR /ARS expected at 1,100 as of December 31^st, 2024.