Benedetto Vigna
Analyst · BofA S. Please go ahead. Your line is open
Thank you, everyone for joining us today. I'd like to open today's call with heartfelt thank you, firstly to our clients for their continuous trust in our brand; secondly, to all our partners, suppliers, dealers and sponsors with whom we have continued to strengthen our relationship; and last but not least, to all our Ferrari colleagues, for their outstanding working passion supported by a strong sense of belonging. Many important milestone and positive achievement took place in this second quarter, among which our victory at the 24 Hours of Le Mans for the second year in a row. During today's call, I will touch upon the following four key achievements: One, very strong Q2 financial result and the continued smooth execution of the year; two, a solid order book which has evolved as expected with the new Dodici Cilindri Spider and Coupe guiding the order intake; three, a full week of activities in June dedicated to sustainable innovation. This involved all our stakeholders and culminated in the inauguration of the e-building exactly two years from its announcement at the Capital Market Day. We really made it. Fourth, build progress in raising our lifestyle, we've announced the cohesion across our company's resource. So let's start with the financial result of the second quarter, which demonstrate again strong execution and continued growth. First, revenues, they were at €1.7 billion, up 16% versus the previous year sustained by the continuing strength of the product mix and the growing demand for personalization. Second, profitability, which improved with adjusted EBITDA at about €670 million and the remarkable 39% margin. And third, the net profit, which reached €413 million. On the back of stronger personalizations and increased visibility for the remaining part of the years, we upgraded our 2024 guidance and Antonio will show you the details later in the call. The solidity of this quarter results was accompanied by continued strong brand momentum, which brings me to my second key point for today. The enthusiastic reception of our latest new sports cars, the Dodici Cilindri and the Dodici Cilindri Spider drove the order collection in the quarter, adding to an already solid order book on current models, which covers well into 2026. Such visibility relies on the loyalty of our existing customers all over the world as well as the brand appeal to the new ones, on that and keeping an eye on current macro development market-by-market. We continue to allocate our products strategically across the different regions to announce our brand strength and exclusivity. After the world premiere in Miami, we hosted several regional launches of our new [indiscernible] naturally-aspirated 12 cylinder sports cars in all major markets and they will continue in the second half of the years. I attended some of these beautiful events and I met clients from different European countries. They all praised the Dodici Cilindri’s perfect synthesis between the past and the futures. The front of the Dodici Cilindri that records the 1968 365 GTB4 with the old styling interpreted in a very futuristic way. And now we go to the third point of today's call. Innovation is sustainability and sustainability is innovation. This is our profound belief. Sustainable innovation has been the focus of a series of events that we hosted in Maranello end of this June, involving all Ferrari stakeholders. We have the workshop with around 30 of our Ferrari partners aimed at the sharing experiences and practices to reduce environmental impact. A full day was devoted to suppliers. They play a key role in our company's drive for innovation. This annual event bring together about 500 people from a few hundred suppliers from all over the world for a discussion on their contribution to sustainable innovation, which is increasingly central to our supply chain. And then a weekend was dedicated to Ferrari's employees, their families and friends, a record presence of more than 30,000 people visiting our factory, such a great emotion. I spent there the full Saturday and it was for me the first time and I will never forget this beautiful unique experience. And during that intense week, we also inaugurated the new e-building where E stands for energy, evolution and environment. And based on the concept of technological neutrality and flexibility, this new facility will house the development and production of ICE, hybrid and full electric models. Here let me remark once again, our belief. We believe that there is no single solution to future automotive powertrains. And this is particularly true during the current technology transition. Technological neutrality is a key principle for us and consistent with our strategy and we continue to invest in the three powertrains: Internal combustion engine, hybrid and full electric to provide our client with maximum freedom of choice. In e-building, we will also engineer and handcraft the strategic electrical component that are highly relevant to differentiating Ferrari's technology and performance. High-voltage batteries, electric motors and axles, in these, the full electric Ferrari requires new technologies, new components and processes, and e-building will enable us to keep our critical know-how in-house and maintain our competitive advantage in the years to come. Advantages of new e-building do not end years. It will also enable us to decouple people wise, the production of limited edition cars, such as Daytona from the development of new models. And this will allow us to place the research and developing team closer to manufacturing, shortening the product development phase and time to market. And here I would like to be very clear on one point. We did not realize the e-building with the aim of growing our volumes. Our ethos remains the same; quality, quality of revenues over quantity. On June 21, we completed the skeleton of e-building and installed the equipments. Now we are focusing on testing the processes and debugging the lines to start production of hybrid and ICE models from the beginning of 2025. For this achievement, a special thanks goes to all the colleague who have been able to maintain the e-building schedule despite all the difficulties that we experienced during these times. It has been not easy. But they made it happen by acting nimbly with focus and determination. During the quarter, we made several progresses, both in racing and lifestyle, creating stronger cohesion across our company's resources. Let's start with the racing world. In our second season, in the top class of the World Endurance Championship, we achieved an extraordinary success with our 499P at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. And this is second Le Mans victory for our upper cars. This outstanding result deserves huge praise and is a testament with exceptional teamwork of all colleagues in this perseverance. The same spirit and will to progress is vivid among our Formula 1 team. Scuderia Ferrari HP approached the 2024 Formula 1 season with the aim of always fighting at the front. We entered the summer break with encouraging signs. We scored two wins versus zero last year, and 50% more points per race compared to last year. The team remains focused and united and is pushing harder to continue to improve the performance of the cars. Our recent racing sports car event have also been the perfect stage to gather our most loyal client and showcase our lifestyle dimension. And this brings me on to my last point for today. We have recently been much more deliberate about including our lifestyle collections at our exclusive events, and sharing our latest creations with our community. The successful activation in Pebble Beach in Las Vegas last year were a first step. This year, at the beginning of May, we took a further step forward. We organized a series of engaging and unique experiences in Miami for our community. This encapsulated the elegance of our sports cars, the lure of Ferrari lifestyle and excitement of racing. This was more than just hosting events. It created a coherent, coordinated, and inclusive narrative across each of our three sources. A similar approach was also taken during the most iconic endurance race at Le Mans with the creation of a pop-up store at [indiscernible] Ferrari, which received very positive feedback from clients, resulting in improved sales and encouraging signs for the future. We are aware that Ferrari is an incredible, powerful and unique brand being extremely accessible on our side when you think of our sports cars, at the same time being very inclusive. If you think of our racing DNA and the millions of a brand enthusiast that we inspire all over the world. Among them, during the Formula One Grand Prix [indiscernible] to Ferrari enthusiast had a once in a lifetime opportunity to spend a night inside our iconic museum in Maranello, which was the setting for a unique Airbnb stay and experience not usually available to the public. We were able to create this activation by leveraging our existing assets. Our museums in Maranello and Modena and here for the first time we passed the threshold of 100,000 visitors in May alone, the Fiorano Restaurant and our historic Cavallino Restaurant. To conclude, the second quarter of 2024 has been full of significant milestones, and I believe this achievement marked continuation of our journey as we are driven on by our way to progress and the driver for excellence in everything we do, always keeping four wheels on the ground. And on this note, I hand over to Antonio to review the Q2 2024 financial results. Please, Antonio.