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Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the JCDecaux 2026 Half Year Results Presentation. I will now hand the call over to Jean-Charles Decaux, Chairman of the Executive Board and Co-CEO. Sir, please go ahead.

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to our 2026 half year results conference call. The speaker on this call today will be Jean-Francois Decaux Co-Chief Executive Officer; David Bourg, Chief Financial, IT and Operations Officer; and I. Remi Grisard, Head of Investor Relations, is also attending today's conference call.

We delivered a strong performance driven by digital in the first half of 2026. Our revenue reached EUR 1.9539 billion with a continued solid revenue momentum as organic revenue growth reached 5.7% despite an uncertain macroeconomic and geopolitical environment. Organic digital revenue grew double digit by 14.5% and now represented 42.8% of total group revenue. Within digital, programmatic organic revenue was up 30.9% and accounted for 12.3% of our digital revenue. This confirms once again that digital and especially programmatic is a powerful growth engine and a key growth driver for our group.

Leveraging our revenue growth and focused and disciplined execution, we achieved double-digit growth across all our key operational indicators, demonstrating our strong operating leverage. Our operating margin was up 16.8%, reaching EUR 359 million. Our recurring EBIT was up 53.5% at EUR 136.2 million. Our net income group share was up 84.7% at EUR 140.1 million, and our operating cash flows were up 41.8% at EUR 218 million.

Finally, and importantly, we delivered a EUR 91.1 million year-on-year increase in free cash flow, reaching EUR 26.2 million in the first half, which is a positive free cash flow despite the usual seasonality of our business. David, obviously, will comment on this strong financial performance in more details later in the presentation. H1, our strong profitable growth trajectory with digital as a key driver.

Moving now on to the Slide #5 and looking at our top line dynamics for H1 and Q2. For H1, we delivered 5.5% organic revenue growth, confirming a solid start to the year as Q1 grew also by 5.7% organically. This performance reflects growth across, again, all segments and geographies with digital as the main driver of this great momentum.

Turning to Q2. Organic growth was also 5.7%, which is well above our guidance of around plus 3% despite the conflict in the Middle East. This strong Q2 was driven by digital and by the 2026 FIFA World Cup beyond our initial expectation, which supported advertising demand in several key markets.

By segments, on the next slide, Street Furniture maintained a very strong momentum with reported growth of 5.3% and organic growth of 7.3%. This confirms the robustness of our core business, supported by both analog and digital in a context where urban audiences remain highly attractive for advertisers. Transport continued its rebound with reported growth of 4.8% and organic growth of 5.3%. Billboard returned to growth with reported growth of 1.2% and organic growth of 0.8%. This reflects a more disciplined and selective approach to our inventory, particularly in France, while still capturing opportunities in the most premium location and in the most digitized markets.

Slide #7, you can see that growth in H1 2026 was well balanced across geographies. North America at 19.6% organic growth, supported by the 2026 FIFA World Cup in the United Kingdom at 12.8% were the fastest-growing geographies, both driven by digital. Rest of Europe grew 7.8%, confirming solid momentum across our European footprint, including in the southern part of Europe. Rest of the world grew by 3%, 18.3%, excluding the Middle East. Asia Pacific grew by 2.3%, including low single-digit growth in China. France declined by 1.9%, impacted by the high non-advertising revenue comparison base, while advertising revenue grew by 1%.

This again demonstrates the strength of our geographically diversified model, especially relevant in the current environment, marked by geopolitical and macroeconomic tension in some geographies.

As you can see on the next slide, we are not only well diversified geographically, but also by activities. Street Furniture remains our largest segment, accounting for 51.3% of total revenue. Transport represents now 35.3%, still below its pre-COVID share, but continuing to recover, while billboard is at 13.4%, in line with our focus on premium and increasingly digital assets.

On the right-hand side, you can see our geographical footprint. Europe represents 47.7% of total revenue with France at 16.5% and the U.K. at 10.8%, making them our 2 largest countries. Asia Pacific accounts for 20.3%, including less than 10% in China, the rest of the world 13.1%, and North America 8.1%. This, again, confirms our unique balanced and truly global OOH media footprint.

Turning to the next slide. Our client portfolio remains, as you can see, highly and well diversified with our top 10 clients accounting for less than 12% of our group revenue. We continue to see, obviously, a healthy rotation between categories. Telecom and technology, up 19%, was particularly dynamic, driven by campaigns from tech companies, including generative AI brands as pictured here in the Metro de Sao Paulo, which accounted for up to 30% of sales in the tech capital of the world that we covered such as San Francisco in the U.S. and Shenzhen in China. We see a comeback of branding for consumer goods as shown in the 13% growth of food and beverage and the 9% growth of retail. Meanwhile, finance is getting very competitive with the rise of online platforms, and we benefit from higher marketing budget as this category grew by 15%. Fashion, personal care and luxury, our largest category at 17% of revenue, was stable year-on-year.

On Slide #10, as you can see, DOOH remains a key growth driver, with organic digital revenue up 14.5% in H1 2026. Digital revenue penetration continued to increase. It reached 42.8% of total group revenue in H1 and 43.7% in Q2 2026. Our digital revenue mix also closely mirrors our overall business mix with Street Furniture representing 49.1% of digital revenue, Transport 39.6% and Billboard 11.2%, as shown on this slide. Over 10 years, our digital CAGR reaches 16%. Digital penetration increased again across all 3 business segments in H1 2026.

In Street Furniture, digital revenue reached 41% of segment revenue, up from 37.5% a year earlier. In Transport, our most digitized segment digital grew from 44.5% to 48.1%. And in billboard, digital penetration edged up from 35.4% to 36.1%. This confirms the steady rollout and success of our digital assets across the portfolio.

Let's move now on to the programmatic advertising, which remains our fastest-growing revenue stream. In H1 2026, programmatic revenue reached EUR 102.8 million, up 30.9% organically versus H1 2025 and now represents 12.3% of our digital revenue compared with 10.1% a year ago. This growth is supported by our enhanced capabilities. We are now connected to 50 DSPs and over 350,000 screens, including more than 35,000 JCDecaux screens in 48 countries across 5 continents as well as 48 third-party media owners on VIOOH and 8 third-party SSP on Displayce. As you can see, programmatic revenue remains largely incremental, especially from smaller advertisers and highly targeted campaigns such as the campaign picture here, which shows only during the marathon of Stockholm on key locations for the runners.

We anticipate also continued strong growth for programmatic revenue, and this is illustrated by the important gap today between countries, where Germany at 42.7% and the Netherlands at 30.8% are well above the group average of 12.3%, while some major digital markets like the U.K. and the U.S. have not yet fully embraced programmatic. The pDOOH campaign you see on the right in Oslo is a good illustration of this momentum in our most advanced market. We expect programmatic penetration to continue to rise in the medium term to represent more than 20% of our digital revenue.

While the contract activity has been quite limited in this half year, on this slide, we wanted to zoom in on one flagship example of our commercial momentum. The renewal of our long-standing partnership with Heathrow, where we have secured a new 8-year advertising contract, which means we will continue to operate the media in what is both the U.K. main international gateway and the world's most connected airports with more than 80 countries served and close to 85 million passengers last year. This, again, renewal is a good illustration of our ability to not only retain key strategic contracts, but also to further strengthen our leadership in the airport growing segment.

On this Slide #15, we highlight the strong potential of DOOH Retail Media for JCDecaux. Our new exclusive partnership with Carmila Carrefour now being deployed with Unlimitail is a key milestone. It will create a new data-driven OOH/DOOH network across shopping centers on retail access points in France and Spain over the next few years, as illustrated by the example you see here in the Carrefour Carmila Mall in Toulouse. Retail media is already, as you know, a dynamic and mostly digital activity for JCDecaux with around 90% of revenue coming from digital across 44 countries, leveraging our partners' data to deliver highly targeted, contextual and programmatic DOOH campaigns.

Globally, retail media represents a $174 billion U.S. market, including online and remains underpinned by the fact that around 84% of retail sales still happen in stores. DOOH Retail Media is expected to grow at around 11.6% CAGR between 2025 and 2031. Combined with our broad portfolio of leading retail partners, this positions JCDecaux very well to capture the acceleration of DOOH retail physical media.

On Slide 16, we have once again confirmed our excellent ESG performance. Our extra financial ratings remain best-in-class with JCDecaux included on the CDP A list 2026 on 80/100 Gold, which up 5%, ranking from EcoVadis, the highest AAA rating from MSCI and an 11.1 low-risk score from Sustainalytics, all significantly above the media sector averages. More broadly, I would like to emphasize that OOH continues at JCDecaux to be one of the least carbon-intensive media for advertisers.

On the Slide 17, this slide illustrates the strength of our corporate culture through a selection of awards won by our teams across the world. You can see that our subsidiaries are being recognized on multiple fronts for innovation and technology, for example, in AI-driven tools, media tech or digital experiences for creativity and campaign effectiveness, including international creative awards, all or for commercial excellence with several Sales House of the Year type distinctions.

This recognition from Europe to Asia Pacific and the Americas demonstrate the high level of engagement and expertise of our teams and support our positioning as a premium innovative partners for cities, transport authorities and advertisers. I will now hand over to David to comment on our financial highlights.

Thank you, Jean-Charles. Hello, everyone. On this first slide, you can see the main financial KPIs for the first half of 2026. As you can see, we delivered a strong set of results with a strong growth across all our key indicators. Revenue reached almost EUR 2 billion, up 4.6% on a reported basis with organic growth of 5.7%, which has been already largely commented by Jean-Charles.

FX had a negative impact of circa 100 basis points, around EUR 21 million, but with no significant impact on margins due to our natural hedging. At the same time, our operating margin, EBIT before impairment and net income grew much faster than revenue at plus 16.8%, plus 56.1% and plus 84.7%, respectively. Cash flow also improved significantly in the first half, turning positive despite the usual seasonality of our business and leading to lower net debt year-on-year. In summary, this clearly shows the strong operating leverage of our business model.

Let's now have a look at each item in more detail, starting with the operating margin on Page 20. On this slide, you can see the evolution of our operating margin. It increased 16.8% from EUR 307.4 million to EUR 359 million. This is a strong result, especially when compared with revenue growth of 4.6% and shows once again the strength of our operating leverage. There are 2 main reasons for this improvement. First, our rent and fees increased at a lower pace than revenue at plus 3.4% despite new contracts such as Barcelona and Stockholm, which are still in their startup phase and also some pressure on prices due to the macro and geopolitical situation.

Second, we kept a tight control of other operating costs with an increase limited to 0.9% year-on-year. As a result, our operating margin rate improved by 190 basis points from 16.5% to 18.4%. And as you can see from the chart on the right-hand side, this improvement was visible across all segments, mainly driven by top line growth in Street Furniture and Transport and for Billboard by the rationalization of our inventory portfolio in France and our most digitized market.

Let's now move to EBIT. On this slide, you have the EBIT bridge. Starting from an operating margin of EUR 359 million, we deduct net amortization and depreciation as well as spare part maintenance, both increased year-on-year by EUR 4.8 million and EUR 0.8 million, respectively, or plus 2.4% and 3.2%, which is again slower than revenue growth. This brings us to recurring EBIT of EUR 136.2 million compared with EUR 88.7 million last year, an increase of EUR 47.5 million or plus 53.5% year-on-year with a margin expansion of 220 basis points, from 4.7% to 7%. Below, recurring EBIT, we have a positive nonrecurring items for EUR 60 million, including EUR 47.5 million capital gain from the sale of a stake in APG SGA.

The year-on-year increase in nonrecurring item was nevertheless limited to EUR 23 million as H1 2025 also included some one-off asset sales and reversals of dismantling provision linked to contract expiries. After nonrecurring items and impairment, EBIT reached EUR 192.5 million, up 52.4% compared to last year. In summary, a strong operating leverage, not only on operating margin, but on EBIT as well.

Let's now move to net income, Page 22. On this slide, you can see the bridge from EBIT to net income. Here again, the message is clear. The strong operating improvement also led to a strong increase in net income. Between EBIT and net income, there are 2 main points to mention. First, the financial results improved by EUR 8.9 million, mainly due to lower interest expense, thanks to lower IFRS 16 lease liability and financial debt. Second, we had a higher tax charge, reflecting our improved results with an effective tax rate of around 16% compared with 16.4% in H1 2025.

As a reminder, H1 2026 benefited from the nontaxable capital gain on APG SGA. Excluding that effect, the 2026 H1 effective rate would have been around 22.4%, an increase from last year, reflecting the geographic mix of profit generation. So at the bottom of the table, reporting net income group share reached EUR 140.1 million, up 84.7% year-on-year and up 23.3%, excluding the APG capital gain. So overall, a solid underlying earnings.

On the next slide, we move to cash generation. As you can see at the bottom of this slide, free cash flow improved strongly in the first half by EUR 91.1 million. The first reason is that higher operating margin led to higher operating cash flow, which improved by EUR 64.2 million year-on-year. The operating cash flow also benefited from favorable impact in the line other items compared with last year, mainly due to higher dividend received from affiliates, one-off bank fees paid in H1 2025 and lower restructuring costs.

The second reason is better working capital management than last year. This is a good result, especially because in June, we had a higher level of revenue linked to the FIFA World Cup and also a higher level of inventory linked to new contract rollout, mainly Carmila in France. Last but not least, net CapEx came to EUR 115.6 million, below the same period last year, both in absolute terms and as a percentage of revenue at 5.9% versus 6.4% in H1 2025. This partly reflects lower sales of assets than in H1 2025 that I have mentioned before and also some delays in the rollout of new contracts, which also explains the increase in inventory that I have just commented.

So our free cash flow turned positive in H1 2026 at EUR 26.2 million, which is quite positive at this period of the year and confirms our ability to generate strong free cash flow through strong profitability combined with a strict discipline on CapEx and working capital. It is also worth noting that the cash flow before changes in working capital requirement almost tripled, rising from EUR 35 million in H1 2025 to more than EUR 100 million in H1 2026.

Finally, on this last slide, Page 24, you can see our strong financial structure. First, net debt decreased by EUR 284.1 million compared with June 2025 and by more than EUR 200 million after the -- excluding the EUR 79 million proceeds from the sale of APG. Compared with the end of 2025, December 2025, net debt increased by EUR 41 million, but this is quite normal at this period of the year given the dividend payment in May for EUR 150 million and the seasonality of the activity.

Second, our liquidity remains very solid with EUR 1.28 billion in cash, a fully unused EUR 825 million revolving credit facility. Our debt profile is also solid with an average maturity of 2.6 years and 92% of the debt at fixed rate. Finally, both rating agencies improved their outlook from stable to positive, which is a good sign of the strength of our financial profile.

So to conclude, we delivered a strong first half with a very good combination of strong revenue growth, strong profitability, strong cash generation and strong balance sheet. That's all from my side on the financial, and I will now hand to Jean-Francois Decaux.

Thank you, David. Good morning, everyone. Out-of-home media is more than ever a growth story, supported by increasing urbanization and mobility, rising audiences and the premium nature of our assets and the fast digitalization.

As shown on this Slide 26, WPP Media, the world's largest media buyer, forecast in its latest June update, digital out-of-home to grow by 7.2% CAGR over 2025, 2030, with total out-of-home expected to grow by plus 5.2% CAGR over the same period. This robust growth trajectory clearly sets out-of-home apart from other traditional media, many of which are facing structural stagnation or decline.

Moving to Slide 27, which highlights the strong runway for digital growth across our major markets. By combining ongoing screen deployments, programmatic capabilities, data and now AI, we continue to expand our digital footprint even in our most mature markets. As you can see on the left, top performers like Brazil 83%, the U.K. 77%, and the U.S. 76%, are leading the way with digital penetration well above our group average of 43%. What makes this picture particularly compelling is a substantial upside that lies ahead. Key markets like China at 41%, Spain 39%, Italy and Austria 28%, as well as France at 9%, remain below the group average. In France, our largest market, digital penetration stands at just 9%, largely due to the historical regulatory frameworks.

Slide 28 illustrates our end-to-end ad tech ecosystem. On the far left, we captured demand from global agency groups, independent players and digital native buyers. In the middle, our platform strategy spans both sides of the ecosystem. On the demand side, Displayce acts as a leading DSP for out-of-home. On the supply side, VIOOH serves as an open SSP, leveraging both JCDecaux and third-party media owners to global demand with the highest number of DSPs connected in the market. In addition, the number of third-party media owners on VIOOH has doubled from 20 to 49 today, including OUTFRONT, demonstrating its strong market appeal. Moving up the value chain through VIOOH and Displayce was a deliberate strategic choice to capture value at every transaction step rather than leaving margins on the table.

Today, this open full stack infrastructure remains a unique competitive advantage, perfectly positioning us to capture the long-term structural growth of programmatic out-of-home. It is worth noting that JCDecaux is ahead of the game with 12% of its digital revenues being traded programmatically versus 7% for the sector as a whole.

On Slide 29, our conviction remains that AI is, first and foremost, an enabler for us. Our assets are physical in cities, transport networks and billboards. AI will transform the way we work by automating processes and improving the productivity of our media, but it will not replace premium real assets such as bus shelters, metro networks, airports screens and large billboards. The large format digital screen you see here in Melbourne are a good example of these high value assets in which we continue to invest.

On this slide, we highlight a few concrete use cases. In campaign planning and trading, our tools can now optimize the whole process from planning to booking and delivery to a simple prompt. In dynamic content creation, AI allows the generation of tailor-made visuals customized for each location for both print and digital campaigns. And for content moderation, AI automatically screens creatives to preapproved visuals and speed up validation. Our physical assets are therefore structurally resilient, and AI enhances their value by improving productivity, targeting and measurement.

Moving to Slide 30. Airports remain a structural growth driver despite episodic crisis. Over the long-term, air traffic has been growing by around 3% to 5% per year and forecast remains very solid with passenger expected to reach 12 billion in 2030 and over 20 billion in 2050. On July 23, global air traffic reached a record high with 153,359 aircraft simultaneously in the sky. We are uniquely positioned to capture this growth as we operate advertising concessions in 154 airports worldwide with 14 of the top of the world's 25 largest airports, including Denver, which will start next week, meaning nearly a 6-month delay, as mentioned by David.

Moving to Slide 31, which outlines our main upcoming tender pipeline across our 3 business lines. In Street Furniture, key upcoming opportunities include the Paris CIP, meaning freestanding structures and columns, the Unlimitail in-store retail network in France, Transport for Greater Manchester in the U.K., Hamburg and Dusseldorf in Germany, the Hague in the Netherlands as well as Wiener Linien and Vienna freestanding advertising structures in Austria. In Transport, major tenders coming up include Amsterdam Schiphol Airport, AENA Spanish Airport currently suspended, Hong Kong Airport and several key U.S. airports such as Chicago, San Francisco and Phoenix, where we are competing as nonincumbents. Finally, in Billboard, notable opportunities includes the private land contract for the city of Paris as well as transport for New South Wales and Australia.

Moving to Slide 32, on our ESG leadership. We are a sustainable media company. First, 46.7% of our revenue is EU taxonomy aligned and our SBTi approved net zero trajectory targets a 68% drop in Scopes 1 and 2 emissions by 2025. Second, we drive urban ecological transition through concrete innovations such as biodiversity bus shelters in Paris. Finally, we measure our broader environmental and social impact with JCDecaux 360 Footprint already active in major markets and expanding globally through 2026.

Moving to Slide 33, which highlights the ongoing fragmentation of the global out-of-home media landscape. As you can see, JCDecaux stands out as the global market leader and the only truly worldwide out-of-home media company. While some major U.S. peers have retrenched to their home market, some local companies emerge, yet the overall market remains highly fragmented beyond the top players. These structures gives us significant strategic runway, positioning JCDecaux to drive future growth, both organically and through targeted value-accretive consolidation.

Moving to Slide 34, which puts our global positioning into perspective within the broader advertising landscape. As you know, the global media market is heavily concentrated. The top 5 tech giants account for 58% of total ad spend and the top 25 represents 75% with 14 players from the U.S. and 9 from China. In this highly concentrated environment, JCDecaux ranks #23 globally, making us 1 of only 2 European companies in the world's top 25 media companies. More importantly, while digital platforms dominate online inventory, JCDecaux stands out as the only true global out-of-home media company. We offer global brands a unique high-reach, truly international platform.

To wrap up, our key takeaways for H1 2026 reflect a strong performance across the board. First, we delivered solid top line growth alongside significant improvements in profitability and cash generation. Second, our growth momentum remains robust, fueled by digital expansion and a rapid acceleration in programmatic. Third, our geographic and business diversification continues to drive growth while strengthening our resilience in the context of geopolitical and macroeconomic tensions. Fourth, as our digital platforms scale, we are further increasing our competitive edge. And finally, all of this is driven by continuous operational and financial discipline across our teams.

To conclude, on the next slide, as far as Q3 is concerned, with a continued solid revenue momentum, we now expect organic growth around plus 5% despite macroeconomic and geopolitical tensions, uncertainties. Thank you for your attention. Jean-Charles, David and I are now ready to take your questions.

[Operator Instructions] Our first call comes from the line of Marcus Diebel at JPMorgan.

Could you talk a little bit more about the trends in addition to what you said as a broad comment? I'm very interested in developments in the Middle East. It looks like that the sort of like development was not as bad as feared, and also France. If you can maybe give a little bit more on the development there, that would be quite helpful. And then the second question was, clearly, programmatic is very, very strong and a key driver of the business and it's really coming through. You mentioned that you feel still there are a lot of incremental revenues coming through. Could you explain a bit more in particular how the smaller clients, you mentioned the smaller clients are actually starting to come to JCDecaux as well. That would be maybe as a sort of like broader comment very helpful. Thank you.

So regarding the Middle East, I must say that, as you know, it's always on such an unexpected basically event such as basically the conflict that is going through at the moment. It was very hard to assess and calibrate the right basically top line revenues decline in this environment. So yes, we did slightly better than anticipated because I think also the traffic in most of our airports, especially in Dubai, but also in Abu Dhabi was a bit better than expected.

I think also the authority in the region has stated business as usual, which is helping also to basically keep the demand at a good level. I think it's a good, I would say, way of striving through this very difficult situation for some countries in the region. So -- and I think the team at JCDecaux has done a terrific job to navigate in the best interest of our clients as well as our JCDecaux ecosystem to tackle this difficult situation. So a bit better than expected in Q2. Hopefully, this conflict will end soon, but who knows? It's impossible to predict. So we remain, as you know, optimistic for the future, but also cautious because of the current situation.

Moving into -- obviously, moving into France, yes, I think the advertising business has grown in France in the first half of the year despite a quite good comparison the year before, has grown by 1%. The reason why France is minus 1.9% is due to a one-off sale of our automatic public toilet, state-of-the-art product in the Paris municipality a year before. But on the advertising side, the business has been resilient. And Q3 also is looking in that direction. So yes, France, the business is doing, I think, better than the expectations in the market, growing slowly, but growing. And this is obviously a good news for our largest market so far at JCDecaux.

Moving on to the -- your last question, Mark, on programmatic, Jean-Francois?

On programmatic, we had a very strong first half and Q2 as well, obviously, 30% growth on programmatic. Well, what we can say in addition to what was already mentioned in the introduction is that the fact that we have our own ad tech system is a plus. We see now more and more third-party media owners joining in the platform VIOOH. In terms of SME contribution, it's still very small, but we are starting to get new clients and new SMEs, but it's still a small percentage. So we are working hard on that. And I think AI will help by simplifying the planning and trading for the small clients as well. So all in all, it's pretty good news. Also the platform VIOOH is now breakeven cash on cash. And in the first 6 months, we generated positive free cash flow for the first time ever. So that's good news as well.

Our investment is paying off in this -- I just want to remind you, Marcus, that we are the only out-of-home media company having its own SSP and DSP, which obviously is attractive for third-party media owners, and then we continue to gain momentum on attracting more third-party media owners on the supply side. And it's hard to predict future growth on programmatic, but the bottom line is that we believe that we can now start attracting more and more companies, i.e., non out-of-home media clients through our portfolio and the programmatic is a very helpful tool to get those.

For example, during the World Cup, we had some campaigns that triggered by the results of the different football teams, and this was mostly a programmatic trade. So all in all, we are very bullish on programmatic. It represents now 12% of our digital revenues, well ahead of the sector because at the WOO conference last month, it was mentioned that 7% of out-of-home digital revenues are coming from programmatic and Decaux is at 12%. So all in all, we are -- I think we are in a good spot.

Yes, perfect thank you.

Our next question comes from the line of Julien Roch with Barclays.

As Marcus only asked 2 questions, I'm going to go for 4. On Page 20 -- for David.

We can't hear you very well. Sorry.

Is that better now?

It's a bit better, but not very clear. But let's try.

Okay. Is that better now.

Yes, much better, much better.

So on Page 20, rent and fees up 3.4% in the first half. Other operating costs up 0.9%. Is there seasonality? Or can we expect both to be up broadly the same for full year 2026? Then North America was up 19.6% in the first half. How much in Q1 and in Q2? Or can you isolate the impact of World Cup on Q2 results contribution to Q2 organic?

Then on Heathrow renewal, no Clear Channel to bid against you. So what can you tell us in terms of rent and fees? Same, lower or higher versus before? And then lastly, on Page 31, outside of the U.S. where is Clear Channel an incumbent in all those renewals?

Thank you, Julien. Much better. Now so David will take the first question, Jean-Francois second and third, and I will take the fourth. So David?

Yes, regarding the pace of [indiscernible] OpEx in the second half of the year, we have to keep in mind that we will have the new contract in start-up phase, which, as you know, the phase has always dilutive on our margin first. So the pace of the growth in the second part of the year, we should be cautious and should be, let's say, evolving a bit different from the first half, not significantly, but it won't be exactly at the same pace.

Regarding the U.S. First of all, Julien, well tried, but we don't break down revenues geographically on a quarterly basis, but only every 6 months. It was worth trying from you. Second, Q2 was obviously very strong in the U.S. What we can tell you is that overall World Cup incremental revenues was above EUR 30 million. When we announced our Q2 guidance, we gave you a breakdown between Q2 and Q3 of this plus EUR 30 million of 50-50.

What we can tell you now, it was more than 60-40, i.e., 60% for Q2 and 40% for Q3, i.e., less revenue uplift in Q3 than in Q2. And this extra 30 million was mostly in the U.S., but also in Mexico as well as in countries like the U.K., which did pretty well in the World Cup. And then there, back to the answer I gave to Marcus in the previous question, that was some programmatic campaigns in the U.K. given that the U.K. team did pretty well.

On Clear Channel, can you repeat your question, Julien? Where Clear Channel was bidding? Clear Channel was basically, we don't see Clear Channel now outside of the U.S. So basically, now they are back in the U.S. as a U.S. operator, so. We don't -- your question is where do you -- do we see them? We don't see them outside of the U.S.

No. My question was, on Page 31, I understand they've gone back to the U.S. But in Page 31, it's renewal or it's renewal of a lot of contracts, right? And some of them must be Clear Channel outside of the U.S. before they left. So, I just want to identify the opportunity where you could gain contract because Clear Channel is no longer bidding, on Page 31. That was one question.

And then the other one was on Heathrow renewal. As it's the first time you're bidding without Clear Channel. I was wondering whether you can give us some color on what happened to the rent and fees. Are they higher? Are they lower? Are they the same as before? So it's kind of 2 questions.

Yes. Jean-Francois will take the Heathrow one, I will take the Clear Channel one. So on Clear Channel, basically in Europe, even if Clear Channel now, as you know, is gone from Europe, you have now local operators. So certainly, the local operators will pick up some of those bids to compete. But it will be obviously -- and it will certainly be a different approach. Every company has a different approach to the way they bid, and we will see that in the coming future. In France now, it's the local players in basically other markets in Europe, in Northern part of Europe it's Bauer Media. So it depends on the market, but it's not any more global competitors as it used to be with Clear Channel, Julien.

So as we said at the last conference call because I think we had the questions, it's a bit too early to draw a conclusion. But what we can say is more rationality in the bidding process across -- basically across the board with sometimes some few exceptions, but it's certainly more rational than it used to be prior to COVID.

Regarding Heathrow, Heathrow did a market consultation, Julien, in order to assess whether or not they wanted to do a bidding process. And the result of this market consultation is that they decided to extend, renew our contracts for 8 years without going out to tender. There was no obligation on Heathrow's part to go out to tender, and they basically came to the conclusion that given our footprint and our track record over the last 30 years operating the advertising business in Heathrow that it wasn't necessary for them to go out to tender. And the terms and conditions are pretty much the same as they were in the previous 10 years.

Our next question comes from the line of Davide Amorim with Berenberg.

Three questions for me, please. Firstly, you delivered a very strong H1 on profitability. Congratulations. As you mentioned, some of your contracts will start in Q3. Could you please help us understand the expected direction of operating margin in H2 and for fiscal year 2026?

Secondly, in the press release, you mentioned a low single-digit organic growth in China in H1. We have recently heard a more positive comment on China from several media companies. What trend are you seeing in the market at the start of the Q3? And lastly, more broadly speaking, out-of-home advertising seems to be becoming increasingly attractive to advertisers. Are you seeing stronger demand showing up in more volume? Or are you able to push for higher yield, especially in digital screens?

Thank you for your questions. David the first one, I will take the second one, and Jean-Francois will take the third one.

It is clear that the trajectory of the operating margin in H1 was quite strong, which confirms the strength of our business model. We will need to build on this momentum and keeping a focus on disciplined execution. But as I mentioned before, we are in the second part of the year, the start-up phase of new contracts, which is typically dilutive on margin. And we will need also to navigate in uncertain environment as in H1, but maybe with less tailwinds coming from the sport events. So we don't provide, as you know, Davide, it's a good try, but any guidance for the full year and for the second half, but you know perfectly the usual seasonality pattern of our operating margin, and I will let you do the modeling, staying cautious on H2 due to the start-up phase of the new contracts.

On China, as you know, we don't break down basically guidance as it was said by Jean-Francois earlier on a quarterly basis. But what we can say is that the Mainland Chinese business has been good and has been okay in the first half of the year, where in Hong Kong and Macau, the business has been a bit more difficult.

So we have a true dynamic in our Chinese business at the moment. This continues to be the case for the summer without being able, obviously, to give you more details into that. But we don't really see, let's say, we still see a quite soft environment. We don't see basically a major recovery. Business is doing okay with those kind of 2 tracks between Mainland and Hong Kong and Macau. But -- I think we -- the good news is that we have been able to achieve those, I think, strong performance results as it was presented this morning despite the fact that China is still soft in our portfolio.

So we continue to digitalize, which is a good news because digital is doing well. As you can see now digital in China, as it was said in the previous quarter publication, we basically now are at 41% contribution from digital in China. And this is the way to go. And so we strongly believe that we have very sound and good contracts, terms and conditions, long duration and business is certainly in -- is certainly promising for the future in China. But at the moment, it's still basically in slow mode, let's say. And I think it's quite common in different industries to see China as a soft recovery.

On your last question, it's a combination of both volume and pricing. Pricing on digital when traded programmatically is at a TPM uplift of 25% to 30%. In some countries, even more than 30% uplift on programmatic trading, given the targeted nature of the campaigns. And volume, of course, because we invest a lot in new premium digital inventory. But it's a combination of both. It's not easy on a worldwide basis to give you a breakdown between volume and pricing, but it's a combination of both. Obviously, pricing is a way to -- for us to enhance the yield per stream, which we are monitoring on a regular basis, the yield that we generate.

And then the trade-off is always, do we put more screens and accept a lower yield? Or do we keep the number of screens static and then try to enhance the yield? London is a good example. We had 1,000 screens, now we doubled the number of screens. Obviously, the yield per screen is a bit lower. But overall, we generate more revenues and then the medium has become more -- the digital media has become more attractive, reaching out in certain neighborhoods where we didn't have digital in the previous contract with TFL. It's always a balance between volume and pricing, which differs from market to market.

Our next question comes from the line of Conor O'Shea with Kepler Cheuvreux.

Three questions also from my side. Just to come back on the comments on China, Jean-Charles, just to be clear, the low single-digit growth that you mentioned in the press release, that's for Greater China, including Hong Kong or Mainland China? And directionally, I guess, a bit slower in Q2 than Q1 because I think the comments were a little bit more optimistic in Q1. If you could just confirm that. And maybe in the same region, if you could just give a little bit of color on trends in Australia, I think which is also an important region for you guys as well?

Then second question, just in terms of your Slide 13, in the comments on the penetration in the market of programmatic digital, the fact that it's so low in the U.S. and the U.K., which seems surprising. Maybe you could explain why you think that is and what could change there going forward?

And then last question maybe for David. You're reluctant to give specific CapEx guidance for the full year. But just directionally, you mentioned that some delayed rollout of contracts meant that CapEx was actually slightly down in the first half. But looking into the second half, as those contracts roll on, what kind of difference could that make to the second half year-on-year?

Thank you, Conor, for your questions. So first of all, on China, and Jean-Francois will take the Australian and programmatic in the U.S. and the U.K., and David the last one. But on China, what we can say is the numbers that are disclosed are obviously for Greater China as a whole. But we wanted to give you a bit of more color of the dynamic within China today, given basically the importance and the size of Hong Kong and Macau within the Greater China numbers. So what you have seen on the numbers are Greater China numbers.

Your assessment on Q1 versus Q2 is the right assessment, Conor. So I can confirm what you are implying in your question is right. On Australia, Jean-Francois?

Yes. Australia was low single digit in the first 6 months.

Yes, we have some delays in the installation of some contracts, but it's more a swing between H1 and H2, which explains the increase in inventory, as I mentioned during the call. And so we keep what we indicated in March that net CapEx should land at around 8% of the revenue on a full year basis.

And on the programmatic low penetration in U.S. and U.K.?

As I mentioned in previous -- on previous calls, we need two to tango. And for a couple of years, media agencies and more specifically what we call the post specialist or outdoor specialists. We are not prepared to engage on programmatic. I think there was a fear on their side to be totally disintermediated by the programmatic trading.

So the kind of kinetic, which doesn't exist anymore, which is now embedded in WPP GroupM, we are very slow to embrace programmatic. The same with Talon, which is buying on behalf of OMG. But now it's starting to change. Talon created its own DSP and WPP GroupM now buying outdoor centrally or centrally I mean that there is no longer a dedicated unit to buy and plan out-of-home is starting to embrace programmatic, which is the reason for the lower penetration in the U.K. But U.K. had the best -- Brazil, the strongest programmatic revenue growth in H1 came from Brazil and the U.K. So the U.K. is playing catch-up versus Germany and the Dutch or Belgium markets, which are above group average.

And in the U.S., don't forget that 75% of out-of-home media revenue in the U.S. is coming from the Billboard sector. The Billboard has the lion's share of out-of-home media revenues in the U.S., and we only have 51 or 52 digital billboards in Chicago, which are doing extremely well, but it's only 52. So unfortunately, Street Furniture, which is the mainstream -- the main segment of out-of-home in Europe is not the main segment in the U.S., even if it's doing very well. And that's why most of the programmatic demand on U.S. out-of-home media is coming via the Billboard segment. So that's the reason for the low programmatic penetration of digital for JCDecaux in the U.S., which is apart from those 50-plus digital billboards in Chicago, mainly operating -- only operating transport airport contracts as well as Street Furniture.

Our next question comes from the line of Nizla Naizer of Deutsche Bank.

I have 2 final questions remaining from my end as well. First, it was interesting to see the breakdown of your demand from certain customer categories and the tech company growth was really fascinating to see. But do you think that this spending is sustainable when you look at sort of the contracts that you've got in place for H2? Is this spending likely to continue to grow? Or do you think this is sort of a one-off as they try to gain more visibility? Some color there would be great.

And second, thank you for quantifying the impact of the World Cup on your revenue. But I was also curious how much of that incremental revenue do you think came from campaigns that were meant for Q4 that were brought forward during this sort of World Cup excitement period? In other words, would Q4 continue to be a strong quarter for out-of-home as it has traditionally been based on the conversations that you're having? Some color there would be great. Thank you.

I will take the first question, and Jean-Francois will take the second one on the World Cup. So on the customer basically dynamic that we have seen in the first half, it's obvious that we are working hard to make those basically client recurring clients for us. As you can see, we have quite basically loyalty on our client base. If you look over the years at the same slide, you will see that the client base is pretty stable, growing, obviously, as it should be, but pretty stable.

And on the telecom on the technology, we think that there is -- those clients are in some regions in the world, especially in China, especially in the U.S., where our footprint is basically very much appreciated by those clients that are looking for brand performance media and brand performing media is what basically JCDecaux out-of-home solution can bring to the market in terms of quality, in terms of locations, in the downtown area or in the top airports around the world. And this is true, especially in San Francisco, for example, this is true in Shenzhen, but this is true also in major capital city around the world.

So we think that our unique portfolio, the quality of our portfolio, the quality of our digitization is certainly bringing those big tech companies in our portfolio of clients for -- on a recurrent basis. And if you look at it from different phases, this is the case, mostly in the 2 dominant markets in tech, which are the U.S. and China.

So yes, we think that this is sustainable, Nizla, versus your question. We never know, obviously, but we think that when you look at the CapEx that is deployed by those firms in the industry, both in China and the U.S., they still need to make their solution available for the customers. And we think that we have the best assets to serve that purpose and to bring their solutions in the eyes of our basically audiences in metros, in airports, in city centers and in retail areas where they want to reach the people on the move. World Cup, Jean-Francois?

Yes, World Cup. So your question implied that we bundled some of -- unless I didn't understand your question that we bundled some of Q4 campaigns with the World Cup.

It was more like was there demand from Q4 that was brought forward to the World Cup time. So campaigns that would have typically gone in Q4 were brought forward just to take advantage of the World Cup buzz by your customers. So in other words, would Q4 still be a decently strong quarter as it is typically the largest quarter for advertising? Or is there some sort of impact negatively in Q4 because there was demand pulled forward for Q2?

No. We don't think that that demand has been brought forward in Q2 because of the World Cup. Q4, you're right to say that it's our strongest quarter for obvious reasons. A lot of clients generate a lot of sales in the pre-Christmas in Q4. So we don't have a crystal ball, but pacings are pretty good right now, but it's too early to call with the exception of markets like France, which are -- which have more visibility than, for example, in the U.K. or in the U.S. for historic reasons because we guarantee brand exclusivity in France, meaning that we can get earlier bookings because clients, especially in the luxury sector, are very keen to secure their prime positions in the key weeks of the year because in France we are selling on a weekly basis. And given that France is our largest market with more than 16% of sales, it's a pretty important market for us. So bottom line is we don't think that the World Cup will affect in any form or shape the Q4 trading.

Our next question comes from the line of Jerome Bodin with ODDO BHF.

My first question is on the contract win and loss for 2026. Can you just remind us what's the impact in Q2? So if I remember well, Q1 was slightly negative probably. What's the impact on Q2? Is there any impact, negative, positive? Or is it neutral? And should we expect the same impact between Q3 and Q4? That's my first question.

Second question on programmatic. Could you give us a bit of indication on the profitability if you keep such growth, which accelerate, should we see any operating leverage linked to programmatic? And does that compensate for the year and for next year, the ramp-up of the new contract that you mentioned in terms of dilution?

And last question, more structural, to come back to follow up on the question on the impact of the demand for outdoor between yield, volumes and price. Is there any change in terms of commitment from clients in terms of visibility? Do they commit earlier? Do you have more visibility on the business because of this new demand?

David will take the first and the second, I will take the last.

Regarding the contract win and loss, as you probably mentioned, in Q1 the net impact was negative. Progressively, we can see a positive contribution from the new contract. But in Q2 it was not yet positive, so globally in H1 we can say that contribution is progressing positively, but not yet positive in H1.

Programmatic profitability, David?

Programmatic profitability, as we mentioned properly during the call in March, if we look at the profitability of VIOOH on a standalone basis if we look at the profit on a stand-alone basis, we said that it was already in 2025 positive in terms of EBITDA. Year-to-date, we can say that in 2026, it will be also positive in terms of EBIT, not yet in terms of free cash flow, but it will come very soon as we say. But the good way to look at it is not only on a stand-alone basis, it is also that this is what we said during the last call to look at it on a global basis and the impact on JCDecaux Group because as we said, it is mainly incremental revenue and so bringing new money to JCDecaux.

So on a group basis, it has been already positively contributing to the margins and the free cash flow or to the margin positively.

And on the what you call the structural questions on going forward, basically demand activity at the group level, what we can say is very clear. We are still among, I think, the most anticipated business in the media sector in some markets, as Jean-Francois highlighted it before on France, for example, but also in some other markets to a lesser extent, France being basically the most advanced booking market in the world on JCDecaux so far.

What is also important to understand is that digital drives business up to the last minute before the campaign can be basically on air on the streets, on the airport. And this is a major change, and this is a boost, obviously, to our business.

And you can see that on the World Cup, for example, that we've discussed earlier or the fact that we can do even triggering campaign now, it brings money until the end. And so that makes our guidance judgment more and more difficult because this is obviously not bringing volatility, but this is bringing more money until the end. And so that's, for sure, a new component of our business profile going forward, but this is more a positive than a negative, we think, obviously, and we can see that in the numbers.

And so this is not a major change, but this is a quite significant one, even if, as you can see, because of the nature of our business and the limited supply in some of our key locations around the world, major city centers, Fifth Avenue, major airports around the world. Our limited supply helps us to keep basically the value of our assets in this media environment. And this is quite unique in out-of-home because you not only have physical assets, but also you have scarcity in some locations.

In Fifth Avenue, you have 15 locations. In Madison, you have a bit more. But at the end of the day, it's 15. It's -- so this is -- this gives us also pricing power, obviously, on those locations especially with the digital and the fact that more and more clients wants to be on our key assets. And that's something that makes the demand today also very compelling for some of those brands.

I'm showing no further questions at this time. I would now like to turn the call back to Jean-Charles Decaux for closing remarks.

So thank you for all of you for being active on this conference call. And on behalf of our JCDecaux Executive Board, I would like to thank you for your support. And we look forward to seeing you soon on our roadshow, physical roadshow or basically distance roadshow or conferences. We wish you a good break for those of you that are going into a few days of vacation and be sure that we remain very active in the meantime. All the best, and thank you for your attention today.

Thank you for your participation in today's conference. This does conclude the program. You may now disconnect.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the JCDecaux 2025 Full Year Results Presentation.

I will now hand over to Jean-Francois Decaux, Chairman of the Executive Board and Co-CEO. Sir, please go ahead.

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to our 2026 full year results conference call. The speakers on this call will be Jean-Charles Decaux, Co-CEO; David Bourg, Chief Financial, IT and Operations Officer; and myself; Remi Grisard, Head of Investor Relations, is also attending today's conference call.

On the front cover, we chose this picture of one of our large digital kiosks on Market Street in San Francisco with an AI-related campaign because this new client category generated last year 30% of all revenues in the San Francisco advertising market.

Moving now on to Slide 4. Overall, 2025 is a solid year with robust underlying growth and strong performance in our key financial indicators. First, revenue. Our organic revenue growth is up 1.8% and 3.2% if we exclude the impact of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games and UFI Europe. So despite a tougher comparable and a more challenging as well as an uncertain macroenvironment, our underlying top line continued to grow.

Second, digital. Our digital revenue grew by 10% organically and now represents 41.7% of total group revenue with programmatic up 17.3% and reaching 10.4% of digital revenue. This confirms that digital, and especially programmatic, remain a key driver of our growth and of the transformation of the group.

On the profitability slide, we demonstrate the strength and operating leverage of our business model. Our operating margin rate improved to 20.9%, up 150 basis points year-on-year. Recurring EBIT increased by 18.6% and our net results, excluding the APG|SGA capital gain in 2024, is up 22.8%.

Finally, and very importantly, we delivered record free cash flow of EUR 342.9 million, up 47.9%, but David will comment all of that later. Bottom line, we delivered our 2026 target 1 year ahead of plan.

On Slide #5, and focusing on Q4, we recorded an organic growth rate of 1.6% above our guidance and our expectations of around flat. Our advertising revenue recorded a plus 3.1% organic growth, reflecting an acceleration versus Q3 and a solid advertising momentum, especially compared to traditional media companies in Europe. Non-advertising revenue were affected by a high comparable base in 2024 linked to the contract of the Paris automatic public toilet network.

Digital accounted for close to 45% of revenue, a 1.9 point increase with programmatic Digital Out-of-Home up 14% and representing 11% of digital revenue.

Coming back to -- on Slide 6, coming back to our full year 2025 revenue performance. Reported growth at 0.8% was affected by negative foreign exchange impact, partially offset by acquisitions and other change in scope. Street Furniture maintained its strong momentum with plus 1.9% organic growth, even against a base that had benefited from sporting events in Europe last year. Transport continued its rebound, growing plus 3.3% organically, despite a mid-single-digit revenue decline in China. Outside of China, growth was much stronger, reaching 6.8% organically. Billboard decreased by 2.3% organically, mainly due to high comparable and further rationalization of our inventory in France.

On the next Slide #7, you can see that North America and the Rest of the World were key growth drivers as they grew high single-digit, while the rest of Europe grew low single-digit and U.K. and Asia Pacific decreased low single-digit. France decreased mid single-digit, impacted by its high comparable. Excluding the 2024 Paris Olympic Games, France grew by 1.8% on an organic basis. This shows the strength of our geographically diversified model.

On Slide #8, we are not only well diversified geographically, but also by activities. Street Furniture now constitutes 50.7% of total revenue, while Transport at 35.8% has not yet recovered its 2019 revenue share of more than 40%. Billboard remains our smallest segment, accounting for 13.4% of total revenue as we continue to focus on premium assets and on digitization wherever possible in this segment. France is our largest country, representing 16.7% of total revenue, while Europe makes up nearly 50%. The U.K. ranks as our second largest country. Our exposure to China continues to decrease to around 10% in 2025 versus 18% in 2029.

Turning to the Slide #9. Our client portfolio is well diversified with our top 10 clients contributing to less than 13% of revenue. We observed a healthy rotation among leading advertising categories. Fashion, Luxury and Personal Care, our largest category at 18% of sales, turned slightly negative at minus 5%. Meanwhile, the next 3 categories showed robust growth: Retail at plus 7%; Entertainment/Film at 11% plus; and Finance at 13%.

Next, Slide #10. Digital Out-of-Home remained the key growth driver as it grew by plus 10% organically in full year 2025. Digital revenue penetration rose by almost 3 percentage points year-on-year, reaching 41.7% in full year 2025 and almost 45% in Q4. Our digital revenue distribution continues to closely mirror our business mix, as demonstrated in the next slide.

Digital penetration, on Slide #11, increased across all 3 business segments. In Street Furniture, digital revenue climbed to 39.9% compared to 36.9% a year earlier. Digital revenue in Transport, our most digitized segment, grew from 44.1% to 46.4%. In Billboard, digital revenue reached 35.8% from 33.8% a year earlier.

Let's move on to Slide #12, with programmatic advertising, which saw by 19.2% in 2025, reaching [ EUR 100.5 million ] (sic) [ EUR 180.5 million ] or 10.9% of our digital revenue, up from 9% in the previous year. We consider that more than 50% of this revenue is purely incremental coming from new advertisers and targeted campaigns. Programmatic revenues remain primarily incremental, sourced from smaller advertisers or from targeted campaigns, such as this campaign for a new perfume in Berlin.

On Slide 13, we anticipate continued strong growth for programmatic revenue, as there is an important gap today between countries such as Germany, at 36.5% and the Netherlands at 28.6%, surpassing the group average at 10.9% and some major digital markets like the U.K. and the U.S., which have not yet fully embraced programmatic. We predict programmatic penetration will continue to rise in the medium-term to above 20%.

On the next Slide #14, which is pretty full, you will find our most important contract wins and renewals in 2025. Taking a few examples in Street Furniture, we secured contracts in Europe with Carmila Carrefour, Rennes freestanding units, Odense in Denmark, Barcelona Street Furniture in Spain. In Japan, the third advertising market worldwide, we strengthened our footprint with Fukuoka, Kawasaki, Nagano, Nara and Sapporo. In Australia, we renewed the important contract of Melbourne Yarra Trams, which was announced last week. In Transport, we renewed Northern Rail in the U.K., Brussels Airport and buses, Metro in Belgium, National Rail in Norway. In North America, we won Denver Airport in the U.S.A., the #10 airport in the world with 82 million passengers.

Finally, in Billboard, we strengthened our portfolio, both in Portugal and in Ireland. To address the frequent analyst question regarding contract losses, the 2 main examples are Citybus in Hong Kong and Danish Rail in Denmark.

Finally, before handing over to David Bourg, we have confirmed our excellent ESG performance. Our performance was recognized as best-in-class by extra financial rating agencies, including our placement on the CDP A list for the third year in a row and the silver medal status from EcoVadis. We have received as well again the best score, AAA, from MSCI and Sustainalytics rated as a low-risk company among the media. More broadly, I would like to emphasize that out-of-home media is among the least carbon-intensive media formats for advertisers.

I will now hand over to David for the presentation of our financial highlights of the year.

Thank you, Jean-Francois. On this first slide at Page 17, you can see our key financial metrics for 2025. On this picture, the message is clear. 2025 is a very solid year, as Jean-Francois already mentioned. On revenue of EUR 3.967 billion, up 0.8% on a reported basis, we delivered strong operating leverage across the P&L, a record level of free cash flow and a lower net debt, while we continue to invest and resumed our dividends. Bottom line, with an operating margin at EUR 831 million, 20.9% of the revenue and a free cash flow at EUR 342.9 million, we exceeded our 2026 target 1 year in advance.

Let's now look in more detail at each KPI on the following slides, starting first with the evolution of our operating margin on the next slide. As you can see on the left side, our operating margin increased by EUR 66.6 million from EUR 764.5 million to EUR 831.1 million, plus 8.7% year-on-year, while the revenue increased by 0.8%. And so as you see on the right, the margin rate improved by 150 basis points from 19.4% to 20.9%.

This strong performance mainly reflects lower rents and fees, in particular after the contract reset in Mainland China and a very tight control of other operating costs, which are almost flat. This means we captured almost all of the 1.7% growth in advertising revenue. You also see lower cost of goods sold linked to a 6.5% decline in non-advertising revenue, partly due to the end of the automatic toilet installation program in Paris.

As you can see again on the right-hand side, margin expansion is visible across all segments. Street Furniture is now above 27%, a level we hadn't reached since 2015. Billboard stands at 17.6% and Transport at 13.5% with the strongest improvement of 230 bps, mainly driven by China and a strong growth in the rest of the world.

On Slide 19, you have the EBIT bridge from operating margin of EUR 831.1 million. On the top of the table, we deduct net amortization and depreciation, which are slightly up and maintenance spare part almost up moderately. This brings us to recurring EBIT, in the middle of the table, at EUR 376.7 million, up EUR 59 million year-on-year, broadly in line with the increase in operating margin or -- plus 18.6% with the margin improving from 8.1% to 9.5%.

Below recurring EBIT, after adding positive nonrecurring items, lower than last year because of the APG|SGA gain in 2024 and a small impairment, EBIT reaches EUR 431 million, up plus 5.5%. So in summary, this slide clearly confirms that we are not only growing our EBIT, but also delivering solid operating leverage at EBIT level on a recurring basis.

On next slide, Page 20, you find the bridge in our net income group share. Two key numbers at the bottom of the table, reported net income at EUR 262.6 million, plus 1.4% versus 2024, but excluding the APG|SGA capital gain in 2024, net income group share is up plus 22.8% in 2025, globally in line with our recurring EBIT.

Between EBIT on the top of the slide and net income at the bottom, the main points are a better financial result as we no longer have the EUR 22.6 million one-off on the loan in China, and we benefit from lower IFRS 16 discount cost due to lower lease liability, partly offset by lower interest income after the bond repayment in October 2024. Higher tax charge as well, reflecting our improved results with an effective tax rate around 25.6% against 20.8% in 2024 which benefited from the nontaxable capital gain from APG|SGA. Adjusted from that, 2024 effective rate would be above 24%, so close to 2025 rate.

Moving now to cash generation. As you can see at the bottom of this slide, 2025 is a record year with a free cash flow of EUR 342.9 million, a positive variation of EUR 111 million, almost plus 50% versus 2024. The main drivers of this increase are in the middle of the table, higher operating cash flow from EUR 50 million, directly linked to the improvement in operating margin. Below the operating cash flow, a positive contribution from working capital of EUR 33 million, in particular from lower inventories, mainly thanks to inventory optimization. And finally, a disciplined CapEx allocation with net investment down to around 7.5% of revenue, while still keeping a strong focus on digital, which represents close to 40% of net CapEx.

It is to be noted that the impact of factoring on working capital variation is negative by EUR 5 million as we did a lower volume of factoring at year-end than in 2024. We did EUR 272 million versus EUR 277 million in 2024. And also to be noted, a strong free cash flow generation before working capital variation as it reached EUR 284 million. So in summary, this slide shows that our business generates strong operating cash flow, and we continue to be disciplined on CapEx and working capital.

On Slide 22, on the left bar chart, you see the evolution of the net debt, excluding IFRS 16. It goes down from EUR 756 million to EUR 587 million, a reduction of EUR 169 million, mainly thanks to record free cash flow, partly offset by dividends, bolt-on M&A and share buybacks. This gives us low leverage with a net debt around 0.7x our operating margin.

On the right side of the slide, you can appreciate a very solid financial profile, EUR 1.3 billion cash, EUR 825 million undrawn credit facility, EUR 1.9 billion gross debt, 3.1 year average maturity, 3.4% financial cost and 91% of our debt which is on a fixed rate basis.

Finally, on the last slide, we present our recommendation for 2025 dividend. Given our strong 2025 result, record free cash flow and a solid financial position, we will propose to the AGM to increase the dividend per share to EUR 0.65 per share from EUR 0.55 last year. This is an increase of plus 18.2%, globally in line with our underlying earnings growth. It represents a payout ratio of around 52% of net result group share and about 40% of our free cash flow.

As already indicated, our intention is to continue to gradually increase the dividend in the coming years, while maintaining a balanced cash allocation between CapEx to support organic growth, targeted bolt-on M&A and an attractive and sustainable shareholder return.

That's all from my side on the financial, and I now hand over to Jean-Charles for the outlook.

Thank you, David, and good morning to everyone. So OOH and DOOH is more than ever, as you have seen, a growth media driven by increasing urbanization and mobility, leading to rising audiences as well as by the premium nature our media on its digitization.

As shown on this Slide 25, GroupM, the world's largest media buyer, forecast DOOH to be growing at 7.2% over the next 5 years, and OOH as a whole is expected to grow by 5.5% CAGR. This robust growth trajectory clearly sets us apart from other traditional media, which are facing a structural decline.

This is part of our ambition to take OOH and DOOH to the next level based on 3 key pillars: first, a unified ad tech stack that enable us to manage our entire inventory consistently for advertisers and fully capture the growth of DOOH. Second, data powering campaigns allowing for more relevant targeting and activations, including through programmatic buying. And finally, artificial intelligence, which acts as a catalyst by continuously optimizing delivery, performance and creativity across our networks.

On Slide 27, you can see our digital footprint by major geographies. Key growth drivers remain Brazil, the U.S., Australia, the U.K. and Germany. While the group average is 42% digital, many countries are still below that level, which means strong future upside. Our largest country, France, is at the moment only at 9% digital penetration for reasons we all know. Retail development will help accelerate digital and any opening of cities like Paris to more digital will be a real boost for the whole sector.

On the next slide, programmatic, as you can imagine and see, gives us 3 major advantages. First, trigger-based buying. We can buy based on real-time contextual signals. Second, we can now measure campaign performance at a level that is completely different from classic OOH. Third, whenever we sell audience based on programmatic, in more than 8 cases out of 10, we achieved a higher revenue per impression than on classic campaign, thus higher yield. This is made possible by combining first, second and third-party data. Today, programmatic is around 11% of our digital revenues versus 85% in web and mobile. The catch-up potential on the same inventory is huge.

On the next slide, as you can see on the left, you have advertisers and agencies, large media groups, independents and digital agencies. Then the DSPs with displayce in the major third-party DSPs, OOH or multichannel such as The Trade Desk. Then you have the SSPs with VIOOH, our open platform available to JCDecaux, but also more importantly, to third-party media owners. On the right are the media owners.

If we have not moved up the value chain with VIOOH and then displayce, we will leave a significant share of value on the table. We are now onboarding other major players, as you can see. OUTFRONT in the U.S. is joining VIOOH recently and others may follow. Our full ad tech stack is unique in our sector, although this value is not yet fully reflected in our share price.

Our conviction on the next slide is that AI is primarily an enabler for us. Our assets are physical, in cities, in transport networks, in retail environment, and it's a critical path of audiences. AI will transform, as we all know, our ways of working, collaborating, automating our business processes and increasing the productivity of our media, but it will not replace premium real assets such as bus shelters, metro network, airport screens or retail screens.

We have highlighted here a few use cases in campaign creation and planning CampaignAI by displayce, optimized planning and trading through a simple prompt, while The mAlker generates tailor-made visuals customized for each location for both print and digital campaign. For content moderation, KIS automatically screens creative to pre-approval visuals and accelerate validation. For content optimization, Optix leverages attention, prediction and optimization technology to maximize campaign impact. Again, our physical assets are, therefore, structurally resilient and AI enhances their value by improving productivity, creativity, targeting and more importantly, measurement.

This Slide 31 highlights the strong potential of DOOH Retail Media for JCDecaux. Our new exclusive partnership with Carrefour Carmila, Unlimitail is a key milestone. The data-driven OOH/DOOH network will be deployed across 161 shopping centers in 297 access areas in France from 2026 and 91 shopping centers and 88 access areas in Spain from 2027.

Retail Media, as you know, is already a significant and fast-growing activity for JCDecaux [ with ] close at 90% of revenue coming from digital across 44 countries, leveraging our partners' data and enabling highly targeted contextual and programmatic DOOH campaigns. Globally, the retail media market represents $174 billion opportunity, including online. Retail media has already overtaken TV in the U.S. and is growing fast in Europe, a major growth driver for DOOH as 85% of retail sales still take place offline in stores.

DOOH Retail Media is expected to grow at 11.6% on a CAGR basis between 2025 and 2031. Combined with our broad portfolio of leading retail partners, this positions JCDecaux very strongly to capture the acceleration of DOOH Retail Media.

Moving on to the next slide, 32. As you can see, airports remain a structural growth driver despite episodic crisis. And over the long-term, air traffic grows by 3% to 5% per year and the projection from 2025 to 2030/2040 are very solid, including a plus 3.9% for 2026 and more than 23 billion passengers by 2054. We are uniquely and extensively positioned to capture this growth as we operate advertising concession in 154 airports worldwide, including now 14 of the world's 25 largest airports.

With the next Slide 33, we would like to illustrate how OOH Media, driven by digital innovation and growing audiences, continued in 2025 to gain market share in several major markets in the top 10. Over the past 10 years, OOH has gained around 5 percentage points in the media mix in Germany, Brazil and Australia and added roughly 1 percentage point year-on-year, now accounting for more than 10% of the total advertising spend.

On the next slide, you can see the main upcoming tenders. Among the most significant in Street Furniture are contracts such as Klepierre Retail in France, Transport for Greater Manchester in the U.K., Hamburg and Dusseldorf in Germany as well as Washington and Vancouver in North America. In Transport, key opportunities include AENA Spanish Airports, Wiener Linien in Austria, Torino Metro and buses in Italy, several major U.S. airports, which are not -- which -- where we are not incumbent at the moment, such as Chicago, San Francisco and Phoenix as well as Hong Kong in Asia.

On the next slide and moving into the sustainable part of our presentation, as you know, basically, JCDecaux stand by being the sustainable media company. First, we have a virtuous business model. In fact, 46.7% of our revenues is already aligned with the EU taxonomy through the financing of public transportation and our 2050 net zero climate pathway approved by the SBTi target by 2025 versus 2019, a 68% reduction in emission on Scope 1 and 2 and a 42% reduction on Scope 3.

Second, as you know, we keep innovating to support the ecological transition beyond promoting public transportation. Our bus stops are used to enhance urban biodiversity, as illustrated by the pilot project we won in Paris in 2025. And third, we apply a robust approach to measuring our impact with the JCDecaux 360 footprint tool, which covers carbon, water and economic and social dimension. This tool is already available in several countries, including France, the U.K. and Brazil and is being rolled out to additional markets from 2026 onwards.

We also operate in an OOH market that remains highly fragmented, where we are the #1 player and the only truly global OOH media company. We even see a form of deconsolidation. In fact, some U.S. -- some large U.S. players have scaled back their international presence. New names appear, such as Bauer Media, Arabia, some Brazilian operators, but the overall structure is still that of a very fragmented market overall. These fragmentations leave ample room for us to grow, both organically and through selective consolidation.

On Slide 37, our key takeaways for today are as follows. First, solid underlying revenue growth in 2025, driven by digital despite the challenging macroeconomic environment, as we all know. Second, programmatic continues to increase its share within digital revenues. Then strong operating leverage with a 150 basis points improvement in the operating margin, a continued tight control over OpEx and disciplined selective CapEx allocation, 2026 financial targets already achieved 1 year ahead of plan, including an all-time high level of free cash flow generation. Then the dividend, as it was highlighted by David, will be proposed at the next AGM at EUR 0.65 per share.

Finally, with a solid business momentum in early '26 with no material impact observed to date from the recent Middle East conflict, we expect above 5% organic revenue growth in Q1 2026, including a positive impact from the 2026 Milano Cortina Winter Olympics and the revenue growth turning positive in China. Going forward, building on this momentum revenue, we expect to continue to gradually increase our financial -- our key financial metrics, including margins and cash generation.

We thank you for your attention, and Jean-Francois, David and I are now ready to take your questions.

[Operator Instructions] We will now take the first question coming from the line of David Amorim from Berenberg.

[Foreign Language] Congratulations on the solid set of results. I have 3 questions, please. First, I know that you only guide by quarter, but how should we think about the growth for the rest of 2026? Q1 is the quarter facing the toughest comps. Should we expect growth above 5% level from Q2 onwards as well?

Secondly, in China, you mentioned a return to positive growth in Q1. Could we explain what changes are you seeing in the region? And what is actually new or improving there?

And finally, obviously, the advertising markets continue to be challenging, but momentum for JCDecaux is improving. What has changed in your discussion with your client between the start of this year and last year?

[Foreign Language]

I will take your first and third question, and Jean-Charles will take the second one. So the guidance of above 5% does not benefit from the new contracts that we signed, announced last year only marginally. So going forward, we -- it's hard to predict, obviously, given the current geopolitical situation. But what we can say is that from Q2, Q3, Q4 -- Q2 onwards, we expect to have some tailwinds from the new contract wins, including Barcelona, Stockholm in the second half of this year. it will be Carrefour because we need some time to build the new Inventory as well as Denver, which are significant contract wins, which will fuel the organic growth rate.

Pacing numbers right now for Q2 are pretty strong. And it's obviously impossible to predict if the oil price continues to be above $100 per barrel, what will be the impact on the economy. And if the economy starts suffering worldwide, it will have an impact on the advertising market. And Decaux -- JCDecaux is not operating in a vacuum, and we will be affected as well.

So overall, we are quite optimistic about 2026. And also, you need to take into account that we already have about EUR 20 million booked extra money, extra advertising spend booked as a result of the World Cup, which will take place in North America as well as in Mexico. So we have this effect as well, which will mainly affect Q3 of this year. So overall, 2026 should be a good year for JCDecaux. Having said that, if the world economy starts to suffer from the geopolitical tensions in the Middle East, this could have an impact as well.

On China, 3 major drivers for this, I would say, positive return in Q1 2026. The one -- the first one is, as you can imagine and as we have highlighted this in previous calls, the gradual increase of digital -- digitization in our Chinese environment, both in airports and in metro is clearly benefiting our growth profile in the country.

Second, a bit more, let's say, optimism in some client categories and a big boost from the giant tech companies which is interesting to see because -- we can see that in the U.S., we can see that in China when the big names in the tech sector is really using our products and solutions in the different environments in China to boost basically their brands, to boost their solution to their audiences.

And third, as you can imagine, the Chinese New Year this year was the biggest ever travel experience in terms of number of people moving around China. So those 3 factors are really helping the Q1 numbers.

The key question will be what about Q2? Q2 is also looking good, but still to be seen and early to be called. But basically, those are the 3 factors that are sustaining basically our positive return in the Chinese growth finally in our portfolio in China.

On your last question, no real change with our customers and clients, advertisers in terms of sentiment. Out-of-home remains an attractive media solution, especially given the decline of TV audiences. Free-to-air TV is in decline, and we benefit from that, for example, in markets like Germany, Australia, highlighted by Jean-Charles in his presentation and -- i.e., the win of agency advertising spend, which is very significant, if you look at the last years where our share of ad spend continues to increase.

You should also take into account the fact that we've got a lot of new clients coming through the new trading channel, which we call programmatic, which is programmatic, which is growing at twice the rate of digital, which is now representing in Q4 of last year nearly 45% of sales. So when you have digital growing at double-digit, just want to remind you that we had a 16% compound organic growth rate in our Digital segment. And when you have programmatic growing at twice the rate of digital, it fuels the growth. And that's why we are now firing on another cylinder, which we didn't have a couple of years ago, which is programmatic trading, which is now representing 10% -- bit more than 10% of our digital sales.

We will now take the next question from the line of Marcus Diebel from JPMorgan.

Congratulations [indiscernible] results. I have questions -- The first question I have is on free cash flow. And David, there was obviously a very strong swing factor in terms of working capital, the EUR 33 million. Conceptually, how shall we think about working capital management going forward as well? If you can help us sort of like what would you say is a sort of like normalized working capital number? Are there any one-off effects in the sort of like impressive performance this year, that would be quite helpful.

And maybe then one question for Jean-Francois on the discussion about VIOOH. Slide 29, you were talking about adding another 8 SSPs. Could you tell us a little bit more about the sort of like development of other parties joining the platform? That would be very interesting.

Okay. Thank you, Marcus. David will take your first question, and I will answer the second one.

As you know, working capital is always quite difficult to forecast precisely. As I mentioned during the presentation and as you properly indicated in your question, the improvement in 2025 is mainly coming from the work we did on inventory optimization. Trees do not grow to the sky, and we can consider at some point that our working capital is now broadly normalized.

In 2026, working capital should normally roughly follow top line evolution. And therefore, if the momentum we are currently having in our trading continue, the working capital should have a negative impact on the free cash flow in 2026. But obviously, we will continue to mitigate this impact, and we will continue our active action in terms of working capital management. But when you look at our free cash flow before working capital, as I mentioned, is very strong at EUR 284 million. And so driven by good operating performance and CapEx discipline, we should continue to grow our cash flow generation.

Okay. Perfect. Can we just say just conceptually, just since I have VIOOH, the cash conversion, so free cash flow '26, should we assume broadly the same percentage of operating margins just conceptually?

It's -- we are not guiding on that. And we should -- as I mentioned, our focus and our target, Marcus, is to continue to gradually increase our key metrics, including our operating free cash flow and our cash generation.

On your second question, Marcus, so SS VIOOH, as mentioned earlier by Jean-Charles, is the most connected supply side platform in the Out-of-Home media sector with 65 DSP connections, including DV 360 and operating now in 35 markets. For many years, there has been some skepticism about the ability from VIOOH, given that JCDecaux is the majority shareholder to attract big Out-of-Home media companies, what we call third-party media owners. And so far, we were able to attract the small guys as well as Out-of-Home media companies, which are related to JCDecaux such as Metrobus in France, where we have a minority stake and APG.

The recent announcement by VIOOH with OUTFRONT putting its inventory on the platform is very good news. And I think that this is driven -- I cannot speak on behalf of VIOOH, but I think that this is mainly driven by the fact that those American billboard companies are lacking some international trading. The fact that we have, for example, a VIOOH in China and that Chinese brands are expanding, think of BYD, but -- you name it, there are some other brands as well, is, I think, one of the main reasons why those companies are now interested in joining VIOOH in order to capture international Out-of-Home media spend, which will be traded programmatically. So we are having this -- they are having discussions with some other big Out-of-Home media owners, which are looking promising, but it's obviously quite a significant event for VIOOH now to have the OUTFRONT inventory, which is the second largest billboard company in the U.S. after Lamar on its platform.

And again, in summarize, it's mainly due to the fact that we are -- VIOOH is now the leading SSP in many -- over 35 markets around the world.

We will now take the next question from the line of James Tate from Goldman Sachs.

It's James Tate from Goldman. I had a few questions, please. I guess, firstly, could you just talk a bit more about your exposure to the Middle East? I think it's around 5% of revenues. And I guess within the mix, which Middle East countries do you have the greatest exposure to? And is it mainly within airports? And I guess what impacts have you seen to current booking trends since the escalation of the conflict a couple of weeks ago? Any color here would be very helpful.

And secondly, on EBITDA, that was much better than expected for '25 and ahead of your 2026 targets. I think you've guided to a gradual increase going forward. Could you give some more color on the moving parts for '26 in particular? And perhaps remind us what the right way to think about the normalized flow-through of revenue to EBITDA?

Thank you, James. Jean-Charles will take your first question on the Middle East, and I will take the second one on the EBITDA. So on the Middle East question, James, so we -- the Middle East represents a bit less than 5% of our total revenues. Today, the Middle East region is reported within the rest of the world. In the Middle East, we are mainly operating in the airport environment. And our major exposure is in Dubai, in the Emirates, followed by basically, to a lesser extent, Saudi Arabia. And we have mainly Street Furniture -- then Street Furniture in Qatar and in Oman.

You're right in your question to say where we are the most exposed. I mean, today, what we have to understand about the Middle East situation is that depending on the country, the conflict is not exactly -- does not have the same intensity. So today, Saudi Arabia, Oman is less exposed, more exposed Abu Dhabi, then Dubai, even though they are very close. And also Bahrain is quite exposed.

So our view is absolutely difficult to say, James. So far, the situation is not -- as we said in our guidance for Q1, we said that we don't see major impact. But if the conflict continues, EA intensifies, it is for sure that will have an impact on our business. And so we will try to deal, as we have always done it before in crisis, with our clients, with our partners at the airport where -- they are our partners. So it is a 3-party discussion, and we will do our best to mitigate, obviously, the impact on those brands.

I think the Middle East remains a region where the different states of the countries are trying to keep the business as usual, if I may say so. And so the people are calmed, our teams are working -- are distance working at the moment for security reason, but the business is operating normally, even though obviously, the situation is quite tense in some countries.

So that's what we can say today. To say more than this will be certainly political friction because things can change by the day, obviously. And so we have to be very reactive. We have to be -- we have to adapt ourselves. Our people are safe at the moment. We have -- most of our people are [ obviously ] local people. So I'm not going to say they are used to those kind of situation, but they are prepared because this is a region where tensions, they have always been around. In this case, it's obviously a bigger tension than ever before so far. So that's where we are at the moment. So limited exposure, but an exposure. And the key question will be the duration of this conflict, that will obviously impact more or less our operations in the region.

On your second question, James, there's no doubt for the management of JCDecaux that we want to continue to improve our operating margin rate, which is at 20.9%, meaning above 21% and going to 22%. We can't give you a timetable on this. Obviously, we have the major contract wins, which will impact the operating margin rate to start with, as during the ramp-up phase. As you know, we are not getting 100% of the revenue in year in the so-called [ random ] phase means that we are not able to optimize the operating margin on this contract. And that has obviously, at the beginning, some impact on the overall operating margin rate of the company.

Having said that, as mentioned in our press release, we want to continue to gradually increase both the overall number as well as the operating margin rate. And we are working hard on that as demonstrated in 2025, where in the end, we ended up being 1 year ahead of our target. But we cannot give you any guidance on this. But be assured that we are working very hard to continue to increase both the overall number as well as the operating margin rate.

We will now take the next question from the line of Jerome Pain from ODDO BHF.

Three quick questions on my side. The first one is on the CapEx for 2026. So what should we expect given the contract that you recently won? And is there any add-on linked to AI? And maybe more generally, could you make an update on the CapEx requirement and demand that you see regarding the ongoing call for tenders? That's my first question.

Second one on VIOOH. So you mentioned the nice partnership that you signed with bigger players. Could you just make an update on the capital structure because I remember that a few years ago, you were open to -- open the capital structure, which has not been the case. Is it still a project or not anymore?

And lastly, maybe just a general update on the fees. So you made a lot in the last few years in terms of restructuration and reduction of the minimum guarantee, especially in China. Is there still to come or most of it has been finished now?

Thank you, Jerome. David will take the first one. I'll take the second one and Jean-Charles, the third one.

Regarding your question on CapEx level, we are working hard in 2026 to remain, or to keep our CapEx level in a range of 7% to 8% of the revenue. As you mentioned, with new contract deployment, potentially, this will push the CapEx towards the top of the hand. Regarding the profile of the CapEx, we will continue to invest around 40% of the total CapEx into digital.

Regarding AI, we are investing quite a lot in our IT system, as you know. AI is included in our IT and technology called investments. So this has grown over the past few years. It will continue to be, or to stay in the same range as what we are currently. We are investing about between -- about 3.5% investing -- our cash out in IT is about 3.5% of our total revenue and will remain in this kind of envelope.

On your second question regarding VIOOH equity, JCDecaux remains the majority shareholder. I just want to repeat that the press release on the partnership with OUTFRONT didn't come from JCDecaux but from OUTFRONT -- from VIOOH. And reason being that the company is a separate company. We have an independent Chairman who used to be the leading outdoor advertising guy at WPP and GroupM. So I think that also is the reason why the big guys are more relaxed about them joining. We never get any specific numbers on their trading volume, so that it's truly an independent company despite the fact that we are the majority shareholder.

So far, we haven't had any discussions on them joining as an equity partner. Having said that, that could change in the future. Bearing in mind that there is also an ongoing consolidation in the sector, which is happening because there are too many SSPs. There is also consolidation on the DSP side. So it's too early to tell you whether or not some third-party media owners will not only join the SSP platform VIOOH by putting their inventory on the platform, but also by becoming an equity partner. We would certainly encourage this move because at the end of the day, it's a long-term goal, but we want to become the kind of the DV 360 of Out-of-Home media. That's the goal.

And given that our inventory is, for example, in Transport sector, it's competing, but not competing because most of transport franchise agreements are exclusive. So either you have Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport or you don't have it, you have Heathrow or you don't have it, you have New York or you don't have it, meaning that the inventory is very complementary between, for example, in the U.S. Clear Channel Airports and JCDecaux Airport.

Of course, we are competing for the franchise. We just won Denver against Clear Channel, which was the incumbent. But at the end of the day, when the Chinese brands wants to use this channel, it obviously makes sense for them to use the SSP which has the best connections with -- or which has the best inventory -- airport inventory worldwide by adding their airport footprint because at the end of the day, we don't have New York anymore. So rather than having different SSPs and having to deal with 2 different SSPs on Chinese brands trying to advertise in New York, then having just one kind of a one-stop shop solution, SSP solution, offering them the biggest airport platform, mixing Clear Channel or some other third-party media owners, which have some other airports as well, makes common sense.

So therefore, I'm quite optimistic that we will manage to get some more third-party media owners. And I think they realize now that what we said from the beginning that we want this company to be independent and to be trading also in the interest, not only of JCDecaux, but also in the interest of third-party media owners, is reality. It's not bullshit.

On China, so the situation on China is that -- regarding your fees-related question, Jerome, most of the work of reassessing basically the fee base on the contract after COVID and so on is over now. I think now we are on a strong basically basis now to grow the business again. But on the fee, most of it has been done.

And you always have on the portfolio of so many contracts all over the world, some fees assessment and discussion depending on different situations. The Middle East, for example, will be an obvious one depending on the duration of the crisis and the magnitude of it, depending on the contract. So it would be a contract-by-contract analysis in the best interest of the stakeholders. So what we can say at the moment is work is in progress always, but the major bulk of it in China is over now.

We will now take the next question from the line of Conor O'Shea from Kepler Cheuvreux.

Congratulations on the results. Three questions from my side. Firstly, on the -- on your biggest client sector, Luxury and Fashion, 18% of revenues. I think Jean-Francois, you mentioned minus 5% in '25. Are you seeing that spend weaken further? I think there's been some reports from within and with that sector that spend is under incremental pressure? Or is that not what you're seeing at the moment?

Second question, just in terms of the contribution from the new wins, the most significant ones, Denver, Stockholm and so on and the sports events, on a full year '26 basis if you could just get a sense of that? I appreciate the EUR 20 million number on the FIFA World Cup. But if you could maybe just round up and get a rough estimate of how much that's contributing in '26 either on a reported basis or on a run rate basis, that would be great.

And then just a final question, just -- I think it's implied by your comments in the Q2, but just to check in the Q1, was the trading in terms of growth quite even from January, February, March across the months? Just a little bit of color on that would be helpful.

Okay. Thank you. Jean-Charles will take the luxury question. I will take the second one on the new wins, and David will take the third one on Q2.

So as a matter of fact, Conor, we -- basically on the luxury brands and -- so the dynamic remains, I would say, very solid. The minus 5% that was highlighted in our presentation this morning and commented by Jean-Francois earlier in the presentation, has to be taken into account of a very strong Olympics Paris event in 2024. So the minus 5% was also impacted by this predominance of luxury brands communicating around this major sport event in Paris, which is, as you know, the most visited city in the world. So that was impacting. But so far, we don't see any slowdown, I must say, around the globe. So that's number one.

Now again, coming back to the Middle East, the Middle East, obviously, will -- could have an impact. But for the Middle East, the luxury brands is interesting because if the Middle East for us is minus -- is less than 5% for the luxury brand as a whole, I'm not talking about specific groups, is also less than 5% of their revenue exposure. So it's an important region, obviously, for everyone. It's a region where you have a ticket sale average which is higher than in other regions around the world, but it's a lower region in terms of impact than what China could be or U.S. could be or even Europe could be.

Having said that, so that's what we can see on the luxury brand. I think our solutions and our products remain very attractive. Especially what we see is that we see in some other hubs around the world more and more luxury brands or skin care brands or health and health care coming into our environment, so which is certainly a good news. So we don't see a major change in the dynamic versus what we saw in 2025 with, again, the 2024 which was very strong because of the Olympics in Paris and in France in general.

On your second question, so I can confirm that the EUR 20 million benefit from the World Cup in the U.S., impacting positively the U.S. and Mexico. Regarding the contract wins, there has been some delay both in Barcelona as well in Stockholm. I remember, Stockholm was announced in 2024 and was signed late in 2025 due to a legal challenge from the incumbents. We were not the incumbent. Same in Barcelona, a contract was signed recently as a result of a legal challenge from our competitor, the incumbent, because we were not the incumbent in Barcelona.

So this means there's been some delay in both signing the contract following the award. And as a result, the deployment of the digital screens will not happen, for example, in the Stockholm Metro before probably the beginning of Q3, bearing in mind that we are going to be deploying the largest cross-track digital screens ever installed in the world, 18 square meter at the platform. Cross-track is going to be hugely impressive. So we have to sort out some technical issues because as long as the contract was not signed, we didn't have access to the platform and to the engineers working for SL. SL is the RATP of Stockholm.

In Barcelona, we have, as indicated in our press release, a very significant digitization plan with at least 300 digital screens, which will complement Madrid, where we have a strong position with the bus shelters and the underground. So that's why it's very hard to give you a number at this stage as opposed to the World Cup due to this postponed signature of the contracts. But if we were able to give you a number, obviously, we would. But at this stage, it's very hard to give you a number. But nevertheless, this will be a tailwind for the organic growth in 2026.

Okay. And also 2027, presumably given the...

Yes.

Stage rollout? Okay.

And Conor, regarding your question on the Q1 trading across the month, what I can say is the start of the year was quite positive across all business segments and with close to mid-single-digit growth. The month of February was quite good, close to double-digit revenue growth, mainly driven by the Transport business segment and China with the Chinese New Year that has been mentioned by Jean-Charles before, and also to a lesser extent with the impact of the Winter Olympic Games in Italy.

And regarding the month of March, the jury is still out. The momentum is positive, especially on Street Furniture and -- on the Street Furniture business segment. Across the quarter, only 2 geographies -- one geography is suffering a bit, is Germany with having some headwinds. But otherwise, across all geographies, the momentum is quite good and March is going into the good direction in order to deliver the guidance.

Just to complement on what David just said, obviously, the trading timing varies from market to market. But to give you an example, in the U.K., which is our second largest market, we do 25% of the revenue of the month in the month. So when David tells you that it's -- March is still -- obviously, we are pacing well, but it's still not done. But in a market like the U.K., 1/4 of the revenue of the month is done in the month. So that shows you the short-term nature. France is a completely different story. We are more advanced in France due to various reasons. But there is -- the short-term nature of our business is very different from market to market.

We will now take the next question from the line of Bern Clanton from Barclays.

I think most have already been answered, to be honest. But just a final one from my side. On your retail media initiative, can you remind us of the expected contribution to revenue and also maybe how we should think about the impact on rent and fees on that front?

Yes, that's a good question. The -- That's a good question. The only thing is we don't disclose the subsegments within retail is within the Street Furniture part of our business. So we don't disclose the subsegment. As you can imagine, we already give a lot by segment, by geography. And so we -- I can't really give you the magnitude, but it's a business that is growing.

In terms of rent and fees, you have basically less CapEx versus sales and basically a bit more rents and fees than in the current Street Furniture business model. So it's a business model that is in between Street Furniture and transport, but we don't disclose those numbers. It is a global number within our Street Furniture, which represents, as you know, 50-plus percent of our total revenues.

And it's a growing business, and it's a digital business. And it is, I would say, a very good complementary business in the geography where we operate. It's mainly driven by digital and data. This is certainly one of the few, I would say, environments where programmatic is taking the lead because of the nature of the clients, because of the nature of the profile of the audiences and because of the quality of the data that we are basically giving to our clients because, as you know, and this is something important, I think, for you to understand that when we do a retail media deal, whether it is with Tesco in the U.K. or whether it is with Carrefour Carmila, Unlimitail in France or in other geographies, we have access within our contract structure to the data and the ticket sales per day, per hours, per week. So it's a quite interesting basically trigger for our programmatic platform, not only for the retail itself, but also more globally. So this is something that is helping us to grow this business.

And there is a trend which is interesting that -- especially outside of the U.S., there is a trend of basically now having basically exclusive contract with some basically Out-of-Home players. So it's something that we see growing on different regions, not in the U.S., but outside of the U.S., this is the case at the moment.

We will now take the next question from the line of Nizla Naizer from Deutsche Bank.

I also just have 2 more questions remaining. The first -- thank you for the color you gave on the fees in China. But my question is, are you actively also looking at renegotiating and lowering your fees, lease expenses in other parts of the world as well? And how could this be a positive sort of contributor to margins in 2026? Some color on your efforts there would be great.

And second, on the AI solutions that you described, they're all quite interesting. Just wanted to check if this is also going to be used as a tool to go after more small and medium-scale clients globally to sort of get them on to the Out-of-Home inventory space a bit more aggressively as well? What are you thinking in terms of the impact that could bring if you go after more SME sort of clients with these new AI initiatives?

Okay. I'll take the first one. Jean-Charles will take the second one on the small SME, basically the long tail, which is the strength of the large online companies such as Google and Facebook.

So on the first one, a contract is a contract. So the renegotiation which was done successfully by the teams in China, was led by the fact that there is a new China that the consumption is not where it used to be. And therefore, our landlords in the end agreed that the reset was necessary, bearing in mind that in a lot of Chinese contracts, we had a joint venture. So we're in equity partners with the -- our landlords.

The other example, which I can give you about reset was the COVID. Obviously, we had, as you know, a very major reset strategy during COVID, very successfully in some regions, but not so successfully in other regions. And -- So once the contract is signed for 10, 15 or 20 years, we are bound to the terms and conditions unless there is a significant event which allows us to renegotiate the contract in good faith. So don't expect major contract renegotiations in other parts of the world.

Obviously, having more -- nearly 4,000 cities, 157 airports, there is always some reasons to renegotiate. Middle East will be -- obviously will be one. If airports are being closed because of having less passengers as a result of the ongoing war with Iran, then our teams will obviously start renegotiations of these contracts. But apart from those external events and some other very local events, for example, I could name Amsterdam with the ban on fossil fuels, which hasn't been enacted yet, well, there is no doubt that we will -- even if it has not such a significant impact on the top line, it's a decision by the authority to restrict the abilities to reach -- in fact to sell to all categories, such as a couple of years ago in London which -- HFSS. And this is another reason where we can have some renegotiations.

But those renegotiations are reflecting the fact that we cannot maximize the revenue. So it's a good faith renegotiation. But the top line has some negative impact -- negatively impacted by those local events such as bans. And therefore, the renegotiation is, in our opinion, a normal renegotiation between partners -- long-term partners. But having said that, it doesn't necessary trigger a better profitability because the top line is missing some advertising spend from those categories which are banned.

But this is, again, it's very local. For example, HFSS, which was done in London, didn't happen in many markets around the world. So there is no -- you cannot take from what I said a kind of a trend regarding bans of certain categories in -- around the world.

On AI, different aspects. First of all, AI is in action at the moment within the group, is in action, obviously, also within our ad tech platform. In other words, as I mentioned earlier in the presentation, within the campaign creation and planning through CampaignAI by displayce. Displayce was the first DSP in the market to optimize planning and training through a simple prompt in display. So we are trying to basically simplify and accelerate the media planning and the media buying on the Out-of-Home.

We also had an initiative, which is interesting with AI inside, obviously, with the creation of tailor-made visual customized for each location for both print and digital campaigns. And this is already done and in action. Now we have to scale it up. We have to make it even more efficient. We have also on AI what we call the content moderation and content moderation is quite important to drive basically smoothly our thousands of visuals around the globe in different locations, because as you know, we are not a broadcaster. Every site could have a different visual across the globe. And this is automatic screening of visual to pre-approve them, which is very important and AI will completely change the way we monitor, we look and we do this process. And finally, on content optimization, we have what we call the attention prediction and optimization technology.

To your question on the platform to access basically the SMEs, all those tools are made to simplify, accelerate and get ready our go-to-market for medium-sized companies, so to reduce the way it takes to plan and to execute the campaign. And this is something very important. We do that, obviously, through our DSPs, through the SSP, and we also do that through our direct platform to access the SMEs in the market.

So it is obvious that AI will help us to address more the ATV market in the different regions where we operate, depending on the structure also of the local market because in some markets, our clients are mainly national clients, and this is working very well. And in other markets, you have a much more stronger local footprint, such as in France, for example, where 14% of our basically revenues is made with local or regional clients. So this is a new frontier for us. This is certainly over time a game changer. But as we all know, that takes a bit of time, but this is clearly progressing quite significantly over the last, I would say, 12 months when we see the number of people also adopting.

And when you look at the, for example, programmatic, which is also boosted by AI in most of its processes, is growing at the moment basically at 20%, where digital is growing at 10%. So this is quite encouraging for the future, I think, of our industry, which is benefiting from certainly AI enabling us to access those clients.

We will now take the next question from the line of Laurent Gelebart from BNP Paribas.

I have 3 questions. The first one, could you elaborate on your new global programmatic offer targeting street furniture, transport and retail at the same time? I know it is a fairly recent offer, but what is the market response? And what do you expect mid-term on this initiative?

The second one regards the cash proceeds from APG|SGA. So what are you going to do with this?

And the third one regards VIOOH. If other equity partners join the party, do you still wish to keep the control of these assets?

Okay. I'll take the first one. The second one, cash proceeds from -- will be taken by David. Jean-Charles will take the third one. Second one?

The first one, my answer will be very quick. It's too early to give you any response on this one.

Second one. Regarding APG -- the proceed of APG, I have to just mention that the transaction is not yet done. It is clearly going into a good direction since APG has the approval from the AGM on the opting up mechanism.

To your question what we will do with the cash proceeds, we will do exactly the same as we did with the proceeds from the first transaction. We will invest in our business with higher return than that we could have with this cash. So it will be reinvested in the business.

I think it's worthwhile mentioning that selling at CHF 2.20 per share, the multiple that we get from this divestiture is between 13 and 14x. So it was an opportunistic decision to reallocate the cash in markets where we need to speed up the digitization. And as you can see, selling a minority stake at 13x reflects the quality of the asset, APG, which has been in business for the last 126 years, created in 1900. But the company is not growing. It's a mature market. So we felt at the Board that it was a wise decision given that we received a very attractive offer. If you consider that we are trading at between 5 and 6. We used to be trading at 9x. Clear Channel was sold to Mubadala at 12, 12 plus 12, and we are selling a minority stake in Switzerland and nearly 13 and 14. I think it's a good trade for us. So that's why we did it. And we are expecting now the antitrust decision in Switzerland, which should happen soon.

So regarding the shareholding structure of VIOOH, you remember that we always said that basically we will take an entrepreneurial view on creating this SSP back -- 6 years ago now, a bit more than 6 years ago, 7 years ago, number one. Number two, we -- you're right to say that we are the majority shareholder. We have more than 95% of the shares of this company, but we want to operate it independently as it was said before for obvious reasons and for the benefit of, obviously, all the stakeholders taking part on view, and I think more and more are coming, as you can see, from all over the globe and all over the world.

And finally, we are open-minded to continue to grow this platform. It is clear that from 95% shares a bit more to remain majority shareholder is something that we will consider. But if there is a transaction that makes sense to grow, to transform the business and to boost basically the programmatic revenue, we will consider anything that makes sense to boost basically our programmatic development and the programmatic development of the industry because we think that this is clearly something that could be a game changer given the magnitude of the market to really help boost Out-of-Home advertising in terms of market share.

So as you know, in JCDecaux, I think we have 2 things that will always remain entrepreneur vision on anything we do. And second, very pragmatical approach on everything we look at when it comes to transforming basically existing businesses in making it bigger for the whole industry. So VIOOH is bigger than us in the sense that we are attracting a lot of interest from third-party players. As you can see, the most connected DSP on one side, SSP on one side and also very diversified in terms of geography. So practical approach, if at some point, we have something -- we can do something which makes sense to boost this business. And it's only the beginning because this is growing year-on-year.

We will now take the last question from the line of Eric Ravary from CIC CIB.

So I have several questions on VIOOH to assess the operating leverage potential of the business. So what is -- was it profitable in 2025? And could we have an order of magnitude of the EBITDA of VIOOH last year and also the number of people you have in VIOOH and your plan for new hiring in 2026 and also the kind of operating costs you expect on VIOOH this year?

David?

Regarding VIOOH, as we said, I think I remember we had the question, it was in the half year result, 2025 was a year where VIOOH turned slightly positive in terms of EBITDA, still consuming cash in order to invest in the platform, should turn positive in terms of cash very soon. But when we look at the profitability of the platform at consolidation level, group level, as you know, as 50% of the revenue is incremental that we get from programmatic, its benefits to our group operating margin overall, so which is quite accretive, this new revenue stream.

Looking at the headcount, we are quite currently, I wouldn't say at maturity, but we have reached a level in the platform where we continue to develop the platform with the current team. Obviously, we could have some evolution in the headcount, but we are not expecting any significant evolution in 2026.

There are no further questions at this time. I would like to hand back over to Jean-Francois Decaux for closing remarks.

Okay. Thank you. Thank you for your questions, and don't have anything else to add because the questions are covered pretty much all the important topics. So all the best. Have a nice day, and talk to you soon. Bye, everyone.

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.