Ipsos SA

PAR:IPS

Earnings Call Transcript 2022-Q1

[Operator]

Hello, and welcome to the Ipsos 2022 First Quarter Results Call. My name is Josh, and I will be your coordinator for today's event. Please note that this conference is being recorded. [Operator Instructions]

I will now hand you over to your host, Laurence Stoclet, Deputy CEO and CFO; and Antoine Lagoutte Deputy CFO, to begin. Thank you.

[Laurence Stoclet, executive]

Hello, everyone. I am together here in Paris in the Ipsos' global headquarters with Antoine Lagoutte, our Deputy CFO; and François Malin, Investor Relations.

We are all pleased to present to you our Q1 numbers. They are showing a good performance as you well see in a minute. And as this performance has been strong, we illustrate that by some examples, and we will as well reiterate our objectives for the full year. Last, but not least, of course, we will [indiscernible] for any questions. So we will try to make it short for the presentation to allow as much time as needed for questions.

So first of all, about our first quarter revenues that we have just released a few minutes ago, they are showing record number for first quarter at EUR 548 million, knowing that it was EUR 466 million in 2021, EUR 428 million in 2020 and EUR 422 million, so almost the same number in [ '2029 ] as in fact, the impact of the COVID slightly started to impact us in March 2020, but more so in the Q2 of 2020. So that's really, of course, a good performance.

When we look at the total growth, which is 17.5%, and of course, if we look at the organic growth, which is at 12.3%. We have benefited -- this is the difference mostly between those 2 numbers. We have benefited from positive impact of the currencies, the rise of the dollar and the pound sterling against the euro for 4.3% as well from positive effects of the acquisitions that we have made in the second half of 2021: a technology company called Infotools, which is a platform specialized in the reporting and analytics of market research data; as well as Karian and Box in the U.K., which is an expert in the field of employee relationship and experience management.

So when we look once again at the data from 2020, it's even more impressive with an organic growth of 28%. And once again, as of the Q1 of 2020 and the Q1 of 2019, we have almost the same number, which is close to an organic growth of 29% when we compare ourselves to the period pre-COVID.

Looking now at industry sectors, you will see that all of them are performing well, performing at double digit for all our major sectors. The only sector which had a negative performance compared to 2021 is the public sector. We will come back in a minute about that. But this is the only sector, which doesn't have a double-digit growth. And that's, of course, the good news to have a balanced portfolio of clients. All of them were addressing to us strong demand for information.

Looking now at our performance by regions of the world. We are growing fast in all regions. We are growing at 5% in the EMEA, 22% in the Americas and 15% in the Asia-Pacific region. What is noted is the fact that the emerging markets are now coming back to a stronger growth of 18%, which had not been the case in 2020 and 2021, as those markets were more impacted by the COVID for different regions than the developed countries. So now we are back in, say, a normal -- a more normal difference of growth between developed and emerging countries within our portfolio, reminding you that we are in 90 markets.

When we look at about the region-wise we have grown, a bit less fast in the Europe than in the other markets. This is mainly based on 2 factors. One, and I will come back to that, is our activity in the public sector, which is particularly strong in EMEA, especially in the U.K. And the other factor is, obviously, the headwinds from the war in Ukraine, which has slowed down our growth, knowing that 2% of our overall revenues are coming from Russia and Ukraine. But of course, in the EMEA, as EMEA has a share of 46% of our global revenues, if we just look at EMEA, this is of course around 5% of our business in EMEA. And we had a slowdown of around 30% of our business in those 2 countries because of the war.

Now going back -- going to our revenue breakdown by the audience segment, you will see that 4 of them are growing also double digit. And this is particularly driven by our new solutions on our Ipsos.digital platform, but this is rallying also driven by all the needs coming to us from all of our clients. And what is to be noted is that -- is the fact that the segment, which had suffered the most with the pandemic, which is the clients and employees segment, is now back to growth, which is also a good [ plus ].

So going into a bit more details about the citizens audience segment. This is a segment where Ipsos is working a lot for different governments, but also NGOs. And we have been, of course, very, I would say, happy to support the initiatives among the public health. Well, a lot of governments, especially in Western markets, wanting to monitor the effect of the pandemic, and we have been participating in some of huge programs of mass testing, especially in the U.K., which have taken place since April of 2020 and here the Q1 of 2022. But those programs have already started to be reduced in size in the last quarter of 2021.

And as they are finishing at the end of Q1 2022, we have also, of course, slowed down significantly during Q1 2022. And that is why this is the difference between Q1 2021 where those programs were at full speed and the Q1 2022 where those programs are finishing, which are creating this 7% decrease in this particular segment.

But when we strip out the effect of those very specific programs from our activity in this citizens segment, so when we compare ourselves to the pre-COVID period, our revenue in Q1 2022 has grown by 52% compared to the Q1 2019, so which is telling you that there is a strong underlying business as our governments continue to face major challenges on following different topics, which are important for the people in every country in relation with security, cost of living, et cetera. And so we are, of course, very confident that this sector is, in fact, a strong driver for growth for Ipsos this year if we strip out again the effect of those large testing programs and -- in the future.

And this confidence is based on the fact that Ipsos is one of the sole market research company being able to provide locally, but also globally the highest quality information that those governments require. And to do so, we are specialized, in fact, in that kind of tools, and we have decided to expand the usage of what we have been using for now many years in the U.S. KnowledgePanel into Europe.

We started in the U.K. 2 years ago, and we are now developing this tool, which is a digital tool that recruited in a specific manner with regimes that governments can use this way of doing this launch in a digital manner, which is, of course, very good in terms of speed, but not forgetting the highest quality requirements at the same time.

I will now let Antoine Lagoutte comment on some examples about some sectors and some regions.

[Antoine Lagoutte, executive]

Thank you, Laurence. So to give you some focus on some of the specific regions, for example, first, we can speak about what we are doing in audience measurement where we are renewed with growth as expected.

In fact, if you remember, when you look at the presentation by sectors, in this part of the TMT sector, where we had a reduction of 3% last year and where we were expecting coming back to growth in 2022. So it's part of the growth of 24% that you see in this sector. And specifically, on this audience measurement, the organic growth is 25%.

And just to come back to the way Laurence presented by audience, it's part of what is included in clients and employees regions that is again back to growth when it was declining in the first quarter of 2021.

So what is important here is that we are benefiting from post-pandemic opportunities where we need, in fact, faster and more frequent data and we are able to provide them with a passive measurement technology. And also, we are able to measure through different ways of constructions to different devices and from cross-media. We are also able to measure very precisely the panel and the data calibration. And we are also able to measure any way to look at medias whether it can be through TVs, through radios, through smart device and so on and so forth.

Why are we able to do that? It's because we have invested in technologies. And if you remember, we have invested in 3 type of technology that are directly linked to audience measurement. One is on the web and mobile measurement with Fistnet-Dotmetrics. The next one is about echomodulation audio watermarking frequencies with Intrasonics. And the last one is on measurement of out-of-home audiences with MGE Data.

So with that and mainly, in fact, with the first one with Fistnet-Dotmetrics, we are able to measure the online audiences in the U.K. in the program, Ipsos Iris, where we measure the audiences for more than 10,000 individuals across all their personal devices, which had been mentioned how it is important for our clients.

So we are continuing to develop this measurement in 2022 in U.K. as we have added 2 major media agencies as clients on this measurement. And also, we are able to make some video measurement to be released in the second quarter of 2022. Also, we are launching the same type of measurement in Australia in July of this year.

So on what we are doing on Public Affairs, and Laurence has already spoken about that. This is the development of the KnowledgePanel. The KnowledgePanel is a solution that we have acquired together when we have acquired the GfK Research services in U.S. And it was in 2018. And we have discovered that this way to measure is a very good way to answer to very specific and very detailed questions from the public sector, for example.

So it's a random probability online panel, very detailed, and you can choose your population, the type of population that you want to interview in a very detailed way. And that's why it provides a premium reliable source of information. So it's a [ require you want ] from the public sector, mainly, but not only, when you need to have critical -- to take critical decisions and link to a specific type of population, if you want to intervene, for example, only junior population.

But if you want to cross that with overall elements like their revenues, their social taxes and so on and so forth, it can be very precise. Again, we have developed in U.S. from the acquisition of GfK. And we have launched in 2020 in the U.K. And we are now launching in the European Union in 20 countries by the end of 2022. And it will be in all the European countries, the 27, by the first quarter of 2023.

So another focus that we wanted to do is by geographies. So what we wanted to highlight is that in China, the momentum continues in spite of the pandemic. And also to take into consideration that in over our main Asian market, we have also a strong growth. So it's not only in China, but it's also in Korea, in Japan, in India, for example. And these 3 specific markets were countries that were significantly impacted by the COVID and by lockdowns.

So if we look more specifically at China, we have a growth of 12.2% compared to the first quarter of 2021. But more to highlight is that we have a growth of 32% compared to the first quarter of 2019. So it's still a country where the growth is very large for Ipsos. While that you have to focus on some specific type of clients, in cosmetics and beauty clients, where the increase is plus 39%.

The clients spend more budget to -- in market understanding, to understand what are the needs of the consumers. And also, we take the opportunity to develop from China in the brands of -- the Chinese brands that we want to get up in other Asian countries. It's the same in the consumer electronics, where the increase is plus 27% and where we are very strong in this type of measurement.

So this is a slide that you are very used to where we measure our contribution to revenues for quantitative studies and where we have seen a dramatic increase of the online surveys where it was only 55% of our revenues in 2019, 60% in 2020 and have continued to grow by reaching 62% in 2021, which is so far a new normal. As at the end of the first quarter 2022, we are still at this 62%.

So our expectation, in fact, this new basis -- based on this, we will continue to grow this percentage in the next years, as in the developed countries, we are much more than the 62%, we can go on 80% to 90%; where in some emerging countries, we are still below this average of 62%.

What is good in these figures also is that in terms of gross margin ratio, this is where we have our strongest gross margin ratio by 70% of [ profitability ] when it's lower in face-to-face and in telephone. In the overall percentage, I don't think that there is something specific to highlight. Perhaps in postal, we have some development in the public health care sector in the U.S. that are losing post-COVID. And that's why we consider that old way to collect data are still valid.

So regarding -- this is an overall way to look at our results of revenues, and you are used to that, too, which are the revenues by new services. We are now -- it's representing now 21% of our total revenues. The growth is 20%. I remind you that we have started by level of 7% of total revenues in 2015, and we had a double-digit organic growth every year, except in 2020.

It's a combination of different services that allow us to measure differently to get data in real time. And what I like to underline here is our strong performance with Ipsos.digital, that is continue to be a very strong pros. We analyze also big data, and we are on client advisory services.

Regarding our acquisitions. As a reminder, in 2021, we have performed 5 different acquisitions. The 3 first ones I have already spoken about. They are technology acquisitions regarding what we are doing on audience measurement. The fourth one, which is Infotools, is a reporting tool that we have bought.

And in October 2021, we have bought Karian and Box, which is a learning solution. It's approximately 100 people, and the revenues are in U.K. at approximately GBP 7 million. And we have bought We Check in February 2022. It's a small company in Canada, but it's really increasing our coverage in Mystery Shopping that, as you know, we are already #1, and we want to continue our geographical coverage on this solution. So we would like to...

[Laurence Stoclet, executive]

So what is our outlook for 2022? It remains the same as the one we have explained to you at the end of February because uncertainties remain. And we released our numbers just before the war started, and we actually presented our annual 2021 results the day when the war started. And we had already mentioned in our slides the first element of uncertainty, which is the geopolitical tensions between the East and the West, which hasn't materialized [ occupation ] of Ukraine by Russia.

Once again, this is 2% of Ipsos' overall revenues that we are doing in Ukraine and in Russia. So as it is a limited business, it will have a limited impact on our numbers, but still this is to be taken into account when you look at what is our reiterating objective for the full year.

Inflation is accelerating as is the cost of energy for consumers, the cost of commodities as well as disruption in the supply chains. So all of that is creating an environment where the IMF, sorry, has reviewed across its forecast for inflation in all the countries around the world. And you know that in the U.S., inflation at least at 40 years' higher time, which is of course something that people have not been used to in the last, I would say, decades.

This is something that we have taken into account in our renegotiation of contracts with our players already since up to the 2021. And this is, of course, something that we are closely monitoring, including rising our prices, not just once, but twice per year, if indeed in long terms to, of course, and give to our clients back on the cost of our own production inflation costs. And so far, we have been able to do source. We don't consider. It's an uncertainty that this is not a risk for us.

COVID-19 pandemic continues as some countries or some cities are still in lockdown. This is the case in Shanghai as we speak. And so we should not think that everything is going back to normal, including in the way, of course, people are behaving and have changed their needs and not coming back to their previous, I would say, habits.

We have seen a rise in inequalities. And on that, what is very telling is, of course, the difference between various countries, emerging and developed countries, but as well in the same country, the difference between low-income people and very rich people, just one number which is stemming from the CEOs of the S&P 500 earning 240x more than the average of the employees of their companies.

And I would like to highlight on that particular topic that Ipsos in its ESG policy is very attentive to the fact that we are, I would say, doing fair compensation, not only, of course, between male and female, but also between the salary of our managing director in each territory and the average summary of our employees in each country and including at the global level of Ipsos. And this is, obviously, growing. But our equality ratio is one of the lowest among the companies which are listed and part of the 120 SBF index.

Another element, which is important, is about technology, the reliance on technology. Of course, it has a lot of positive aspects to it in terms of rapidity and for us in terms of getting information to our clients almost any time. This is of course [indiscernible]. In terms of getting information to the public at the time of elections, that's also of course [indiscernible].

But this has election summaries, including some cyber [ criminality ] risk. Fortunately, Ipsos is well, I would say, secure from that perspective. But there has been rising in general in the world, I would say, attacks of that sort on one of the company, which is very used by technology people.

[indiscernible], for example, just had some technology issues, not necessarily cyber attacks, but the problem is still that technology is a key point of attention for any business, any industry and certainly for Ipsos, because we are not a technology company, but we are having user and owner of technology. And for us, it's really important to be competitive in this area.

And last, but not least, disease is an important topic as well for us in our CSR and ESG policy. We want to be carbon-neutral by 2035, which is 5 years before the redline that was [ conveyed ]. And once again, an example of that particular topic, 92% of paper in 2021, which has been used, and of course, we use paper in this type of industry still is recycled paper.

So with this context, let me just reiterate what are our objectives for the full year. Yes, we have had a very strong start of 2022, much higher, of course, than our objectives for the full year, not only in terms of growth, but also in terms of operating profit and in terms of cash flow generation.

So all I would say, the indicators are obviously in the green to be confident that we will reach our targets for the full year, which are, I remind you, 5% organic growth, which means once again taking out the effect of the mass testing COVID contracts and underlying organic growth of 7% that we are targeting. We will see our gross margin continue to rise not only because we are using a lot of digital way to collect information, but also because of our pricing power with our plans. And last, but not least, our operating margin will be between 12% and 13%.

Thank you for your attention. And thank you for asking me, Antoine or François any questions that you would like.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from the line of [indiscernible].

[Unknown Analyst]

Laurent, Antoine and François, several questions from me, please. First one, at a time when the outlook for GDP growth has been revised downward, have you noticed a change in the behavior of your main customers during the [ latest ] weeks? What are the latest figures for your order book? Second...

[Laurence Stoclet, executive]

Let me -- [ Emmanuel ], let me answer one-by-one, it will be beneficial. I think our order book is showing a growth which is similar to the growth of our revenues. [indiscernible] We are taking into account in our reiterated forecast for the full year at 5%. The fact that we will be impacted by the war in Ukraine, not significantly, but we have to take that into account and we are also taking into account this slowdown that you are -- a potential slowdown that you are describing that we are not seeing in [indiscernible], which is today addressed to Ipsos, frankly.

But we need, of course, to take into account what will happen in the next, I would say, quarters. And this is why at this moment -- and even though, we have had much stronger Q1 than our objectives for the full year, we are confident in reiterating our forecast for the full year, but not more than these forecasts.

[Unknown Analyst]

Okay. Do you still operate in Russia today?

[Laurence Stoclet, executive]

We have limited our operations in Russia, working for Russian clients only in Russia with only our Russian [ employees ]. But yes, we have a subsidiary in Russia. We have teams, which are not for all them supportive of the war. And for the time being, because our industry is not by the way targeted by any section, media Ipsos, by the way, nor are any of our competitors in market researched have decided in fact to quit their activity in Russia.

[Unknown Analyst]

Okay. I have also a question regarding pricing. Because when I'm looking at your 12% organic growth, it may take into account a significant positive impact from pricing. And if I understand well, you are ready to further increase prices in the coming months to reflect wages inflation, which is high. So I don't know if we can monitor volumes and pricing in your organic sales growth, both for Q1 and also for your guidance?

[Laurence Stoclet, executive]

No, we are not monitoring this at least like that. We are not selling pens or -- so we are not in that [indiscernible] business. But of course, part of the targeted growth is made off of inflection. We have continue to be able to present to our clients in average maybe [indiscernible] on inflation.

[Unknown Analyst]

Okay. And maybe last question about your Investor Day in June. Do you plan to release a new road map for Ipsos as Total Understanding is behind us? Or it would be an Investor Day focusing only on businesses and key people at Ipsos?

[Laurence Stoclet, executive]

We love certainly to go deeper in the presentation of a number of our solutions, which are making the success of Ipsos today and certain activities or territories, including our new management in North America, which have had a very strong performance. We don't plan, at this stage, to give you a detailed road map of what will be Ipsos in the next 3 to 5 years. This is something that we can do in due time, but not [ in a year ]. So you will have to wait for the end of the year of the year to have such, I would say, [indiscernible].

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from the line of Conor O'Shea from Kepler.

[Conor O'Shea, analyst]

A few questions as well, maybe one-by-one as well. Just the first question in terms of the outlook, and I understand the caution for the rest of the year, given the general uncertainty. But -- I mean at this stage, I think in the first quarter, you're tracking about 30% above revenue levels for 2019. And that same proportion, particularly in the Americas, which -- where the growth was strongest.

I mean is there anything at this stage or was there anything exceptional in terms of contract timing or something in the first quarter that would mean that this proportion could be much lower in the quarters to come, particularly the second quarter? Is there anything that you can say on that apart from unknown sort of macro uncertainty?

[Laurence Stoclet, executive]

One thing you need to understand is that in our Q1 numbers, we still have some of those mass testing COVID contracts, which have finished at the end of this Q1. So we will not have those into the following quarters. So that's the difference.

[Conor O'Shea, analyst]

And how much...

[Antoine Lagoutte, executive]

I agree, it's really -- the main difference is that, in fact, we were perhaps not expecting so much continuing COVID contracts at the beginning of this year. But because of that, I think it's one of the main reasons why this first quarter is higher than we expected. But this will not continue in the next quarter.

[Conor O'Shea, analyst]

Understood. How much roughly was in testing revenues in first quarter? And I had thought that the testing was mainly in EMEA. So -- I mean I think the numbers for the Americas are as strong versus '19 as anywhere else?

[Laurence Stoclet, executive]

Yes, they are strong because especially in Latin America, we have a very strong growth. This is what I was explaining that in the emerging markets, we had been severely impacted in 2020 and 2021, because those countries were into lockdowns for much longer period of time than we have had in our France or in the U.K. Plus those were markets where we were conducting a lot of face-to-face studies. So there was also, in our operation, a technical issue in conducting [indiscernible]. So for those reasons, in fact, we have the strongest growth coming from Latin America, but also, by the way, a good growth in North America, yes.

[Conor O'Shea, analyst]

That's very helpful. But in terms of -- can we have a rough idea of how much testing revenues were still in, in the first quarter that will no longer be there from the second quarter?

[Laurence Stoclet, executive]

Yes, around EUR 20 million.

[Conor O'Shea, analyst]

EUR 20 million. Okay. Excellent. And just in terms of the another activity that was affected by the lockdowns, Mystery Shopping, you've made another acquisition there. How far away is that from being back to normal levels of activity? And could you just remind us which line of -- which division this activity is in?

[Laurence Stoclet, executive]

In terms of audience segment, our Mystery Shopping activity is recognized in the segment which is n the customers or clients and employees, which is going to impact also, so which is the case of this activity. And it's the case because a lot of physical stores are reopening, a lot of those programs are also restarted.

[Conor O'Shea, analyst]

Okay. Okay. Great. But still some way from being at the normal level, let's say?

[Laurence Stoclet, executive]

No, I do think that most of our activities are now back at the level that they were in 2019, for sure.

[Conor O'Shea, analyst]

Okay. Okay. Great. And then just the last question. I know this is a revenue call, but you make mention to our margins in the press release on the outlook up year-on-year. So I think your guidance is quite broad because of all the different moving parts, which is understandable.

But again, looking into the rest of the year, is there anything you can call out on the margins, which might mean they could be down year-on-year for the full year of, obviously, a very high level last year? Is there anything on the sort of the hiring side or travel, the timing on that, that would -- that could reverse that growth year-on-year so far?

[Laurence Stoclet, executive]

Well, we are expecting a growth year-on-year. If we strip out the effect of those, once again, mass testing programs to follow the pandemic, as we have explained, in February in the [indiscernible] that no, there is no reason why we should not be able to improve the underlying operating margin, as we have said, between 12% and [ 17% ]. I think this is [indiscernible] at the end -- in July for the first half. We don't usually give indications for Q1 because this is the smallest quarter of the year. So it doesn't really make sense for us to give more information.

[Conor O'Shea, analyst]

Understood. But just to be clear, the testing contracts in terms of percentage of margins were -- I thought I understood, were not necessarily a higher than the group average?

[Laurence Stoclet, executive]

They were higher. This is what we explained that if you go back to our presentation, that was on Slide 25...

[Antoine Lagoutte, executive]

Yes. So honestly, on full year results, in the region, we have explained that it was representing a positive effect of 0.8% on the operating margin.

[Conor O'Shea, analyst]

Okay, okay. My mistake.

[Laurence Stoclet, executive]

[indiscernible] level were approximately twice the one of our average.

[Antoine Lagoutte, executive]

Yes, because it was additional revenues.

[Laurence Stoclet, executive]

With no additional capabilities.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from the line of Stephen Benhamou from BNP.

[Stephen Benhamou, analyst]

I have 2 questions actually. The first one is relative to the backlog. I'm not sure to have well understood what Laurence was saying. Can you please confirm that the backlog is up double digit end of March? And what does it mean in terms of order intakes?

And second question, so you mentioned that you're expecting a slowdown in terms of GDP, and that will have some consequences on your clients. If we talk about the CPG segment, did you see any squeeze in terms of budget so far due to this current environment?

[Laurence Stoclet, executive]

Well, yes, in terms of backlog, I'd say that it is around 10%, so close to our revenue growth at 12% organically. But once again, the profile of the year is not exactly the same if we strip out those large COVID testing programs. So that's an element that you need to have in line.

In terms of slowdown, we have not seen, as I said, any slowdown from the time [indiscernible] coming from any of our CPG client. But the client, that I will not mention the name, that were -- it has nothing to do with the slowdown.

It has more to do with some difficulties that they have with one of their products that they had to call back since there were some, let's say, issues. But apart from this particular client and this particular issue that we have had, we have not seen any of our CPG clients, and they are, on the contrary, quite active because I think they are part of those clients who need to [indiscernible] benchmarks and the way they're [indiscernible].

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] It does look like we have a question in the queue, and it comes from the line of Guillaume Muros from Societe General.

[Guillaume Muros, analyst]

Well, congrats for these results. It seems that you posted, again, strong growth all over the board. And my question is more on a [ total ] basis or on a broader basis. If you could take us through your market share and -- or market positioning through your different service lines, if you have seen it evolve during the last quarters. And related to that as well, have you seen changes in the competitive landscape or competitive dynamics in some of your service lines, particularly the new ones?

[François Malin, executive]

Yes, I will take the question. So we are in, for sure, in emerging markets in which the performance of Ipsos is actually very good. To give you some figures against our main competitors, which are NielsenIQ and Kantar, I have only the figures about the full year of 2021. We were, at the time, at plus 18%. In comparison, we have Kantar, which is probably the most [ compiler ] activity against us, which were at plus 9%. So the performance is good. And so the one of Nielsen, Nielsen Media, which is the only listed activity of Nielsen since the split between Nielsen Media and NielsenIQ, the performance is at plus 5%, but the resilience was for sure better. This is thanks to the plan that we set, the Total Understanding plan.

And also, this is also in line with the independence that we have in this competitive landscape. And the only thing that I want to address is that the investment in platform is bearing fruits. And for that result, we have an increasing percentage of our revenue in the new services. So all in all, I would say that when we have to strengthen some service lines, we do acquisition, we invest internally. And the positioning is value for Ipsos, and we are at a good momentum.

[Laurence Stoclet, executive]

Maybe it will be useful, but would take too much time today to go into the detailed service line, but it is certainly something we will do during our Investor Day, because obviously, our competitive position is different service line by service line. And this is why we have chosen to reconfigure the company and change its organization to much better, say, [ sheet ] and address the needs of the clients, which are, in fact, specific and quite different from one service line to the other.

There are a number of service lines where Ipsos is a leader. And we were talking about Mystery Shopping. This is one of them. We are the largest provider of Mystery Shopping programs, but it is a very fragmented market. So we are the leader, we have a market share, which is maybe smaller than the average market share of Ipsos in total.

So I think this is, in fact, the whole, I would say, mission of our teams, which is to drive the growth, choosing the area where we want to compete. Because we are, in fact, in a very large market. It's USD 90 billion. So it's quite huge. Ipsos is near to [ USD 25 million ] now. So we can get to take the market share. It's not a huge amount of market share, obviously.

So for us, the priority is precisely about treating the right priorities and where we want to invest. And on the -- so far, you can see our progress since 2019, and since we implemented this new organization, we have been able to overpass our main global competitors in terms of audience growth as well as the [indiscernible] established player in the market.

[Guillaume Muros, analyst]

Okay. Many thanks for this very complete answer. And perhaps the second one, as you mentioned in the first quarter -- in this first quarter press release that your net debt-to-equity ratio decreased again. So I suppose that your leverage is at historical lows. Again, correct me if I'm wrong here, of course. Do -- or should we expect any change regarding what you've mentioned, your envelopes for CapEx or internal investments and/or external investments in your next Investor Day in June?

[Laurence Stoclet, executive]

Right now, we have a number of acquisitions, which is around EUR 15 million to EUR 100 million, I would say, in average. So this is the amount that we are ready to spend. We have done a small acquisition since the beginning of the year because it's not when you have a lot of money that you should, I would say, overspend.

So our old strategy is to do niche acquisitions that are also happening, of course, after that or strengthening our positions. And we have not, in our pipeline, let's say, a huge acquisition between that -- which would mean that we'd spend more than the envelope that we currently have.

[Operator]

Thank you very much. I'll now turn you back over to the hosts.

[Laurence Stoclet, executive]

Well, I would just like to thank you for your attention and interest to Ipsos. I will be -- myself, Antoine and also François will be available for any one-to-one course that you would like to have for me and [indiscernible].

Our next presentation date is on the 17th of May. This is our shareholders' general meeting. And then -- so in June our Investor Day, where you will see with more details of our businesses, our leaders for each of those main businesses presenting to you in detail their solutions and the innovation that we have done in the last couple of years. Thank you very much.

[Antoine Lagoutte, executive]

Thank you very much.

[Operator]

Thank you for joining today's call. You may now disconnect your handsets.