RENAULT (RNO) Q2 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

Good morning, everyone. Apologies for this technical issue. So we will have a restart. That was the formation lab, we would say. So welcome to this Renault Group H1 2026 conference call. This call is broadcast live and will be available in replay on the group's website. We are today with Renault Group's leadership team, François Provo, Group CEO, Duncan Minto, Group CFO, Fabrice Cambolive, Chief Growth Officer and Renault Brand CEO, Catherine Hatt, Dacia's CEO, and Philippe Kriyev, Alpine CEO. The presentation will be followed by a Q&A session. Please send me your question either by email, either through the teams, and I will read it to the management. Thank you. François, the floor is yours.

Thank you, Florent. Hello, everyone. Hello again. I am very pleased to be with you today. It is exactly one year after my appointment as CEO of Renault Group. I am also very proud, not only because we will present to you good results today, but moreover because I feel that Renault Group is transforming, is accelerating. Our Future Ready new mid-term plan is already giving and delivering results. It is what I will present to you now. As you know, Future Ready is four pillars. Growth Ready. This plan is a growth plan. and in h1 we deliver plus 10 percent revenue growth compared with last year tech ready to be at the best level for all technologies that matters in modern automotive industry excellence ready to be among the best for all what we can control in a more and more complex environment and last but not least trust ready and this is typical renault culture our engagement towards our stakeholders our employees of course but also our dealers our suppliers our partners let me start with a growth ready in h1 we deliver a strong new product momentum twingo start of sales is booming nucleo is also doing super well with outstanding design but also against the success of our cutting-edge full hybrid technology E-Tech. I am also very pleased by the start of the new smart 4x4 hybridization of Dacia on the Duster and Bigster. And in H1, we also start the sales of Alpine A390. Future Ready is also about growth outside Europe. We launched successfully our new Duster in India, our new Boreal in Turkey and Brazil, and our new Renault Philanth in South Korea. As a result of all of this, we deliver plus 10% revenue growth compared with H1 2025. This is one of the main highlights of today's result presentation. For Renault brand, plus 3% sales, Renault brand's second brand in Europe, plus 61% sales in India. Dacia sales down, minus 8%, but plus 4% orders compared with last year. Dacia remains very strong in its business model, top three retail in Europe. And Dacia is also now moving towards electrification, a really top four passenger car hybrid in Europe. For Alpine, Alpine delivers a new record of sales with more than 8,000 vehicles sold in Etroa. EV is the core of Renault Group's strategy and Future Ready. Again, we deliver strong results in EV. Renault brand is now the number two EV retail brand in Europe. Renault 5 leads its segment. And as I said before, Twingo is off to an outstanding start. Beyond full EV, I would like also again to mention the success of our full hybrid solution. Together, EV Full Library Detect electrified vehicles represent two-thirds of Renault brand sales in Europe and also 31% of Dacia sales, up 7 points versus H1 2025. LCV is back. When I presented our result in Feb, I told you that the complete resuffle of LCV business unit was done and that i was optimistic about the output we see at the end of h1 2026 the concrete first output with cells per 12 percent we are second in europe for lcv i am very proud to have the new master leading large van segment but what i would like to mention to you today is i feel we reach a tipping point for electrification in LCV. Our sales for LCV EV were up 48% compared with H1 2025. And we have, as Renault Group, the best EV lineup for LCV. Master EV, outstanding performance. We have also our Congo EV, and I do confirm that by the end of the year, we will launch our new Traffic E-Tech, the first native EV, LCV in Europe, with SDV, and we are very confident with this car. I am convinced Traffic Van E-Tech can do for electric vans what Renault 5 is already doing for passenger cars. Mobilize financial services, MFS. We always underestimate the importance of MFS in our business model, and it is why I want to insist on this this morning. MFS operates in 35 countries. In Europe, one car out of two sold to retail customers is financed through MFS. And moreover, at the end of financing contracts by MFS, 77% of the customers renew with Renault Group cars This is a huge tool to sell cars and to enhance royalty And with all of this, MFS delivers also a very strong and stable financial performance With, for H1 alone, 753 million in profitability, representing 50% of group operating margin. Future Ready second pillar is Tech Ready. And in H1, we passed again significant milestones. In terms of EV oil chain, as planned, we launched our second chemistry, LFP, on Twingo, and it will be the case also on new Megane. We will launch in H2. We are among the first worldwide OEM to have wireless battery management system. We launch our new e-machine 6-in-1 on Twingo, ASPLAN. And moreover, in terms of battery, as you know, we don't want to be battery makers. We rely on our suppliers, but we want to dig into technology and our lab on battery is now fully operational at the end of H1 2026. In terms of SDV, I do confirm we will launch in Europe the first European SDV in traffic van e-tech by the end of the year. And for intelligent car, we introduce Gemini in our open air link vehicles. Since a lot of people doubt that European industry will not match China pace in automotive technology at Renault Group, with Future Ready, we are proving that we can. Third pillar is about excellence in operations. Development time, 100% of the new project now in Renault will be developed under the two-year development time scheme. And this is what we structured in H1. In terms of cost target, I do confirm we are on track with 400 euro target a year Which is outstanding performance by procurement and all upstream function When you consider Edwin's, especially in terms of raw materials In terms of resilience as well, we granted significant milestone in H1 For instance, thanks to our digital twin for manufacturing and supply chain And we could mitigate within 48 hours the supply chain issues raised by Middle East conflict. And with AI, we are capable to get a lot of quick proposals and scenarios to mitigate this. But I am also very pleased to see the speed on which the speed is moving for dual sourcing. Dual sourcing is completely new in Renault, completely new in automotive, I would say. It is one of the pillars of Future Ready to have dual sourcing on targeted parts and technologies. This is already fully implemented in each new project we start now, as from H1 2026. And for manufacturing, as you know, introducing humanoids robots is a key action of Future Ready. This is already operational in H1 2026. Let's move to Trust Ready This is very important to me And after the release of Future Ready I took specific attention to the cascading and endorsement by all the teams Especially the 9,000 managers So we did a V-shaped process This is cascading first And this is team contribution later on And to check the good engagement of our teams We did a survey with our 9,000 managers, and we got good results with above 80% of our managers fully comfortable with a plan, aligned with a strategy, capable to cascade, capable to define the contribution of its team to the future already, and confidence towards future already. We also continue to speed up organization transformation. I remind you, four months to define the new organization of engineering, end of last year. Six months to structure the transformation plan of engineering. This engineering transformation is an ambition to show that European OEM can develop in Europe with European suppliers at the best level in the world in terms of speed, technology, cost competitiveness. This transformation is now ready for implementation, and I would like to thank especially our unions because they were very demanding but supporting, and we got 75% favorable opinion of union reps towards our R&D transformation. In H1, we also grant significant social agreements in order to secure the competitiveness of very important sourcing worldwide. I remind you that we intend to decrease manufacturing costs by 20% in future already. We grant social agreements in Spain, Morocco, Slovenia, and South America. And last but not least, I want to continue to simplify this company. We decided, I decided significant changes with general secretary appointment, and I decided also to manage directly product organization. TrustReady is also about partnership. We deliver significant growth, plus 164% growth compared with H1 2025, plus 50% excluding scope effect. I would like to mention the very successful start of our project with Gili in Brazil, with the very encouraging start of Gili brand in Brazil, for instance, plus 35% total sales of Renault do Brazil with both brand Renault and Gili. I would like also to remind you that we launched two new defense partnerships with Thales in the course of H1. With all of this, we delivered good results in H1 consistent with our guidance, 5.2% operating margin, automotive free cash flow over 600 million euros. But beyond numbers, I would like today to thank all the teams, all our employees. I would like to thank also our suppliers, our dealers, our partners, because this is the result of the efforts of all the team. And as you can understand this give us a lot of confidence about the robustness of future ready and moving forward and i would like now to hand over to duncan to present in detail our h1 financial results duncan thank you francois hello everyone and thank you very much for joining the call this morning um so as you said let's go through a bit more of the detail on the financial results And maybe I'll just take the zapper if I could possibly.

Thanks. Up. Perfect. So let's start with group revenue. Renault Group enjoyed a 9.5% revenue growth to €30 billion in the first half of 2026. At constant exchange rates, that's an increase of 10.3%. And I'll highlight it was driven both by automotive and MFS. Automotive revenue was up 9.3% at €26.8 billion. Since the beginning of the year, we've included the mobility service contribution into this. In terms of financial services, MFS increased by 11% to €3.4 billion, mainly driven by the increased activity level. So drilling into the automotive revenue, it included the first part on the left-hand side, 0.9 points of negative exchange rate, mainly related to devaluation of the Turkish lira, Argentinian peso and the pound sterling. At constant exchange rates it increased by 10.2%. The volume effect was slightly positive at 0.2 points. The minus 0.4% decrease in registrations was offset by a lower destocking within the dealership network in H-126 compared to H-125. Group registrations, as I said, slightly declined by 0.4% this half, totaling 1,165,000 units. Renault brand delivered a solid growth in H-126 with sales up 2.6%, supported by continued electrification momentum, stronger LCB performance, as Francois just said, and renewed growth outside Europe. Dacia showed commercial resilience in H126, maintaining strong retail fundamentals, best value positioning despite lower volumes, while accelerating its shift towards hybrid powertrains. All in all, H2 Dacia sales are expected flat versus H225, with Q3 down and Q4 up. Alpine achieved a record first half, with sales up 69%, driven by the success of A290, continued momentum of A110, and the first deliveries of the A390. Renault Group is pursuing a strategy focused on value and quality of sales. We favour retail sales to protect residual values. Our retail channel mix continued to grow and represented 60% of our PC sales in the five main European markets, up 3.8 points versus H1 last year. This is 17.7 points above the market average. Meanwhile, we reduced by 1.2 points our short-term rental mix with sales down 12% in a market that was up 12%. Looking at competition, it's worth highlighting that Chinese peers are almost doubling their sales in the short-term rental market and one of our main competitors grew 24% to reach more than a quarter of market share in this channel. With this approach of quality of sales and focus on value, we meaningly outperform the market in terms of residual values, from 4 to 13 points above our peers' average in Europe, depending on brands. Dacia is best in class in residual value management. With its best value for money strategy, its focus on retail, by adding more technology and perceived quality, underpinning a strict design-to-cost execution. Focusing on EV, Renault outperformed Chinese competitors by seven points on average. This advantage has been stable over time. As a reminder, maintaining high residual value is part of the full lifecycle management. It's embedded in our vehicles as soon as the development phase. It allows competitive and attractive leasing offers by lowering depreciation to be financed and enabling more competitive monthly rates without sacrificing margin. Before coming back to the revenue bridge, just a highlight on stock. The slight decrease in registration was offset by a lower de-stocking within the dealer network in first half 26 compared to the previous period. As of June 30th, total inventories of new vehicles stood at 546,000 vehicles. This level of inventories is supported by a 6% growth of the order intake, resulting in an order book of 2.1 months of forward sales at the end of June 2026. It will enable the group to smoothly operate during H2, a semester traditionally stronger in terms of registrations. In terms of outlook, we expect the total inventories at the end of the year will remain in the bracket of 525 to 550 corridor, which is a healthy level of inventories to operate. The sales-to-partner effect was a strong positive in the first half, mainly driven by the performance of partner programs. You should also keep in mind two changes of scope, the integration of RNA IPL onto the consolidation perimeter since August 1st, 2025, for around 380 million euros, and the ramp-up of distribution of Gili vehicles in Brazil. Local production throughout JV is set to begin this summer. now let's review price product mix and geographical mix effects the price effect was positive at 0.9 points helping to compensate fx partly offset by price pressure in europe this price pressure is expected to continue throughout the year product mix was also a solid positive at 3.2 points driven by success of evs the transition phase of clio 5 to clio 6 and to some extent master product should remain a strong contributor in H2. Geographical mix was negative at minus 0.7 points, mainly attributed to increased sales outside Europe, notably in India and Turkey. Next, let's turn to the operating margin. In this half, we posted an operating margin of 1,567,000,000 euros, representing 5.2% of revenue. The automotive segment operating margin stood at 814 million euros, or 3% of revenue. Mobilized financial services operating profit reached 753 million euros. So, a little deep dive into the group's operating margin evolution, starting with currencies, which had a negative impact of 117 million euros, as on the revenue due to the Turkish lira, UK pound, and the Argentinian peso. The Turkish lira positive impact on production costs was offset by the increase of the exposure to group sales in Turkey. Volume effects contributed to €95 million, notably thanks to the increase to sales to partners. Volume effects should be slightly positive for the full year 2026. Price mix and enrichment effect stood at minus 425 million euros, reflecting the increase of regulatory costs, commercial pressure in Europe, a higher mix of EV sales, and increased international sales, notably in India. Costs were reduced by 184 million, thanks to an efficient cost management program, strong purchasing performance, and lower warranty costs compared to last year, which more than offset the raw material inflation. COG's reduction efforts are paying off and are in line with future-ready strategy. As a reminder, the group aims to reduce variable costs per vehicle by around €400 per year on average over the medium term. As previously commented, we expect higher headwinds on raw materials in H2. That's why cost reduction will remain a key priority for the remainder of the year to compensate this effect. R&D effect was positive at 87 million euros, mainly due to the impact of capitalizing SDV expenses from March 1st this year. SG&A impacted by minus 39 million, and the others was a plus 44, thanks to the strong performance of the after-sales business. So let's have a look at mobilized financial services, which generated 11.6 billion euros of new financing, up 4.6 percent thanks to the growth in number of financing contracts and the average financed amount. Average performing assets amounted to 61.8 billion euros, up 2.9 billion euros versus H125, driven mainly by a strong commercial activity on the customer financing business since the end of the electronic component shortage in 23. Net banking income as a percentage of average performing assets improved by 0.2 points, highlighting the robust margin policy of the bank. Cost of risk at 0.47, slightly increased against last year due to a macroeconomic environment becoming more challenging in some countries. Operating costs in percentage of average performing assets are almost stable. And overall, mobilized financial services posted an operating profit of 753 million euros, up 85 million euros year on year. Moving to key items from our Group P&L below the operating margin line, you'll see other operating income and expenses were negative at minus 441 million euros, including 313 million euros of restructuring costs. As a reminder, the first half 2025 saw other operating income and expenses amounted to minus 10.1 billion and included minus 9.3 billion of non-cash loss linked to the change of accounting treatment of Renner Group's stake in Nissan as of June 30, 2025. After considering other operating income and expenses, the group's operating income stood at $1,126,000,000 for the first half. Net financial income and expenses amounted to €126,000,000 compared to minus €93,000,000 in the first half of the previous period. This variation is mostly explained by the negative impact of hyperinflation in Argentina and non-cash items. The contribution of associated companies was neutral compared to the minus 2.3 billion euros in the first half of 25, almost solely explained at that time by Nissan's negative contribution. As a reminder, since June 30th, 2025, any changes in the fair value of the stake at Nissan's based on Nissan's stock price are directly recognized in equity with no impact on Renault Group's net income. Lastly, current and deferred taxes represented a charge of 279 million euros compared to a charge of 324 million euros in the first half of 25. The effective tax rate in this half stood at 28 percent. Bottom line, net income stood at 721 million euros. A net income group share was 705 million euros or 2.39 euros per share. So turning to free cash flow generation, the cash flow of 2.2 billion euros included 250 million euros of dividend from MFS versus 150 million euros dividend in the first half of 2025. Net capex amounted for 648 million euros. Disposals are in line compared to the first half for €40 million. Capitalised R&D increased by around €90 million, mainly explained, as I said, by the capitalisation of SDV from March 1st. Restructuring expenses stood at €200 million and the change in working capital requirement was a headwind of €226 million. Within those €226 million, it included a positive €300 million of down payments from partners for future vehicle programs. All in all, Rena Group generated 653 million euros of free cash flow in the first half of 2026. The automotive net cash financial position stood at 6.6 billion euros on June 30th, 26, compared to 7.3 billion at the end of December 25. This evolution was mostly driven by the strong free cash flow, dividends paid to shareholders for 655 million euros, and net financial investments of 605 million euros, mainly related to the full consolidation impact of Flexis through the acquisition of both shares and loans. François, I'll now pass back to you to comment on the conclusion and outlook.

Thank you. Thank you, Duncan. Let me now turn to the outlook of the coming months. First of all, our H1 results provide clear confirmations that our strategic model is working. Even in a complex environment, we remain firmly on track to deliver our full year 2026 guidance at circa 5.5% operating margin with automotive free cash flow, circa 1 billion euros. Euro. Again, in H2, the main enabler will be about product, and we launch again a new product in H2. It is what I would like to mention as a conclusion of our presentation. For Renault brand, we have the new Megane E-Tech Electric, fully upgraded, higher autonomy, over 600 kilometers, richer in terms of digital experience and very nice new design. I mentioned before the potential I see, I foresee for the traffic van e-tech with 800 volt, with amazing SDV capabilities for specific use case to B2B customers. But also, again, it's not only about Europe, it's about international growth with our half-ton pickup Niagara that we launch in Latin America. For Dacia, very, very big events in H2. I would like first to mention the new hybrid Sandero, which for me will be a strong, strong enabler for Dacia sales. It means as well that now Dacia has a full hybrid in all models, and this is very important for Dacia. We launch a new spring, a new EV, show again that Dacia is moving firmly towards electrification, and also the new Stryker, the presentation, the reveal was very promising, so we are very confident with the potential of Stryker. And with all of this, again, I confirm that we are very confident, not only for 2026, but also for our future ready mid-term plan moving forward. And I would like again to thank all the teams, all the efforts of our teams, our partners, which allow us to show you today those results.

Florent, Q&A? Yes, Francois. So, let's start the Q&A. Again, apologies for the technical issue. So, I will read the questions that I received from numerous analysts through email. The first question will come from Thomas Besson from Kepler-Chevreux. Could you please comment on the positive adjusted-debit drivers in H2 that should help you more than offsetting higher raw material, energy, supplier compensation costs, and likely sustained negative pricing environment in Europe? And should we assume continued tailwinds from R&D and warranty? So this is the first question. And the second question is about MFS. Congratulations on the further progress on contribution to earnings. Could you please discuss the evolution of the cost of risk and of residual values in H1 and give us indication on the prospects of its dividends to autos potentially in H2, but also in 2027, taking into account its capital requirements as it continues to grow as an activity?

Okay, thank you, Thomas. In terms of H2 walk down, so it was about cost elements, wasn't it? So, yeah, cost will continue to be a strong driver in H2. If you remember, we had some warranty provisions last year, so year on year, we will see lower warranty cost in H2. But we will also continue to keep the pressure on maintaining our fixed costs flat. And obviously, the strong dynamic of variable costs is continuing and even accelerating because we have that impact of raw materials which will be stronger in H2 as we called out. I think you also asked about, there was a statement about the negative pricing environment. I mean, I think we called that out in the speech, so we said that that would continue to be a factor of a headwind in H2. In terms of MFS, so cost of risk, we had a slight increase in some Southern American countries, which is, but I mean, it's not really moving the needle massively. And in terms of capacity to pay out dividends in the full year guidance we're given at the beginning of the year, we said that MFS would pay 350 million euros of dividends this year, which 250 was in the first half and I'm fully comfortable with MFSE's capital structure to be able to pay the remaining in the second half.

To complement, regarding residual value, I do confirm that we continue to have a very strict discipline. Priority is value versus volume. We are very keen to monitor carefully our residual value in all our markets, and I really think and confirm that this is a very strong enabler for robustness of our performance, especially in Europe. When we see the difference between our residual value, it is true for Renault Brown, it is true also for Dacia, Duncan showed this before Our residual values are much better than our competitors Our mix into retail is much higher and safer And please understand that this is not one day This is the case for quite a long time We continue on this basis This is at the core of Future Ready and this is a very strong enabler for our business model in Europe.

On the dividend from MFS, I also remind that we gave a guidance towards around 500 million per year on average through the midterm plan in dividend paid out to autos, so we stick to that guidance. The next question comes from Jose Asumendi from JPMorgan. So Jose is interested to know about the pricing power trends by region in H2 as well as the product mix driven by the product pipeline to expect in the second half pricing trends in Europe and other regions in H2.

As Francois said, I think we are not chasing volume at the expense of pricing discipline. uh for me what i think is that our product attractiveness and the discipline very good channel mix management will enable us to maintain pricing stability and strong residual values in a very volatile market environment i would like to give you two examples for instance we anticipate a high level of volumes of short-term rental in the markets. In this context, we are decreasing our short-term rental volumes by 20%, 10,000 units, when the market will grow by 15%. So we are protecting, like that, our residual value. And at the same moment, we are pushing our product attractiveness. And if I take, for instance, the example of Twingo, I think Twingo is rolling out of the garage at the same pace of Renault 5. It means we are focusing our product and our volumes on our product strategy. I think with that, we have the means to do what we did in the last years, but what we are doing now for the future, to maintain a very stable pricing policy and very high residual value. That's our strategy.

Thank you, Fabrice. And so the next, the questions from Jose are also tied to CAPEX, what CAPEX in H2 against H1, and what is a working capital assumption on a full year basis. He's also asking about cost saving or efficiency initiatives in full year 26, and what are the biggest action to reduce our costs.

Okay, and I think we didn't answer on the product mix in H2 as well, which I think we called out in the speech said would actually continue to be a positive boost certainly on the revenue. Obviously, the mix is slightly negative, but the order book is very strong as well with 2.1 months of forward-looking sales. So on CapEx for H2, H1 CapEx and capitalized R&D was very similar to last year's level, and H2 is due to the basic dynamic of our product launches. H2 was higher last year, so we had like 1.6 billion in H2 last year compared to 1.2 billion in the first half of the year. On top of that, we've also consolidated Flexis now when we're in the final phases of rolling out Flexis, so Flexis will have an increase, so we expect a H2 capex and capitalised R&D to be slightly higher than previous year level. Working capital should remain negative a full year and I think I've already commented on the the cost savings obviously the biggest contribution to that is is purchasing as you called out in terms of performance but that doesn't mean that we are not working across the board in all functions to help compensate the increase in raw materials in H2 yeah maybe on on cost reduction Beyond the daily activity of discussion with our suppliers, I would like to mention that we start to see in H1 and we see in H2 as well the output and the results on the way

we manage our partnership with suppliers in terms of working more closely upstream in order to deliver breakthrough both in variable cost, but also in terms of entry ticket development costs with suppliers. And this is not an intention. This is already delivering results. This is implemented in all our projects. We reach, for instance, over minus 40% decrease of entry tickets with our suppliers in each and any new project or life cycle in our product compared with the past. So all of this start to deliver concrete results, and this is also why we were and we are capable to mitigate that much the strong increase of raw materials that we see in the market this year. So, again, this is about future ready, not only to do the traditional peeling work with suppliers, but to see and to break through the way to engage with our suppliers. And this is not a dream. This already deliver concrete results.

Thank you, Francois. The next questions will come from Michael Fundukidis from OdoBHF. So the first one from Michael is to have the key drivers in the margin bridge in H2 versus H1. What are the tailwinds and headwinds? We spoke partially about some. And that's the first one. And I will follow up with the next coming ones.

Let's go once again through the H2 walk down. So, as we called it, volume should remain positive throughout the year. We said that mixed price enrichment costs, obviously a part of this was the enrichment cost coming from Euro 6 EBIS, which started on Jan 1st, so it's rolling throughout the year. And we said that we expect pricing pressure to remain, even as Fabrice said, we're not necessarily the leaders in that field. but obviously we're impacted in some way so that will continue to be a negative part in the second half of the year um r d around neutral full year um because we are actually increasing the expenditure in the second half as as i already called out on the cash front sgna and others i don't think will be a particular mover and i think mfs will continue to provide a solid performance so it's really you know the cost factors which are are key obviously we'll keep our dynamic on the on the growth of the business we had a sorry 10 percent revenue increase in the first half we'll have a strong q3 ahead of us and i just remind you that we have the comparison base on the partner business of rnapl which we consolidated from first of august last year so it'll make q4 a little tougher on a comparison basis but uh still post you know future ready we called out mid single digits over the cycle so we're comfortably within that.

Thank you. And maybe related to H2, then can you elaborate on the 300 million partners down payments that we received in H1 and how is that expected to unwind in H2?

Yeah, so 653 million of positive free cash flow in H1. So if you take out the 300, that means we would have done sort of 353 million as a first base for the first half of the year. And so we will do a slight improvement on that, obviously, to be able to be within our guidance range of the billion full year. But the payments received in H1 will be expensed in H2.

Thank you. And maybe the last question from Michael is that could we share our view on the non-auto opportunities? Speaking about defence, humanoids, we touched a bit on the matter in the presentation.

We consider zero in future already. So this is pure opportunity. We do not rely on this to mitigate overcapacities, fixed costs, and so on. No, no. Everything is done standalone with our core business. So we see opportunities in defense. We release two new projects with Thales. One is mixing the know-how of Thales in management system and the car. And as Renault, we integrate all the TALES system inside the car to allow the efficiency of command towards the troops. So this is something which is for military purpose, but also, for instance, for firemen purpose. And the second project with TALES is a small drone for which we develop together with TALES. will produce and thales will be in charge of selling this because again we are not becoming expert in defense industry we contribute with our values so i'm confident it will grow but again for you the most important to know is that we do not rely on this to deliver our results we do not need this to fill our plants because we have no idle capacity we have no over capacity we have no fixed cost issue, we continue to optimize and work with a strict discipline.

Thank you, Francois. Maybe Duncan, can you also elaborate on the HOMAT impact that we expect moving into H2? I remind that we said around 600 million euro negative of HOMAT and inflation for the full So what have we seen in H1 and what should we expect in moving into H2 on that front?

You've helped me answer the question. So yes, guidance was 600 million full year raw mats and MUI inflation all together. And if you look across the bridge, we had about 200 in the first half. So it's about twice the impact in the second half of the year.

Yeah. What I can complement, when we have a spike in raw materials, we can find some ways with suppliers to mitigate. But what we see today is that the increase of raw materials is not just a spike. This is a trend. So we have also to be fair with our suppliers and to take this into account. So it's why in H2 we have more impact because we have also to be fair with the suppliers. Of course, we do not accept everything. We work together to mitigate. And again, our procurement team with all upstream functions are able to find other ways with the suppliers to mitigate this. But the impact in H2 is higher, as mentioned by Duncan. can. My view is compared with what we organized for 2027, ROMAT is the main offender for all the risk because you ask us every time, oh, there is more competitors, there is pricing pressure and so on, but all of this we knew. So there is no surprise. For ROMAT, it's true that in terms of trend, there is, it seems, a stable increase of ROMAT in our industry for the months moving forward.

Thank you. The next questions will come from Christian Frenes from Goldman Sachs. So, how are the Chinese OEMs affecting Renault's pricing power and segment share in Europe, Brazil and Turkey? And how competitive is Renault's cost base in markets where it competes with Chinese OEMs, including Brazil, through the GILI joint venture? What have we learned and what implications does the JV with GILI in Brazil have for operations in Europe?

My main answer is that there is no surprise. Each time you ask, oh, there is new competitors, there is pricing pressure and so on, but what we see in the market today is not a surprise. this is exactly what future ready is about and we are ready for this and it's why i see so much about being as competitive as those new competitors in europe not only in terms of cost in terms of technology and engineering and on the other side i think we have our advantage we are better in terms of brand management, design, product, manufacturing. So this is exactly what Futuroide is about. Regarding your second question, we do not learn much from the Brazil case because we know exactly what are the strong points of our Chinese competitors. But for sure, this cooperation with Gili in Brazil is very successful because Gili is a strategic partner. We have now strong intimacy. We know how to work, and what we expected from this collaboration is to have a new brand, which is a good brand, good products, and all the strengths of the ecosystem of Renault do Brazil. And this is unique in Brazil, and it is why it is working very well. The car of Gili we sell in Brazil are already in the top three of each segment, and this is because of Renault ecosystem in Brazil. And we start on time the local production in Curitiba of GDEX5 as from this summer. So this is, yes, very encouraging in order to mitigate for Renault the strong push of Chinese industry in Brazil and to make it as a strong opportunity to increase our presence. And as I mentioned before, Renault do Brazil volume increase in H1 is plus 35% compared with last year.

Thank you, François. And the question also from Christian is on the LCV. Can you update us on your outlook for the European LCV market? Do you anticipate increased Chinese competition in this segment? And how significant a profit opportunity is the LCV market for Renault?

I do not foresee Chinese competitors for the short term. The European market is very low for LCV, unfortunately. Only plus 2%, but plus 2% compared with a strong decrease last year. And what we assume to manage 2027 is that this market will not recover further.

This is our assumption. on lcv opportunity in the future maybe fabrice you want to complement i think on lcv for the future the huge opportunity we will we'll have until the end of the year is the launch of the new traffic e-tech we've will be one of the first runner with a totally original genuine offer in terms of EV for the LCV market and I think that there is an unmet need in this part of the market we will be the first to cover. So our opportunity of course is to play this new this new asset of course in full complementarity with the success of the of the master today.

Thank you, Fabrice. The next questions will come from Stuart Pearson from Oxcap Analytics. We know Renault has been very disciplined on channel mix, so can you provide a bit more color regarding the negative price mix enrichment component in the bridge and how do you see this develop into H2? So we answered for H2 and 2027 is also asked by Stuart. I don't know, Duncan, if you want to say what.

Hello, Stuart. This is 26 calls, so I think we'll stick with 26 for the moment. So price was positive on the revenue, but as you saw, was mainly for offsetting of FX headwinds that we had. In terms of mix, you have mix and enrichment. So enrichment was the first block, which is the Euro 6 ebis, was an additional cost into several engines in our sort of B, B-plus segments, both across Renault brand and Dacia brand, for which it was very difficult to pass on to consumers because there was very little gain for consumers in that it was just to answer regulatory requirements. The mix then, you have both increasing EV mix, which you know is at least for some segments dilutive still at this point in time and also international as international grows we don't necessarily have the same profitability in all regions around the world so there was a slight negative down from that as well but maybe just to paraphrase francois this is not a surprise this is something that we knew was happening in the year and we've called out for a long time.

Thank you, Duncan. Maybe a question for you, François. Can you share any updates regarding potential EU tariffs on Chinese PHEVs? Do you believe this would be effective at slowing Chinese competition?

No, I cannot comment. I have no specific information. As you know, as Renault Group, we recommend EU to move into three directions. The first one is confirm electrification, but put enough flexibility in order not to penalize the European players with crazy penalties. Easy to do. Not yet decided. The second one is a freeze for ten years for any new regulation. As we know, we do not recommend to decontent regulation. You take F5 for electric, you take Clio for full hybrid, freeze regulation for ten years in order to allow European citizen to get access to new cars on a more affordable way, because you know Europe is a unique place in the world where we cannot recover the market and the market continues to decline, unfortunately. And third, to have a deal between China and Europe, which for us a good solution is to apply what China did so well 30 years ago, meaning Chinese makers willing to invest on the long run in Europe has to invest deeply in the value chain, And not only to have a screw plant, but really to invest deeply in the value chain to contribute in terms of employment, in terms of technology, in terms of supplier footprint. I think it would be the best way, but for sure, for sure, EU need to find a way for an orderly manner to have new competitors in Europe. Otherwise, the European industry will be heavily impacted. As far as Renault is concerned, in Futurity, we consider the cynical scenario. It is why we said we'll be the European automotive OEM capable to show that in Europe, we can match the pace of any competitor in the world in terms of competitiveness. and on top of this, we'll enhance what is our strong asset, product, design, brand. As we know, we like to do nice cars. We like to put nice features in our cars and this is what we want to show and the sincerity we want to show to our customers in Europe. This is our strategy and in FuturID, we take a quite cynical assumption about evolution of the EU playbook.

Thank you, François. And the last question from Stuart is more around the BEVs. So we see that we have stronger residual values than most peers on the BEVs. And could this help the pricing power to resist to Chinese competition?

And I think he's asking how close the BEV EBIT margins are now getting to ICE cars. um regarding profitability of evie uh i help uh duncan so we'll not come on further i repeat what i already said first um the new car we launch um r5 r4 and uh it will be also the case for the twingo are delivering profit are more profitable than previous car i referred to megan and scenic which shows that the momentum of competitiveness and cost reduction is good because normally a smaller car are less profitable than a bigger car. The second point, management principle I have within FuturID is that when we decide a new car today, the profitability of electric should be the same as full hybrid. and this is the way we manage ourselves within FuturID and the new model we launch in the future and when we speak at Renault about profitability is without taking care of any benefit of cafe it is the profitability of the car itself those are the two guiding principles of FuturID Thank you, François.

And so a question from Christophe Laskawi from Deutsche Bank. Christophe is asking about the volume trends to expect in the LCV moving into H2 and what have been the margins in LCVs in H1? Will H2 be above 10% again? So more details about LCV, a topic also addressed by Pushkar, who thought that the volumes sales were rather weak in Q2, especially in June. So he wants to know what is the trend moving forward.

Profitability on LCV will not answer. trend of volume for LCV in H2. Fabrice, if you want to.

I think our volume LCV in H2 will be slightly positive in a market which will be certainly down. That's our forecast. And I think our volumes are once again sustained by the ramp up now and the full coverage of Master. No surprise. And by the way, we will have a share of market increase in this environment, but once again, not at the expense of our pricing discipline.

Thank you, Fabrice. The next question comes from Henning Kostman from Barclays. Henning wants to know broadly how much Edwin should we expect moving into H2 as regards price mix enrichment? Is that around 50% of H1 headwind? And also on the costs, Enning is asking if the net of inflation and romance will be twice H1, and are the semiconductor effects accounted for into the romance? What are the gross savings against the around 1 billion implied by the 400 euro savings per car per year.

Hi, Henning. I hope Florent noted down all of those questions because I think I got the first one. Price mix enrichment should be a similar amount in H2 than we've seen in H1. I hope slightly less but roughly that. Costs net of raw materials, that was the second one. Twice h1 is a reasonable assumption. And then the third one was?

Well, what are the gross savings? Because basically the question is where do we see the 400 euro per unit savings in the bridge, I guess.

Yeah, in the bridge, so you see both variable costs and fixed costs put together. So, gross savings, when we talk about 400 euros per vehicle on the variable side, that's what we should take into account.

There were questions also about memories. So, I confirm we have the supply visibility for 2026 and the overcost is mitigated through additional cost reduction by purchasing team.

Thank you both. Then the next questions remaining are more on margin. Around 5.5% full year margin implies high fives in H2. So are we happy with that or is that the bottom hand of the 5.3, 5.7% range more likely now? And then the second question is on the free cash flow. What are the drivers for the free cash flow in H2, knowing that, as we mentioned, the 300 million down payments will reverse into H2 and that we will only receive 100 million from MFS dividend to get to around 1 billion free cash flow in full year 26 yep so thank you inning for the follow-up questions uh so yeah around 5.5 percent is technically uh between 5.3 and 5.7 and um more likely to be in the lower half than in the upper half considering the tough environment we have out there so overall a slight improvement uh in h2

versus h1 in terms of margin previously in if we look back over previous years we've had maybe 40 50 bps uptick, but because of all the raw material pressure we've called out, I don't think the gap will be so big this year. In terms of free cash flow, so we will obviously continue to generate a strong EBITDA off that. A slight increase in the second half compared to the first half. MFS dividend, I said I was comfortable with the capacity to pay out in H2. We've talked about slightly higher investment, and restructuring costs will continue. But, yeah, I don't see any reason why we have a slightly stronger free cash flow in the second half versus the first. Obviously, I've been calling out to taking the 300 million of supplier upfront payments, which I called to say they would cash out in the second half, which is part of the CapEx increase we're talking about.

Thank you. And so two other questions, one from Pushkar on the R&D capitalization benefits in the EBIT bridge, how much was it and what drove it? Is it a one-time effect? And also the question on the capacity coming from Horst, this one, given that European market leader Volkswagen is cutting so much capacity, does it increase the pressure on Renault to reduce capacity further?

We have no need to reduce capacity. I mean, the capacity utilization is above 80%, so we have no intention or project to reduce further. What we focus on is secure the competitiveness of our manufacturing footprints, and it's why in Future Ready we release minus 20%. It's why we took the initiative to negotiate with unions, what we did in Spain, for instance. A global scheme, it is about labor costs, but it is also about flexibility, terms and conditions in order to secure the long-term competitiveness. It means the long-term employment of our people. It means the long-term strength of our supplier ecosystems. and this is what I focus on. Secure the competitiveness for growth, not restructuring further because of lack of competitiveness or lack of volume or lack of profit. This is what Future Ready is about.

And on the R&D capitalization, I think it was Pushkar's question. So, it's just an application of IFRS rules. So, the impact was just a little bit less than 90 million euros. We started capitalizing from the 1st of March, which really coincided with the fact two factors at the same time. First of all, we'd finished the transaction on Flexis, so we had clear visibility and control of that project and clear visibility of the product coming out in the second half of the year. It was launched, so we will see the first volume starting in December. so that project plus the confirmation of the milestone on the c-segment vehicles in which SDV will also go and those being profitable from an NPV point of view we applied the IFRS rule and we capitalized them. I'd like to remind you that a large part has already gone through the P&L in costs so it's only the rest of the development that remains. It will remain, we will capitalise full second half of the year and I think the capitalisation rate will probably peak at that point in time and go down in 27 and it's just basically the phase and development that we're in right now in terms of the number of projects that are in the latter stages of development.

Thank you, Duncan. This was the last question. I think we went through all of it. If you have some follow-up questions, please be in touch with the investor relations team. We'll be happy to help you guys and have a good day. Thank you.

Thank you all.