Good Morning Business, the economic morning show. 8:22 AM on BFM Business and on RMC Discovery. Our guest this morning with Anthony Morel is Enrique Martinez. Hello, you are the CEO of Fnac Darty. You presented your new strategic plan yesterday. We'll go through it together. Objective: doubling subscriptions, diversification into energy. But first, I'd like to say a word about the Chinese, about this fast fashion competition for textiles. We've talked a lot about it in recent months, but in fact you are concerned in exactly the same way. Would you need a legal framework as was decided for textiles?
I think we first need to regulate the European market. Today, there are gaps, holes in the regulation that is sometimes a bit complex, which allows them to evade customs fees and controls. And above all, the most worrying for me is that these products do not correspond to the standards we have validated for European consumers for decades. So first of all, we must protect European consumers, even before merchants. First consumers, because we expose them to dangerous products. Obviously low prices, but especially very dangerous, and so we must first give the means to control them. It's a customs issue, in fact, for you it's a customs issue because there are millions of parcels every day, the poor customs officers who are not numerous enough are unable to control the products. Faced with this avalanche of products, we must master the means that must be financed by these people to be able to control, and ultimately if the products are up to standard and they respect access to the European market, we have nothing to say. But what about 2 euros per parcel, for example, would that suit you? Yes, I think there are countries that have gone much further. So there are these first attempts. I'm almost happy that we're starting to take steps, because perfection is the enemy. Yes, we need to start looking at this file concretely, not on the horizon of 2028 but on the horizon of today, because I think there are many people in these studios crying out for alarm because there is really an urgency to act.
Anthony, so what's interesting in the strategy you announced is notably the fact that you are betting heavily on services. I'd say it's almost an Apple-like strategy, where Apple wants to sell more than just products. Now 25% of their revenue is services because of recurrence and loyalty. You are a bit in that same idea. Can you give us a few examples?
Yes, we think that customers need more and more service, and access to service is becoming increasingly rare and complex. So it's an opportunity for us in a market where consumers are seeking meaning. Maybe repair and keep products longer, and we will help them do that, we need to create an economic model to allow them. So we invented, among other things, a model of unlimited repair subscriptions at a reasonable price, which today has more than 1.4 million subscribers in a short time. 1.4 million people pay 12 euros per month for Darty Max to repair everything. We repaired 2.5 million products last year, and so France is the world champion of product repair. So there is real demand for this because when you look at, for example, smartphones, when you look at benchmarks, the French say 'Oh yes, repairability is great' but in fact in the purchase criteria and choice criteria, it comes very, very far in reality. So no, it is a reality. There are two indicators: one, massive repair because it is available, because it is accessible, because we have trained many people. So we need to have people to repair, and also look at the refurbished market. The refurbished market in France is enormous. It is incomparably larger than any other market in the world. So that also shows that consumers are today aware and available to do that, and the offer is available, it's the combination of the two. So repairability works. It's good for customers' pockets because customers, especially in these times, are looking for meaning but also purchasing power; sometimes it's having access to quality products at a much more accessible price.
You have told us on this set several times that your objective was size, that it was fundamental to be sufficiently large on a European scale. You bought Unieuro, it was end of 2024, it's your equivalent in Italy. Do you have other targets or do you consider that you have reached critical size?
Just to give some context, between 2016 and 2024, we went from a company that was at 4 billion to almost 11 billion. So the growth is rapid and enormous. So can we go further? Perhaps, but today I think we have the right size, we have a sufficient size. We are leaders in our region, the side of Europe that we love. We have enormous opportunities. The plans we unveiled yesterday, 'Billon, Hybrid', showed all the opportunities for geographical expansion in our markets, around the world of services, and also we are interested in healthcare because we realize that we are creating useful support assets for end consumers but also for companies that are also looking to optimize their operations. We are also in B2B and also to offer our infrastructure to others; today, it's increasingly done in the business world, being able to share even with other sellers to optimize and consolidate our operations.
And then in B2C, you also want to venture into artificial intelligence. So you need to explain to us how you are going to offer services related to AI when we go to Fnac Darty.
