By Hugo Lhomedet and Alessandro Parodi
(Reuters) – France’s Teleperformance expects faster sales growth this year thanks to the consolidation of two acquisitions and AI partnerships, the call centre and office services group said on Thursday, after beating market expectations for 2024 revenue.
The company, which provides decentralised customer service and moderation solutions, forecast like-for-like sales growth between 3% and 5% in 2025 and earmarked up to 100 million euros ($104 million) of investments in artificial intelligence.
It also expects an increase of up to 10% in its earnings before interest, tax and amortisation (EBITA) margin, it said.
Teleperformance bought in 2023 smaller rival Majorel and earlier in February it completed the $490 million acquisition of U.S.-based firm ZP Better Together, which provides accessible communication solutions for deaf and hard-of-hearing users.
“There are a lot of technologies out there, but often the key challenge is how to scale these technologies and we have the global distribution,” Chief Financial Officer Olivier Rigaudy told journalists in a post-earnings call.
Its yearly sales came in at 10.28 billion euros, higher than an analysts’ average forecast of 10.23 billion euros, according to LSEG’s IBES data.
The company pledged to return a dividend of 4.20 euros per share on its 2024 results, up 9% from what it paid out the previous year.
($1 = 0.9610 euros)
(Reporting by Hugo Lhomedet and Alessandro Parodi; editing by David Evans)
