«Thus we exceed 2 billion in revenues»- Corriere.it

THEThe market is large, growing, with enormous potential: the United States, as per tradition, is the land of gold for the hearing aid sector. They alone represent 40% of global business for a turnover of almost 7 billion dollars out of a total of 17. The cause? Among the most natural: the aging of the population. In 2030, a third of Americans will be considered technically senior for the aging baby boomer generation, with the over 65s rising from 55 million now to 75 million. Not only. Hearing loss (hearing loss) is the third largest form of chronic hearing loss in the United States, affecting approximately 45 million people.

The consolidation

It is in this context that Amplifon has set up its growth strategy on the American market. The latest move saw the group led by CEO Enrico Vita take over 29 new direct specialized centers in Ohio in November, bringing its direct American network to 265 points of sale. Growing through acquisitions is part of Amplifon’s DNA, just think that between 2016 and 2022 1.5 billion euro were invested in acquisitions. And the market offers itself to this work of consolidation since, globally, there is great fragmentation and about 50% is in the hands of small local operators. In just over two years, the presence of the Amplifon group in direct stores in the United States (with the Miracle-Ear brand, with which the company is active in the American retail market) has more than quadrupled. In 2020, in fact, there were 55 stores. Today they are concentrated mainly in Texas, Florida and California, the states with the highest population.

Shopping and shops

The first step towards the exponential growth of the direct network was, at the end of 2020, the acquisition of PJC Hearing, then the second Miracle-Ear franchisee with 110 stores in Texas, Florida and New Mexico. The network of direct stores adds to Miracle-Ear’s historical presence in the franchise. Considering everything, therefore, Amplifon’s overall presence in the United States stands at 1,530 stores, in addition to the approximately 6,000 stores affiliated with Amplifon Hearing Health Care, the B2B arm of the group in the United States that works with insurance companies. Precisely on the B2B front, Amplifon Hearing Health Care has focused on investments in digital. In fact, the company recently launched — the only one on the market for the moment — Amplifon brand products and the app that allows you to monitor patients remotely. The goal is to provide better care and greater attention to the customer which automatically translates into a benefit for the insurance companies, which can thus reduce their management costs. «The company’s success in the States is based on four cornerstones – explains Vita -: a brand among the market leaders (Miracle-Ear), a distribution strategy that covers all segments (franchise stores, direct stores and insurance companies), significant investments in the network and marketing and a very strong team, from the hearing care professionals who work in the store to the people on staff: the Amplifon group’s collaborators in the United States have tripled in the last two years, going from 400 at the beginning of 2020 to 1,200 of today”.

Global market

In parallel with the investments in the extension of the network, the company has progressively optimized the management of the points of sale, obtaining significant results even as other specialized chains suffered. At the beginning of November, the Danish competitor Demant revised its forecasts for 2022 downwards precisely because of the drop recorded on the US market in October which led the group to announce the closure of 50 stores in the United States. But it’s not just the US market that has experienced a downturn: globally there was a 2% decline in the third quarter. A figure that does not particularly worry the Amplifon managing director: revenues for the first nine months exceeded one and a half billion (+11.6%), the net result was 119.6 million (+13.7%) and the ebitda of 369.5 million (+13.3%). For this year, Amplifon will close an annual balance sheet for the first time in its history, exceeding the threshold of 2 billion euro in revenues. The goal is to reach 2.15 billion, more than double the figure of 1.03 billion in 2015, the year in which Enrico Vita took over the leadership of the company. The United States, together with Canada and Latin America, make up the group’s Americas region which in the third quarter of 2022 achieved around 20% of group revenues (101.3 million euros in the quarter, up by 27.1 % on 2021, compared to a total of 502.5 million euros for the Amplifon group in the quarter). But Amplifon is present in 25 countries around the world: «The reference countries remain the European ones, with Italy, Spain, France and Germany in the first places, as well as obviously the United States – confirms Vita-. Australia has assumed greater importance thanks to the acquisition that we finalized last year of Bay Audio, which has allowed us to reach a share of about a third of the local retail market». The Chinese market is also becoming increasingly important for Amplifon which entered the country’s business with a joint venture in 2018 and where in 2021 it signed the third joint venture at 51% with a local partner in the hearing care retail market. “We are growing significantly in China, but we want to do it at the right pace,” comments Vita.

Measurement via app

Another strong point is the constant attention to innovation to give a technological and digital acceleration to the customer experience (there are over 800,000 a year worldwide). In 2022, with this objective, Amplifon X was born, the new internal innovation center as a combination of Amplifon’s digital team and that of the startup Otohub acquired in 2019. Among the latest initiatives, Amplifon has designed and developed new solutions such as an audiometer digital that allows you to perform audiological tests simply with an iPad, as well as an app to interact with the customer even remotely.