The JDD. We are coming out of a period of high inflation to enter economic uncertainty, the forecasts are gloomy. Does this have an impact on Christmas shopping in your stores?
Enrique Martinez. This weekend isn't over yet, we'll see. It is still too early to draw up an assessment. Over the past two years, household consumption has slowed. We are on a plateau, we are not seeing any deterioration at the end of the year.
“Books stay at the top of the basket”
Has the rise in food and energy prices reduced the share of “pleasure” purchases? Has your customers’ average basket size shrunk?
In 2022 and 2023, the level of constrained spending increased significantly, but at the same time, salary increases made it possible to generally maintain the purchasing power of the French. At the end of the year, inflation is falling, as are energy prices, the situation is stabilizing, or even improving, although consumption remains sluggish, while it has picked up again among most of our European neighbors. . France is going through a crisis of confidence, we measure it by the savings rate of the French which swallows up a large part of their gains in purchasing power. Likewise, investment is slowing down. In this context, our group reached the same sales levels at Christmas as last year, so this means that things are not taking off again. This is one of the reasons that prompted us to develop reconditioned products and repair services that promote a new virtuous consumption model.
What are the top products for Christmas gifts?
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In terms of volume, books remain at the top of the basket. But the toy market in the broad sense is taking up more and more space, in particular board games and Lego-type construction games, particularly for adults. Sales of Notre-Dame in Lego, for example, were very strong at the end of the year. Regarding board games, the sector is booming. There is a need to return to a traditional social and fun activity to counterbalance digital, the time spent on social networks. We put down the phone for an hour to play with friends.
Coming back to the heart of Fnac's activity, books, where do you stand between independents and Amazon?
We have common struggles with independent bookstores, particularly over the control of online book sales platforms that practice dumping on delivery costs. We supported the Darcos law which aimed to restore fair conditions of competition in this market: for more than a year, this law has fulfilled its objectives of rebalancing distribution channels, and supporting more than 3,000 points of sale. of books. This is the condition for maintaining a rich and diversified offering, serving readers.
Fnac is associated with the Goncourt prize for high school students. This year it is Madelaine before dawn (Éditions de l'épine), by Sandrine Collette, who was crowned. Is this prize one way among others to get younger generations back into reading?
The challenge is immense, when you look at the figures on time spent on social networks. Some people spend more than four hours, five hours a day, that's the same amount of time spent reading books. It's a global phenomenon that goes beyond the question of books. This affects the development of thought, reflection, the ability to express, to establish social relationships… The risk is at this level. In primary school, books are at the heart of learning. But during adolescence, freedom often leads to giving up reading. The Culture Pass or the Goncourt Prize for high school students were designed to attract young people back to books.
Is the world of manga a way to retain young readers?
Manga, like the world of comics in general, are a first entry point, a way of anchoring reading in the leisure habits of young people. We were one of the first cultural players to invest in spaces dedicated to manga. They now represent in volume terms the most important departments in comics spaces. It has become a cultural phenomenon: we screen series, we organize events, for example the 100th issue of the book series One Piece.
On the music side, we are witnessing the return of the vinyl record, what is the extent of this phenomenon?
We recreated vinyl spaces in 2014. Today, they represent more than 60% of music sales, ahead of CDs. All the big stars include the item in their album launches. Mylène Farmer and Taylor Swift were a hit this year. Another phenomenon around vinyl records: K-Pop, which is aimed at a young audience. This market represents nearly 20% of our sales, fueled by collector's editions. Here again, digital brings abundance and the infinite possibility of choice, but the need to return to the object, to beautiful covers, revives the attractiveness of the vinyl record, in unexpected proportions.
You have just acquired the Italian Unieuro, a distributor of household appliances. Do you intend to develop even further in Europe?
Unieuro weighs 2.6 billion euros. With this acquisition, we will create a 10 billion euro European leader. Fnac Darty was present in Spain, Portugal, Belgium, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Tunisia, Qatar, Ivory Coast, Cameroon, Congo, Senegal, Saudi Arabia and today in Italy. The idea is to diversify geographically, to consolidate our purchases to achieve economies of scale, and to consolidate a market which is still too fragmented to resist large global players like Amazon.
“There is a need to counterbalance digital and social networks”
Do the political uncertainty in France and the lack of economic visibility worry you?
What we are waiting for is the affirmation of a real desire to develop the activity and make France a competitive territory. The United States is overinvesting in protecting its economy, China is closing down, and Europe today is broken.
You are Spanish, Fnac Darty is established in Europe, Spain, Portugal and Italy. Are our neighbors doing better than us?
These countries initiated major transformations after the 2008 financial crisis and more recently after the Covid period. Their economies are now in balance, this is not the case for France. The Italian example is particularly enlightening. About ten years ago, she was the black beast of Europe. Today, it is France which plays this role. To get out of this, Italy has made painful choices: raising the retirement age, restructuring social assistance, etc. Italy is on the road to greater competitiveness. Much remains to be done so that France jumps on the bandwagon and does not stay behind. And this country has many assets to get there.
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