(BFM Stock Exchange) – The dematerialized IT services specialist unveiled an activity below expectations in the third quarter. This failure comes from a slowdown in growth in its “private cloud” activity.

OVHCLOUD disappoints again. The French specialist in dematerialized IT services (Cloud) plunges 15.9%this Tuesday, June 24, after having delivered an activity below expectations in the third quarter of his 2024-2025 financial year.

Over this period from March to the end of May, OVHCLOUD gave income of 271.9 million euros, up 9.3% over one year in comparable data.

This growth is lower than the expectations of consensus. According to TP ICAP Midcap, analysts awaited income of 276.7 million euros, and growth in comparable data of 10.6%.

This performance is all the more disappointing that “the base of comparison was the easiest of the exercise,” with a growth of 9% in the third quarter, reports Oddo BHF.

In product segment, the public cloud (where the infrastructure is shared) has drawn overall organic growth in the group, with an increase of 17.2% in data comparable to 53.6 million euros. The disappointment comes from the slowdown in private cloud activity, whose growth slowed down to 8.6% in the third quarter, after an increase of 10.5% in the second.

For Oddo BHF, this quarterly publication highlights organic growth in turnover in the third at the bottom of the annual guidance (forecast).

Renewed annual forecasts

At the end of this publication, OVHCLOUD reiterated its objectives for the year ended in 2025, namely growth between 9%and 11%, as well as gross operating margin adjusted (EBITDA) up 160 basic points (1.6 percentage point) at 40%.

This renewed roadmap complies with the expectations of the consensus quoted by ODDO BHF which awaits growth between 9.9% and 10.2% as well as an EBITDA margin at 40.0%.

“Management reiterates without surprise its guidance (forecast) for exercise 2024-2025, but we believe that growth should be at the bottom of the range given the more difficult comparison base in the fourth quarter,” adds TP ICAP Midcap.

OVH Cloud also returned to the challenges of data sovereignty in Europe. Its managing director Benjamin Revcolevschi, said that OVH Cloud is “at the heart of a new dynamic with a strengthening of requests for sovereign solutions”. “This is a sign of a structural change,” he continued.

However, Oddo BHF notes that these new subjects of sovereignty in Europe are not yet visible in the group’s (the activity) of the group, unlike the stock market price which has soared 60% since the start of the year.

The action was indeed carried by speculation as to measures on the part of the European Union against the American digital giants, and to the emergence of a European “cloud”.

For TP ICAP Midcap, public administrations and businesses are increasingly aware of the risks of total dependence on “hyperscalers” (Google Cloud, Amazon Web Services, Azure de Microsoft, Editor’s note), for the Cloud and the AI, as evidenced by the numerous declarations made by officials and managers in recent months.

“The question remains on the timing of the translation of this acceleration in contracts and turnover, linked above all to the competitiveness of the PAAS offers (” Platform-as-a-Service “, with a lot of functions and applications provided by the supplier, editor’s note) of OVH in the face of those of the ‘hyperscalers’, to the ability of OVH to accelerate capex (investment expenses) for Faced with demand, and the establishment of a European normative framework (EUCS) favorable to the French vision Secnumcloud, “adds the design office.