VUSION SA (FR:VU)

Specialist in retail digitalisation

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Robin research covers small and medium-sized companies with an attractive risk/reward profile mainly in Europe and North America.

Disclaimer: this is neither a buy and sell recommendation nor private advice. Investing in companies carries a risk of permanent loss of capital. Before investing in a company do your own research

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1. Key inputs

• Leader in its category

• Aligned management

• Technology that could change retail management in the future

• In the worst-case scenario, growth of 10%, and in the best-case scenario, 30%

2. Company overview

Vusion is the undisputed global leader in digital solutions for physical retail. The company specializes in smart connected digital labels and IoT solutions designed to transform physical stores into high-value digital assets that are automated, data-driven, and connected in real-time to consumers and suppliers.

The company was founded in 1992 and is headquartered in Nanterre, France.

3. Products and services: From labels to platforms

In an era where retail is rapidly transforming, Vusion has positioned itself as a global leader in digitizing physical commerce. Through a diversified portfolio of six integrated solution families, the company bridges the physical and digital worlds, helping retailers create “high‑value digital twins” of their stores. This ecosystem—powered by IoT, Cloud, Data, and Artificial Intelligence (AI)—is designed to improve operational efficiency, sustainability, and the overall consumer experience.

At the core of Vusion’s value proposition lies its IoT hardware suite, known globally for pioneering Electronic Shelf Labels (ESLs). SES‑imagotag solutions automate pricing, streamline workflows, and enable unprecedented real‑time shelf visibility.

Reinventing Shelf Operations: IoT Hardware and Digital Shelf Systems

At the core of Vusion’s value proposition lies its IoT hardware suite, known globally for pioneering Electronic Shelf Labels (ESLs). SES‑imagotag solutions automate pricing, streamline workflows, and enable unprecedented real‑time shelf visibility.

Electronic Shelf Labels (ESL)

ESLs replace traditional paper labels with smart, connected digital displays. Retailers can:

• Update prices instantly across thousands of SKUs

• Eliminate manual ticketing errors

• Free staff for customer‑facing and high‑value activities

EdgeSense

A groundbreaking innovation, EdgeSense transforms shelves into intelligent digital infrastructures. A smart rail provides:

• Centralized power

• Data connectivity to passive IoT devices

• Major reductions in battery usage and radio units across the store

This approach increases sustainability while simplifying large‑scale deployments.

VusionOX: A Next‑Generation IoT Operating System

VusionOX is a secure, energy‑efficient IoT OS that orchestrates millions of devices across entire store fleets. Based on an optimized Bluetooth protocol, it ensures:

• Ultra‑fast communication

• Low energy consumption

• High scalability and reliability

Cloud Management at Scale: VusionCloud

Serving as the digital backbone for the entire hardware ecosystem, VusionCloud centralizes store operations in a secure, remotely managed environment.

Asset Management

Retailers deploy, update, and supervise millions of IoT devices through a unified Cloud platform—reducing maintenance complexity and improving uptime.

Unmatched Scalability on Azure

Hosted on Microsoft Azure, Vusion supports large‑scale synchronized updates across thousands of stores. This level of agility is essential during high‑intensity retail periods such as Black Friday, where tens of millions of price updates occur simultaneously.

Real‑Time Shelf Intelligence: Computer Vision and AI (Captana & Belive.ai)

Vusion’s computer vision solutions provide continuous, automated shelf monitoring—transforming what has traditionally been an error‑prone manual task into a precise AI‑driven workflow.

Automated Shelf Monitoring

Using miniature cameras, stores can detect:

• Out‑of‑stock situations

• Pricing and merchandising anomalies

• Planogram deviations

These insights enable faster replenishment and higher on‑shelf availability.

Agnostic and Highly Flexible Integration

With the acquisition of Belive.ai, the system is now ESL‑agnostic. Retailers can deploy shelf vision using:

• SES‑imagotag labels

• Third‑party digital labels

• Even traditional paper labels

This flexibility makes the solution accessible to retailers at any point in their digitization journey.

From Data to Decisions: Retail Analytics with Memory

Memory turns vast streams of in‑store data into actionable intelligence, enabling retailers and consumer packaged goods manufacturers to make smarter strategic decisions.

Decision Support & Market Insights

Advanced analytics help:

• Optimize product assortments

• Fine‑tune pricing strategies

• Improve store workflows based on actual consumer behavior

VusionLive: AI for Store Managers

VusionLive acts as a real‑time AI assistant, integrating data from multiple systems to:

• Highlight urgent store tasks

• Send alerts on shelf issues

• Prioritize actions that improve sales and customer satisfaction

Transforming Shelves Into a Media Channel: Engage

The Engage platform merges retail media and physical shopping by converting store shelves into dynamic digital advertising spaces.

Digital Advertising at the Point of Decision

With large‑format color ESLs and V:Rail video shelf strips, brands can display:

• Targeted ads

• Promotions

• Calls‑to‑action

These messages reach shoppers precisely where buying decisions are made.

Interactive Shopper Engagement

Through NFC tags and QR codes, consumers gain instant access to:

• Nutritional scores

• Allergen information

• Customer reviews

• Rich product storytelling

This enhances transparency and enriches the in‑store journey.

Beyond Retail: IoT for Industry and Logistics (PDidigital)

Vusion extends its IoT capabilities to industrial, healthcare, logistics, and office environments through its sepioo brand.

Smart Inventory & Digital Signage

Automated signage and inventory tracking reduce errors and streamline workflows in:

• Warehouses

• Hospitals

• Manufacturing plants

• Corporate offices

Advanced Location Services

With precise indoor and outdoor asset localization, organizations can improve:

• Traceability

• Safety

• Overall operational efficiency

Vusion’s six solution families form a cohesive ecosystem that transforms physical retail into a highly efficient, data‑driven, and customer‑centric environment. By integrating IoT devices, Cloud management, AI‑powered shelf intelligence, data analytics, retail media, and industrial IoT, the company delivers the technological backbone for the store of the future.

Retailers seeking to boost productivity, sustainability, and shopper engagement are increasingly turning to Vusion —not just as a technology provider, but as a strategic partner in their digital transformation.

4. Business model

Vusion has developed its business around an asset‑light industrial model in which it retains ownership of the research, design, and intellectual property behind its devices, while outsourcing physical assembly to world‑class manufacturing partners such as BOE, Jabil, and Foxconn.

This approach enables the company to focus its resources on innovation, software development, and high‑value digital solutions instead of carrying the financial and operational burden of operating large‑scale production facilities. In practical terms, Vusion concentrates on the intelligence and architecture of its products while relying on highly specialized partners to handle fabrication.

The company generates revenue primarily through two streams:

• The first is hardware, which includes electronic shelf labels (ESL), smart displays, and new digital shelf systems such as EdgeSense. Hardware revenue is recognized once products are transferred to the customer, but this segment carries lower margins compared to software.

• The second revenue stream is value‑added software and services (VAS), the fastest‑growing and most profitable part of the business, with margins roughly three times higher than hardware. This includes recurring SaaS services such as VusionCloud, computer vision capabilities through Captana, and advanced analytics through Memory—platforms that collectively managed more than 220 million devices in the cloud as of mid‑2025. It also includes non‑recurring services such as installation, professional consulting, and one‑time software licenses, including the company’s VusionOX IoT operating system.

Geographically, Vusion operates in more than sixty countries and generates roughly ninety percent of its revenue internationally. The Americas and Asia‑Pacific region have become its main engine of growth, accounting for more than half of adjusted revenue by the end of 2024. The United States, supported by major deployments with Walmart US and other leading retailers, is the single largest market. Meanwhile, EMEA remains a core region despite experiencing a temporary slowdown after extensive rollouts in Germany, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom continue to form the foundation of Vusion’s business in this area, with the UK in particular accelerating rapidly in its adoption of digital retail technologies.

The company’s client base is centered on large international retailers, with its top ten customers representing approximately seventy‑six percent of total revenue. The grocery sector remains the most important vertical, accounting for roughly 75% of the company’s business. However, Vusion has been actively diversifying into other sectors, expanding into pharmacies through partnerships with Phoenix and Dr. Max, into DIY and hardware with clients like Ace Hardware and Hornbach, and into additional markets such as sportswear, travel retail—including airports—and consumer electronics via retailers like MediaMarktSaturn.

Beyond retail environments, the company also generates revenue through its subsidiary PDidigital, which applies IoT technologies to industrial and logistics settings, including healthcare operations and manufacturing‑related workflows. This expansion supports Vusion’s broader objective of becoming a comprehensive IoT and automation provider across multiple industries.

5. Total addressable market

Vusion estimates the TAM for electronic shelf labels (ESLs) to be approximately 10 billion units globally. Despite being the global leader in this sector, the company highlights that the market is still in the early stages of adoption, with a current global penetration rate of less than 8% (roughly 800 million ESLs),.

Market Potential by Volume and Value

The company breaks down the market potential into several layers, including hardware and broader digital services:

• Global Unit Potential: The foundational market consists of 10 billion units for electronic shelf labels.

• Financial Market Size: The annual market for ESL hardware is expected to grow at a rate of 30% to 40%.

• Expanded Digital Solutions: Beyond traditional ESLs, Vusion identifies a separate market for high-value digital solutions—such as real-time shelf monitoring and stock-out detection—estimated to be worth an additional €1 billion to €2 billion.

6. Why Leading Retailers Love Vusion’s Smart Store Solutions

Vusion’s smart store technology is becoming a favorite among major retailers like Walmart, Morrisons, and Co‑op because it automates routine tasks, improves accuracy, and transforms physical stores into data‑driven environments. Its electronic shelf labels replace manual paper tags, enabling instant price updates across thousands of stores. This saves staff time, reduces errors, and ensures customers always see accurate, synchronized prices. Retailers such as Morrisons and Co‑op highlight that ESLs simplify everyday tasks, support loyalty pricing, and cut paper waste, while giving shoppers clearer and richer product information directly at the shelf.

Beyond pricing, VusionCloud acts as the centralized system controlling millions of devices, allowing chains like Walmart to update content and monitor store execution at massive scale. The platform integrates with major retail IT systems, making adoption easy, and turns every connected device into a source of valuable data. Retailers can analyze stock levels, price changes, or promotion performance in real time, and even monetize data or in‑store digital advertising.

Vusion’s Captana computer vision cameras add another layer of intelligence by detecting empty shelves, checking planogram compliance, and guiding staff to fix issues quickly. This improves product availability, reduces lost sales, and supports fast omnichannel services like in‑store picking for online orders.

Together with value‑added services such as digital retail media, shopper guidance, and sustainability benefits, Vusion’s ecosystem delivers strong operational gains and new revenue opportunities. Large‑scale rollouts by Walmart, Morrisons, and Co‑op demonstrate that these solutions are reliable at enterprise scale and significantly enhance efficiency, accuracy, and the shopper experience. Ultimately, Vusion helps retailers make their physical stores as dynamic, responsive, and data‑rich as e‑commerce—turning traditional shelves into intelligent digital assets.

7. Management and capital allocation

Thierry GADOU Chairman & CEO Vusion.

The leadership of Vusion is defined by a stable, entrepreneurial team that is highly aligned with long-term shareholders through significant personal investment and shared strategic goals.

Management Structure and Culture

Vusion’s management is led by a consistent core team that has transitioned the company from a startup to a global leader in retail IoT.

• Key Leadership: Thierry Gadou has served as Chairman and CEO for over a decade. Thierry owns 10% of the company. He is supported by Thierry Lemaitre (Deputy CEO, Finance and Corporate) and Philippe Bottine (SEVP & CEO North America), who has been with the company for 13 years.

• Alignment of Interests: Management is deeply invested in the company. Approximately 30% of employees participate in performance share plans, which creates a sense of ownership and reduces staff attrition. Management famously chose to remain direct shareholders rather than receiving cash compensation during structural changes in the holding company, signaling high confidence in the company’s future.

The “Sense” of Major Shareholders

Major shareholders are currently acting as strategic enablers, providing the capital and industrial support necessary for Vusion to scale into a “EUR 1 billion+” entity.

• BOE Smart Retail (approx. 24%): As the largest shareholder and an industrial expert, BOE is a supportive, long-term partner. They provide the company with the world’s largest, vertically integrated ESL factory in Chongqing. Their sentiment is collaborative, recently participating in share placements and asset swaps to refine the company’s capital structure.

• SESIM (approx. 11% - 12%): This holding company represents the management and employees. Their sense is one of high conviction; they have consistently increased their stake and used debt financing to acquire additional shares, demonstrating belief in the “Vusion ‘27” plan.

• Walmart (Strategic Partner & Future Shareholder): While currently a partner, Walmart holds warrants to subscribe to up to 10% of the capital. Walmart’s sentiment is strategic and bullish; they have pre-financed $320 million across multiple production lines to ensure they have exclusive access to the company’s latest EdgeSense technology.

• Bpifrance (LAC I SLP) (approx. 8%): This public investment fund is an active governance participant. They recently crossed the 8% threshold and proposed a representative to the Board to support long-term growth.

• E-Ink and Qualcomm: Both are strategic technology shareholders (holding ~6% and ~2% respectively) focused on co-developing the next generation of e-Paper and Bluetooth IoT standards.

Management Performance Against Expectations

Management has cultivated a reputation for being trustworthy and consistent. Since 2017, they have achieved nearly all stated growth targets, maintaining a 30% CAGR for over a decade. Most major shareholders appear to share this long-term perspective, as reflected in the initiation of a dividend policy in 2024 to begin returning value after years of heavy reinvestment in R&D.

8. Investment thesis

My investment thesis is very simple.

The share price has recently fallen to a current P/E ratio of 16x. The share price has been growing since 2022 at a CAGR of 30%.

The company’s plans for 2027 are to generate €2.2 billion in revenue with an EBITDA margin of 22% thanks to a greater weighting of recurring revenue (VAS) and an installed base of 1 billion devices.

Oh! That sounds like good news!

But now the market is afraid because Walmart (its main customer) has liked Vusion’s product so much that it wants to accelerate the rollout of its system to all its stores by 2026! Initially, the plan was to complete 500 pilot stores, then 2,300 by the end of 2026 and 2,800 beyond that.

Walmart is so excited that it wants to invest in the company’s solution as soon as possible... and that causes analysts to see a gap in turnover for 2027...

What I see is a success story with excellent execution and a technological positioning that is impossible to replicate at this time. By next year, the company should be worth €230 in intrinsic value.

By 2030, even if the company only grows by 10% in revenue over the next few years in a negative scenario, it could reach €300.

In a scenario of 30% growth, global installation of this technology, and recurring revenue, the share price should literally be flying high as it obtains higher margins and more predictable and consistent cash flow could reach €800.

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