Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to Kamux Annual Results Presentation 2021. My name is Juha Kalliokoski. I'm CEO and founder of Kamux.
Good morning. My name is Marko Lehtonen. I'm Kamux CFO.
This spring morning, sun is shining, and we have good results. It's easy to smile, and I am the CEO of Kamux. Firstly, we have a Q4 in brief. We overview last year results. Thirdly, financial development. After that, strategy, outlook, and financial targets. We summarize those. Kamux vision is to be number one used car retailer in Europe, and it's unchanged last five years. We have now first time to show you 15 biggest used car retailers in Europe. It's good to remember that UK is not in continental Europe, which is our focus market, and many of those companies are UK companies.
If considering pure player used car retailers, Kamux is currently third largest dealer in Europe after Constellation Group and AURES Holdings. This means our vision is very realistic. Our revenue increased 22.8% in Q4, EUR 244.1 million, and our gross profit increased by 20.1% to EUR 28.6 million. Adjusted operating profit increased by 19% and was EUR 9 million, and a year ago, EUR 7.5 million. Like-for-like showrooms revenue increased by 16%, and it's a huge number if you think that we are a retailer.
I'm very happy about our internationalization, how it increased, and the total revenue increased in Sweden by 23.9%, EUR 77.1 million, and in Germany by 31.4%, to EUR 26.4 million. I'm extremely happy about our German results. It was EUR 0.3 million profit in Q4, and it's an amazing job in our German team. Thank you very much. We continued our very strong growth and increased both gross profit and adjusted operating profit. It's good to remember what situation we have had in Q4, if you think about the COVID-19.
For example, in December, we calculated that we had nearly 100 people sick leave in some days together in all three countries, and especially in German situation, and Marko speak up more about that. About the used car market. Market was very challenging, especially in Sweden and in Germany. New car deliveries were still below 2019 levels, and this can be seen with purchase market. Purchase market continued to be tight due to weakness of the new car deliveries. Kamux is now in Sweden, Kamux is now among fifth biggest used car dealers, and our position improved from the previous year. It's very important step for us that now we are top five player in Sweden.
Q4, we continued growing trend with revenue, and with adjusted operating profit, we also returned into positive trend. Operating profit increased 19% and the revenue 22.8%. As we see that average sales prices were still growing, we sold 6.3% more car units. And when we compare the revenue, it means that average prices grew about 16%. We sold together 16,700 cars in all countries, and in Finland, a little less than 12,000 cars, in Sweden, approximately 3,500 cars, and in Germany, 1,400 cars. Integrated services revenue increased in Q4. With integrated services revenue, we succeeded in Q4, and development in Q4 was similar compared to other years.
As you see, Q4 2019, Q4 2020, it's over 5% share from the revenue. It was Q4 last year, EUR 12.9 million, this integrated services revenue. Then, 2021 overview. We are extremely happy about the revenue of the company, EUR 937 million last year. If you compare, think about how much we increased about the revenue, EUR 230 million was this growth. It's more than 2014, the whole year revenue. Our gross profit increased by 10.6%, EUR 101.3 million. Adjusted operating profit increased by 2.3% to EUR 31.4 million.
The whole year, like-for-like showrooms revenue increased by 19.1%, and it's a huge number in retail business. Kamux total revenue increased in Sweden by 37.6% to EUR 296 million, and in Germany over 47% to EUR 98.6 million. This growth is in line with our strategy. We accelerated our growth and continued our internationalization in 2021. We are very pleased with the growth in 2021, and it was in focus in our new strategy. Faster growth abroad was diluting group relatively adjusted operating profit margin, but adjusted operating profit grew in absolute euros.
As we last year told you about that when we compare that our revenue increased more in Sweden and Germany, and we are not so profitable there than in Finland, it means that it's pushing down the EBIT % margin. Still, it's important that our absolute EBIT euros are growing. There you can see five last year figures on the left side. As we see that every single year we grew over 10%, 10%-20% or 9.5% in those years. It tells a strong message from our growth plan and how we do it. We sold last year 12.8% more cars than 2020.
Together over 68,000 sold pieces. Main driver, car sales price increase, and there is also shift between the segments into a bit more expensive car, especially hybrid and electric vehicles. We will come back to car margins in the financial part. Integrated services revenue was EUR 42.8 million, and it was 4.6%. Strong growth in absolute euros, but relatively share decreased due to rising average sales prices, integrated services revenue grew 15.4%. Finance penetration in Germany was weaker in the first three quarters, but slightly improved towards the year end. It's also important remember that we have this integrated services. There is a part which is the fixed.
It doesn't matter what is the price of the car. When the prices are higher, it means that the share is smaller when we compare the cheaper cars. Our openings and showrooms, it's in line with our new strategy. We published three expansions or moving into larger premises in Finland and two new showrooms in Sweden. In Finland, these bigger premises are in Kaarina, in Vantaa Petikko, and in Pori. New showrooms in Sweden are coming in Malmö and Nyköping. In Varkaus store location was not strategic, and we transferred the business into nearby Kuopio and Mikkeli stores.
Oulu processing center and the megastore has been opened at the end of February. There is a seamless omnichannel customer experience which starts from the research how the customers find from our websites. Excuse me. Transparent prices, search criteria, pictures, product information, similar recommendations, and then make the purchase decision. We show the video presentation and test driving and deliver the cars at the home. This is possible when we have this KMS. The big picture is that we can offer one European stock in all our countries where we are. Also the new services and maybe open the new countries next coming years.
About the Kamux management team, and the main driver for management team renewal and strengthening was new strategy and demands it was setting. Compared to the past, we have now strong international orientation, when first time ever, we have all country directors in group management team and strong development of purchasing, logistics and car processing. Here, Juha Saarinen has strong international business experience and process development skills. Jani Koivu's background, who is the Finnish in Finland country director background is from US companies and also working abroad, and strong background from the growing the business. Kerim Nielsen, who is the country director in Sweden, background is strongly about retail and concepts.
Martin Verrelli, who is starting in Germany's Country Director background is very strongly in the car business, and especially in used car business in many countries in Europe, but also in Asia. Juha Saarinen, I mentioned about his background. Of course, the persons who are in many years in the Kamux management team. Marko, tell about our financial development.
Thanks, Juha. I will start with a short summary about the issues or the figures which I consider very important for our shareholders. I think it's really important to note that throughout the quarter four and the whole fiscal year, the implementation of our growth strategy was progressing really strongly. Big projects, for example, what we had was Kamux Management System, so KMS, and of course, Oulu Megastore and processing center. Kamux Management System is now in use in all countries where we operate. Other issues which is really important and what I'm really glad about is that when we think about our unit economics, and namely, when I talk about the gross profit per car, so the gross profit per car in the last quarter was EUR 1,709, and it grew 13% compared to the previous year.
Of course, one main driver there was, positive development of integrated services. If I think about the whole year gross profit per car and I eliminate there, the incident what we had with the German purchases, actually also on the annual level, gross profit per car was actually increasing a little bit compared to the previous year, which I'm very happy about. The return on equity was 19.5%, and it was significantly impacted by the incident in German purchasing, EUR 3.5 million with the net impact. It is good to keep in mind that, of course, I mean, this amount doesn't impact our adjusted operating profit, but it widely impacts our other key ratios, for example, return on equity or, for example, earnings per share.
Equity ratio was 47.3%, and it decreased slightly from the previous year, and earnings per share was 0.18 EUR, and it grew 38% from the previous year. I still want to also underline that the strong balance sheet is the backbone of our growth strategy. Juha was already presenting the most important key figures, and I will make a few notes there or highlights. Of course, it is important to understand and look at, in our new strategy, the growth. The revenue growth was in focus, and we were able to deliver it well in quarter four and also the whole fiscal year.
In the quarter four, our growth was 22.8%, and the whole year growth was 29.5%. Also our gross profit was growing respectively, in the quarter four 20.1% and, whole year 10.6%. In this relative gross profit, we can also see, the average sales prices of the cars have been increasing, and that has been slightly impacting that downwards. Operating profit in the last quarter was EUR 9.4 million, and adjusted operating profit was EUR 9 million. The difference there between is that, we had a positive impact of EUR 0.4 million, which is related, to the German purchase incident and these, cars what were there. The returning part of the VAT was giving that impact to us.
Our like-for-like sales growth for like-for-like showrooms was really strong, 16%, and for the whole year 19.1%, which is actually the highest numbers what we have in our public, as in our history as a public listed company. The inventory turnover was 49.3%, and it's slightly increased from the previous year. That was impacted by the relatively tight purchasing market, but the inventory turnover is also one matter which we will focus more on this year. If we go to our segments and start with Finland. In Finland, we had a really strong last quarter.
Also what we thought in the previous release is that we implemented the KMS in the summertime, but now KMS was working fine, so didn't impact the business. The revenue increased 16.3% compared to the previous year and was EUR 157.8 million. The gross margin compared to the previous year amounted to EUR 21.1 million and was 13.3%, which was also a bit higher than the previous year. The operating profit increased by 23.6% compared to the previous year, and it was EUR 10.1 million or 6.4% of revenue, which was significantly higher than the previous year.
Integrated services and revenue was developing really well, and especially the finance penetration in Finland was increasing well in the last quarter. The revenue was increasing to EUR 10.2 million or being 6.5% of the revenue. Growth was driven by the new showrooms and sales growth of like-for-like showrooms. If I look at Sweden. In our Swedish business, we had a strong growth quarter, and of course, we were investing still heavily for the growth. We have been since last presentation announcing new big store openings, namely Malmö and Nyköping. Our total revenue increased 23.9% compared to the previous year and was EUR 77.1 million. It is also important to note that our external revenue was growing 38.9%.
In our total revenue, we have also including revenue from the internal transactions, meaning to the other Kamux countries, and of course, external revenue is our revenue only from the external customers. Gross profit or the gross margin increased to EUR 5 million, being 6.4% of revenue, slightly below previous year and impacted a little bit with the higher sales prices. Operating profit decreased compared to the previous year and was EUR 0.1 million or 0.2% of total revenue. Revenue from the integrated services increased to EUR 1.8 million, being 2.9% of external revenue and slightly above the previous year. Especially in the last quarter, the financing was developing really well.
The revenue growth was driven by the new showrooms and the sales growth of the like-for-like showrooms. If we go to Germany, where the situation was maybe most specific in the last quarter, and if I reflect myself personally, what was really maybe surprising for me how strongly still the corona pandemic has been impacting the German society and the German business, thinking about the actions what the government took in Germany. In the beginning of December, there was so-called 2G regime coming in, which means that especially the retail stores you get only access with the recovery or full vaccination certificate, which technically, of course, was reducing the floor traffic in all specialty retail stores, including, of course, automotive retail stores as well.
Similar actions were also aimed to our personnel, where we had to monitor and also test our personnel. However, we were able to grow strongly in the light of corona, and also the growth was profitable. Total revenue increased by 31.4% compared to the previous year and was EUR 26.4 million. Gross margin increased to EUR 2.6 million being 9.7% of revenue. It is good to remember that this EUR 0.4 million VAT return is impacting, of course, the gross margin and also operating profit here in the last quarter. Operating income turned positive compared to previous year and was EUR 0.7 million or 2.7% of total revenue.
If I take away here this EUR 0.4 million, so still EUR 0.3 million was the underlying positive operating profit in Germany in the last quarter. Integrated services revenue increased, and it was EUR 0.9 million or 3.5% of external revenue. In Germany, with integrated services, there was in the last quarter a recovery of the financing penetration and of course that was impacting positively our business, but also we managed well to achieve our annual financing targets as well. The growth in Germany was driven by new showrooms and sales growth of like-for-like showrooms.
We have also received a court decision in Germany related to an incident concerning our purchases, and that was positive for us, so we still continue the dunning actions related to this case. However, due to the uncertainty of this receivable, we have not posted any positive impact to our P&L or balance sheet about this. If I move to our balance sheet side and start with the net working capital and inventories. Both were increasing. It's good to keep in mind that purchasing market was still staying tight due to the new car deliveries. Therefore, if you look back, typically in the quarter four, the inventory has been relatively lowest or lower compared to the previous quarter. This year, this normal, let's call it normal quarter four effect didn't happen.
In this market condition, we are also not so capable to quickly adjust the inventory level upwards. Therefore, we started already loading the cars to the inventory for the spring season earlier this time. Due to the situation with the purchasing, there were no pressure with our stock pricing and also our write-offs for the inventory were very small in quarter four. It's also good to keep in mind that in the net working capital, it was positively impacted by the Finnish customs system change which was taking place in January 2021. That is, of course, impacting so that we had an exceptionally high car tax debt in Finland at the end of this year.
If I look at the net cash flow, the net cash flow of course is strongly reflecting the preparations for the spring season in the tight purchasing market. The net operating cash flow from the operations was -EUR 8.3 million. As I was saying, that this cyclicality, which has been in the past years, was not so visible this year. If I look at the investments in quarter four, our investments were altogether EUR 2.3 million, from where EUR 1.6 million went to the fixed assets, mainly to Oulu investments, and EUR 0.6 million to intangible assets, which is mainly to our digital projects.
Oulu project. Oulu megastore and processing center are now ready, and other new strategic location projects we have not published. If I go to the dividend proposal. It is important to keep in mind that our dividend proposal is reflecting strongly our new strategy, which means that we are focusing very carefully our retail earnings to funding the growth of the business. Our aim here is to give at least 25% dividend from the net profit. The Board of Directors proposes a dividend of EUR 0.20 per share to be distributed for the year 2021 in two installments, and the first installment would be EUR 0.08 at the end of April and EUR 0.12 at the end of October. In 2021, earnings per share were 0.49 EUR.
The proposed dividend is 41% of the net profit, which is roughly at the same level like previous year. The annual general meeting will be held on April 20, 2022. If we look to strategy outlook and our outlook, it's important to understand that in strategy period 2021-2023, we see that there is huge market opportunity for us as a strongly digital and international retail chain. The focus is to accelerate growth, and the profitability development will be then built on business growth and scalability during the strategy period. In our strategy, we have the main pillars which are seamless omni-channel customer experience and excellent services. There we have been working a lot for our customers. We continued the Kamux mobility services. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen.
Let's begin by asking the operator if we have any questions in English by the phone.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, if you do wish to ask a question, please press zero one on your telephone keypad. If you wish to withdraw your question, you may do so by pressing zero two to cancel. There will be a brief pause while questions are being registered. At this time, we have no questions over the phone. I'll hand back to the speakers for final remarks.
Thank you. You have 6 showrooms and expansion projects on the way compared to 77 in operations. That means roughly 8% expansion of capacity. With a revenue growth target of over 20%, you will then supposedly have to sell many more cars at existing facilities. Can you talk a little about how you will succeed in doing so?
If you think about the growth, the most important denominator is not the amount of stores per se, but of course, the inventory, what we have, and of course, our selling personnel. The amount of selling personnel. There, of course, our capacity is not that far at the moment.
Why did the share of cars that are sold with insurance in Sweden drop?
We sold a little bit less than earlier. I don't see big changes. Of course, it earlier was over 90%, but still we are nearly by that. It's important to remember that we don't have same product what we have in Finland, and our earnings are very much lower level. We can't go behind the low level insurance sales in Q4 and the not so good profit in Sweden in Q4.
Did the more difficult market for buying used cars from the markets have an effect on Kamux's gross margin and therefore your EBIT? If the situation changes for better, do you see some help from that regarding EBIT growth in the following years?
As we were just telling, we were actually able to grow our underlying margins, and especially as I was saying that when we eliminate the purchasing incident in Germany, that was not the problem. But of course, if we look on the relative terms, the relative gross or profit margin, of course, was not growing in the same level. Can't really speculate, there's many factors in the market and what are impacting the market, so it's difficult. I would avoid to draw a clear line on conclusion of that.
Integrated services increased materially in Q4. How much of this was due to extra strong Q4 seasonality and what level of revenues is reasonable to assume for Q1 similar to Q3?
We didn't open up how much they're coming, those kickbacks. If you compare Q4 2019, Q4 2020, and Q4 2021, these are very near each other if you think about the percentage from the revenue. When you calculate the whole year and the Q4 is typically the best one in every single year.
Saka says they sell more than 33,000 cars in 2021, and the number was more than 25,000 cars in 2020, suggesting more than 30% growth in cars sold in Finland. This compares to only 7% for sold cars in Finland for Kamux 2021. Can you please share your thoughts on your underperformance compared to Saka, and how do you ensure that they do not take away your market opportunity in Finland?
Now, it's very important to think about the market and the market consolidation situation. In Finland, five biggest players take about 52% from the market. In Sweden, about 10%, and in Germany, about 2%. There are different players who take the market shares. We saw and we will see that the biggest ones take the biggest market shares, and then the smallest players lose the market. Also, consumer-to-consumer business were going down, and we see that it's still going down, and it gives possibilities to everyone to grow.
Germany experienced a strong improvement in gross profit, cars sold, even when excluding a positive VAT effect. What is the reason for this improvement?
As I've been telling also in the previous presentations, in our strategic actions, we have a lot of actions which are impacting our gross profit or should improve it. There is also, of course, the gross profit has been in focus in Germany, at the end part of the last year. There was also quite many tactical actions which we managed to execute well. Those are the main reasons.
That ends our Q&A session.
Thank you. Thank you very much, and have a nice afternoon. Thank you.