Good afternoon. Welcome to Kamux Corporation's Capital Markets Day. My name is Satu Otala, and I'm Communications Director at Kamux. We're very excited today because actually this is Kamux's first Capital Markets Day ever. Just on Friday, we published Kamux's strategy for the years 2021 and 2023, and that's what we'll focus on today. Our two-hour event consists of three presentations. We'll start with market trends and strategy presented by CEO and Founder of Kamux, Juha Kalliokoski. We'll dive into digital world with CDO Mikko-Heikki Inkeroinen. The third and final presentation is held by CFO Marko Lehtonen, who will guide us through the financials. We'll have a Q&A session after each presentation, and we'll try and answer as many questions as possible. I really hope you enjoy this afternoon with us, and I think we're ready to begin. Let's start. Juha, the stage is yours.
Okay. Thank you, Satu, and welcome to Kamux's first Capital Markets Day. My name is Juha Kalliokoski. I'm CEO and Founder of the company. Today, we will present Kamux strategy. Actually, I would like to start from the very beginning by telling shortly the background of Kamux. Before Kamux, I had 10 years experience from new car sales and from used car sales in brand dealerships. Based on what I had learned and understood about this business, I took a bold leap and founded the company in 2003 with my wife. The idea was simply to make living for our family. In 2004, the first whole year, what we had, the company had, the revenue was EUR 4.8 million and profit, EUR 200,000 . In 2006, we opened the second and third store.
As things went well, the business idea developed, development further, and we decided to open more stores. In 2011, we had 13 stores in Finland, and we started looking at abroad. After the market study, the first store in Sweden was opened at the end of 2012. Our ambition grew, and we saw an opportunity to expand internationally. We knew German market already as a purchase market. After studying it more, we entered the market in 2015. The growth continued, and in 2017 the company was listed in Nasdaq Helsinki. Today, Kamux has reached a point where we have sold more than 300,000 cars. We have 78 stores in three countries, and our revenue is over EUR 724 million and EBIT approximately EUR 31 million. Now is again the time take next steps in Kamux story. Again, opportunity is there. Again, we take an ambition leap.
Kamux strong ambition defines this strategy period. When we look at the market, we feel that the timing is right to accelerate growth, in fact, to take a growth leap. This is supported by our experience from Sweden and Germany. That creates foundation for ambitions growth target. Although we still live with the coronavirus pandemic, and there will be different paces with the pandemic during this year, we at Kamux already look forward beyond this pandemic. Our vision remains unchanged. Kamux vision is to be number one used car retailer in Europe. The used car market is massive. It is 2x bigger than new car market in European level. It's stable even in economics cycles. It is highly fragmented, enormous amount of small players, most of them local or the site of new car dealerships. The used car market is attractive.
Kamux wants to seize this opportunity. This is an example from Finland. The same trend can be seen into other countries as well. New car sales reacts to economic cycles. There are ups and downs, whereas the used car sales is steady and slightly increasing. Used cars and new cars are a different business, but there is a connection since new cars become used cars. New car sales affects the availability of used cars. In European Union, the new cars registrations declined by -23.7% in 2020, affected by the global pandemic. The market size is huge, EUR 100 billion in these three countries alone. The car fleet in these countries has kept on increasing during the recent years. Because of the market size, there is the fantastic opportunity to grow, and because of the market size, there is a lot of room for different concepts and operators.
This slide reflects the fragmentation of the market. Top five operators take rather a modest share of the market in every country. Consumer to consumer sales is declining. We can see a trend downwards. We see a market gap, a demand for a branded retail chain focusing on used cars. In Finland, five biggest players take about 20%, in Sweden 10%, and in Germany only 2%. The markets are not in a standstill. There are different trends and changes affecting the market. The pandemic had a different impact on used car markets in different countries. In 2020, the market grew in Finland and Sweden. In Germany, the market declined. Germany is not as digital as Finland and Sweden, and there were lockdowns and strict restrictions during the year. Impact of the coronavirus pandemic can be seen in total volume. Five key trends affecting used car retail.
Consolidation is proceeding, and there are new operators entering the market. The consumer to business purchase are more in focus. The role of digital is increasing and willingness to buy online increasing. Kamux is well-equipped to serve customers omnichannel or 100% online. Monthly-fee driving service and private leasing are the most interesting of new models. In fact, here I can reveal you that in March, Kamux is implementing a pilot project. We will test monthly-fee driving service in one showroom to see if there is a customer demand and how does it look from a business perspective. Different options or concepts are appearing and disappearing, none of them gaining a significant market share. We follow the market and development closely. Power source is not restricting us. We sell what customer wants. The market defines price level for different cars.
We are in trading, and we operate according to market parameters. To serve customer interested in ecological cars, we have a Kamux Green shop-in-shop concept. These new ownership models are based on having a car, a service instead of investments. There are new ownership models and shared mobility services appearing and disappearing. It seems that it's difficult to build profitable business concept in these areas, at the moment, at least. We often get question related to electric cars and their impact on our business. We are not dependent on power sources or brands or models. We welcome alternative power sources and offer a selection of different options to our customers. Last year, 29% of cars that Kamux imported to Finland were hybrids, gas, or electric cars. Implication of these trends to Kamux business concept. Ongoing trends.
Changing market dynamics, increasing cross-border sourcing. Boosting brand awareness and products quality to improve customer retention. Rise of online. Focusing on bigger stores to support online sales. Investing in data and analytics to improve processes and enable the further digitalization of customer journey. Emerging trends. New ownership models, adding potential new services and purchase methods to portfolio. Shared mobility services, following the development of different service models and keeping an eye open on market development. Electric vehicles, matching assortment focus with changing customer demands. We are ready to seize the great, fantastic market opportunity. To put on shortly, our strategy has two perspectives, to accelerate growth and to elevate scalability. Our focus areas, we aim to have seamless omnichannel service and the best digital purchase path on the market. To achieve that, we utilize our strengths such as cross-selling. Our customer proposition is twofold, attractive prices and trust.
In developing new services, we have customer-oriented approach. We improve the efficiency of our processes and industrialize them. We will shift towards fewer but larger showrooms, while further development car inspection and other procedures related to cars. We will continue keeping fixed cost low. Data and analytics guide our sales, purchasing, and pricing. We utilize data in developing the customer experience and online shopping. To develop our capabilities and invest heavily in our personnel and continuous learning and career path at all levels of the organization. I'm very happy to tell that growth means also creating jobs. During our three-year strategy period, we will hire 1,000 new employees. These are the cornerstones of Kamux concept. The business model remains unchanged. We will develop it to elevate scalability and accelerate growth. Regarding the customer proposal, our new strategy highlights the importance of trust.
I would like to mention two things regarding the operational model. Measures related to the strategy are planned to have a positive impact on inventory management. Low fixed cost model will be an important part of our concept in the future as well. We are ambitious. We want to accelerate growth. We want to gain market share. Our ambition lead towards nearly doubling our revenue by 2023. Thank you very much from your attention. I'm happy to answer your questions.
What and how Kamux is doing better than the other car retailers?
It's retail and daily business, which means that there is hundreds of small things what must do better than the competitors when we want to take market share as we can show to our background. Of course, there are how we use the data and analytics and how we teach and learn our people, educate them. Our purchase team, how we use data in purchase. Next coming years, these bigger stores where we can handle different type of roles to our employees.
How big percentage does Kamux see to take of a EUR 100 billion market?
Now we have only 1.7% from this, the total our market share from this total market in these three countries. Of course, this is the next step in next three years what we told, and we speak a little bit later after some years where we are going. As we said that our ambition is to be number one used car retailer in Europe.
Could you give some details on pilot test for new ownership models?
We tell it later when the product and service is ready to coming to market. I think that just now is not a good time to tell what is included in.
Can you talk us through your ambition to almost double the sales in 2023?
Excuse me.
Can you talk us through the ambition to almost double the revenue by 2023? How to double the revenue?
We open new stores, we hire more people and also different roles. Of course, it means that most of the new employees are also salespeople. These digital tools, what Mikki tell a little bit later, needs people that they serve the customer when they are on a journey to purchase the car. There are many components digital tools, but at the same time grow bigger stores and more stores and more sellers.
Is your focus on all of Germany or more specifically North Germany?
Why we started north of Germany, because in Sweden we started so that we opened many stores all over the Sweden and when the team is quite young and not so experienced it's hard to take care of all stores. This was the reason why we opened in big Hamburg area, these first stores. We think so that now is time to go to next area and of course, we understood the whole German market, but area by area, that not in south part of Germany and north part. Next coming, the next area where we are starting business.
Can you explain a bit more the balance between hiring 1,000 more people in 2021, 2023 versus current 700 plus employees versus nearly doubling revenues by 2023?
Of course, 80% our employees are salespeople. It means that they are some rotation and we need more people, but also hired when we lose some seller. We think so that, we want that we grow faster than our employees, total employees percentage.
Hiring new people, how much will that burden margins?
As we know the Kamux model low fixed costs, most of our employees are salespeople, they have small fixed salary and other incomes where the company earnings. I don't see problems between the company earnings and the EBIT level if we compare the people what we are hire.
Actively looking at expanding to new countries?
Not just now. We are happy to grow in these three countries. As I mentioned that the market is so huge that we don't need just now new country. Next coming years it's of course coming, but what is the year we don't know. Now we focus our all results to growing in these three countries.
What is the biggest risk for succeeding with the new 2023 strategy?
This is the people. We need so much people, and if we can't hire the right persons and educate them so well this is the biggest risk we see. At the same time, as I mentioned that we focus and put lot of effort and money and investments to educate our managers to help our people do the good job.
How do you perceive AUTO1's ambition to aggressively expand to B2C business with Autohero?
AUTO1 Group and Autohero is one competitor in the market. AUTO1 Group is totally the different business because they are B2B. Autohero is the online shop. As we mentioned that the market is so huge that there can be many different concepts. For example, if we compare in U.S., there is CarMax, and Carvana and many others. They have different concepts and only some percent market share from the huge market in there. I see the same like in European level, that there can be many different players.
Analysts compare Kamux with CarMax in U.S.A. Is it a good comparison and what are the differences or similarities?
There are many things which are the same, of course, focus to used cars, Kamux 100% and CarMax nearly 100%. They have also car services, what we don't have. They have fixed prices, and we don't have fixed prices. They have stores and online sales as well we have. Of course, the market is huge in U.S. The stores are, if I say that $100 million per store or maybe more, but the size is very much bigger than what we have nowadays.
As you grow with larger showrooms, should we expect inventory turnover to improve or worsen?
I think, or we think so that we can be more effective when we have bigger stores. Also we have different part in these locations, what we don't have nowadays. In big picture, I think that it's a positive thing compare smaller or bigger stores.
Accelerating growth from 10%-20%, what are the key bottlenecks or difficulties you need to navigate?
As I mentioned, hire the right people and educate them, this is the hardest part of the next coming years.
If there is a recession, economical cycle downwards, what is the biggest risk?
Of course, if the new car sales declined many years after years, it means that there are not so many used cars on the market and the purchase coming very hard. It can be one risk. Of course, if the COVID-19 takes more time and the people own things when saw that they don't believe to buy cars and use the money, it is also one thing.
What is it that makes the customer choose Kamux?
This is first part, the right pricing, this trust component, and a very good customer service. These are the components which gives the customer for us.
Regarding the 20% growth target, how should we think about growth in different countries? What kind of growth do you think you can reach in Finland compared to Germany and Sweden?
We don't give out market by market growth. We tell the total whole group how much we grow. Of course, we know that our market share in Sweden and Germany are lower than in Finland, and of course these markets are bigger, and it means that bigger part of the growth coming in these abroad countries, Sweden and Germany.
To copy Kamux concept from Finland to other markets, what are the challenges or differences?
Swedish and German customers are as same as in Finland. They are interested in the right quality cars, in the right price, and good customer service. Of course, there are small differences between the countries, for example, trust elements, and how much the customer give the trade-ins for us. If it's in Finland 60% and in Sweden and Germany 20%-30%, this is maybe the biggest differences between the countries.
How can Kamux be ahead of its competitors?
Excuse me.
How can Kamux be ahead, so win the competitors?
As I mentioned that there are huge numbers of players on this used car market. If I remember right, for example, in Germany it's over 30,000 used car sellers, it means that we must be better than most of our competitors when we can take the market share from them.
You have recently announced you are relocating two stores into larger spaces. Now that you are focusing on larger showrooms, will you be actively looking to relocate your smaller locations into bigger ones?
We have quite a short rent agreement, and when the rent agreement is coming at the end of the period, of course, we think town per town, are we happy with this location or choose the bigger one? It doesn't mean that we open very big stores in very small towns. Of course, we calculate how much there are people and what is the best way to operate there. In the big picture, if we think that, for example, German market, that the market is huge. If we open, for example, in many years, 200 stores or 50 stores, this is the big change. We must think on the European level, not only in Finnish perspective.
Are the lower margins in Sweden due to large portion of the revenue coming from intercompany sales? Swedish margin, is it due to intercompany sales?
Yes. It's one part, and the other part is that, of course, integrated services in Sweden and in Germany is lower level than in we are so much smaller one there, but we don't have so good agreements with cooperator, for example, finance and insurance products.
Will the inventory turnover decrease as you grow abroad and cars are not exported to Finland?
We want to buy cars locally, but if we can't buy so much what we want, it means that we must import car from the other countries and in the European level, and it means that it takes time, of course, one to three weeks the car is here in Finland. I don't see the big change next coming years in regions about that.
Is the different amount of trade-in cars a reason for margin differences between Finland and other countries?
Yes, it's good business for us, this trade-in cars. Of course, we don't need buy so much in Finland because trade-in is so much and a high percentage. Of course, these cars are cheaper ones with coming trade-ins, and even the euros are lower level, but the percentage is little higher and it's good business. This is the reason why we also want in Germany and Sweden also take bigger part trade-in cars when we sell the car.
How to increase integrated services sales in Sweden and Germany?
As same as in Finland. It's all the time, every day, teach to our sellers and sales managers and area managers how we can be better in this penetration. At the same time, in the big picture, how good agreements we can negotiate with the cooperator what we have. It's two parts, two components.
What is the average annual employee turnover, 5%, 10%? Is it higher than industry in general?
We don't give it out.
When would you expect to be able to have the same gross margin in Sweden or Germany as in Finland?
If you compare the car market, we think that the margin per car or the car margin, gross margin, it can be the same level when we are good. The other part is the integrated services and how well we can negotiate and grow in these countries, how good agreements we have.
What kind of new integrated services do you plan?
As I mentioned, now we announced the published first one and next coming year is coming more. Of course, we don't tell what we have in our pipeline.
What is the difference in inventory turnover between Finland, Sweden, and Germany?
We don't announce it, but there are not big differences between the countries when the business drives the right way.
How does your inventory turnover compare to your local competitors?
It is in all countries, average the same level, 70-90 days. We have, for example, Q4, it was 47 days. Of course, we don't know exactly some one local competitor's turnover. Average, we are very much faster than the average on the markets.
Your Finnish competitor, Saka, is growing faster than Kamux. Are you worried about that?
Of course, Saka is one competitor in this Finnish market. In Sweden are other ones. In Germany are our third one. They work only in the one country and of course, it giving for us speed also.
You had a change in key personnel in Germany and Sweden. Is it not dangerous to step up growth?
Not yet. We think so that we have good country directors in Germany, very experienced guy, Marcus Mezödi, and his background is last 30 years in car business and in used car business, and we are very happy with him. Tommi Iiskonmäki started just 1st of March in Sweden, and Tommi visited in 2016 and 2017 1 and 1/2 year in Sweden, and after that, near three years in Finland. Tommi is very experienced and good track record with him and we believe Tommi.
Is it right to think that bigger stores need less salespersons per store and more so-called store helpers who clean cars and so on, which is also cheaper workforce?
We don't yet open this, what kind of persons there are and what is the mix between these. This is the better that we know what we do.
Can you tell me more about being better than competitors?
Maybe there is coming after Mikki and Marko's presentation because there is coming more things what helps to understand the Kamux business and concepts.
We have questions regarding investments and some financials, which I'm going to save to our CFO. I think we'll stop for now with the questions and then give the floor to Mikki.
Thank you very much. Welcome, Mikki to stage.
All right. Good afternoon to everyone in the audience. My name is Mikki Inkeroinen, so I'm the e-commerce guy, so I'm responsible of digital tools development and marketing at Kamux. I will be today walking you through how digitalization is fulfilling our customer promise. Car buying has been relatively digital for a long time. Cars are such sizable purchases, of course, for any consumer that the information-seeking phase, quite naturally, is often much more extensive than regarding purchases done more frequently or lesser in value. For the past 10- 15 years, most consumers have already turned to online aggregators and portals to gain information about the cars. What we now know is rapidly changing is how early into the consumer purchasing journey we can place our help and expertise and how ready also the customers are for actual e-commerce even with used cars.
Even as our products are not the easiest ones to sell online, it does increasingly happen, fueled by our own actions regarding transparency about the condition and history of the car, accurate pricing, and policies increasing trust, as well as new services such as the aforementioned Monthly Price Driving. Our digital footprint is increasing quite rapidly. We can currently be found from all the relevant portals and aggregators in the three countries we operate in. However, for us, it is essential to continue to develop our own channels in terms of volumes and of course, in terms of service. It is worthwhile to notice that our own channels, rather than in the portals, we can offer a wide variety of methods to interact with the customer, as well as the key features for reserving and buying cars online. In our largest market, Finland, we're already the largest dealer website.
In Sweden and Germany, we're of course working very heavily towards further development of traffic. What actually makes Kamux a very digitally capable platform for online sales is a long history of having a fulfillment process already geared towards the digital customer. We can deliver cars from all of our stores, always seeking to fulfill the customer promise of having a very large assortment, being able to match the customer's wishes while maximizing the use of our assortment and stock turnover. Thinking from an e-commerce point of view, we, instead of stores, not only have fulfillment centers or shipping warehouses within the three operating markets, but we also can deliver across the markets. The numbers are already high. In Finland, 36% of the sales cases last year were click and collect or cross-sales, if you will, so delivered from afar to the customer.
As you can see from the low amount of in-store only buyers, the stores are very important for us in terms of fulfilling the service, but not of course in the traditional sense of being positioned primarily for the needs of the walk-in customers. The focus in our digital development is twofold. On the one hand, we're creating the best online customer journey, and to enable this and more scalability in our operations, we're constantly improving and streamlining the core processes we have. Nowadays, this often surfaces as more and more digital services visible for the customer. If we first look at the consumer journey, our mission is to make sure that Kamux or Kamux employees are with the customer more and more already early in the research and consideration phases.
In order to ensure the best service and a solid experience, the first contact is to happen through, for example, assisted selling online through chat, phone, or video. Some of the maybe less well-known elements might be also very integral for the customer experience, but in very minute ways, like being able to get pre-qualified for finance online, removing the need to discuss your financial situation with a seller in store, something which is, especially in Finland, important where talking is not always held in high value. As I said, we're already capable of handling the buying process end to end online. When it comes to deliveries, our process enables the customer to receive a car quickly, whether it's currently in your hometown, on the other side of the country, or even from another country altogether.
The actual improvements to our customer's journey happen with improving efficiency, quality, and transparency with the core process improvements. The car selling process includes a vast multitude of phases. It's very complex, enabling the customer to actually find and get what he or she wants, and at the same time enabling Kamux to run the operation efficiently. Examples of such items improving customer experience while improving the operation efficiency range from demand forecasting to meet the customer's needs in terms of the assortment to marketing, showcasing the assortment in the arenas where the customer can be first met, and pricing, keeping the product at an affordable price, also at the same time meeting the Kamux brand promise. Within the internal processes, we've also already been able to significantly reduce manual work and paper processes, for example, in title and registration.
This work continues, and it must continue, for example, with further introduction of electronic signatures. As Mr. Kalle Kalliokoski just said this month, we're also piloting with monthly price driving. We have really identified a clear change in the way people want to see the purchase, more of as a service rather than an investment. The store network. Our store network is very much relevant for digital online sales as well. The stores at Kamux feature not only as stores in the classic sense, but also as purchase and inspection locations, storage locations, and delivery centers, all of them cornerstones for an online business.
In the future, we will have perhaps fewer stores per market area, but significantly larger in size and located at the outskirts of biggest cities. This provides us with an opportunity towards, of course, a leaner and a more optimized network, but it also enables having more centralized refurbishment plans to support the seamless omnichannel journey. The online sales will not replace the store network, as people still often want to see the car before making the final decision, and as said, the stores do have an important part of the digital sales process as well. Handling, maybe you can think of a lot of the internal processes, and those internal processes are such that we need them in order to, for example, get the cars online, including photography and modeling, for example. Strengthening the foothold regarding physical locations is integral, but of course, the strategic interest lies with data.
Internal, our own data is key. Having sold over 300,000 cars, we have an excellent grip on, for example, the service and repair costs of any given make or model after-sales. This aids us to predict problems and after-costs better than others. Again, external data can be obtained from multiple sources. The trick is how to integrate such data seamlessly in order to aid the sellers and purchasers towards better sales performance, more accurate pricing, resulting in faster inventory turnover, better car placements, and from the marketing perspective, for example, more efficient routine in terms of balancing the investment per vehicle according to the interest each individual vehicle has.
Bringing more of the data visible to the consumers, for example, with public honest condition estimates or data from the official vehicle registries, help us to keep our customer promise, both regarding the affordable pricing and being trustworthy. I think this is where it all starts to come together. At the same time, helping the customer on the customer journey earlier than before, improving the internal process with more data, eliminating manual work, and streamlining the store network in terms of, yes, physical locations, but also the stock composition. Adding things like new services, monthly price driving as an example. All of these improvements or all of the improvements we make are in the end of the day measured with customer service success alone. Our brand is already very well known for affordable prices. That's the cornerstone.
During this strategy period, we are lifting up the brand, especially on the trust dimension, while still strongly, strictly maintaining the pricing positions. To put it simply, actually improving the brand image regarding trust is also a critical task in strengthening our capabilities to do online car sales. The message we're giving out, it's really not only a message. Kamux is affordable. We can prove it, and we are trustworthy. We prove this every day. Success in the aforementioned is measured with sales, of course, and with customer satisfaction. We measure customer satisfaction for every single deal we make and with weekly consumer panels tracking our brand. We are very proud of the measured customer satisfaction we have. We're ever so happy to help our customers in their needs for mobility every day.
If you look at our competitive advantages, having a high performance organization, which also increasingly is employing digital talent in the fields of software development, data analytics, and digital marketing. Again, supporting sales and purchasing with precise on-demand data and better processes, it's providing the company with the elevated scalability, but at the same time, also the customer with the best customer experience. Thank you for listening this presentation. It was a pleasure talking to you today. I'm now open for any and all questions. Thank you.
If you have questions related to online, e-commerce, digital kind of issues, so please put them through. What do you think, is there a price range which is more suitable for online sales in used cars?
Yeah, there definitely is. According to the sales statistics we have, the sweet spot seems to be a pretty well-known brand, let's say a Volkswagen Golf or something similar, ranging from a price range starting at EUR 5,000, but pretty much limited to somewhere around EUR 15,000. I would say that regarding our current e-commerce deals, they have been on the lower side of the average price we normally have in stores. I consider that to be quite natural, and especially the first part, the cars being brand and model-wise, something which you can kind of already identify too, is rather important regarding the online part.
obstacles on the online purchase path?
I think the biggest obstacles have been that it hasn't been that easy to find the connection between what you see online and then what happens in the stores. Building the bridge would at the same time be the biggest obstacle in terms of walking the customer through the funnel to wherever the magic actually happens. At the same time, that is exactly the thing which we want to excel in.
How do you see car sales changing in the future? How many percentages of the sales is made completely digitally?
Although I think that is a good question, we find it rather irrelevant because our perspective on the matter is such that we want to actually employ the very efficient sales guy to be involved in the sales process online anyhow. The importance of if the fulfillment or the signature event happens in the online world or on the physical world, I wouldn't see a big difference there because the fulfillment process for both cases is then again rather similar because it includes very similar elements in either sides of the table. We still need to receive the car through a logistics process. We need to do some refurbishment for the car. There's title and registration, taxation-related issues. It's a quite intensive process, even though it would be on the sales side handled in a pure e-commerce perspective.
Partly towards that world, we're also working with the bigger stores in the future network.
Will Kamux be able to use data to focus procurement to hot cars and reduce inventory turnover with predicting trends and with data?
That is a very good question. I think the answer to that question is quite well-written in the question itself. Yes, that would be one of the cornerstones of our data analytics development together with pricing projects. Pointing the purchases is one thing, then again in our business it is good to remember that we're very much in a trading business, as Mr. Kalliokoski said. We are willing to pretty much buy any car in the market as long as we can find a correct price for that car together with the customer selling it. For example, in Finland, a majority of our purchases are handled as trade-ins. When it comes to trade-ins, that question is not that relevant because we are looking at the car in specific which the customer is offering to us instead of being free to move on the market.
Of course, the latter part of it is super interesting.
Will you implement 360-degree pictures and generally higher quality pictures?
Yes. Improving the quality of images, that's integral for developing any sales we have. We have already started to increase the amount of 360-degree images radically. Now we have a number of locations in Finland capable of doing that, but we will expand this further. We're very interested not only the opportunity the 360-degree imaging provides us, but also the part where the setup, the actual physical device taking the pictures can help us improving the quality of the still pictures as well, so that we have a very uniform way of taking the pictures and showcasing the products to the customers.
Will you need apps or are websites only the right strategy?
Can you repeat the question, please?
Will you need apps, mobile apps, or is it only website strategy?
I consider a mobile website well-built and a app to be pretty much the same thing, unless we can have something in the phone features which would benefit the customer. We do not currently plan to have a dedicated app, of course, that's among the possibilities our toolkit might have in the future.
Can you describe Kamux's core target consumer?
Looking at the assortment, we sell cars from all price ranges. We are very strong in even as low as EUR 5,000 range cars, but we do have a lot of stock also in the + 50,000 region. There's plenty to choose from for all target groups. If you think about Kamux as a brand, of course our wish is to be easily approachable with the everyday partner for your mobility needs. Thus, I'm a bit hesitant to give you very strong boundaries regarding the target group. Everyday people is the ones we definitely would like pleased to serve.
Easiness of purchase is one of the most important factors in e-commerce. What kind of means you have considered to improve the easiness of online purchasing?
A car by nature is definitely not easy to purchase. The vast amount of technical information provided for the customer is a good example where a lot of the consumer connections might be rather difficult. We intend to display the difficult technical data in more understandable formats display official vehicle registry data, tax data in understandable ways, explaining to the customer in a better and a fresh way about the total costs of ownership when it comes to the vehicle. I think that is a good example on how we need to also approach the kind of simplifying car buying, definitely in both elements, physical and online.
Do you have plans to utilize VR, for example, on introduction videos of cars when the technology becomes more mature?
That is rather exciting. We already have a very good concept around using basic tools, such as WhatsApp video conferencing to showcase the cars. That has actually been very important throughout the COVID-19 crisis to be able to connect with the customers and showcase the assortment in new and fresh ways. That would definitely be of an interest to Kamux.
Okay. That finishes our digital questions. We are ready for CFO Marko.
Thank you very much. Have a great afternoon, everyone.
Thank you, Mikki. Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Marko Lehtonen, and I'm Kamux CFO. Juha has told you about our strategic direction, and Mikki told you about our very exciting digital operations. Now I'm going to tell you what this all mean for our shareholders, for our owners. Before we talk about the future, let's shortly take a look at Kamux's past. Kamux has a strong track record growing organically. If you look from year 2007, the revenue was roughly EUR 19 million, and 2020 it was roughly EUR 724 million. For the time period 2014-2020, the compounding average growth rate was 26%, and this growth has been almost fully organic. We had just one small acquisition in 2020. Also, the amount of cars sold has been rapidly growing.
In 2007, we sold roughly 1,800 cars, and during the last year, 2020, we sold roughly 60,700 cars. Also, the amount of showrooms have been growing. In 2007, we had four showrooms, and at the end of last year, we had 78 showrooms in three countries. Growth has been also very profitable and have created value for our shareholders. Our return on equity in the recent years have been around ±25%, and that is among the top 15% in Helsinki Stock Exchange. Our earnings per share have been also growing. In 2016 it was EUR 0.29 per share, and in 2020 it was EUR 0.58 per share. Our dividend has been also growing. In 2016 it was EUR 0.06 per share, and 2020 dividend proposal is EUR 0.24 per share. Dividend proposal for 2020 reflects our growth ambition defined in our new strategy.
Let's look shortly how actually 2020 was looking compared to the other years. 2020 was very exceptional year. Between 2016-2019, Kamux has been growing approximately 12%-25% a year. Despite the COVID-19 pandemic restrictions, our revenue was growing last year 10%, and our adjusted operating profit was near all-time high, 4.2%. Despite the rapid growth, Kamux has been also able to generate strong cash flow from the operations. In 2020, nearly EUR 10.2 million, and Kamux balance sheet is strong. Equity ratio declined slightly in 2019 due to IFRS 16 implementation, but was again in 2020 at good level, being 50.1%. Kamux strong financial position gives us an excellent basis to launch our growth strategy. Integrated services, financing, insurance, and Kamux Plus are very important for our business. Share from the revenue has been growing from 2016, 4.8%-5.1% in 2020.
In integrated services, scale is very important. The bigger you are, the better terms you can get. For example, in last quarter in our Finnish operations, the integrated services revenue was 6% from the revenue. In Sweden, 2.8%, and in Germany, 4.8% from the revenue. We expect integrated services terms and conditions to improve when Kamux is growing abroad. Let's have a few highlights and picks from our 2020 results. I have to note that the trading environment was challenging throughout the whole year, but it was also challenging in the last quarter. However, in the last quarter, revenue was growing 13.3%, and the whole fiscal year revenue was growing 10%. Gross profit and EBIT improved relatively compared to the previous year. Like-for-like revenue decline slowed down in the last quarter, and despite increase of the stock inventory turnover stayed in good level, being 47.2 days.
All this is creating a solid basis for our new strategy. If we look at our international operations. Despite COVID-19 pandemic, our international operations had a strong year. In Sweden, our revenue was growing 40.7% and operating profit 171.1% in the last quarter. In Sweden, we recognized a deferred tax asset, EUR 0.8 million at the end of the last year. This is a proof that our Swedish operations are on the right track. In Germany, we had two lockdowns in 2020, one month in April, and since 16th of December, lockdown started, which is still continuing as we speak. What is remarkable, that we were anyway able to grow in Germany in the last quarter 24.5% revenue, and we also managed last year to make the first ever profitable quarter three in Germany. If we talk about our investments.
Data and analytics guide sales, purchasing and pricing. We utilize data also in developing the customer experience, especially in online shopping. We aim at seamless omnichannel service and the best digital purchase path on the market. Our customer proposition focuses on attractive prices and trust. We employ a customer-oriented approach in developing new services. We improve the efficiency of our processes and logistics and industrialize them. We will further develop car inspection and other procedures related to cars. This we do in order to continue to keep our fixed costs low. We invest heavily in personal competence, continuous learning, and career path at all levels of the organization. Going forward, we will open a fewer number, but larger new showrooms. In the past, we have leased almost all of our showrooms. In future, we can also own strategic store locations, especially with car processing operations.
Benefits for Kamux are that we can better tailor properties for our needs, and we can also have a stronger grip for strategic locations. These kind of locations will not be many per country, and we will continue to lease major part of our properties also in the future in strategy period. Investments will be visible during the strategy period. For example, we have taken into use a new Kamux Management System, so to speak, our sales and CRM system in Germany in December. We will roll out it to other markets during 2021. We are also launching a group-wide training to increase our team leaders and supervisors' capabilities. If we talk about our financial targets. Financial target setting is based on our strong growth ambitions during the strategy period. Growth and scalability will drive our operating profit increase.
If you start with the targets, revenue growth of over 20% annually increasing adjusted EBIT and adjusted EBIT margin over 3.5%. We have to note here that we are not slashing our prices or ballooning the OpEx, but this new target is reflecting mainly this change of sales mix. We have a stronger margin in Finland, but our foreign operations will grow now during the strategic period faster than the Finnish operations. The next target is a return on equity over 25% and target to distribute dividends of at least 25% of net profits. The new dividend distribution target is reflecting the change in our strategy. Proportionally more funds will be allocated to Kamux growth ambitions. If we look a little bit how we achieved the targets or how was the achievement in 2020. Our revenue growth was 10%, which was in line with our previous midterm targets.
Our adjusted operating profit was EUR 30.7 million, and the profit margin was 4.2%, which was also above our previous midterm targets. Our return on equity was 26.3% and proposed dividend is 41%. We have also listened our investors, Now we give for 2021 outlook. In 2021, Kamux expects its revenue to reach EUR 800 million- EUR 850 million and adjusted operating profit to increase from the previous year. We have to bear in mind, we start to implement our new strategy with full steam now, but the results will follow along the three-year strategy period. Corona pandemic is also still among us. If we look how we will increase the profit. During the strategy period, profit increase will follow due to very concrete steps.
The steps are accelerated growth, analytics driven purchasing, sales and pricing, selected additions to service portfolio, exciting area, what we discussed about today, industrialized processes and seamless omnichannel service and bigger stores. Now I will summarize our presentation. This is really about seizing the great market opportunity. The used car market is stable, large and fragmented, and it offers great opportunities for Kamux concept. The next step in our story is to accelerate growth and elevate scalability. To achieve this, we will focus on omnichannel customer experience and services, efficient processes and scalability, utilizing data and leading with knowledge, and developing capabilities and continuous learning. Thank you for your attention, and I'm happy to answer your questions.
There's a question on investments. How much does it cost to establish a larger dealership?
When we think about our strategy period, we have not disclosed an investment target. Of course, if we think about the investment profile, what we have and the areas we invest, they continue relatively similar as in the previous year. Of course, excluding the investments to the bigger stores or the strategic locations, what we might own. Of course, that is different thing. Usually, if we talk about one or individual stores and we talk about our brand lookalike elements, we talk about tens of thousands of EUR. Relatively minor investments in that level.
Will these 1,000 people be in your payroll or outsourced?
Currently, we use, of course, resources which are in our own payroll, and we also use different partners. About that amount of people we discussed, that mainly would be our own people.
Why do you set such a strict dividend policies when you clearly could invest more to grow more?
It's a very interesting question, and dividend always is a balance, and so to say, how the owners would like to that seeing. I think our dividend policy is very logical, so we are putting proportionally more funds to our growth. I know that we have also shareholders to whom dividend is important.
Is there a fundamental reason why you could not reach the same margin in Germany and Sweden compared to Finland in the future?
If we talk about our margin levels, we have defined a margin target for the group level. Fundamentally, there are not big differences in the countries.
You lowered your EBIT margin target to at least 3.5% from previously 4.0%, which will be the year when profits are hurt the most by growth efforts, 2021, 2022, 2023?
Can you still repeat the question, please?
Yeah. You lowered your EBIT margin target to at least 3.5% instead of previous 4.0%, which will be the year when profits are hurt the most by growth efforts, 2021, 2022, 2023?
Okay. Now I understand. As I was saying when I was presenting our outlook, I was saying that we are now putting full steam with our measures to implement the strategy. I think you can also see that the outlook versus the targets, there is a difference.
How did you come to choose 20% growth target and not higher or not lower one?
We had a very careful assessment and process where we looked the growth opportunities, which of course is vast for us. Based on the plans and actions what we have derived from our work, we ended up to this target level.
Kamux has roughly EUR 100 million car inventory. Will you continue to own your inventory, or do you have plans to finance the growing car inventory to release cash and increase return on equity?
Yes. Far, we have owned all the cars what we have, and currently we don't plan any change in that policy. Of course, that would be also one opportunity to increase the finance if that would be needed.
Could you open up what do you mean with industrialization?
With industrialization, we mean standardized processes which are done in centralized ways.
What is your thoughts about buying back shares as part of capital allocation?
It's not excluded, but currently, I don't recognize this kind of plans.
What level do you expect integrated services to be at as a percentage of sales at the end of the strategic period?
We have not disclosed a target level for the integrated services. As I was telling, we know that that is a scale sensitive business, and we expect that the growth will improve the integrated services proportionally.
The auto market is changing rapidly in Europe and offers a structural growth opportunity at attractive returns for Kamux. Why pay a dividend instead of going all in and winning in this structural shift?
I think I partially answered this question, and of course, the dividend is also the vision or the wish of the owners. As I was saying, that according to my mind, we are now making there quite a change, putting proportionally more funds to the Kamux growth ambitions.
Can the EBIT margins in Finland increase further? Will the EBIT margins in Sweden and Germany ever reach Finnish levels?
We have not given a target or ambition levels for the country level EBIT margins. As we discussed, that the European market, or as Juha was also describing in his presentation, that from the car trading perspective, there is no big differences.
Is Kamux gaining market share in Germany while lockdown because it is a strong digital player?
I think our digital operations and remote sales have been a vital part in current trading environment in Germany. Very important for us.
Okay, that finishes our questions for our CFO.
Thanks, Satu. This ends our Capital Markets Day. We hope that you enjoyed this afternoon with us. Thank you.