Good morning and welcome to Kamux's Q3 results presentation. My name is Katariina Hietaranta, and I'm Head of Investor Relations at Kamux. We have our CFO, Eero Sintonen, and CEO, Juha Kalliokoski, presenting the results, after which we will have a Q&A session. Go ahead, Juha.
Thank you. Good morning. My name is Juha Kalliokoski, and I'm back as the CEO of Kamux since October 16. As Katariina said, Enel, I shall now guide you through Kamux Q3 results. Here is the agenda for the presentation. As usual, we shall first take a look at the quarter in brief, Kamux market positions, and what our showrooms network looks like at the moment. I shall then lead you through our review by country, after which Enel will present in more detail the financial development of the company. Towards the end of the presentation, we will take a look at where we are in terms of our long-term targets, a few words about our strategy, and at the end, we will have a Q&A session. During Q3, we continued our focus on profitability and improving the financial health of the company.
We have successfully reduced the average price of the cars we sell as planned. This contributed to revenue decrease, although the main component was the decrease in the number of cars sold. Our revenue decreased by 17%. Our focus on profitability has paid off, and the gross margin has increased from 9.8% to 10.9%. The improved gross margin was, however, not sufficient to compensate for the decrease in revenue, and subsequently, our gross profit decreased. Our adjusted operating profit decreased from EUR 5.5 million to EUR 4.3 million. Our cash flow has been extremely strong, EUR 31.5 million in January to September, and our inventory is at a healthy level as we enter the quarter period towards the end of the year. Revenue from the integrated services decreased from EUR 14.6 million to EUR 13.7 million as a result of a decrease in revenue and the number of cars sold.
However, the share of integrated services in revenue increased by 5.2% to 5.9%. Consumer preference towards affordable cars continued in all our markets. Customer satisfaction was at a good level and a targeted level, and NPS was as high as 63 in Finland. Used car markets grew in Finland and Germany, while in Sweden the market was flat. In Finland, finally, it was the sales by dealers that grew during the quarter, while earlier in the year, market growth came mainly from consumer-to-consumer sales. Kamux continues to be the number one player in the Finnish market, measured in the number of cars sold. In Sweden, we are number eight, and in Germany, our market share is still very small. A few words about the new car sales. On a year-to-date basis, the growth in new car registration in Europe has been very modest, less than 1%.
In Kamux operating countries, registration has grown only in Sweden, while in Finland and Germany, the new car market is either flat or negative. In the big picture, Kamux is Europe's fourth-largest seller of used cars in Europe, and those figures are from last year. Here is an update on our showrooms network during 2025. As of today, we have 68 showrooms. In Finland, we have closed two showrooms, Savonlinna and Mäntsälä, during the year. By the end of November, our showroom in Jyväskylä, Central Finland, will move to new premises that are owned by us and built to suit our needs. The total number of showrooms in Finland is now 42. We have not made any changes in Sweden, where we continue to have 17 showrooms. I shall come back to our plans in Sweden later in the presentation.
The Sweden showroom in Germany was opened in early July, and we currently have nine showrooms in Germany. Moving to the comments per country. In Finland, we succeed in consumer purchase during Q3 very well. This is particularly important now, as importing from abroad is not easy due to the low level of prices for used cars in Finland. Our strong focus has been on more profitable sales, which has led to decreased volumes. We are continuously working to find the right balance between volumes and margin. Gross margin per car sold increased both in euros and in percentage, which we are very satisfied with. For the quarter, Finland gross margin grew from last year's 10.3% to 11.6%. The adjusted operating profit margin increased slightly, although in euros we fell behind the comparison period. Adjusted EBIT margin is also above the 4% level.
As of September 1, Joni Tuominen was appointed Managing Director of Kamux Finland, having acted as an interim MD since mid-April. Sweden. It has been a pleasure to see our Swedish team making a strong turnaround. Compared to Q3 in 2024, our operating results improved by EUR 1 million, which is a great achievement. In Sweden, too, the focus on profitability has had a downward impact on sales volume. We have succeeded in increasing the margin per car, as well as significantly strengthening the penetration rates for both financing from 48% to 53% and Kamux Plus from 16% to 25%. Customer satisfaction has also risen close to the group's target level, and NPS was 58 in Q3. We have completed the assessment of our network in Sweden and decided not to make any major changes at the moment.
The current network is sufficient for a profitable business in Sweden, and it also allows growth. We believe it's possible to have a profitable business in Sweden, and it's very much in our plans. Our team in Sweden has already made a clear positive turn by progressing according to plan for two quarters in a row. The results are already visible both in the financial KPIs as well as operational efficiency and customer feedback. Germany. Challenges on car selection and volumes continued during Q3. Sales volumes were weak, primarily due to the car selection that did not match the demand well enough. The revenue was impacted by the weak volumes and the margins by the inventory management measures we took, selling out or getting rid of low-demand stock. Subsequently, the operating results were negative.
Markus Mescoli started as the Managing Director for Germany on the 1st of July, and together with him, we have started to turn the business around. As in Sweden, in Germany, we work in close cooperation with Markus to build daily operative routines in line with the Kamux concept. Going forward, this will help us to achieve first-decent car margins and thereby build the profitability of the business and support our ability to grow. As one of the first steps, we modified our purchasing process and ensured that our selection meets the demand better. Here you are, Enel. You are going to the finals, more details about the financials.
Thank you, Juha. As noted by Juha already, our focus has been on financial health and what it means. First, our focus continued to be at car pricing and margins, and we continued to be selective on deals. Second, we continued to work with inventories with focus on capital efficiency, fit with volumes, car selection fit to consumer demand. Key achievements of the quarter were we achieved clear improvement in margin and profit per car. Both Finland and Sweden progressed as planned. In Germany, as noted by Juha already, we faced challenges, and we worked intensively and with discipline to turn the profitability into the right direction there. We reached our targets on inventory levels and progressed well with inventory structure and selection fit. Declined inventory levels contributed well to liquidity.
We have now EUR 20 million cash at the end of the period, and it enables growth as well as investments in the future. Focus on profitability had also some adverse impacts. At the expense of being selective on deals and targeting higher margins, we lost some of the volumes. Volumes dropped exceeded our assumptions, and we needed to issue profit warning in October. Part of the volume drop, not significant though, was due to smaller showroom network. Here are the numbers and summarizing key financial ratios. Revenue declined 17%. Key drivers were underlined earlier. Gross margin to revenue improved 1.1 percentage points, which agrees with our targeted levels and was based on our plans. Operating result to revenue improved from 1.5% to 1.8%. Key contributors were improved gross margin and almost absence of items affecting comparability. Adjusted operating result declined slightly from 2% to 1.8%.
Operating costs did scale, however, not at full scale. Inventory days improved slightly. However, this is the area we have clearly room for improvement, and work intensifies on this measure. Return on equity calculated from rolling 12-month result is at clearly unsatisfactory level, especially due to two notably weak quarters of Q4 2024 and Q1 2025. In equity ratio, we have reached 50% level. As a summary, the financial performance of the quarter demonstrates that we are directing our focus and efforts in the right areas. A key area to improve is finding a right balance between profitability and volumes. After two quarters of improving our daily routines on car profitability and inventory fit, as well as strengthened cash position, I think we are better equipped to go for volumes. We do it step by step with focus and also needed patience.
Here we can see revenue and adjusted operating result trends. Looking this year, you can see that Q1 we had a negative result, and this is the only quarter in this slide from 2022 to 2025 that is a negative. Going to Q2, we can see here going up and also Q3 going further up. It is quite a nice trend. However, as said, we are not satisfied with the levels that we have right now. Going to Q4 last year was very weak on profitability-wise, and this is something now we are working to make a clear better result there. Here we can see the trend in volumes. Volumes declined in a quarter, but less than in Q2, mostly due to profitability focus and with slight impact from lower showroom network.
In Q2, so previous quarter, we sold about 3,800 cars less compared to the previous year's same quarter, and in Q3 we sold about 2,800 cars less than in previous year's same quarter. We have done some positive trend in here, but clearly we work on the volumes going forward. At the end of the third quarter, our cash position was EUR 20 million, and as noted earlier, this gives us a good position going forward. We are satisfied with a combination of strong operating cash flows and positive car profitability development. Our integrated services revenue development was hit by lower volumes. We are not satisfied with this trend, even though the share of integrated services has slightly increased in total revenue. Here is a visual representation of how our net working capital developed. We can see EUR 24 million reduction in net working capital driven by decline in inventory.
I can say that our inventory is in a better fit from both structural and also price points perspective. In October, as you know, we had to lower our profit guidance for the year. We have been successful in improving our profitability, but this work has had an impact on our volumes. With a number of cars sold lower than our forecast, the adjusted operating profit in EUR is also estimated now to be lower than expected earlier. We have also announced that our dividend distribution in October, we did it, and dividend EUR 0.07 was paid at the last day of October. This morning, we have announced a share buyback program based on the annual general meeting mandate. Board of the Directors have decided to acquire at maximum 1 million shares, corresponding to approximately 2.5% of the company's total number of shares.
The maximum amount to be used for the repurchase of shares is EUR 2.5 million, and the program will commence earliest on November 17th this year. Juha, back to you.
Thank you. A few words about our long-term targets and strategy. With regard to our long-term targets, we are currently behind in the financials, but still believe that these targets are doable in the long term. As we have just heard, we have already made progress in improving our profitability, particularly in Finland. Sweden is also progressing in the right direction. In customer satisfaction, we have progressed very well, and the group NPS for Q3 was 60. We hit our target. In October, the group NPS was as high as 66. Here is our current management team. I had the opportunity to work with the team in an operative role for eight months before starting as CEO. It gave me an opportunity to get to know them slightly differently than had I been the CEO. I was also involved in a number of the recent recruitments.
Kamux has been an entrepreneur-led company. As the company grew, we needed a unified way of working, and this is what we began with Tapio in charts. We will continue to define and implement common ways of working, so this will not change. We will continue to work with optimizing volume and profitability, data-driven pricing, and S&OP processes, as well as inventory management. We will focus on the net working capital, I mean, and we mean no lazy capital. At the center are naturally our passionate and capable employees. We have invested in training our employees and will continue to do so. One of the areas where we are proud is our customer satisfaction and demonstrated in our Q3 NPS, which was 60. Going forward, we also want to ensure that our personnel have the opportunity to succeed in their work. Our strategy remains unchanged.
We have already made good progress on the customer side, as is seen in our NPS figures. We have also made some progress in improving our operating efficiency, but here we have still clearly more to do. The direction is right, and we still have a lot to achieve. Our vision also remains unchanged to become the number one used car retailer in Europe.
Thank you, Juha. Now it's time for questions, and we shall begin with taking questions from the telephone conference line if there are any.
If you wish to ask a question, please dial pound key five on your telephone keypad to enter the queue. If you wish to withdraw your question, please dial pound key six on your telephone keypad. The next question comes from Maria Wikström from SEB. Please go ahead.
Yes, hello, this is Maria Wikström from SEB, and for Juha, welcome back to a CEO role. I wanted to start with asking a question on the volume trends. Obviously, I mean, this is what has been the recent problems. I think everything starts with volumes. If you could walk me through a bit of the actions, what you are taking in order to resume volume growth in the future.
Thank you. Thank you, Maria. If I start, you must choose your games where you want to win. We chose in last spring the profitable business, and we started there. Now we are in a situation, as we saw from our figures, that in two quarters we improved our gross margin in Sweden and in Finland. Now we are in a situation that we can push cars on the volumes. Of course, inside the company, we have many things what we are doing, and we believe that we can change our growth side also.
If I may continue a bit there, given that the NPS has been, I mean, very low in the last 12 months, and I'm wondering if this is a correlation with lower number of cars sold, which, I mean, then of course reduces the compensation for your salespeople, and how you are able to turn this around in a very competitive used car market that we are seeing today.
Low NPS.
Yeah, it's one focus area what we showed to keep the people what we have, and it's balance between the demand for the employees and also the happiness of the people. Even we sell less cars and improved our margin, it means that the salary side is not impacted so much when we compare the gross margin, what was the changes in the countries. I don't see that this is the area why the employee turnover was quite high, but this is totally the key area that we want to keep the people in the company and give more time for this team and make a better job together all.
My last question is towards your international operations, and I might even know the answer by now, but I'm still asking if, as it seems that your patience with turning around the Swedish and German operation is endless. Have I interpreted this right that even if you haven't returned positive numbers, I mean, from neither of the geographical areas until today, you are still ready to, patient enough to wait to get the turnaround in both of the regions?
Yeah, we are focusing on the turnaround case in both countries, and as we saw, Sweden happened a huge change. In Germany, we are doing daily routines, the better level, and see also the possibilities, and we are continuing in both countries the business.
Yes, thank you. I have no further questions at this point.
Thank you.
The next question comes from Calle Loikkanen from Danske Bank. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thank you. Thank you. This is Calle Loikkanen from Danske Bank. I have a few questions. If we start with Sweden, could you perhaps talk a bit more about your kind of upcoming plans in Sweden? I mean, you have done now the network assessment. What are kind of the next steps to drive growth? Also, where do you see that the EBIT margin could kind of realistically go with this setup, with this network that you now have within, let's say, a couple of years?
If I separate the two parts to question, the first part, we see, of course, we know how many cars we can put in our stores, what we have, or premises what we have, and it gives the possibilities for us to grow with the stores what we have now. The focus is to make bigger and better businesses in this setup what we have just now. Of course, we are looking into further what is the new way of working and to make a business used car business. The other part, we are not announced about or published to country by country EBIT levels, and we have the one target in long-term target, which is 4% in the group level.
Okay, okay, that's fair enough. I was wondering about Germany. You mentioned inventory management during the quarter, so I was wondering, is there more inventory actions that you need to do during Q4, or was everything done now in Q3?
Of course, it's not one of when you are on a daily basis work with the inventory, and you can't make it once. It takes a little bit more time, some months, that you can turn the inventory right direction, and you are purchasing the right cars to the inventory. The major changes, we changed in Q3.
Okay, okay. That's clear. Then on Finland, you said that the market growth was driven mostly by dealer volumes now in Q3. I was just wondering what has changed in the market, because it's been a very consumer-driven market now for many quarters. Has something changed in the market, and do you expect this dealer-driven market to continue in Q4 and onwards?
Of course, we wish and hope that the car dealers' share of the deals are increasing, and it's maybe something about the customer, what is the word of consumer confidence. Consumer confidence is increasing. It means that consumers are purchasing or buying a little bit more expensive cars, and it means a bigger share from the deals to the car dealers, because typically the consumer business, it's a very low price point for the cars. It's only some thousand EUR, thousand EUR, the average price. I don't actually know what was the reason in Q3, this change what happened, but of course it's a good situation that it changed for the more car dealers-driven growth.
Okay, okay. That's clear. Finally on my side, you've been doing very well now in terms of profitability and kind of margin improvement. Of course, the cost side here has been then the volumes, but I was wondering that now you've made a good improvement on the margin, is it now time to push more for volumes going into Q4 and into 2026, or how do you think about the profitability versus volumes now versus what you've done over the past, let's say, couple of years, sorry, couple of quarters?
Yeah, it's a totally good question, Calle. As I mentioned earlier, we are focused on the profitability and turned the right direction, and now we are in a situation that we can balance between the profitability and the volumes and push cars more about the volume side. We believe that we can grow, and of course, calculate together to integrate with the integrated services, what is the right balance between those.
Yes, and just to add, when looking back to Q4 last year, looking at the volumes and then profitability, you can see there that we were, how to say, focusing more on volumes compared to profitability. This gives us that our comparative numbers in Q4 volumes is, how to say, a challenge in that sense, however, the profitability is, how to say, in a more moderate level. The last year, Q4 volume focus is giving us some maybe challenge.
Yeah, and maybe one point more. If you compare a year back, we have now EUR 30 million less inventory and a lower average price point. It means very much lower risk compared to a year ago, because it was quite a big crash what we had a year ago.
Yes, thank you. That's a very good point, and thank you. That's a good explanation. Is there any kind of, you said, lower price point in the inventory? Is there any number that you could give us, like how many % lower is the price point now, or something that you would like to share?
Not at this moment to share.
Okay. Fair enough. That's all from me. Thank you.
Thank you.
There are no more questions at this time, so I hand the conference back to the speakers.
Very good. Thank you. I think that we shall next take a couple of questions here from the audience, and then we'll go with the questions received in the chat. Okay, Rauli, please.
Yeah, thanks to Rauli from Inderes. A few maybe more detailed questions continuing on the inventory you mentioned. Typically, the seasonality on the inventories is that it goes down in Q4, so or end Q3 to end Q4, so are you expecting that also in this year, even if your kind of starting point is quite a bit lower than typically?
Yeah, we are quite a good level at the end of Q3, and we do not have a pressure to give a lower number at the end of value of the end of the year. Of course, it is the condition of the inventory. How fresh it is. This is more about the things what we are just now doing.
Okay, okay, thank you. In Finland, you mentioned that you had discontinued the cooperation with Bilia, or Bilia, whatever it's pronounced, so can you open a bit about that? Why was that ended, and are you considering your own leasing offering?
Yeah, we looked through about the contract and the business, how it went, and we did not see it is so good business for Kamux that we made decision that we ended that. Of course, it is a very small part of our business, and we will see if there are coming some other products for this segment.
Okay, okay. Finally, the Kamux Plus penetration in Finland was, if I didn't look right, it was the lowest in a few years, even if not that much, but still below 30%. Is there any particular explanation why that's down?
Maybe one part is the average price what we sold. It was lower, and it typically goes so that the penetration is higher when you sell the more expensive, a little bit expensive car, and this is maybe one part. The second part is, of course, where we are focusing, and it's also on the table to sell better penetration of the Kamux Plus.
All right, thank you.
Further questions from the audience? Okay.
Jussi Koskinen. In history, Kamux had competitive advantages like selling services and management with data. How it's nowadays, if we are targeting towards 4% EBIT margin, do we have some new advantages in competition, or is it about executing old advantages better?
As we see in Finland, we are over 4% level, and still we are not satisfied at that level where we are. We can improve that. When we come to Sweden and Germany, in our side, it's possible to achieve those targets in this business where how we work just now. Of course, we are thinking all the time where the used car business are going and what we are taking from there.
Okay, then about profitability and volumes, just wondering if they are really against each other? I mean, if you are selling more volumes, you have more turnover against those fixed costs. Focusing instead of volumes to profitability, are they really opposed to each other?
Yes, those are, because when we speak only about the cars, and if you give the very big discounts, you can make a deal, but you do not have any metal margin or very low level metal margin. You have only the integrated services, and as we see what is the part of the integrated services from our gross margin, we can make 4% in group level EBIT if we do that. Of course, it is balance between, and maybe we went in some cases quite straightforward and very small discounts what we gave, especially in Finland, and it came against us when we speak about the volume.
Yes, I just wanted to add here, when thinking about profitability, it's also purchase and sales, so we are more careful what we purchase to ensure that what we sell is also profitable. Being at the lower level right now, two quarters, it has also given us opportunity to strengthen our daily routines on this and how we think about car business overall. I think that your question, yes and no, so you have answered already that, but the question also is how we consider what is the business we are at and what we want to achieve longer term.
Is it basically achieving more customer inflow to your shop so that you can pick the most attractive ones? Okay, final question about cost. There are two kinds of cost: purchasing price of cars, but then operational costs. Do we have any opportunities with operational costs, how to operate car business more efficiently?
Thank you for the question. Yes, when we look at the first showroom costs, this is something the question is, what is our showroom network, what is the capacity, and we can see that we have still, how to say, capacity in place for higher volumes. We can do some changes there in the future when and if needed. Another thing is, of course, when we're looking at the customer journey and how we get more traffic, this is something that is changing quite intensively, the cost structure and there, so this is something we are working also significantly. Also, salaries and pay for the staff. We have fixed, but also a very big part of variable, so fixing also salary models is something. A significant part is we can scale, so room for improvement, I would say.
Yeah, just a year ago, we invested in the new provinces, Helsinki-Herttoaniemi, Espoo-Friisilä, and Vantaa-Petikko, three big stores, quite high costs, and as we saw, our sales declined. At the same time, you took in higher costs and lower sales. It's not a good combination, and now we are tackling that.
Did I remember right that in U.S., kyllä, we have built our own premises?
Yeah, yeah.
What is the strategy with that instead of renting premises, having own one?
Yeah, we looked at their premises quite a long time, and we did not find that good for us, and that is why we made the decision that we can have some own premises and in a good place and just made for us. For example, Tampere-Lakalaiva, which is not our own, but made clearly for us, and all of those work very well.
Thank you, Tatu-Solo.
Thank you.
Thank you. We have a couple of questions online via the chat. First, it's about the volumes. Mika from DNB Carnegie is asking that you've experienced sequential quarterly volume declines while the overall used car markets in your operating countries were growing slightly. This suggests significant market share loss. What specific leading indicators are you tracking to signal when volume declines will stabilize, and what is your realistic expectation for when unit sales will return to growth? Also, do you think the long-term target of 100,000 cars sold per annum need to be reassessed given the smaller store footprint and continued market share losses?
What a long question.
Yes. Maybe focusing in terms of what specific leading indicators are you tracking to signal when volume declines will stabilize?
As we see in the markets, in all our markets, it's not the reason that the market declined. It's our own hands, how we take about the market and market share. As we mentioned earlier, that we focused on the profitable side and financial health, and now we are looking more about the volume side.
Very good. I believe that we have stated that the long-term target, 100,000 cars, is still valid, and there's been no change in that. Mika is also asking about Germany in terms that Germany has been described as undergoing a strategic restart, but shows deepening losses, management changes, and ongoing inventory and assortment issues. At what point do you consider a full exit from Germany to preserve capital?
As we mentioned earlier, we are focusing in both countries. We are not losing those. I would say that our concept works in Germany. It is more about how we handle it by daily routines and make the business on a daily basis. We are continuing in Germany.
Very good. We also have a question a bit broader on the European market. There are some strong players like Aramis or Aures, and yourself. Do you think there is some room for cross-border consolidation among those independent used car retailers? There are some interesting largely untapped markets, such as Poland, Baltics, etc.
Yeah, I remember Tapio earlier told about our strategy, and one part is and possibilities to make acquisitions. Of course, it is.
Very good. I have no further questions via the chat. What about the audience? Everyone happy? Very good. Then I thank everyone and wish you all a good day. Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Bye-bye.