Good morning, everyone, and welcome to this Posti Group quarterly webcast. Indeed, this is the first one for us as a listed company. We'll go through the result and our highlights together with our CFO, Timo Karppinen. As a headline for the quarter, operational efficiency initiatives in Posti Group delivered a resilient adjusted EBIT margin in a continuously challenging market. Just as a reminder, Posti Group's geographic and business group portfolio: postal services in this quarter three were 34% of our net sales. E-commerce and delivery services slightly up in the weight, 46% of group sales. Fulfillment and logistics services stable at 20% of net sales. If we go to the quarter highlights, the group's net sales did decrease. However, the EBITDA, adjusted EBITDA, and adjusted operating result were at the highest level during this year.
Our operating environment was shaped in Q3, as in the earlier part of the year, by low consumer confidence as well as a weak business environment. Logistics demand remained soft, and there's also the earlier mentioned warehouse overcapacity in Sweden. As in the Finnish economy and in our markets, this has been the situation. We have taken action during the year, throughout the year, and also in Q3. We have implemented several measures to mitigate the impact of this challenging market environment, both on the cost efficiency side and in commercial measures, including price increases. As a result, our operational efficiency has continued to strengthen, leading to improved profitability, and especially in postal services in this quarter. If we look at the quarterly development during this year, Timo will continue with more details, but we expect to have a more normal seasonal pattern during this year.
As you see, the comparable quarters in the first half were very high in 2024. The gap in sales compared to last year has been decreasing as the year has progressed, and it was -3.9% in Q3, mostly driven by postal services decline where we have the discontinuation of unaddressed services as the big impact as well. The adjusted EBITDA in absolute terms and in margin-wise, percentage-wise, has been sequentially improving during the year. Now we reached 14% adjusted EBIT margin in Q3. The group portfolio continues to evolve to the direction it has been evolving earlier. The relative share of postal services sales slightly decreased from last year, now at 34%. The growth market businesses, fulfillment and logistics services, and the e-commerce and delivery services, their combined share reached now 66% of group's net sales. In the parcel volumes, there's a positive development in the overall parcel volumes.
We have the consumer side, and especially the re-commerce market, i.e., the second-hand trade amongst consumers, has been growing. This has boosted the consumer parcel market and the overall parcel market where the average growth now was 8%. This is up from 6% in Q2. The B2B side of parcel business has remained soft. On the postal services side, the addressed letter volumes continued to decrease in Q3, - 18%. This is driven by the increased digitalization. However, as mentioned, the operational efficiency and cost efficiency in postal services has also progressed very well. We have accelerated many actions there. As you see in the report, the profitability of postal services actually increased year- on- year in Q3. At this point, I'll invite Timo Karppinen here to elaborate more on our financials.
Great. Thank you, Antti. Thank you, and welcome on my behalf as well. Let's start. In the Posti Group Q3, there's some net sales decrease, which was largely and actually mostly coming from the postal services where we have had this unaddressed mail discontinuation of business as the main impact of that. The other segments, the sales were more or less flat where the sales were kind of negatively impacted by the B2B market and the macro environment. All in all, the sales developed as we have been estimating throughout the year. The sales declined, as you can see. The quarterly has narrowed down, and we expect this to sort of improve towards the end of the year. In terms of the profitability, our adjusted EBITDA margin has been improving quarter by quarter. Now in the third quarter, we reached the highest EBITDA margin of the year, 14%.
This is all due to our kind of improved operational efficiency, all in all, in all businesses. Especially in postal services, when you look at the EBITDA contribution during the quarter by different segments, it was the postal services that improved an absolute value, the EBITDA. It was quite a significant result given that there was a sales decline of almost EUR 15 million. Being able to do an absolute growth was a remarkable kind of achievement. All in all, like I said, the adjusted EBITDA margin of 14% is one of the highest or in part what we have been able to do in the quarter three results over the last few years. In terms of the adjusted EBITDA margin and development, extremely pleased that we've now been able to reach the 5% level.
As you can see, this is then the highest kind of EBITDA margin that we've been doing over the year in any quarter. There has been a significant improvement in overall EBITDA margin level improvement starting from the Q1, close to 2% increase in overall margin level by Q3. Again, the same sort of pattern from different segments. The postal services was the one that improved the absolute levels. The other segments were more or less flat compared to the previous year. All in all, again, this is very much on how we have been estimating this quarter and the year to develop, and I'm extremely pleased on the margin level itself. On the investments and our leverage, our operative investments and payments to lease liabilities remain in this stable level.
We continue to invest into digital services, this parcel locker network, and all in all, in the operations development across different businesses. The quarter three, and this is cumulative there, we are now in all in all, it's EUR 150 million roughly level in these cash flow-based investment levels. We are clearly seeing that we should be landing the year in this similar level as we were last year. There, these operative investments and the strategic, so the lease liabilities investments should remain in this EUR 120 million level as we have been forecasted along the years. In terms of the leverage, we are now close to our long-term target. Now leverage is 2.6x net debt to adjusted EBITDA, minor increase coming to the financial net debt, now 1.3x. That's rising a bit because of the last payment of the ordinary dividend in Q3.
Looking into the segment levels in the e-commerce and delivery services, net sales grew in the third quarter. This increase is now coming from the high increase in the parcel volume, 8% in the third quarter. The main driver is coming from the re-commerce volumes that are now growing in big steps throughout the year, especially, and that was visible in Q3. What's limiting the parcel growth is the B2B market, and there the B2B parcel volumes, as well the freight services remain stagnant in this quarter, which is coming from the macro environment, which has continued to be challenging. These increased volumes in re-commerce and then decrease in the B2B volumes is the one that has impacted in the product mix, which kind of is limiting the net sales growth currently.
Here, we are extremely pleased on the fact that the growth in the parcel volumes, as we've been saying, continues to improve the overall profitability level. Now the third quarter, the EBITDA margin was 12.4%, which is an increase from the year-to-date levels of 10.9%. Similar level in adjusted EBIT margin of close to 5% there, which is an improvement of more than 1.5% compared to year-to-date levels what we've been achieving. This is then kind of confirming the fact that what we have been talking about, that is when the parcel volumes grow, we are able to then generate a larger amount of profits with the help of that. In fulfillment and logistics services side, similar impact. The B2B market and the macro environment continue to be challenging. This is impacting the customer demand, which remains weak.
These volumes were kind of low in warehouses because of this macro environment sort of situation. In Sweden, positive signs are now starting to show with the increase in net sales where we clearly see improvement in the demand in the warehousing activities, despite the fact that the market demand is weak overall in Sweden. This warehouse consolidation, resource optimization, and our cost discipline have started to improve the overall profitability in this segment. In the third quarter, the adjusted EBITDA margin improved to 14% from the year-to-date level of 11.3%. There is an improvement in adjusted EBITDA margin. This is again confirming our long-term line that our commitment here and focus is to start improving the profitability in this segment. We clearly see the signs of that starting to emerge in Q3. On the postal services side, there is a really significant improvement in the profitability.
Adjusted EBITDA, in absolute terms, improved by EUR 3 million. The EBITDA margin reached 16.4%, which is a 4% improvement to what it was a year ago. Same with adjusted EBITDA margin of more than 9%, again a 4% improvement to the year-ago level. Clearly, we see this kind of focus in the operational efficiencies and the changes that we can make in the delivery model. This optimization of resources starts to positively impact the profitability. Now we see the full impact of this discontinuation of unaddressed marketing services coming into full effect on the cost reduction of those, allowing us to do savings all in all in the deliveries in the postal services side. That gives us the confidence of where we are heading in Q4 and next year in the postal services operation. The net sales reduction was coming from this discontinuation of unaddressed marketing services part mostly.
Here again, the net sales declined only 10% in Q3, which is an improvement to the level of what we had in the beginning of the year, almost -13%. In terms of the guidance, our guidance for the whole year is unchanged. We announced this new level of a new way of giving the guidance for the year and giving the ranges for the sales and adjusted EBITDA and EBIT. We can confirm now at the end of Q3 that those guidance levels will remain the same, and there is no need to change them. We actually, with the help of this Q3 sort of strong improvement, have the confidence that Q4 will be able to grow and meet these targets that we have set. Finally, just a few words about the midterm targets. During the IPO and listing process, we announced the new financial targets for our midterm.
We want to go through this and say that the kind of targets that we have are growth-based. The average organic net sales growth of at least 2% at the group level and at least 5% outside the postal services is the key factor here. This average adjusted operating result growth of more than 5% per year, or on average per year in this midterm time horizon of three to five years, is also important. The leverage of net debt to adjusted EBITDA of less than 2.5% is another target. These financial targets will lead to the fact that our dividend policy is such that we are targeting to pay continuously increasing ordinary dividends and pay out with the payout ratio of at least 60% of net income. I thank you all for this part. We would have some time for questions if there are any.
Yes, good morning from the chat side. Your chat host today is Matti Väänänen-Perera from Posti Communications. Let's go straight to the questions. We have a few of them here. First question regarding postal services. There are two questions that are quite related, so I'll tell them both to you. How much sales did unaddressed marketing services account for in Q3 last year? A question related to that, how big of a business was the unaddressed marketing services for Posti in 2024?
We can start with that. In last year, the overall sales level of that service was EUR 26 million. That all can be taken out in comparable terms from this year. We don't give the split of each quarter, but they're quite evenly split. Quite a sizable business that is now discontinuing.
Okay, so a question regarding ECD. Why did margin decrease more in Q3 year- on- year than in H1, despite sales mix being equally weak?
The sales mix has changed. The quarters are not entirely comparable, so the sales mix continues to evolve from year to year and during the quarters as well. Our growth has really been focused on this re-commerce and ECD side. As said, the B2B markets have been weak. These small changes may be impacting the quarters from a sequential point of view as well.
The key thing here, like we went through, is the, as you can see, the quarterly development that started with the Q1 and where we ended up in Q3 was kind of a significant improvement in the overall profit level. The key driver there is actually the volumes that are now growing more than have been in throughout the year or even last year.
Regarding FLS . Can you comment on how margins developed in Finland and Sweden separately?
We don't give the separate kind of profit levels or margin development in each of the countries, but give the split in sales. What we can all say is that they are going to be in similar levels sometime in the future. Now, Sweden is a little bit lower than the Finns, but there are these fundamental things that we are now fixing, which then will start to correct that.
Okay, then a question here. How much was B2B parcel volumes down year on year in Q3 and year to date?
I don't think we give the exact number on that, but what we have commented also earlier is that it's in the B2B year to date, it is in a negative territory. It's a single-digit negative territory, and all the growth comes from the consumer side. The average is the +8 %. In the comparables, as we have disclosed earlier, the quarters and the comparable quarters may also be different, as in towards the second half and towards Q4 of last year, as you remember, the B2B markets were weak also in the end of last year. That may influence the comparables.
A question regarding postal services. Were there any specific drivers behind the 18% decline in mail volumes in addition to increased digitalization?
No, nothing unusual. It's more about the seasonality here that's impacting. Q3 is about the summertime and summer vacation, and the typical mail, especially the corporate mail volumes, remain on a low level. It just happened to be a bit higher in decrease than what we have usually had in Q3. I would say that related to digital trend or anything like that.
The digitalization trend, of course, is driving postal volumes down, but that is something that has happened in the previous quarters and years as well.
Can you please quantify how much of the sales decline in postal services came from unaddressed mail in Q3?
Like we said earlier, we cannot exactly quantify how much in absolute value is that, but if it was a EUR 13 million decline in sales, something like more than half came from that.
Regarding postal services, do you expect a similar drop in volumes in Q4 as year to date?
We have all along been saying that the volume decreases are there, and now they have been unusually higher than what the normal trend has been. Q4 is a bit different season. You have the Christmas cards and other seasonal things that can impact the volumes up or down. It's definitely more than a 10% decrease that will be in the volume happening in Q4. We see at what level.
As a consumer, the consumer business seems to be a circularly growing trend. Do you see opportunities to do more in order to support re-commerce partners and improve the margins of this business?
Yes, it seems to be that the re-commerce and consumer to consumer has certain characteristics of its own in the value chain. The so-called first mile is different compared to normal e-commerce. First mile being the step where the consumer brings the parcels to our network and to our service partners. Yes, there are opportunities as the volumes grow to tailor those process steps to better fit the re-commerce model. Typically, the receiving of parcels in the consumer side has been designed earlier when the volumes have been smaller, for example, for the purposes of returns of apparel e-commerce. Now that the re-commerce volumes are growing so much, we have the opportunity to do better and more efficient ways of sending and making the first mile more efficient, for example, sending from our automated parcel lockers.
What we have announced earlier, we have a trial ongoing where people can also be picked up from the door. These kind of opportunities exist.
As you mentioned, overcapacity in the warehousing market in Sweden. Have you seen any signs of capacity exiting the market?
Yes, public information. There are public announcements by certain 3PL or logistics services providers in Sweden who have either exited the total Swedish business or closed certain sites. This is public information.
Okay, sales in Sweden declined by 8% year- on- year in Q3 after more than 6% year- on- year growth in H1. Why? How has Q4 started? Should we expect continued sales decline in Q4?
First of all, in Q3, the sales increased. That's an important fact here that our kind of sales activities are now bringing the impact. The key reason is that with that market being difficult, we've been able to generate now more demand and more sales. That is improving the sales in Q3 in Sweden. Like I said, we are not estimating the per segments on the Q4 results.
Depreciation in FLS was EUR 9.8 million in Q3. Is this representative for the level going forward, reflecting both Järvenpää and consolidated warehouse network?
Okay, here as well, we will be seeing some continuation or decrease in the depreciation level in FLS. That's a result from the consolidation that we have now completed both in Sweden and in Finland. In Finland, we are taking out or will be taking out two existing warehouses, one of those towards the end of the year. In Sweden, we have already taken out one warehouse during the first half. The full impact of those or termination of those will come visible in Q4 in the depreciation part because they are lease-based warehouses. Some declines should happen in Q4.
There are no more questions in the chat section.
Thank you.
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