Good morning. The start of financial year has been incredibly successful for our company. We have seen a record number of business and private advertisers. Yield has increased, and our competitive positions has improved across entire portfolio. This has resulted in a strong financial performance, with revenue growth over 20% and EBITDA up 22%. We have expanded our industry-leading margin, EBITDA margin, to 78%, maintained cash conversion close to 100%, and significantly reduced our leverage to 0.7 times of EBITDA. We continued to implement our capital policy by buying our own shares and reducing debt, and the board has proposed an interim dividend of EUR 0.01 per share to be paid in January.
What is really important that our core revenue streams of B2C and C2C, which contributing 90% of our revenue, have grown the most, with an increase of 25% and 19% respectively. The business segment has been of a particular note. The number of business customers has been very strong, with 5% growth in Autos, stable in Real Estate, and 7% growth in Jobs. The yield has improved significantly, with 31% growth in Autos, 27% in Real Estate, and 6% in Jobs. The private segment volumes has been a record high. The normalized selling periods, which we consider to be more typical now, has increased number of active ads in Automotive by 37%, in Real Estate by 20%, while Services and Generalist volumes grew 40% and 80% respectively.
Our lead over the closest competitor, which we consider the most important KPI, have improved across all major portals and now ranging from eight to over 30 times, depending on the portal. Our strategic pricing and packaging events for C2C in May and B2C in autumn have also co-contributed to this success, setting us up with a great momentum for the second half of the year. Now I will hand over to Lina to talk more about finance.
Thank you, Simonas. Good morning. We have exceeded our guidance by growing revenue 20%. The growth was broad-based, and the core revenue streams, B2C and C2C, grew 25% and 19% respectively, and are now together 90% of the portfolio. Looking at the business lines, we saw a strong growth across all of them, with excess coming from the core verticals, Autos and Real Estate, which grew 28% and 20% respectively. These are the two biggest business lines and are now contributing almost 63% revenue in the portfolio. Jobs and Services grew 18%. Generalists, 9%. Overall, the revenue growth comes from growing number of listings, growing number of advertisers, yield improvement across both B2C and C2C, and also growing underlying market, rising transaction values. Talking about the yield improvement, we have continued with our usual schedule of pricing events.
We started the half year by introducing C2C price changes for most of our portals. These changes are fully reflected in the half year numbers, and like last year, we ended the half year by introducing B2C price changes in Real Estate, Auto, and Jobs, and these will contribute more in the second half of the year. Here's the BCG revenue trajectory by financial quarters. As you can see, despite the different market shocks, such as COVID-19, Russian invasion of Ukraine, and now also high inflation and interest rates, not only BCG as a group was growing good, but also each of our business lines have maintained growth trajectory. The cost discipline, and not too many variable costs, continue driving BCG operating leverage.
The biggest part of the operating cost is people cost. It continues to be close to 15% from revenue and accounts for 66% of our operating costs, if excluding D&A. None of it's capitalized, and also worth noting that all the programming, system administration, all the developments, it's all done in-house, and that it's all in the salaries and shown under people costs. In total, people cost grew 19% , driven by a slightly bigger team than in the comparative half year, annual salary reviews, and building up ESP cost. Marketing remains below 2% from revenue, roughly EUR 1 million a year. That's mainly because we benefit from being a locally well-known portfolio of brands and advertise on our own sites for free. Our IT costs include software, service-related expenses, safety services, and other costs is everything else we need in the business.
In general, BCG operates in a higher inflation environment, but our costs represent only slightly more than 20% from the revenue, and we're also cost-conscious. In result of growing the revenue 20% and with continued cost management, our EBITDA grew 22%, with 78% margin. We continue to be highly cash generative. Our cash generated from operations grew 21%, and our cash conversion was maintained at 99%. The adjustments to our profitability measures are very limited, non-cash, and relate to historic acquisitions. No adjustments were done to EBITDA, and the operating profit, adjusted with acquired intangibles amortization, is tracking closely to our EBITDA and grew 23% this half a year. At the end of the financial year, the outstanding loan was EUR 70 million and leverage ratio of 1x.
During these six months, we generated EUR 24 million net cash inflow from operations, reduced the debt by repaying 50 million-- 15 million, paid final financial year 2023 dividend totaling EUR 8.4 million, and we also returned EUR 7 million to shareholders by buying, buying back company shares for cancellation. We ended the half year with EUR 55 million of debt and 0.7 times leverage. Our capital allocation priorities remain unchanged. We intend to use all the cash we generate within the same year or shortly thereafter. We would intend to return one third of adjusted net income each year via interim and final dividend, split approximately into one third and two thirds. We will continue considering value-creating M&A opportunities, and we intend using a combination of share buybacks and debt repayment from the balance of cash.
The interim dividend for the year 2024 is declared to be up 25%, that's EUR 0.01 per share, and will be paid on the 24th January to the members on the register on the 15th of December 2023. Thank you. I will now hand over to Simonas.
Hello, everyone. In the next four slides, I will walk you through the main KPIs for each business unit. Structure of the slides remain the same as usual. Market context is provided on the top left, the C2C performance in the top right, the B2C performance in the bottom right, and our lead against the competition in the bottom left. Let's start from Autos. As Lina has already mentioned, Autos were the growth champion. You probably remember six months ago, we are telling about the-- our increased yield, although still facing lower than normal supply. This indicated a growth potential in the future when the supply situation normalized, and that's exactly what happened. Car supply has normalized. Dealers no longer have difficulties importing cars from western markets.
The selling times for cars have also returned to pre-COVID levels, and the number of transactions increased by 4%, and the average car price grew by 10%. So this environment is beneficial for our business. The number of active ads, active C2C ads, is 37% higher than a year ago. So we got more paid extensions, and we accumulated more content on the platforms. The growth in content was so significant that it even surpassed the impact of our pricing changes implemented in the spring. As a result, we observed a negative growth in monthly revenue per active ad. In B2C segment, yield grew by massive 31%. Two main reasons behind the growth: firstly, dealers had more inventory and had to purchase more slots. Secondly, our pricing and packaging event drove higher adoption of premium packages and increased the price per slot.
In the bottom left, you can see that our lead versus closest competitor keeps growing. It's eight times in Lithuania and 39 times in Estonia. Real estate market cooled down after the peak in 2021, 2022. Average price keep growing. All the brokers are in the business. Time to sell a property normalized. We accumulate more content on our platforms, and that is all a tailwind for us. Both in C2C and B2C, dynamics is similar to Autos. Due to that, I mentioned before, there was a significant, significant 20% growth in active C2C ads. Again, this growth counterbalanced the impact of our pricing changes, resulting in a negative growth in average revenue per active ad. The number of B2C customers has remained stable, while average revenue per broker have grown 22%, primarily due to the annual pricing and packaging adjustment.
We have successfully introduced a prominence package for brokers who seek the maximum exposure and the highest number of leads. We have maintained our lead over the competitor in Lithuania. It's 21 times. In Estonia, we have further strengthened our competitive position, increasing it from 16- 17. Now, let's move to the jobs and services. Jobs market stays active. The unemployment rate remains at a very low level of 6.8%. The average wage continues to grow rapidly, with a 13% increase observed last year. The market continued to provide a favorable environment for our business. Companies are investing in recruitment and retention of employees. As you can see in the bottom right chart, our customer base expanded by 7%, and average revenue per customer increased by 6%.
Our job board maintains a strong leadership position with an eight times lead over the closest competitor. And I would like to briefly touch on the services segment. It represents C2C part of our jobs and services unit. You can see in the chart in the top right, this segment is the smallest one, but grows very rapidly. The number of active ads increased by 40%, and we are constantly enhancing the monetization. General platforms kept growing as well. Our biggest generalist, Skelbiu.lt, increased the number of listings by 8%. This growth was organic and spread across various lower cost categories. Consequently, the impact of the implemented pricing changes was limited, resulted in the modest yield growth of 1%. And our lead over closest competitor in Lithuania has reached a record level of 23 times, and in Estonia, it's three times.
Traditionally, I have a couple of slides about product development at BCG. In the last six months, we have been rolling out data products, B2C propositions, as well as the financial services. Starting with Autoplius.lt on the left-hand side of the slide, at Autoplius.lt, we have launched a data analysis tool for car dealers. This tool enables business customers to analyze the performance of their listings and benchmark against the competitors, providing some insights on how to enhance their listings and stock. We have also upgraded and expanded our car history check service to the entire Lithuanian market. It is a standalone product with its own brand. Currently, we use our auto marketplace as the sales channel targeted toward car buyers, and this product could be a part of the premium package for the car sellers in the future.
Both in Lithuania and Estonia, property platforms have introduced a new prominence packages for businesses. This not only effectively increased the number of impressions and leads, but also provides additional branding and exposure for the broker personally. Now let's take a look at the jobs and services. At our services vertical Paslaugos.lt, we introduced the option to create a service agreement between the service provider and the customer, so two parties can create a legal document within the platform. This is very convenient for the users and a valuable data source for the platform. At CVbankas.lt, we recognize the need to help companies streamline the hiring process.
To achieve this, we have developed a tool that simplify the selection of the best candidates from the list, so employers can use filters to quickly identify the most suitable candidates and effectively access potential employees in the CV database. On Osta.ee, our generalist marketplace in Estonia, we have introduced a buy now, pay later functionality. Buyers can now obtain financing for their purchases very quickly and conveniently, and Osta acts as the sales channel, while the financial aspect is managed by our partner. Thank you, and now we'll be handing back to Justinas.
Thank you, Simonas. The Baltic region has seen a period of unprecedented growth in recent years. This is largely attributed to high export growth, vibrant employment market, and a strong credit profiles, both public and private. This positive environment has created a great opportunities for our customers, as well as our company, to take advantage of the growth and generate greater profits. This year, the inflation has slowed down, and the region returned to real wage growth, with increasing in consumer purchasing power. Despite the recent economic cooldown, the Baltic States are considered to be among the most dynamic and vibrant economies in Europe. For our company, the year has started very well. Our strategic pricing and packaging events have been successfully implemented, setting us up with a great momentum for the second half of the year.
So the board is upgrading guidance for the full year 2024 to a range of 18%-19% revenue growth. The lower end of the range is based on unchanged, increasingly conservative guidance of 15% revenue growth for the second half of the year. The board expects EBITDA margin for financial year 2024 to expand by around one percentage point and will expand incrementally going forward. We remain confident with the existing capital allocation policy in absence of the M&A opportunities, which remains focused on increasing dividends, share buybacks, and reducing debt. Thank you for your attention. Now we are open and happy to take your questions.
If you would like to ask a question, please dial star one on your telephone keypad now, and if you are viewing the webcast today, please submit written questions using the Q&A function on your screen. Our first question today is from the line of William Packer of BNP Paribas. William, your line is now open.
Hi there. Many thanks for taking my questions. Three from me, please. Firstly, one important growth dynamic for BCG going forward is monetization catch-up potential with peers in other Western markets like the UK, Australia, and Germany, et cetera. In the last couple of years, you've just delivered strong ARPA growth, but on the other hand, there's been strong inflation in the end markets. Is it right to think that your take rate hasn't actually increased very much due to that inflation in the end market and significant catch-up potential remains? That's question one. Question two is around CoStar. So CoStar has caused some upheaval in European classifieds in recent weeks, leading to some pressure in peers in the UK and speculation of similar dynamics elsewhere.
Could you talk through the key factors that you think make the Baltic region well-placed to manage those challenges? And then finally, your peers in the generalist classified segment across Europe have actually been cutting margin expectations in the last few years. Think of Schibsted, Adevinta et cetera, on the more challenging economics of pay and ship, at least for the short term. How do you think about those challenges and your confidence in the increased margin outlook today? Do you not think pay and ship investment is needed in the Baltic markets due to weaker competitive intensity or the earlier stage of maturity? Any color there would be helpful. Thank you.
Thank you, Will, for the very good questions. Maybe I'll start with first two, and Simonas could help me with the third. So with regards to monetization and take rate, you're absolutely correct. The underlying market is also growing, and not only our revenue is growing, but underlying market is growing as well. The take rate is the way we estimate the take rate is we are taking the total commission pool of our customers and just looking what our... is our percentage in these commission pools. And if we look the last several years, we see that these commission pools continue to grow because the number of transactions either continue to be strong or growing, and also the prices of vehicles and real estate also continue to grow. So our take rate hasn't changed much.
It has increased a bit, but basically, the increase is incremental. Secondly, about the competition. Overall, in our opinion, we think that it's very difficult to disrupt a leading marketplace in any country. Marketplace has usually a very high entry barriers, and it is because of the very strong network effect. And also in our opinion, it's even harder to disrupt the smaller countries like Baltics, because first of all, we have a different kind of language and cultural environment. Secondly, the marketplaces in the smaller countries usually tend to be more dominant because in the bigger markets, there are more niches where you can establish and target your portal and establish your presence.
However, in the smaller markets like ours, usually the platforms which we operate, they usually cover the whole market, and don't leave the empty subsectors where the new entrant could build their advantage. Thirdly, about the generalist. Maybe I could just start with the fact that it's. We are developing shipments and transactional models in our generalist platform, but still it's a very small part of our revenue share. So that's why we kind of don't see how it could impact our profitability. Simonas, maybe you would like to add color?
Yeah. Overall, we have mentioned, I think, pretty much all the time when we report our results, that generalist is the lowest growing segment in our portfolio. So we don't expect anything, you know. It will not outperform any of our verticals so far. And our business is very light. We don't. I mean, we just a marketplace. We are not selling out, we are not selling anything ourselves. We are just providing and then basically infrastructure for others to trade. So the margins are stable, and we don't expect any steep changes so far.
Thanks for all the color. Much appreciated.
Our next question today is from the line of Alistair Reid of Investec. Alistair, your line is now open.
Morning. Thanks very much. Yeah, a couple from me as well, please. Firstly, in Real Estate, remind us what contribution you have from new home development at the moment, and what any sort of latest initiatives there are that you might be doing? Then secondly, can you just sort of give a bit more color on when you introduced kind of new, your new package pricing structures recently in Autos and/or Real Estate? I'm guessing they might not have been in place for the full first half period. And then lastly, for Jobs & Services, can you just give us a sense for how each is doing in terms of the numbers of customers you already have relative to the total addressable market of potential customers? Thanks a lot.
... Yeah, thank you, Alistair. So to begin with, with the revenue in real estate from the new developments. So in our portfolio, it's not a major revenue contributing currently up to, I would say, 5% of our revenue. Before, a year ago, it was even contributing less, just a few percentage points. However, in spring, we updated the proposition for the new developers in our portals. We introduced a much better and higher prominence package for new developers, and this actually increased our revenue from the new developers, and that one was a very successful development in our portfolio. The second question... I remember the third question. Could you remind the second one? Or maybe I'll answer the-
Oh, certainly. You go ahead. Mm-hmm.
Maybe I'll answer about the services. So actually, the services' total addressable market is very, very wide. Currently, we have around 8,000 service providers in our portfolio, but, you know, in our view, there might be, you know, the total addressable market is far, far bigger, several times, three or four times bigger. So it's a huge market, and it's a very kind of rich market, so that's why for us, services looks a very promising market to develop our products. And the second question, Alistair?
I think you mentioned that you introduced some new sort of packages and sort of pricing structures-
Okay.
In autos in terms of numbers. When in the period were those introduced?
Yeah. So it's in autumn. So we started in the beginning of September. So the biggest change was September, October, and now we are continuing to upsell and these prominence packages.
Perfect. Thank you.
As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please dial star one now, or use the Q&A button on your webcast screen for written questions. We have written questions here from Silva Schmeiman of Avaron, who asks, "Who is the BNPL provider for Osta.ee?
I will take this one. Actually, it's the local financial institution. It's the Inbank, Inbank finance. It's a BNPL company. Also, maybe to add more color, it's our great partner. We have a cooperation with Inbank already on several projects, including automotive finance and real estate consumer finance.
That's great. Thank you. And the follow-up question, also from Silver Schmeiman of Avaron, asks, "Do you expect any more inflation for your operating costs in 2H 2024, 24, sorry, or has most of it already been included in 1H 2024?
Thank you. Lina, would you like to answer?
Yes. Yes, I can take that one. Yes, we do expect inflation in the cost in the second half of the year as well. Currently, people cost is around 15% from revenue. It's a major investment with people, so we are part of the market, so wage inflation does affect us, so we do expect to continue with that. That will impact our costs, and the rest as well, but our revenues are expected to grow faster than our cost base.
Thank you very much, and we have a follow-up question here from the line of William Packer of BNP Paribas. William, your line is open.
Hi there, and thanks for taking my follow-up. I suppose it's a question I ask every half. Is there any update that you could provide to us on any of the, regulatory, sort of investigation slash, competition authority, explorations? Is there anything to note there? Thank you.
Thank you. Well, no any news here, so it doesn't feel... I have explained maybe in the past, but these questions usually are very, very long questions, and there are no any updates here at this stage.
Thank you.
Thank you, and we have a follow-up question from the line of Alistair Reid of Investec. Alistair, your line is open.
Thanks. Very good, professional to ask a follow-up question today. So, in autos, in your sort of B2C segment, how sustainable do you see this, number of dealers you have, as now? Obviously, you saw some good growth. Can we assume that it remains stable from here? Thank you.
Thank you for the question. We are still in a situation where the dealers market is professionalizing. So most of the dealers' growth is coming actually from C2C segments. The dealers who previously were listing their ads as C2C customers at some stage, they decide that, "Okay, I'm now kind of more acting as a more professional seller, and I'm signing a contract." So basically, we assume that this trend will continue, and we assume that it's the growth in number of dealers will be like single digits.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you, and we have another written question submitted here from Silver Schmeiman of Avaron, who asks, "you mentioned the B2C part for automotive, but any further color on what's the underlying driver for C2C ads growth? Do you expect such trends to continue?
That's a very-
I think maybe I should have explained maybe even more clear during my presentation. The thing is... The main driver why we accumulated such a high number of C2C ads, the main reason is the longer time to sell. This means that the ads are staying on our platforms for longer time, and that's how we accumulate the bigger amount at the particular time. So the ad stays longer, the car sellers has to purchase additional extensions of their ads, and that's why we have the bigger database, let's say, of the cars in automotive, more automotive marketplaces. And that is our- It's for us, it's a tailwind, definitely. Do we expect it to continue, let's say, next half a year?
Actually, we don't expect that the time to sell will grow significantly further going forward. It might grow a little bit, but definitely it won't be such a big leap as it was last year, last twelve months, let's say.
I would add to a bit more color. So the biggest impact is coming from longer transaction periods, but also talking about, especially automotive, the other component of the growth is the recovery of the supply chain. Because during the pandemic period, the supply chain of the cars has really shrunk. Now it's recovering to a more normal level, so it's additional point of the recovery. And also, I'm talking about the transaction period. So the current transaction period, we consider it to be more typical, because the last several years, it used to be too quick, and because of the e-economy booming, because of a lot of money being supplied to the market, and also because of a very constrained supply chain, car supply chain. So now it's a more typical periods of the transaction.
Thank you. I'm moving to the next written question, submitted by Gareth Davies of Numis. This is a three-part question. The first being: a big step up versus closest competitor in autos in both Lithuania and Estonia. Can you expand on the competitive situation here that is allowing that growth?
I can maybe take that one. So basically, it's the nature of the successful leading marketplace. Once you actually win the market, it's quite a natural thing to continue improving your lead over the following years. And we are especially happy with the lead improvement in the Lithuanian Autoplius.lt portal, which grew from 6-8 times. Because Autoplius.lt is our biggest portal overall, and automotive is the biggest kind of revenue business line in the BCG portfolio, so we are kind of very happy with the development. And it's a natural evolution, where the leading site is just over the years becoming bigger because it's just both for both sides of the market. For the seller and for the buyer, it provides a better service.
That's great. Thank you. And the second part to Gareth's question is: Any update on the M&A landscape and potential pipeline?
Thank you. M&A is something that we are constantly thinking about, and we have done many M&A deals in the past, and we have a desire and ambitious ambition to do more deals. So we are constantly screening different candidates, and there are a few which we are circling around. However, there are no any active negotiations, active developments at the moment, and so no kind of update on that.
Thank you. The third part to Gareth's question is: In jobs, your lead to closest competitor has dropped a little. Can you update on the competitive landscape here in jobs?
We need to look, when we are comparing the lead, we need to look not a single year, but it's better to look, like, what happened in the last three, four years. If we were to look at the automotive, for example, what we discussed just a few seconds ago, so our lead has increased from-
... 4x- 8x in the last three years. So this is a significant development. If we look at the jobs, our lead also increased from, I think, 4x- 9x last year, and now it's a bit decreased to 8x. What is important is comparing, like, a longer period, and what it's important that now our lead, it's so much more bigger than it used to be four years ago. And sometimes, you know, throughout the different years, there might be small movements, but it's not important. It does not affect the kind of competitive positions. So I wouldn't even think that it's important, you know, this kind of the reduction in the lead from eight, nine to 8x. It just doesn't change anything.
Just one, a small add-on on that. Actually, because the lead already such a big, like eight or nine times, you can feel the multiple effect, let's say. In the absolute numbers, if we're taking last year, last 12 months, in absolute numbers, our platform grew four times. Our growth of our platform was four times bigger than the competitors. But because of the multiples, it feels like we know the, like, the relative market share has decreased a bit. But in absolute numbers, we overgrown our competitor by four times. So we're just in numbers magic a bit.
Thank you. Our next written question, submitted by Harry Walton of Verition: Please, can you explain the impact of the higher volumes on the revenue per ad, which I think was in auto?
This one, would you like to-
Yeah. So how we calculate average revenue per active ad in C2C? So we take the whole C2C revenues. Let's take an autos as an example, as an example. So all auto C2C revenues divided by the number of active C2C ads. And because the active C2C ads grow, grew so much, it even overgrown the, the pricing actions. That's, that's why we simply mathematically calculated the negative, let's say, negative in increase in yield. And the active ads means the current amount of the content on the platform, let's say, right now or a month ago, at the one particular moment. So we take the average of every single day within six months, and that's what we call the number of active ads.
Just maybe to also elaborate a bit, if we were to look at revenue and yield per listed ad, not per active, but per listed ad, in every portal in C2C segment, we would see a double-digit yield expansion.
Thank you. Our next question is a written question submitted by Stuart Petrie of Lothian Pension Fund. Question is: Hi there. In terms of capital allocation, can you please comment on potential M&A opportunities?
Okay, I think that, maybe with Lina, we can answer that. I guess at the targets which we are looking at, these are in the size from EUR a few million to EUR a few hundred million. But as I said, currently, there are no M&A active negotiations activities. There are a few companies which would fit our portfolio well, but currently, these companies are not selling. So it's at such a stage, kind of, we don't we can't, you know, give any more update and, and-
That's great. Thank you. We have no further questions on the line at this time, so this will bring us to the end of the Baltic Classifieds Group PLC H1 2024 results. Thank you all for joining. You may now disconnect your lines.