Good morning, and welcome to Currys Peak Trading Update webcast. I will now hand over to CEO, Alex Baldock. Please go ahead.
Thank you, Sergei. Good morning, everybody. A few words from me before Bruce and I take your questions. In short, a pretty successful peak. We did what we said we'd do, which is getting the Nordics back on track, and it's now in recovery, keeping up some encouraging momentum in the U.K. and iD business. And looking ahead, we now expect profit to be ahead of consensus, and on the back of strong balance sheet and liquidity, we think that we're well set to build on this strengthening performance, as and when consumer sentiment rebounds. In December, we updated you on a solid first half performance, and the sales during peak were mostly consistent with that first half trend.
With the exception of the Nordics, which saw a significant improvement from -6% to -2%, nudging up the group like-for-like trend slightly from -4% to -3%. What sold well? Well, first of all, mobile was a really well-performing category, especially in the premium end. Over £900 mobiles were up 4%, year-on-year, and our share of that premium segment was up 260 basis points. New form factors like Flip and Fold, Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5, for example, sold especially well, and all of this was helpful in driving our mobile ARP up 15%, all helped by some strong trade-in offers.
Headphones went well, not just AirPods, but the over-ears, in TV, which had some weakness overall, but not at the uber super-size 98-inch-plus segment, which went well, and we're expecting that trend to accelerate in the busy sporting calendar year this year with the Olympics and the Euros. Gaming was good. PS5 sales, and, with Xbox Series X not far behind, helped by some AAA games releases, and the Meta VR headset is showing some very promising, growth. Appliances, the energy efficient trend, is still going very strong, with air fryers powering ahead, up 60% year-on-year. A-rated appliances, both, washing machines and dishwashers, sharply up. But also there's a good signs of a trend for refurbed products as well. Good for the planet, yes, good for the customers' pockets.
In a cost of living crisis, they can get hold of premium end appliances, for much less when they're pre-loved, but also good for us because they tap into some capabilities that we've got that others haven't got on repair, and have them at scale, so we can do that and do it profitably. So a successful peak then, an upgrade on the profit expectations and allowing us to stand by our expectations of an improved year-on-year cash position at the year end. So let's get into the peak, starting with the Nordics, which is now recovering, and that's despite a still tough market with consumer confidence. It's bottomed out, but it's not showing much signs of improving yet, and that's feeding into still soft demand, especially in Norway and Sweden.
Inflationary pressures might be easing, but competition is still intense. So a challenging market, but our response is much improved. I mean, the leadership team's dealing with this challenging situation very well and producing more engaged colleagues back up to record highs after a dip last year, and more satisfied customers, with customer satisfaction up 40 basis points year-on-year and 2 full percentage points, year-on-two. And we're showing a really good balance, I think, in our trading between sales and margin rates in the Nordics. I mean, we remain the clear number one market share in every market, with stabilized market share, while we've substantially grown gross margins.
You'll recall we flagged 190 basis points growth in margins in the Nordics in the first half, back up to the levels of two years ago, and peak has seen a continuation of this positive trend. As adoption of margin-accretive services and accessories has improved, and just as we're not chasing less profitable sales with better pricing discipline and lower promotional intensity in the Nordics. And on the cost side, we're making more of group synergies. We've moved to a single group IT function, we're offshoring more with Infosys and making the most of group synergies on goods not for resale procurement. And that, added to efficiencies in stores, contractors, marketing, is solidifying this GBP 25 million a year of permanent cost out in the Nordics flagged last time. So Nordics, getting back on track.
U.K., meanwhile, some encouraging momentum continues on the foundation of more engaged colleagues, now up to the top 5% of companies worldwide, and driving some robust profits as well. So we're keeping our gains on various margins, which were stable over peak, while continuing the cost out that sees us on track for GBP 300 million out by the year end. On U.K. and Ireland gross margins, this stability stems from five things. You know, we're not chasing less profitable sales, 'cause with a better understanding of end-to-end profitability, we don't have to, as well as getting some good efficiencies on PPC and some better pricing disciplines. We're doing a much better job of selling sold with solutions, more on that in a moment, as well as services.
As the customer experience improves, so we can charge more for it. Finally, supply chain and service operations costs, which land in the various margin line here, are down too. I said more in a moment on sold with solutions. What we mean by that is, if there are fewer customers in the market, we want to make the most of every one and sell them everything they need. Customer adoption of solutions is up fully 11 percentage points, year-on-year. Nearly a third of products are now sold with a solution, and that's true online as in stores, and it's true in every category. In computing, for example...
Instead of just selling you a laptop, we're doing a better job of selling the software, whether it's InfoSec security or Microsoft Office 365, and doing a better job of selling peripherals, mice, keyboards, bags, with the laptop. That's good for the customer. They get everything they need and a good deal on the bundle. It's good for us, significantly higher margins. Not just computing though. TVs, doing a better job of selling the installation services and peripherals like brackets and cables with the telly. On mobiles, we're doing a better job of selling the connectivity and the cases, and the screen protector with the phone. On appliances, we're doing a better job of selling the dust bags and the fabric softening balls.
So right the way through, thanks to better availability of all of these peripherals and better bundles that meet customer needs, we're doing a better job of selling these high margin software services and peripherals with the hardware. Not stopping there, and we're certainly not happy with where we've got to. It's better, but it's still not good, especially online, which might be up 220 basis points through things like the bundle builder that we landed during peak. But it's nowhere near the big improvement or the higher base that we've seen in stores, fully 1,880 basis points up year-on-year. So solutions online, a big area of focus, as is the growth of the impulse range that you'll see getting bigger in both channels in 2024.
We've also focused on customer satisfaction boosting and profit boosting improvements across the customer journey. So take delivery and installation as an example. We do 3 million big box deliveries a year, just under 1 million of them installations, and we've been focusing on getting it right first time for the customer. So making sure the customer's there when we turn up, making sure it's not damaged, the product's not damaged when it arrives, fewer technical failures, all driving fewer repeat visits and higher customer satisfaction and higher profits. So delivery and installation alone, GBP 9 million of annual cost savings, which worth remembering, that's worth more than 1% like-for-like sales.
Lowers customer acquisition costs as customers recommend us, and it improves installation adoption, up fully 600 basis points year on year, as well as, as the customer experience improves, we can charge for it as we did with deliveries. And those two things together, delivery and installation, mean that D&I revenue per order is up more than threefold, year on year. High margin revenue as well. But delivery and installation is clearly that these improvements translate into customer satisfaction, up 200 basis points, year on year, and but not the only area where we've improved. Order and collect satisfaction's improved by 12 percentage points as wait time comes down. Both the store and the online purchase experience satisfaction's sharply improved, as is the total store and online experience, satisfaction.
On stores, for example, improved time to sell and online better customer experience in areas like search, filtering, bundles and the like. All of this driving quite pleasing improvements in satisfaction across the board and translating into record overall customer satisfaction scores. Still, we're not happy with where we are. There's lots more we can do on store wait times and the order and collect process, much improved though it is. It's got further to go. But we do like the trajectory. So we're making ourselves easier to shop, and then and we're also, this peak, built more customers for life, customers who keep coming back through the services that Currys is fortunate to have at a range and a scale denied to any competitor.
We've made and services makes a significant in-year as well as longer term economic contribution. It's worth remembering, you know, GBP 700 million of product sales are on our growing credit book and a further 13% of our revenue is from all of our other services. And, credit, to take one example, the credit that produces customers who are happier, who spend more and come back more reliably, that continues to grow well. Customer numbers up 25%. Adoption now over 20% of our total sales, up 240 basis points. We've done this through better user interface, better promotions and partnership with suppliers, stimulation of the existing book. Now 63% of our credit sales are from existing customers, but we're not happy, and we're on with further improvements.
For example, more personalized offers and campaigns and credit, better user interface in every channel. More to come from credit, and repair is the other big service that's had a strong peak, up 170 basis points overall. And it's through the best customer proposition that we've got in our repair proposition. It's based off the best capability. We're the only retailer with our own repairs facility, as those of you who attended the event in Newark in September would have seen for yourselves, Europe's largest tech repair center. 1,000 expert colleagues repairing everything from TVs, to laptops, to mobiles, to appliances. Those of you, by the way, who didn't make it can see all of this online. And this gives us capability that nobody else can come close to.
Repair is great, obviously, for the customer's pocket in a cost of living crisis. It's good for the planet, and it's good for our profits, which is why we intend to do more of it and do a better job, by the way, of shouting about it. And much more to do here as well, notably replicating our success in credit online, in repairs, where we lag significantly, and we also want to do a better job of selling mobile insurance. Though mobile overall is back into healthy, profitable growth. A bit of a highlight for us with all of the historical issues that we've had in this category.
But especially strong in premium, as I mentioned, the Apple iPhone 15 was selling every three minutes during peak, and foldable phones are adding some excitement and innovation to the category. ARP nicely up. And iD, our own mobile virtual network operator, our own mobile subscription business, that's also going well, 29% up. Customer numbers over 1.6 million now and climbing, through excellent value, through good agreements with Three and Vodafone on the connectivity, and also good execution in the channels. We're building something valuable here... And there's more to come here, too, with a new app, with better billing, with e-com improvements. More to come on mobile subscriptions. So we're doing what we said we'd do in the Nordics as well as in the UK.
Finally, you know, we're ensuring we stay financially healthy as well, with the debt and pension total liability down by GBP 500 million a year-on-year, and we expect net debt at year-end to be better than last year-end, which was GBP 97 million. With the expected Greek disposal, that should take us or will take us into a net cash position. To conclude, in an environment that's doing us no favors at all, these are solid results, good progress, Nordics getting back on track, UK and Ireland continuing to strengthen with services that boost gross margins and long-term value, a particular highlight, with balance sheet and liquidity in good shape and a Greek disposal will further strengthen that.
So I think we're proving our resilience today as well as our fitness to prosper as and when the macro picture normalizes. So with that, I'll pause, and we'll go to your questions.
Thank you, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, if you wish to ask a question at this time, please signal by pressing star one on your telephone keypad. If you wish to cancel your request, please press star two. Again, please press star one to ask a question. I will now take our first question from Richard Chamberlain from RBC. Please go ahead.
Morning, Richard.
Thanks. Well, morning, Alex. Morning. A couple from me, please. I wondered if you could just give a sort of update on the sort of topic du jour, one of them at the moment in the market, which is shipping disruption and how is Currys thinking about sort of managing through that? And then second, I think you call out in the statement Norway as improving in the Nordic area, sort of helping to offset Finland. But what about the Swedish market? What's going on there, and how do you see the outlook for that market? Thanks.
Okay, I'll let Bruce lead off on the impact of Red Sea, and I'll build on it.
Yes. Good morning, Richard. So,
Morning, Bruce.
I think the first thing to say is clearly very early days in terms of the situation. We have got a robust level of stock within our business, good availability, so from a supply chain and a stock perspective, no impact. From a cost perspective, clearly, we're coming off the back of a couple of years of very high levels of cost across shipping. And therefore, when you look at the costs at the moment, they are favorable for us. Now, clearly, we remain vigilant and make sure we've got good contracts in place going forward, but clearly, it's an area we're staying very close to.
And just to build on that, Richard, I mean, zooming out a bit, I mean, of course, if the conflict in the Red Sea were to escalate or to endure, it's going to affect everybody. But as it stands, we don't expect, and we're not experiencing significant disruption. I mean, there are a few products that are having up to 14 days delays, but it is a few products. And it's worth remembering, of course, that supply chain disruption is not a novelty for us. We've been dealing with waves of it for years now, and it does help being number one in our market, that we're first in the queue with suppliers when stock is scarce, which is one reason, by the way, we were able to post availability 21 percentage points higher over peak than two years previously.
We've learned a few things. I mean, we've got up to 6-8 weeks cover on key lines to give ourselves some buffer. And all of this is one of the things that's enabled a successful peak trading. So we're watching it very closely. No significant immediate disruption to report. The Swedish market remains, you know, we're looking prudently when it comes to our planning across the whole of the group, and that's true of Sweden as well. I mean, consumer confidence has stopped getting worse, you can say that, but it's barely rebounded as yet. There's a very high concentration of home ownership in Sweden, and they're all variable mortgages, which have hurt disposable income. So it's tough.
It's a challenging market, but that's true across the Nordics. I mean, we said that, you know, demand is still soft, and even though inflationary pressure might now be easing, competition is still intense, and so it's our self-help that we're relying on. And it's that good progress, excellent progress on gross margins, allied to some strong cost discipline, which leaves us confident of a significantly improved year-on-year profit performance from the Nordics.
Got it. Very helpful. Thank you.
Thank you.
Matthew Abraham from Berenberg, please go ahead.
Matt, good morning.
Morning, all. Thank you for taking my question. Just to start with, on the market share expansions, that you've called out, could you just talk about which names you think you're taking share from and, you know, the key names in which you think you're winning share? Then the second question is just a query in reference to mix. Seems as though, you know, a higher uptake of some of your premium products have contributed to the strength of this trend. Just wondering how sustainable you think this mix is, you know, and the key factors that you think are driving a higher take-up of some of those premium products in your range. Thank you.
Right. On the first point, Matt, I mean, just to clarify, what we talked about was stabilizing market share.
... in the Nordics. While we, we're not giving numbers to anything, but, we've flagged some market share erosion in the U.K. in the first half, and, you know, we're not flagging a change to that over peak. Now, two important things. I mean, in the U.K., the point to make is that we're not solving for market share. What we're solving for is sustainable profits and cash flow, and that's the thing that's most important to us. We're not chasing less profitable sales, and so we've consciously forgone some sales when it comes to, for example, spending less money on PPC digital marketing, when it comes to being more disciplined on pricing, to name but two.
Of course, though, we want to. There is a balance here because we enjoy the benefits of being number one in our markets, and we intend to hang on to that market leadership. At the same time as we're looking to continue the march forward on margins. And so there is a balance here, but I think that a successful peak in the U.K., as in the Nordics, shows that we're probably getting more right than wrong when it comes to market share and the balance with margin growth at the moment. When it comes to...
By the way, one last thing to mention on market share is some of these improvements that we've made, whether it's better PPC efficiency or better understanding of end-to-end profitability by supplier, by product, by category. Excuse me. We'll be coming up to anniversary on that, so we're not flagging the likelihood of continuing indefinitely erosion of market share. That's not our intention. We like being number one, but at the same time, you know, we're solving for sustainable cash flows here. Your point about premium, I mean, that the specific point was about mobile, where the within the mobile category, premium, the premium segment did grow, and we did grow by 160 basis points, I think, our market share of that premium segment.
That's driven by good product innovation, and I mentioned the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5, a foldable phone, as an example of that. It's not necessarily true right the way across the piece. We didn't see significant ARP growth, for example, in TVs or in the bulk of computing. We have seen it in appliances, and there's a different trend going on there, which is energy efficiency. The consumers have become much savvier about looking at the total costs of ownership of a washing machine, for example, helped by us helping them to see that picture. And that means that they're willing to pay more for a more premium product up front in return for lower lifetime costs through lower energy bills.
So there are different dynamics going on in different segments, Matt. I mean, mobile and appliances being the two examples.
Excellent. Thank you. That's helpful.
We'll now move to our next question from Warwick Okines from BNP Paribas Exane. Please go ahead.
Morning, Warwick.
Morning, Alex. Morning, Alex, morning, Bruce. Couple of questions, please. First, firstly on costs. Have you got any further thoughts on how to deal with the minimum wage increase in April? I appreciate that's the next financial year, but just any comments you might have on that. Secondly, on costs, you said you're working towards the GBP 300 million of cost savings by year-end in total. Does that mean you're on track to deliver sort of GBP 60 million in the second half? Just check that I've got that right, please. Just third, if you don't mind, the CapEx has been...
Your guidance has been cut from 80 down to 70, which was already a number that you'd said was being managed very tightly. Can you just give us an early look on how you're thinking about CapEx into the new financial year? Thank you.
So I'll let Bruce take the points on costs and on CapEx, but let me just, let me start with your question on the, on the minimum wage. I mean, again, this is a question of getting the balance right. We like the fact that we're able to upgrade profits, profit expectations, and we intend to keep growing profits over the medium term. And one of the ways that we do that is by having the most capable and committed colleagues in the market, you know, with our colleague engagement in the UK now at 82, for example, putting us in the top 5% of companies worldwide. And reward, and the reward opportunity is a big part of that, and we've invested unapologetically in those colleagues.
14% increase in base pay for frontline colleagues in the past year alone, and we intend to stay competitive, and that means we need to find a way to absorb and deal with the cost, the inflationary cost pressures that the government is mandating. So that, there's no real change there. By the way, since you mentioned the minimum wage, I mean, that's not the only cost burden that the government is putting our way. I mean, whether it's rates or the recycling proposals, we're arguing hard for a change of sentiment from government on a few proposals that are going to be counterproductive, as well as expensive. But that's to one side.
The main point here is that we've got the benefits of having engaged colleagues. The engaged colleagues themselves are behind the gross margin improvements and the profitability improvements that we're driving in the U.K., and we don't intend to let that go.
Hi, Warwick. Yes, so maybe covering off your three points. So, how do we think about the minimum wage impact? Clearly, we've got a focus on maintaining and continuing to drive down-
... the cost within the organization, and that will, that will continue going forward, and will allow us to offset some of the inflationary pressures that Alex described. In terms of the GBP 300 million, as you know, that was a U.K. number, and as we talked about in December, we're, we're on track to deliver that. So the GBP 60 million that you described in H2 is pretty much where we expect it to be. But I'd also remind you that we've got a cost program within our Nordic business as well as we focus on getting the profit back on track within our Nordic business, and that will be incremental to that number.
The final point on CapEx, the reduction from 80- 70, I think perhaps the most important thing to say, and this is true on most areas where we've changed our guidance, in terms of some of those cash flow items. There's a big element that relates to FX. So the NOK has devalued by roughly between 12%-15% over the course of the last year, and that is having an impact. But of course, that's also having an impact on our profit number as well. So when we're talking about this step forward in guidance, that's despite some significant headwinds.
The other half of the CapEx reduction is really our ongoing focus on making sure that we're maximizing the returns that we get from all the money that we're investing, and we are maintaining that focus. Now, as we come into next year, we are likely to perhaps relax some of those constraints that we've got in place, but we'll talk more about that at the year-end.
Great, thank you very much.
Just one other thing, Warwick, while you're asking about mitigating the minimum wage. It's worth one example that might be useful to you. I mean, our stores customer satisfaction increased by 500 basis points year-on-year, and that's despite us making some savings in the total number of hours of colleagues that we have in store. We achieved that while increasing the number of customer-facing hours that we have for store colleagues. But the trick there is process improvement, and we're not done with that. There's a great deal more that we can and intend to do on process improvements in the stores that will reduce the total number of hours, while continuing to improve the number of customer-facing hours.
So that's just one example of a mitigant that we intend to build on.
That's very helpful. Thanks, Alex.
Not at all.
Thanks. Adam Tomlinson from Liberum, please go ahead.
Hi, Adam.
Morning, everyone. Morning. Three questions from me, please. The first one is just on the U.K. and coming back to that gross margin stability that you, that you highlighted in the statement. Now, obviously, we've had some of your direct peers in the space warn on profits, really around gross margin coming in below expectations. So, keeping hold of those gains you've made over the past few years, you know, really interested to understand how you've done that over peak. And particularly in, you know, a environment that your competitors are noting is very... the consumer remains very price conscious, so great to sort of run through those details. The second question on the Nordics.
Yeah, I think you spoke about your competitors behaving more rationally in these markets, so good to just get some more color on that. And I think there's been a little bit of M&A as well in that space, so just whether that changes anything in terms of the competitive landscape for you. And finally, sort of overarching question, both territories there, just around subscription numbers and loyalty schemes and the ability of those, the opportunity there to continue driving repeat purchase and customer lifetime value. Just some thoughts on that would be great as well, please.
Right. Three big topics there, Adam. So, I mean, first of all, to answer your question on how we're able to keep gross margins stable while others perhaps are having less success at that. I think it speaks to some of the things that we've got that competitors simply don't have. I mean, the solutions selling, for example, I mean, that depends on really well-invested channels. It depends on capable and committed colleagues who have got good tools and who are well-motivated in the stores. It depends on a top-class commercial team negotiating good terms with suppliers for bundles that encourage the customers to take them. It depends on the investment, the heavy investment that we've made in our online channel that allows us to put in innovations like the bundle builder, for example.
And the results of all of this have seen this big jump forward in customer adoption of complete solutions rather than buying a product on its own. Now, up to nearly 30% of all products are sold as part of a solution, 1,100 basis points up year-on-year. So, this is hard work that depends on some real capabilities that we've got at scale that others perhaps don't have. That's certainly true of services, the other big driver of gross margin improvements that we've seen. And we have built over years this credit business that's now over 20% of our total sales. It's hard work doing this, but I'm glad we've done it because it...
That's good for customers, but it's also very good for in-year margins and for longer-term value. Then the repair capability that we talked about before. You can't just magic up a 11 million customer repair capability overnight. I mean, no one else can realistically replicate what we've built in Newark of 1,000 colleagues in Europe's largest technology repair center. I mean, these things take years to improve, and we've worked hard to do so. We're not happy with where we are on all of this. There's a lot more to come, but we are happy with the trajectory, with our repair up 170 basis points year-on-year. So, then there's mobile subscriptions as well. So we've got assets that I hope we're making better use of-...
that others simply haven't got, and that, that's, that can explain our gross margins. It's for others to explain theirs. I mean, your second point was on the competitive environment in the Nordics. There has been some-
Yeah.
M&A. Yeah, I mean, NetOnNet and Komplett have got together, and Power bought out MediaMarkt's Swedish business, for example. There are rumors about one or two others, and, you know, everything else being equal, that's helpful, as the market consolidates. What we don't see competitors having to desperately discount to get rid of excess stock, that's washed through, by and large. But the, I mean, the competition is still intense. We're not, we're not claiming otherwise. I mean, we're for example, the grocers in Denmark are still using some electrical goods as loss leaders. That's makes life complicated. Power themselves are investing heavily in marketing as they rebrand their the MediaMarkt Swedish business. NetOnNet, Komplett are opening new stores.
So it's not as if the competition has become any less intense, but it is perhaps a shade more rational. But ultimately, we're not depending on consumer sentiment recovering. We're not waiting for it. We're not waiting for the competition to change. What we're getting on with is our self-help action, and that's the, you know, the 190 basis point improvement in gross margins in the first half that we flagged, as well as the cost disciplines that Bruce spoke to. So, with no help from the market, that's leaving us confident to doing much better on profits year on year in the Nordics. And then finally, I mean, I've touched on this already. You asked about the various drivers of loyalty.
I mean, we are fortunate in this business to have a number of them. I mean, credit customers are much likelier to come back and make their next purchase from Currys. So as we increase the proportion of our sales on our own credit product, and it's just overtaking credit cards, by the way, as the number one means of payment in Currys. As we increase that proportion of sales on credit, so we're increasing the recurring nature of those relationships. Likewise, on repair, when customers sign up to a Care & Repair plan, they're likelier to come back and give us their business. So we keep going with that, and likewise on mobile.
When a mobile customer signs up with iD, as 29% more customers did year-on-year over peak, they're likelier to come back and give us their next handset deal. And that's before we start talking— Excuse me. That's before we start talking about our millions of Perks customers and Nordics Customer Club members, which obviously also the more conventional drivers of loyalty, if you like, which also serve to drive repeat business. So, I mean, I don't know. I'd give us about a 6 out of 10 in terms of our maturity on all of this. There's... but we're improving, and there's more to come.
Great. Thank you. Thanks a lot for those answers.
As a reminder, to ask a question, please signal by pressing star one on your telephone keypad. The next question is from Ben Hunt from Investec. Please go ahead.
Morning, Ben.
Morning there. Just to sort of continue on that theme of adoption rates in Care & Repair and delivery and installation. What is it exactly, do you think, that is driving the adoption rates? Is it the market itself, or is it a function of you shouting a bit more louder about what you do? Is there anything specific you can do that's pushing that acceleration there?
Well, I don't think-
That you sort of-
I don't think it's shouting louder, Ben, 'cause I think I mentioned that, that's one thing that we're being self-critical about. We need to do a better job of it. I mean, you talk about Care and repair. We have this fabulous capability up in Europe. We've got 11 million customers. It speaks to customers' enthusiasm for sustainability as well as their desire to save money in the cost of living crisis, and it's profitable for us.
So, it's tick, tick, tick, and we want to make—we are making more of it with 170 basis points improvement in adoption, but we're nowhere near our full potential, and we're challenging ourselves that we need to do a better job, both about shouting about it, but in the case of repair, doing replicating the success we've had in credit online and replicating that in repair. We're doing better at selling Care & Repair online, but we're nowhere near good, and that's a big focus for this year. When it comes to delivery and installation, again, it's not about us shouting about it. It...
Actually, it's not about a price competition because we're charging more for more than threefold increase year-on-year in terms of revenue per delivery and installation. And what the reason we're able to charge more for it, and the reason that adoption is growing, isn't because of our skill in shouting about it, which we need to do better. It's everything to do with getting it more right first time for customers, whether it's turning up-
That's by annualizing the GBP 10 increase, I think, roughly how much more you were charging in September last year. Is that correct?
Yes, that is correct.
Okay. And then, are you actually able to give us a number for your market share in the U.K., for Q3, for P3?
Well, no, no, that we're not guiding to, and we'll come back and report on that at the year-end. I mean, we did flag that we'd let go some market share in the U.K. in the first half, more than half of it, thanks to deliberate conscious choices. We're not flagging any numbers on that for peak. But put it this way, I mean, the like-for-like sales we have talked about, and that remains steady over peak with the first half performance in the absence of a much market improvement. But that's not where our performance improvement's been driven from. It hasn't been driven from a strong market or from share gains.
It's been driven by us managing to keep stable profits and continue the cost discipline that we've talked to. I think long we've talked about, I touched on market share earlier, didn't I? And we're not, we're not flagging an intention to keep market share eroding indefinitely in the U.K. We'll be annualizing on some of the improvements that we made in not chasing less profitable sales and digital marketing efficiency and pricing discipline and the like. We'll be annualizing those decisions during the course of 2024, and at some point, we'll come back and talk to you about some profitable growth plans. So we're not flagging an intention to keep eroding this, but we like being number one in the market. We like our market leading position.
We derive some concrete benefits from it, but that's not the primary thing we're solving for. The primary thing we're solving for is sustainable free cash flows and profits in this business, and that we'll continue to do.
Okay, and then final question, if I can. iD Mobile seems to be going great guns at the moment. How much of it is benefiting from those with the legacy Vodafone contracts switching over to iD, i.e., you switching them yourselves, and how much of it is actually you gaining incremental new business?
Well, it's not legacy, Vodafone contracts. We're certainly benefiting from the excellent deals and relationships we now got with our MNO partners, Three for iD and Vodafone, as well. And we've got good arrangements with them that benefit everybody, but allow iD to offer excellent value to the customer. I mean, the customer is very value conscious at the moment, and so if over peak, more than one in ten of U.K. new subs in the market were with iD, it's because we're offering excellent value, and we're executing better in the channels. So that's the- that's what's behind this, and there's, I mean, more to come. We're not happy with where we are in iD.
There's the app to land, there's e-com more broadly to improve, there's billing to improve, so we're gonna keep this going, and we see no reason why we shouldn't be able to. And what we're building here, Ben, as you know, is a valuable asset.
Yeah, that's good. Great. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Thank you. As there are no further questions in the queue at this time, I'd like to hand the call back over to Alex for any additional or closing remarks. Over to you, sir.
Okay. Well, thanks, everybody. And in summary, this has been a pretty successful peak in a challenging market, doing what we said we'd do, getting the Nordics back on track, keeping up momentum in the U.K., and positioning ourselves well for when consumer sentiment improves and staying resilient in the meantime and putting in a pretty solid performance. So many thanks, and we'll speak to you all soon.
Thank you. This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation, ladies and gentlemen. You may now disconnect.