Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the MoneySuperMarket Interim Results 2023 Q&A session. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you'll need to press star one and one on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star one and one again. Alternatively, you may submit your questions via the webcast. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I'd now like to hand the conference over to your first speaker today, Peter Duffy, CEO. Please go ahead.
Well, good morning, everybody, and thank you very much for joining MoneySuperMarket's half year results Q&A for 2023. I'll just say a few opening remarks before we open up for questions. We've had a strong first half of the year. You will have seen that revenue was up to GBP 213.8 million. That was up 11%. We've maintained margins at 68%. EBITDA was up 20% to nearly GBP 68 million. Within that, trading for insurance has been standout. It's grown at 23% in the first half as we lapse the market-driven declines of last year. This morning, we've also guided towards the upper end of consensus for EBITDA in 2023. Importantly, we've announced a return to dividend growth, starting with a 3% increase for this half.
With strategy, I am pleased to say we've made significant progress. The tech to support our efficient acquisition, including all the work on data, is now in place, and it's being used in anger. This platform is now also enabling the testing of new user experiences aimed to drive customer retention and growth. We talked this morning in the presentation about three retention and crossover initiatives. Firstly, the rollout of our Dialogue platform, which is all about how we speed up the user experience. Secondly, the trial of our reward and loyalty program, the MoneySuperMarket SuperSaveClub. Thirdly, how we're beginning to personalize the MoneySavingExpert app. Also, we've talked about the introduction of our new ChatGPT feature.
I hope all this shows how we are planning to build off the good work of the last two years, through initiatives which are going to help customers save more money by doing more with us. With that, we'll open up for questions. Who's got the first question, please?
Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, you can press star one and one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced, and to withdraw your question, you can press star one and one again. If you do wish to ask your question via the webcast, please type it into the box and click Submit. We will now take our first question. Please stand by. This is from the line of Andrew Ross from Barclays. Please go ahead.
Great. Good morning, everyone. I've got two, if that's okay. The first one is on all the technology investments that's gone into the group. It's clear that there is a benefit that is now starting to manifest in the numbers. You're gaining share in insurance, for example. I wanted to ask you, though, about the gross margin in 2024 and when we might start to see the benefit of better retention coming through in the numbers. How confident are you in expanding your gross margins in 2024, if we kind of assume a broadly stable revenue mix of the group by product category? The second question is about SuperSaveClub and what you've learned in the trial so far.
I assume the fact that you are budgeting some TV spend for this in the second half, if I understood it correctly, means that trial is clearly pointing to a kind of NPV positive, but any numbers or kind of indicators you could share as to how that trial is going would be really helpful. Thank you.
Great. Thanks, Andrew. I'll do Super Save, Niall, I'll ask you to pick up on margin for 2024. If I just start with SuperSaveClub, just to say it's really early doors. Essentially, we put this live in May of this year. As you would guess, it starts off with being an operational trial, we're bringing together car insurance, home insurance, broadband, and travel insurance, kind of for the first time. We've got to ensure that all the redemption and, you know, the systems work in the way that they wanted to do. We're confident that we've proven out that that's the case in terms of what's happening. Of course, you know, and this will sort of feed into Niall's answer as well.
We're working with products that are on an annual cycle here in terms of how they renew. To a similar question, I think I was asked at the full year results about how we see this manifesting. We would hope it would be again, by seeing the customers who are on the trial actually purchasing more with us. Bringing more policies, not just improved renewal rates at the 12-month point, but bringing more policies, maybe second off their cars or their home insurance or the travel insurance, bringing more stuff together. You know, we've got a sort of looking rate of 1.2 products, so if we can improve that would have a significant impact. The other point just to comment on with Club is about source mix.
You know, the way price comparisons traditionally worked, we have had very large and expensive third-party media budgets. If we can begin to substitute some of that spend to begin to get the customer to come directly to us and essentially spend some of that money in terms of customer retention, we think that's a better and a more sustainable model over time. That's probably just a good segue into talking about margin. Niall, do you want to pick up on margin?
Yeah. Thank you, Andrew. I mean, I'm gonna sort of echo a lot of what Peter has said. I think, I mean, if I look at margin in the half, we're obviously flat year-over-year. Within that, there are a number of sort of puts and takes, you know, that we saw strength in insurance, and as you say, the work that we've done in around PPC and efficient acquisition have certainly been tailwinds in the half. You know, headwinds coming through from money, home services, winning more in B2B.
I think, you know, if we're not giving gains on 2024 today, if you think about that as that's the breadth of the group, that's the strength of the group, is that we've got many products in many verticals, and those types of puts and takes will probably play out in 2024 as well. I think, again, as Peter said, a lot of that work long term, especially if you take SuperSaveClub, for example, is around rewarding loyalty, and moving some of that spend to giving it to customers. I think we will see that play out over a number of cycles because we're on annual new renewals, and it'll take a while to come through. As Peter says, hopefully in pounds and then eventually in greater strength.
Your question, Andrew, was about 2024 specifically, but just, you know, at the highest level, the combination of SuperSaveClub and Dialogue to make it easier for customers to buy more stuff from us and to incentivize them to buy more stuff from us, just makes sense as a strategy for this organization.
Cool.
Okay. Next question. Is that okay? Yeah. Next question, if that's okay.
Thank you. We'll now take our next question. Please stand by. This is from the line of Rahul Chopra from HSBC. Please go ahead.
Yes, good morning. I have a couple of questions. First, could you give us a sense of the change in providers' response post FCA, in terms of the number of new product launches, and maybe also some color on insurance premium in Q2 by verticals? That's the first question. The second, could you also talk a bit more about cross-channel inquiries? You talked about cross-channel inquiries are 20%. I just wanted to check, just a sense of, you know, where are you seeing those product cross inquiries? Is it basically between money and energy, or money and insurance, or between travel? Just wanted to get a sense of where those cross inquiries are, and conversion rates on those cross inquiries as well. Please, if you could give us some sense. Thank you.
Right. I'll do the first, Rahul, and again, hand over to Niall for the second. Let me begin by talking about motor insurance, 'cause I do think it's really interesting what we've seen in the half. Starting in motor, premiums have been up, 18%. You, you will probably have seen some numbers which are, you know, exciting with 18%. 18% is the number to the end of May, the industry data about products that have been purchased. Not quotes that have been given, actual products that have been purchased. On top of that, we have seen a 24% year-on-year increase in the half in terms of the number of products on the platform.
Interestingly, over one in three of those products are now what are called tiered products, essentially giving customers the opportunity to trade up and buy more features. We see something around 50% of customers deciding to do that, actually looking for a tiered product and then kind of buying more, or buying a, you know, an enhancement essentially to the base offer, which was made. I think the reality of all that together, premiums up by a significant amount, an increasingly complicated product environment for customers to navigate, just says that they need price comparison to help them through all of this. Comparison websites, I think are probably one of the few ways you can really guarantee that you're meeting properly customers' demands and needs in the way that the regulator wants us to see.
That has resulted in market switching being up 19% in the half. That, again, I think is end of May data, although you'll see that our numbers are better than that, in that we have been up 23% against that market up of 19%. You know, the summary of all that, I think, is premiums have gone up, more products have been launched. That means that customers have increasingly gone to comparison websites like ourselves, to actually find good solutions. As we've said, we have won a greater share of this growing market. If I then look at home insurance, it's a sort of similar story, but one that slightly lags kind of in every way. You won't be surprised to hear that most insurance have provided us more profitable products.
They focused there first after the FCA regulation, moved on to home after that. We've seen premiums up 13% in home. We've probably seen about 10% more products launched, H1 on H1, in terms of where they are. We're starting to see tiered products coming through. You know, that market is up 6% overall. Again, we're winning share of a growing market. We're seeing a very, very similar story begin to wash through. I hope that answers number 1, Rahul. Niall, just-
Yeah, cross-channel. Rahul, you'll see in the pack, and in the RNS, that we've put out what we call MSM cross-channel enquiry, 20.6%, which is flat year-over-year. What that number is, it is the number, the proportion of MSM active users that are making an enquiry in more than one channel in the last 12 months. In that number this year, you've got a couple of, well, a few moving parts. The big one is energy. You'll recall at the prelims, we talked about the fact that energy enquiry was up more in 2022 than the year before that, so people enquiring when there was nothing.
Energy in this period is down on that, which is probably not surprising given where the sort of end market is, and then the things that are making the ups are primarily in the other channels, but definitely insurance is one of the big upswings.
Okay. Thank you so much.
Is that okay, Rahul?
Yes. Yeah. Thank you so much.
Great. Thank you. Next question, please.
Thank you. We'll now take our next question. Please stand by. This is from the line of Yulia Kazakovtseva from UBS. Please go ahead.
Yes, thank you for taking my question, good morning, everyone. I've got a couple, if I may. My first question is about energy switching. I believe right now there is a gap between the wholesale price and the price cap on the market. Why do you think we don't see a lot of providers coming back to the market with new offers to attract new customers? In your view, what needs to change for this to happen? The second question is about current revenue trends. Can you please update us on insurance and money trading in July, please? Thank you.
Again, I'll pass the second on to Niall, Yulia, if that's all right, and I'll pick up the first in terms of energy. I think you're right. We are seeing now wholesale prices at a point below the price cap where, post Market Stabilisation Charge providers could make some money. I think the issue really here, Yulia, is volatility. Those wholesale prices are changing, you know, obviously daily, but, you know, the movements can be significant as well. I think that we would expect more of a tense market when providers get confident that that pricing is a little bit more stable than it is at the moment. You know, the opportunity for deals is there, and we've got one deal now on the platform.
I think we're probably gonna need to see a little bit more price stability on the wholesale markets before we kind of get a more significant return coming. I think that's probably one of the biggest factors at the moment. Niall, do you wanna pick up on anything else on that or money?
Just picking up, I mean, I think you're asking, Yulia, the trends into H2. I think, nothing particularly extra in July compared to what we've already called out. Obviously, as we go through H2, we've kind of talked about the fact that in H1 last year, the insurance market was down significantly, and then as we went through the year, that market got better. As we go through this period, we're expecting that trend to continue. Nothing extra to call out in July, although than what we've already said in the statement.
Great.
Okay. Thank you.
Thanks, Yulia. Next question, please.
Thank you. As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question over the phone lines, please press star one and one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. You may also submit your questions via the webcast.
We have one question that's been asked via the webcast from Alastair Reid at Investec. The first question is: firstly, you've announced the launch of your MSE ChatGPT product. What do you see as the potential benefits from this, and what risks, if any, do you see from these types of AI models more generally? The second question, from Andrew is: lastly, how are you thinking about the trajectory of the returning energy activity post-2023? Would you expect a return to near historic levels of activity as energy providers offer and compete on more innovative types of tariffs?
Great. Okay. Again, should I do number one, and you do number two, Niall? Thanks for asking that, Alastair, because I think this whole ChatGPT thing is creating a huge level of interest in the market, so it's kind of good to have the opportunity to put our point of view forward. You know, I think you can divide it in two ways. Firstly, how does this technology begin to drive efficiency within the business? I think perhaps even more importantly and more excitingly, is how do you begin to increase the funnel in which users can begin to search for our offerings? In terms of a first, you know, we're doing all the things that you would expect us to be doing.
Thinking about SEO, editorial, our CRM, generated our first AI-only emails, looking at our tech world and how we can make, you know, code generation more efficient. You know, probably a number of the things you're hearing from lots of other organizations. I think to your question, it's really how we can begin to use this technology to improve the customer experience that is really exciting. The first application that has gone live is obviously on the MSE App, where we've used the tech to begin to enable customers to quickly navigate through, you know, the wealth of information that that can contain to begin to answer questions.
In part, that's just helping us understand how this technology works, the sort of responses we get from consumers to it, and how we essentially see it working in terms of the answers that we're happy it's delivering versus what is happening in practice. You know, I point to something which I think is quite critical for this group, really. Because what we do is take, you know, personal information from customers, put it through our proprietary systems, and essentially give them a very personalized response which meets all the regulatory criteria. Regulators, as you all know, are increasingly focused on customer outcomes. They want somebody to be responsible for the quality of that outcome, and to make sure that they are meeting demands and needs, and delivering the right thing for the customer in the right sort of way.
That's exactly what we do. I think that, to some degree, provides a moat around our activities. We are not providing standardized answers. We are not, you know, we're not gonna, I think, be finding ourselves competing against anonymous sources of information. You know, the regulator does want to make sure that personalized solutions are actually meeting all the requirements that they should do, and I think that's kind of an important criteria. You're gonna be seeing more from us in coming weeks. We have other initiatives which are very, very close to kind of going live. They will look at all different areas of the proposition we're putting in front of the customer.
Like many organizations, we see ourselves very much in a learning phase at the moment, which is conscious about the pace of this technology and making sure that, you know, we seize the opportunity, as quickly as we can. Niall, I think the second part of the question was trajectory for energy post 2023?
Yeah, I think it's worth maybe just calling out, you know, before the energy market closed up in 2020, we were doing at around GBP 50 million of revenue in the energy vertical, so it's a significant part of the business that's not there today. you know, in the medium term, we're very confident of a market, a robust market coming back. I think our view, as we've probably talked about before, is that providers will probably want to sound out the market. as Peter sort of touched on a bit earlier, just that sort of volatility in the market probably militates a little bit towards them doing that type of activity. in fact, you know, we've, as we've mentioned on the call today, we've got one small deal on at the moment.
I see that as kind of good evidence of a return, but as we've talked about, nothing material for FY 2023. I think we will see it come back and probably in a phased way, as we're seeing at the moment.
Just a couple of builds to that. You know, we have probably the same number of providers left in the market that we have in broadband, and that's a very, very competitive market. You know, from all our conversations with providers, we are fully anticipating that there will be a return to competitive dynamics. It was really good to see the regulator last week acknowledging that, you know, a competitive market is really important in terms of creating good customer outcomes. I know they're thinking more about how they make that happen as well.
Okay. Does that cover it, Alastair?
Any other questions?
We have a couple more coming through from the phone lines.
Great. Thank you.
The next is a follow-up from the line of Yulia Kazakovtseva from UBS. Please go ahead.
Thanks for squeezing me in. I have one follow-up question on gross margin for the rest of the year. Given all the trends you mentioned, should we expect kind of flattish H2 gross margin as compared to H1 or not? Thank you.
Yeah. Thanks, Yulia. Look, I think. Obviously H1 is flat year-over-year. I think I've talked about, you know, the puts and takes within that in terms of insurance and PPC being tailwinds, and then headwinds within money, home services and B2B. I think that's a very, very strong reflection of the strength of the group, you know, the sort of portfolio of things that are there. If you think about the trend that we've sort of picked out for H2, you know, there's nothing to say there that those same themes won't play out in terms of percentage margin in the second half, but obviously we'll be focused on, you know, growing the efficiency of the group, growing the top line sustainably.
Thank you.
All right.
Thank you. We'll now take our next question. This is a follow-up from Rahul Chopra from HSBC. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Thank you. I have a follow-up question on. Earlier in the call you mentioned about giving back savings instead of spending on marketing. Could you just give us more sense of dynamics around gross margin versus marketing margin in the long, maybe medium term? Basically, what should we think about operating margin for the group? Should it be probably higher when we think about a bit longer term with lower marketing margin versus higher gross? I just want to understand the dynamics around gross, please.
Yeah, I think, Rahul, you, what you're picking up there, I think is around SuperSaveClub. I think it's probably the, the key point here is SuperSaveClub is in trial, and we're not expecting anything material in terms of margins this year. Don't model anything in for that. I think in the longer term, really this is about rewarding customer loyalty. We want to do more for our customers who come to us directly, and hopefully over time, that means shifting spend from paid sources to direct sources. The, the benefit that we're going after really is around that. It's around customer loyalty.
In the longer term, you know, as we kind of shift that source mix, that'll give us choices around how we grow, how we achieve profitability, but it's going to take a number of cycles for it to play out. You think about most products are on an annual renewal cycle, we will have to see over those cycles how it plays out.
Okay, thanks so much. Cheers.
Thank you. As a reminder, if there are any further questions, it's star one and one on your keypad, or you may type them into the webcast. That's star one and one to ask a question over the phone, or please feel free to submit them via the webcast.
I think that's feeling like we're done. I'm just checking with the moderator, anything else coming in?
No questions from the phone lines.
Just then to finish by saying thanks very much for your time, everybody. Really appreciated you taking the opportunity to ask questions today, and hopefully we'll be following up with you over coming days if, we can help any further. Thanks very much.
Thank you. This does conclude the conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect. Speakers, please stand by.