The presentation. Andreas and Petter, whenever you're ready, please go ahead.
Thank you, Kjersti.
Thank you.
Good morning, everyone. We will present to you a short summary of our second quarter, the results and some key activities. As Kjersti said, we're open for questions at the end of the presentation. We'll just get the presentation going here. There we are. On the operational side, we expected Q2 to be not as difficult as it turned out to be, so it was a bit more challenging. The reason for that is that when we presented the Q1 results in the 11th of May, April was actually looking quite good. It was the best month so far in 2022. The start of May was also okay. Moving into the later part of May and then into June, things became tougher.
Especially for us, it was the second half of June, where we last year had an opening of our store at Jessheim, who was a big success all over the country. The last two weeks, that campaign drew a lot of customers into our stores. We didn't manage to match that this year. That's why we fell a bit behind than what we had expected. B2B though, however, continues to grow, and we grow more than the market. In a quite positive market, we managed to still outperform it, which we're happy with. We continue to have good cost control. Our stores are handling almost the same amount of customers, but at a lower cost, and we're very happy with that.
Integration of Elbutik is going well, and I will come back to a bit more of that. We have started to implement a new replenishment system, which will help us in terms of availability and in terms of having better control and the right type of stock at the right time. We will start the full rollout of this system in Q3 and Q4. So far the implementation has been very successful. We have also been attending Eliaden, which is Norway's largest Norwegian electrical wholesale fair, and this was the first time for us, and we of course presented Elektroimportøren as a concept, but also Namron and SpotOn.
For us it was a great success in terms of the amount of people that visited our stand and the amount of electricians that we actually got to meet for the first time. If we look at the key financials, our revenues ended at NOK 358 million,, which is up 11.6% from last year. This is then including Elbutik, of course. Like-for-like sales in stores are actually up 1%, which we're quite okay with, to be honest, given the retail climate that has been throughout the quarter. The total like-for-like sales has a decline of 2.4% and that is driven by a reduction in online sales. We do not manage to grow online sales in the quarter. The share of online is now at 18.9%.
This is excluding the pickup in store part, which we consider not as online.. Of course, again, including the Elbutik sales, which is 100% online. B2B sales had an increase of 8.4%, and Elbutik B2C sales, including Elbutik, had an increase of 15.3%. The total share of business of B2B for the quarter was 50.7%, reduced from 52.2%. Again, this is of course because of Elbutik being almost 100% B2C. Overall gross margin ended at 35.1%, somewhat lower than last year, actually 2.3% lower. Petter will come back to some more details around that. We have three more stores than we did last year. OPEX to sales ratio increases with 0.5%. We also opened or doubled the size of our warehouse, central warehouse last year in Q3.
We're actually quite okay given that the expenses that we added with these locations, 21.5% we think is okay. We report an EBITDA of almost NOK 49 million, down from almost NOK 53 million last year, with an EBITDA margin of 13.6%. We are also at the end of the quarter utilizing NOK 46 million of our overdraft facility, which again, Petter will come back a bit more on. In Sweden, Elbutik Scandinavia AB had sales of NOK 31.5 million. We have found our first store location and we have signed the agreement. This is a store which is located in Veddesta, which is just nearby Barkarby, who is Sweden's second-largest shopping area. We're neighbors with Biltema, who is a giant also in retail in Sweden.
The area that we found and the location, we're very happy with it and super excited to get this store open in Q1 2023. We also hired a new managing director. His name is Christer Olsson. He has long and good experience from the wholesale part of the business, which is very good for us since B2B Sweden is where we have the least knowledge. Happy to have Christer on board. The integration is going well. We've moved them over to our ERP system.
We're shifting the customer service system that we have, the WMS system, and all of this is working smoothly, and we are also getting into new ways of working, which is going well. We are moving just across the road into a somewhat larger warehouse where we are today in Staffanstorp, just outside of Malmö. We will only be there for a year, but this is necessary for us to be able to handle stores, physical stores in terms of how warehouse operations work. We will be there for about a year, and then we will move into a new central warehouse, also in Staffanstorp, but much larger and with much greater capacity. We have introduced Namron and EV chargers on elbutik.se. It's going good. It's going okay.
Conversion and presenting a new brand online is harder than doing it offline in stores. You have a greater possibility to steer the customer when you meet them physically. Again, we're okay with the development. We are 2% share of business as we speak, and the target is to reach somewhere like 5% share of business with Namron online in Sweden as we go. Well, sorry, before the end of the year. As we said last time, we are doing long-term investments in people, stores, and logistics facilities in Sweden, and we will continue to do so. The big opportunities are ahead of us.
This year is about setting up things so that we can actually grab these opportunities that we see in the future. Short note on electric vehicle chargers. You probably all know, it's starting to be a big, a really big part of our business. We continue to grow, 38% growth in Q2, ending sales at NOK 47.6 million. Happily, for us, the supply of chargers continues to be good, the relationship that we have with the suppliers are good, so we don't foresee any major challenges here, and we actually expect EV chargers to continue to grow. On Namron, our share of business for Q2 is almost 31%, which is slightly up from Q1. We're okay with that.
We're actually happy to keep it on that level. There are new product launches coming in all our major categories, so in Electro Materials, Lighting, Heating in Q3 and Q4, and the lineup for these for the second half of the year looks really good. Namron is, of course, one of the key drivers for increasing our gross margin in Sweden. Once we can reach or even half of the levels that we have in Norway today, it will have a major impact on our gross margin in Sweden. SpotOn. We had more than 750 installations made in Q2. Total sales ended at almost NOK 7.5 million, up from NOK 4.3 million last year. We have added another 40 new installation partners.
SpotOn continues to go well. We are attracting more installers. We're attracting new customers, and we're happy with the development and the offer that we actually can now have a total full offer to our customers, our B2C customers. That's it.
Thank you, Andreas. Just a little note on the revenue, going from Q2 last year to this year. We have positive like-for-like sales in Norway. We had that also in the first quarter. Not much, but still it's okay result. We would wish better, but still we had around 11% growth last year in the stores, so we think that's good. Online we had more than 54% like-for-like sales in 2019, so based on that, it's good development. 19% down in Norway. We wish for more, but in the current market, we're not satisfied, but it's okay. New stores in Norway, that's Jessheim, Kristiansund, Stavanger.
They are contributing okay, NOK 14 million for this quarter. They are all also positive result, so that's good. Then of course we have Elbutik, which was not present last year. We had NOK 32.2 million. Tough comparables last year. We believe that the two quarters we've been through is the toughest comparables for this year. We'll see, but that's how I see it. Gross margin is going down from last year. The main drivers for this is of course we have a increase in the B2B customer segment. They have a lower margin. We expect that also to continue forward for the full year. But still, we also increase the prices in the first week of July, as we do every year.
We expect the margin percentage to increase in the coming quarter, compared to Q2 this year. We also see that, of course, we have in Sweden, Elbutik. They have a lower margin than in Norway. Of course when we include this operation, that will reduce the total margin percentage. The key driver, as Andreas said, for Elbutik to increase the margin is to implement more Namron products and to have a bigger share of total sales in Sweden. That's the margin. OpEx, we believe that we have overall good cost control. We have reduction in costs in the like-for-like physical stores with around NOK 1 million. We have new stores. Of course, they have to have personnel cost and other costs to manage these stores. That's NOK 3 million.
The Elbutik didn't have them last year, so they're using NOK 6 million for this quarter. We have roughly based on higher electricity costs, we have at around NOK 1 million extra cost per quarter, and then other elements. That's how we get from NOK 67 million-NOK 77 million on OPEX. On the EBITDA, we had NOK 53 million last year. We end up NOK 49 million this year. Like-for-like physical stores, NOK 4 million less than last year, mainly because of lower margin percentage. Online is down NOK 3 million based on mainly because of NOK 90 million lower sales than last year. New stores, positive contribution with NOK 3 million. Elbutik is a positive contribution with NOK 2 million. Other operating costs like marketing, logistics, back office is small, a small increase.
That's how we get from NOK 53 million-NOK 49 million for this quarter. I leave it to you, Andreas.
Yes. Thank you. Monday this week, we opened store number 27 in Drammen. It's our second store in Drammen. We're happy to be able to supply the customers in Drammen with two stores. Opening went very well. As Petter was mentioning, we made a price increase first week in July. All customer segments, this is partly, of course, to offset from the price increases that we've been receiving from our suppliers, but also to try to increase our gross margins a bit on a general basis. We believe that the toughest comparable figures are behind us. Well, obviously, the toughest comparable figures are behind us if we look at the growth we had last year. The first half we...
Half of 2021, we had a much higher growth than we did in the second half. Of course, it comes down to the climate in the general market. At least how we see it, the toughest comparables are behind us. We do not foresee any major disruptions in supply of products. Yeah, there are some suppliers that have some challenges on certain products or product groups, but it's not gonna be a major issue for us in this quarter as we see it. What we're doing right now is that we're preparing for peak season. September, October, November is by far the most important months for us when it comes to sales and income. We're doing everything we can now to be ready for that.
We're gathering all of our employees in two weeks' time to get them prepared together with our suppliers, and we have some good marketing campaigns coming up. Yeah, so we're getting ready, and we think the peak season is gonna be quite good. That's what we had. We open up for questions. It looks like my eyes just aren't getting any better. How has the performance in the business segment and consumer segment been so far this quarter? It's been, what should we say? Volatile.
Mm.
It continues to be volatile. Of course, July is a big month for the consumer side and slow on B2B because they're on holiday. I don't wanna give the exact figures, to be honest, but maybe the most fascinating thing continues to be since we entered COVID is the rapid shifts from great growth to decline from day to day. It's tougher now these days, it has been for a while, to see where the trend is going.
Mm
To be honest. B2B continues to be good. The volatile part of the business is more located in B2C. We can, however, probably say that online seems to be catching up a bit in terms of
Mm
Reaching last year levels. What was the mix effect on gross margins in Q2? What are the gross margins you expect for the second half? Can you please provide a bridge on what should drive the recovery? As Petter was mentioning, what is driving margins down is higher share of business B2B than we had last year. Even higher share of business in electric vehicle chargers, and maybe the largest part that we added on, Elbutik, which has roughly 10% lower margin than the Norwegian business. That's why what's driving it down. What are we doing to recover it? As we were saying, there was a price increase in July.
2 x a year, we adjust the prices for B2B, and every week, we adjust the prices to consumers. We have to maintain a low price alternative to consumers. Not the lowest price, but we have to be attractive on price in order to get the volumes that we need. We will just have to follow the market and see how that performs.
Yeah, there are good plans on Namron for the last part of the year.
Yes.
We also believe that we will be able to increase the Namron share of business in Sweden going forward, so that would be also a good.
Yeah
Contribution.
Yes. You highlight weaker B2C sales in Norway. Any particular categories you are seeing weaker demand? The growth in B2B, is that driven by new customers or more loyal customers? Yeah. In B2C, the largest decline by far is on heating products. Usually we have quite a good sale on patio heaters. Given the discussions around electrical bills, we can sort of understand that sales of electrical patio heaters has not been as expected. That's the major decline for us in B2C, that the outside heating products are selling really bad, to be honest. We're not used to that. When it comes to growth in B2B, it's mostly driven by loyal customers. We also get new customers, but the largest growth comes from increased loyalty.
Why was Norway OPEX per store down? Q2 NOK 70.9 million per 26 stores, NOK 2.73 million. Well, it is down. On like-for-like.
It's just good cost control in the stores, very good at.
It's relating to numbers from last year, saying 2.73 per store and 2.86. Yeah, I don't really understand the question, to be honest, because the reason why it's going down is because we are being more effective in terms of personnel. That is mainly what the
Also other costs. They are more conscious about traveling, more conscious about what they use, different services in store.
Yeah.
Freight to deliveries to customers. It's, yeah.
The lease cost is going up, so that we cannot do anything about. The largest cost of running a store after lease is personal cost, and that we have good control and using less money on it. How do you see the impact of high electricity prices on your business? I think, in general, probably when people get less to spend, it's less to fight for in any market. Being in the market that we're in, we can help people reduce their electricity bills. What we have seen so far is that those kind of products that help people reduce cost of electricity at home is selling really well.
For this autumn, we of course have planned some good campaigns around informing customers, consumers what they can do to lower their electricity bill. I think that might have a positive impact on. Well, that will have a positive impact on sale. If the other part that is negative that people have less to spend is gonna drive the total down, I don't know. I think in general, we are quite good positioned in terms of getting our share of the wallet anyway, because we sell the type of products that will help them reduce their cost at home. Why did CapEx contribute NOK 11.5 million cap-
Yeah, that's related to the cash part of the purchase price from acquisition of Elbutik. That was reduced based on the audit figures for 2021 with NOK 18 million. That's what that element there.
Given more challenging macro outlook over the next 12 months, how have your priorities changed? Not too much. Our priorities stays the same. Our priority is to continue to build stores in Norway, and that we will continue with. It's to establish a store network in Sweden and to integrate the Elbutik business fully with us, and to grow Namron as a brand where we can. Those stand, and we're not changing that because of maybe a tougher macro outlook. How would you assess risk that decline in traffic leads some stores in Norway to have negative contribution margin? How would you react in that situation? Our stores are generally quite profitable. We make money in every store every month of the year.
If we start to lose money on a yearly basis in a store, I would close it. After trying everything we can to fix it, we would close it. I think you should not run unprofitable business. We're very far from that, very, very far from that. Not even close. That's what we would do if that were to happen. Has the strong June development for Elbutik continued in Q3? We had a good July in Elbutik. August is yet to see. In the first month of the quarter, it continued. How was your spending on marketing in Q2 versus Q2 last year? It was a bit lower, actually.
We spent a bit less in Q2, and you can always think about, would it have been better if we spend more? We decided to spend a bit less in order to have it in our back pocket for the peak season. The marketing campaigns and the activities that we are planning for now we're very pleased with. We did spend a bit less. I think that was it. Any more questions? No? Kjersti, should you wrap this up or are we just done?
Yeah, I don't see any further questions.
Ah.
Yeah, I think it's-
Okay.
Good. If anyone would like to ask anything else, they can reach out to ABG today.
Yes, please.
We also have a group presentation later today at 11:00 A.M.
11:00 A.M.
Yes.
Okay. Thank you very much for listening in.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Bye-bye.
Bye-bye.