Good morning all and welcome to this Q4 presentation with Elektroimportøren Elbutik. With us today is the CEO Andreas Niss and CFO Petter Bjørnstad. If you have any questions, feel free to use the written Q&A function, and the questions will be answered at the end of the presentation. Andreas and Petter, please go ahead when you're ready.
Thank you very much, Kjersti. Good morning and welcome everyone to our presentation of the Q4 2022 results and also a summary of the full year 2022. Yes. We start off. The operational update, despite facing quite tougher market conditions, at least tougher than we saw last year, we managed to once again grow throughout the quarter, beating last year's numbers which then was a record. Another quarter of record sales for Elektroimportøren Elbutik. We're very pleased with that. Most of the growth is coming from our operations in Sweden and the acquisition there. We did also manage to grow the Norwegian business. One of the main reasons for that is that we had a really good execution of the Black Week campaign.
Last week of November being definitely the largest week of the year, we're happy that we managed to grow through that week in Norway. Throughout the quarter, we have also had record sales for SpotOn. SpotOn has been had a good journey throughout 2022, it continued in Q4. In Sweden, we have been adjusting our operations to new ways of working after the move of our warehouse and also the implementation of a new warehouse management system. It's been going okay, we had some challenges throughout the quarter. We've also been preparing for the opening of our first store in April 2023. What we have seen throughout the quarter, and also in the start of this year is an increasing demand for energy-saving products.
We are now preparing for the launch of solar panels in Q1, and actually, the first ones have already been sold. Look at the financials. We had a total revenue just above NOK 500 million, which is a 9.4 increase from last year. Like-for-like sales were down 2.5%, with an increase in sales in online, but a decline of 3.9% in our physical stores. The progress on Spot On is continuing. As I said, growth with 80%, which is actually even a bit higher than we expected, so we landed on roughly NOK 12 million for the quarter.
Gross margin, 37.3%, which is quite a big decline from last year, which is mainly made up from product mix and the fact that we have a considerably lower margin in our Swedish operations. Petter will come back to some more details around the gross margin later. We show good cost control, operations to sales ratio of 23.5% compared to 23.4% last year, despite quite high inflation and a general higher cost of doing business. We report an EBITDA of NOK 70 million compared to NOK 77 million last year and an EBITDA margin of 13.8% compared to 16.8% in 2021. For the full year, we deliver a revenue of NOK 1.6 billion compared to NOK 1.485 billion last year, it's a growth of 9.5% throughout the year.
Like-for-like sales for the year is down 1.9%. Online is growing 6.3%, and stores are declining by 1.9% throughout the year. SpotOn more than doubled its sales from NOK 15 million last year to NOK 33 million in total revenues for 2022. The gross profit increased from NOK 573- NOK 600, taking the margin from 38.6% last year to 36.9% for the full year 2022. Strong cost control throughout the year. Operations to sales ratio of 24.2% compared to 23.5% in 2021. Finally, the EBITDA of NOK 205 million, which is down from NOK 222 million, giving us an EBITDA margin of 12.6% compared to 15% last year. In Sweden, Q4 sales were at SEK 38 million.
Full year sales from the date of acquisition, which was 3rd of March, is NOK 108 million. We report an EBITDA of -NOK 2 million for the quarter and +NOK 1 million for the year. Relocation of the warehouse, as I mentioned, has been one of the key things that we've been working with throughout the quarter. We did actually move end of Q3, but the implementation of the new ways of working, the warehouse management system, has led to some challenges in how rapidly we can fulfill orders. We've been working with that throughout the quarter and are now up and running as we should be. It has added some cost to the business. The store opening in April is going according to plan. Recruitments have been made. The team is in place.
We're working to get that store up and running end of March and planning for an opening in April. We continue. We have a strong belief that our concept will be successful also in Sweden, so we continue to do investments in stores, people, and logistics facilities in Sweden going forward. Energy-saving products, electrical vehicle chargers, heating pumps, and smart home energy-saving solutions has actually represented almost a quarter of our total business in Q4. Half of those 23% are EV chargers, and the rest is energy-saving solutions. This is an area where we see quite good increased demands from customers. Another place where we see good demand is within solar, and throughout the quarter, we have been preparing for the launch of solar panels now in Q1.
We have actually already sold the first set of panels and products to go with it, and we are excited to see how that can turn out for us in 2023. SpotOn sales of almost NOK 12 million. We are now exploring the possibility to use SpotOn also in other craftsman areas. We are talking with potential partners to see if this service can also be added in other areas, and, well, like in painting, like carpenters, plumbers, et cetera, and it will be exciting to see if we can come through on that. Even though if we wouldn't, we still think that, of course, SpotOn through electrical installation is a great service that we provide.
We're also adding on some new installation partners and inspectors. Where should growth come from going forward? We have four big areas where we see growth coming from. It's continue to build new stores in Norway. It's SpotOn. It's Sweden, and it establishing a store network in Sweden, and it's solar. We believe that there's room for another 20 stores in Norway, adding somewhere around NOK 500 million to our turnover within 5- 10 years. Why store rollouts is not going as rapidly as it did a few years ago is mainly because we are being a bit more picky of where we should have these stores, and of course, building the last 20 is tougher than finding the right locations for the first 20.
Especially around the Oslo region, we see big potential for adding maybe two or three more stores. Hopefully, one or two of these can be in place already in 2023. When it comes to SpotOn, if we talk only electrical installation, we believe that the potential it has is at least NOK 300 million in the coming five years. If we manage to add on even other craftsman areas, it will be probably more than double of those NOK 300 million. In Sweden, there is room for at least 40 stores, yearly turnover of roughly NOK 1.5 billion. It will probably take us somewhere around 10 years to get there.
One store opening in April, maybe another one late in 2023. Our strategy in Sweden is to open the first store, make sure that the concept works, do the adjustments that we need to make in order to have the concept fit for the Swedish market, and once we know which buttons to press, then we will escalate the rollout of new stores. Solar, very interesting market. We believe that within five years, we could have a 5%-10% market share in Norway, which will then give us roughly NOK 1 billion in sales. We believe that it will be a huge part of our business going forward.
Dividend, taking these growth initiatives, they all demand some investments, and we have a clear strategy for how we should implement this growth strategy. Given these initiatives, the board of directors is proposing to the general assembly that the dividend for 2022 is quite modest, NOK 0.5 per share for the year. The belief is that the best for the company in the long, short and long term is to reinvest most of our profits into the growth initiatives that we have. The long-term dividend policy of 60%-80% is not changed. Comes to ESG, in 2022, we certified Elektroimportøren by Miljøfyrtårn. We are now taking this further by mapping up the impact that we have on sustainability.
Most retailers, we have a complex value chain, most companies, we have both a positive and a negative impact on environmental and social dimensions. As we see it, our core business is quite well positioned for an increased focus on ESG, especially within the energy-saving area. We see strong potential for growth, we will handle ESG as an opportunity that strengthens the market's position that we have, both in B2C and B2B. To do so, our skilled employees, the running operations, suppliers, partners, products, services, and solutions are all very important parts to reach this ambition. What will we do in 2023?
We will start off now in Q1 by making a revision of our ESG impact, meaning that we set ambitious ambitions and goals that we should be able to deliver on through targeted activities. In Q2, we will prepare the grounds for reporting on the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive because we believe that that will include Elektroimportøren in 2024. End of June in Q2, we will also report on the Transparency Act. Moving into Q3, we will update our emission accounting to make sure that we can conduct good climate risk assessment, and by the end of the year, We will make sure that we are ready to report according to the Global Reporting Initiative. Petter.
Thank you, Andreas. Let's talk about the revenues. We are growing from NOK 459 million in the last, in Q4 in 2021 to NOK 502 million this quarter. In the stores, the like-for-like stores in Norway, we had a decline of 3.9% in the period, and we were able to grow 6.7% on the online operation. That's good because in the previous quarter, we had had a decline in the online sales, and especially in Black Week throughout the quarter, that's good to see. Overall in Norway, we had a decline with the 2.5% like-for-like. New stores in Norway, they contribute with NOK 70 million in the increase from last year. We have four stores including here.
That's Jessheim. It's actually a good store. We opened in 2020. Delivering almost NOK 40 million in sales in the full year. We have Stavanger, not that good with some traffic building in the area. That will come. We also have opened Kristiansund and Strømsø, Drammen too in this year. Of course, we have Elbutik contributing with NOK 38 million that we didn't have in place last year. That gives us NOK 502 million in this quarter. On the gross margin, we are delivering 37.3% margin this quarter. That's roughly the same margin as we had in Q3, higher than the Q2 and same as Q1.
If you compare it to last year, it's around 3%, 3 percentage points lower, and we can explain that with the three elements. One is, of course, as Andreas Niss said. The Swedish operation is still pretty much lower than Norwegian. That will continue that way. That is around 1 percentage point. Then we have change in product mix, more increase in the B2B segment, and also a little bit of freight, increase in freight costs. That's around 1 percentage point compared to last year. Then the last element, we had some elements last year in Q4 that we did not have this year, and that's, we had a release of provisions based on some of the products that we cleared out of the stock.
We also had the net bonuses from suppliers and to the customers. We had some more in last quarter. We are more precise and report the bonuses this year in 2022 because we get more rapid credit those from the suppliers. It's more precise this year. That's the margin. OpEx, we had last year, NOK 108 million in total OpEx. This year, we have a increase of NOK 10 million, NOK 12 million of this has come in as an increase from the Swedish operation that we did not have last year. We are able to save money in the like-for-like stores.
We are using NOK 2 million less, and that includes increase in the energy costs and also a salary increase May last year. That's a very good cost control in the existing stores. We're using a little bit more in the new stores, as we have full year effect. We are saving on the other areas as well. We believe that we have good cost control in our operation. That leads us to the EBITDA for the year. We are reporting NOK 70 million, NOK 77 million last year. All stores are profitable and giving a positive store contribution to the operation, both the new stores and the like-for-like stores. That's good, we have still a decline compared to last year on the like-for-like stores. Online is the positive contribution.
New stores, that's good to see. They are delivering good results. Elbutik minus one in the period, we are also saving costs in the other operations like marketing, distribution, and back office. Gives us NOK 70 million in EBITDA. Thank you.
Looking forward, there is a lot of uncertainty in the market, I would say. It continues to be high. Growth for Q1, we expect to be quite modest. We do believe that the Norwegian business will increase in the quarter, but moving forward, it's probably the toughest quarter in terms of growth that we see for 2023. Lots of reasons for that, but one is that the growth initiatives will not have really started to come in place. We opened the first store in Q2 in Sweden. Solar panels, the peak period for the sales of solar panels is Q2 and Q3, and those will not have started in Q1. Yeah.
What we see is that the demand for solar panels is very high, both from consumers and from electricians. We see, as we've said, a great opportunity here. Of course, we should also be humble that we are new in this market, but a lot of people are. We think that the position that we have is quite unique, being able to connect again the consumers and the installers in a way that we don't see other competitors doing. We opened the first store, as I said, in Stockholm in April. It's all about balancing sales activities and investments with good cost control to make sure that we have the headroom that we need to do the actions that we want to take to make our customers happy going forward. That's what we had.
We open up for questions. I actually see this. How are the gross margins on solar panels and heating pumps compared to your existing product portfolio? Do you think the gross margin on these products will be higher or lower than your current gross margin? We know it's quite a different gross margins set up in terms of B2C and B2B, all of our businesses. Solar and heating pumps are product groups that have a lower margin than our average gross margin. It is. The growth potential, we think and believe, will outperform that downside. The gross margin percentage on these product groups are lower. Q4 revenues, how much was Black Week of total sales in Q4?
How much was the negative impact on the move on the Swedish warehouse? What was the contribution from sale of EV chargers in Q4? Oh, lots of questions. Let me take one by one. Black Week sales, I don't have in... I have the Norwegian number in my head, which is NOK 63 million. To be honest, I don't have the Swedish sales number in top of mind. How much was the.
I have the.
Go on, Petter.
Yeah.
Yes.
In the Elbutik last quarter, in the 2021, they had around SEK 40 million - SEK 41 million sales. In sales variance from last year is around SEK 3 million year-on-year.
What was the negative impact of the move of Swedish warehouse? I think the negative impact of that move, if we take it into turnover, was probably somewhere around SEK 5 million - SEK 6 million for the period. Contribution sale of EV chargers in Q4, well, it's 12% of the total sales in Norway, which was roughly NOK 460 million. Around NOK 50 million. What are your expectations for this category in 2023? We think that EV chargers will sort of flatten out, I think. I think the growth will come in Sweden with the Swedish business introducing EV chargers in 2020-late 2022, actually. How do you see B2B growth versus B2C growth in 2023? I believe B2B growth in Norway will be higher than B2C growth.
In, in Sweden, we will start to launch an offer towards B2B in the year, growth there will probably be okay. I mean, opening a new store or maybe two will increase B2C sales more. Should we expect negative mix effects on gross margins in 2023? What level is a reasonable expectation? Well, 2022, we had quite low margins in Q2. I think we should be able to reach that level this year again. I think the levels that we're on right now is probably more or less where we will be, gross margins will not go up given that we succeed with the growth initiatives that we have. Mentioned, solar panels and heating pumps are lower margin categories.
The business in Sweden is has a lower gross margin than the Norwegian business have. We have the possibility, of course, to be successful with Namron in Sweden, and by doing so, increasing the Swedish gross margin. Overall, I don't think we should expect. We should not expect to have higher gross margin percentage in 2023 than we had in 2022. What do you see in terms of underlying cost inflation? Well, the hardest hit is on rental costs in the stores. It's the average.
Electricity, energy costs
Energy costs, of course, but they were quite high in 2022 as well.
Salary increase.
Yeah, salary increases we should have in May. Can we give a number, Petter? I think it's hard. Probably follow the general inflation, I would say. Are we able to pass this on to customers? I think that we should be able to do so, most of it, absolutely. Sorry.
There was one.
How are Elbutik's current margins compared to those of Elektroimportøren , Norwegian e-commerce platform? Thinking about gross margin and EBIT here. Gross margins for Elektroimportøren e-com is roughly 10% higher than the Swedish business. The EBIT numbers I don't have in my head. Peter mentioned before that the focus so far has been to set the Swedish organization up for a larger store rollout and not necessarily improving Elbutik's current operations. Well, yeah, that was the fact. That was a fact for 2022. For 2023, it's of course about improving operations and growing sales, making money. How many new stores do you see opening in Norway this year? We have not signed any stores for opening this year. We have signed two stores for 2024.
What we are doing, we are awaiting a bit to see if it arises opportunities in very attractive areas where we don't have stores today, mainly around the larger cities and then again, mainly in Oslo. We only have one store in Oslo. We should have at least three. We have been a bit cautious in signing smaller size stores in terms of being sure that we have the capital that we need to open stores in where we think there is potential for greater turnover. Is the store in Västerås similar in size to the Norwegian stores? Also, are there any notable differences between this store and the ones you have in Norway? The store in Västerås is considerably larger than the general store in Norway.
We have 2,000 sq m compared to an average of maybe 1,100-1,200 sq m in Norway. One major difference is that in this store we have, together with two of our suppliers, we're setting up two shop-in-shops, which of course takes some of this spare space. Yeah. Are you still considering franchising? Yes, we are. Absolutely. Can you update us on the development and outlook for heat pumps? Heat pumps, we launched heat pumps only online with an offer to B2C, that is where we stand today as well. We can sell them through our stores. Sales online has been okay, but what we need to get in place in order to get this really up and running is a good offer for our electrician customers.
We're not there yet, but we're aiming to get there first half of the year. EV chargers has become a larger part of sales. Is that slowing due to weaker car registration in January, and what do you expect for 2023? Easee Charge is seeing some challenges. Are you seeing that customers are buying less Easee and more Zaptec chargers? Three questions. Well, we still have growth on EV chargers. We have not seen the hit from electrical vehicle sales going down. Maybe it will come, I'm not sure. The challenges that Easee see, we're having a very good dialogue with Easee, and we're quite confident that they will handle that in a good way. We do not see a shift in brand references as of now.
How should we think about the contribution from solar panels in 2023? Trying not to be too optimistic, I think that the bottom line contribution from solar panels, should we say, Petter? Let's say we expect a positive impact on the EBITDA from solar panels in 2023. I think it's a bit too early to say how, where it should end. There was something about No. Have you seen any impact on EV charger sales following the media coverage of the issue? No, not really. We have, of course, had some questions from customers, nothing else. What was the Namron share in Q4? It was 34.6%, we're quite happy with the Namron share of business for the quarter.
Can you elaborate on your launch plan with respect to new stores in 2023 and 2024, apart from the store opening in April? I think more or less I have at least in Norway. When it comes to Sweden, maybe I'm repeating myself, but we will open the Västerås store and make sure that we understand which adjustments we need to do to the concept compared to how the concept looks in Norway, because we believe there are adjustments to be made to better fit the Swedish consumer and electricians. Once we do so, we will start rolling out stores in Sweden. My belief is that it will take roughly six months for us from April to find out what we need.
If we're lucky, we can open, also another store in Sweden in 2023, but most probably, it will be in the beginning of 2024. What was the B2B share in Norway in Q4? Do you have it top of mind, Petter?
50.
51?
Yeah.
51%, roughly. Is it like.
The increase was around 2.5% in the quarter on B2B.
Increase of 2.5% for B2B in the quarter. Yes. Think that was it, Kjersti?
Yes. Sounds like everything is answered. If no more questions, I guess we say thank you to all the listeners for listening in. Thank you to Elektroimportøren.
Yes. Thank you very much. Thank you. Bye.
Thank you. Bye.