Welcome everyone to Fjordkraft's Fourth Quarter Results Presentation. My name is Morten Opdal, Investor Relations at Fjordkraft, and I have the pleasure of guiding you through today's presentation. Today's event is a webcast only, but we will do a Q&A session at the end of the presentation. We encourage you to submit your questions during the presentation as there is some delay on the broadcast. The first speaker is CEO Rolf Barmen.
Good morning, everyone. Nice to be here. Let's go directly to page three, and let me start by showing you some highlights from the quarter. This has been a quarter with strong financial performance in the Norwegian operations. We have experienced tailwind from good hedges, and we have also performed good cost control in the quarter. The consumer's EBIT adjusted increased by 24% year-on-year, while the business segment increased by 22%. The new growth initiative segment is, as targeted, showing positive EBIT adjusted in the quarter for the first time since the launch of mobile in 2017, and we are obviously very proud of that. As you already know, the Nordic segment has been significantly affected by the extraordinary situation in the Nordic power market with a loss of NOK 71 million in the quarter from hedging inefficiency.
We will go into details on this later in the presentation, but no doubt this hindered the group's financial results to be the best full- year results ever. Regarding customer development, the competition is intense in the consumer segment, and we lost 34,000 customers in the segment last quarter. The termination of our price match service, the service which gave consumer customers with negative margins actually, was an important driver for the decrease. When it comes to dividend, the board decided yesterday to propose a dividend of NOK 3.50 per share, which will be addressed on the AGM later this year. Let's go to page five. I would like to give some words on the market development. The power market situation is truly extraordinary.
Elspot prices were record high in the quarter, driven by geopolitical tension, high gas prices, and a weak hydrological situation. In addition to this, there are large geographical differences due to limitation in transmission capacity, particularly in Norway, but also in Nordics. For instance, the southern part of Norway has experienced a very high price level in the quarter, while the northern parts have had power surplus and comparatively very low prices. In Sweden and Finland, the situation has been even more extreme than in the southern part of Norway. During December, the daily Elspot price in Finland and southern Sweden passed NOK 4 per kWh on several locations. On average, the price level, and peak and off-peak price differences were around 4x the normal level.
The fixed price contracts in the Nordic segment are hedged according to our best estimated volume, and the associated profile and volume risk are covered in the market where these contracts are initiated. However, the market extremities that occurred in the fourth quarter in combination with very cold weather in Sweden and Finland, especially in December, led to losses from hedging inefficiencies in the Nordic segment. As you probably know, the Norwegian government has launched a subsidizing protocol in the consumer market to mitigate the effect of the extreme price level. As the subsidy was 55% of the cost exceeding NOK 0.7 in December, the subsidy is increased to 80% the first quarter of 2022. Let's go to page six. Today, I want to spend some extra time on the consumer markets.
First, our observations confirm that consumers respond to the extreme price level with decreased consumption. We see a reduction in the average consumption per delivery on 24%, which obviously is a significant response from the consumer customers to the high Elspot price. Page seven, please. From our point of view, the increase in both volatility and price level increases the importance of a broad product portfolio in the consumer market. As the biggest player in the market, we must offer products that meet most demands. Our portfolio in 2022 will basically consist of two different kinds of contracts, two different product families. On one side, we have launched a spot price fighter in order to match aggressively priced competition, although we do not offer negative margins. We also offer spot with trading, which is similar to an existing offering in the business segment.
It enables the customers to take part in professional power traders' view on the market, and in 2021, this product beat the market in 11 out of 12 months. The customers buying spot products are more or less risk lovers, not particularly interested in hedging themselves from fluctuating Elspot prices. They can optimize their usage by looking thoroughly at their consumption pattern during day and night, and tailor their consumption in order to reduce consumption when prices are high, typically in the morning and in the afternoon. The other kind of contracts is fixed contracts, where the price is fixed regardless of time of use. The most common product here is running contracts with a 14 days notification period ahead of any price change. The customers buying these contracts prefer to be indifferent whether they consume electricity daytime or nighttime.
That means that the price is the same independent of when electricity is consumed. These kind of running contracts may also include a price cap in a set timeframe. We sold such contracts second half of 2021, and it was a very popular value proposition to the customers. We also offer fixed price contracts with longer duration as well, typically somewhere between six and 15 months. Consumers buying more predictable price formats are less willing to take risk and want flexibility when it comes to when they may consume electricity during the day and night. There are quite big differences between these two product families.
We serve customers in both segments, and regardless of contract choice, our customers can use our wide range of benefits and services: smartphone consumption, data, home optimization, insights, loyalty programs, and most of them also get their grid rent and electricity on one invoice. Particularly convenient now, as the government subsidizing protocol is related to payment of the grid rents. In this section, I also want to make some comments on our digital ecosystem. It is no doubt that consumers are much more interested in their consumption pattern and ways to monitor this pattern now than before. Digitalization of the industry puts us in a position where we can give really good input to the consumers in this matter. In December, we were third year in a row, awarded a Digital Leader Prize in our sector by BearingPoint.
We are on a maturity level well above any of our competitors, also well above our so-called full digital competitors. Our app is downloaded by 300,000 customers now. Smart charging, real-time monitoring, self-service through the app, access to devices bought from our marketplace, well-functioning interface for new entrants, all features enabled by the app. We are, of course, proud of our digital ecosystem, really adding value to our products. We are also very proud of the work we do by serving all customers not able to serve themselves digitally on the telephone. The situation we have been through in the latest months tells us that this is necessary to have enough agents available for the customers on the phone. We do not believe this is the time to expect all customers to go digitally, rather the opposite.
What has hurt me most these last months, personally speaking, is that we haven't been able to serve all the customers that have tried to reach us by phone. We have invested heavily in manpower, but COVID and other sick leaves reasons have unfortunately kept most of the effect of the enforcement. Now we see the light, and our availability is improving. Let's go to page number eight. The business segments, the number of deliveries is stable in the quarter, but volume decreased slightly due to lower consumption per delivery. Operationally, the segment is performing very well. It is outperforming versus the financial targets, and the segment has also a solid customer pipeline for the first quarter this year.
Our broad product offering with associated value-added services are resonating well in the market, and we experience good traction on our new concepts and services, particularly when it comes to solar and charging concepts, as well as energy monitoring concepts. Page number nine. The Nordic segment increased number of deliveries by 5,000 in the quarter. As mentioned before, hedging inefficiencies led to losses in the fourth quarter. The group has initiated a process of aligning the business customers' contract structure and product portfolio with the Norwegian model in order to reduce the associated volume risk on the fixed price contracts going forward. This far in the year, the consumption volumes in Sweden and Finland have been in line with expectations, and we have no indication of under-hedging in January.
However, the increased peak and off-peak differences is likely to continue throughout the first quarter, which will negatively affect the segment's profitability also this quarter, and Birte will come back to this later. Has this changed your view on our investment in the Nordic Green Energy? No. We bought the company to a fair price, and from our perspective, this was a ticket to Nordic expansion. The price is still, from our point of view, quite reasonable. We have ambitions to grow in Nordics, even though the market sentiment might have hampered our expansion speed somewhat, but no doubt that we will expand in the Nordics. Page number 10. Within mobile, we increased the portfolio by 29,000 in the quarter due to the acquisition of Sky mobil, which was included in the figures this quarter.
Financial performance is in line with our targets, and mobile showed a positive EBIT adjusted in December. Alliance continues to grow with a 15% year-on-year volume growth and 5,000 new deliveries on our extended alliance service. The year-on-year growth is more than 30,000, and we are very satisfied with the development of this business area. We are really looking forward to elaborate both more on the new growth initiatives segment, as well as giving you insights on several other topics of our business on our Capital Markets Day, which will be held on the 6th of April, hopefully as an in-person event in Oslo. Okay. Birte, please give us the financial update.
Thank you, Rolf. Some of our numbers are already known from our update in January, but you will see from my presentation today that they ended a little bit better than indicated. I will start my presentation by walking you through the Q4 numbers, spending some time at the end summarizing our full year performance against our financial guidance. I will start with page 12 with some comments on our net revenue performance. Our net revenue in Q4 was NOK 436 million. It's down 6% from Q4 last year. As you can see from the graph to the left, all the Norwegian segment contributes positively to the year-on-year development, but the Nordic segment was negatively affected by the extraordinary situation in the Nordic power market.
The fixed price contracts in the Nordics are hedged according to our best estimated volume, and the associated profile and volume risks are covered in the market when these contracts are initiated. The very cold December resulted in an under-hedged situation. Normally, these under-hedged situations would have a limited financial impact, but due to the current extraordinary high price level and spread between the market price and contract fixed price, this under-hedge had a significant negative financial effect. In addition, an extraordinary peak and off-peak intraday and intra-month price volatility throughout Q4 resulted in a much higher than normal profile cost. This also negatively affecting margins on the fixed price portfolio in the Nordic segment. Turning to page 13, EBIT adjusted of NOK 141 million and just outside the upper end of the range presented in the update in January.
EBIT adjusted is down 16% year-on-year, and it's driven by the negative performance in the Nordic segment. As you can see, segments have a positive contribution to our EBIT adjusted performance year-on-year. It's, of course, driven by the net revenue performance and then again, good hedges, but it's also in a combination with good cost control in the quarter. Moving to some quick comments on the segments, on page 14, starting with the consumer segment. The net revenue here is up 3% year-on-year. It's driven by margin improvement, and we also have good tailwind from our hedges. The EBIT adjusted margin is up 6 percentage points, driven by both the net revenue improvement and also a decrease in OpEx, adjusted year-on-year.
The business segment has a improvement in net revenue and also in EBIT adjusted. The net revenue is up 13% year-on-year. It's also driven by margin improvement, and the EBIT adjusted margin is up 5 percentage points to 64%. Turning to page 15 and the Nordic segment. The results here are already well addressed, but to be clear, the EBIT adjusted loss was NOK 71 million, and this is NOK 4 million better than we indicated in the January update. Looking into this quarter, the consumption volumes in Sweden and Finland in Q1 have been in line with expectations, and we have no indications of under-hedging so far this quarter. However, the increased peak and off-peak differences is likely to continue throughout the quarter, and a negative EBIT adjusted is expected also this quarter.
However, likely not as negative as in Q4. From what we observe right now, an improvement of around 60% in EBIT adjusted from Q4 to Q1 is expected. This is very dependent on how the weather and consumption turns out. As Rolf already mentioned, the new growth initiative segment delivers its first quarter in positive EBIT adjusted since the launch of mobile in 2017. That is in line with our long-time guidance. Both Alliance and Mobile are showing year-on-year improvements. The mobile segment is the most important contributor, but also Alliance segment has nearly doubled its performance year-on-year. Moving to page 16. Net working capital is decreasing to -15 NOK at quarter end. We do have large intra-quarter fluctuations, higher than normal due to the high output prices.
Part of the November power purchase was paid into January, which led to to increased accounts payables and lower reported net working capital at year-end. A quick comment also on the NIBD development on page 17. We have a net debt of NOK 513 million at the end of this quarter. It's a reduction of NOK 155 million from last quarter, and the drivers are our cash EBIT adjusted performance, and also the positive development in net working capital this quarter. Turning to page 18. Before the Q&A session, I would like to summarize our full-year performance against our financial targets. I will not go through each one of them. The slide hopefully gives you the big picture, and we are very satisfied with achieving all our Norwegian targets in the segments in here in Norway.
Of course, we are highly aware of the negative results from the Nordic segment and how it's effects our group EBIT adjusted margin. It's underperforming our financial guidance with 2 percentage points. As Rolf already have mentioned, we are working on several initiatives to bring the Nordic business into positive numbers again. What's left for me to remind you all before the Q&A session is the date for our Capital Markets Day. That will be the 6th of April. There we will present our updated plans and also our new targets for the coming years. Now we will proceed with a Q&A. Thank you.
Okay. We are moving over to the Q&A session. We have received some questions already. The first one is from Mr. [Tom Stoll]. Do you expect to buy any additional business in 2022 in the Nordics, especially outside Norway? Maybe you, Rolf, can make a comment on that one.
Yes. We don't comment on the timeline or acquisitions, obviously. What we see now is that Finland is hampered by the same situation as we have experienced in NGE, our NGE company. To be honest, I think that we cannot say too much about our plans or timeline. Our signal is that we are going to expand in the Nordics. If it will be in 2022 or 2023, we cannot comment on.
Thank you. The next question is from [Simon Os]. What was the underlying consumer EBIT margin adjusted for hedge gains in Q4?
I'm sorry, but we don't disclose that. We go on our cost of goods sold as a whole and that's how we steer the business. We won't give you the details on the underlying hedges.
The next one, also from Simon . How has the high power prices in Q1 impacted you so far, especially for the consumer segment?
We will give you an update on our results on the Capital Markets Day for the first quarter. I think that will be my answer. As we have said earlier, it's not possible for us to disclose anything about our hedging strategy. You know that we are doing it. That, I think, will be my comment on the question.
Okay. Another question from Mr. [Eyvind Mossige]. Can you please comment on the customer development within consumer so far in 2022?
I'm afraid I'm getting a little boring here because I have to answer the same thing. We don't comment on our running business inside a quarter, Evan. I'm sorry. We cannot tell you anything about that.
Okay. As another question from, also from [Eyvind]. Can you talk us through the increase in customer acquisition costs in Q4?
Yeah. You can see that we have used NOK 83 million on customer acquisitions this quarter, right? It's quietly developed between the Nordic segment and the Norwegian segment. We are having a good net add, as you can see in the Nordics. And around half of the spending is used there. I think you should also bear in mind that the contract structure here is a little bit different than in Norway and also the period for the contracts are much longer. So we do have these customers for a longer time period. It's a binding product structure in the Nordics. That's a little bit different. And also the CPOs are a little bit higher there than in Norway because of that.
Okay. That concludes the Q&A session. We want to thank you all for participating and wish you all a pleasant day. Thank you.