Good morning, everyone, welcome to the presentation of Schibsted's Q1 results. As usual, Kristin, our CEO, and Ragnar, our CFO, will present the results and progress in the quarter. At the end of the presentation, we will have a joint Q&A session where also Christian, EVP for Nordic Marketplaces and Delivery, will join. If you want to send in questions, please go to slido.com and enter the event code which you can see here on the first slide. With this, please let me hand over to Kristin. The floor is yours.
Thank you, Jann- Bøje. Good morning and welcome to everyone. Let me start with the highlights before we have a closer look at the development for the quarter. For Schibsted, 2023 started off with an underlying revenue growth of 1% in the first quarter, driven by Nordic Marketplaces and Growth and Investments. EBITDA was subdued by higher personnel cost inflation, and revenue mix, ending at NOK 423 million, down 12% compared to the first quarter last year. Nordic Marketplaces made important progress in its transition to a new vertical-based operating model. Oops, sorry. This transition will unlock significant user and customer value over time, as we presented at our Capital Markets Day in March.
In the first quarter, underlying revenues increased by 6% thanks to solid classifieds revenue growth across all verticals except Jobs, while advertising was down due to the market headwinds. EBITDA ended at NOK 420 million, which is 5% below last year due to revenue mix and increased costs from new hires last year. As outlined at our Capital Markets Day, our News Media operations in Norway and Sweden were affected by continued pressure in the print business, market headwinds in advertising, and general cost increases in a high inflationary environment. Despite continued strong double-digit revenue growth in digital subscriptions, underlying revenues in News Media decreased by 2% in Q1. EBITDA was break even, above the issued trading update. That was driven by better advertising performance in Norway at the very end of March.
We expect continued volatile and tough advertising markets in the short term, particularly in Sweden, and need to constantly adapt our cost base to the reduced revenues. This is addressed by the announced cost program, which will accelerate throughout the year. Growth and Investments continued its upbeat trend across the portfolio from last quarter with underlying high single-digit revenue growth and improved profitability in all companies, particularly Lendo and Prisjakt. In line with the announced new strategy for Lendo focusing on profit growth, operations in Finland, Italy, and Spain were ceased, which will improve profitability throughout the year. Looking ahead, my team and I will continue to seize the opportunities which arise in more uncertain times and adapt our organization to the current more uncertain market environment with an increased emphasis on efficiency and cost control.
In this context, the successful transformation in Nordic Marketplaces to strengthen our existing classifieds offerings and to accelerate the transition to transactional offerings is a top priority. As outlined in our CMD in March, we will continuously explore and develop options to reduce our ownership in Adevinta in a value-creating way for all our shareholders. These options will continuously be discussed with our board, which oversees this process. Now, let's have a look at our ESG highlights in the first quarter, and let's start with the environmental impact. We want to empower circular consumption through our marketplaces, and we are testing out several new business models. FINN in Norway is testing out a business model for refurbished electronics where we buy mobiles, refurbish them through a partner, and then sell them on our e-commerce site with a two-year guarantee.
Following the launch in Norway last year, we have now also launched the car subscription service, HONK, in Sweden, offering new forms of access to mobility instead of ownership with the potential to optimize utilization of the car fleet. We are very pleased that people in the Nordics have realized that our marketplaces are part of the solution for the planet, and we are excited that FINN once again was ranked number one overall in Norway in the Sustainable Brand Index 2023, as it was in 2022. This is Europe's largest brand study on sustainability and measures the perception of stakeholders on a brand's sustainability across industries. Tori ranked number one in the e-commerce segment in Finland as well, same as they did in 2022.
We're also excited that after several years in the top tier, FINN has once again received Norway's highest reputation score among all companies across sectors in Apeland's annual survey. Apeland believes that FINN has a unique position as an innovative and sustainable consumer service in constant development, I guess we couldn't agree more. Moving on to our societal impact, Schibsted has entered into a long-term strategic partnership with Diversity Index, the index will be gradually implemented in our organizations. The Diversity Index is a tool used to give businesses an overview of its diversity, how well it is included, and to what extent it is used for value creation. We are dependent on the right data to drive this area in the right direction, the Diversity Index being based on continuous and extensive research can provide us with that data.
I have to say we're quite amazed of how useful this analysis is for where we should put our focus and resources in order to pursue our ambitions for using diversity inclusion, sorry, and belonging for increased innovation and value creation. The field of AI is developing very fast, and we have established a comprehensive approach to the topic. We have already launched some features within News Media that improve our products, and along with product developments, 500 of our employees have onboarded our AI Academy to understand the topic and identify possibilities for adaptation and innovation. As an important part of the academy, all participants also go through a module about AI-related risks and how to identify these.
Moving to governance, we launched our sustainability report, including our climate roadmap to 2040 at the end of the quarter. Here you can read more about our ambitions for the coming year and our targets for 2023. Last year, we renewed our code of conduct. In the first quarter, we commenced a mandatory training course for all our employees. Lastly, as you know, we won the Nettbil case. We are pleased that our arguments and views on market definitions in this case was supported by the Supreme Court. Now we can finally focus on business development and value creation in Nettbil. All right. Let me start with presenting the development of our businesses in more detail. As usual, we start with Nordic Marketplaces.
Looking at the financial results, here, we see foreign exchange neutral revenues increased by 6% thanks to solid classifieds revenue growth, primarily driven by mobility and real estate in all markets and also solid growth in transactional revenue in Recommerce. This was partly offset by the job vertical and advertising revenues that continued to show a negative trend in all markets affected by the challenging macroeconomic environment. EBITDA ended at NOK 420 million, which is 5% below last year, and that's due to the revenue mix and increased costs from new hires. As communicated, our Capital Markets Day, we will do the financial reporting along the vertical dimension from now on, and that will provide better insight into the underlying business drivers. First out among our verticals is mobility. We will start by looking at the underlying classifieds revenue drivers in all markets.
As Nettbil and AutoVex have different business models, they are not included in these KPIs. For Norway, we see overall solid volume development for professionals, while we see a drop of 4% for private. Regular price adjustments drive positive ARPA development. In Sweden, the volume development was softer in Q1, mainly due to a significant drop in private volumes in March in line with the trend in the market. This is considered to be a temporary effect, though, as we see volumes recovering in April. Professional volumes are down 4% this quarter. The positive ARPA development is driven by both regular price adjustments, price increases, and upsell products. Denmark has a different business model where we monetize listings per day, and I'm pleased to see strong volume growth in Denmark this quarter that, combined with the price increases, positively affects ARPA.
In total, mobility is delivering a solid quarter with 10% revenue growth, driven by substantial growth in classifieds revenue. I'm pleased that revenue growth is robust across all markets. Nettbil continued to show strong revenue growth. AutoVex is part of the reported figures in Q1. It's still early days, but the development is promising. Mobility, together with Recommerce, has the highest share of advertising revenues in marketplaces and, as such, was affected by the challenging advertising market across all our countries. Advertising revenues declined 11% year-on-year on a foreign exchange neutral basis in the mobility vertical. Total cost increased year-on-year, driven by the new hires last year, while EBITDA increased 5% compared to Q1 last year, and that's driven by the revenue increase. We move on to jobs.
We see an accelerated volume decline in all countries, although Easter had a temporarily softer effect for Norway on the volume declines that we had in March. ARPA growth in Norway and Finland resulted from both price increases and upsell products, while in Sweden, the ARPA growth is purely driven by upsell products. Jobs is the vertical that is predominantly affected by the challenging macroeconomic situation. Price adjustments led to a solid ARPA increase that softened the volume effect somewhat, the market headwinds, combined with strong comparables from last year, resulted in a foreign exchange neutral revenue decline of 7%. Norway is the leading revenue contributor to the jobs vertical, representing more than 80% of the classified's revenue.
Due to strong ARPA development, revenues in Norway decreased only by 4% year-on-year. EBITA was impacted by revenue decline and cost increases from new hires during 2022 and decreased by 14% compared to last year. We move to real estate. In Norway, volumes are developing according to market expectations, and we see solid ARPA growth in Norway due to regular price adjustments on top of some effects from the new package models that we released in early 2022. In Finland, we're happy to see continuous healthy growth in volumes, with stronger growth in rentals than for sales ad due to the macroeconomic environment. Price adjustments drive, excuse me. Price adjustments drive ARPA in Finland, while the mix of houses for sale versus rental ads neutralizes this effect in the quarter.
In total, real estate is delivering a solid quarter with 20% revenue growth, mainly driven by ARPA development in Norway. Norway is still the foremost revenue contributor here, representing close to 80% of the classified's revenue. We continue to see good progress on key metrics in Finland and are strengthening our market position there. Casa is seeing solid growth in their main KPIs, with growth in signing value being the most important to follow. EBITDA margin for the quarter ended at 30%, an improvement compared to last year. The margin is impacted positively by the strong revenue growth, while cost increases from new hires during 2022 softens the margin development. Lastly, of the verticals, we have Recommerce. We currently have a transactional model in Norway with Fiks ferdig and in Sweden with Frakt med köpskydd.
Two important key metrics to follow in developing the transactional model are the number of transactions completed on the platform and the average order value of the transacted goods. If we start with Norway, we launched Fiks ferdig in the summer of 2022, and we are pleased to see that our users completed 376,000 transactions through our platform during the first quarter. The number in transaction is somewhat lower than Q4 2022, and that's due to both seasonality and a focus shift from building volumes to monetization this year. The average order value is at solid levels of NOK 709, somewhat higher than we saw last year. Then we launched a transactional model in Sweden late 2022, and the number of transactions in Q1 is a good starting point.
The average order value is higher in Sweden than in Norway, and that's due to more electronic goods transacted on the Swedish platform, while the most significant contributor to the transactions in Norway comes from fashion. For Recommerce, the main driver of revenue growth is the transactional business, and we continue to see substantial development in the transactional business model in Norway and Sweden. Total revenue growth for the quarter was 13%, and that's despite the removal of insertion fees in Sweden in May last year. B2C revenues were growing across all markets, and I am particularly pleased to see continued growth in professional revenues in Finland and Denmark. Recommerce, together with mobility, has the highest advertising revenues in marketplaces, and as such, is also affected by the challenging advertising markets across all countries.
Here, advertising revenues declined 17% year-on-year. EBITDA for the quarter ended at a loss of NOK 86 million and a negative margin of 55%. This reflects the continued investments in the new business model and the impact of the cost increases from new hires in 2022. All right, we will move to News Media. I think I'll have to start by saying that last weekend was a proud moment for both News Media and also all of Schibsted when Aftenposten, for the second year in a row, won the SKUP Award, which is the most prestigious award a Norwegian journalist can receive for investigative journalism. In addition to this, VG received a diploma, and that means that VG have either won the main award or received a diploma for seven consecutive years.
Although this happened in April and not in Q1, I think I still want to highlight it, as these are really remarkable achievements, and it proves that our news brands really produce journalism that's making a difference. As the media industry continues to evolve, AI is becoming an increasingly important tool also for News Media. Our news brands are currently exploring the possibilities of how AI can enhance their operations and better serve the users. While there's no doubt that such technology can drive innovation and growth, it is also essential to approach it critically and consider how it could potentially pose a threat to the independent and authentic journalism that is at the core of our social mission. Here are a couple of examples of what is developed and what some of our brands are working on right now.
That has been saving our journalists thousands of hours since it was launched by the team of developers in VG only a couple of months ago. Several of our brands are working on giving their users the option to get a short summary at the top of their written articles. These summaries are written by AI, but will be subject to human control before they are published. Financially, we see that News Media was affected by continued pressure on the print profitability as paper prices are still high, the volume decline is accelerating, and print advertising revenues continue to decline at a high pace. Furthermore, digital advertising revenues experienced a decline in Q1 due to market headwinds, especially in Sweden.
However, thanks to resilient subscription revenues, total underlying revenues in News Media were just slightly below last year at -2%. On the cost side, we saw an increase of 5% compared to last year. The main driver was, as mentioned above, higher print costs and increased costs from CPI adjustments. Effects from the cost program were limited in Q1 2023 but will accelerate throughout the year. If we then take a closer look at our main revenue streams in News Media, we see that subscriptions, total underlying revenues grew by 8% compared to Q1 last year, and digital subscription revenues continue to grow consistently with double-digit growth in all main news products, and the revenue growth was generally driven by both higher volumes and improved ARPU. In addition, the solid growth in Podme continues.
The product is growing both standalone and through bundles. News Media's All Access bundle in Norway that I talked about last time continue its positive development in the first quarter, and we are experiencing high demand for this product and good growth in the subscription base. The Superpaketet bundle was launched in Sweden early March and is so far progressing very well. Moving to advertising, we see a decline in digital advertising revenues. The macroeconomic conditions have a direct impact on investment levels, and this is reflected in the development of the advertising revenues in the quarter. Particularly Sweden is affected by market headwinds with a 18% decline. A solid development in Norway with 5% increase, this is driven a lot by content marketing, and that offsets part of the total decline.
The high drop in print advertising revenues continue, and this led to a total underlying revenue decrease of 8% year-on-year. In spite of a challenging advertising market, the sales organization in Schibsted maintains a high activity level in both of our key markets, and we increase our market share in Norway, and we defend that share in Sweden. News Media is affected by the unstable macroeconomic environment, and advertising revenues are particularly exposed. The uncertainty in the market is reflected in a higher degree of volatility, making it even more difficult to predict the development in advertising revenues in the short and medium term. News Media will thus continue to closely monitor the financial development and proactively consider the need for further preemptive measures going forward. We move to Delivery. Q1 delivers good results for Delivery.
Both revenue and volumes are increasing from last year, except for Morgenlevering, who had exceptionally high sales in Q1 last year due to the lockdown that we had then in January and February back then. The growth in Delivery Group was driven by Helthjem Netthandel, which grew 25% in the quarter, driven by increased volume in B2C, combined with higher C2C volumes related to FINN's transactional Recommerce offering, Fiks ferdig. Morgenlevering, on the other hand, saw a decline of 44%, driven by lower post-COVID volumes. EBITDA for the quarter is still negative but with a strong improvement compared to the same quarter last year. This is due to the increase in the core business, Legacy and Helthjem Netthandel both having positive EBITDA.
Then finally, we have Growth & Investments consisting of brands like Lendo and Prisjakt, in addition to other digital services where we either have a majority or a minority ownership. We report a solid quarter for Growth & Investments in the quarter despite the current macroeconomic situation. Total revenues grew 8% on a foreign exchange neutral basis, driven by a continued growth momentum across the portfolio. There is continued good overall revenue growth in Lendo for the quarter, which I will cover on the next slide. Also strong quarter for Prisjakt with foreign exchange neutral revenues up 18% year on year despite the tough e-commerce market, especially in Sweden. There, the market actually dropped 38% in January according to PostNord's E-handels barometer or barometer. Growth is driven by increased click volume and also higher earnings per click.
EBITDA increased 90%, and margin improved by 5 percentage points compared to Q1 last year, driven by revenue growth and continued profitability focus in this business area. The previously announced exit processes for Lendo and Prisjakt are stopped due to the current market conditions. Finally, Lendo continued its growth momentum with a foreign exchange neutral revenue growth of 8% in Q1, driven by Sweden and Norway. The growth was primarily driven by a strong inflow of applications across countries and growth in new verticals like credit cards in Norway and business loans in Sweden. As you know, we don't guide on future growth in Lendo, but I would like to point out that the conversion from loan application to revenues in unsecured consumer loans in Sweden fell towards the end of the quarter. If that persists, it will mean a downward pressure on the revenue growth.
EBITDA margin increased three percentage points compared to last year, driven by revenue increase and continued profitability focus. Lendo has decided to focus on the Scandinavian markets and has ceased operations in Finland, Italy, and Spain, with Portugal to follow. The close down of the first three markets is completed, but the effects on the financials is still limited in Q1 but will come later. With that, I'm very happy to give it to you, Ragnar, to cover the financials.
Thank you, Kristin, good morning, everyone. I will start by giving some summary comments to the consolidated result for the group. Foreign exchange neutral revenues ended 1% above Q1 last year, despite a more challenging market caused by macroeconomic developments. In this context, group's EBITDA ended 12% below last year in the first quarter at NOK 423 million. The revenue growth was driven by Nordic Marketplaces, with underlying revenue growth of 6% and Growth & Investments. When you look at our EBITDA development, you can see from the graph on the right that it is primarily News Media that drives the EBITDA decrease compared to last year, down NOK 81 million in the quarter.
As Kristin mentioned previously, this is driven both by market headwinds in advertising and the pressured print business, combined with general cost increases in a high inflationary environment. We are very well on our way with the regards to the announced cost program, the financial effects from this will accelerate throughout the year. EBITDA in Nordic Marketplaces ended at NOK 420 million, NOK 23 million less than last year. The decline comes as a result of change in the revenue mix and new hires from end of last year in order to drive new business models and partly also support the transition to new vertical operating model. EBITDA for Delivery increased with NOK 10 million compared to Q1, while absolute EBITDA was still slightly negative in the quarter, driven by lower volumes in Morgenlevering.
In Growth & Investments, EBITDA increased year-on-year by NOK 26 million, driven by revenue growth in all main brands, whilst maintaining stringent cost control. Other and Headquarters had an EBITDA of minus NOK 48 million in the quarter against NOK minus 59 million last year. The improved EBITDA compared to last year is mainly due to lower consultancy costs. Looking closer at our income statement for Q1, operating profit for the quarter ended at NOK 20 million, down from NOK 184 million last year. In addition to the EBITDA development I just described, the main reason for this development is an increase in depreciation and amortizations and other expenses.
The increase in depreciation and amortization is primarily due to the general increase in intangible assets from increased CapEx during 2022, high CPI adjustments on lease agreements, and accelerated depreciation on certain platform components in Nordic Marketplaces due to the ongoing platform consolidation project. The increase in other expenses includes costs related to moving News Media's printing operations to a new printing facility in Vestby, the closed down of Lendo operations in 4 countries, and general headcount reductions. Items below operating profit is to a large degree influenced by our ownership stake in Adevinta. Firstly, share of profit and loss from joint ventures and associates includes Schibsted's share of Adevinta's result for the fourth quarter of 2022, adjusted for amortization of excess values and fair value differences.
Adevinta's Q4 result was highly negative due to an impairment, and Schibsted's share of profit ended at -5.3 billion NOK this quarter. Secondly, during the first quarter, we saw an increase in the share price of Adevinta, which led to a reversal of the negative share of profit as well as a partial reversal of impairment loss that we have accounted for in previous quarters, in total, +7.3 billion NOK. Thirdly, the total return swap we entered into in Q4 saw an increase in share price from year-end, leading to a gain of NOK 289 million in the quarter. In totality then, the net profit for the group ended at 2.17 billion NOK in Q1. Our operating cash flow in the quarter improved with NOK 78 million compared to last year.
The increase was primarily related to a positive effect from change in working capital, partly offset by reduced gross operating profit and increased tax payments. Working capital in Q1 last year was affected by temporary negative liquidity effects related to implementation of a new group-wide accounting system. The implementation of this new accounting system was finalized in Q4 last year and is also the main reason for capital expenditures going down with 11% compared to Q1 last year. Starting from this quarter, you find more information about CapEx and leases per segment included in note two operating segments in our quarterly report. Schibsted is in a very solid financial position. During Q1, we have reduced the interest bearing debt through purchases of own bonds maturing later this year of in total NOK 586 million.
We also have a term loan of NOK 2 billion and NOK 1.8 billion of this loan has in April been extended by one year to May 2025. Schibsted has also a revolving credit facility of EUR 300 million. The facility is not drawn and secures a strong liquidity buffer going forward. The facility may be further extended with one more year up until May 2028. In March, Schibsted also extended the duration of its total return swap agreement with underlying exposure to the 3 percent points in the Adevinta share. This rollover is done to increase term to maturity and thereby also increase the window of opportunities to terminate the TRS at a more favorable pricing.
Our ongoing share buyback program, targeting to buy back up to 4% of the total outstanding shares in Schibsted ASA at amount of up to NOK 1.7 billion, gave a liquidity effect of NOK 509 million in the quarter. This is the main reason for the increase in financial gearing. As it now looks, the program will be completed during the third quarter 2023. Schibsted has a well-diversified loan maturity profile and a significant cash balance. As most of you are very well aware of, Schibsted's 28% ownership stake in Adevinta contributes to a very solid financial position for Schibsted. I will end my presentation with some comments on our financial targets and outlook.
I will underline that the presented targets are medium-term targets, meaning ambitions over a period of up to 3 years, and that we do not give concrete guidance on the expected performance for the current year. For News Media, the ambition is still that revenues should grow low to single digit and that the EBITDA margins should be in the 10%-12% range. Like we said in our Q4 presentation, News Media will be below this EBITDA range in 2023, but the ongoing cost program should bring the margin back into the range in 2024. As presented at our Capital Markets Day in March, we find it more insightful going forward to be transparent on our financial ambitions for each of the verticals based instead of Nordic Marketplaces combined.
As the mix of business models and the effects from macroeconomic developments varies between verticals and hence also the revenue growth and margin developments. Within Nordic Marketplaces, mobility targets annual revenue growth in the 12%-17% range and an EBITDA margin of 51%-56%. Real estate targets also targets annual revenue growth in the 12%-17% range with an EBITDA margin of 42%-47%. For Jobs, the target is to grow revenues low to mid-single digit while keeping the EBITDA margin above 50%. For Jobs, it is important to notice then that this vertical's starting point is an all-time high in revenues in 2022, and it is also the vertical with the most and clear exposure to the macroeconomic developments in each market.
Recommerce is in a very early stage of its growth curve, and the traditional growth and profitability measures are therefore less relevant for this vertical at this stage. For Recommerce, we have the ambition to double revenues over a three-year period while working to be EBITDA breakeven during 2025. Some short comments on the revenue trends seen so far in April. For Nordic Marketplaces, we see underlying volume developments roughly in line with Q1 for mobility in all markets, and it looks like houses for sale in Norway have picked up somewhat after Easter. However, we continue to see negative trends within Jobs in all markets. Please remember then that we still have very high comparables until June, which was the first month that we saw negative trends last year.
We are also still seeing negative effects from market headwinds within advertising in Nordic Marketplaces. For News Media, we see continued solid growth in digital subscriptions going into the second quarter, while we have seen increased challenging advertising trends in April, being more down than in Q1. The timing of the Easter vacation might though have some influence on this. Hence, we need to see the continued trends into May to have more clarity in the actual trend line for advertising for Q2. Looking ahead, we expect continued volatile and tough advertising markets in the short term and need to constantly sort of monitor and adapt our cost base to the revenue effects from this. This is addressed by the announced cost program. As I said before, this cost program will have accelerating financial effects throughout the year.
With that, I think, we will go over to our Q&A session.
Okay. We start with a more general question here. There was a statement from the Tinius Trust on Schibsted and Adevinta position recently. Can you provide some color what it is mean for your strategy? Also, does the trust run under normal Norwegian tax rules?
I don't know if I'm in place to answer about their tax situation. I don't know if you know anything about that, Ragnar. What I can say is that you know, the Tinius Trust has always been a very strong supporter of Schibsted, and that note that they put out was intended as a sign of that type of support regarding our ownership in Adevinta. We've had a very good dialogue with the trust after that, and I am convinced that we will find good solutions to our Adevinta ownership strategy that will be in the interest of all shareholders.
Moving on to Nordic Marketplaces. Q1 margin came in at 33%. The question is like, is it like a low, for this year? Consensus currently is at 37% for the full year. How should we think going forward here?
As I said, we normally do not guide on the overall, let's say, expectations on Nordic Marketplaces in general. What I could say then is that we in general, we think that the year will end, sort of the margin in Nordic Marketplaces will end closer to the 37% that you mentioned than today's 33%.
Staying with the outlook for 2023 in general for the group, is there like some kind of level which we can provide? Do you think that revenue and EBITDA can grow from here given like this quarter's low? How should we think for the full year now following today's report?
I think in general, I would say that if you look at sort of the results that we presented today and the margins that we have seen from the various verticals in Nordic Marketplaces, that and sort of also then sort of looking at the targets ambitions that we have for the midterm, then sort of it indicates that we expect sort of margins to improve for the different verticals over time. As a general remark on that.
Going to mobility. Sweden saw like an ARPA increase of 23% in the first quarter. What is really driving that increase? Is it different from previous quarters?
Yeah. It's a combination of several things. First, we have done several price adjustments. We did 1 in the summer of last year, and we did another 1, a new CPI adjustment, at the beginning of this year. In addition to some increases in some subcategories. There's also been a continuous uptick in the use of the Bump product in Sweden. In total has contributed to that ARPA improvement.
Maybe a question for you, Ragnar. HG costs were lower in Q1 at NOK 48 million losses. Is this like the new correct run rate going forward, or is it still like roughly the NOK 65 million, which we had an average for last year?
I think it's difficult to be sort of very concrete on that. We expect the cost to be somewhat lower than you saw in average for last year, sort of on a quarterly basis for this year.
Okay. Two question on the cost program in News Media. First one is, can you provide some more color on the phasing in Q1? The question is, if advertising and revenue trends in News Media would stay under pressure, is there flexibility to further increase cost reductions in that segment?
Right. Yeah. As I said, the effect of the program will accelerate throughout the year. The effect in Q1 is around NOK 35 million, and we think it will be around NOK 100 million for the first half, indicating that acceleration. As I also said, we are, you know, proactively monitoring the development, especially within advertising, and we will make necessary adjustments if that is called for. For the time being, we believe that, you know, the right focus is to execute on the program we have in place, but we will be open to look at this if we see that the market develops for the worse.
Going back a little bit to Adevinta. Couple of question here, which I will combine a little bit. The first one is, can you remind us, please, on the options which you evaluate for the Adevinta stake going forward?
Mm-hmm.
Second is like, is the distribution the most likely option which you would prefer, or would you like to raise some proceeds for your balance sheet before the distribution? The last one here, there's a comment. Your main shareholder, the trust, went out and said a conflicting message that Schibsted should stay as a long-term owner, not distribute the shares. Should we think that the management with today's comments say that you will exit Adevinta stake in a value-creating way? How should we read this together?
Yeah, I mean, this is obviously a topic that is of very high importance to us. I also believe it's important to maybe separate a bit about, you know, what will be our strategy and what will be our tactics to pursue that strategy, and the tactics could affect the timing of certain things. To mention the options, I mean, there could be several options, but the 3 ones we lined out at the Capital Markets Day in which I still, you know, which still stay there. It is some sort of structural solution, which, you know, could maybe imply that we would get some sort of premium on the stake, which would be attractive.
If that is not feasible, it is of course an option to pursue sell downs over time. I think it will be very important what strategy we'll lay out for how to handle the proceeds from such a strategy. The third option is to spin the shares either fully or partially. We could also do combinations of these three options. That's the way we looked at it, and that the way we look at it, and that has not changed. We are, you know, we are obviously in very close dialogue with our board on this issue, which is of such great importance.
I think what I can say is that we will, we should have a clear communication in place in due time before the lockup expires in October.
Maybe also related to this, I mean, the Schibsted A and B shares seem still relatively low in comparison to Adevinta. How should we think about selling a further 3%, which you're free to do until October, going forward?
I would just say that we are aware that there is, let's say, an arbitrage opportunity in the fact that Adevinta trades at higher multiples than we do. As I said, you know, these are things we are working on as we speak, and we will communicate to the market when we're ready to do so what options we choose to pursue.
Can I also comment on that? As I said, on the ongoing share buyback program, sort of that, sort of will most likely run through Q3. Of course, the timeline of the existing program is also partly reflecting the liquidity in the Schibsted share and the, let's say, the phase of, and the opportunities we have for ongoing share buyback programs.
Yeah.
I think we mentioned in the report, but there's also like a follow-up on the EBITDA News Media, which seems better than the trading update provided the CMD. Can you just recap again what is driving this improvement over the last weeks?
Yeah. Yeah. I think, you know, the thing is that right now the advertising market is exceptionally volatile, I would say. You know, our ability to predict is difficult, very short booking cycles. What happened at the end of March was that, you know, we had Easter one week earlier than last year, and we saw that there was a surge in advertising volumes right at the end of March ahead of Easter. This effect was stronger than we had anticipated, and that's pretty much what makes up that improvement that we saw in March.
Christian, going back to Mobility. Revenue growth is strong, but margins were down in the quarter. You mentioned the report head count growth. How should we think going forward? Is it like operating leverage or are there still like ongoing investments here in that business which will keep margins under pressure going forward?
The background for the margin development was a combination of things. It was addition of, new, employees last year, some increased marketing into new models, and also the fact that we added AutoVex, into the portfolio, this year. As we said before, I think
AutoVex having low margins.
Yes, yes. As we've said before, we added quite a lot of resources last year, and now, into this year, we have kind of entered a new phase where we are much more cautious on adding new resources and instead focusing on utilizing the people we already have in the new Nordic structure in a more effective way. That is also going to affect cost development going forward.
Looking at Recommerce, losses, went up or jumped in the first quarter. Can you provide some more details behind this increase, and how should we think about this going forward, the losses in Recommerce?
Yeah. I don't think I would be cautious of kind of looking at the development in a single quarter in Recommerce. We have said that we aim for break even sometime in 2025. That's the kind of the target we're aiming for. This year, we are focusing much more on the monetization part of Recommerce. That's what I would keep in mind.
Can you share some comments on Nettbil, the performance in the quarter and also your plans going forward to entry, for example, in Sweden? You've done that before, then you stopped it due to the court case. What's your plan going forward to rolling out Nettbil?
This C2B segment is obviously very interesting to us. We have said that very clearly in the Capital Markets Day. That's why we also acquired AutoVex. Of course, we are looking into the opportunities of taking that model also to the other countries that we are present in. It's too soon to disclose any concrete plans on that.
Looking at the jobs listing volumes, will ease as a comparison, will ease from June, where numbers started to go down last year. To what degree could that help going forward on the top line growth in Nordic Marketplaces? Do you have any view which you can share here?
Well, we can't be too concrete, but it's a correct observation. The first half of last year was an exceptionally high volume period. It started to soften in June last year, and that weakening happened throughout the second half of the year with some acceleration in Q4. Of course, this year, that is going to make the comparables easier for jobs when we come into the second half of the year, particularly in Q4.
Coming back to Recommerce, do you still expect that losses this year will be low in comparison to last year and that you will break even in 2025?
Sorry, can you say again?
Do you still expect that Recommerce losses will be lower this year? Do you still aim for the target to be break even in 2025 given the current trends?
Yes. We are still aiming for break even in 25. What we're focusing on this year is the monetization, so it's kind of the unit economics for the e-commerce. Also looking into kind of how we have a structural cost base that drives profitability in this segment.
Okay. So far we've no additional questions. I would just like wait a couple of seconds. I think we're done here with the Q&A then.
Mm-hmm. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.