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Earnings Call: Q4 2015

Feb 19, 2016

Rolv Erik Ryssdal
CEO, Schibsted

Welcome to this quarterly presentation from Schibsted. Present from the management is the Chairman, Ole Jacob Sunde , and representatives for senior management in addition to myself. I think this time we have a little bit, shall I say, more interesting presentation for you, because in addition to the usual suspects, being Trond and myself, we also have our CTO, Rian Liebenberg, who's going to tell us about what we're doing in product and tech. The highlights for the fourth quarter is that there's still good progress for online classifieds. It's been a good quarter for the big sites, I would say. France and Spain doing well, but also the Scandinavian markets. We're continuing to focus on our growth within classifieds, also supporting that by selected M&A.

In the fourth quarter, we signed the agreement for the acquisition of Hemnet, and expecting then clearance during the first half of the year from the competition authorities. We're also seeing a positive development in the investment phase markets. For the media houses, as you know, it's more of a mixed picture because the market conditions are, of course, tougher for the media houses. We have to do several things at the same time, both press the accelerator and the brake at the same time. There's a lot of cost reduction going on. On the same time, we're investing in the online future, and I'm very happy to see that there's a high level of activity and innovation in the editorial units.

We're going to continue and deep dive a little bit more today into what we're doing in product and tech, because what the Schibsted, the media industry, has become a much more of a tech-driven company, so we thought we wanted to shed some more light on that. This is how the agenda looks like. Rian will take over after I've taken my part of the presentation, and then Trond will go through the findings. Starting with the online classifieds, it's been a good quarter for online classifieds. You see a top-line growth there of 23%. Adjusted for currency fluctuations and the depreciating Norwegian krone, it's still a healthy growth of 16%. You can see that actually all the big sites are showing a good positive development there on the top line.

Let me start by leboncoin. They're just celebrating 10 years, actually last week, and what a decade it's been for leboncoin. They're still performing very well. It was a big event in the French press last week with several TV inserts and also several wide coverage in the French press in general. Now, leboncoin had a very good quarter towards the end of the year. I think it's actually was actually stronger than what I had expected when I gave the last presentation here. That's business life. Things go a little bit up and down.

Actually, what happened was that we had, towards the end of the quarter was a very positive development in the real estate market and also in the display market, that several big companies, especially the telcos, were vying for customers. They spent more money on advertising towards the end of the year. Hence leboncoin had a good quarter. We're also seeing that what is leboncoin really working on is to continue to push new product and product development. That is important. I would say that is the most important things we're doing for all our sites now, continuing product development and adding new features. leboncoin just relaunched last week with a new logo, celebrate their 10 year.

T hey have also launched recently many new apps and good products, which gives new features. In-app display ads, more photos, et cetera, et cetera. I'm very happy to see that the development in user rating is also going very well for leboncoin. I know some of you are, you know, looking closely at what's happening from quarter to quarter, at leboncoin. What I can say is that I think I'm generally happy about the site and the development. I think I said last time that we could expect the top-line growth for this year to be between 15% and 20%, I think I'll stick to that. I think that's, it's a positive development.

Looking at Spain, I would say same focus on management, continued product development, new apps, new features, and especially Vibbo, which was the rebranding of Segundamano, a new and fresher brand and also a new product. We're going to continue to develop that and also to market it. You'll see a lot of that in this first half year. Otherwise, I would say that the drivers between the quarterly growth in Spain is then that there is a positive, has been a positive macro development that affects our jobs. Of course, also the real estate has been kind of the main revenue drivers in this quarter. Looking ahead, we're hoping for a continued positive development in Spain.

There's, of course, some uncertainty as regards the parliamentary situation there, but I believe there's a hope that a new government will be formed. I think that will be good for all kind of businesses. That's Spain. If we're moving back to Oslo and Norway, we're seeing that FINN suffered somewhat because there is soft development in display market, and we see that also in the media houses. On the other hand, FINN did well on actually on jobs and there was also the real estate in the fourth quarter. The volume was down somewhat in jobs, but there was a positive price mix effect. There was some one-off effects for the result.

Looking ahead, what we're seeing at the start of this year is that the volumes in jobs are dropping and also a bit slower activity in the real estate market. You can read that in the papers every day, especially on the West Coast. People are, you know, there's not a lot of turnover in the real estate market. We're also seeing in the greater Oslo region that there are not that many objects for sale. Of course, that is affecting FINN. I'd say that the FINN development for this year is going to rely then on what's happening with the region economy. FINN itself and the organization is doing well, developing new products and going well.

Cars is still going well. FINN is doing well, but we're going to rely then on the region economy. In Sweden, Blocket had a good quarter. I would say it's especially the verticals that are now helping Blocket in this quarter. Jobs in particular. As you know, FINN, Blocket is continuously improving their position within the job market in Sweden, and certainly now is among the really top players, and we've seen that positive development for them. Also, the car market in Sweden remains healthy. There's a lot of new cars sold and also the real estate has been doing well for Blocket. Same story there. They're continuously developing new product launches, and we're seeing good traffic growth for the mobile apps. Right.

Over to the investment phase. The investment phase sites have this development you're seeing here. It's looking healthy. It's now been a year since we implemented the Telenor and Naspers together joined forces in Brazil. That has been positive for us. It's been very positive for the consumers. We're creating more liquid marketplaces and also for advertisers. As you can see that there, the growth there in new ads per day there is actually at 50%. That's, of course, very healthy. That enables OLX to look more closely at developing new monetization initiatives.

Last year, we did an acquisition of Anumex in Mexico, and that is the integration has gone well and given us a stronger position, particularly in a few key states. Hungary is also had a good development. That was also of course a place where we had an in-market consolidation. That's the traditional classifieds. As you know, we acquired Shpock. The new thing was that in Q4, we increased our stake, so we now hold 91%. The main markets that Shpock has invested in is the U.K. and Germany, in addition to Austria where they started. In U.K. and Germany, they are the leading app within the native app shopping field.

I think that creates some interesting options and opportunities for us. In addition to that, we've launched it in Norway and Sweden and Italy. Italy seems to have kind of struck a nerve. The development there has been, I would say exciting the first few months. That's for Shpock, and that's why we'll continue to invest in Shpock because this influences our investment spending for this year because we see that they're actually taking very attractive market positions in two big markets in Europe that we haven't been present, the two biggest, namely U.K. and Germany. Right. Moving over to the media houses. It's a more mixed picture, many challenges, but also many good things happening in Schibsted.

If we start looking at VG and Aftenposten, you can say that these two media houses, I'm very proud of what they have achieved and are achieving. Of course, the paper circulation is going down, but their total reach continues to expand, and they are capitalizing also then on their position. You can see here the daily reach on the different platforms. Of course, even these media houses are meeting tougher market conditions. And I think in Norway we've seen a tough development for online ads. That's why we're investing in new products and are launching new geo-targeting products in Norway that I see that the advertisers really like. The result has been good.

Since there's uncertainty in the market, that's why I think you're seeing especially VG is adjusting their cost base now to be prepared for the situation going ahead. I'm very impressed by the work being done here. For the subscription papers, it's been , I would say, a tough market situation. They can see that from the print advertisement revenues. You see that also on the peers that publish results. Advertising revenues have declined. On the other hand, what we're seeing, I think, that we're actually stabilizing circulation revenues in total. I think that's a positive sign. What we're seeing now is that, especially in Aftenposten, we've seen that people really catch on to their online subscription offers.

That's a good sign because the people are now signing up. They're actually using it a lot. The, what we call the turnover is going down. It's also younger people that are signing up for Aftenposten's online subscription than what we've previously seen. That's a positive sign. We're seeing some of the same tendencies in Bergens, in Stavanger, and in Fædrelandsvennen. Then, of course, it's the same balance here. Cost is important, but also the continued development in product and tech, and launching new products. Moving over to the growth sector, that's Schibsted growth particularly in Sweden, where we have the biggest operations. You can see that the personal finance sites in particular is doing well.

Lendo is growing nicely both in Norway and Sweden. Prisjakt is developing positively. Hitta seems to have stabilized the situation. Overall, a good development for the growth sector. Right. I think I'll conclude my presentation there. As you know, we have for several years said that the media industry and our business is affected more and more by technology and by continuous product development. We've said that we want to be, we want to develop that part ourself and not be reliant upon American tech giants. We're actually developing our own platforms.

That's why we have invested heavily and still is, and we're able to attract top talent within the technology and product field in order to enable the product development. Today we have, in addition to Oslo and Stockholm and Barcelona, we also have a tech hub in Poland and, not least, also in London, where we have around 50 people. Here to tell you about more what we're doing in product and tech to enable the development is I'm happy to introduce Rian Liebenberg, our CTO. Thank you, Rian.

Rian Liebenberg
CTO, Schibsted

First job of a CTO is to enable switch on the microphone. Thank you for the kind introduction, Rolv Erik. As Rolv Erik suggested and indicated, huge investments in product and technology in order to ensure that we can continue enjoying sustained growth and capitalize on new opportunities. Three key things that we are focused on and continue to focus on. Firstly, building new global platforms that enable sustained growth in publishing and ensuring that we future-proof digital storytelling and news production in that industry, focusing on marketplaces and of course for advertisers. We're also seeing a significant rise in ad revenues in online.

Given our market positions and our assets across the globe, we see a huge opportunity for us to capitalize on additional revenue in online ad markets. We're making investments there. Finally, the world is becoming increasingly data-driven and increasingly focused on providing user-centric experiences. We are investing very heavily in ensuring that we focus relentlessly on building appropriate products for our users to drive deeper engagement and ultimately also to build loyalty. Last year, Frode Eilertsen stood in front of you right here and presented our investments and strategy in product and tech. Our strategy remains true, and we continue to focus very heavily on the strategy. The key difference, of course, between last year and where we are today is that we have now made some investments.

We have a few hundred people focusing on the various parts of implementation of the strategy. Hopefully, today I'll be able to showcase some of the progress that we have made to date. In order to do that, we need to ensure that we remain relentlessly focused on these three key things. Foster innovation. Why is that important? We face increasing competition, not only from the large technology players in the U.S. but also in increasing liquidity and investment from venture capitalists that are fueling startups in multiple different areas that compete directly with our core offerings. Our ability to stay ahead and remain competitive relies on us being able to move as fast, if not faster, than they are able to do.

We all see the rate of change and progress made on a daily basis, around the world in the space. Secondly, we want to use reach and engagement, and understanding of our users, to drive better retention and ultimately also to build trust. Ultimately, we're building these products for an end user and a consumer in mind, and it's our job to ensure that we do that in a way that deeply engages the user and provides them with the information and the services that they require and need on a day-to-day basis. Finally, it's really important for us to be able to do this at scale.

Not only to achieve economies of scale by doing it once and deploying it globally, but also to ensure that if we build or when we build new features and functionality, and we launch it in a given market, and we see early traction and success, that we're able to deploy that across all of our markets as rapidly as possible. A slightly deeper look at kind of the investments that we have made, and all of the colored boxes are existing teams, and existing functionality that we have in place today. It really centers around three key platforms. A publishing platform to ensure that we are building, not only the technologies and the capabilities for digital storytelling for our newsrooms, our editors and our journalists in the media houses that we operate in Norway and Sweden today.

Also investing heavily in the future proofing of journalism and understanding how to do storytelling in an increasingly fragmented and social, centric environment. The second part is investing heavily in marketplaces. Marketplaces takes on multiple different dimensions. We have a generalist, consumer marketplaces of buying and selling second-hand goods, but we're also seeing a very rapid and rampant rise in deep verticalization. Our ability to invest in both those areas, collectively, is important for future sustained growth. As I mentioned before, digital advertising remains and continues to be a rapidly growing part of the overall online ecosystem. Given our local assets and the strength of the assets and positions that we have, we believe we have a unique opportunity to capitalize and generate new forms of revenue and growth.

In order to make all of this happen, we need to think very intelligently about how do we build for reuse. Because ultimately, our products should not reflect our org charts, right? A user remains a user regardless of whether they're reading news or whether they're engaging and transacting in a marketplace. We have to really think about products like identity and privacy and personalization of that information in a very, very, very generic sense. Equally, when it comes to forms of payment, it's not just about paying for subscription and newspapers, but also transacting as a buyer or a seller on a marketplace.

Finally, being able to do this efficiently, rapidly, and at scale, and leveraging the power of the cloud and the cloud technologies that exist, we're investing heavily in enabling technologies in infrastructure, data, and analytics, and of course, also taking privacy and security and protecting user information very, very seriously. As I mentioned before, you know, ad markets are growing. Schibsted enjoys near 25% of its revenues from display advertising, slightly a higher proportion in our online classifieds businesses. We really see this as a growing industry and an ability and an opportunity for us to leverage, not by replacing revenue in other streams with ad revenue, but actually growing our share of overall revenue in direct proportion with the growth of display advertising.

In particular, in local markets, where we have extremely strong and dominant positions in various different markets, and we see a very sharp and rampant rise in local advertising. Our ability to leverage our brands, our reach, and our user experiences and coupling that with local advertising seems like a logical choice for us, and we'll go into a little bit more detail. In the ad markets, it's an interesting world because there's a fairly large supply chain between supply and demand side in the advertising ecosystem, where intermediaries typically take anywhere from 50%-80% of advertising revenue share. We believe we have an opportunity to consolidate that market by engaging in strategic partnerships. We've recently entered into a relationship with AppNexus, which is a pure ad tech player.

They do zero media buying, so there is zero no competition or conflict of interest, in terms of buy side and going out on media buying directly. They provide us with key technology in both the ad serving and exchange and in yield optimization. These are complex and intricate areas and not necessarily playing to our core strength, which makes logical sense for us to partner in this form. At the same time, we could also leverage our assets in data and in deeper understanding of our audiences and our inventory positions across our different publications and websites, to build better products.

Of course, leveraging on additional revenue opportunities, especially in the form of local advertising, as I mentioned before. leboncoin, as Rolv Erik mentioned earlier, is celebrating its 10-year anniversary. As a birthday present, we've been working very closely with them on building a local ad product, which has been in beta for just over two months. It's had a good adoption and traction from local advertisers. We are launching this officially as a product called L'Atelier Business as early as next week. I'm going to show you a quick demonstration. Oops. Gonna go back. Realize my knowledge of Norwegian. This is a video demonstration. I never take risks with flaky Wi-Fis.

Effectively, in this particular example, we're a furniture business locally in France. Of course, you can create a headline, and you can create your particular ad campaign, and add a website if you, if you have one. It's a responsive site, so resizing the screen for different form factors and devices like mobile and tablet, et cetera, will ensure that you have an equally good experience. This is entirely self-serve, so we're making very little investments, of course, in ad sales support or call center support. We can do targeting capabilities here because this is a furniture business, we want to specifically ensure that our ad is seen in the furniture category, within leboncoin, and we can also do geo-based targeting.

You can enter your business address, and we can determine dynamically the range or radius of places we want to see the ad. Of course, given mobile, you've got geo as and mobile GPS as a strong signal. We can set budget targeting criterias. In this particular example, we're just doing a demonstration. You get a preview of your particular ad, and including what the ad visual will look like. We get into payment information. Now, given the French market, we have to specifically set the region because there are different VAT rules in different parts of France. We'll enter credit card information.

Because this is actual credit card and live, we'll of course protect poor Eugene, our engineer's credit card payment, so it doesn't become the most popular card on the internet. Once that is done, you can then go into your ads manager. Here you've got a dashboard that shows you the performance of all of your ads, the number of clicks, the impressions, your overall budget spend, et cetera. When we then go into leboncoin website, and we go into the furniture section, and we look at any of the given ads that are showing, and we scroll, we'll actually see the ad appear at the bottom of that page. There are somewhere around 2 billion impressions of those sorts of placements across leboncoin every single day.

It's a very, very effective way of reaching target demographic, both in category-specific areas as well as geo-targeting. We will add additional targeting capabilities around age, gender, interest, intent as the product evolves. And that product, incidentally, is not only built for leboncoin. We intend to take that across all of our key markets throughout 2016. You should see something in Norway sometime this year in similar vein. We're of course also using data and information about our users across our ecosystem of marketplaces, publishing news products, as well as personal finance and other and other products to ensure that we build a very, very rich profile of our audiences.

Part of that strategy is to ensure that we build better products for our end users, so we can customize, tailor, personalize, and recommend content in a much more efficient and effective way. We could also do much better and more efficient targeting of relevant advertising. We have a series of experiments and examples that have been running in Norway for about three months, which is focused on geo-targeting right down to postcode level. There are quite a few postcodes within Oslo alone. Through the combination of assets that we have across Norway, we're effectively able to understand the movement patterns and behavior of our users in all the key populated areas as high as 85% in Oslo and west coast of Norway.

Of course, that ensures that both from a content relevancy, whether it's publishing or marketplaces, or an ad relevancy, whether it's a hyperlocal ad, we can reach the right audiences at the right time. As Rolv Erik mentioned earlier, we continue to see a very significant and rampant rise in mobile usage. Over 50% of all of our traffic are on mobile devices. We continue to focus on innovation and investments in ensuring we build mobile-first experiences of our existing marketplace and other properties. Launches like leboncoin, FINN recently, Segundamano, and Vibbo have all been very, very positively received, and we will continue to do that.

Marketplaces are a very, very important area of the business, and we are investing in next generation marketplaces to enable both that efficiency and scale in the generalist marketplace areas, as well as enabling much deeper vertical specialization. Secondly, we're also very focused on the user experience within the context of marketplaces and building contextual relevancy and engagement around social features, communication features, and trust features that are going to be an important attribute of a successful marketplace in the future. To recap, global marketplaces, global publishing platforms, and global advertising platforms remain a key focus for us this year and going forward.

Capitalizing on online ad market and the growth in those areas, of course, using and leveraging, our digital ecosystems to provide better and more engaging user experience for our audiences. Thank you for listening.

Speaker 4

Thanks, Rolv Erik. Rian will be available afterwards for questions. I'd like to introduce Trond Berger , who's the Chief Financial Officer. He's also in the room, so.

Trond Berger
EVP and CFO, Schibsted

Thank you, Rolv Erik. I will run you through the financials. If you look at what we have invested in, and we will continue to invest in, of course, the online classifieds investment phase. Bear in mind that we have taken full control in Shpock, so that will be now included in the consolidated EBITDA. We are, of course, investing in countries like U.K. and Germany. We have guided now in total, including the JVs, in emerging markets, that we will have a spending about the same level as we had in 2015. The new product and tech will also, of course, lead to increased costs.

We have guided that it will be around NOK 250-300 included in EBITDA in 2016, which is of course compared with NOK 150 in 2015. We believe this is the right thing to do, both all these investments, and in order really to build future revenue streams. If you look at the total 2015, the full year, we had an EBITDA of NOK 2,527 compared to NOK 2,444 in 2014. We are happy with 2015 as the year. We have delivered on our strategy. We have continued with in-market consolidation. We have then also continued to digitalize our business and first of all, both classifieds, continue to develop products but also in the media houses.

All in all, a good year, with good underlying development, like in the online classifieds, up 19% compared with 2014, if you look at the total year as a whole. Then, of course, we have, as guided the market, as we reported to the market, also an impairment loss that we have taken in 2015 as such. Also, we have substantial gains from sale of assets and also reevaluation of assets. Looking at Q4 isolated, it is also a good quarter, with the main assets continue to deliver, I would say, like Rolv Erik mentioned, France, Spain, Sweden, particularly well.

If you look at the EBITDA for this quarter, we have NOK 617 compared with NOK 559 for the same quarter in 2014. There is, of course, also then this impairment loss included in then Q4. If we go to the development between the quarter in 2014 with 2015, it is then I would say good development in, like in France. We have also delivered well on the media houses in Norway, and we have been able to take out cost and continue the digitalization. Although it's fair to say that it has been a more challenging display market in Norway compared with Sweden.

Sweden, we have actually delivered better on that part, and we have had some better targeting products in Sweden, so we also can see some effect of that. Sweden is doing well, as also Blocket is continue to do. Of course, we have investments, as I've said, and also we have concluded now the sale of 20 Minutes in France, which will be closed in Q1 this year. Looking at the key financial figures, we have continuous good underlying cash flow from our main operations. We have a normalized CapEx this quarter around NOK 100 million. We have a healthy, I would say, net interest-bearing debt to EBITDA end of 2015.

The underlying tax rate, it's important because we, of course, do not take into account the benefit of losses in first of all in subsidiaries and investments that we're doing. We are prudent on that. If you adjust for the different effects, we have an underlying tax rate in our system of 31%. We have the financial capacity to pursue bolt-on acquisitions. Just to remind you that we are in process of pursuing the bolt-on acquisition strategy. We have the Hemnet transaction. We, of course, also have established now the B capital as a source of funding if needed. Although we do have, as of today, also fairly good capacity.

We having as the strong, stable financial position with then a debt maturity that we find adequate for our type of business. The board just had a board meeting and proposed then the same dividend per share as we had in 2014, which is NOK 1.75 per share. That's the proposal from the board. That will of course be then be up for approval in the general assembly in May. This is according to our dividend policy and with the payout ratio and also as such a balanced dividend then looking also into the investment and growth opportunities that we see.

We have, as a result of the reorganization that Rolv Erik has told about earlier, then we also will change our external reporting. It means then that the online classifieds will now be split in the Online Classifieds Norway, Online Classifieds Sweden, and International. Then we will have Media Houses Norway, Sweden, and Headquarters and Others. That will be then the new reporting structure that you will see now from Q1 in 2016. That concludes my finance part, Rolv Erik, and key takeaways.

Rolv Erik Ryssdal
CEO, Schibsted

Thank you, Trond. Well, the key takeaways are that we think that the online classifieds continues to go well. The big sites continue to go right there. Okay, let me start again. We believe that we're doing well on the big sites in our online classifieds, continue to deliver both in France, in Spain, and Scandinavia. We're seeing a positive development for the portfolio also in the emerging market. We're seeing good results of the consolidations that we announced last years. For the media houses, there's hectic activity going on, and it's of course turbulent ad market, but we remain committed to their long-term development. We're seeing positive developments on their digital side, not least for the subscription papers in their subscription sold.

Then of course, we are continuing to invest in product and tech as you've seen now. I believe that is absolutely essential to continue the positive development and security growth prospects for the group in the medium to long term. We're very, very happy with that strategy and we're also seeing the products now starting to come out. That concludes our presentation, and now I'll be happy to open up for questions. You can take the opportunity now that you have both Rian and Terry in the room if you want to have some questions around the product and tech of more detailed character, please take that opportunity. Right. Has the presentation been so complete that there are no answer?

I've never experienced that before, but must have been you, Rian.

Trond Berger
EVP and CFO, Schibsted

Either too much confusion or too much clever.

Rolv Erik Ryssdal
CEO, Schibsted

Yeah, something coming on, through your question here.

Speaker 4

Okay, we have a few questions coming from viewers on the webcast. First, the top line development of leboncoin turned out better than guided. What do you anticipate for 2016?

Rolv Erik Ryssdal
CEO, Schibsted

Well, I mentioned previously that it turned out better than guidance, and that was due to a very positive development, both in the real estate sector but also in the display ad market in France towards the end of that quarter. I think going into 2016, there's no need to change the guidance that we have given previously, which is top line growth between 15% and 20%. I'm confident that we'll be able to achieve that.

Speaker 4

Okay, I'll take a few more. Have you seen any effect in Norway after launching new advertising tool late last year? Further to this, how much will revenue increase after the investments of NOK 250 million-NOK 300 million in technology?

Rolv Erik Ryssdal
CEO, Schibsted

Well, the first question was about Norway, right?

Speaker 4

Yeah.

Rolv Erik Ryssdal
CEO, Schibsted

What we're seeing, we're just launching new products continuously in the market, and I think this is the geo-targeting product as we're seeing. Well, we're seeing good demand among advertisers, for that, for that product. That seems to be positive. Last part of the question, can you repeat that, please?

Speaker 4

That was more a question on how will the investments in tech of NOK 250 million and NOK 300 million affect revenues?

Rolv Erik Ryssdal
CEO, Schibsted

Well, this goes to, we're living in a world where there's a lot of innovation and technology, we believe it's absolutely crucial for us to be at the forefront of that development. That's why I said that the increased investments in product tech is there to secure the growth, further growth for the group, and especially in the medium term. I'm absolutely convinced that the products that we're rolling out will secure that growth. I think it's, you know, premature to go out and say exactly to quantify that.

Speaker 4

How do you think the investments in group tech will evolve in the medium term, sort of beyond 2016? Can you comment on that?

Rolv Erik Ryssdal
CEO, Schibsted

We normally don't give guidance in that detail ahead. I would say that you should be prepared that we also in 2017 and onwards will continue to have product and tech investments, which is of course, above the levels that we have seen in 2015.

Speaker 4

Yeah.

Rolv Erik Ryssdal
CEO, Schibsted

Go on.

Speaker 4

One more. Why do you think that Yelp and Zillow are moving away from display advertising altogether? Why should Schibsted be different in this respect?

Rolv Erik Ryssdal
CEO, Schibsted

Well, I think if you saw the presentation from Rian, it's actually shows that around 25%, approximately 25% of our revenues is display ads, right? It's not the majority of the ad revenues. What we're seeing is that there's strong demand for good and directed ad products also among advertisers, and that's why we'll continue to develop those. We're seeing a positive response from the products that we have already launched.

Speaker 4

Can you comment on the margin pressure for FINN.no in Norway? What was the background of that?

Rolv Erik Ryssdal
CEO, Schibsted

Well, you know, I think, you'll see, for instance, FINN had a lower margin this quarter than last year, whereas Blocket had a higher one. I think you gotta accept that these things will vary from quarter to quarter, and we'll rely on, you know, marketing campaigns and the timing of those. In addition to that, I think there was, for FINN, in particular, a couple of one-offs, wasn't it?

Trond Berger
EVP and CFO, Schibsted

Also slightly weaker display market in Norway, fair to say. Underlying, I would say unchanged position in real estate and job, although Rolv Erik elaborated on a little bit weaker, of course, job market in Norway.

Speaker 4

All right, last one for now. What do you expect for Italy this year? Do you still need to invest? Which markets are most attractive for consolidation?

Rolv Erik Ryssdal
CEO, Schibsted

We've seen that in Italy, I think we've said previously, Trond, that we're seeing a positive development in traffic and ads.

Trond Berger
EVP and CFO, Schibsted

Yes. No, I think if you look at 2016, I mean, we will continue to invest, first of all, in markets like U.K., like Germany. We see a really good uptake in, in that native app position we have in those two markets. We will continue to invest in Mexico. Italy, I think we will further like to expand our gap to our competitor, Kijiji. I'd also in few other markets. I think we do investments that we do really see that we can really build the future revenue streams in these markets.

Rolv Erik Ryssdal
CEO, Schibsted

It comes to acquisitions and in-market consolidations, obviously, I won't be too specific on that. In general, let me say that we think it's attractive to do more in the markets that we're already in, such as the example with Hemnet in Sweden, or adjacent markets to the markets that we're in.

Speaker 4

That concludes your series of questions. Are there anyone in the room here who wants to have a question? Comment? In that case, thanks so much for coming, and have a nice day.

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