Good morning, everyone. It's 9:00 A.M., so it's time to get started. I'd like to welcome you to this quarterly presentation for Schibsted. We have a slightly more interesting agenda for you today than we normally have, because you're used to me talking through the operations and Trond going through the financials. Today, we also have our EVP digital and products, through Dag Eriksen, who will give us a presentation and about what we're doing on technology and product ramp up. The headlines for last quarter is that we're seeing continued online classified growth. In France, we're seeing a positive development for leboncoin continue. Also in the Southern European countries of Spain and Italy.
There is, it's a good growth, especially in traffic, but also positive on other sides. For FINN, it's, FINN is a great company with great prospects. It's a disappointing quarter in terms of top line. There are a few different reasons for that. I'll get back to that shortly. We'll also discuss the consolidation that is taking place in several markets. We have some news that have been announced also this morning. For the media houses, they're continuing to strengthen their online positions and there's mobile growth and WebTV growth. Circulation revenues are pretty firm for the subscription newspapers, positive. As expected, the continued print decline in circulation in terms of ads.
What we're focusing a lot on internally now is the step up we're doing in technology and product development. That we'll go more into. This is the revenue split development, and there the development continues now with the 56% of the total coming from online. Also a big part coming from the classifieds of the combined EBITDA. Moving into classifieds, there's a number of things happening here, and I'd like to first dwell a little bit on what's happening in the consolidation. We have some news announcement this morning actually for you. One of them is that we've made a new agreement now with the Naspers, whereby we're acquiring their site, their generalist site, OLX, in Hungary.
We're selling them our site in Romania and our site in Portugal, both also generalist sites, to Naspers. This will strengthen our position considerably in Hungary. Remember, we already have a strong market generalist site there. We also have the market leader in the car vertical in Hungary. I think that's a very good development for us. We're also announcing this morning that we're selling our 50% of the generalist sites we've owned in Switzerland. We're selling that to our old partner, Tamedia. As some of you may have noticed, earlier this week, they announced a pretty big acquisition in Switzerland, giving them a very interesting position.
I think this is a natural thing for us, them, to sell our 50% to them, which I think, so I think that is helpful for everyone. As previously announced, we did several moves in the fourth quarter. One that I'm very happy about was to close the acquisition of Milanuncios in Spain because we worked on that a long time. That was announced in February. Took time with the competition authorities, et cetera, but we found an agreement and structure that works well. Milanuncios is developing very well. Of course, the big joint ventures with Naspers. Of course, our partners here in Wood and Singapore Press Holdings has been a very important event in the fourth quarter.
A smaller one, but still a positive is what we did in Morocco, where we merged with Avito. We're seeing that the traffic there is doubling. That's positive. Most of you are familiar with our big market-leading sites in Europe. I'd like to show you this one because this is this is a presentation of the sites we're having in the investment phase. I think that after the consolidation that has taken place, this is a more interesting portfolio and in a much better shape now than actually one year back. Where we have very interesting positions in big markets like Indonesia and Brazil. You're seeing also that we have leading positions in many other interesting markets.
As you know, the deal with Naspers has been closed. They're now working fully on integration. What happened this weekend, actually, was that there was a migration to one new site in Brazil. It went very well. Traffic went up significantly as expected. We're seeing that in the markets where we have consolidated, is that the traffic response is very, very good. I'm very happy about that because it actually creates much better marketplaces then for the buyers and sellers in those markets. I think we're serving those communities much, much better with those sites.
That's the portfolio of investment phase. As you know, we're working always with an eye to the traffic growth, and we're continuing to grow traffic in the big European sites. This is including all the big sites. If I only taken out the sites in Southern Europe, the growth would have been much stronger. You can see also that the traffic growth outside Europe continues on a positive note. This is for those who are a bit new to Schibsted, this shows you the internet, the revenue per internet capita in our different countries.
This is done an illustration which goes a long way to explain that you cannot explain that we don't expect the same growth rates from FINN and not even Blocket as in the other sites given their absolute size in those markets. Moving into the biggest sites. Leboncoin continues to go very well. Display ads up more than 30% that quarter. Premium features going well, professional listing fees are also developing positively. Google revenues has declined, that has been as planned as we've taken more of the sales internally. This is a huge site. It continues to have a positive traffic growth and to do product development. They have developed now actually a new universal iOS app that has been just launched recently.
Universal iOS means that you can use it both on your phone and your iPad. For those of you who are domiciled in France, I'll recommend you to download that. Looking ahead at this year, there's been a lot of focus and attention around the real estate. What happened was that the bundle agreement with SPIR expired for January 1st. What happened was that in the last quarter, we both sold leboncoin and all the existing package. What I can tell you is that from January 1st, we're the only one selling leboncoin, and it has been a positive reception in the market. Many real estate agencies, they really like the site and put their ads on it, and we're working them on new functionalities.
Pictures, maps and alerts and more pictures have already been launched, then they're working also on other functionalities to be launched as we go along. For FINN, let me spend some time on FINN. I think FINN is a great company. It's a fantastic company, and they have many interesting prospects. This quarter has been a disappointment in terms especially of top line. There are three reasons for that. And the one is the weak volume on the job market in Norway. That is really heavily affecting FINN, of course. I've said that previously, and we've seen that in previous downturns actually in the recent economy that that is affecting FINN. We're not seeing that we're losing any market share to anyone, but the volume has gone down.
In addition to that, there's been a successful transition to the freemium model, and there we took away the insertion fees. Of course, revenues are affected by that. I'd like to point out also that if you look on those graphs here, you see that the volume went up significantly after we launched the free model. It looks like it's going down again here. This is a very seasonal effect. Excuse me, please. This is a very seasonal effect, and it's back up in January. Those two factors were kind of, I think, as expected. In addition to that, FINN has had a decline in revenues from display advertisement in that quarter.
FINN is working hard to do continuous product development in ads, in mobile formats, et cetera, to rectify that situation. Moving on to Blocket in Sweden. It's a good and stable quarter for Blocket. They have a very strong comparison numbers in just this quarter. Continue to grow 4% on top line. There is actually a softer develop for some private classifieds, especially in cars. I think this is two factors that we can point to. One is that leasing is becoming a bigger phenomenon in Sweden, and then it's resold by the dealers. Also that car dealers with, given low interest levels are taking a bigger inventory. Blocket continue to develop in real estate and job verticals.
In Spain, I think that's an exciting market for us. I'm happy that the Milanuncios deal was closed. You can see that since we took over the management of the site, which was close to two years back, we've actually emphasized, we've said that we're going to reduce margin and monetization to emphasize growth and traffic growth. You can see that on our big sites like El Mundo, Fotocasa, and coches.net, they have been able to grow. I think that's a positive development for them. Of course, Milanuncios, which is actually as large as those sites combined when it comes to traffic, it's having a very handsome growth in the traffic. I think also, you know, revenues has previously gone down, as we said.
That was stopped in this fourth quarter, where there was a slight positive development in total in Spain. I know that the people working in InfoJobs, they're very, very proud of what they're doing because they're working hard to provide employment in a very tough environment for a lot of Spaniards, and they're celebrating when they, when they have this thing that they're counting how many new jobs they're creating, and if they make new records, then they're then they're celebrating that. It seems to me that there is. The unemployment might have peaked, at least what we're seeing in Spain is that the new sales and new sales orders for InfoJobs is positive.
I think in the third quarter and also in January now, it's a bit more than 20% in new sales. That's a positive development. When it comes to Italy, we've said already that we've previously said we take the long-term view on Italy. It takes time to develop classified sites in Italy and online ventures. That's what we've said for many years. We're patient and we're happy with the development we're seeing there now. If you look at the combined growth from the apps and the web and the mobile site, it looks like that's growing in a positive manner. Monetization is also going up, though it's coming from a low level.
What we said previously is that we marketed the. We had a heavy marketing investment in Q4, and we also said that we will continue to invest in this site, so 2015 will be an investment year for Italy. Right. I'll turn my attention to the media houses. Let me start by pointing out that I'm very proud of a lot of the great work that's being done in our editorial departments. You can see that Schibsted media houses are really agenda setters and creating great journalism. Here are some examples. You see continuously that VG and Aftenbladet are developing new formats, WebTV, et cetera. Aftenposten was of course, the lead on the big surveillance thing in Norway.
Bergens Tidende has been the lead on how the Norwegian authorities treat asylum seekers and their kids. Very recently now, Svenska Dagbladet has really shaken up the Swedish business establishment with their revelations about the culture in one of the big squares there. I'm proud to work in Schibsted, and I see what their editorial departments are achieving. Also when you look at VG and Aftenbladet, I think it's a very good performance. They are the really clear market leaders in their respective markets. I think, look for instance at VG, it's a very impressive quarter. If you look both on revenues and result in addition to all the great products they're delivering.
This is also then of course included that they're investing in web TV. Aftenbladet also with a steady quarter. For both these media houses, their recipe really for progress is really to continue to develop all the time. Both of them have spent a lot of resources in developing good formats for web TV in 2014. That affects the results, but we believe it's the right thing to do. It's the, it's an important development for the sites, and that development will continue in this year. I'm very positive about that development. For the big regional newspapers, of course, they are more heavily affected by print advertisements than the others. So that is really affecting their margins. There is no doubt about that.
Online advertisements, a lot of focus on growing that, and they're working hard to do that. What I think is a positive thing is that circulation revenues now is a positive, has a positive development. This is of course the bundle and the bundle between print and online and the online subscriptions that are growing. Thereby the circulation revenue increases as a part of the total, and that is a more stable revenue source. Operating expenses are down. Of course, these media houses, they have to continue to do what they have been doing already for a number of years. They have to accelerate and brake at the same time. They have to continue their digital development and then have a very careful eye on their costs side.
In Schibsted Sweden, here is a little bit about the growth portfolio. Of course, Hitta.se, which is then the director service, has a pretty tough market environment. They're actually improving their margins because they've been cutting their costs. If you look at part of that, then you see that there's a very healthy revenue growth also in the other companies. This quarter, it's the Let's Deal who's really doing it. But also the personal finance companies Lendo and Compricer are developing according to plan. Right. That was the operations in brief. I'm happy to introduce Frode Andresen. He's been with us for almost two years.
He's the EVP for digital and product development, and he'll tell you more about what we're doing in the tech and digital product side.
Good morning, everyone. Before I talk about what we do, I figured I'd provide a little bit of a context. This is a bit of a new topic for a quarterly presentation, so let me share a little bit of the context that we at Schibsted see when we look to the external environment. The first thing is some of the trends that's been dominating the news, been dominating blogs, and probably many of the other companies that you are covering and talking with. Some of these are listed here. For us in Schibsted, looking at all of this last year, a few of these really stood out and spoke of some profound changes. Smart devices, combined with the Internet of Things, results in a very large amount of data being captured.
With this data being available through cloud, anywhere, anytime, and with advanced data analytics capabilities being able to process this data and turn it not just into reporting, not just insight, but to turn it into action, it changes a lot of things. We've seen those market changes, you know, in pretty much every part of our business, and that's the reason why we're making such a big step up. Let me highlight three ways in which this is affecting things. You know, one part is how you think about the web. You know, for 20 years, we've had a web that's been, you know, best illustrated by this iconic New Yorker cartoon, On the Web, Nobody Knows You're a Dog. Well, fast-forward 20 years, and it's fair to say that the anonymous web no longer exists.
It's not just the NSA and the post-Snowden era, but it's in how we use products. We like to think of this as the identified web. The identified web changes everything. One thing is how we expect products and services to be delivered. Think about it yourself. How many of the services that you use every single day does not have an element of personal? Well, let me ask you differently. Would you even consider using it if it wasn't highly personalized and tailored and targeted? The second thing is the way in which we consume the Internet. It's cross-device. We expect it to be seamless. We expect it to pick up where we left off no matter what device you started or ended an Internet experience.
Lastly, the identified web introduces a new class of competition for Schibsted in the form of course, the large global Internet players, but also startups providing end-to-end services or really emphasizing and innovating along the social dimension. All this, for us, has very profound implications. First of all, and most importantly, it changes not just our products, but it changes business models. In the last year, we have re-examined and to some extent had to change how we thought about our entire product portfolio and the associated monetization. Take marketplaces.
you know, if we think about the marketplaces and, you know, how we have to change, how we have to go in order to monetize that going forward and to continue to grow successfully, we're working now hard to take away the friction, making the marketplace much more end-to-end to solve the consumer problem in an easy, seamless way. We're adding the dimension of social. Given how people place a lot of trust right now in the social, in the community rather than just the brand name, we too have to make sure that as people come into places like Finn, that we empower and unleash, if you will, the power of the Finn community. Lastly, personal.
On a small device, it's good to have access to hundreds of thousands of objects, but it's even better if we can tailor the display of those products to be just the ones that you are interested in in that context that you are in. Same thing with advertising. We're going from more generic banner ads to much more performance-oriented, targeted individual display and other ad formats delivered in an automatic way, we call it programmatic, and across any channel. We announced yesterday, for example, in Norway, how we're doing that by enabling advertising products to be delivered across all of Schibsted's networks here in Norway, and taking advantage of some of the data, for example, in FINN, and making it available all across. Doing that, of course, in a way that is easy to buy and across any device.
With these market developments, we in Schibsted have to respond, and that is what's behind the big step up we're making right now in data, technology, and product. We're doing this not just in response to market trends, but because we see significant upside by doing so. We have local strength, and that gives us a great starting position. First and foremost, with hundreds of brands that are successful, growing, profitable. It gives us a great foundation from which to make this step up because these sites in total give us great reach in all our core markets. This is an example from Norway. The X-axis is the % of the internet population that we reach every single day, the Y-axis being number of page views. What this shows is the Schibsted sites, the green ones.
When you add all these up, we are actually bigger than Google and Facebook, for example. We've done this analysis in all our core markets. The conclusion is the same. We have very strong local reach, thanks to our brands and the services and the content that they deliver every single day. The second thing is data. When we combine our media houses, our online classified marketplaces, and our growth sites, the sum of these are not just bringing us on par with, for example, Google and Facebook, but it gives us some differentiating data along some very important dimensions: local content, personal finance, and of course, shopping intent. Put differently, Facebook knows your personality, your desires. Google knows what you're looking for. We know when you're actually ready to purchase something. We know what you can actually buy and whether or not you can afford it.
That is important data, that is what, together with the reach we have on our sites, give us immense local strength. Our focus in 2015 is to take the total reach of our sites together with our great data and really link those together, create synergies. The way we talk about this is to create identity and data-based national ecosystems. Logged in ecosystems. That's our focus. We'll do that primarily in Norway and Sweden. That is our focus in 2015, then beyond that, in subsequent years. To do all this, we not only need to utilize our local strength, we also need to take advantage of the global scale that we have to build the infrastructure, build the product platforms needed to actually harness this data and deliver great user experiences and great products for advertisers.
To do that, we have the requisite scale. We're very large. Five continents, 44 countries. We have 1,100 software developers. We have the requisite scale to actually do this. Little bit technical here, what we are building is a global platform around four major product groups. Let me start with the foundation. This is infrastructure needed to support data, analytics, and identity, which forms the foundation for everything we want to do around logged in ecosystems. This is the engine that turns our data into valuable insight and enables so-called data-driven products. One of the most important data-driven products is, of course, advertising. Targeted audiences, programmatic. Everything down here goes in to support our ability to develop great advertising products, that is a major focus for us. I'll get back to that.
All of this, plus this then has the function of also supporting the marketplace developments so that the marketplace platform that we're building, will benefit from all of this. For example, logged in identity supported by the analytics to, for example, deliver personalized experiences, enables FINN to deliver tailored, personalized FINN streams of objects. This is what we are focused on, as in totality, building this type of a global infrastructure to enable the local companies of ours to focus their talents, their engineers, and their business on genuine new product development. This will make us faster, more innovative, and deliver, services in this era of de-identified web with much, much greater quality and speed. To do this, we also need to complement the considerable talent we have inside with new expertise. That is a major part of the investments we're making right now.
I want to highlight how attractive actually we're finding Schibsted to be. This is Rian Liebenberg. He's our Group CTO. Prior to us, he led an established product and technology for Google in Europe, scaled it up from zero to 3,000 people. He was the global platform chief for Google's most important advertising product, Google AdSense, and he built Google Hangouts. He came to Schibsted because of the breadth of what we do and because of the exciting upside that he sees. Same thing with Adam Kinney. He was the Head of Data Science and advanced data analytics at Twitter. He took his family from San Francisco in January and relocated to Oslo. God knows what he was thinking, but that's a different story, to come here in January. He is with us and, well, just a few floors up.
He too came to Schibsted because of the breadth and the exciting opportunity of our data and our local strength to compete on a global scale. In total, we are making significant investments in data technology and product development. Our ambition this year alone is to hire externally over 100 people focused on advertising, analytics, and infrastructure. This shows some of the breakdown. In addition, we're also reorganizing internally and attracting and transferring a number of people internally, about the same number, into this central product and technology organization to really take advantage of the synergies that we see in terms of expertise, in terms of product needs and business opportunities. Let me go from the academic to the specific. You know, what does this mean? Let me show you a couple of examples.
Let's start here with Norway. In recent months, Norway has reorganized its sales, you know, from local companies to a national sales force, establishing one-stop shop across, you know, for advertisers across VG, Stavanger Aftenblad, and other additional sites coming on. Yesterday at Schibsted Next, we announced products that allows an advertiser to sell from across all of Schibsted. One such example is jobs that we have had, we've been developing and prototyped in the fall and are now ready to roll out with advertisers a very exciting product. It is basically saying, let's take the data that we have on users and on job seekers from FINN, and let's target them using the entire Schibsted network, Stavanger Aftenblad, but also beyond.
What we do is we look for similar job ads, you know, that's to a particular ad that's being posted. We look at the behavior, who clicked on those ads in the past. That gives us profiles of job seekers, relevant segments, just using our own data. Let's reach them on every single Schibsted site. Let's use our entire total coverage to do that. Well, the results have been staggering. Typical click-through rate on the web is about 0.6%. When we targeted them this way, not only did we reach the majority of possible job seekers, but the click-through rate was more than 10x. We went one step further, and we said, we have this data. This is SPID data, logged in user data. Let's retarget. You know, we took it out on Facebook.
Facebook knows nothing about why we did this. It's our data. We sent it out to just those people and got similar results. Achieving an extendable reach, really using the power of the Schibsted data. That's a very competitive, very differentiated advertising product. Our focus in 2015 is to further build out this focus on four things for the advertisers. The focus is on the SMB market. One thing is the effectiveness. Build a so-called data management platform that allows us to develop very, very precise, very targeted audience segments. The second thing is a self-serve solution, easy to buy, make it super easy for our advertisers to buy our products. Thirdly, great reporting. You know, let the advertisers understand what works, what doesn't work, both during a campaign, so they can make changes, as well as afterwards.
This is a big pain point for advertisers today, and we have the data to be able to deliver a solution to this pain point. Lastly, to continue to take advantage of the uniqueness and differentiated position we are in regarding safe, trusted brand environments for our advertisers. In combination, this allows us to be very, very competitive in the SMB market, and we see great opportunity there. When you look at the market size in some of our core markets for this product. This is our initial focus in this advertising market. Going for the SMB opportunity, for example, for La Boqueria, which is go ing to be a major focus for them, as well as in, for example, Sweden and Norway. Bottom line, five things. It's a global game, we have global competitors.
We're seeing a profound shift in the web from the anonymous to the identified web. It changes everything about how we think about products and business models. Data and traffic linked to our local strength. That is the new currency. Schibsted is in a very good position there. More data allow us to deliver a generational product that is required in the era of the identified web. We see this as opportunity, not as a challenge. Yes, we are responding to the market developments. We are making these investments in order to capture additional growth and profits in the coming years. Thank you.
Thank you, Frode. I will walk you through the financials. If we look at Q4 in 2014, compare it with 2013, there are certain explanations. As you know, we continue to do well in Norway in Q4. Sweden, a little bit weaker, but still well in Aftonbladet and part of the Next portfolio. I would say that some disappointment, as Frode said, in the FINN and the advertising revenue there, but we're keeping our positions in the verticals. We've continued to invest in the classified business in the fourth quarter. Just to remind you that the closing of the deal with Naspers happened in beginning of January as such.
We have the investment in other entities, which is Aspiro, and also explains that we had a successful launch of HiFi product in U.S., called TIDAL, which actually attracted also the buyer, Jay-Z and his company. I think that was a very successful way of building and value enhance that business. If you look at the income statement in the Schibsted group, it is, as I said, we see the underlying business doing well.
We have continued to invest, as I said, in emerging markets, but also in more established markets like Italy, for instance, which has also penalized, of course, the Q4, but we believe that's the right thing to do to build the future value of that country. We have flat revenues, and the expenses increases, first of all, in the classified business. We, if you look at the share of loss in JVs, it is, first of all, of course, in the emerging markets. We have taken some losses. We have closed down the printing plant in Kristiansand, moved that to Stavanger, a loss of more than NOK 50 million as a result of that. Also, we have taken down some depreciation of the Oslo plant.
We are continued to streamline the media houses, and as an example, in Verdens Gang, when we closed down the printing plant, we're also taking down the workforce quite significantly. That will continue. Looking at also that we have taken some restructuring charges with the ongoing cutting program. That explains, so to say, the Q4 compared with Q4 in 2013. If you look at the growth, we have several investments taking over the P&L. Just remind you that in Q4, we had NOK 106 million, which is included in the EBITDA, and then NOK 187 million in EBITDA in joint ventures. This, first of all, is the emerging markets in LatAm and Asia that we now have joint forces, as I said, with Naspers.
That will be, of course, a significantly reduction in 2015. As a result of this investment, we do see continuous strong performance in the underlying traffic, which is the future in all these countries. One thing that you should be aware of is that if you look into 2015, we will continue, of course, to invest in classified business. We have guided the market that the spending level will be taken down to between EUR 80 million and EUR 100 million in 2015. That's also include, so to say, what we will see as reduced spending as a result of the agreement in Hungary, Romania, and Switzerland, and Portugal. That includes, so to say, the entire guiding.
We also continue to invest in WebTV, which has been a success in VG and Aftonbladet. Of course, it will be a burden on our P&L, close to EUR 100 million in 2015. We have the tech investment that Frode just elaborated about, which we believe is critical to succeed in the future. It will be in the size of EUR 100 million-EUR 200 million in 2015. We are just looking into what we will capitalize a part of these investments because there is some rules according to IFRS that we need to comply with, so that we will come back to with more details in Q1. We will continue to focus on the media houses costs.
As I said, we have guided and just reiterating what we have said before, that we see that the subscription papers will be a margin in between zero-10%, and also that our the dailies which has strong positions, will be between 10%-50%. We have a strong financial position. We are happy with the ratio. Net interest rate debt to EBITDA are close to one. Also, the maturity profile is something that we think is gives a robust company for the future. The board has discussed, of course, the dividend. The dividend policy is that we should have a payout ratio of 35%-40%. Fair to say that we have invested heavily over the last two years.
Out of the cash flow, we're paying out substantially more now. It also say that we should have a stable dividend, and we have a stable dividend. The board had concluded that they stick to the stable at NOK 3.50 per share. The tax rate, just to remind you that, we continue to invest in, first of all, in emerging some new investment phase companies, countries. We're not taking the tax benefit up in our balance sheet, meaning that we will then have high tax rate reported. If you look at underlying, tax rate is close to 30%, I think that is also a fair guidance for Schibsted going forward, if you do the underlying adjustments. We have key financial figures.
Still, good cash flow from the underlying activities. The CapEx is in 2014 somewhat affected our then relocating of VG in a new building. Lastly, as Jo Christian, you know, he will go to maternity leave, then we will need some extra resources. Anders Rønning, sitting here, he will then be the key appointment. Then of course, also, Jon Sveinsvoll will assist us in the IR work going forward. The analysts have some people to contact. Okay, that's the financials. Give the summary to you, Rolv Erik.
Thank you, Trond. France will be important market. That's better. Thank you, Robert. We believe the real estate in France and leboncoin will be important. We're hoping for some macro recovery in Spain, and I think we're very well positioned in Spain. I think the consolidations that we've shown you today will contribute positively for Schibsted, and Trond has also pointed out how that will affect our spending levels. I think the media houses will continue to invest in digital. Of course, if their margins will be affected, especially for regional newspapers, by the print decline. We're making an important step up in tech, online and in product management.
I think that's absolutely necessary, and I think if you look a few years ahead, we'll be much more of a tech-driven company. I think that's the way this, these markets are going. I think we're well prepared for that. On the shorter term, we're seeing that, so far this year or in general at least, there seems to be a little bit of wait and see in the Norwegian ad market. That market has, in Scandinavia, taken off a little bit to a slow start for 2015. It's too early to say how that will develop, further on. Right. Okay. I don't think I'll go into the appendices, but rather open up for questions. Please. There's a question here, right here.
Yeah. Good morning. Alexander Høst, ABG. I have two questions, both of which pertain to OpEx growth. I guess I can ask them one at a time. The first one concerns FINN. I see that you have OpEx growth of about 6% year-on-year this quarter. I was wondering, you know, what type of flexibility you have there and whether or not you were able to scale that back or control that in some sense going forward.
Well, the OpEx growth in FINN is first of all that we're building a new, of course, products and marketplaces. It actually has been a success in the travel and others. You should expect that we continue to focus on like personal finance and others also. We have some flexibility, of course, and we have taken down some of the headcount also in the last part of 2014. That's something that we are able in a way to control, but you shouldn't expect that a significant reduction.
Okay, thank you. My second question concerns Italy. Trond, you mentioned that 2015 will be a year of investment for Italy.
Yeah.
I noticed that OpEx growth has been, you know, fairly solid in Q4 for other established sites. I was wondering if we've seen some of that already or whether that is on top of what we already see in Q4.
When I said that there'll be an investment here is, that'll mainly be marketing investments that we're going to see in Italy.
The pace of investment, to answer your question, if that's in 2015 will be at the level of what we have seen in Q4. It could be something similar, but we have spent also a fair bit amount in Q4.
Thank you.
Other questions? This one.
Markus Bjerke at SEB. You mentioned friction and payment during the presentation on the technology side. Could you talk a little bit about what's going on on the payment side and banking side? You mentioned previously you had a e-money license. How has that developed the last three months, and what's the pipeline?
Well, the e-money license is to necessary to start the peer-to-peer payment, and we're planning to launch the peer-to-peer payment in FINN this year. Don't know it will be in Q2 or Q3, so that's for that. I think, you know, I'm hopeful that will make FINN an even better and more and more efficient marketplace. I think it'll be a good thing. That is on track.
Okay. One more. You talked about the tax rate going forward, you also spent a lot of money over the last few years in Brazil, et cetera. What kind of tax losses carry forward do you have off sheet at the moment? Is it fair to just look at the investment levels the last few years, or would that be misleading?
I think that could be a fair. That is captured within Brazil, as a part of this new JV. It's the future earnings in that JV will benefit from the tax losses that has been carried out in Brazil, in the investment phase.
Thank you.
Right. Further questions? Anyone from you, Jo Christian Steigedal ?
Yeah. We have a few questions here.
Microphone there.
We have a few questions from viewers on the web. First one is on Facebook, and there news this week about a sell button for groups, Facebook groups. There is a more broad flavor to the question. What do you have any comment to that? Also specifically on Reverb, where this Facebook service has gained traction in music instruments. Have you seen any effect on that?
Well, Music instruments in Reverb, I'm afraid I'm not really familiar with that, and I don't expect that to be that either. What I can say in general is that I think especially in emerging markets is, like Facebook and others who are then contributing to people buying and selling things secondhand is has also a positive effect in developing the market. And then I think for the first question is that when Facebook are launching new functions, of course, that's a development that we have to monitor very closely. I think our best response is that we have to continue to improve our marketplaces a lot. We have good and efficient marketplaces today.
We think the marketplace is three, five years ahead will have to be improved a lot and be much more better, including payment and other facilities. I think this is just to underline that this is an attractive market and something we're following closely, but we think that we're improving from a strong position.
Okay. I'll take one or two more from the web. Could you please give some more color on the real estate progress in France? How many agents have signed up? Any incremental marketing? How's the pricing? Any competitive response from seller share Logic Immo that's been noticed?
I think it's rather early days, but we're pleased with what we're seeing, and we can see that of the big real estate chains, it's actually quite a significant part of those who've signed up with us. I would say that I'm positive to the outlook, and the prices that we received have also been as expected.
Okay. One more regarding FINN. How do you see the freemium model, and how should we think about return on investment on that move to freemium? Why are you not rolling out SPID beyond Scandinavia faster?
The first question is that FINN, that's been a conscious investment in boosting FINN's traffic. We see that the volume there has really more than doubled. I think that is going according to plan, and I think that's important part of the whole FINN ecosystem. When it comes to... What was the second question?
SPID.
Yeah. SPID. We're rolling that out. I think what we've actually done this fall is to change this into a more robust and scalable system. So far, it's, you know, it's a little bit experimenting how to roll it out, and it's been a bit of a labor-intense effort in the first rollouts we've done. We've, we're rebuilding that and making that into a system that's easier for our sites who come to. The focus so far have been Scandinavia, but we're ready. We're getting ready for a quicker rollout. I think that's fair to say.
All right. Any other questions? If there are no further questions, just want to wrap this up. Thanks a lot for your attention, and I wish you a nice day.