Welcome to Desenio Q4 Report 2024. For the first part of the conference call, the participants will be in listen-only mode. During the Q&A session, participants are able to ask questions by dialing pound five on their telephone keypad. Now, I will hand the conference over to CEO Fredrik Palm and CFO Johan Roslund. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Welcome everybody to Desenio Group's Q4 Results Presentation Conference Call. With me today, I have our CFO, Johan Roslund. Johan is, as you probably know, our new CFO since mid-January this year. We will today start with presenting the outcome of the quarter, and then continue with presenting the development with regards to the bondholders, and finish with the Q&A session. The development in the quarter continued to be weak in the markets, but better for the Nordics, where sales increased moderately. In total, net sales decreased by 8.6% to SEK 268.8 million, compared to the corresponding quarter last year. In the Nordics, where brand recognition is higher, sales increased slightly in relation to the corresponding quarter last year.
While sales in our other markets, including North America, decreased, the market sentiment remained rather weak, but we continue our focused efforts to reach out to customer groups and gradually become more efficient in our marketing efforts. During the quarter, we continued to work on successfully increasing our efficiency. Adjusted EBITDA increased by 43% to SEK 54 million, which I think is a great effort considering the negative growth in net sales. This means that the adjusted EBITDA margin almost doubled compared to the corresponding period last year, to just about 20%. This improvement is partly explained by a favorable product mix that led to a 3 percentage points increase of the gross margin to 87%, and partly by a lower cost ratio for fulfillment and marketing, as share of net sales.
Operating cash flow improved significantly in the quarter, from just below SEK 30 million in Q4 2023 to just above SEK 48 million in Q4 2024. We had a net inventory increase, and we also had some changes in current receivables and liabilities, and those two together were zero. We received SEK 13.4 million preliminary tax paid back for 2024. During the quarter, net interest payments on the outstanding bond amounted to SEK 23.6 million. As a result of this, cash and cash equivalents increased from SEK 71.3 million in Q3 to SEK 115.6 million in Q4 2024. During the quarter, we continued our dialogue with our bondholders and received approval to extend the maturity of the bonds on December 3rd.
On 24 December 2024, Desenio Group entered into a term sheet for the restructuring of its bonds and capital structure, including a debt for equity swap implying 75% write-off of the bonds and 95% dilution of the shareholders. On 5 February 2025, a written procedure was initiated to request necessary approval of the restructuring from the bondholders. The voting record date was 12 February 2025, and the last day for voting in the written procedure is 24 February 2025, which is on Monday next week. We will then hold an extraordinary general meeting on 4 March 2025 in order to approve the shareholders' resolutions necessary to implement the restructuring. Johan will go through this in more detail, how it's going to work later in the presentation.
As I already mentioned in the beginning of the call, Johan Roslund started as new CFO after the period, so 13 January 2025. To summarize the quarter, net sales decreased in the challenging markets while gross margin increased. The adjusted EBITDA margin almost doubled as a result of higher efficiency, and the operating cash flow increased compared to the previous year. On this slide, we analyze the difference in EBITDA margin in Q4 2024 compared to the corresponding quarter last year. The product margin increased due to improved product mix and improved efficiency in fulfillment neutralized the effect from low net sales. The marketing cost in relation to net sales was, as previously mentioned, lower, as was admin and other excluding one-offs. Now, let me comment more in detail on the development of the business in our different markets.
By looking at search trends in comparison to our sales development in Germany and the U.K., we can see that our sales continue to trend higher than the market search volumes in Q4. Comparing Desenio Group to a few of our biggest competitors, we see that we during Q4 increased the share of voice in Germany, but we saw a slight decrease in the U.K. In both these major European markets, we currently have a strong around 75% share of voice in search. In Sweden, on the other hand, we have even higher share of voice in search, close to 80%, which has been stable the last three years. Here we see the share of voice development in the U.S. in relation to Postery , Fine Art America, AllPosters, and Society6.
As you can see, we have a steady increase in share of voice in the US market, taking shares in search from our American competitors. This is Desenio Group's gross order intake since 2019. In Q4 2024, we saw the usual seasonal pattern, but lower gross order intake than previous years, but well above 2019. Here we show the development in the segments compared to the previous year. In the Nordics, as mentioned, net sales increased slightly by 2%. In core Europe, it decreased by 11%. In the rest of Europe, it decreased by 13%. In the rest of the world, it decreased by 15%. In North America, which is included in the rest of the world, net sales decreased by 15%. This slide shows customer highlights. We see that both our active customers and number of orders decreased compared to last year.
Active customers is defined as a customer that has made at least one purchase the last 24 months, and therefore it's still declining. The negative growth in order volumes is somewhat counteracted by average order value growing by 6%. Now I hand over to Johan for the financial update.
Thank you. As Fredrik mentioned, net sales decreased 8.6% in Q4. Gross margin increased from 84.2% last year to 87% this year. This was mainly driven by a favorable product mix. Adjusted EBITDA in Q4 was SEK 54 million compared to SEK 38 million last year. Although lower sales, we managed to improve our profitability through improved efficiencies. Consequently, the adjusted EBITDA margins have stepped over the 20% line and reached 20.1%. We have to go back all the way to 2020 for Q4 quarter to show over 20% margin. On the next slide, we see that investments in material and immaterial assets amounted to SEK 0.2 million in Q4. Networking capital in relation to sales was minus 7%, which means that we can grow without tying up capital. Our operating cash flow in the quarter increased to SEK 48.1 million, which is further explained on the next slide.
Here is a bridge explaining how we go from adjusted EBITDA to operating cash flow in Q4. Starting from the left, we had SEK 4 million in one-offs related to legal costs for the bond restructuring and SEK 23.6 million net interest payment for the bond. Adjustments for non-cash items were SEK 9.3 million and are mainly related to IFRS adjustments and depreciation of initial bond costs. We had a positive tax effect in Q4. This is, as Fredrik explained, related to preliminary tax. This effect will balance out if we look at the full year. The inventory change of SEK 10.2 million is to a large extent counterbalanced by increased payables related to product purchases. In summary, operating cash flow was strong at SEK 48.1 million in Q4.
After the bond restructuring has been completed, Desenio Group will have a new subsidiary called Desenio MidCo, where the operating companies and the SEK 150 million super senior bond will be. This bond will be repaid after two and a half years. In Desenio Group, there will be a reinstated senior bond of SEK 251 million, maturing in four years. With the existing bond, we had SEK 103 million in gross interest payments during 2024. With the new capital structure, the same cost had been SEK 34 million, or a reduction of SEK 69 million. Going forward, this additional cash flow can be used to reduce debt and providing more capital to support and develop the business. I now hand over to Fredrik again for a summary.
Thank you, Johan. To summarize the Q4 of 2024, we can conclude that our improved operational efficiency gives results. The adjusted EBITDA margin almost doubled, and we showed a strong operating cash flow. However, the market continues to be challenging. We see some positive signs and are carefully optimistic that this year we start to see positive effects on the consumption as a result of decreased inflation and the interest rate cuts that have been made so far. We have an agreed term sheet for the restructuring of bonds and the capital structure, including a debt for equity swap implying 75% write-off of the bond and 95% dilution for the shareholders. On February 5th, a written procedure was initiated to request necessary approval of the restructuring from the bondholders.
An approval would be legally binding on the bondholders, provided that the extraordinary general meeting to be held on 4 March 2024 votes in favor of the plan. The proposal means that the Desenio Group will have a capital structure that is well adapted to today's profit level. In addition, there is room for value creation going forward, provided that we reverse the negative sales trend we have seen during 2024. We are already seeing how our work to increase profitability has a positive effect, which, together with our scalability, creates good conditions as consumer purchasing power strengthens from these low levels. Thank you for listening, and we are now more than happy to answer any questions you might have. Over to you, operator.
If you wish to ask a question, please dial pound key five on your telephone keypad to enter the queue. If you wish to withdraw your question, please dial pound key six on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please dial pound key five on your telephone keypad. There are no more questions at this time, so I hand the conference back to the speakers for any closing comments.
Thank you very much, operator, and thank you everyone for your time, for listening in. Please don't hesitate to reach out to us should you have any more questions or any requests. Speak soon and stay safe.