Penneo A/S

CSE:PENNEO

Earnings Call Analysis

Penneo's Q3 2024 Results Show Customer Growth and Improved Efficiency

In Q3 2024, Penneo demonstrated resilience despite being a low season, securing 119 new customers, a 5% increase. While annual recurring revenue (ARR) from new customers fell by 20% to DKK 14.8 million, customer acquisition costs dropped by 30%, leading to shorter recovery times at 18 months. Foreign revenue now represents 21% of total ARR. The average revenue per customer slightly rose to DKK 30,628. For 2024, the company remains committed to balancing growth with profitability and improving efficiency in customer engagement.

Penneo's Q3 Highlights: Resilience Amid Low Season

In the third quarter of 2024, Penneo showcased its resilience despite the traditionally low season. The company reported a year-over-year ARR (Annual Recurring Revenue) increase of 18%, climbing from DKK 82.5 million to DKK 97.5 million. This growth was buoyed by a robust influx of new customers, with the total number increasing to 3,100 across markets in Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and Belgium.

Cost Efficiency and Profitability Improvements

One of the standout achievements in this earnings report was the significant improvement in EBITDA, which moved from negative DKK 17.7 million in Q3 last year to a more favorable negative DKK 4.2 million this year. This was attributed to a continuous focus on cost optimization and operational efficiency. The team's shift toward a contractor model for some employees has also contributed to aligning costs more effectively with revenue growth.

Adjusted Guidance for ARR and EBITDA

Penneo has updated its guidance for the remainder of the year, lowering its ARR expectations to a range between DKK 101 million and DKK 106 million, down from the previous DKK 105 million to DKK 112 million. However, the EBITDA outlook has been positively revised, now expected to be between DKK 10 million and DKK 15 million, an increase from the previous forecast of DKK 5 million to DKK 10 million. This adjustment reflects a strong dedication to efficiency improvements, even amidst lower ARR projections.

Challenges Faced: Customer Downgrades and Churn

Notably, Penneo experienced some significant challenges this quarter with a large customer downgrade impacting its net revenue retention rate (NRR), which was reported at a low 103%. However, the company's churn rate remained stable at DKK 600,000, consistent with the previous year, indicating a stabilization in customer retention despite the outer influences.

International Growth: Belgium as a Key Market

A considerable portion of Penneo's new business growth came from international markets, with 61% of new ARR in Q3 arriving from outside Denmark, primarily driven by strong traction in Belgium where 148 new customers were added. The company’s strategy of securing foreign markets is set to continue playing a pivotal role in its growth trajectory.

The Path Ahead: Cash Neutrality and Product Development

Looking to the future, Penneo is set to enhance its cash flow status by aiming for at least cash neutrality by 2025, aligning its operational costs with its ARR. Alongside this financial trajectory, the company remains committed to investing in product development, dedicating DKK 24 million to this area over the last 12 months, ensuring they continue to evolve and meet market demands.

Leadership Transition: Stability in Change

The earnings call highlighted a forthcoming leadership change with the Co-Founder stepping down. Nonetheless, there seems to be confidence in the existing leadership team’s ability to maintain stability and drive the busines forward, reflecting on the maturity Penneo has achieved over its operational years.

Earnings Call Transcript 2024-Q3

[Christian Stendevad, executive]

Welcome to all of you to this presentation of Penneo's financial report for Q3 2024. And as always, together with me, I have my CFO, Casper Christiansen, with me today and that will walk through our numbers, and I will give our highlights. And this call will be recorded and made available on penneo.com.

Welcome to all of you. This is the presentation. And also, of course, please note that the statement about the future expressed in this Q3 report and also in this presentation today that reflect Penneo's current expectation and for future events and financial results. And the nature of these statements are affected by risk and uncertainty. So therefore, the company's actual results may differ from the expectation expressed in the management report and presentation.

And our agenda is exactly the same as normally for these kind of calls. So a very short introduction to Penneo and then presentation of our Q3 results and then an outlook of 2024 for the remaining of the year and then Q&A at the end. So the very first introduction, I know I can see many of you have maybe heard this before, but I also can see some new faces. So Penneo is in the business of trust. And we believe in a world where you can trust the way businesses do business.

And in today's digital world, establishing trust is far more complex due to the absence of physical interaction and the prevalence of digital force. So therefore, Penneo exists to make sure that trust between businesses and human remain intact and that our customers spend less time on quality assurance, compliance and control, but freeing up time for value-adding tasks.

As we say, without trust, there is no business. And we have been on a remarkable journey since we were founded in 2014, and that is more than 10 years ago, it was founded by visionary entrepreneurs driven by a single ambition to eliminate the inefficiency of traditional pen and paper, document signing by introducing a digital solution. And today, Penneo has evolved significantly. We now offer a scalable software platform designed specifically for anti-money laundering regulated business-to-business company, and our platform empowers these businesses to optimize and automate their critical workflow, addressing the increasingly complex compliance requirements that they are facing.

And this is just the beginning. We are on a mission to become the leading digital signing and your customer workflow platform for AML regulated business-to-business company across Europe. And our journey continues as we are more committed than ever to innovate and provide value to our customers. And just some short facts that have been updated here with the Q3 report.

So today, we are 102 employees at the end of Q3 with more than 3,100 customers in Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Belgium. And under one platform, we offer these 2 solutions, Penneo Digital Sign and Penneo KYC or Know-Your-Customer. And we are trusted by the world's leading auditors and accountants and we hold up top ISO certification within data security and personal data protection, and we are on the EU Trust list. And in 2023, an estimated 77 million piece of paper were saved using Penneo Sign, which corresponds to 1,240 tonnes of wood or almost 3,000 tonnes of CO2.

Let's dive into the highlights of the financial results for Q3 2024. So first of all, let me give you an overview of Q3. And overall, Q3 is typically a low season for us. It is the vacation time for our customers, and it's also where we then also take vacation. So that is not only this quarter, but quarter-over-quarter with [ 2 years ] like that. And if you look at our ARR growth, that has now been increased by DKK 8.2 million, resulting in a year-over-year growth of 18%.

And if we dive into the newbiz number, then we have seen a strong newbiz performance that increased from DKK 6.5 million (sic) [ DKK 6.3 million ] to DKK 8.3 million year-to-date. And in Q3 2024, we saw a higher number of customers compared to the same quarter in previous year. So -- and that's also what Casper will show you later. This is on a lower cost base, reflecting an improved sales efficiency despite Q3 being a low season.

And many of these customers are from our growth market outside of Denmark. Overall, deals in Q3 were generally smaller than Q1 and Q2. We were very happy that we -- significant new customers were secured in Germany in July. We also sent our press release on that. And just to note that you know that we signed a contract, the ARR is expected to be recognized later this year. So it was not part of Q3.

But -- and normally, when we sign contracts, then the ARR that counts immediately. So if this have been calculated in as is the normal case, then Q3 2024 would have been our best Q3 new business quarter to date, if we have recognized it. So now we will come later. In Q3 2024, the ARR uplift from our existing customer contributed DKK 800,000. So while engagement with our existing customers remains strong, the uplift was negatively impacted by a downgrade from a large customer in Q3. And furthermore, the positive impact from price adjustments was significantly lower compared to last year.

And then we have also been affected by currency fluctuation, and that always can play a significant factor in our year-over-year change, as we always take the currency at the end of the quarter and then we take all the ARR up and down. And as we can see last year, the currency fluctuation that positively contributed with approximately DKK 300,000. And in this quarter here, then it had a negative adjustment of DKK 200,000. So there is -- just from a currency point of view, this is DKK 0.5 million between those two quarters, if they are compared.

If we then look into our NRR or net revenue rate, then -- our net retention rate then our Q3 result is 103% and this is unusually low for Penneo. And this rate is as a result of some of the challenges that we have seen from the beginning of the year with a large customer in Q1 and also some temporary downgrades. And also we had a larger downgrade here in Q3. And that you can say with the limited impact from our price increase compared to last year, then it has -- on top of that, also some of these negative currency fluctuation, yes, then it had an impact on this rate.

But what we can see also when we compare now Q2, and we also report that, but also Q3, then we are back to a low level when it comes to churn. So now we are on a level corresponding to earlier year. For example, churn in Q3 was DKK 600,000, and that is the same as Q3 last year. And then finally, if we now go to the EBITDA, we are very happy about that because with our continuous focus on cost optimization and also operational efficiency, we can see that we have result in a significant improvement in our cash flow and EBITDA.

EBITDA improved to now negatively DKK 4.2 million, up from negative DKK 17.7 million last year in Q3. And moreover, for the first time in 4 years, our EBITDA last 12 months is now a positive DKK 4.9 million. So it's really marking a key milestone in our path to profitability. If we then have some general business highlights in it, it is from a growth point of view, it is our foreign market that are driving a lot of that growth, 61% of the newbiz business growth in Q3 year-to-date came from the foreign market.

And the growth came particularly from the traction that we have gained in the Belgium market, where we have added 148 customers in Belgium. But we can also note that in Sweden and Norway together, we have added 118 new customers. And therefore, if you make the calculation with the 519 in total, then Denmark contributed with 253 new customers year-to-date.

In our KYC expansion, we have launched the KYC product here in Belgium end of Q3, and we also already now here secured the first important customers on it. We -- also as I mentioned on the slide before, we have closed our last strategic and important German customer in July. That's also on KYC. So that's a milestone in our expansion to Germany, and we're now preparing for the German market launch in general together with this customer.

And remember that the ARR will be recognized once the customer go live with the product and which is planned later this year. Then we also had some progress on our sign solution. So our new international signing feature is rolled out, that has been initiated. And so that will now enable us to passport-based signing for customer without an electronic ID. So that broaden up the usage of our solution to more international usage. And then together with the EBITDA that have improved, you will also see now on our cash position.

With this improved -- this is, you say -- the focus on really balancing the profitability with the growth, we are really happy to announce that we have DKK 21.7 million in cash on our account at the end of Q3 2024. And that is with this expectation to reach the position by the end of 2024, where the ARR will exceed the overall cost base going forward, and Casper will come back to that. And then finally, also from a business point of view, what has happened, then we will have a leadership change as our Co-Founder and Chief Commercial Officer, André Clement is stepping down at the end of 2024, and giving us several months of transition to ensure a smooth transition.

But as also said, as Penneo has matured significantly over the years, we are confident in the strength in our leadership team that can take over the André's responsibility and continue our exciting growth journey. So that was the business highlight. Now I'll hand over to you, Casper, and then you can go through the numbers.

[Casper Christiansen, executive]

Thank you, Christian, and hello out there. I'm glad that I can take some minutes of your today. I have chosen 8 very exciting slides for you guys. First, I will focus on ARR, then on profitability and then one slide on our cash flow. Starting out with this pretty impressive chart here, showing all our cohorts and how they develop year-over-year. By cohort, I mean we are grouping our customers into the year they are becoming customers, and then we show the ARR each period. It's a 12-month period.

So what you normally see in our annual report is that all the cohorts is growing positively year-over-year. At the Q reports, you have seen sometimes it is -- not all the cohort is growing positively this time, 2 cohort is not out of 11 cohorts. I think it's pretty strong traction at least even that we have these 2 cohorts decreasing. One of them, as Christian also mentioned, in the 2022 cohorts, we have these customers in Q1 one churning, meaning that we are 9% on this cohort.

If we hadn't seen this churn, it would have been a positive development in this cohort. In the 2019 cohorts, we have seen a decrease of 5%. If I look only at the ICP or our core focus on A&A, this group of customers has stronger growth in this cohort also. So overall, I think we are maintaining a pretty healthy portfolio, developing customers. You can say land the customers and then expand. I think it's highlighted the importance of our business being a SaaS model and also the reason for us invest into getting more new customers on board.

Going from a long historical period until this 12-month period here, this chart is a waterfall showing customer journey, customer uplift and new customers. Overall, we have increased our ARR from DKK 82.5 million to DKK 97.5 million. It's an ARR increase on 18%. Starting out with churn on the left side here, 5%. I think in terms of being a SaaS company, it is a pretty good number, 5%. It is in the very high end of what we normally see in Penneo, and it is due to this one customer churn in Q1.

Looking so much forward to Q1 next year where we are out of this Q1 this year because it is like you need to show every quarter in 4 quarters a row. So I also expect the ARR churn to be in this level when you come out with the annual report. Besides churn, we are going to see uplift. Christian also touched on -- about our net revenue retention here. It's from DKK 82.5 million to DKK 85.4 million.

On top of that, we have seen a lot of new customers coming in. I will also touch on the next slide on the new business. So adding up this DKK 10.4 million and DKK 1.7 million in KYC, then we are at DKK 97.5 million. Yes. And here, a core part of our strategy that we have laid out for years now is to go abroad Denmark -- outside of Denmark. So this chart shows how are we keeping track in that kind of development.

I'm glad to see that we are growing in Denmark that is our core market, and we are strong here in Denmark. So growing here is, of course, also important. But looking at the chart here, you can see that we have a strong traction outside of Denmark. And this time, foreign ARR takes up 21%. If you're going one year back at the Q3 last year, it was 29%. If you look at the pie chart, you can see Belgium is the biggest market outside of Denmark, now taking up more or less 40% -- 39% here.

If I should say just one positive thing, which is not shown on this chart, 61% of all new ARR in Q3 is coming from outside of Denmark. And I think it's important to highlight that we are keeping strong traction also outside of Denmark when it comes to newbiz. As you saw on the first slide, we have a model where we land the customer and then we see that the engagement with the customer is increasing and also the ARR.

So yes, I'm glad to say that the traction also outside of Denmark is going pretty well. Then SaaS metrics, I have 2 slides with SaaS metric this time, one where we are focusing on the Q-to-Q and one where we are focusing on the last 12 months, also divided into Qs. This chart, I've chosen to compare Q3 this year with Q3 last year because we have seasonality. So it's pretty important not to compare a Q2 or Q4 with the Q3 because Q3 is a low season.

It is the summer holiday. All the auditors, they are on occasion leave, since they have struggling a lot to get ready for the reports before end of H1. So it is a low season for us, and we are also on holiday. So I'm pretty glad that we are still maintaining a high number of new customers coming in. This time, it's 119, up from 113, meaning plus 6% or 5% this time.

ARR from new customers has decreased from [ DKK 18.5 to DKK 14.8-ish ], meaning negative 20%. On the positive side, we have seen a decrease in the cost that it takes up for getting new customer on board, meaning the customer acquisition cost. It's decreased by 30% this time. So we have a more efficient sales funnel or sales operation. And if you compare those 2 numbers, you can see that it now takes up 18 months to recover CAC compared to 21 last year. But you also -- if you have seen this kind of call before, know that all our customers are invoiced 12 months upfront, meaning that we are cash positive after 1 year when we send out the second invoice to the customers.

So it is a pretty strong traction that we are keeping in this number also. Total new ARR, if you're adding up the number of customers with the average deal size per customers, is decreased 14% from DKK 2.1 million to DKK 1.8 million. On the positive side, again, if you add up, you can see we have invested almost DKK 1 million less this time to get this less DKK 0.3 million in. So the cost is way lower or a slightly lower benefit if you compare those 2 numbers.

Adding all those things up, we have an average revenue per customer, which has increased slightly. Now we are at DKK 30,628 per customer. So it's slightly increased if you compare to Q3 last year. Then since we have seasonality, it's relevant for us to show the trailing 12 months. So you can see how we're actually developing, if we clear out all the seasonality deviation throughout the years. What you can see is that we are now at the end of this 12-month period compared to the 12-month period up until Q3 last year.

We got 50% more new customers on board. It's slightly a lower average deal size, but it's a way lower cost that one customer is coming in with. So again, here, the relationship between the customer acquisition cost and the ARR for new customers is pretty positive when it comes to the efficiency in the sales operation. Then from SaaS numbers -- SaaS metric numbers until our P&L.

This slide, as it also states EBITDA development, so the start focusing on our EBITDA. So what Christian also said, we are having a pretty strong focusing on balancing growth with profitability. So if you compare Q3 year-to-date last year, negative DKK 17.7 million with the negative EBITDA DKK 4.2 million this year, it is a pretty strong traction, and it makes me pretty comfortable that we will succeed in our measurement for next year this being cash neutral. I'll come back to that.

So highlighting on the revenue side, we have growth at 11%. Cost of goods sold is increased by 15%. It is the traction or the engagement in the platform, which is driving this increase. Normally, as I said, we are working on maintaining the same level in Amazon Web Services where we host all the technical staff and documents and so on is also increased. It's only a 5% increase in that amount.

So adding those two numbers up, we have a gross profit on DKK 51.4 million compared to DKK 46.5 million. So the gross margin is the same, this 83% this year, year-to-date Q3 compared to the same period last year. If you look at our annual report from last year, it is 86%. And what we have also stated is that we expect to end this financial year approximately on the same level as last year.

So in terms of revenue, it is a high season in Q4 -- and the cost of sold goods is not increasing as fast as the revenue. So this will be an increase in our gross margin. If you look at other external expense and staff cost, you can see that other external expense is increasing and the staff cost is decreasing. A part of the decrease in staff cost is that we have allowed some of our team members to be contractors instead of on the pay slip. So that meaning that we put the cost for that team members -- of those team members into the other external expense instead of staff costs.

And also, if you look in the report, you can see that Q3 year-to-date this year compared with the same period last year, we are less team members. So it is a decrease and balancing out this cost for the ARR meaning at the bottom line here, the EBITDA is way more positive than last year, meaning less negative. So I think it's pretty clear to say that we are on this path to become more and more profitable. This time, I've shown to include this chart to show we have raised capital 3 rounds late '19, mid-2020 and in the spring 2022.

The purpose for that was to increase the cost base more than we actually could afford. That's the reason for our raise capital. A portion of that capital has also been to invest into the organization from a more holistic point of view. But now we are at a point where we can -- we are not -- we do not need more hands in our back office just because we are scaling our ARR. We can invest that matter the most, for instance, in the sales operation. So I think it's pretty clear with this chart that we are seeing a more and more scalable business. We have now reached this point where we can scale in the sales organization instead of having two of me or two of Christian, then we have more sales resource to going out and engage with the customers.

So this is only to highlight that we are on the right path here. The next and the last slide from my side is ARR growth compared to the free cash flow. From my point of view, I think a great way of seeing how efficient are the organization and where are they on their journey, it is to compare with the short-term outcome, meaning the ARR growth with the mid or short-term investment. Midterm investment, the dark blue color here is the capitalized cost, and that's mainly the product development.

What you can see here is that last year in 2023, we invested approximately DKK 23 million in product development, in this 12-month period that we ended here in Q3, it was DKK 24 million. So we are committed to still invest into our product development, but at the same time, the operation is being more and more cash positive. So as of today and the last 12 months, we have a negative free cash flow on DKK 12.2 million and we have ARR of DKK 15 million, meaning that we have a relationship between those two numbers with DKK 0.8 million.

And this is a number which is decreasing until we are cash neutral and maybe cash positive compared to the ARR growth. So just touch point about next year, what we have said is that we want to go cash neutral at least, meaning that the green color here should be at least as much as the negative dark blue color here. So the operation will pay for the product development. So that's what you need to understand about the future for our profitability and being cash neutral at least. I guess that concludes my presentation. I will hand over this to Christian again.

[Christian Stendevad, executive]

Thank you. So let's then go into the outlook for 2024. And let's start with the guidance. And some of you might have seen that we have updated our guidance both for the ARR and for the EBITDA that we did yesterday evening. So the ARR guidance here now is DKK 101 million to DKK 106 million compared to the DKK 105 million to DKK 112 million that we had previously and that we also started up the year with.

We are now getting closer to year-end, and we also have the year-to-date result, and we have better visibility of our pipeline. And it is with this knowledge that we have made an adjustment to the ARR guidance. And with this adjusted guidance, it is -- both with the former one, but also with this one, it is an outlook that is based on the currency exchange rates per end of 2023. As you have seen now also, it goes up and down. So we have it as a fixed point.

Q4 is normally and also this year is a very busy season, and that's how we have a lot of deals to be closed, including several larger deals. And there is some uncertainty as to when they will close. And therefore, we still have a range in our outlook, but it is updated with all the knowledge that we have. So that was for the ARR guidance. If I then take from the EBITDA guidance, then we also adjusted that, as I just said. So we now expect EBITDA to be in the range of DKK 10 million to DKK 15 million and it's positive and that is an improved range from the previous DKK 5 million to DKK 10 million.

And the improved EBITDA range, yes, that is explained by our strong and continuously focus on the cost and efficiency, reflecting our commitment to become profitable. And this range and updated with the improved EBITDA range, yes, that is despite the lower ARR expectations. And as just -- like Casper just mentioned on the previous slide, it is that we really will continue to ensure that we have this clear path towards a cash positive position.

So we -- at the end of 2024 that we expect to be able to reach the position where ARR exceeds our overall cost base, enable us to achieve this at least cash neutral status for the year 2025. So I hope that also now you showed -- Casper showed a new slide on how it is, if you look at the last 12 months EBITDA that we are really on a growing path. So we said that, from a long time ago already that, that was the plan, and we are really executing on that plan.

So with that, I think we have been through the presentation and Casper coming up here and then we -- I'm sure we have some questions as usual. So let's start.

[Christian Stendevad, executive]

And I think, Mikkel, you have raised your hand. So -- and I can see we also have some inviting. We will answer all of them. Let's start with you, Mikkel.

[Mikkel Kousgaard Rasmussen, analyst]

I have 4 questions. I'll take them one by one. First question is related to the German customer, which you expect to include in your ARR in Q4. Is that a guarantee? Or is there still some risk here?

[Christian Stendevad, executive]

It is some risk. So we -- in the sense that we have agreed with them then when we are ready, we had some adoption to be made. So the agreement that we did together with them was that we had the final adopt station so adopting it to the German market and based on the input from them.

And then when we then, say, made it available for them, then they will pay. But we are completely on track with that plan. So my clear expectation as we have also written and also said here is that we will be ready, but it is not set in stone. It has come with a risk.

[Mikkel Kousgaard Rasmussen, analyst]

Okay. Sure. Next one goes on profitability and hirings. Obviously, hirings have declined lately or headcount has declined lately. Then I'm looking at, for instance, LinkedIn, then it seems like it's going up again. Any view on that? Is that correct? And how should we think about hiring growth into 2025, also considering your expansion into Germany?

[Christian Stendevad, executive]

Yes, it is -- yes, so when you say you have been following us on LinkedIn, thank you for that. So you have seen that we also did some new hire. Was that your question?

[Mikkel Kousgaard Rasmussen, analyst]

Yes, exactly.

[Christian Stendevad, executive]

Yes, that's true. So it is true when you look at our numbers that -- and of course, when you do a certain status that on a certain date in time that we were -- at the end of Q3, we are 102. Some of them left us and then we have rehired some of them here in Q4. So it is true that you also see on LinkedIn that we also hire some new.

But we are always very cautious on the hirings with this focus on the path to profitability. But if we can afford it and we can see that going forward that we can combine investing, for example, now today, we are selling out of the Copenhagen office to the German customers. We expect to add more customers that are done from Germany. But before we have a full sales team in Germany hired, this is in our plan.

We have additional ones. But before we do it, we want to make sure that we have both customers of preference plus a pipeline that we can hire and we also -- just like we did in Belgium. So in our plans in the coming years, it is particularly in the commercial part that we will increase.

[Mikkel Kousgaard Rasmussen, analyst]

Okay. Sure. Makes sense. And then the third one goes on capitalized R&D, which I see is down somewhat in Q3 compared to Q1 and Q2. So is DKK 5 million a quarter, is that a new run rate going forward? Is that -- or is it just a seasonality based?

[Casper Christiansen, executive]

Yes, it is the seasonality based, but it's also like -- I think I've said in my CFO statement, we do not expect to increase or decrease the level in the product development. So I think you are right. It's more or less what you say.

[Mikkel Kousgaard Rasmussen, analyst]

Okay. Got it. The last one I have is related to your -- related to previous years where you've actually upgraded guidance, I think, mostly in January. The reason for that is because you've seen that customers have used your products beyond their initial agreements. Is that also something that could happen this year? Or is it already included in your new EBITDA guidance?

[Christian Stendevad, executive]

Yes. So we really have taken our utmost care to evaluate that, say, what we will end up with. So the EBITDA has a range and that we have updated and we have now even gone out of the original range. But that's based on everything we know, based on trends and what we have seen. So of course, I cannot promise that it is 100% correct. But we have really done our best to cover the range that we believe we are in.

Then we have some questions here from [ Peter Zampa ] that is put in the chat. One of them is, are you tracking our market share in the main markets?

Yes, we are trying to track that with -- in different ways, for example, the share of search. So how often are we? We're the ones that are chosen compared to our key competitors. And what we can see in overall market is that we have an increased market share. But it's also -- this is just an indication of the brand that we then expect that, that will result, of course, also that we also have an increased market share in reality.

So that's the way we are doing it and where we increase in all markets. But in all fairness, it is Denmark, we have the largest market share. We can really have seen an improvement in Belgium. We have seen an increase in both Norway and Sweden, but it is Denmark where we have the biggest market share for sure. We want to change that, so we also have a big market share in the other ones. And especially in Belgium, we see how that is tracking.

Then the next one was -- I hope that answers Peter, otherwise, please get back to us. The next one, reason for lower ARR on new customers?

Yes. So in -- when we have this ARR, there are 2 things. One thing is -- and that we have -- that trend we have seen that is going down. We also saw with the last 12 months trading, when we have these things that it is a downward trend that we have seen over time, that everybody is very careful on only to buy -- despite if they get additional volume discount only to buy what they really sure that they need and offering more.

And that is a trend we have seen. And then if you take in a particular quarter like Q3 that we had here when it went down, that can go up and down in a specific quarter. That's a little bit depending on that. We have a lot of deal flow coming in where the average deal size is approximately the same. And then sometimes we get these larger ones and some of them can be even very large. And that can have that fluctuation that is in a specific quarter, either go down or go up.

And for example, if the German customer would have been recognized the ARR already in Q3, then suddenly in Q3 would have been very -- much higher on the average deal size. So it's a combination of when some of these larger ones are closed.

And then is it equality efficient to move from old staff to contractors?

If -- basically, that's a little bit on how -- this with the contract is a little bit on how we hire people. So we have increased a little bit on the number of contractors, but it's simply, say, we want to have some very good staff. And if it happens to live somewhere else. And until now, we have had the policy to always relocate people to the Copenhagen office, but it sometimes happens that they would like to stay in their home country and then say, no, that's fine. You have all the skills and everything. So you can be there and then you are hired and we use some of these agencies where we hire through and we are using right now [indiscernible] motions, but there are other ones and then they are as contractors. So that's the reason for that.

[Casper Christiansen, executive]

And maybe I can elaborate a bit. When you're talking about efficiency here in Belgium, we have a permanent establishment. That's what you need to have if you have local people on your own pace. I think it's way more efficient for Penneo to have this employee of records in other countries instead of trying to set up all the administration tasks and so on for having a local permanent establishment. So that is actually because we try to have less administration task when you're hiring people outside of Denmark.

[Christian Stendevad, executive]

So -- but we believe that efficiency is the same, to answer your question shortly.

Yes. Then is there any more questions?

Yes, one more. Yes, the percentage of churn in KYC seems to be structurally higher than Sign. Can you explain why?

Yes, that we can say that the churn we had in KYC in Q1, there was a larger customer that churned, then make that change. If you took that one out, then the churn in KYC would not have been higher than in Sign. Normally, if we look at churn, then normally where we see churn, it is in Sign, especially in the smaller customer and that can be a result of the one that we get some inbound leads where it is not within our core industries we focus on, for example, A&A., if it's not, but more what we call the Tier 3 customers those that we get in, then they can come out.

And then it can also be -- in A&A, some of them, they are getting acquired by the bigger ones or they get a merger and then that is a churn, but then somebody else they buy more, yes. So you're right, it's entirely linked to the Q1 event.

Good. Any more questions?

If that's not the case, then thank you so much for participating in this Q3 report. And then remember, if you have any additional afterwards or at a later stage, just reach out to us, and we are more than happy to walk through the numbers and the status of the business. But for now, thank you so much.

[Casper Christiansen, executive]

Thank you, guys.