Adevinta ASA

OSE:ADE

Earnings Call Transcript 2022-Q3

[Operator]

Good morning, this is the conference operator. Welcome, and thank you for joining Adevinta's Q3 2022 Results Presentation. [Operator Instructions]

Mr. Antoine Jouteau, CEO of Adevinta, will host today's conference. Mr. Jouteau, the floor is yours.

[Antoine Jouteau, executive]

Thank you, operator. Good morning, everyone. Welcome, and thank you for joining today's presentation. I'm very pleased to be in London today with our CFO, Uvashni, to share our Q3 results. We are delighted to be reporting an excellent performance with good progress on our portfolio optimization. We will also be taking the opportunity to update you on the evolution of our strategy as we seek to further simplify our business, align our operations more closely with our Growing at Scale strategy and unlock the group's full potential. And we will also provide you with guidance of Adevinta's encouraging prospects for the rest of the year.

Uvashni and other are joined on the call by the rest of the Adevinta executive team. I will introduce them as shortly as outlined the changes we are making to our senior management team. But let me start by sharing with you my main observation after having spent the last 100 days or so interacting with our main internal and external shareholders as the CEO of the group.

We have a very solid foundations of which to build Adevinta's long-term profitable growth. We are an outstanding group at leading platform and brands, trusted and loved by our users and customers, delivering some of the best in class operational performances in the industry. We have proven resilient business models, which enable us to deliver solid financial performance with high margins and strong cash generation. We have a huge runway of largely untapped business opportunities. We have a firm collective and shared purpose with sustainability at their heart.

We have committed and experienced teams, including a high proportion of exceptional product and tech and sales professionals. And last but not least, our teams are highly motivated to deliver on our growth strategy and ensure Adevinta's future success.

My effort and the energy of the team are now focused on leveraging these competitive advantages to create value for our customers and stakeholders. We have a number of clear priorities.

Operational excellence. This starts with a strong customer-centric approach, every development that we create and invest and should be a response to our users and customer needs, with more agile ways of working, we'll be able to rapidly and efficiently bring to market innovative products and solutions.

Top line growth. As I said previously, we have many business opportunities. We have a fantastic innovation capacity. Now how do we turn this into revenue generation? Through improved commercialization across our markets and verticals. That is what we achieved at leboncoin over the last 10 years. I want this to be applied at scale for Adevinta.

We'll not duplicate effort or invest in all areas at the same time. We will prioritize capital allocation and we will further optimize our cost base. This requires strict financial discipline at group level. Our people are our key assets. That is why we need to ensure retention and onboarding for all of our employees and as we continue to execute our growth strategy.

And finally, our contribution to society is part of our DNA. We have the duty to do more, to drive more sustainable consumptions and to grow our own operational right, minimizing our impact.

The common denominators of all of those initiatives are sharing and optimizing more. That's why we are evolving our organizational structure.

Our portfolio optimization is progressing well, and the strategic review will be completed by year-end. This will allow us to focus on our 5 core geographical markets in Europe in order to align the business more closely with our strategy and to facilitate execution, has made a number of changes to the leadership team and has signed new vertical responsibilities to our business leaders on which more in a moment.

Business integration is also on track on the functional side. While we are aligning our organization with our strategy, we are also making sure that we deliver on our operations daily with key achievements in the product side and in the commercial side.

Overall, we delivered strong financial performance with 12% revenue growth in core markets. EBITDA margin, excluding the impact of the French DST, was strong at 34.5%, benefiting from strict cost management in the continuity of the second quarter. This resulted in a strong cash generation, allowing us to pay down debt again this quarter. We can confidently confirm our full year targets despite the weak macro environment and a more prudent approach on the DST headwind. Uvashni will get back to that in a more detail later.

Now after giving you the helicopter view, let me dive deeper in some key areas. I'm very pleased to introduce new members of my leadership team. They are all connected today. A lot of familiar faces for you, and they are all have a long and successful track record within the company. Ajay, we add the mobility vertical strategy to his current responsibilities as the CEO of Mobile.de. Roman Campa has been the CEO of Spain for 2 years now and will also lead the Real Estate & Emerging Verticals strategy. Paul Heimann has been the CEO of Kleinanzeigen for 4 years, and will also lead the Re-commerce strategy. Our other generalist platform, General Manager will report into him.

Alex, who was my Deputy CEO at leboncoin for years, who took the role of Integration Director 2 years ago, will transition to a wider COO role where he will be continued to lead Integration and will be also responsible for cost optimization.

Uvashni has been the CFO of Adevinta for more than 3 years and will also supervise the asset outside of our core markets. Nicki remains our wonderful Chief People and Communications. She has been part of Schibsted and Adevinta for more than 5 years.

One face that you are probably less familiar with has -- he was acting behind the scene is Julien Jouhault, our new interim CPTO. With over 17 years of experience in several tech companies like SFR in France. And the last 5 years as CTO of leboncoin, Julien Jouhault has massively contributed to the success of leboncoin. He has led the product and tech transformation, creating a world-class platform based on high-performance and modularity, data-driven intelligence and full verticalized customer experience.

I would like to take the opportunity to thank Gianpa, Zac and Alex Alexander, who will leave the organization by the end of the year. All 3 are very strong and talented executive, and I wish them all the best in their future projects. I'm very proud of the team that I have around me to take this company forward. We share the same ambition for Adevinta, and we will relentlessly focus on making -- for maximum impact.

Starting with our plan to optimize our product and tech resources. To be more efficient and foster innovation at the scale of the group, we need to think globally. That will allow us to win locally. All our employees in various countries have similar tooling needs. That's why we are already building sharing capabilities around cloud, data, IT enterprise services and cybersecurity.

Our product and tech teams are spontaneously shared best practices for years, and this has been facilitated by global teams that we believe we can do much more with a more efficient and flexible operating model, a global governance and agile allocation of resources where we see the highest returns opportunity.

Today, in our core markets, we operate more than 15 platforms. We use more than 20 programming languages, 8 different database technologies. We believe there is a strong opportunity to simplify. We are currently assessing this opportunity with a clear focus on deduplication, creating customer value and reducing time to market. With more efficient deployment of our resources, we believe the need to add to our capacity will be reduced while we will actually be able to produce more.

We expect to have completed the strategic review of our portfolio by year-end. We closed the sale of Mexico, Australia and South Africa over the past few weeks. On Canada, we concluded that Adevinta will continue to operate and optimize the assets but outside of the core markets. We continue to assess the options for Hungary.

Moving on to operational performance. I will focus first on traffic, a key indicator in our industry. For leboncoin and Kleinanzeigen show an impressive performance with visits being up more than 30% compared to Q3 2019 and even a positive evolution compared to Q3 2021. This is, of course, demonstrates the strength of both brands.

In Mobile, we hold a very strong #1 position, and we continue to gain market shares. According to external data, our competitive advantage in Mobile is even stronger year-on-year when we compare web visits with our main competitor. However, it is inevitably impacted by the motor market environment temporarily weaker, but we believe the potential remains intact as we continue to increase our market share.

Now let's dig into our 2 key verticals, starting with Motors. As we have now experienced more than a year, supply volume remains very weak globally and most specifically in Europe. Also, we have observed differences from one market to another. In the last few months, demand also trended differently in France and in Germany. Overall balance between supply and demand is what drives the evolution of dealer listing volume on our platform.

In Germany, they are down 8% year-on-year, showing inflection compared to the previous quarters, mainly driven by market demand evolution, which is heading more to pre-pandemic levels. In France, listings are down 19% in Q3, mainly driven by the lack of supply, while demand remains flattish. In the meantime, we are able to actively mitigate the volume impacts through our own initiatives such as price increases.

In the quarter, ARPA in France has increased by 16% year-on-year, and average revenue per lead at Mobile has increased by 27% year-on-year. This is not only the result of our strong brands, but also our innovation capabilities, coupled with a very customer-centric development strategy. Here, you can see only a handful of new products and feature that we released during the quarter. We launched in September, our triple bundle between MB Diffusion, Kleinanzeigen and Mobile.de for professional equipment. This is another example of synergies across platforms.

We also launched in October, a smartbump feature of our MB Diffusion professional customers with very good traction so far. In Spain, we introduced an Android app, the new monthly installment prices. At Mobile.de, the view item page was completely redesigned and rebuilt. The new modern look and feel, greatly improved the consumer experience and generated a significant uplift in metrics for leads and other user interactions. Also, at Mobile.de, I would like now to focus on a more transformative product innovation. This innovation is our first motors online buying solution whose pilot program was launched at the end of September. With the solution, we enable our customers to buy a car fully online and get it delivered to their doorstep within 2 weeks including registration and insurance with Mobile.de acting as a partner for both customers and professional car dealers.

The results of the first week's of operation are fully in line with our expectation, and we just celebrated our first successful deliveries to our customers. We are very excited by this product for which we see a strong opportunity. A recent survey from that 42% of our regular online shoppers in Germany will consider buying their next car online. Once tested and proven this model could be also scaled to other countries.

In Real Estate, we have 2 different situations in France and in Germany that derive to a large extent for the different market position that we hold. In France, listing were almost flat year-on-year as the real estate market remained dynamic in the quarter. We continue to improve our monetization. ARPA increased by 10% year-on-year, which benefited from the successful launch of enhanced subscription packages in September with high added value for professional clients.

In Germany, professional listings are up 63% year-on-year. This is explained by the market dynamics, where the demand for houses for sale is decreasing and shifting partly towards houses for rent due to the current economic situation. As a consequence, professional listings stay longer on our platform. The second driver is our gain in market share and increased agents penetration. The number of professional clients increased 20% year-on-year to 9,000.

We still have a lot of room to grow in real estate, and we are making sure that we continue to bring further value to agents, ultimately leading to increased monetization as well as illustrated in our next slide.

In Spain, at fotocasa users can now receive e-mail alerts for new apps matching their safe search and professional customers now can see where the ad will be positioned on the platform. At leboncoin, we launched a new premium pack, including weekly bumps to reinforce efficiently, and we launched a new multi-apply feature for new construction. Again, those are only examples and the road map of the oncoming quarters is very rich.

Moving on to transactional services. We continue to see a very strong traction in the adoption of the products. More specifically, leboncoin and Kleinanzeigen's number of transaction grew 49% and 140%, respectively, compared to the same period 1 year ago. In Benelux, Italy and Spain, we also see the number of transactions growing month after month, supported by successful promotional campaigns, which will also continue in Q4 as it is the quarter with traditionally high activity with Black Friday and Christmas period.

We continue and we will continue to scale and launch new products. To give you some examples of our product launches, we launched our buy now option in Germany on Kleinanzeigen, which allows direct purchasing from C2C sellers. In leboncoin, we fully deployed our wallet and installment solution, which are now available for all of our customers on all the consumer goods categories. We are very satisfied by the first results so far. 4% of our total transaction have already been completed with the wallet-to-wallet option since the full deployment of the solution in late August.

Almost 7,000 transactions have already been completed using the installment solution since the full deployment of the solution in late October. We also launched our new commission-based business model for consumer goods professional sellers, shifting from an economic model based on ad insertion fees to commission-based economic model.

Moving on to advertising. Q3 performance remained challenged by the weaker advertising market driven by the economic uncertainty and continued lack of supply in the automotive sector. Despite these challenges, we are seeing some pockets of resilience in particular at Kleinanzeigen, which performed very well in the quarter, driven by higher vibrancy and increasing yield. We continue to transform our advertising business by investing in our 1P product to ensure sustainable revenue growth and reduce reliance on third-party advertising. Regarding direct display, we increased focus and resources at Kleinanzeigen. Regarding 1P product listing ad, we have developed several offers. Marktplaats Pro, a comprehensive SMB advertising offering and Ignite, which is our 1P retail media proposition for Kleinanzeigen.

We are also investing to complement our offering to professional sellers on the platform by developing a self-serve display solution.

I will now hand over to Uvashni for the financial performance solution.

[Uvashni Raman, executive]

Thank you, Antoine, and good morning, everyone. As mentioned by Antoine, our financial performance for the quarter was underpinned by the continued acceleration in revenue growth compared to the previous quarters of 2022, balanced investment and cost management, especially when with the pullback of controllable spend and execution on our synergies.

Compared to last year, revenues grew 11% to reach EUR 408 million. The 11% is based on comparable revenues. What this means is we restated revenues for the assets that we exited between Q3 2021 and Q3 2022. These included InfoJobs Brazil and Kufar.

Turning our focus to core market revenues. This grew 12% in the quarter. Core market classifieds revenues were up 13% year-on-year, supported by double-digit revenue growth in all verticals.

Transactional services saw strong revenue growth of 79% year-on-year, driven by continued acceleration in the number of transactions, especially in consumer goods.

Advertising revenue in the core markets were flat year-on-year. This was as a result of overall weaker advertising business, especially in the automotive display advertising, which was offset by eBay Kleinanzeigen's strong performance in the quarter.

Turning to EBITDA. We saw, excluding the negative impact of the French DST, an increase of 12% year-on-year, positive top line evolution, lower marketing investment driven by differentiated phasing and spend prioritization and discipline in the current market context contributed to the performance.

This was partially offset by an anticipated controlled increase in personnel cost in 2 areas. Firstly, resources to build up ahead of the implementation of the new operating models for the support functions and product and technology teams and secondly, resources to fuel product development and new business models, for example, online buying and selling and transactional services. Direct costs were also impacted, especially because of transactional services, delivery and payments, which we saw an increase in the quarter as well. This is in line with the adoption of the service and the revenue growth.

EBITDA excluding DST at EUR 141 million represented a 34.5% margin, up 50 basis points compared to Q3 2021.

We had a negative impact of the year-to-date provision on the French DST of EUR 9 million. This was booked in the quarter. I will explain more on DST later on.

EBITDA of EUR 132 million, as the results following this adjustment, up 5% year-on-year, representing an EBITDA margin of 32.4%. Excluding the impact of the share-based compensation, underlying EBITDA was EUR 141 million in the quarter, representing a 34.5% underlying EBITDA margin.

Now moving on to France. As we focus in France, reported revenues in France grew 12% for the quarter. Online Classifieds grew 9% year-on-year, mainly driven by Real Estate and Motors. Real Estate double-digit revenue growth in the quarter benefited from the successful launch of enhanced subscription packages in September with high value add for our professional clients and a contribution of 10% on ARPA increased.

Motors, high single-digit revenue growth in the quarter, was driven by 16% ARPD increase, which more than offset the effects of the declining professional volumes.

Jobs revenues were down year-on-year due to lower listing fees despite a good performance of subscription packages. Advertising revenues were down 5% compared to last year as we see the continued impact of reduced activity from advertisers, media agencies and programmatic. On the other hand, transactional revenues were up 63% year-on-year on the back of volume growth and average order value increase.

EBITDA excluding DST, improved 18% compared to the third quarter of 2021, supported by the positive top line evolution and lower marketing costs. An increase in personnel and IT costs in the quarter partly offset this improvement as investment in further product and technology development continued.

Direct transactional costs also increased in the period. The impact of higher transactional volumes were partly offset by better delivery pricing structure and the introduction of the wallet with both elements positively impacting margin.

EBITDA margins, excluding DST, improved 2.9 percentage points year-on-year accordingly. Reported EBITDA, including the EUR 9 million provision booked in relation to the French DST, amounted to EUR 53 million, up 2% year-on-year. The reported EBITDA margin deteriorated 4.3 percentage points on this accordingly.

Now some more information on the French DST. We did put in a provision this quarter. That was on the back of Adevinta receiving a negative ruling from the French authorities. Based on this ruling, the French authorities interpretation is that most of Adevinta's revenue in France will be subject to French DST. Adevinta supported by external legal counsel opinion, of course, disagrees with this ruling, and we have, therefore, appealed it. And we'll continue to pursue alternative outcomes with authorities.

Despite disagreeing with this ruling, we prudently provisioned for the full amount of the tax, of which EUR 9 million is the year-to-date 2022 number, and this has been included in our quarter results. The EUR 30 million, including for the period 2019 to 2021, is it accounted for in other expenses. This is the highest level of the risk we see and is per the contingency we previously disclosed.

I will now move on to Mobile.de. Mobile's revenue improved by 15% in the quarter of 2022. Online Classifieds revenues were up 18% year-on-year, mostly driven by dealer pricing adjustments implemented in April that resulted in a 19% average price increase. This impact which is the full effect over the period, combined with the 14% listing price increase implemented in August 2021, where we only saw a 1-month effect in 2021, more than offset the year-on-year negative volume impact. Revenues from private sellers also posted a strong performance in the quarter, supported by high ARPL.

Advertising revenues decreased or declined by 10% year-on-year, once again impacted by the reduced level of advertising spending of the OEMs as a consequence of the low production levels and the market context.

EBITDA improved 11% in the quarter, driven mostly by the positive top line evolution. This was partly offset by the ramp-up in internal resources as we continue to invest in product development and improvement as well as operations on the sale and customer care to support new business initiatives such as online buying, selling and leasing.

Marketing expenses were increased in the quarter, up 23% year-on-year as a result of very low comps firstly, and then marketing efforts in the context of the price initiatives as well as the new models launched. EBITDA margin contracted 2.3 percentage points accordingly year-on-year.

Moving on to European markets. Revenues in the European segment increased by 12% in the third quarter on a constant parameter, leading by strong performance at eBay Kleinanzeigen, Spain and Italy. Online Classified revenues were up 14%, driven by growth in all verticals, especially consumer goods and jobs. Advertising revenues were up 2% on the back of the strong performance we saw at eBay Kleinanzeigen. Transactional revenues continued its strong momentum and more than doubled compared to the same period last year.

EBITDA improved 12% compared to the third quarter of 2021, in line with the top line evolution. This was partly offset by an increase in personnel costs as we continue to invest in product development, sales and customer support in line with the growth of the business, especially on the transactional services side.

Transactional costs also increased, driven by the higher volumes and by promotional campaigns held in September to drive adoption of the service. Marketing costs, on the other hand, reduced 5%, mainly by the lower spending in Italy. Overall, EBITDA margin improved 0.3 percentage points year-on-year.

I will now provide more insight on the revenue development for the 4 larger markets within the segment. eBay Kleinanzeigen revenues grew 22% in the period and reached EUR 59 million. This was driven by significant momentum in the consumer goods with strong performance from small and medium businesses. Real estate also saw further gains and as well as in motors.

Advertising posted double-digit revenue growth in the quarter, driven by higher vibrancy, increasing yields and that despite the global weaker environment we see. Transactional revenues almost doubled in the period, supported by product improvements and promotions on buyer protection solutions.

In Spain, we saw revenues grow 13% in the period and reached EUR 53 million. This as a result of the strong performance in online classifieds, up 13% year-on-year with the recovery of the jobs vertical continuing and solid performance in the real estate and motor verticals. Advertising was up 3% year-on-year and transactional revenues continue to ramp.

Benelux revenues were flat compared to the third quarter of 2021 at EUR 36 million. Growth in line with online classified revenues and transactional revenues due to the launch of promotional shipping campaigns were offset by the lower advertising revenues impacted by the macro context.

In Italy, we saw a strong 13% performance and revenue growth driven by jobs and motor verticals and the continued strong momentum we see in transactional services. Advertising revenues were down year-on-year, driven by the softer programmatic performance and in the shutdown of Kijiji.it.

Our international markets revenues were slightly down year-on-year at minus 1%, driven by a 13% contraction in advertising revenue, partly offset by a 4% growth in online classified revenues. EBITDA was up 35% compared to the third quarter of 2021. This was the result of a reduction in marketing spend, down 41%, and in personnel costs, down 27%, mainly due to the lower share-based compensation. Overall, EBITDA margin improved by 12.8 percentage points year-on-year.

In OLX Brazil, we did not -- which we do not include in our segment reporting anymore,, but we also believe it's important to get a view on the asset in its entirety. OLX Brazil increased 13% revenues year-on-year in local currency and reached EUR 53 million. Revenue growth was driven by the expansion of the triple bundle strategy across brands in the real estate by higher ARPU in Motors for private and dealers and high liquidity and conversion in consumer goods.

Transactional revenues more than tripled for the period. The revenue growth in Brazil was impacted by lower-than-expected transactional revenue, specifically financing. Advertising revenues on the other were down year-on-year were further impacted by the weaker market.

EBITDA was down 4% compared to last year in local currency and amounted to EUR 8 million. This evolution was led by an increase in marketing effort driven mainly by the ZAP+ branding and performance, growing transactional costs and promotion campaigns on the OLX Pay and investment in product and technology teams. The EBITDA margin was 20% in the quarter.

Moving on to Central P&T and headquarter costs. The other unhedged quarter costs really includes the headquarter costs for functional units in Adevinta as well as the central product and technology costs. This decreased by EUR 10 million year-on-year to EUR 53 million. This evolution was driven by the slight increase in headquarter cost to EUR 18 million in the context of the eCG integration. The increase in central product and technology costs to EUR 35 million due to higher IT and licensing costs led by the increased usage, the further buildup of global capabilities ahead of the implementation of the new operating model also drove some of the cost increases. This will see operational efficiency and acceleration of value creation in our marketplaces as we remove some functions away from the markets.

As a percentage of total revenues, Headquarters costs were stable, while we saw a slight increase, up 1.6 percentage points on the P&T costs.

Moving on to the integration and integration road map. We saw good progress when it came to our integration. We exited the few remaining transactional services agreements, now it's 100% exited from eBay Classifieds Group -- from eBay. A global contract for marketing that will unlock synergies in 2023 was also completed this quarter. We saw major system upgrades and rollouts where we saw an upgrade in Workday and the Phase 1 of SAP. This will enable us to actually execute on functional operating models and also enabled us to exit the TSAs. We will then also saw more execution on synergies from procurement and from platform stabilization, and rationalization.

The up-and-coming major milestones for the next quarter are the cloud migration and the data and marketing transformation and further P&T efficiency optimization with synergy delivery expected in 2023. The delivery of our integration road map remains on track. The targeted run rate synergies of EUR 35 million for the full year 2022 has been confirmed and the EUR 130 million EBITDA run rate target remains unchanged.

Moving on to other P&L items below EBITDA. Depreciation and amortization increased by EUR 18 million in the quarter, mainly driven by the reassessment of useful lives of certain trademarks in Q2 2022. Other income and expenses increased by EUR 65 million in the quarter. The main drivers of this were the DST in France, which we've explained earlier, integration expenses related to the eCG acquisition, which remains in line with previously expected levels of spend and as announced in our CMD last year and a restructuring provision recognized due to the reorganization in France.

Net financial items shown an expense of EUR 10 million in the quarter compared to an expense of EUR 30 million in the quarter of 2021, mainly due to foreign exchange gains in Q3 2022 driven by the appreciation of the exchange rate of the BRL against the euro versus the foreign exchange loss we saw last year.

Tax expenses improved by EUR 10 million year-on-year as it benefited from the decrease in profit before tax and the reversal of deferred tax liabilities related to the amortization of identifiable intangible assets recognized upon the acquisition of eCG.

On the next slide, we see strong cash generation in the quarter. Some of the more material movements from the eBay to cash include a positive change in working capital requirements, mainly as a result of the prepayment of some cloud services in the previous quarter, the accruals, including DST and other working capital adjustments. Tax payments also increased compared -- or decreased compared to the last quarter.

CapEx is broadly similar to the previous quarter and essentially represents about 5% of our sales for the quarter.

I also spoke about the share-based compensation, which has amounted to EUR 9 million. This result is an adjusted net cash flow from operating activities of EUR 145 million, an acceleration compared to the EUR 129 million last quarter.

Deleveraging remains a priority. We completed our share buyback program in the quarter. The second tranche of 6 million shares was completed in October. In the quarter, we managed to repay EUR 90 million of our term loan B in accordance with our financial policy and associated leverage targets, in line with our strategy to prioritize floating debt repayment. Since the beginning of the year, we have repaid EUR 240 million of debt. At the end of the quarter, our senior secured leverage ratio was 3.6% -- sorry, 3.6x.

Considering the current environment, we are actively managing our debt position. By optimizing our debt structure, we will reduce interest rates therefore interest rate costs coming down, focus on deleveraging with the aim of getting to our mid- to long-term target of 2x to 3x by the end of fiscal year 2023.

Our liquidity remains strong, and our total cash position at the end of September was EUR 105 million. We also have an undrawn RCF facility of EUR 450 million on top of that.

We also have some ways to go before the maturity of our debt. With this strong position and a good balance between investment and cost control, we believe we have the right ingredients to take advantage of market upswings or have the levers to pull on the back of further deterioration in market conditions.

Moving on to the next slide. As explained last quarter, we're also taking measures to mitigate our FX and interest rate exposure. Regarding interest rates, we are consistently reducing our floating interest rate exposure. Our floating to debt ratio is at 35% compared to 41% a few quarters ago. Priority is given to floating interest rate when it comes to deleveraging as illustrated by our recent debt repayment. Regarding exchange rate exposure, we hedge every material transaction, and we try to minimize the FX risk by keeping FX cash at operational minimum levels and by hedging our M&A proceeds where possible.

In summary, a strong financial performance for the group in Q3, especially in our core markets, building progressively on our Q2 performance. The growth acceleration was achieved through balancing targeted investment in people and resources to ensure we protect our market positions and enhance our product delivery to our users with prudent resource allocation and spend levels. We also continue to lean in on our synergy and cost optimization, execution and delivery. Our focus in the short term remains on de-risking our financial position and getting to our average leverage target.

I will now hand over to Antoine to wrap up with the outlook and the conclusion.

[Antoine Jouteau, executive]

Thank you, Uvashni. In conclusion, we have delivered a strong financial performance in the quarter despite the challenging market environment. Our long-term growth opportunity is underpinned by solid foundation. We have the right teams in place to deliver on that opportunity. We are adapting with an organizational structure which is better aligned with our Growing at Scale strategy. We'll continue to optimize our cost base especially in the face of weaker market conditions. We confirm our 2022 financial targets. It's early to provide precise targets for 2023, but we are confident that we can continue to grow double-digit in core markets and that we can improve our profitability despite the soft macro environment.

Thank you, and I will now open the Q&A session. My colleagues from the Adevinta management team and I are available to answer your questions. Operator, please.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] The first question is from Adam Berlin with UBS.

[Adam Berlin, analyst]

I've got three questions, if I can. First question is, can you just explain why there's been such a strong acceleration in transaction revenue, particularly in Germany during Q3? You said it was just more volume and more transactions. Is there anything different in the market that's driving that big acceleration we've seen in the volume? So that's the first question.

The second question, again, on the eBay Kleinanzeigen. Can you just talk a little bit more about why the advertising revenue did so well? I mean it seems like German macro and advertising market is doing quite badly. So is it just that you're taking share because of these new products you've launched? And is that something that can continue? Or is that kind of just a one-off effect of the new products coming in?

And the third question was on the new motors online buying solution. Is there anything you can tell us about the unit economics of how that works? So for example, how much do you get from the dealer for every transaction who covers the cost of the delivery just to so we can kind of understand how the economics of that new product will work and how big that might be?

[Antoine Jouteau, executive]

Thank you for your question. I think, Paul will be happy to answer to the first 2 questions on the transaction acceleration and on the advertising part, Paul?

[Paul Heimann, executive]

Yes, sure. Thanks, Adam, for your question. So on transactional, why did we saw the strong acceleration. So this is mainly driven by two things. So one, in general, we saw an uplift in traffic. So a good post COVID recovery with strong traffic, that, of course, drives volumes in general. At the same time, we've also launched a couple of product improvements. For example, we have just recently launched our buy now feature. We have also launched the first promotion, which has a strong effect on the adoption, so it's a mix of volume and product improvements that drive the transactional performance in Kleinanzeigen.

Your second question on advertising, it's a mix of, again, the volumes. So the overall traffic, which is growing healthy helped, of course, also on the volume side around advertising. And then we have, as also Uvashni pointed out, seeing good improvements on the yields by adapting quite flexibly to the changing macro context. So we're using a tool that helps us to react dynamically and flexible. We can pull out formats change the mix, which lifted amount from 3P to first party where we have our own first-party solution called Ignite, which is being adopted by the market quite well. So again, on advertising, a mix on volume effect, and increasing yields by a couple of different measures that we took along the quarter.

[Antoine Jouteau, executive]

Thank you, Paul. I think on your question about online buying and selling maybe Ajay, I think it's maybe too early to communicate specific figures, but maybe you can give an update, Ajay, on the launch of this new product. It's a very young product, right?

[Ajay Bhatia, executive]

Yes. No, thanks, Antoine. And thank you, Adam, for the question. It's a relevant question. So the guidance that I would give is I mean the reason we've launched the product is clearly because this is what our consumers are asking for. But in addition, it's also, we are testing the right business models at the moment. So the goal that I have from a business model perspective is I get a number of times the yield that I currently get on traditional classified. So that is the clear goal. But having said that, this comes at a higher cost because we do have partners that are involved in this. As you correctly pointed out, we have a delivery partner. We have a partner who helps us with warranties. We have a partner who helps us with cash payments and financing -- say a registration of the car, for example, because we are taking on a number of those pain points. So it does cost us more, but our gross profit, the intention here is a number of times of what it would be on traditional classifieds.

[Operator]

The next question is from Chris Johnen with HSBC.

[Christopher Johnen, analyst]

So first, on the 2023 outlook. I understand it's early still, but I'm just trying to get your sense on what an improvement in EBITDA margin ultimately needs, just to really understand your ambition. I mean, as far as synergies is concerned, as far as some of the legacy investments that were required into particularly the eBay classified assets in 2022, I think the market is assuming for let's say, a somewhat more significant uptick in margins. I think it's 250 basis points versus where we stand today for 2022. So I'm just curious how you view that.

And then the second question coming to the sort of reshuffling of management sort of new setup. I mean what does that imply for financial disclosure going forward, if anything. Yes. And then I would also wonder about Canada as maybe as a small third question. Clearly doesn't fit the profile of having everything all core markets and then having Canada side. I mean what really happened there? Was there an insufficient demand or no agreement on price? Or just any additional color on Canada would be of interest.

[Antoine Jouteau, executive]

Thank you for the question. I think Uvashni will answer to your -- to these 3.

[Uvashni Raman, executive]

All three?

[Antoine Jouteau, executive]

I can take the last one.

[Uvashni Raman, executive]

No. I guess for me, in terms of the profitability or the margin, I'm not going to comment and quantify exactly what it is, but what we do and because a large part of that also will depend on our top line evolution. But we do see upside in terms of profitability, and we will definitely see progressive improvement at this stage, and we are definitely targeting a progressive improvement.

From a change in management structure perspective and reporting, I think it's early days. We haven't even -- for us, this is a focus around the core verticals. We will not change reporting until we fully go through the process that we have in place at the moment around understanding how we will want to run and manage these operations. So for now, we'll continue to report on a segment basis that we have right now. And then we will slowly converge into reporting differently as we settle those processes and understand fully how we want to structure up for that.

[Antoine Jouteau, executive]

And on Canada, we have completed our review. We said that it's a noncore asset, but we will continue to operate and optimize this asset. That has strong position on the generalist market and on the motor area. So that's the best way to continue and to get the more value we can on this asset.

[Operator]

The next question is from William Packer with BNP.

[William Packer, analyst]

Three for me, please. So firstly, you've talked to double-digit revenue growth for 2023. Can you help frame the assumptions to underpin that guidance? I suppose, specifically advertising and transactional growth, which clearly have material margin implications.

Then secondly, on the EBITDA expansion -- margin expansion, sorry. You're very clear that you don't want to quantify that. But could you talk through the factors that will perhaps be at play, which you control. So some of them are mechanical, the mix, some of them are the, beyond your control of the advertising trends, but there are cost control, marketing budgets that you do control. Could you just give us some sense of where you are on that basis?

And then finally, on the French digital services tax, it sounds like it's here to stay. Is that right? Should we sort of permanently impair our long-term French margin assumptions on that basis? Or maybe I misunderstood.

[Antoine Jouteau, executive]

I will take the first one and I will let the two to Uvashni. Regarding the first guidance of '23, it will come from our key verticals which are the motors market, the real estate market and the transactional, which are really the key area where we will continue to grow. That was -- with the continuity of '22, we'll continue to accelerate on that.

Regarding the question on advertising, [indiscernible] the macroeconomics. So we are very cautious on that. And we try to be reasonable about, we'll continue to switch our 3P to the 1P and to optimize our yield management, but we are cautious on that part also on the job market, which are more volatile during this period.

Regarding your question on profitability, what we are saying is that we want to improve the profitability of this company, and it's based on the using in a better way all means. It means that sharing more capabilities on the product and tech side. It means being more disciplined on the cost approach on the marketing, on the personnel costs, which are the key cost base for Adevinta. This discipline is in place now, and it's mainly a capital cash on approach. So we are working on that to be sure that we will adapt depending on the macroeconomic, depending on the advertising trend, of course, but that's something we want to be, we want to improve the profitability of this company. It's based on, of course, cost discipline and protecting our top line, of course. And regarding the DST, Uvashni, you can maybe start.

[Uvashni Raman, executive]

Yes. Well, I mean, yes, so I mean effectively, DST is legislative within France, but there's a couple of things that we have to consider. We are in a peer process with the tax authorities because our interpretation says there are elements of our revenue that don't include that. So for us, we are -- and we have a strong evidence and strong arguments to the contrary. So we are really going to bat on making sure that we get that across to the tax authorities. And we'll continue to explore every avenue before we settle on accepting that this will be here to stay.

The other element that we need to think about, and I know it hasn't gone as per plan, but there is that global tax that everyone know there that the -- especially the European Commission has been talking about. What that effectively does, if that does come in effect either next year or the following year, there will be a minimum tax that you've got to have to pay in the jurisdictions in which you operate. And because Adevinta actually pays tax in every jurisdiction we operate, if that comes into effect, what the authorities have said in France is that, that DST will fall away. And therefore, we will not have to pay this tax. So it hasn't gone according to plan. It's supposed to have come into effect in 2023. Now we're hearing maybe 2024, 2025. But this is the offset that you're going to be able to get. But for now, we will continue to work on it and make sure that we can get this out of our books, if we can. But it's in there right now, and we don't know how to play out. But we are working quite vigorously to try and reduce this as much as possible for sure.

[William Packer, analyst]

Just to follow up very quickly on the revenue growth commentary, Antoine. Am I right in understanding, therefore, that within the double-digit revenue growth as an assumption that advertising trends continue as they are, so sort of stable-ish, slightly down. Is that the right way?

[Antoine Jouteau, executive]

Yes.

[Uvashni Raman, executive]

Yes. Well, I mean if I can just add, Antoine. Yes, we're anticipating a weaker trend in advertising. Of course, you are right, there is that transactional growth is coming a lot faster. There will be a mix impact. And there are some uncontrollable, as you know,, but what we are very clear on is we have a very clear focus, as Antoine said on margin acceleration in the sense that we do understand we've got to trade that and balance that growth versus the margin. And therefore, we are still positive that we will see a margin improvement in 2023.

[Operator]

The next question is from Lisa Yang with Goldman Sachs.

[Lisa Yang, analyst]

I have three questions as well. Firstly is a follow-up on the revenue growth guidance for next year. What are you assuming in terms of market volumes especially in autos? Do you expect to see a bit of recovery middle of the year, late in the year, especially in Germany, that will be really helpful.

Secondly, I'm wondering if you could maybe comment on the trends you're seeing so far in Q4. Any change in terms of supply/demand, traffic listings and on advertising as well, I guess, is it still flattish like in Q3?

And the third question, I'm just wondering for eBay Kleinanzeigen. What's your market share in terms of listings in rent versus sales? And I'm just wondering, as we ship auto as rentals. Is there a bigger market share gain opportunity. So basically, the split between rent versus sales listings and your market share basically in those segments.

[Antoine Jouteau, executive]

Thank you very much for your question. I think on the revenue -- on the motor side, and maybe I will ask Ajay to add on my answer. But so far, what we see that we are not expecting a bigger recovery in '23 on the motor market because we have mixed signals from the OEM. So we remain very cautious on that. But we will continue to do our job on delivering moderate value to our customers to continue to do some price increase in our different markets. So that's something which is bringing a value for this market for the next month. And we are adapting. It's why also we are innovating, proposing new way of buying and selling cars online in Germany. So we try also to find new ways of developing our value on that market and the plan is very good on that.

Regarding the question about the supply chain across the portfolio, it depends on the country and it depends on the different market, but globally, in Germany and in France, the volume are steady, are healthy. In some areas, for example, on the motor part, we continue, as you saw in our slide the decline. But on the consumer goods category, we see a positive trend, which is -- which has impact on the transaction business. And you see it on the leboncoin figures and on Kleinanzeigen figures even on Marktplaats and Subito, we have some good and positive sign on that.

Regarding eBay K, maybe I will let Paul to answer to this part. If you are okay, Paul, to answer to the market share part. Yes.

[Paul Heimann, executive]

Yes, of course. Thanks, Lisa, for your question. So, so the high-level view is that we have been able to grow market share in the last couple of months with our 9,000 subscribers that we have to our real estate offering. If you look at the inventory, what you will find is that we have more for rent inventory than for sales. And we have also a strong footprint in the C2C space. The good news is that what we see in the market is that demand is shifting, as Antoine said earlier, more to for rent given the macroeconomic context. And given our strength in that inventory category, we feel that we can certainly capitalize on that.

[Operator]

Next question is from Adrien de Saint Hilaire with Bank of America.

[Adrien de Saint Hilaire, analyst]

Yes. I've got a few, please. So can you remind us, Uvashni, how much incremental EBITDA synergies we shall see in '23 versus 2022? And would you see margin improvement if you were to exclude these synergies? So that's the first topic.

And the second topic is, are you assuming any potential asset disposals in your leverage target? I'm specifically thinking of OLX Brazil.

And third question is, can you tell us, Antoine, remind us maybe when we will see the cadence of price increases perhaps in France and Germany, like what sort of months are they kicking in real estate and motors.

[Antoine Jouteau, executive]

Uvashni, I think you want to take that question?

[Uvashni Raman, executive]

Yes. Just on the run rate from a synergy perspective, what we had put out previously, we said this year will be a run rate of EUR 35 million and next year will be a run rate of EUR 90 million. That does not change. So we will see. And what we did say was we see a percentage of that or about 50% of that hit our bottom line next year. So that's what we remain consistent in approach. We haven't changed that at this stage. There's no assumption around proceeds in the target that we have from a leverage perspective, just on the other question that you have.

[Antoine Jouteau, executive]

Regarding your question about the assets, we have deeply reorganized our portfolio. So the status is that as you saw that the Canada review is completed. It's noncore but we continue to run this asset. And about Hungary, still, the decision is expected by the end of the year. So we continue the assessment.

And regarding your question about pricing for '23, we have many competitors that are analyzing what we are saying every day. So it's a little bit early to communicate to you any information on that. But when it will be ready, we will inform you, of course. But we'll do [indiscernible] increase. We will do for sure.

[Adrien de Saint Hilaire, analyst]

Sure. And maybe one question, which I asked, which is, would you see margin improvement if it wasn't for the synergies that you mentioned, Uvashni, next year?

[Uvashni Raman, executive]

No. Yes, I think there will be effectively our margin includes those synergies. We definitely see it as a package because we are looking at both synergies and as I said, cost optimization as well. So we're balancing that going forward. So I think to a large extent, we excluded both ways this year and next year, you will certainly see margin improvement.

[Operator]

The next question is from Giles Thorne with Jefferies.

[Giles Thorne, analyst]

My first question on the benefits of scale. This has obviously been one of the great promises of Adevinta. There's evidently been some easy products that have been built once the center [indiscernible] rolled out. But it still feels like there's a lot more that can be done. So Antoine, following your views in taking the feeds, it would be interesting to hear what are the deeper and the more difficult products you can in the future centralized build ones and then leverage across the group. And what can the benefits of that be over time both in terms of financially and your perspective?

My second question is related. In fact, it's probably a different way of asking the same question, which is Alex Alexander only joined as CPTO in April, and he joined amid quite a big fanfare about being the catalyst for extracting exactly these type of deeper product synergies. So it would be interesting to know what was in his view of the world that didn't fit with yours?

And then finally, a question for Ajay and the transactional opportunity in motors. The Mobile launch actually coincided with a big renewed marketing push of Smyle by AutoScout. So that raises the question about competition. So Ajay, I'd be interesting to know how you intend to market your products into 2023 both to dealers and to consumers. And then any implications that has, again, on economics or margin would be very helpful.

[Antoine Jouteau, executive]

Thank you for your question. I will take the first two, and then I will let Ajay answering to the last one.

Regarding your question of the benefit of scaling, just we have presented today some already ambition to share capabilities. And I think at the beginning of the product and tech side, it will be really what we are calling the foundation of your platform to the cloud, the data, the IT enterprise services, the cybersecurity. That's something we are joining because we think we have capability on that. So that's the foundation of what we are doing for all of our platforms. That is the first step now.

The second step would be what will be the added value we can bring altogether to customers and users. The first thing we are doing now is transaction. Transaction, we have a lot of knowledge, expense, product that we can leverage from Marktplaats and from leboncoin. And that's something we are sharing across the portfolio with Kleinanzeigen, with Subito, with Hasznaltauto, so that they have the right playbook to deploy the transactional service on that.

Another example is what Ajay is developing in Germany with online buying and selling, we just launched the product, but that's something we know that is interesting and probably interesting for other countries like Spain and France because that's a strong demand for our users. So this kind of product that are concretely expected by the market, we are assessing what we can do in the future. It will take some time, of course. We'll have probably to simplify a little bit what we are doing because we have many platforms, many languages, but really first step foundation, second step, pragmatic approach where we can accelerate.

Regarding your question about the CPTO. As you noted before, I've announced that Alex Alexander is leaving the company for personal reasons. So we have a new CPTO interim, Julien Jouhault, who is the former CTO of leboncoin. His priority will be very to focus on how we can share our capabilities globally, how we can align our road map, how we can optimize our capital allocation strategy. I think it's -- that's a key area and his key focus for the next months. And regarding the last question, Ajay, you can maybe give more detail on that.

[Ajay Bhatia, executive]

Thanks, Antoine. And to also build upon what Antoine said, but to directly answer your question, Giles. Smyle was obviously launched a bit before we launched our online buying and selling solution. So one significant different between Smyle and us is, Smyle is a separate brand to AutoScout24, whereas Mobile is the brand for both online selling and buying as well as the traditional business. So our job next year in 2023 is to stretch the brand, to stretch the Mobile brand. But if you think about and Mobile is clearly the #1 player in Germany. And for us to leverage that #1 position, the best thing for us was to launch this service on our brand rather than a separate brand. When you launch a separate brand, the amount of marketing if it required brand building is significantly more. So this gives us the economic clout to do a better job next year with -- and make sure that our marketing dollars go further. As we continue to stretch the brand, both the traditional business and the new business will benefit. And that will give us good economics.

And to your second part of the question, I'm very focused on building a business model that stands the test of time. If you see what's happened with Carvana and many other businesses around the world, they did the right thing by the consumer, but they had the wrong business model. So I'm very, very focused on having not just the right -- doing the right thing for the consumer, but also having a business model that is sustainable and gives value to our dealers as well as us as well as the consumers. And that's where we will do a better job than others. And the whole team is very focused and super motivated to find these efficiencies for the consumer but also for the business.

[Operator]

The next question is from Marcus Diebel with JPMorgan.

[Marcus Diebel, analyst]

Just three questions from my side. The first one, again on autos and this in regards to your guidance of double-digit growth. I mean you highlighted that the key verticals to fund this growth target, but then you implemented very strong price increase already this year, and thanks for the slides. So it seems to need at least meaningful double-digit price increases in autos also for next year. Is that the right assumption? And then if so, what makes you comfortable that you're able to implement this?

The second or next two questions, both for you, Uvashni. One on wage inflation. Could you tell us a little bit more about the cost base in 2023? What do you expect for wage inflation? And do you still hire more employees on a net basis? That would be interesting. And then on your leverage ratio 2 to 3x, I mean, clearly, you're delevering. You're buying back or you're reducing leverage each quarter. But if that case to be made in the long run, we might go even below that range. I mean your peers are, I guess, doing very well, running the business on a net cash basis. Is that something you would aspire in the long run as well as have you really assumed a 2 to 3x in the long run. I'm just asking this given that this was given at the last Capital Markets Day, obviously, before things changed rather materially.

[Antoine Jouteau, executive]

Thank you for your question. I will answer the first one and I let Uvashni for the two others. So of course, the Motors business for us will be 1 of the 3 pillars to reach the double-digit growth next year.

And on the motors area, our approach is based on 3 main areas. One is of course, the price increase. And we have this power because we have a strong brand in Germany, in Spain, in France, in Netherlands, in Italy. Our brands have leadership position and they are performing. We are improving the efficiency of this platform so that's something we can argue with our customers, with our car dealers. So price increase, yes. I cannot disclose it because I want to protect the secret for our market, but yes, we will do it.

The second lever for us will be developing new products. And we try to bring a solution for the car dealers now. They want to find cars to sell. So we are developing many products around generating lead from the private to them. That's the product we have developed in France. We have developed in Spain as well in Germany. So that's something we want to develop. Ajay has explained, our online and buying strategy, which is the new way of trading cars in a strong platform. So really some product innovation, it's key for us to continue to innovate and to prepare the revenue for the future.

And the third lever will be the sales excellent. We continue to train our sales team to bring of this sales team close to our customers to bring ROI to our customers and the excellence of focus on our side. So really, we are confident on that, that our sales force, our innovation and our pricing power will be the key lever for us. And regarding the -- your question about finance, Uvashni?

[Uvashni Raman, executive]

There's a couple of questions. So the first one around wage inflation and the impact in terms of 2023. Of course, for sure, wage, I mean employee cost is the largest portion of our cost base. But we -- without giving specific details, what I'm doing is we really look at the cost base quite critically. We're actively managing it in the current context in an environment, and we'll always balance investment in people because our product development that drives our revenue versus a whole lot of things. We have a lot of flexibility here because there are some things that we can pull back as we manage to do that. So for me, at this point in time is watching the inflation, wage inflation, watching what we need to do from a revenue perspective and then balancing off and trading it off with other flexibility we have in other cost drivers and levers.

When it comes to leverage, our priority at the moment is firstly to get down to 2-3x, which is, we believe, is a comfortable range, and it also balances our cash consideration and risk appetite. We also will assess that in the market conditions. The reason we put 2 to 3x, one of the key thing is for Adevinta is when we put it out there, we wanted to grow as a company and continue to invest as well as provide ourselves the flexibility to return capital to shareholders at some point in time. Of course, we will assess that later on. And at some point in time, as the EBITDA increases and if investment reduces, you'll probably go below that. But for us, that 2 to 3x gives us the flexibility to not only invest in the company and grow value, it also gives some flexibility in variable times as well. But of course, getting below that, if we continue to hit our mid- to long-term targets could be an option.

[Marcus Diebel, analyst]

Perfect. Just on the head count. So would you say on a net basis, you're still going up, in terms of employees and what's the share of contractors, which are really more expensive but easier to be more flexible with?

[Uvashni Raman, executive]

Yes, that's a good point. So we might see a slight increase because there is always vacancy rates at the end of the year and things like that, that you do full as you think about that, but one of the key areas that we are focusing on is understanding the mix between a variable workforce and fixed workforce. There's two elements of that. One, variability gives you a variable workforce does and contractor does give you flexibility because you can pull back on spend but it also comes with the higher cost. So one of the key focus areas as we looked at cost optimization is actually balancing that mix, so it helps you in times where you're going to pull back, but it also drives lower cost if you bring those in-house. So these are some of the clear optimization focus areas we have.

We are more cautious, of course, compared to previous years as we saw growth really drive that where we set balancing of profitability. And our key hirings now are really focused on the investment, as Antoine talked about, where we are looking at it on an ROI basis, where we do believe that the hirings will come in at revenue generation in the shorter term, we will do it, but then we'll be more cautious if that ROIs comes later on, especially in the current unpredictable environment. So there's a lot of things that we are looking at and working through as we think about people and wage inflation.

[Operator]

The next question is from Catherine O'Neill with Citi Group.

[Catherine O'Neill, analyst]

I've got three questions, actually. The first one is on the number of agents and dealers in France and dealers in Germany, which looks like they've declined slightly. I just wondered if you could give us some more detail on what the reason is for that or whether it's just something seasonal.

The second is on the share-based comp, which was EUR 41 million last year,, does that still seem like a reasonable number to work with the 2022? Because I think it was about EUR 27 million in the 9 months. So I wanted to check on that.

And then finally, on the mid- to long term guidance had previously been given around 15% annual growth, 40% to 45% margin in the core. You haven't specifically reiterated that. I just wondered if you're still comfortable with it or if it's something that you're currently reviewing.

[Antoine Jouteau, executive]

Yes. For the first question, I would [indiscernible] of that, Ajay. You give some update in Germany.

[Ajay Bhatia, executive]

Yes. In Germany, in particular, it's a consolidation in the market that's caused that for -- there is no change in churn, zero change in churn.

[Antoine Jouteau, executive]

It's exactly the same situation in France, plus the fact that the small car dealers in France, we have a lot of car -- small car dealers. We have not a lot of cars at this moment. And so it's why they are not posting their ads at this point because they don't have cars. But that's something we are approaching differently, but there is no big change on that as well. Maybe on your second point about the share base.

[Uvashni Raman, executive]

On the share base compensation, we expect that to come in slightly lower than 2021. So the EUR 40 million is around the right now, but it will be slightly lower than that. And then on the long-term trend.

[Antoine Jouteau, executive]

Yes. On the long-term trend, we said that we have the ambition to reach this 15%. That's something with the uncertainty, we said that we gave the guidance for next year. We'll continue to -- we want to reach this 15% against which is our ambition, and we are confirming it.

[Catherine O'Neill, analyst]

And similarly on the margin, that's still relevant target.

[Antoine Jouteau, executive]

Yes.

[Uvashni Raman, executive]

That's correct.

[Antoine Jouteau, executive]

That's correct.

[Operator]

The next question is from Silvia Cuneo with Deutsche Bank.

[Silvia Cuneo, analyst]

First, I have a follow-up question on your margin guidance for 2023. Can you perhaps comment about Mobile.de more specifically since the EBITDA margin there as you said, one of the highest among the segments? Just wondering if you can still deliver some improvement there or perhaps just focus on stabilizing since you are launching some new products like the motors online buying solutions?

And then second question on the continued rapid scaling of the transactional services, you talked about the drivers of the volume of growth for Adevinta, but can you also comment about the trends in the market more broadly and perhaps why is buying an online with the items gaining more traction now and how differentiating is your product versus competitors you think? We hear more Adevinta transactional features to the mix? Thank you.

[Antoine Jouteau, executive]

Thank you on that. So first, we are not giving guidance by assets for next year. We tried for this year for the first time. We wanted to give some indication early enough to provide you confidence for next year, but we are not splitting it. Like I said, it's too early for us, but we will come back in Q4 with more detail on that.

Regarding your question on products on the shop, I had already [indiscernible], but I feel that you are asking questions about the potential right or the situation of the transaction on this market. Honestly, our different assets, they are investing a lot on that because it's a strong opportunity. We have competitors in our market, but we have a strong position with our generalist on that. We believe that the transactional business will be one of our drivers of growth for top line for the future. And the reason is that the more we are investing on that, we see positive impact on the liquidity each time we are developing new features. Each time we are developing, we are bringing more services on our platform. That has directly an impact in our liquidity.

Yes, we have competitors in each market we are running. That's normal, but we have the position to extend. It's just a question of execution to deploy what we have to do. We have a playbook with what we have done in leboncoin and in Marktplaats now we have to expand it into other assets. That will be the case during the next months.

[Operator]

This concludes our Q&A session for today. You perhaps have any closing comments.

[Antoine Jouteau, executive]

Well, thank you very much for your questions, and I wish you a very good day.

[Uvashni Raman, executive]

Thank you.

[Antoine Jouteau, executive]

Bye-bye.

[Operator]

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining. The conference is now over. You may disconnect your telephones.