AUTO1 Group SE
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AUTO1 Group SE
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Hello, good afternoon or good morning to American participants. Welcome to the AUTO1 Group Third Quarter 2022 Results Presentation. I'm Philip Reicherstorfer, Group Treasurer. As always, I'm joined by Christian Bertermann, our Co-Founder and CEO; and Markus Boser, our CFO.
We will start with the presentation by management, followed by questions and answers. [Operator Instructions] Before I hand over to Christian, I must make you aware of the safe harbor provisions at the beginning of the presentation, you can see here. These will apply to any forward-looking statements made by management today.
And now over to Christian.
Thank you, Philip. Good afternoon from Berlin, everyone, and welcome to the AUTO1 Group Q3 Earnings Call. Over the course of Q3, we took a major step forward in building the largest and most profitable car dealer in Europe. Our team executed well in a compressed use car market environment, demonstrating the skill set and deep market knowledge that we acquired over the last decade. As a result, group revenue and gross profit grew strongly year-over-year with Autohero total gross profit more than quadrupling.
While we continue to further strengthen our platform across all business units with investments into technology, product and brand, our cost and efficiency focus allowed us to improve adjusted EBITDA substantially quarter-over-quarter, marking an important first milestone on our path towards breakeven. We remain thrilled by the opportunity ahead of us.
We believe that the combination of the 3 unique business models we run on our platform will allow us to transition the EUR 700 billion used car market into the place it should be: A safe, transparent and customer-friendly environment where buyers and sellers can trade seamingless with one another. We are convinced that this used car market of the future is run on digital trading systems and we aim to be the leading one.
This is why we have invested heavily into all elements needed for trading cars digitally over the last 10 years and will continue to do so going forward. Our autopricing technology and our target inventory algorithms are just 2 out of many features that qualify to be mentioned here. As a result, we can call ourselves Europe's used car powerhouse, combining the largest wholesaler with the fastest-growing retailer, accompanied by a steadily growing consumer finance portfolio that now stands at more than EUR 150 million.
This year continues to be our highest revenue and gross profit year. Revenue came in strong for Q3 with EUR 1.71 billion, 36% more than 1 year ago. Gross profit increased to EUR 123 million, up from EUR 116 million in Q3 of last year. Both revenue and gross profit continued our long-term track record while outperforming the used car market heavily.
Our 2 strategic goals remain the same. Our first goal is to create outstanding customer experiences. Our customers are in front and center of everything we do, and we believe that providing excellent customer experiences allows us to build one of the strongest brands in this industry. Our second strategic goal is to leverage our platform to gain market share. To this date, there is no player with double-digit market share, and we believe that our digital trading system and platform put us in the position to become the European used car champion.
We have constantly improved our Net Promoter Score over the last couple of quarters. As a result, our customer satisfaction is now at strong and sustainable levels. Over the course of the last quarter, we have achieved high NPS levels of 72, which is an improvement of 23 NPS points since February '21, the start of measurement. Our Trustpilot score of 4.6 across all markets confirms our high internal NPS values externally. We are convinced that high customer satisfaction is the key to success and we'll aim to keep NPS at current levels for now.
Taking a look at the market. European used car transactions declined from 7.5 million vehicles traded in Q3 of last year to 6.2 million cars in Q3 of this year, which is a reduction of 17% year-over-year. In Germany, the largest market in the EU, the decline has even been more significant with a decrease of 20% in Q3 compared to the previous year. We estimate historically high used car prices, weak new car production and the general negative economic sentiment as the key drivers behind this market development.
Despite those trends, we sold 164,000 units in Q3 on a group level, which is an increase of 4.5% compared to the previous year. Those results demonstrate once again the strength and resiliency of our platform, showing the power of data and algorithmic trading in a compressed market environment. Translating those results into market share, we continue to hold a share of 2.6%, which represents 24% growth and a year-over-year comparison.
We continue to operate under the same 3 core financial goals which are: one, grow merchant and retail units; two, grow total gross profit; and three, execute our plan to achieve group profitability. In Q3, our merchant business performed strongly given the market backdrop. We sold 146,400 units in our merchant segment to partner dealers despite significantly lower transaction volumes in the market and continued high prices, and with that, cap merchant volumes stable year-over-year. Units in our remarketing business have grown from 18,600 in Q3 '21 to 21,400 units in Q3 of this year, representing an increase of 15% year-over-year. Revenue in the Merchant segment came in strong with EUR 1.43 billion, growing 30% year-over-year.
Now turning to Autohero, our retail business. Autohero had a very successful quarter. Our retail segment grew strongly in units and revenue while significantly improving its unit economics, our current core focus. Autohero delivered 17,200 units compared to 11,300 vehicles a year ago, a year-over-year increase of 52%. Revenue climbed to EUR 277 million, which is 73% more than in Q3 of last year, where we recorded retail revenue of EUR 160 million.
We were once again able to make stock selection smarter at the beginning of the funnel and continued to improve a number of conversion factors within the Autohero shop, both of them resulting in increased inventory turns. I'm very proud of our team's achieving EUR 19 million of total retail gross profit, representing a more than fourfold increase compared to EUR 4.1 million a year ago.
Given our omnipresent focus on unit economics, we are continuously optimizing the calculation of the target P&L as a unit at the point of purchase with the aim to bring the target and the realized P&L of a unit closely together. The absolute level of increase in total gross profit together with the increasing stock turns are demonstrating that we are working on the right input factors here.
Total retail gross profit was driven by a record GPU of EUR 1,106 in Q3. Year-over-year, Autohero GPU grew EUR 741 in Q3 and is now becoming a meaningful contributor of total gross profit for the group. Retail gross profit is now making up 15.4% of the group's total gross profit, up from just 3.5% one year ago. This is a key ratio to follow for me, and we expect retail gross profit to be a major contributor to overall gross profit growth for the business in the years to come.
I'm happy that our work of focusing on Autohero unit economics is continuing to pay off, demonstrating that we are not only building a product customers are highly satisfied with, but also a product that is on track to becoming profitable. Total gross profit for the group increased by 6% year-over-year to EUR 123 million, up from EUR 116 million in Q3 of last year, demonstrating strong execution. Merchant GPU came in at EUR 713 in Q3, which is comfortably within our expected medium-term range.
Taking a look at used car production, our center in Berlin/Brandenburg reached a major milestone for the group. It hit the overall group production cost target of EUR 800 for the first time in September. This is an improvement of EUR 100 to EUR 200 compared to the costs we reported for that center in June. That Berlin was able to reach the group's cost target quickly gives us confidence that our other centers can follow a similar optimization path in a reasonable amount of time.
In-house share for September was coming in equally strong with now 36% of all produced units internally. With those in-house levels, we're starting to utilize our production center footprint better, leading to fixed cost items being more distributed across the various cars refurbished internally. More importantly, the learning curves at each of our centers continued to be great. Every week, our teams are learning how to perform the required work in better quality and how to produce the required quality more efficiently. One important thing to note is that improved production costs will only, over time, appear in the Autohero P&L, as those cars first need to enter the retail inventory and then are being sold and delivered over time.
We continue to make good progress, on the next slide, on expanding our in-housing footprint across Europe. In Q3, we announced the opening of a new production center in Ath, Belgium, with a maximum capacity of 18,500 cars per year, which will go into production in Q4 of this year. All other 6 production centers we announced in Germany, Poland, Spain and Italy are now in production. In addition, we recently increased our production capacity at our first production center in Hemau, Germany by 69% from 16,000 to 27,000 vehicles per year at full capacity. Taking the additional capacities into account, our total internal production capacity now stands at 143,300 vehicles per year when being fully utilized.
Bringing used car production in-house allows us to fully control each step of the process and remains one of the large drivers to optimize unit economics in Autohero further. We regard the technology-enabled production infrastructure that we are building as a unique asset in Europe, allowing us to master used car production at scale and opening up the path to future rapid growth of our retail offering, targeting 210,000 cars maximum capacity by the end of next year.
We continue to improve marketing efficiency in retail. As a result, marketing cost per car delivered increased -- decreased to EUR 1,100 over the full quarter of Q3, a 42% decrease from Q2 of this year. This major success is based on 2 main factors: On the one hand, our teams continued to improve the customer journey within the Autohero shop further, for instance, by helping our customers with improved search-and-discovery functions to find their next car faster and with less effort.
On the other hand, strong customer demand and improved overall shop conversion are linked to our recent all-time high brand awareness for Autohero. We regard those improvements as a validation of our long-term brand strategy and are expecting to continue our path of conversion optimization in connection with strong brand awareness, leading to further reduction of marketing cost per car delivered in the future.
Now towards EBITDA. We made significant progress towards our goal of adjusted EBITDA profitability by Q4 next year and improved our adjusted EBITDA by 25% from negative EUR 47 million to negative EUR 35 million in Q3. This represents an absolute improvement of EUR 12 million in 1 quarter. We made good progress on nearly all profitability levels noted on the slide with the most important for the last quarter being we scaled the in-house production share to 36%.
I've seen some first financial benefits of internally produced units already in Q3, but we expect the major effect to come with in-house shares continuously growing from current levels in the direction of the outline goal of 90%. We also saw some good progress on marketing cost per unit delivered with the repetition of the strong June results or the complete quarter and expect to continue this efficiency track going forward.
With regards to logistics, we are carrying out the first test on charging for certain routes that are long distance and expect to learn a lot here. And with respect to Autohero OpEx, but even more so general OpEx for the group, we have seen a good step of optimization over the course of the last quarter. Markus will share some details on that in a second. And as we reported, Autohero GPU came in strong, also quarter-over-quarter, and we expect it to ramp up further from here. Also merchant performance was strong relative to market and GPU is solid given the current used car market headwinds.
All in all, we have executed our first step towards EBITDA breakeven in a tough environment, which makes us confident for the path that lies ahead of us. I'm now over -- handing over to Markus, who will give you a more detailed financial overview.
Thanks, Christian. I'd like to provide a more granular breakdown -- on the next page, thanks, in how we were able to improve our adjusted EBITDA by EUR 12 million in EBITDA profitability over the past quarter. As noted, we faced headwinds in our merchant business, where the total units traded in our core markets has declined by 17% year-on-year.
While we gained market share in the merchant segment, the significant retail gains in both units and gross profit has, to a certain degree, compensated for the lower gross profit in the merchant business with a quarterly EUR 3 million increase. As mentioned by Christian, we expect GPU expansion in retail to continue as we further in-sourced our refurbishment, which is well on track. While in-sourcing refurbishment will be the main driver of retail GPUs, we are also beginning to see -- beginning to improve our financing attach rates and resulting margin from financing and related products.
We were further able to demonstrate significant savings in our marketing expenditure, most of which were in Autohero. These savings are primarily the result of leveraging the strong brand recognition we built over the past 12 months, while improving channel efficiency and marketing know-how has enabled us to continue to increase our brand recognition in our key markets.
Lastly, we were able to reduce payroll by EUR 5 million while continuing to invest in production and technology, payroll and head count. We primarily found personnel efficiencies in central support functions, excluding technology, as well as finding efficiencies across the organization by focusing on best-in-class operational practices and replacing manual processes by software tools as much as possible.
We continue to maintain a strong balance sheet with no corporate debt. Cash declined by only EUR 13 million quarter-on-quarter, a result of improved profitability, CapEx discipline with quarterly CapEx investments of around EUR 5 million and a decrease of around EUR 39 million of cash -- excuse me, a release of around EUR 39 million of cash through a reduction in inventory. Inventory reduction was primarily a result of faster sales speeds in our retail segment, a consequence of improved inventory selection, faster refurbishment speeds and more efficient marketing.
Lastly, our consumer loan portfolio increased by EUR 40 million over the quarter that we offset the outgoing cash flow in large part by an increase in our warehouse secure -- asset-backed securitization -- excuse me, senior asset-backed securitization. We continue to see the generation of consumer loans in Germany and Austria as a strategic investment that today already achieves high net present values per loan and can charge premium interest rates.
We believe these investments will enable us to eventually achieve outsized financing returns per car once we are in a position to refinance the loans to the public markets. We also generate loans for external financing partners in all other markets outside of Germany and Austria where improved kickbacks and attach rates have also contributed to our Autohero GPU.
Lastly, we are reducing the CapEx and refurbishment lease guidance through to the end of 2023 that we originally provided in Q3 of 2021. This is a result of both higher efficiency in CapEx than expected, but also reduction in capacity build versus what we previously communicated. In Q3 2021, we estimated that we would spend circa EUR 200 million in CapEx in refurbishment centers, delivery trucks and other investments through to the end of 2023.
Since then, over the past 4 quarters, we have spent EUR 31 million in total CapEx. And with our revised plans, conservatively estimate that we will spend a further EUR 70 million through to the end of 2023. This assumes that we will have a max refurbishment capacity of around 210,000 units by the end of 2023 with a total of refurbishment rental expense of EUR 1.3 million per quarter, down from an initially forecasted EUR 2 million per quarter.
We believe that our installed base of 210,000 tailored used car refurbishment capacity by the end of next year will be a unique asset in Europe. We believe that there is no other player online or off-line with this level of integrated refurbishment capacity using software-enabled and industrial quality processes.
Lastly, our guidance for full year 2022. In units, we believe we will end the year at around 655,000 total units, of which approximately 590,000 units in merchant and approximately 65,000 units in retail, plus or minus 2%. We are well on track for the 65,000 retail units but seeing uncertainty around logistics capacities, both in Autohero and more generally.
On financial metrics, we believe we will end the year with EUR 6.5 billion to EUR 6.7 billion in revenue, EUR 485 million to EUR 505 million in gross profit and an adjusted EBITDA of minus EUR 155 million to minus EUR 175 million, within our initial guidance range.
Overall, we continue to gain market share in a used car market that is extremely difficult at the moment, and we are creating a platform that will enable us to continue to grow and gain market share for many years to come. At the same time, we are seeing near-term success in getting closer to our profitability targets that will also provide greater operational leverage when the market turns.
Lastly, we continue to focus on cash and cash flow and have the balance sheet that allows us to continue to invest to create the largest and most profitable used car dealer in Europe.
With that, I'd like to open to questions.
Hi, everyone. I am Raffaele, your Zoom operator. [Operator Instructions] Once received, Philip will moderate the questions and ask the authors to address management live. [Operator Instructions].
Thank you, Raffaele, and we will start with Lisa Yang from Goldman Sachs.
I have a few, please. Firstly, there's been obviously a significant improvement in the adjusted EBITDA line, I think nearly EUR 12 million, when your gross profit actually came down EUR 3 million quarter-on-quarter. So I'm just wondering if you can go through the moving parts, what has been driving this improvement, and what does this mean for Q4 and the coming quarters in terms of run rate of adjusted EBITDA improvement? That's the first question.
The second question is, if I look at your guidance, especially for merchant units sold and gross profit, that actually implies a bit of a decline in Q4. So again, what's driving that decrease? And what does that mean for 2023? I think [indiscernible] implies an increase in units sold and gross profit. Do you think that's still achievable given the trends you're seeing right now?
And thirdly, I think you've talked about -- I think we've seen in the release the reduction in the CapEx guidance. You're reducing marketing cost [ per your ] unit and I understand you want to focus on profitability. But what does that actually do to your growth? And what confidence do you have that once you do reach profitability, do you have to then spend a lot more on reaccelerate, increase the spend again on CapEx and marketing to drive faster growth at that time? Or -- yes, just how should we think about the shape of growth over the coming years given what you're doing to the marketing and the CapEx?
Thank you, Lisa. So I think first one, maybe Markus right? I mean on the EBITDA and then the drivers.
Yes. So I think in terms of those moving parts, to some degree, I think they were addressed in the presentation on that bridge. But essentially, we see that increase coming to some degree from retail gross profit GPUs increasing, which clearly we see ongoing. On the OpEx side, we've achieved much more efficiency on the marketing side. So reduced our marketing expenses by EUR 11 million in the quarter. Those primarily came out of Autohero. While within that, though, we managed to continue to improve our brand recognition versus Q1 and Q2 in most of our markets.
We also found around EUR 5 million of personnel efficiencies. As mentioned, those are mostly through either improved central and support cost functions, but also through, really, kind of across the firm, where we've really just begun some significant initiatives on how can we do things more efficiently, get rid of sort of manual processes and replace them with more automated or software-based processes.
And so I think that's really been the driver. And we continue to, of course, have that. I mean that's something we've accomplished in 1 quarter, but continue, of course, to work on all these initiatives over the coming quarters.
So on the second one, I think, Lisa, you specifically referred to merchant units for Q4 and our current guidance and kind of how the remainder of the year play out -- will play out on units. So we have some uncertainty around logistics capacities, similar to what Markus mentioned and what you could also hear from various OEMs. So this is just like a fresh on [ excellent ] logistics capacities at the moment that leads to, on the one hand, a little bit higher prices on logistics, but I think we don't think this is a problem we can push them onwards.
If we face such cost increases, but more like a general capacity bottleneck pretty much driven, I think, by OEM demand and the fact that external logistics providers reduce their capacities. So we are in quite a good spot when it comes to that because we have a very distributed network of logistics providers. We're working with several hundred across Europe. And we can -- we also have a good coverage for the key routes. But that is one uncertainty factor when it comes to merchant units.
And the second one is really December. So we are comparing ourselves also Q4 with a very strong used car market, much stronger than back -- than we have today and that we also experienced right now. So that's why I think we are a little bit cautious on that side. So December and logistics. But we think that the guidance that we gave is very much achievable.
And then on growth versus CapEx, I think Markus can also add some more details. But -- I mean, essentially, we're bringing total capacity with that CapEx to 210,000 units for Autohero. And then we would expect a similar ratio between additional capacity and CapEx. I think, Markus going forward, fire away.
Yes. So I think you had kind of 2 parts to that question, if I recall. One was the marketing and that impact on growth, and I think the second part was on the CapEx.
Perhaps briefly just on the marketing, I think one of the key points is we've seen significantly improved conversion over the past quarter, but also over the past few quarters. And I think that's what's really enabled us to drive that reduced marketing spend. I think it's something that we had also given a little bit of a heads up over the past 2 quarters as well, but that's something that we're really focused on.
And likewise, have been able to do that with continued strong brand and brand recognition and continued and growing brand and brand recognition. And I think having that enables us, among many other things, to improve that conversion rate. So we don't think that, that marketing -- we're just getting smarter and better at it. So I don't think that, that should impact our growth.
And on the CapEx side, we've actually been much more efficient on CapEx than what we were originally planning. So on the one hand, I think initially, we had said -- well, part of it is total capacity. So originally, we were expecting 400,000 units of total capacity by the end of next year. Now we're looking at 210,000. Nonetheless, that 210,000 more than covers our needs through to the end of next year.
Part of it is that we had that very big buildup -- or are currently having that very big buildup as we go originally from close to 0% in-house capacity to then 90% in-house capacity. Then once we have that in-house capacity, of course, we then only need to build for the incremental growth.
So in a sense, you have an upfront CapEx build out to kind of go from no in-house to almost all in-house. And then as you continue to grow, of course, we will continue to invest into further CapEx. But this, again, more than covers our growth over the next 18 months or so. And so therefore, feel very comfortable that we will continue to be able to grow with the existing levels of both marketing and CapEx.
Maybe last note on marketing. So -- I mean we can -- we are really now enjoying the advantages of having built up so much brand awareness. We're now really enjoying kind of the fruits of our past investments. And we believe and we also can see in the data, that it requires much less campaign euros and campaign spend, at least that's our current thinking, to keep that brand awareness where it is at the moment and continue to develop it further.
And this is why we have been able to optimize big time in marketing costs like presented on the Slide 19. And we're also able to cut just a larger share of inefficient traffic. So looking at traffic and sessions from the outside doesn't give you the right picture. In fact, it's like the other way around. You can -- you see that we sold so much more units quarter-over-quarter and year-over-year. And that with much less investment, I think, just proves that we are following the right execution path here.
And also -- I mean this is not yet done. So we will continue, as I also mentioned in the presentation, our downward track of marketing cost per unit to bring Autohero unit economics into healthy -- financially healthy and interesting territory.
Okay. And we're now going to Adam Berlin from UBS.
Just 2 questions from me. So my first question is, you're doing a EUR 35 million EBITDA loss in this quarter. Do you need to add about EUR 35 million of gross profit or reduce OpEx further to get to your breakeven target, which is by Q4 2023? Can you do that if the market stays weak? Or will you have to revise that target if we don't get a macro improvement and more market transactions? That's the first question.
The second question is around Autohero units. I'm just struggling to see why you can't grow units faster. I know the market is soft, but you represent only a small percentage of the market. Is the issue that you're relying on C2B units for sale in Autohero and those are incoming units are just low volumes so you can't scale? And if so, why don't you just source some units from other places, like auctions or other dealers, and be more aggressive in sourcing so that you can scale Autohero units faster? Otherwise, are we going to get any Q-on-Q improvement Autohero units next year?
So I think short answer to that is, yes, we will get Q-on-Q improvement, at least this is in our plans. But to your first question, Adam, can we reach the breakeven when the market stays the same? Yes, we can, because what you are rightfully pointing towards, we need about EUR 35 million to reduce the loss of the Q3, which is EUR 35 million.
Most of that is coming from Autohero. So the absolute majority is coming from Autohero. This is why we're so focused on unit economics in Autohero. This is why we're focused on car trading margin. This is why we're focused on internal refurbishment. This is why we're focused on the experiments that are running on the logistics. This is why we are so focused on customer service and sales cost in Autohero per unit. And on top, the marketing costs that we just discussed with Lisa. And we do not need the market to improve those unit economics because we are having that volume right now.
And to your second point, why not grow units faster in Autohero? If you -- why don't you just buy a couple of more units from C2B? Or if you can, you can just source them from third parties or somewhere else. Sourcing is absolutely not our bottleneck, so we could select more units to be sold in Autohero. So we have more in-built growth based on the strength of the C2B business. We could also source more units from remarketing, why are we not doing it?
Because for instance, one of the main drivers in Autohero unit economics is refurbishment. So we want that internal refurbishment share to grow much more versus what it is today. And if you look at the slide, we have been quite successful in ramping up that share over the course of the year, now with September being at 36%. We expect that to grow similarly fast over the next couple of quarters. And that then creates, from a refurbishment side, but then on another note, like I just said, from a marketing side, much better economics that will allow us to scale Autohero further.
So we want to bring Autohero to a GP level where it can be -- yes, where it doesn't cost us anything but the central investment that we do in technology and product and brand. So the profitability level before [indiscernible] Autohero, we want to bring that to neutral. And that's our prime effort. And that is something that we see at the moment as more important than continue to scale, because if we continue to scale fast, then we are creating pressure on the unit economics again, while that does not mean that we cannot scale Autohero big time when we have unit economics that we like.
So -- and I think this is how we want to scale and I think also how we should scale the Autohero business responsibly. And therefore, we want to continue to make progress with unit economics further before continuing to -- yes, before stepping up the gas on Autohero. Having said that, we are planning for an increased number of deliveries in Autohero, of course, for '23 over '22. But not -- it is not our main priority. Our main priority ahead of this is at the moment to bring unit economics to where we need it. And that will then also help with the overall adjusted EBITDA target in Q4.
Can I just ask you, when do you see that turning point? So how far away are we from having those logistics in place so that you can push forward on the units? And is that going to happen in 2023?
I think it depends on how we progress on Autohero unit economics. I think we've seen some good progress. You see how influential that progress can be over just 90 days. And yes, I mean, I think we are 35. I mean we don't have -- I think we will plan -- like to go into like, yes, hyper growth mode, if you want to call it like that. Again, when we see a substantial and short-term path to bring that 35 to close to 0. And I think that's the Yes, that's the condition at the moment.
And with that to Sherri Malek at RBC.
I have three. Firstly, could you comment on what you're seeing on the ASP side in October, if there's been any material changes so far? And just update your thoughts on the outlook on that going into next year versus volumes in the market?
And secondly on marketing, just I guess, a follow-up on what you were saying, Christian. Given -- I mean, I think marketing this year is going to be around EUR 200 million. How much could that be reduced next year based on what you said? And what are the cost measures apart from the refurbishment and everything you said, could we do maybe on the overhead side as well to sort of improve EBITDA further and reach the targets?
And then finally, on logistics costs, I just noticed a big step up in Q3 on a per unit basis. So what's your kind of outlook there? Is that going to continue to rise? And how can this be offset potentially in other parts of the P&L?
Yes, I think on the ASP side, we have seen Q3 to be stable and the beginning of October also stable. There is always some variance week by week, but we would not see a -- like continuous pressure now on declining ASPs for now.
Having said that, I mean it's 1/3 of the quarter past and there's 2/3 to go. Historically also, especially in December, we see seasonally lower ASPs because just the amount of customers transacting cars in December, don't ask me why, that lead to cheaper units.
On the expectation, maybe Markus for marketing next year and also potential overhead reduction, where that can lead to, maybe I'll hand this over to you.
Yes. So I think we do see, I think, further savings on the Autohero marketing going forward. We haven't provided specific guidance, but do see that, that can become much more efficient over the course of 2023. I'm trying to remember what your third question was, Sherri, apologies.
Third question was on logistics. So we've seen a big step up. This is what you said, Sherri, and it's about right. So that is pretty much what I also, I think, referred to in one of Lisa's question. So there has been pressure on logistics capacities, especially external logistics capacities, and that materializes in higher prices. But yes, we've been able to pass those prices onwards to our partner merchants because they also prefer to pay a little bit more per unit, but have those units fast.
And this is something that continues to weigh on the business, similar to commentary that you could also hear from Tesla. And we expect this to be solved slowly. But -- we have good teams working on that, creating new capacities, changing a little bit footprint of our centers, the footprint of our logistics distribution network and so on.
So we're not too worried. But obviously, if a merchant doesn't get the car fast enough, then the money is blocked, then it leads to slower turnover time, and therefore, there's waste and on demand. And that's why we have -- this -- this is, I think, also baked in into our expectations for the full year by now.
We still got quite a lot of people in the question queue, so maybe you can restrict yourself to the 2 most important questions you have. With that, on to Catherine O'Neill from Citi.
Can you hear me now?
Yes.
Yes.
Yes, so I just had a couple of questions on the merchant side more specifically. Firstly, I just wanted to understand what the factors are behind that lower merchant GPU in the 3Q while the ASP was still rising. And I guess linked to that, a bit more detail around while the ASPs in the merchant side are rising, whereas in Autohero, the ASPs seem to come down quite a bit quarter-on-quarter that is.
And then into 2023, again how should we think about the merchant GPU? I think you mentioned sort of expecting it to remain stable medium term. So should we think about that EUR 713 that we saw in the 3Q as a sort of guide, I guess, for 2023 to some degree? And what's the risk of this sort of falling such that it offsets Autohero improvement and weighs on your after profitability?
Yes, so with respect to GPU in Q3, yes, it's pretty much stable ASPs. GPU slightly reduced, so this is the result of a seasonal weakness in mid of July to August. So slightly than expected demand in that period leading to a little bit slower inventory turns, a little bit higher discount rates.
But the EUR 713 is still comfortably within the corridor that we named. Internally, we focus not only on the GPU and merchant but also on, of course, the absolute GP. So the units are also key. And here, the market is clearly under pressure as relating to what we presented.
But on expectation, Markus, I think, we're comfortable that we can achieve higher values than the EUR 713 going forward, especially given the fact that we have a number of levers that we can pull with regards to merchant GPU given our market position.
Maybe, Markus, you want to add something here?
Yes. No, I think that's right. I think there's a couple of things that were -- given our market position that I think we can pull without necessarily going into detail here. And so we feel comfortable with that going forward.
I think the other question you had, if I recall, was around the discrepancy between the Autohero ASPs slightly declining and the merchant ASPs slightly increasing. Obviously, there's a large difference between the euro values between those two. And so the Autohero side, we're -- I think through our improved inventory selection, we've -- that has led to slightly lower ASPs. We see that, that's kind of very attractive for our customers.
At the same time, I think the overall market is still in influx and seeing a lot of -- we kind of call it, I guess -- I think we talked about it even the quarter before, we continue to see this volatility around kind of merchant behavior. And I think that's what's led to that, I would say, marginal increase in the merchant ASPs.
Yes. When I think on Autohero, it's also important to note that, I mean, while ASPs have come down and our inventory stocking algorithms are leading the selection towards a little bit less ASP in that section because of optimized return speed, we are still seeing that we are able to increase GPU with that type of inventory. And also in the forecast data that we have, we're actually quite positive, first signs of that continuing to increase. And that's what we -- yes, that's what we're working towards.
So high turns, high GPUs and -- especially in Autohero, the world is not fixed at all when it comes to the relation between the GPU, the car trading margin and the ASP of a unit.
Okay. I just wanted to go back on your point on the merchant GPU that you've got some levers that you're comfortable you can reach a level back above EUR 713. Is that specifically in 4Q, we should expect that to get back to sort of the levels we've seen in the previous couple of quarters? And then again into 2023, should we expect our GPU level in merchant to be above the 3Q level we've just seen?
I don't want to provide any kind of -- I'm happy with the guidance that we've given. And so I don't want to go into sort of specific Q4 GPU levels. But I think overall, feel comfortable that it should broadly go back up over time.
With that, over to Nizla Naizer from Deutsche Bank.
Great. I hope you can hear me.
Yes.
I have a couple of questions as well. Firstly, on sort of consolidation in the market. We've seen some recent transactions such as Aramex acquiring Cazoo's Italian operations. Do you think that there are opportunities now for you to also pursue M&A as an avenue to get greater market share in Europe? Did you, for example, consider Cazoo as a potential target from your end as well?
And secondly, on customer acquisition costs, I mean this is sort of a tough macro environment. Has it been difficult for you to convert traffic? I know you mentioned this that it has actually improved, but has it been more challenging than expected? And do you also think that in this situation, it might also be better to spend a bit more on brand marketing to go after mind share given your competitors don't seem to be doing it? I'd love to get some thoughts there. Yes, those are my 2 questions.
Yes, sure. So yes, you're right. I mean there has been some consolidation happening, at least on the online dealer front, I would say, as Aramis bought Cazoo Italy. The rest of Cazoo, I think, is gone. And then we also read about [indiscernible] exiting their core market, the Netherlands, apparently also Italy. So there's also some movement there.
We looked at brumbrum before Cazoo bought it, so that is quite a while ago, and decided that it was not a fit for us. And therefore, we -- I think now it's pretty clear. I think there's us and there's Aramis. And I think these are 2 good companies, don't tell which is the one that I find better. But I think this is a pretty decent environment to operate in.
Then on the customer acquisition cost. So on Autohero, you saw that we were able to decrease it while decreasing spend, while selling way more units, while keeping brand awareness on the very high side, participating or benefiting from the investments that we did in the past. On the other hand, in C2B, there is a high -- there's just high advertising costs in general, I would say, until -- like in the environments that we're active in.
So when it comes to TV marketing, but also Google click prices and so on, I think until roughly 6 weeks ago -- 4 weeks ago, they have been on the very high end, and now we're seeing some stabilization there. But I think especially in C2B, we think about actually being a little bit more aggressive and taking also more brand awareness type of control set up there. And yes, we also think that we will benefit from this when we look at '23.
And last but not least, James Musker from Davy.
Can you hear me?
Yes.
I was just wondering if you had -- if you guys are seeing any kind of title transfer issues like Carvana were out in the States. And also just wondering what the investment in refurbishment centers looks like going forward.
Markus, you want to take the first question?
I mean the short answer is no. We haven't seen any title transfer issues like Carvana has had in the U.S. I would say that, that's -- one of our operational strengths has obviously been doing that kind of cross-border transfer for cars now since the very beginning of the company. And a big shout out to a very top-quality ops team that we have as well as a great platform that's been built around that. And so I think that hasn't been an issue for us.
I think what we can add here, even just to illustrate, James, is that -- I mean we are processing more titles than Carvana, right? I mean in the absolute terms.
Sorry, a quick follow-up on that one. Is the -- I guess, the process then, therefore, the same, if it's being sold to consumer or to a dealer then, or it's just the same process that you've been doing for years already though?
It depends on registration or e-registration. So we do register all the cars that we purchase. And then there are -- I mean there's a couple of specialties in a couple of the markets. But you can think of all cars being pretty much e-registered when they are being sold to a dealer. And then in Autohero, the customer can select if they want registration with us or if they want to go and register themselves.
Markus, on the second one?
Yes. So on the second question. So we've given specific guidance for -- through to the end of 2023. And I think the reason we specifically wanted to do that is going back to a point I think I made earlier, which is, right now, we're in this transition, if you will, from earlier this year at, I don't know, 10% in-house refurbishing to, by the end of next year, seeking to get close to or over 90% of in-house refurbishment.
So the big investments to do that really is this year and next year. So that by the end of next year, we should have significant capacity that, in a way, will always lead the growth in the units that we have. And so while we will continue to have CapEx investments post 2023, so beyond the EUR 70 million that we have now talked about through to the end of Q4 of 2023, I think they'll come down significantly as effectively they will be much more tailored towards the growth of units specifically as opposed to kind of investing ahead in this transition.
Thank you very much for dialing into the conference call. And I hope you found it helpful. And if we don't speak to you, in the meantime, have a good Christmas season, Happy New Year and we will see you at the Q4 results latest.
Thank you, everyone. Bye-bye from Berlin.
See you. Bye.