HomeToGo SE

XETRA:HTG

Earnings Call Analysis

HomeToGo Grows Revenues, Forecasts Strong '24

HomeToGo, a robust marketplace in the vacation rental industry, has displayed impressive growth, with on-site booking revenues in FY '23 surpassing total 2019 operations. Subscription and service booking revenues soared tenfold since 2019. With the HomeToGo Pro segment now contributing over 30% of group revenues, a new transparency era begins, disclosing segment profitability. The company will target booking revenues and IFRS revenue growth rates above 30% and 35%, respectively, in '24. A significant achievement includes bolstering U.S. brand presence through a cost-effective viral campaign, despite a 49% YoY decrease in Q4 '23 marketing spend. Finally, '24 guidance anticipates accelerated growth, over EUR 10 million in adjusted EBITDA (a 400% growth), and progress towards cash flow breakeven.

Achieving Financial Discipline and Growth

In a remarkable year, HomeToGo achieved its primary objective of reaching adjusted EBITDA breakeven, signifying a commitment to financial discipline and operational efficiency. The company saw a growth in subscription and service business revenue, which now represents approximately 22% of total IFRS revenues, marking a successful delivery on IPO promises.

Strategic Acquisitions and Industry Recognition

The company expanded through strategic acquisitions, including majority stakes in Kurzurlaub and Kurz-mal-weg, which are poised to add value to their Marketplace segment. Additionally, HomeToGo has made two smaller but profitable acquisitions in its HomeToGo Pro B2B software and solutions segment, aiming to enhance the traveler and host experience.

Increasing On-Site Bookings and Marketing Efficiency

The company has enjoyed a growth in on-site booking revenues, maintaining an overall on-site share of 54%, with significant growth in the European market. Marketing efficiency improved substantially, leading to increased margins and a significant reduction in cash burn.

Projected Revenue Growth and EBITDA Targets

Looking forward, HomeToGo has set ambitious targets for 2024, projecting industry-leading growth rates of at least 30% for both booking and IFRS revenues. The company expects a significant increase in adjusted EBITDA, with a forecasted growth of more than 400% year-over-year, surpassing EUR 10 million for the year.

Operational Developments and Market Trends

HomeToGo anticipates an increase in average basket size and ADR (average daily rate), with a decrease in length of stay, continuing positive trends from the previous year. The company sees steady performance across Europe and North America and highlights the importance of repeat business.

Capital Expenditure and Investment in Growth

The company has seen a capital expenditure increase, primarily in software development. For 2024, HomeToGo plans to maintain the same level of investment, reinforcing its focus on growth and innovation.

Outlook on Free Cash Flow and Profitability

While HomeToGo has not yet reached free cash flow breakeven, the company is making headway, as indicated by a decrease in free cash flow loss. The goal is to maintain or improve upon the profitability achieved in 2023 as the baseline standard.

Earnings Call Transcript 2023-Q4

[Operator]

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Full Year 2023 and Q4 2023 Earnings Conference Call. I am George, the Chorus Call operator. I would like to remind you that all participants will be listen-only mode and the conference is being recorded. The presentation will be followed by a Q&A session. [Operator Instructions]. At this time, it's my pleasure to hand over to Sebastian Grabert. Please go ahead, sir.

[Sebastian Grabert, executive]

Thank you, George, and good morning, dear analysts and investors, and welcome to HomeToGo's Fourth Quarter 2023 Earnings Call. My name is Sebastian Grabert, Director of Investor Relations and Corporate Finance. With me today is our Co-Founder and CEO, Patrick Andrae; and our CFO, Steffen Schneider, who will present our financial highlights of the full year and fourth quarter of 2023. As always, this call is being recorded and will be made available later today on our Investor Relations website. With this, I would like to hand it over to you, Patrick. Please go ahead, the floor is yours.

[Patrick Andrae, executive]

Thank you, Sebastian. The analysts, the investors, I'm thrilled to welcome you today as we celebrate a significant milestone in our journey. 2024 marks the 10th anniversary of HomeToGo. So today, we reflect on the remarkable progress we have made over the past decade. When we started this journey 10 years ago, we established a clear vision to make incredible homes easily accessible to everyone. Since then, we have delivered progress towards that vision every day. What started as a meta search for vacation rentals has grown to advance enabled marketplace with the largest selection of vacation rentals. And by doing so, we are also proud that we built all of this as a European technology company, revolutionizing the vacation rental industry from Europe. This all was for sure only possible with great backing, and that is why we want to express our deepest gratitude to our team, partners, travelers, and of course, our shareholders, whose unwavering support and belief in our vision have been instrumental in our success. Your trust in us has fueled our growth and empowered us to push boundaries, explore new horizons, and set new standards in the vacation rental industry. So with your continued support and partnership, we are confident that the next decade can be even a greater success. As we turn in 10 years old, that does not stop us from reinventing ourselves. It only propels us forward to the next opportunity. Technology has transformed the way people find and book a commendation for the vacation. Over the past decade, our platform has evolved significantly, pioneering innovative technologies and adapting to new and changing travel behaviors. We founded HomeToGo to bring order into a huge fragmented and largely unprofessional market. And machine learning has been an instrumental part of that since the early days of the company. The recent new advancements to the AI, we could bring the space to an entirely new level of traveler experience in terms of advanced personalization. And as you know, we've already started with launching dedicated new AI features like our AI mode. So looking ahead, our dedication to innovation will continue with our product vision for the accountable marketplace to make it fully AI-powered. Our already today industry-leading position in AI will further delight and attract lower customers, translating into even more repeat demand on our marketplace platform, as well as unlock new solutions for our newly introduced B2B software and service segment, HomeToGo Pro. In the next decade and beyond, we remain committed to pushing the boundaries of technology, expanding our reach and enhancing the experience of our customers for both travelers and our partners. Now, let's have a look back at the full year '23, as well as into our goals for '24 and beyond. If you look even closer at the past 5 years, you see a strong growth momentum. Pandemic was a catalyst of change globally, particularly in the accommodation industry where vacation rentals became mainstream. In direct comparison with our closest peers, we have been outgrowing other global players significantly in terms of IFRS revenues, especially when compared to the pre-corona era. In the past decade, we have emerged as a clear challenger with distinguished USPs, for example, offering software solutions to the supply side in a market characterized by best growth opportunities. Our full year 2013 results demonstrate clear achievements on the two key goals we established when we went public in '21. First, we successfully achieved our #1 priority of reaching adjusted EBITDA breakeven. This not only demonstrates our commitment to financial discipline, but also to operational efficiency. Through the strategic cost management, revenue optimization, and prudent investment decisions, we have not only met but exceeded our adjusted EBITDA targets. This again showcases our ability to drive sustainable profitability and value for our stakeholders and shareholders. And secondly, as promised our subscription and service business has experienced remarkable growth, accounting now for around 22% of HomeToGo Group's total IFRS revenues, and thus surpassing the 20% revenue threshold as outlined in our IPO commitments. By diversifying our revenue streams, adding and fostering profitable players into HomeToGo Group and positioning HomeToGo as the operating system in the industry, we have unlocked new opportunities for revenue generation and enhance our overall business resilience. This achievement underscores our strategic posit and ability to adapt to evolving market dynamics, positioning us for long-term success and growth. If you look a little bit more into the details, there are two key success factors that contribute to the milestone of reaching adjusted EBITDA breakeven. One of the cornerstones of our profitability success has been the cultivation of a loyal and engaged customer base that drives rapidly growing repeat demand for the marketplace. Notably, from '22 to '23, we have grown booking revenues from repeat customers by around 50%. It's an 8x growth globally since 2019 and in our core region, thus even at 13x growth. By delivering an exceptional experience for travelers, including an award-winning customer service, we have fostered strong relationships with our customers, encouraging them to return to HomeToGo over and over again. On top, we also see positively brand and organic traffic as a whole, overtaking more and more paid traffic. For example, for the full year of '23, our core market does, for example, not only more than 50% of our traffic, but also more than 50% of our booking revenues was from brand and organic sources. As you know, another key driver of our profitability uplift is our relentless focus on enhancing marketing efficiency. Through data-driven insights, AI-Powered targeted campaigns, and efficiency optimized strategies, we have been able to maximize the impact of our marketing efforts, reaching the right audience at the right time with the right message. By continuously refining our marketing tactics and embracing innovative approaches, we have been able to improve our marketing efficiency by 17 percentage points year-over-year. On top of profitability achievements, '23 brought key strategic wins to HomeToGo. One of the standout accomplishments of the year has been our product launches of mods, an innovative new line of curated search experiences with the first moat being our AI mode. This cutting-edge feature harnesses the power of generated AI to deliver personalized recommendations, enhance user experience, and streamline our booking process for our booking customers. By integrating our own developed AI conversational interface to our marketplace, we have not only differentiated ourselves in the market as the first vacation rental player to launch an AI product, but also provide our customers with an entirely convenience and efficiency. Another milestone achievement was the successful majority acquisition of Kurzurlaub and Kurz-mal-weg, which we signed in December of last year and closed shortly after in January of this year to add these leading brands in the thematic travel for short tops category to our Marketplace segment. You might have seen in the subsequent events in our annual report that we have made two additional but significantly smaller acquisitions in our new HomeToGo Pro B2B software and solutions Software and Service Solutions segment. Both of these additional acquisitions are profitable as aligned with our M&A strategy and will enable and value enhanced experience for travelers as well as hosts. We will integrate them into our HomeToGo Pro segment, and develop them further in order to realize their full potential. This potential might be for sure enhanced by further additions. As usual, we will update you in the future on any further developments. And lastly, a prominent topic in achievement, our ongoing commitment to foster a more sustainable travel industry. In 2023, we are proud to have achieved an industry-leading low-risk ESG rating where the renown ESG rating agency Morningstar Sustainalytics. Our ESG rating places us in the top 10% of the global intelligence software service industry, and additionally, well ahead of other larger market players in terms of ESG practices such as Airbnb, Booking.com or Expedia. As a multifaceted marketplace, we are dedicated to building a platform that can enable and empower both our travelers and partners to make better choices for the environment. This rating accomplishment is also a testament to our team's hard work in integrating sustainable practices into every part of our business. Looking at our team's efforts in relation to the outstanding experience we provide to our customers in the marketplace, we are extremely proud to share that our experience is ranked top in the industry and worldwide. For instance, we won the Newsweek awards for America's Best Customer Service 2024, and the German Institute for Service Quality Award for Best Customer Service in the vacation rental space. And on top of that, our leading product and service experience also led us to be ranked by Handelsblatt, the big German newspaper as the #2 vacation rental brand in Germany with 4 HomeToGo group brands in the top 6 overall.In addition to these operational wins, our core business, the HomeToGo marketplace had an immense growth throughout the years as we expertly match supply and demand globally. Our on-site booking revenues in financial year '23 alone have exceeded the scale of our entire business operation in 2019 pre-Corona. This is a tremendous progress and expansion that we have undergone in our key strategic business line. and is characterized by highly attractive CPA take rate, and showcase our ability to capture market share, drive revenue growth, and deliver value to our partners. Alongside this outstanding development of subscription and service booking, revenues have grown tenfold versus 2019. We have successfully transformed our company to also be a leading software and service solutions player in the vacation rental industry. So looking ahead to '24 and as announced at our Capital Markets Day, going forward, our B2B business will be allocated towards our new HomeToGo Pro segment reporting, which already represented more than 30% of group's total IFRS and booking revenues in '23. Just as a short reminder, HomeToGo Pro is our new B2B brand and business segment with professional software and service solutions, including subscription for hosts, property managers, and other travel industry players like TUI, for example. The business unit has a special focus on Software-as-a-Service for the supply side. As already announced, we also continue to invest in new solutions in M&A, while also continuing to build them ourselves. So an example for this, as we are alongside the introduction of the new segment, we have also recently announced HomeToGo Doppelganger, a suite of solutions to utilize HomeToGo core platform technology and to distribute our inventory to third parties. The major advantage for you as the financial community is the higher transparency level, which counts along the new segment reporting. Starting from quarter 1 this year, we will besides booking revenues and IFRS revenues, also disclose the respective profitability for the HomeToGo marketplace as well as the new HomeToGo Pro segment. Before I hand over to Steffen, let me take you through the financials -- take you through the financials. Let me share a few of the achievements reached thus far in '24. We were proud to have HomeToGo as a team and a shiny twilight purple booth amidst every other significant trade player in the industry at ITB Berlin. Our home turf and the world's largest trade far in the travel industry. It was another incredible year connecting with so many of our key partners and discussing the main topics shaping our industry. And we truly put HomeToGo on the map at ITB. One of the biggest topics on everyone's mind, technology trends shaping the industry, including artificial intelligence. It was an honor for me personally to host the keynote on how HomeToGo was leveraging AI to reshape travel search and bookings. Thus two of our outstanding female leaders share their vision on how HomeToGo is pioneering technology and AI in the industry. Looking at the brand side and the unique ways we are capturing awareness, it is my pleasure to share with you the excellent outcome of a viral brand campaign we recently launched in partnership with the iconic U.S. brand, Eggo. Eggo is part of the multinational U.S. listed company, Kellanova, formerly also known as Kellogg's, which we know in Germany for their beloved cereal brand. Due the strategic plan of creativity, innovation and authenticity, we crafted a campaign to launch an experimental rental, the Eggo House of Pancakes, exclusively available on HomeToGo. This rental resonated deeply with our audience and ignited a spark that directly turned into a blazing fire of media coverage, transcending our wildest expectations. From local to national mainstream news outlets and even accolades from two notable late night TV host, we have counted more than 750 pieces of press coverage for this campaign. And this has translated into a major boost of our U.S. brand, where the brand traffic had hit new record levels during the week of the launch, far above those from past TV campaigns despite 0 spend on additional overheads. This is a testament not only to the extent cost-effective way we are spearheading brand innovations in our emerging markets, but showcases also the impact of this viral campaign go beyond mere numbers and metrics. It has reinforced our brand position as a trade resin industry and afford to be recognized with on U.S. ground. And lastly, taking a look at how '24 has started from a number of perspectives. Despite a competitive start to the year, our booking revenues have sourced to an unprecedented height, significantly surpassing the figures of previous years. As you can see on this slide on the left-hand side. This is especially remarkable given the substantially lower marketing investments we made during quarter 4 '23, which decreased by 49% year-over-year. And despite this reduced paid traffic, we were still able to increase the booking revenue backlog as of the beginning of January. This includes a positive organic growth year-over-year, as well as the organic growth from the acquisitions we have closed over the course of January '24. I would like to now conclude with our guidance for the full year '24, which we have introduced today. As already mentioned during the Capital Markets Day in December, we are aiming for substantially accelerated top line growth and further improved profitability during full year '24. In terms of booking revenues, we see growth rates of more than 30%, and for IFRS revenues even exceeding 35% year-over-year for the financial year '24. So to make the clear again, for the first time in our history, we are targeting booking revenues of both EUR 0.25 billion in 1 year. For adjusted EBITDA, we see a strong acceleration and expect to achieve more than EUR 10 million in the full year '24, which translates into a growth rate of more than 400% year-over-year. And with that, I would like to hand over to Steffen, our CFO, for a closer look at our financials. Thank you.

[Steffen Schneider, executive]

Thank you, Patrick. Good morning, and thank you for joining us today. Allow me to summarize our key financial highlights for the financial year 2023. First, -- and let me emphasize this again, we reached our #1 priority for the full year 2023 by reaching adjusted EBITDA breakeven. The more than EUR 22 million of improvement in profitability is a testimonial for the hard work each and every person at HomeToGo is delivering every day. On the top line, we ended up at the upper end of our IFRS revenue guidance. Second, we recorded a record booking revenues backlog of more than EUR 37 million at the beginning of the year, and therefore, are laying our strong foundation of our targeted accelerated growth during the course of 2024. Third, as Patrick just showed on our newly introduced outlook, we aim for an even higher targets in 2024, both top and bottom line. We target industry-leading double-digit growth rates, both for booking revenues as well as IFRS revenues, and aim for at least a strong improvement of adjusted EBITDA. This accelerated performance paves the way for our next big milestone, achieving free cash flow breakeven. And fourth, we still possess a significant cash amount in our book by the end of the year of more than EUR 140 million gross cash. Please bear in mind that we closed acquisitions in the beginning of the year. So this figure will be lower by the end of Q1 2024. Looking at the key financials of '23 in the fourth quarter. Summarizing the entire slide in one sentence, we increased our revenues while simultaneously significantly improving margins and cutting our cash burn by more than half for the full year. I more detail, in the financial year '23, booking revenues grew by 16% year-over-year to more than EUR 190 million. The primary driver of this favorable development was the strong CPA offsite business. In the fourth quarter, booking revenues came in 7% lower than in the previous year period and amounted to EUR 29.3 million. This reduction was also based on opportunistically steering our business towards our overachieving profitability goal, achieving adjusted EBITDA breakeven for the full year. IFRS revenues grew robustly by 10% year-over-year in EUR23 million to EUR 162 million. This was predominantly driven by strong growth in the CBA offsite business, as well as the subscription and services business, both growing close to 50% each year-over-year. The fourth quarter was even stronger by growing 14% compared to the previous year period. In terms of profitability, we were able to improve adjusted EBITDA by more than EUR 22 million in 1 year, and stood at EUR 1.8 million at the end of '23. Corresponding adjusted EBITDA margin improved significantly by more than 15 percentage points year-over-year. Even more impressive was our Q4 improvement by more than 65 percentage points in adjusted EBITDA margin. This clearly shows the payoff of our stringent profitability focus during the entire year '23, combined with the strength of fast-growing repeat business. As we reach the breakeven on an adjusted EBITDA -- on an adjusted EBITDA level, I would like to put the focus more on cash generation by showing you our free cash flow improvement. What I really want to point out here is that we were able to cut our cash burn drastically during '23 and reduced our cash need by more than EUR 20 million compared to the previous year period. In Q4, we even experienced a positive swing of EUR 11 million in free cash flow generation. This makes me confident to pave the way for free cash flow breakeven in the near future. You will be already familiar with this slide from our Capital Markets Day back in December. It shows the different key drivers of our EBITDA improvement during 2023. Based on our audited figures, the effects can be approximated by the different buckets you see on the slide. We have another EUR 3 million positive impact as we have capitalized a bit more software development than in 2022. However, still a relatively low capitalization rate compared to similar German tech companies. Biggest impact comes from increased marketing efficiency, realizing an improvement of roughly EUR 18 million. This substantial amount stems from a higher share of repeat customers, more subscription and services revenue with the higher profitability, and in general, a better contribution margin property. Finally, we recorded various other effects, including economies of scale amounting in total to roughly EUR 2 million. Let's take a closer look at the top line. Here, we provide the traditional breakdown of our booking and IFRS revenues across 3 last financial years. Booking revenues increased by 16% compared to the previous year, and IFRS revenues are up 10% year-over-year. Needless to say, both absolute figures represent new all-time highs in HomeToGo history. You can also clearly see the excellent development of our subscription and services business over the recent years with the stellar IFRS revenues CAGR of 100% over the past 2 years, and representing today more than 1/5 of our group's IFRS revenues. Our CPA offsite business performed especially well, with growth rates beyond the 40% threshold for both booking revenues and IFRS revenues, while CPC declined compared to last year. For some context on our on-site business and regional booking revenues distribution. From 2019 to 2022, we have seen a steady increase in our on-site share. In 2023, we produced an all-time high on-site booking revenue figure of more than EUR 81 million, an increase of 6% year-over-year. The DACH region, our most advanced market now has an on-site share of 82% with the rest of Europe catching up as we increase the respective on-site share by 7 percentage points year-over-year. The regional booking revenue split. At the bottom of the slide demonstrates the continued growth momentum of our North American business. The relative booking revenue shares increased by an impressive 8 percentage points year-over-year, now amounting to more than 1/4 of the HomeToGo Group's total booking revenues. I note that this is, of course, excluding booking revenues from subscription and services. Now, let's take a closer look on our on-site business on Page 23. Overall booking revenues on-site share for the group remains constant at the 2022 record level of 54%. The European on-site share increased by 5 percentage points to 69% compared to 2022. The North American on-site care decreased by 6 percentage points year-over-year. This decrease was intentionally driven as we continue to opportunistically steer our business in the most profitable way. Nevertheless, the absolute amount of on-site business increased in our North American business as well. When we now look at the take rate, the CPA take rate increased year-over-year from 9.6% in '22 to 10.9% in '23, a substantial increase of 1.3 percentage points, resulting in a new high in HomeToGo history.The increase in CPA take rate was fueled by negotiation higher take rates of new partners as well as increasing take rates of existing partners, underlining the competition between partners for traffic and bookings. The overall basket size in 2023 remained stable compared to the previous year period. While the ADR increased by more than 8% year-over-year, the length of stay was shorter than in the prior year. This was mainly driven by a higher share of U.S. business, which traditionally has higher ADRs and shorter length of stay. In Europe, the basket size increased in the same period due to higher ADRs, while the length of stay stayed at almost the same as last year. We now look at the development in our cost ratios that drove group level profitability in relation to IFRS. Gross profit margin improved by 1 percentage point in 2023 year-over-year, now standing at 97.4%. The main reason for the improvement are our investments into cost reductions for our server hosting infrastructure. Most notably is the substantial improvement in the marketing and sales cost ratio by 15.1 percentage points year-over-year, largely benefiting from continued improvement in our marketing efficiency alongside ongoing growth in repeat demand. To recall the slide of our key profitability drivers, the favorable development of our marketing efficiency was the leading contributor in achieving adjusted EBITDA breakeven in 2023. With respect to our product development cost margin, they increased by 2.7 percentage points is due to higher personnel expense on HomeToGo group product development team as well as higher license fees resulting from the growing underlying business. The decrease in G&A expense ratio by 2.6 percentage points year-over-year can be mainly attributed to lower consulting expenses as more work was done in-house during the course of 2023. Finally, and as mentioned before, overall profitability in terms of adjusted EBITDA margin improved substantially by 15 percentage points on an annual level, and even 65.4 percentage points on a quarterly level compared to the previous year period, respectively. As always, we adjust the cost for expenses for share-based compensation, depreciation, amortization and other one-off items in order to carve out the operational performance of our business and arrive at the adjusted EBITDA. Another slide, you might recall from our Capital Markets Day is the transition from adjusted EBITDA to free cash flow. As you can see here, we are not there yet, printing money. However, we are also not too far away. We have 5 relevant buckets, inter-year working capital requirements, CapEx, one-off items and other adjustments. Interest income and tax. The numbers you see on the slide are actual numbers for the financial year 2023. The current sum of EUR 19 million for the full year gives you an idea of the order of magnitude we look at. Looking at our cash position on Slide 27. We continue to have a very strong balance sheet with gross cash of EUR 140 million. This includes the investment of EUR 31 million into our known money market fund. Deducting interest-bearing debt of EUR 4.5 million and restricted cash of EUR 0.5 million brings our net cash position at the end of December '23 to EUR 135 million. Overall, our cash position increased by EUR 4 million during the fourth quarter of '23. The positive operating cash flow is the result of the cash conversion of accounts receivable originated in the third quarter '23. Additionally, trade receivables decreased by EUR 1 million year-over-year and now stands at EUR 13.5 million. The majority of this amount will be converted into cash in the first quarter of 24%. Cash flow from investing activities amounted to EUR 12.9 million. The cash flow from financing activities amounted to minus EUR 5.6 million, and includes repayment of borrowings. As announced in September, we decided to deploy part of our excess cash and use the opportunity of the current share price level to start our share buyback program. Overall, we were able to buy back more than EUR 700,000 since the start of the program. In order to complement our existing stock exchange share buyback program and increased its impact without expanding the overall size of repurchases, we intend to launch a public share tender offer. Of course, this is subject to final approval of the Supervisory Board. The volume of the public share tender offer would be counted towards the volume of the ongoing share buyback program. More details to be announced in due course following the final board approval. Before I close, let's look again at our outlook. In line with the soft announcement we made during the last Capital Markets Day, I would like to emphasize our ambitions to achieve industry-leading growth rates and simultaneously further improve our profitability substantially and in a sustainable session. This translates into growth rates of at least 30% for both booking revenues as well as IFRS revenues, and a significant increase of the adjusted EBITDA in 2024 compared to the financial year 2023. And with that, I thank you for your attention today. We will now open the floor for your questions.

[Operator]

We will now begin the question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions]. Our first question comes from Benjamin Kohnke with Stifel.

[Benjamin Kohnke, analyst]

Yes, good morning, gentlemen. I hope you can hear me. All right. Let me maybe start with one on the take rate. So a little puzzled to see the take rate expanding by 1.3%, given that the offset bookings obviously outperformed quite significantly. So maybe you can elaborate a little bit on that one. And maybe staying on the topic of offsite, the performance was obviously quite impressive. And I presume that's still predominantly the U.S. And then at the same time, if I recall what you said in the past, obviously, one of the main goal should be to also drive the on-site share in North America. And I was just wondering if you could talk a little bit more about the initiatives you're taking there to make that happen. And maybe lastly, on the use of cash now. It's firstly, great to see that you plan to launch the tender offer. I think that's a good decision. But just wondering what's next, right? So how do you currently think about balancing the use of cash with regard to share buybacks versus M&A? And maybe related to this -- to the extent you can. Do you actually expect that you can use own shares in any sort of potential future transaction? Thank you.

[Patrick Andrae, executive]

Thank you for your questions. Patrick here. I will take the first 2 questions, and then I hand over to Steffen here. So obviously, in the first place, we are very happy to see that we can expand take rates even in that environment. Obviously. One of the reasons is obviously that with increased on-site share on the platform, we also see competitive kind of pressure on offsite partners to get more -- basically get more share on the site. So that means also that we see from offsite partners increasing commercials for the marketplace, right? So that basically answers besides the fact that anyway, like also within on-site, as you know from our past like calls, the latest inventory we basically signed is usually higher than our average in the take rate. So these combined effects lead to the fact that we can still increase our take rate, on that side. And combined with that question, right? So obviously, on one hand, on-site share is a measure that we look into strategically, but on the other side, we for sure look at what makes most sense from a ranking perspective on our platform to drive the traffic to. And if someone paid more, they get more traffic, right? And this is also like in regards to offsite. And especially if you see like the mix, as you already pointed out, as U.S. is a traditional lower on-site share market that we are obviously working on. But that also leads to an overall, like you could say like same levels of on-site share overall. Whereas if you look at DACH, we even improved year-over-year by 3 percentage points already coming from a very high like status. And on top, also for the U.S., despite the fact that the share went slightly down, the absolute amount went up in terms of booking revenues that we created on-site. So I think it points into the right direction. But for sure, we are having a ranking algorithm that takes everything into account from a commercial perspective. And so it also includes this. Does it answer your question?

[Benjamin Kohnke, analyst]

Yes. Thanks, Patrick.

[Steffen Schneider, executive]

Hi, Ben. Steffen on the M&A or the tender offer. The shares we buy back, we can use also for future acquisitions. And in general, when we look at the use of cash, we continue to look at attractive M&A opportunities. So basically, opportunities which support the growth of the company as well as the profitability of the company, and has attractive opportunities arise, we will go for them. But at this current level of the share price, we also saw an opportunity to expedite our buyback with a tender offer.

[Benjamin Kohnke, analyst]

Okay. Thanks, Steffen.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from Bharath Nagaraj with Cantor.

[Bharath Nagaraj, analyst]

Hi, good morning. Congrats on the results. I have two questions, please. The first one, what has been, let's say, your ROI for a lack of better term on your AI travel assistant. Has it led to increased bookings, retention, et cetera? And given peers are now, I think, rolled out similar kind of travel assistance, how do you plan to keep the differentiation in the future? And second question, what are your property manager partners seeing about an increased focus by some peers to work with them in the DACH region. Any comments on what they like about you versus peers. Thanks.

[Patrick Andrae, executive]

Yeah, thanks for the great questions. Patrick here. I will answer them both. So like on the AI mode, obviously, we launched it first, which also gives us an advantage in working further on that, yes. And I think like we are very proud that we have been approached throughout the industry by various players that looked at different solutions and said, we are definitely one of the best that they have seen. So I think this we take as a compliment that we like to take. But the AI model is obviously only like one aspect of AI, right? So as pointed out, we worked with machine learning for a long time. The new AI models help us also like the features that were run already on machine learning to increase the usability and increase the user experience with these features like getting better and understanding descriptions or reviews and pictures, what we all did in the past already. But now you also see these kind of integrated features like we have with the AI summary for reviews or AI summaries for descriptions that we can even personalize to your search behavior.So for instance, if you search for a pool, maybe the review summary is highlighting what is about the pool and so on and so on. So we keep working on these topics. And for me, this is a differentiation where you can see basically, we could say also, this is just a HomeToGo summary or we call it HomeToGo AI summary. Anyway, it's powered by AI, but we can decide if it's visible or invisible to the customer like we did it before. I had a long talk about this at the ITB, and I think there's a lot more to come around that. And we shouldn't limit it to attach functionality in the third place. What we see though is for these features, like AI review summaries and so on that we have increased user engagement, and it looks good for us. And secondly, on the AI mode for sure, we see that people are really like looking earlier in the search funnel into it, whereas prior, obviously, was using the search box, people usually were like already knowing about destination. So we have a different kind of earlier user engagement with this product. But as a vision for how we envision AI mode to evolute further and also stay ahead of the curve is what we are currently testing. So we started with the AI mode being a search system. We are currently testing to also that it assists you as a travel assistance during booking. And the idea is in the end that it will be not only for search and booking but also after the booking of travel assistant or concierge for your whole like experience with the HomeToGo marketplace. From finding maybe even the right destination, the right property to booking it, to staying in it. And that's what we will keep also working on. So that's on that side. I hope that answers the AI question. Then I would turn to the property manager question.

[Bharath Nagaraj, analyst]

Yes. No, absolutely it does. But just if I may just follow up on that very quickly. Am I thinking right in saying that given your advantage in processing unstructured kind of data that comes from thousands of vacation rentals out there, millions of vacation rentals out there. AI would actually be able to work better on that data compared to, let's say, a peer who doesn't do that, like the processing of the -- is there any advantage there at all? Is what I'm trying to understand.

[Patrick Andrae, executive]

Yes, yes. The advantage is that we had to cope. So that's the main reason we founded HomeToGo in the first place, right, like to bring the order into a super fragmented market that is, to a certain extent, also unprofessional. And one topic you have to solve is, like you said, right, bring order into all the data that is there and make it consistent on the platform. And that's what we did already in the past before the high train of AI with ChatGPT started. You saw that machine learning -- we used already machine learning to understand all of this and try to, for instance, make sure that the first picture is not of a bathroom or a toilet, because we understand what's on the picture. We also understood what was for deduplicating if it's the same property, also by picture matching, but also by other topics that we looked into to deduplicate this inventory on our platform, increase the visibility, what we call beautification of images, right, like to make also, not only sure that we would not have a too dark or too bright photo accommodation, but also increased consistency on the platform. We already understood with natural language processing, descriptions and did all of these things. And the nice thing is we all did that behind the scene with machine learning/AI, and now with the new models, we can look in every of the secure platform that we built with being agnostic on the LLM that we use to enhance any of these features with new models, and maybe not even visible to the customer. You would only see that if you would compare side, it runs without it and one with it, right? So that's what we have been already doing. And so we are very, very, very proud to work further into that direction.

[Bharath Nagaraj, analyst]

Makes sense. Thank you.

[Patrick Andrae, executive]

And to your second question on the property manager side, yes. So what we see is that property managers like to work with us. As you know, we usually have highest basket size in the market, which comes from highest average length of stay. They like our customer group, maybe being not like generally party people that come to the inventory. And we have usually lower cancellation rates than other platforms, and not people that want high maintenance in terms of -- from the host. Like want to be a friend with a host like you might see in other platforms. So that's all what comes as a very positive sign for us, especially from the professional property management side, but also from smaller hosts.

[Bharath Nagaraj, analyst]

Understood. Thank you. One small follow-up, if I may, on the firepower for future acquisitions. I think historically, Steffen, I think you said $45 million or more. I know you have $140 million of gross cash, but is the firepower for M&A around $45 million, $50 million still? Or has that changed a bit?

[Steffen Schneider, executive]

So let's say, our general firepower, as outlined in the Capital Markets Day, that is still the case. So that hasn't really changed except, of course, for the acquisitions we have made. So as mentioned, there will be cash outflow in Q1. So expect Q1 '24 cash number to be lower.

[Bharath Nagaraj, analyst]

Okay. Thank you.

[Operator]

The next question comes from Silvia Cuneo with Deutsche Bank.

[Silvia Cuneo, analyst]

Thanks. Good morning, everyone. Also, a couple of questions from my side. The first is on the guidance for 2024. Can you comment about your assumptions or expectations for booking trends from a macro perspective? Just wondering what you have assumed in terms of demand for travel and maybe booking prices and length of stay, just at a high level to understand the health of the market going into 2024? And then the second question is on North America is on a strong performance and increased share within the group. I was wondering if you could tell us anything in terms of what type of customers you think you are attracting there? Is it customers that are also using other platforms that compete with you in the U.S.? Or do you think you are targeting towards possible new users? Thank you.

[Steffen Schneider, executive]

Hi, Silvia. I'll take the first question. Patrick will answer the second question. So to sum it up, very easy. We don't expect major differences. So the kind of mix we have seen changing in '23 was really driven by the overall mix by having a higher share of North America, in particular U.S. business. So if that share continues to go up, then I would expect that our average basket size will go up, the ADR will go up, and the length of stay will go down. But if you just look within the market, so North America itself, we don't expect any change. And the similar thing for Europe, we don't expect any change in Europe. We were also ahead of this call looking at what do we see for the first almost 3 months now, and that basically is confirming what I just said. So it's just really -- it continues to work out well. And we are getting the repeat business, et cetera. What we might have some impact is, of course, coming from -- coming from the acquisition of the short trip business. Just by the nature of their business, their length of stay is significantly shorter than ours. But I assume we will highlight that in the Q1 earnings call then.

[Patrick Andrae, executive]

Good. If you don't have a follow-up question, I would answer your second question around U.S. customer behavior and what we see in the U.S. Unfortunately, people use other platforms in the U.S. as well, yes. As you might see in earnings calls of Airbnb and others with a high percentage in the U.S. But we are making our strides there. As you can see that our share increases while our overall business goes up. And so you see that North America awards and will be a growth market for us. We see, especially for sure, like us being targets on classical vacation rentals that we are -- for vacation rents probably platform #3 or 4 in the U.S. already today. So we need to see where this will further go. As you can see, also with the likes of the Eggo campaign that we did in the U.S., which was a big success. We are also focusing on the U.S. on these kind of creative brand campaigns because we obviously won't spend like EUR 100 million, EUR 200 million on brand marketing in the U.S., as you can see from our guidance. And this is what we will continue. Also on the supply side, we have some nice topics we are looking into, and this is how we will continue with the U.S.

[Silvia Cuneo, analyst]

Okay. Understood. Thank you.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from Christian Salis with Hauck Aufhäuser.

[Christian Salis, analyst]

Hey, guys, good morning, everyone. I've got three questions, please. The first one is on -- you mean -- on current trading, you mentioned a strong start to the year. Could you maybe provide a little bit more color whether this was again driven particularly by the North American market? Or is it a little bit more balanced compared to last year? Second question is on your CapEx figure, which has almost doubled year-over-year in 2023. So yes, could you talk a little bit about that, and also what we should expect in terms of capitalized software in 2024, please? And then finally, on your EBITDA guidance and the moving parts. So I think at midpoint, your EBITDA margin guidance implies some 300 to 350 basis points improvement year-over-year. So how much of this improvement is coming from better marketing efficiency? How much is coming from operating leverage, on fixed costs. And finally, how much is coming from strong growth in your subscription and services business, please? Thank you.

[Steffen Schneider, executive]

Hi, Christian. Thanks for the question. So current trading is more balanced this year. I've said that before. The first 2 weeks into the year were a bit rough. But since then, the business has nicely caught up and is now in a very good shape. As you have seen on the slide where we show the booking revenues, and that's the case for, let's say, the organic growth as well as including the acquisitions. So from that point of view, we are very happy with the development into the year. With regards to CapEx, yes, I highlighted that, that we had EUR 3 million more capitalized R&D that was software development, where we see future opportunities. That's why we have capitalized it. For 2024, you can expect an amount which is roughly the same as this year, maybe some slight growth, but not a significant deviation from the 2023 numbers. And with regards to the EBITDA guidance and the improvement there. Think about it like as we mentioned during the Capital Markets Day, where we said for the organic business, we see the 2023 profitability as the floor. We don't want to fall below, and want to use the additional profitability we would generate from a higher share of repeat business from a higher share of subscription and services or HomeToGo Pro, now going forward, and want to reinvest that into growth. That is what we are doing. Nevertheless, of course, there's also some improvement left in profitability. And then the delta to the more than EUR 10 million guidance is coming from the acquisition.

[Christian Salis, analyst]

Thank you.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions]. Our next question comes from Wolfgang Specht with Berenberg.

[Wolfgang Specht, analyst]

Yes. Hello, good morning. Three additional ones from my side. First, probably for Steffen, a quick one on free cash flow breakeven. You faced it near future today. So do we still talk about, let's say, 2025, like CMD? Or could it also be, let's say, 3 to 4 years if you're making a push somewhere else and sacrifice some free cash flow? Then a second one, probably rather for Patrick. On the U.S. business, how should we look at the path to profitability here? How do you want to steer the unit, let's say, over the next 1 to 2 years? And then last one also probably for Patrick. On the wider market, have you noticed any changes in competitors' behavior recently or the respective strategy that might interfere into your plans or, let's say, are booking Berber, and the others are, let's say, just continuing as they did before?

[Steffen Schneider, executive]

Hi, Wolfgang. So I'll start with the first one. When you look at the slide where we show the -- how to get from adjusted EBITDA to free cash flow, we had EUR 19 million, of which EUR 7 million were coming from working capital, which was basically accounts payable being lower by the end of '23 than by the end of '22. But in general, if we look from December to December, there should not be much impact of working capital. So if I just for the moment, deduct the EUR 7 million from the EUR 19 million, I would come to EUR 12 million. And if you then see the EBITDA -- adjusted EBITDA, guidance of more than EUR 10 million, you get an idea that we are already getting pretty close to it. However, we, on purpose, didn't guide on reaching EBITDA -- free cash flow breakeven in 2024, because in Q4 2023, we saw a lot of opportunities, and we had to be very disciplined due to our adjusted EBITDA breakeven guidance. And if we look now into Q4 2024, and we see opportunities for generating, booking revenues at attractive margins, which would then help us in 2025 to make the next big step, then we want to have that flexibility. However, if we see an opportunity to already reach free cash flow breakeven in '24, we will go for it. Otherwise, 2025, as mentioned at the CMD is the goal.

[Wolfgang Specht, analyst]

Thank a lot.

[Patrick Andrae, executive]

Yes. And I will shortly take your 2 other questions. So for the U.S. profitability. So overall, we for sure look also in terms of the marketplace, and you will see that in terms of the segment reporting in the future, how this can turn profitable, yes. And obviously, as you know, so there are various reasons, and especially around marketing efficiency that play into this dysfunction. So like you will see through -- throughout the year how we will look into like the marketplace. And one part of it is obviously on the U.S., around the U.S. business. Thus, as you know, with a higher amount of free traffic driven by retention. Obviously, you have a higher likelihood of being profitable. But we will, for sure, aim overall over our businesses to have a certain kind of marketing efficiency. And with that spend where it makes sense. And for the U.S., as you know, we are also focusing strategically on some ideas where we might push. But in general, I expect the marketplace to also be EBITDA positive or adjusted EBITDA positive. And the second question impacting our clients and customers, as I said prior, right, like -- so usually, our, I would say, customers on the supply side are very happy with HomeToGo, especially compared to other platforms, as we give them -- not only give them you could say, better customers or customers that are not like so high maintenance, but also giving them like a customer group that they can work better with and that they really like in terms of how we also treat them and not limiting them, for instance, too much in cancellation policies or other topics around where other platforms might push supply partners into. So overall, that's the sentiment, and we believe that's also one of our USPs towards the supply side.

[Wolfgang Specht, analyst]

Okay. So no major changes, what Airbnb or Expedia are doing that worries you currently?

[Patrick Andrae, executive]

I would say like we usually don't comment right like on what other people do. But as a general sentiment points into the right direction for us, because if you see, for instance, high fees on other platforms and these kind of things.

[Wolfgang Specht, analyst]

Okay. Thanks a lot.

[Operator]

Ladies and gentlemen, this was our last question.

[Sebastian Grabert, executive]

Thank you very much, George. Sebastian speaking again. The analysts and investors, thank you so much for your questions and your interest. As usual, we are always here to answer further questions. I wish you a fantastic day. Thank you very much.

[Operator]

Ladies and gentlemen, the conference is now over. Thank you for choosing Chorus Call, and thank you for participating in the conference. You may now disconnect your lines. Goodbye.