ABOUT YOU Holding SE

XETRA:YOU

Earnings Call Analysis

Earnings Call Transcript 2025-Q1

[Operator]

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the conference call of About You. At our customer request, this conference will be recorded. [Operator Instructions]

Being my pleasure to hand over to Nora Puhala, who will lead you through this conference. Nora, please go ahead.

[Nora Puhala, executive]

Thank you very much for the intro, and good morning to everyone also from my side. Welcome to our first quarter 2024-2025 results presentation. Today's conference call will be hosted by Hannes Wiese, Co-Founder and Co-CEO of About You. Hannes will walk you through our Q1 results in just a second.

The corresponding slides to his presentation have been published on our IR website under the Publications section this morning. After his presentation, Hannes will be happy to answer your questions.

And with this, I hand it over to you, Hannes.

[Hannes Wiese, executive]

Yes. Thanks, Nora, and good morning to everyone also from my side. Today, we are following our usual agenda. Business update will be relatively short today as we've just given a more comprehensive update with the release of the full year results.

We'll discuss our Q1 financials, our FY '24/'25 outlook, and we'll close this call as usual with Q&A.

We will directly jump into the business update, starting on Page 4 with the key takeaways of the first quarter '24/'25. We delivered on our promise to report revenue growth and increased adjusted EBITDA versus the prior year quarter. Revenue increased by 2.2% to EUR 518 million and adjusted EBITDA more than tripled to EUR 15 million.

From an order economic perspective, the revenue increase was driven by another healthy uptick in the average order value. Over the last 12 months, our AOV is now up 6.7% year-on-year, reaching EUR 58.5 per order. Recorded a strong gross margin increase of 380 basis points to 43.2% in Q1. This is the result of positive revenue mix effects and improved inventory position and a lower promotional intensity in the fashion industry.

This gross margin increase is also the main driver for the uptick in adjusted EBITDA and provided room for growth investments into marketing. For example, we successfully executed a comprehensive anniversary campaign for About You's 10th birthday. We have generated a high positive IFRS free cash flow of EUR 46 million in the quarter, due to the improved EBITDA, reduced inventory levels, and slightly lower CapEx.

For FY '24/'25, we are confirming our guidance for revenue growth in the range of 1% to 10% and an adjusted EBITDA in a range of EUR 10 million to EUR 30 million. Results reported in Q1 and a good start into Q2, we are very well on track to achieve these targets.

Let's now double click on one of our investment areas in Q1 and start with a recap of our 10-year anniversary campaign on Page 5. Campaign ran from the beginning of April until mid-May across all markets and channels under the slogan 10 years with you, 10 years About You. TV commercials, they campaigned over 400 million gross contacts within the young and fashion-conscious target group. 190 content creators were an integral part of the campaign and millions of consumers were reached to their posts on social media.

Furthermore, activations such as the About You Moments were used to boost customer engagement in the campaign. For example, under the theme "Moments You'll Never Forget", special gifts were raffled off to customers, such as tickets for the EURO UEFA or unique private experiences. All our 10-year anniversary was a very successful campaign in terms of customer engagement, reach and media buzz. And we're looking forward to see more engaging campaign formats over the course of '24/'25.

Let's move on to SCAYLE. As part of our FY '23/'24 reporting in May, we announced a separate event for SCAYLE in autumn this year. This event will take place on November 7 in a virtual format. Topics covered will include SCAYLE's product and road map, financial and operational KPIs as well as growth levels going forward. Over the next weeks, you will receive it's updates from our IR team. Closer to the event, you will receive a follow-up with more detailed information.

Let's now move onto the financial update, starting with our top line on Page 8 and our group revenue on the left-hand side. Revenue increased by 2.2% year-on-year to EUR 518 million in Q1. Trading dynamics in Q1 were such that we recorded mid-single-digit growth rates in March and April, relatively tough comps and muted trading dynamics in May, however, drove down our total Q1 growth rate a bit. But let's take a closer look at our segments, to another top dynamics in Q1. Starting with that, where revenue increased by 1.6% in the first quarter. This development was driven by the German market, where consumer sentiment continued to improve, and our marketing campaigns showed positive effects.

The Rest of Europe segment, revenue increased by 2.3% year-on-year, supported by marketing investments and a more normalized promotional environment. Moving on to our TME segment, where Q1 revenue declined by 3.1% year-on-year.

Let's look at the different streams to update this. In Tech SCAYLE revenues continued to increase, driven by the acquisition and go-live of new clients. In Enabling, revenue development was relatively muted as the growth of FbAY was offset by the elimination of loss-making revenue streams. In Media, revenues declined largely due to an increased focus on products with a high margin profile. Overall, slight revenue decline for TME, but positive mix effects with it.

Let's move on to our customer engagement metrics in the Commerce segment, shown on Page 9. The number of last 12-month active customers declined by 4.4% year-on-year to 12.3 million active customers for Commerce in total. The decline is, however, slowing down. This also becomes clear if we look at the development of this trailing last 12-month metric over the last quarters.

In Q4 '23/'24, for instance, our TME active customers also totaled around 12.3 million. Active customer dynamics can be better explained if we look at this from a regional perspective. In our more mature markets in the DACH and RoE region, our LTM active customer base per Q1 '24/'25 remained broadly flat year-on-year despite a challenging market environment.

In CEE, our LTM active customers increased slightly year-on-year, driven by our continued leadership position in many markets and improvements in consumer sentiment. In the Nordics and Southern European clusters, however, we are seeing LTM active customers decline year-on-year. This is the result of our profitability measures in selected markets, which drove down the total development in active customers. This regional effect is, however, also slowly fading out.

Overall, we have remained confident that the active customer decline is bottoming out over the course of FY '24/'25, followed by a return to a sustainable growth trajectory.

Moving on to frequency, which was relatively muted at 3.1 transactions per active customer over the last 12 months. This can be attributed mainly to the changing market conditions as well as unit economics matters introduced to increase the profitability of existing customers. The average order value, however, increased by 6.7% year-on-year to EUR 58.5 to order over the last 12 months. This increase is largely due to our unit economic measures as well as higher RRPs and lower discount orders.

Let's move on to our bottom line on Page 10. Starting on the left of this chart, which shows our group adjusted EBITDA. Our adjusted EBITDA margin Improved by 210 basis points year-on-year and reached 2.9% in the first quarter of '24/'25 for the group. Let's take a closer look at the key EBITDA drivers from a segment perspective again.

In our DACH business, profitability declined by 190 basis points year-on-year, reaching an adjusted EBITDA margin of 3.3% in Q1. The decline was the result of our marketing investments, partly related to the 10-year anniversary campaign. Increase in marketing costs overcompensated the positive effect from a higher gross margin due to a lower level of discounting.

Moving on to our RoE segment where we increased our adjusted EBITDA margin by 200 basis points year-on-year. Improvement in EBITDA margin was driven by lower clearance activity measures introduced to improving economics as well as the non-recurring of onetime costs related to the role of our European distribution network.

On TME, the margin in our TME segment increased by [indiscernible] basis points to 24.5% versus last year. The increase is the result of positive mix effects with a higher share of high-margin tech revenues as well as general cost discipline and the elimination of loss-making revenue streams.

Let's now move on to Page 11 and take a closer look at the key cost drivers of the group. Starting with the gross margin, which increased by 380 basis points to 43.2% in Q1 '24/'25. The increase was mainly driven by an improved inventory position at About You and a reduced promotional intensity in the fashion industry more broadly. The growing share of high-margin tech revenues in the TME segment further support the gross margin increase.

Next, our fulfillment cost ratio, which increased slightly by 40 basis points to 24.2% in Q1. The increase was primarily attributable to onetime costs related to automation products and logistics network as well as revenue mix effects with a lower share of drop shipped orders.

Let's move on to our marketing costs, which increased by 160 basis points to 11.7% in Q1. The increase was planned and driven by the 10-year anniversary campaign, moderate steering adjustments for Commerce as well as marketing expansion investments for SCAYLE.

Lastly, our another cost ratio declined by 30 basis points to 4.5%. The decline is largely due to operating leverage as well as strict operating cost control. All these sectors combined, resulted in the strong increase of our group adjusted EBITDA margin by 210 basis points to 2.9% in Q1 '24/'25.

Let's now take a look at our cash flow drivers on Page 12. Our net working capital improved significantly year-on-year and is at a negative EUR 63 million at the end of Q1 '24/'25. This increase of more than EUR 90 million versus last year, which largely results from a reduction in own stock inventories and the optimization of payables through improved payment terms. CapEx amounted to EUR 13.9 million during the first quarter, which is a moderate reduction versus last year levels. The decline is partly due to lower capital costs on own software development, as well as a decline in loans to influencer bands.

Moving on to our cash position on Page 13. At first, look at our operating cash flow, which is at a positive EUR 59.3 million in Q1 '24/'25. This development largely resulted from the positive EBITDA and a decline in net working capital, as discussed on the previous slide. Investing cash flow is at a negative EUR 13.3 million, which is another moderate improvement versus last year levels. Our IFRS free cash flow has reached a strong EUR 46 million in Q1, which is an improvement of around EUR 35 million versus Q1 last year.

Financing cash flow is at a negative EUR 15.1 million, largely driven by payments for leasing agreements relating to our logistics network. Hence ended Q1 '24/'25 with a cash and equivalents balance of EUR 194.8 million, which is in a similar range as our cash position in Q1 last year. The cash position, combined with the undrawn back up loan facility of up to EUR 97.5 million, hence, creates a comfortable liquidity buffer for us and enables us to flexibly develop the business going forward.

With that, let's move on to the financial section of this presentation, the financial outlook. We are confirming our FY '24/'25 guidance today on the back of a strong performance in the first quarter and the good starting to Q2. We continue to expect our revenue to grow in a range of 1% to 10% year-on-year. We have recorded this slight acceleration in growth in June versus Q1. And we remain bullish on a further acceleration over the coming quarters, supported by market improvements and our growth initiatives.

Moving on to profitability. We continue to expect our FY '24/'25 adjusted EBITDA to range between EUR 10 million to EUR 30 million. Again to be a function of, on the one hand, strong underlying improvement in profitability as demonstrated in our Q1. And on the other hand, a step-up in investments in strategic growth levers, which offsets part of these profitability gains. We can close with our free cash flow drivers. CapEx is expected to be around EUR 30 million, EUR 50 million in FY '24/'25 and net working capital is expected to remain in negative territory; hence, also no changes here.

Thanks for joining us on this journey to accelerate top line growth and boost profitability.

I'm now looking forward to answering your questions. So moderator, handing it back to you.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] Our first question today comes from Volker Bosse from Baader bank.

[Volker Bosse, analyst]

Volker Bosse from Baader Bank. Congratulations on the great EBITDA improvements. And this leads me to the first question. I mean, in the first quarter, you had EUR 15 million. This is already 50% of the upper end of the given EBITDA guidance range and you speak about a slight acceleration of growth in June. Why did you remain shy to give more positive comments in regards to your guidance in EBITDA for the full year? The first question.

Second question is you speak about sentiment improvements for the online fashion sector, in general. Can you add a bit more granularity here and how sustainable do you see this trend to be?

Third question is on your customer engagement. I mean, number of customers, active customers declined by 4%, something in the first quarter, although you had this 10 years campaign. So I'm just as curious to hear, wouldn't you say and wouldn't you agree to say the customer engagement have remained shy, although you spend more in marketing in percentage of sales, and although you had these birthday campaigns. Just for curiosity.

[Hannes Wiese, executive]

Yes, sure. Many thanks for the question. So let's start with the question on guidance coming from the EUR 15 million adjusted EBITDA in Q1. So first of all, we are happy with this profitability levels. I think that's a good result. Still, we remain comfortable with our current guidance, and that's on the one hand, driven by seasonality. So keep in mind, our Q1 and financial Q3 are usually the quarters with the highest level of profitability. So we would now expect a slight step down in profitability in Q2 versus Q1 levels.

And then also keep in mind that we are planning for investments into strategic growth initiatives into marketing, into SCAYLE, of course, and hence, we are also comfortable with a slight buffer on the profitability and to enable for these investments or even as I step up to this. But overall, we would agree positive trend on profitability and we remain comfortable with the current guidance.

The second piece on consumer sentiment and online fashion trends sustainability of this. Well, what we're seeing from a market perspective, I think, a sentiment improvements for consumers in general, coming from a low base in our core markets in DACH, but also more broadly in rest of Europe. And we believe in the long term, there's just a huge growth trajectory for e-commerce driven by the real penetration levels that we still have in Europe. Of course, also consumer spend is cyclical. So we would also expect a further improvement for that. So we are very confident that over the mid and long run, we will see substantial tailwinds for e-commerce driven by improved consumer sentiment versus the low base that we see and the return of the long-term [indiscernible].

And then lastly, on customer engagement cadence that we see. So the figures that we show are, of course, last 12 months trailing metrics, they are slightly different if we look at this on a quarterly basis, So here, for example, active customers, they look more positive than those shown on the last 12-month basis in the port and also some of the measures that you pointed out, like the 10-year campaign, for example, this is largely upper-funnel marketing. So we are investing in customer awareness in the upper funnel, which then translates into new customers acquired and sales partly over the next weeks and months. So this is really to be seen more of a mid-term investment which we believe is rationale in the current market environment where we also see customer [indiscernible] projections, for example, improving across all markets, both in DACH and Rest of Europe.

[Volker Bosse, analyst]

One follow-up for clarification as the line was bad. You said you expect active customer decline to fade out and what was the season you mentioned during Q2 or during the year or in the second half? I did not get it. Sorry to ask.

[Hannes Wiese, executive]

Yes, we're now seeing a trend of bottoming out, and we would expect a return to growth in active customers over the course of '24/'25, which then should also lead to probably stable last 12-month active customer figure in '24/'25.

[Volker Bosse, analyst]

In total, for the total year, you expect a positive figure in regards to active customers?

[Hannes Wiese, executive]

We expect a stable figure for the total year '24/'25 versus total '23/'24. And on a quarterly basis, we expect a return to growth in active customers over the course of '24/'25.

[Operator]

The next question comes from Nizla Naizer from Deutsche Bank.

[Fathima-Nizla Naizer, analyst]

I have two questions. The first is Q4 growth was around 5%. And I think in the call last time, Hannes, you mentioned that the exit rate was also at those levels. So could you give us some color as to when maybe growth slowed down over the last quarter? And the reasons for that? And how sort of current trading is progressing, if there are sort of -- if there's any color you can give us on that?

And the second is on SCAYLE. Could you give us maybe a flavor of what you expect in November when you do the SCAYLE specific event? And you did mention that you want to, I think, deploy around EUR 10 million of additional brand investments or marketing into SCAYLE to drive it. Was any of that deployed already in Q1? And how are we to think about that for the rest of the year? Some color would be great. Thank you.

[Hannes Wiese, executive]

Yes, sure. Thanks for the question, Nizla. Let's start with the one on trading patterns in Q1 and exit rate. So we've seen around mid-single-digit growth rates in March and April. And then we were facing tough comps in May, also partly driven by aggressive campaigns that we've executed in May last year. So the growth rate in May was relatively muted to slightly negative and this then led to the total growth rate of around 2.2% for the Q1. And what we've seen now in June is basically an acceleration in growth towards levels, I would say, in between those that we've seen for the Q1 in total and the ones that we observed in March and April. So acceleration versus Q1 level but not yet fully back to mid-single-digit rates.

Then second piece on the SCAYLE even. So it is going to be a mix of product demo, team presentation, financial, operational KPIs. We also give an outlook on strategy, and we will give more color on this in the H1 release, so basically prior to the event taking place on the 7th of November. And on the investments, so the EUR 10 million largely related to market expansion investments. So for example, in the U.S. and U.K., where we want to build the brands and are also building up a local sales force to acquire a new customer in B2B. And part of this has actually also already been invested in our financial Q1. I would think that's a low single-digit million number. So investment probably broadly equally distributed over the financial year.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from Yashraj Rajani from UBS.

[Yashraj Rajani, analyst]

Congratulations on the EBITDA development today. So two questions from my end, please. The first question is on gross margin. I mean obviously, quite an amazing improvement on that one in Q1. Is it possible to disintegrate what the contribution is from the higher share of profitable tech revenues and also what the contribution is from promotions rolling off and on promotions rolling off? Is there any color you can give us on promotions rolling off by region, if there's a particular region where you saw a particularly good development. So that's the first question.

And the second question is on marketing. Now I appreciate that's higher. But I also just wanted to check is with your competitors talking about increasing their inspirational component on their platforms as well. Are you seeing your customer acquisition costs getting significantly higher i.e., is the increase in marketing a function of inflation and customer acquisition costs? Or is intensity also increasing? And how do we think about customer acquisition costs going forward?

[Hannes Wiese, executive]

Yes. Thanks for the questions also here. Let's start with the one on gross margin. So the biggest driver here is definitely lower discounts, the improved inventory position that we see and these lower discount levels, we also see across all markets given this is induced by an improved inventory position for About You and I would also say for an improved inventory position in the fashion industry more broadly, hence, translating into a lower need for clearance and drives up gross margin leverage overall.

And the second effect, the revenue mix, especially from the B2B side, so higher share of especially license revenues in TME that's also contributing, but to a lesser extent than the lower discount levels.

And the second piece on marketing, do we see an increase in customer acquisition costs. I mean, I would say we have seen an increase in customer acquisition costs especially in '23, but rather driven by new market entrants that drove up customer acquisition costs, especially in social media channels, and we're seeing current levels basically similar to '23. So we remain on somewhat elevated levels, we would say, but there's no increase versus 2023. And over the mid- to long run, we would expect this to come slightly down again, given at some point, competitive pressure is likely to a certain degree.

[Operator]

The next question comes from Benjamin Kohnke from Stifel.

[Benjamin Kohnke, analyst]

A few questions from my side as well, please. The first would again be on SCAYLE. And it's just -- if I understand it correctly, you're currently facing a bit of a headwind regarding top line growth because you're fading out these, let's call it, implementation services and so on. So question is, could you give an indication on how fast the underlying AAR is growing. So basically, how fast is the core business of SCAYLE growing these days? And would you also expect that to accelerate over the next 3 quarters?

The next question would be on Media Services. Hannes, if I understood you correctly, you're indicating a decline in Media Services in the first quarter. I guess also here, you're focusing on higher-margin services. So to what extent is this sort of shift in strategy fading out as well here, i.e. when are we going to see the underlying growth in basically the services you want to focus on going forward?

And then last one, if I may, would just be on a couple of recent statements by Tarek, I think especially at an e-commerce conference. And he sounded just much more aggressive around about your strategy on the factory to consumer side of things. So basically, about you stepping in quite aggressively into that business. So I was just wondering if you could provide a little more color around that, i.e., what exactly are you planning to do? And what sort of revenue contribution could we already expect from that new lack of strategy in the current fiscal year?

[Hannes Wiese, executive]

Yes, sure. So let's start with SCAYLE and the revenue dynamics here. So the ARR continues to grow quite strongly in clear double-digit territory. That's, of course, also a function of the dynamics that we've discussed in the full year results release, and the outlook on already acquired ARR to be implemented over the next 12 months.

And on top of this, we are also seeing positive dynamics in our established base. So ARR for SCAYLE growing quite strongly and the other revenue streams of SCAYLE tech being service implementation fees and also, to a certain degree, consulting are continuing to come down. And we would expect this also to be the case for the full '24/'25. So we're going to see this mix effect, positive growth, strong growth on the ARR side and negative growth on the service side probably for [indiscernible]

Second piece on media. I think towards the second half of '24/'25 media should also return to growth. So what we are currently doing is basically reducing co-ops where we are -- have involved in production, for example, and hence yes, to your point, focus more on high-margin media products. This is currently happening, has also already happened over the last 1, 2 quarters, and we would expect this effect then to fade out more towards the second half of '24/'25 in media, also returning to a healthy long-term growth trajectory. Bottom line for media is actually already developing quite nicely. Only the top line is showing this current normalization.

And then the third piece on manufacturer to consumer. It's, of course, a broad field, let's maybe discuss this in the three initiatives or operating models that we've done in the full year release. So when we think about this fast ownable injection of that actually already live, we are generating revenues from these fast sizes -- fast capsules quite nicely and also already thinking about how we can scale this further at more suppliers, more manufacturers to this model. And would expect, yes, positive revenue contribution for this also incremental to our current base.

And for the other two models, so basically to enable cross-border and drop shipping from manufacturers, probably that's probably going to materialize more towards the second half of the year, so second half of '24/'25 and hence, no material effect expected from this for the current financial year, however, then even more so for the coming financial years.

So where does this leave us? I think M2C models in total in '23 -- sorry, '24/'25, probably more a low single-digit share of revenues or GMV and then towards '25/'26, and this could go up to low to mid-single-digit revenue shares and then towards '26 onwards, we would expect this to approach high single digit to maybe even double-digit share of revenues. And as I said, we are, of course, trying to view this in a way that this is largely incremental.

[Operator]

Ladies and gentlemen, with this last remark, we will be ending the Q&A session, and Nora will end this with you with a few final remarks.

[Nora Puhala, executive]

Thanks. Let me close our presentation by saying thank you for your support and for joining us today on our conference call for Q1 2024/2025. If there are any further questions, please feel free to contact the IR team directly. We are looking forward to seeing some of you during our upcoming virtual roadshow. Have a good day, and bye-bye.

[Operator]

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much for participating. This call has been concluded, and you may disconnect. Have a good day. Goodbye.