GreenMobility A/S (GREENM.CO) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Welcome to today's presentation where we have the pleasure to present GreenMobility. Today's presentation will primarily surround your news from Monday about your guidance update, the second this year, this time also lifting the top, just not narrowing the bottom. So I think we will take a look into what is the reason behind that. And of course, first, a small introduction to the share and maybe a little bit about the half year result, but we will do a pretty short presentation and the event should primarily be the Q&A in the end. To help us through, we are joined by CEO, Kasper Gjedsted. As always, in the box down below, do feel free to ask questions. Do it in English, do it in Danish. If in Danish, I will try and translate to the best of my ability. But for now, I will hand the call over to you, Kasper.

Thank you very much, Michael. After this disclaimer, just for the ones of you who haven't been to any of these presentations before, very shortly on GreenMobility and myself. I came to GreenMobility in 2023, where we decided to change the strategy completely from a rapid international expansion plan and then to focusing on the Danish market. So what we did was to close all the international markets and then pulling the cars back from the international markets and utilizing them on the Danish market instead. And as you can see in the numbers, for those of you who have already seen them for the half year results and also the numbers going prior to that, I think that strategy has worked very well. So what are we doing? So we are -- basically, we are a car-sharing company. It's very easy, car sharing, car rental. You download our app, you upload your driver's license and your credit card. Then you stand next to the car, you swipe on the app, the car doors open, you go in, you drive, you leave the car wherever you want to leave it within our zone, and then you swipe again, the door closes, and we send you an invoice and draw the money from your credit card. It's as easy as that. We have around 1,400 vehicles in our fleet. The backbone of the fleet is the Renault Zoe's. It's a small Group B segment car, very suitable for the intra-city transport. We also have added some, what we call premium cars, bigger cars with longer-range. Polestar; we have around 50 of those. We have vans in our fleet. It's a growth market for us with the vans. We have around 50 of those as well right now, but we have been growing that segment as well. And then the latest addition to our fleet is the 7-seater ID. Buzz, which also caters for the needs of football clubs, big families going to the airport with a lot of luggage and so on and so forth. So I think now we have a solution for everybody's needs, the need of the city dwellers, the people who are living in the city and in the surrounding areas, where we can pretty much satisfy the needs of most segments that they are there. We have now more than 135,000 rentals, 135,000 trips every month. So now we are actually a significant part of the cities that we operate in of the infrastructure, transportation infrastructure. And we are operating in Copenhagen and Aarhus with, as mentioned, 1,400 vehicles. The market cap is now around DKK 300 million. We had a share price increase year-to-date of 55%. That was as of yesterday. I'm not even sure what it is right now. So a good tradition in the share price, and thank you to all of you behind the screens for being a part of this. And as you know, and as the background for this presentation, we have increased our guidance. So we have an expected revenue growth of 12% to 15% and an improvement of EBITDA of between 32% and 42%. Just very quickly, based on our half year report here. We are growing a lot, 29% increase in revenue. We've seen a tremendous increase in our EBITDA. 76% increase in our EBITDA comes from much better operations, the cost management. I know you can also see that in the half year report. Even though we're growing 29%, we're not increasing our staff costs with anything basically. So we are getting more and more efficient. We have a very good cost of acquisition model for the customers, new customers, and we have a good model for selling more to the existing customers. And with the better results here, we can also decrease our loan and lease liabilities that leads to lower financial costs. And as you would also be able to see from the half year report, our cash flow, excluding loan repayments, is also very, very positive; a very positive development of that. So all in all, I think we are on a very good trajectory this year. We continue to deliver on our strategic priorities that we set for the financial year. And what I want to talk about in relation to this guidance increase that we sent out the other day is the sustainable revenue growth. Where have we performed better than expected? And I think I said that during our half year report presentation that I wanted to see how the summer went before we were giving any potential updates. And those numbers now in, and that's the reason why we can increase our guidance. This is a snapshot picture of Denmark on a given day in the summertime. And it shows that we have actually succeeded in transforming this company from a car-sharing company doing a lot of intra-city trips within the cities, within Aarhus, within Copenhagen, within the zones that we have, to morphing into more of a digital car rental company that has succeeded in getting people to understand that they can use these cars for longer trips for the summer holidays, tourist things alike because the cars were everywhere, as you can see this summer. So this is a very good picture, and this is actually also what we were waiting for from a data perspective before we made this adjustment was to see how good was the summer. And I think this is -- this paints a very good picture of how the summer went. We succeeded in transforming it. When our normal customers are out of time -- out of town, when they are not here physically because they are in their summer houses, they are abroad, then we are approaching different segments and make them go on longer trips. They buy packages 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 days, even 2 weeks, 3 weeks, we have achieved in selling. So a very good result, and that is the primary reason for our recent guidance update. So that brings me over to finalizing this very short presentation just by repeating that we have now a guidance of revenue on 13% to 15%, up from 10% to 13% and -- excuse me, up from 13% to 15%. And then we are having an EBITDA guidance increase of 32% to 42%, up from 25% to 40%. So that was the short introduction.

Yes. But let's jump into some questions. Do you need more cars to reach your guidance? Meaning are you guiding also with the fleet? You need to put some additions to your fleet? Or is this, within your current fleet, possible to reach?

So the short answer is no. We don't need more cars. Little few more words on that is I think I still think we can utilize our cars. There's still utilization space in the current fleet that we have. So the guidance is not including an addition to the fleet.

And perfect. And I also think -- I guess you have been through your biggest seasons now. So if the capacity fitted with that, I guess it would also be not the best time to put in more cars. Is that correct that your 2 biggest seasons has been over -- are already over? Is that correct?

Yes, that is correct. I mean, going forward, we are looking to have a more flexible fleet in terms of when we are defleeting and infleeting the fleet -- infleeting new cars so that it corresponds to the seasonal variations that we have in -- from a demand perspective.

And then a little bit of a broader question, not so much the results. One of the political parties in Copenhagen has been talking about scrapping the specialized parking spaces for electric cars, but also car sharing. Any thoughts on how that could affect you if that happens?

Yes, I've been following that debate. I haven't involved myself in it publicly yet. But I think what needs to be said is that I think it needs a few more nuances to it. The way we look at the parking spaces is not how much time they are available, the parking spaces that we have allocated for us. It's not about how much time they are available. It's how much -- how many times they're used in a day. And I think it's the conservative maybe that went out with this suggestion about scrapping the electric car-sharing company spots. I just want to tell them that I think they look at it from different -- from a wrong perspective because it's about how many of the city's -- how many of the city's population are actually using one car spot -- excuse me, one parking spot when it's a sharing car versus how many are using it when it's not a sharing car. And what we can see is that we are using it probably 10x more. The spot is used 10x more compared to a nonelectric car-sharing spot. So that means it's 10x more people, inhabitants of the city who has a good use of that same parking spot compared to if it was their private car. And that nuance is needed in the debate because it's -- for me, it's about the quality of life, of the people who are living in the city. And I can just say that we are adding that -- if you base that on parking spots, we are adding that to 10x more people than a regular parking spot.

Yes. Basically, I can say people are pissed if it's free, but nobody can be pissed if someone has parked there 3 weeks and haven't used this car, I guess that's kind of your point.

Yes.

I think that is a very good point to hit on the head because you can only see it when your [ place], when you can't use it and it's free, but you can't see that this is never a car moving, has been staying there for a long, long time.

Yes. And so we -- let's say, we just have -- maybe we have 5 or 10 customers using it in a day. But for me, it's a success if it's not -- if it's free because that means that the car is out running, making revenue, right? And we can see -- I think we've seen around an 80% increase in the use of these particular parking spots. So it is on the way up. Just want to add to that also, Michael, we are now having sensors installed across the city in all of those dedicated parking spots. I think we see -- we will see the usage of those parking spots going up very much further because if you're sure that the parking spot is available before you take the trip, it becomes much more attractive to use those spots. So those are coming in, the first sensors have been installed, and we're just eager and waiting for the rest to come in.

Perfect. Then there's a question. Is it new clients or larger revenue from existing clients that drives the growth this year and maybe also your expectation having been able to upgrade those?

Yes. So we see it's actually a good mix of both. We see that we are able to sell more to the existing clients, and we also see a very good intake on new clients. And it's very much based, I think, on a very successful marketing strategy we have now. We have also been nominated for one of the big marketing prices just recently here because we are super efficient in our marketing. If you look at the -- if you look at Google, for example, and look for any search term which is relevant to our field of business, that could be rent a car, rent a car, rent a van or just put in van, you'll see GreenMobility comes up in the top 3 positions. I mean this is something we have achieved within the last 2 years. And I know from my previous career, it's not because the other guys are not spending money on this, but we just -- we have achieved that position through very clever marketing strategy and execution of that. And I think that is a major driver behind our success in selling more to the existing customers and getting more customers in because if you're on the top of Google, that means just more revenue.

Perfect. Then there's a question. What happens when the car is when it is not returned to the original place? I guess that's in the old rental business, then you pay someone to drive it back. But I guess it's a reasonable question because normally, it would be inter Copenhagen. You also have months now where it could be left far away from your areas. So any -- is that a problem? Or do you get well paid by -- for having that problem?

So you are actually allowed to leave the car in a different place from where you picked it up because it's a free float model that we have as long as it's within our zone or any of our zones. So you can take a car from Copenhagen and leave it in Roskilde, for example, and it will cost you a little bit extra. But what we are doing is to get those cars back is that we are actually encouraging our customers by giving them additional minutes or discounts to get it back. We also have a system, it's called FreeMobility, where we have customers who are moving the cars for us and getting paid with minutes. That has been very, very successful. That has meant, from an operational standpoint, that we have decreased our costs tremendously on people cost that we -- back in the days, before my time, we're paying a lot of money to go and move the cars and put them into the right positions. We are getting the customers to do that through the invention of the piece of software that we have made for this, and that's something we have developed ourselves. So the cars are positioned much better than they were in the old days, just 2, 3 years ago.

And I guess if you rented it for 3 days or drove to a summer house and left it there, then you are -- you are...

[indiscernible] Yes. But you will have to pay for it.

Yes. And then there's also a question here about the availability when you see this out of trips. How do you balance this? Is it some special weeks? Is it special days? And how do you balance that you don't drag too much out of the A to B, so people don't get tired for that. So as I'm thinking, there's a question here. So how do you actually balance this with the long-term rental versus also needing to have enough cars available in the city?

Yes. So that's a delicate balance. For the average commuter, for the daily commuter trips, it is super important that the car is within 500 meters. Let's just put that up. Obviously, it depends from person to person. Let's just say, 500 meters. And outside of the summer seasons, that is actually what we see. We have a very good positioning of the cars. As I mentioned before, we're getting the customers to position it for us. In the summertime, it looks different. In the summertime, when you -- if you're going to rent a car for 1 day or 1 week, you're willing to travel further to get that car because the alternative to renting a car is that you have to go and take the train or the bus and go to one of the major car rental companies, then you have to stand in line and then you will have to sign a lot of old physical papers and then you'll get the car. And when you're done using it, you have to return it back to the same location and have to take the train along with your luggage and whatever you have and go back to your apartment somewhere in Copenhagen or Aarhus. With us, you can just go to wherever the nearest is. It might be a kilometer away, it might be 1,200 meters away, a little further distance in the summer. And when you come back, you're returning it in front of your door to the apartment where you live. So I mean, in the summer, it's okay that we don't have the same balance, one; and two, it's also okay that we have sort of a sold-out situation once in a while. It's actually okay in the summertime because we cannot put a fleet up that caters just for the summer, then we would be stuck with too many cars in the other seasons. So that's more or less the answer to that question, I think.

And I guess you have done more to move this business up. Are there other periods than the summer next year that you can take advantage of this? Is it holidays? Or is there are other dead periods where you can try maybe and next year, use your knowledge from this summer and the model and the data and how you get the customers into long-term rentals? Are there other periods of the year that maybe next year, you could try and push a little bit more, squeeze a little bit more out of the current fleet by also trying to do that not just in the summer, but other periods?

I think one of the tools that we will work a lot with next year is a revenue management tool where we are able to increase and decrease our prices in a much more flexible way than we are now. I think we have underinvested in digital solutions. I'm very much keen on bringing us up to date from a digital perspective. And one of the tools that we have to steer the demand versus the supply that we have, we have a set amount of cars, is through the price engineering revenue management. And I think there's a lot of that. People talk about how much extra revenue can you get when you introduce revenue management, right? And there are different models on that going from 10% to 30% just by that. So I'm super keen on getting that into the new year. And I think we can steer the revenue versus the supply that we have much better by having flexible pricing.

And now I will just jump back to this one because you're talking a lot about your top line growth, but you're also raising your EBITDA guidance. Is there also something on margins, continued improvement of margins, the cost side? Or are you seeing something there that has surprised you also? Or is it primarily that when the top line comes, you have a very high operational gearing?

No, we do have a very high operational gearing. But I think it's important to say that my work is not over in terms of the cost side of the company. I still think we have a lot of opportunity to become even more lean on our operations. I can see that it's -- we have some very good tendencies there. We are renegotiating with the insurance companies. We are renegotiating with financing companies. I think we have a lot of upside on that side as well.

But primarily right now, the guidance upgrade or the better-than-expected result, that is primarily still driven from top line. Is that correct?

That [indiscernible] from top line. That is correct.

In the future, do you think that Waymo might be a challenger for your company?

Not Waymo per se. I mean, specifically Waymo because I know for a fact that they are looking in completely different directions than a small town city like Copenhagen and Aarhus. But who knows, eventually, maybe they might come in. I don't think that we will see -- and Waymo, just for the ones who don't know Waymo, it's a self-driving company owned by Google. They have around 250 trips currently per week in the U.S. It has taken a lot of time and a lot of billions to develop that, but I think they have a great product and a great service. The future market for self-driving cars, it's not about one winner takes it all. It's going to be so big, and it's going to have multiple operators. I think the advantage of GreenMobility is that we have the position in the cities that we operate in right now already. We own the customers. We know where the cars need to be placed. We know the willingness to pay. We know all of the tendencies in the city. We have a very good relation to the Mayor's office. We have a good -- very good relations to the Parliament. So I think we have a very, very strong foundation for being one of the successful operators within that space. And that's also definitely something we are looking into. And I've already communicated that earlier in the summer. I was in Berlingske, one of the big newspapers in Denmark, where I said, we are actually ready for this. The technology is there. And what we are waiting for is we're waiting for the Parliament, we are waiting for EU, and we're waiting for the municipality. But in essence, GreenMobility is ready for that. And personally, I can't wait for them to come here. I think it's super exciting.

Perfect. I think that was the last question, Kasper. Thank you for taking us through your guidance upgrade and answering questions. And may everybody have a nice day.