Trainline plc (TRN) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

So good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us here today for our half year results presentation. I'm Jody Ford, CEO of Trainline, and I'm joined by Shaun McCabe, our CFO. And it's great to be here speaking to you in person and rather than on the call. Let's first go through the disclaimer and on to the agenda for today. First, I'll give an overview of how Trainline is taking a leading role in the industry recovery. Shaun will talk to you through our financial performance, then I'll update on progress against our strategic priorities. Before discussing in detail our international opportunity with case study showing how markets in Europe are evolving as well as how our plans to invest to realize that opportunity. We'll then open the floor to questions. We've taken a leading role in the rail industry's recovery, encouraging people back on to trains, driven by our purpose to increase greener travel. We've helped accelerate the market shift to online and digital channels, leveraging our continued investment in our product and our technology through the pandemic. We've scaled our marketing investment driving new customer acquisition to record levels, and we've increased transaction frequency with the cohort of customers purchasing tickets twice or more in a month growing by 29% versus pre-COVID. As a result, we've delivered a strong recovery in net ticket sales. In the second quarter, our U.K. consumer business recovered to 95% of the same period 2 years ago and back to growth in August. Likewise, our top 4 domestic markets in Europe were back to growth versus 2 years ago, all of which helped us -- the business return to profitability. The strength of our B2B -- B2C proposition is playing a central role in this recovery. For our customers, we are continuously innovating to create the ultimate rail travel companion. First, we remove friction when traveling by train enhancing our 4.9 star mobile app with innovative new features and a seamless digital ticket experience. Second, we provide unrivaled value with an array of products like split save, digital railcards and recoup retard that help customers to save money. And third, we have the widest choice aggregating all of the carriers and fair options plus real-time travel information on the go. All of this makes making the train a more attractive proposition, empowering people to switch to a far greener mode of travel. Underpinning our B2C proposition is our scalable and secure global tech platform within which we have invested significantly, developing proprietary functionality for both the front end and the back end. This includes deep inventory connections into carrier APIs, allowing us to offer all journeys and fairs real-time data and pre-imposed sales. A customer-centric e-commerce layer with a simple standardized user experience across hundreds of carriers, and core reliability, scalability and security, all maintained by a team of 400-plus tech and product engineers. However, our platform doesn't just underpin our B2C proposition. Through Trainline Partner Solutions, we provide our cutting-edge technology and digital innovation to B2B customers and carrier partners as well. This reduces cost and complexity for them while allowing us to realize more value from our platform investments. In May, the Williams-Shapps white paper was published laying out the U.K. government's vision for rail and its proposals for reform. Since the white papers publication, we've continued to engage with government and the wider industry on how we can help support the delivery of its proposals. As expected, this process is taking time. and we await clarity on the proposals and their potential implications for third-party retailers. The white paper has 4 proposals that are most relevant to Trainline. First, the creation of great British Railways or GBR, as the new governing body for rail. This will subsume several preexisting supervisory bodies, including the rail delivery group. In turn, becoming the counterparty, the key counterparty for train operating companies and third-party retailers like Trainline. GBR's incorporation will require an active U.K. Parliament not expected until 2024 at the earliest. Second, the creation of GBR as a ticket retailer replacing many of the numerous subscale train operating company websites. As a result, this will likely have a significant impact upon our Carrier IT solutions business, which provides white label services to several training operators. However, it's not yet confirmed how the government plans to build and operate their online retailing platform. If they were to use a tech partner to do this, we are well placed to meet their requirements given we are a leading provider of tech retail solutions to the rail industry. Either way, third-party retailing licenses will continue with the government recognizing the competition and innovation that third-party retailers bring to the market. So Trainline will continue to provide its best-in-class rail travel companion to customers alongside GBR's app when it launches. In that vein, the rail delivery group recently invited us to take part in a consultative process reviewing the broader retailing landscape and the commercial framework. It will include opportunities and objectives for reform, driving industry cost and revenue recovery, customer experience improvements and innovation. The consultation provides us with an opportunity to input into the future evolution of rail retailing in the U.K. in line with the government's aimed of innovative competitive market. The resulting recommendations will be submitted to the government early next year. Third, the white paper proposes to expand pay-as-you-go outside of London. This was reaffirmed in the government spending review last week, which announced an overall investment of GBP 360 million to cover fairs, ticketing and retail, including the expansion of pay as you go. While the detail will be for the government to set out, we believe it will present opportunities for Trainline. These include configuring our mobile app to support future pay-as-you-go deployment, enhancing the experience with features like digital railcards and real-time travel information while giving customers increased control of their spend. And fourth, the white paper makes a clear commitment to rolling out digital ticketing. It also promised the launch of digital-only flexi tickets, which have since gone live. And for the first time, the government committed to making seasoned tickets available in digital format. Overall, the direction of travel towards online and digital retail is very encouraging. With that, I'll hand over to Shaun to talk through our financial performance.

Okay. Thanks. Good morning, everyone. So as Jody discussed, the story of the first half was one of recovery for trainline. This was led by domestic travel within our international business, fast followed by our U.K. consumer business. As you can see from the bar chart, the recovery was particularly evident in the second quarter. Net ticket sales in the top 4 domestic markets, France, Germany, Italy and Spain returned to overall growth, up 5% versus the same period 2 years ago. U.K. consumer recovered to 95% at the same period 2 years ago and returned to growth in August, up 12%. In the U.K., the recovery began with short distance leisure travel, which returned as lockdowns eased. Longer distance leisure travel then came back over the summer, with commuter travel coming back more recently in September and October. As you might expect, corporate travel has remained subdued. But I do think we're seeing the same green shoots as we saw in our B2C business 6 months ago, with business travel in the second quarter doubling versus quarter 1. International inbound has also yet to return in a meaningful way, but as travel restrictions begin to lift, we're seeing more positive signals there, too. For example, Eurostar sales in September were back up to 36% of where they were 2 years ago, up from just 5% in Q1. The strong recovery in U.K. Consumer and International has driven a significant recovery in net ticket sales in revenue and in gross profit. The group generated GBP 1 billion of net ticket sales up 179% on last year, and this was 54% for the same period 2 years ago. Revenue increased to GBP 78 million, up 151% or 60% of the same period 2 years ago. And gross profit increased to GBP 61 million, up 181% year-on-year or 62% of the same period 2 years ago. With our business recovery, we returned to positive EBITDA in the first half. Direct and central costs increased to GBP 47 million from GBP 38 million last year as trading conditions began to normalize. We scaled our cost base back of having significantly reduced it last year to mitigate the impact of COVID on our business. Despite costs normalizing, we reported an adjusted EBITDA of GBP 15 million versus a GBP 16 million loss in the first half last year. With trading improving and net ticket sales recovering, our net debt reduced to GBP 169 million, from GBP 241 million 6 months ago. The main drivers were a working capital inflow of GBP 73 million as ticket sales recovered as well as the GBP 15 million of EBITDA in the period. As Jody mentioned, we maintained our investment in tech and product in our road map throughout COVID, and this continued into H1 as reflected in the GBP 16 million CapEx charge. With visibility improving, we have reinstated our full year guidance. We expect to generate net ticket sales in the range of GBP 2.4 billion to GBP 2.8 billion. And we expect to deliver an adjusted EBITDA of GBP 35 million to GBP 40 million. Our guidance factors in a step-up in investment for our international business from the second half of this year, which Jody will talk more about later. And with that, I'm going to hand back to Jody.

Thanks, Shaun. Let's now talk about our progress against our strategic priorities. As a reminder, our 4 stated strategic priorities are to enhance the customer experience, continually improving and optimizing our mobile app, build customer demand, scaling up customer acquisition, increasing their engagement with us, increase customer lifetime value, growing our relevance for more of our customers' travel needs. and grow Trainline partner solutions, serving the B2B and carrier markets. I am delighted by the progress we are making against these long-term priorities. Let's step through each of them. First, enhancing the customer experience. As I said earlier, we maintained our investment in product and tech through COVID, removing friction for customers while offering them access to unrivaled value and the widest choice. As a result, the strength of our mobile app has helped support the rail industry recovery, giving people an easy way to book online and use digital tickets to travel. Take e-tickets in the U.K. as an example, which we have championed for many years as a core part of our customer proposition. Demand for e-tickets has significantly increased, partly reflecting a greater prevalence of people buying products and services without cash and using an app. It also reflects customers appreciating the easier refund process and having clear on-the-go travel information. At the same time, availability of rail journeys, where e-tickets are accepted has now risen to 80%, following ScotRail's rollout of barcode tickets across their network. Taken together, e-tickets have doubled to 40% of the entire market over the past 18 months. In the U.K., commuters made up about 40% of the rail market pre-COVID or about GBP 4 billion of sales. But historically, they have been underserved with digital ticket options and have not been an area of focus for trainline. Commuters are now returning. However, they are doing so in a new way, reflecting more hybrid working with some days in the office and some days working from home. Recent RDG data shows commutes now recovered to 45% of trips. We've invested to meet the needs of this new commuter, launching features like Save your commute, allowing customers to personalize their journey and rebook tickets in just 2 clicks. Coming to calculator, helping customers find the cheapest way to travel by train and real-time push notifications, alerting customers if their train is delayed. We also launched Flexi tickets on the app and have plans to roll out digital season tickets. Our investment is already driving positive change in customer behavior. For example, we have a cohort of back users we call time checkers. They serve as a good proxy for commuters. And in September, we converted 26% more of them to purchasing customers versus pre-COVID. Moving on to our second priority, building demand. As COVID restrictions eased, we scaled our marketing investment. We grew performance marketing, taking advantage of increased online demand. And we ran brand leisure campaigns over the summer, tapping into the staycation bump and demand for other domestic leisure travel. Our marketing activity generated a sharp rebound in new app customer acquisition, which reached its highest ever level. Likewise, customer engagement recovered to where it was pre-COVID, with 30 million unique monthly users active in August. We also increased our reach, integrating Trainline into the Google Maps Android users -- sorry, Google Maps for Android, broadening further the reach of Trainline. Customers can book by simply clicking through Google Maps direct to the mobile. And those customers can seamlessly buy and store their train tickets as well with Google Pass and Google Pay now integrated into our app. Our third priority is to increase customer lifetime value. This means not only do we want to increase the frequency of journeys they make with us, but we want them to use us for more of their travel needs. Commuting, shopping trips, getting to university, business trips, family days out, buying a railcar and indeed, international travel. Through our enhanced product offering, and broader marketing efforts. We have significantly increased our ability to help people make these everyday travel choices. In the U.K., more customers are increasingly booking their regional travel through trainline. And more recently, they commute to travel. We've seen similar trends in international where sales for regional travel also stepped up considerably in France and Italy, up 56% and 160%, respectively, versus 2 years ago. This has driven a notable increase in repeat usage, particularly in the U.K., where customers transacting twice or more each month was up 29% pre-COVID. Look, having worked in e-commerce for the last 20 years, I can tell you how rare is you see this kind of step up in frequency. While helping to drive faster growth, increasing customer lifetime value is also improving our customer economics, allowing us to, in turn, invest more in customer acquisition. We also made strong progress against scaling digital railcards, a big retention opportunity for Trainline. There are around 6 million railcars in the U.K. to date. They are applied on more than 40% of our customer transactions and users of railcars by train tickets far more frequently. We launched digital railcars in the U.K. a year ago to provide a much better experience than the paper alternative. So far, the customer response has been strong, with over 0.25 million sold in the first half. Following our early success in the U.K., we've now launched digital railcars in France. Moving on to our fourth priority, growing Trainline Partner Solutions. As Shaun mentioned earlier, demand for business travel remains subdued, but we are beginning to see some signs of recovery with net ticket sales doubling from Q1 to Q2. Despite the slower recovery, we continue to invest in our TPS business to ensure it is in the strongest position when demand returns. Within our Global Distribution and Business Solutions division, we continue to scale the global API platform. This gives our B2B partners the ability to offer European rail options to their customers through our simple, seamless connection. 22 B2B customers are now signed up, including Flight Center most recently. Within carrier IT solutions, we renewed contracts with 5 white-labeled train company clients. They will benefit from access to our core platform functionality and upgraded suite of features, including payment support and improve for management. So as the new CEO, I feel really good about the progress we're making against our strategic priorities. And looking forward, I'm excited about our opportunities, particularly for our European expansion. Our opportunity in Europe is huge. Pre-COVID, the European rail market was circa EUR 50 billion in size, around 5x that of the U.K. And the European rail market benefits from significant tailwinds. For example, the EU have stretching targets to promote mobile shift, seeking to double passengers on high-speed rail by 2030 and triple it by 2050. At the same time, the EU's fourth railway package has opened domestic rail for competition. As a result, carriers from France, Italy and Spain are beginning to compete in each other's markets. Italy is the most liberalized of the top markets in Europe, following the entry of Challenger brand Italo in 2012. And Italy may yet see more carriers into the market with SNCF recently discussing the possibility. In Spain, the market began to liberalize from May with 2 new carrier brands on the Madrid to Barcelona route, Ouigo and Avlo. Next year, competition in Spain will expand even further with Ouigo and Avlo launching more routes and Trenitalia due to enter the market. Trenitalia also due to enter the French market in the coming weeks, launching a service between Paris and Lyon, Europe's busiest high-speed rail route. Railcoop's plan to enter the French market next year, linking Bordeaux and Lyon. And Spanish carrier Renfe are due to launch in 2024 with press speculation last week, they may also launch a channel time or service to compete with Eurostar. As a business, we've been talking about this for years, but liberalization is happening right now. By the end of the year, we will have carrying competition in 3 out of the top 4 rail markets in Europe. And then if we cast forward to 2030, we envisage a world where European customers use Rail far more, and we'll have much greater range of choice available. In turn, those customers will increasingly need help to find the right journey at the best value. We'll fulfill this role by positioning ourselves as the marketplace of choice for European rail travel. We will aggregate all the carriers, fares and journey options into one place. At the same time, we will leverage our best-in-class mobile app with it's simple to use interface and search functionality to customers a seamless booking experience. And we will provide real-time on-the-go information to make their journey easier. By positioning Trainline as the marketplace of choice, we are well placed to succeed in Europe and significantly grow our share. Let's bring that more to life by taking a closer look at Italy. As mentioned, Italy has experienced carrier competition for the past several years following the entrance of Italo. Italo compete fiercely with incumbent Trenitalia, having grown its share to around 30% of the long distance rail market. One notable manifestation of that competition is neither carrier providing the others inventory on its respective websites. So we are positioning ourselves as the aggregator, which I saw firsthand when I traveled last week from Milan to Rome. And we are seeing strong early progress with net ticket sales for domestic travel doubling in Q2 versus 2 years ago. Have we more than just an aggregator. As customers use our mobile app to compare routes and prices the experience is ease and reliability. This intern prompts them to use Trainline for all of their other rail journeys. This dynamic was reflected in our regional sales growth on Trenitalia, which was up 160% versus 2 years ago. Despite carrier competition not yet existing on such routes. Likewise, we have good customer acquisition momentum with new record -- sorry, with record new customers in Q2. To accelerate this momentum, we'll require greater customer awareness and so an increase in our brand investment. Let's take a closer look at Spain, zoning in on Madrid to Barcelona route. This is a prime route for flying, is the busiest domestic airline route in Europe. However, high-speed rail provides a better alternative. Passengers can take the 386-mile journey in just 2.5 hours from city center to city center. Whilst generating significantly lower carbon emissions than flying or driving. And the arrival in May of new entrant weaker has only increased the attractiveness of rail for customers. Ouigo is SNCFs low-cost brand. So while providing greater choice, it's also intensifying price competition with fares as low as EUR 9. In response, incumbent operator Renfe has launched its own low-cost brand, Avlo. As in Italy, Ouigo does not offer Renfe and Avalos inventory on its website and vice versa. So we are positioning ourselves as the aggregator here too, integrating Ouigo and Avlo onto our platform as they entered the market. Since then, we have taken a disproportionate share of ticket sales. Tripling our transactions between Madrid and Barcelona in Q2 versus the same period 2 years ago. One in 5 of these tickets involved more than one carrier generally where the customer was trapping to cities beyond Madrid or Barcelona. The only way to book a multi-carrier journey in one place is through an aggregator like Trainline. So we have a huge opportunity in Europe with considerable headroom that will increase with future model shift. Alongside greater competition, the carriers and with the market recovering now is the moment to invest behind our growth ambitions. Therefore, we're stepping up our investment in international from H2 onwards. We'll hire around 150 more people, predominantly software developers and data scientists increasing the pace at which we can launch innovation and integrate new entrants onto our platform. We'll also accelerate our ability to meet the specific needs of each market while filling any product apps that might exist. For example, we recently launched airline-style seatmap selection in France and Italy, meaning customers can now choose a specific seat to enjoy for their journey. And this could be something we bring back to the U.K. We will also increase our marketing investment, expanding our performance marketing capability and launching brand marketing campaigns to grow awareness. However, we remain agile and disciplined only investing if trading conditions are favorable and where the unit economics are attractive and indeed sustainable. So before we open the floor to questions, let me recap on some of the key takeaways. Trainline has taken a leading role in the industry recovery, encouraging people back onto the train and accelerating the shift to online and digital. There continues to be ambiguity around GBR and the proposals laid out in the Williams Shapps white paper. We're engaging with the U.K. government and the industry. But as we've said, this will just take time. However, we remain on the front foot making strong progress against our strategic growth priorities. We've continued to enhance our customer proposition, scaled up marketing to attract new customers. And very encouragingly, this has increased the frequency with which our existing customers transact with us. As a result, we've delivered a strong set of results for the first half. Looking ahead, we remain positive about our long-term tailwinds, including in Europe, where the liberalization of domestic well is opening a new chapter of competition between operators and consequently choice for customers. And this provides a moment-in-time opportunity to step up our investment in Europe. So reflecting on my first year in the business and first half as CEO, I'm delighted we've delivered such a strong operating performance supporting rail recovery, making travel choices easier and crucially returning to growth. We've laid out a clear strategy against which we are making significant progress, and I remain excited about the opportunities that lie ahead. And finally, I'm proud of the business helping more people choose greener travel in the U.K. and Europe.

So thank you all for listening. We're going to now open the floor for questions. [Operator Instructions]

Owen Shirley from Berenberg. Three questions, if that's okay for me. The first was in the U.K. in September and October, it seems like passenger numbers have been sort of flattish versus August. But I wondered if you could give us any color on how you've performed in that period and whether you think your performance relative to the market has improved? The second question just your latest thinking on the time line for GBR's ticketing platform. And perhaps any color on if you have an idea on time line where you may be asked to bid for that? And then the final one was where you've got relationships preexisting with carriers like SNCF and Renfe across Europe. When they're then launching into new markets, so you carrying across your existing commercial agreement? Or are you getting better commission rates where they're launching new brands and new markets?

Great. Thanks very much for the question. Shaun, do you want to take the first one, and I'll take the 2 and 3.

Yes. So the first one was passenger numbers and performance in September and October. So what we've seen and it's what we expected, Owen. So we've seen a step up in September and October, and felt like a back-to-school moment, right? And that's really what we've seen. So more commuters coming back in those periods. And as we explained in our announcement, we saw a return to growth year on 2 years, for our U.K. consumer in August, but that performance has continued into September and October.

Great. And then question 2 around the ticketing platform and potential time lines. I think we're very much in wait and see mode here to see the way that the government wants to play this out. When we think through the potential options they got, they could decide to ultimately build it themselves, or they could decide to come to a tech player, obviously, like Trainline. We think we're really well positioned should they decide to come to -- out to the market with a tender process. And I think the core part of that is around our scale. We've proven we can operate at scale within the U.K. market. And then the speed to market, particularly if they look for some kind of interim solution to bring GBR to customers quickly. And then beyond that, the kind of the value quality trade-off, we feel really good about what we'll be able to offer in terms of that. So it's a little bit of wait and see. We stand ready for that, but we'll wait to see if they launch tender process in the coming weeks and months. And then thirdly, the question around the relationship with SNCF and how we sort of engage with them commercially as new entrants. So I think the spirit of the answer is absolutely. We have those relationships at senior levels whether with those carriers, obviously, as they go and look to a new market, there's a lot more interest from them to work with us as they enter the market. And so we're able to develop new relationships with new commercial terms that work obviously very well for, I think, everyone involved, in terms of helping them find new customers, and we've had very encouraging results from -- particularly in Spain, the launch so far from our partners there. Thanks for the questions.

[ Karen Dong from Liberum ]. Two questions from me, please. First question, in the scenario that you talked about with GBR essentially taking all of the IT carrier solutions business, you talked about significantly impacting the TPS revenues. Could you help us quantify significantly? And two, just on the European rail market, I think previously used to quote a GBP 70 billion market size. I realize you quote GBP 50 billion. Maybe it's a change in kind of accountancy, but I just wanted to kind of hear your thoughts around the introduction of the low-cost carriers and potentially kind of lowering the overall size of the market.

Yes. So let me -- should I start on the second question on the low-cost carriers and maybe you compete on the market size, and then we'll come back to the GBR scenarios. So we think low cost is a really interesting part of the evolving rail market in Europe. In terms of what we're seeing, we can see that it's stimulating traffic and driving more passengers onto those lines and basically substituting from both road and rail. So if I take Madrid and Barcelona in terms of what we see in our own sales, it's significantly grown that. And we can see that overall, those have been on that Ouigo train between Madrid and Barcelona, and it's full. And it's a really great proposition with pretty aggressive introductory fares and very aggressive market to get people on it. And if you speak to people across Spain, they've heard of it, and it's making people reappraise travel. So I think it's a really interesting trend to watch. And then when you look at the broader emergence of it, Ouigo obviously exist in France. And so SNCF we've got ahead of themselves here putting that on there. But I think really encouragingly, Lumo, which obviously launched just a couple of weeks ago, in the U.K. between London and Edinburgh, we see those ticket sales working very well for Lumo and for [Indiscernible] accounts, the trains are full so far. And I think that is driving, again, reappraisal of whether you should go on road or via air to get there. So I think that's I don't know if there's anything you'd add, Shaun, on low cost.

No. And then I can just give some color here on the market size. So the GBP 50 billion that Jody talked about is Mainland Europe, rail. And the GBP 70 billion we talked about previously includes the U.K., and it includes Coach across Europe. And that will help you kind of reconcile between those 2 numbers. And if you think about the individual markets, you've got, of course, the U.K. market, and you've got France and Germany are at least as big, if not bigger than the U.K. market.

And then to your first question on GBR taking all of the carrier IT solutions businesses. There is a little bit of wait and see to see exactly what GBR launches with regards to the app. I think what we're highlighting here is the white label businesses that we support what the expectation is, whilst we have actually renewed a large number of those businesses on a kind of a rolling basis and continue to invest them some of those and the ones that will ultimately roll into GBR, whatever that looks like, clearly won't require a white label solution anymore. And so that's what significant looks like. I don't know if we say any more than that with regard to quantification.

No, we don't break out those numbers, as you'd expect, as we have never done before.

Yes.

James Lockyer from Peel Hunt. On your tech developers, there appears to be wage pressure in other software verticals. Is that a factor in your cost growth or talking about or is your grand compensated for some of that recruitment? And how many new tech heads do you need to sort of hire over the next few years to hit your plans? First one. Secondly, it seems most of your more recent investments in your platform have been more value-add versus the core infrastructure. Can you talk about the trend of the ROI of those investments? Is it fair to say that the value of an incremental GBP 1 of CapEx is higher in value now than it was in the past. Any quantitative commentary you can provide on that would be lovely. And thirdly, can you talk about -- more about your Google integration? How did the deal emerge and how long did it take from initial discussions to launch. And presumably, this is step 1 with your relationship with Google.

Sure. So look, let me speak first to tech developers. So yes, of course, we factor in some degree of wage inflation into future projections. I'm not going to get into the details of that. We have, I think, a really attractive proposition for tech developers and indeed, data scientists. There's we've as you know, recently recruited senior talent onto my exec team, which is part of our proposition to be able to hire people who've come from Google and have come from Facebook. But more broadly, what we're actually finding is people and developers particularly connect very strongly with our purpose, and are excited about the sustainability point and for the kind of that generation of talent. It's a really important part. When I speak to people and ask them why they're here, that's always the number one reason. And then the second part is working on really interesting tech problems where we are really at the forefront of a large part of travel technology and working on something of really significant scale. And then in terms of the future, and I talked about this 6 months ago, there's quite a lot we still haven't done that we can do around things like personalization and using that data in new ways across the industry, and those are the sorts of problems they love to work on, and we're excited about getting the talent in to work on. So that's kind of how we think about tech. In terms of the recent investments, look, I'm always going to stand up here and talk more to you about the features and the exciting things we're doing and what the customer is actually experiencing. Obviously, behind the scenes, we continue to evolve our core infrastructure and core platform, missing it faster, ensuring errors as low as possible, putting it into new countries across Europe. And so that all of that investment continues in terms of where you're kind of -- this point on ROI of future innovation. I do think we are now in a place where we were able to -- the new commuter feature, I think, is a great example, right? We've done some work there. And actually, that was about kind of the infrastructure is there. We've been able to create a screen, create a favor such that I can now in 2 clicks by the commute that I buy every day versus previously on Trainline that actually took kind of probably too many clicks by yesterday's journey. And so that agility to bring those features to market quicker adding the personalization. I do think the cycle claim is speeding up. And with that, the ROI is probably improving, but I don't want to give the impression that we're not working on the core take behind that and security and all of the other pieces. And then on Google Maps, look, we have a very long-term relationship with Google, like frankly, every tech business needs to and it does. When we look more broadly at that relationship with Google, we work with them on a kind of annual basis and identify particular opportunities that are interesting to both sides. And this is one where previously, would people have been concerned about Google in the role it might play. And I think what this does really nicely for our customers is when they're looking particularly kind of early-stage navigation of where they might go. They're looking at that and thinking about rail versus road and we know we need to be even more present when people are making that kind of mobile choice. This is a really great way to integrate Trainline into that choice process and make it very easy essentially the default choice for customers in the U.K. to get to -- get to rail. So that's how we think about it. And that's an ongoing relationship, and we're always looking for ways that we can partner together here or throughout year. Shaun, do you want anything to add?

Maybe just one more comment on the ROI gens. So the thing that helped us accelerate our ROI really happened a couple of years ago, and it was the replatforming of the business. It was the building out pulling together the U.K. business and the international business onto the single platform. And what that meant was we were able to roll out features and build features wants and roll them out to different markets. And that was the scaling factor that it really helps the ROI. And as Jody said, when we think about our tech investment, we always think about what does it take to keep the lights on because that is the most important part. If you can't do that part well then the innovation is almost irrelevant, right? You have to be able to keep the core on running and operating at scale, at speed.

Navina?

Navina from Morgan Stanley. Thanks for the presentation. Just had a couple of questions on international. If we look at Germany, could you just give some color on sort of expectations there, what we sort of think about in terms of liberalization and the rollout there? And then in terms of just generally international, your investments beyond the second half of this year, would you say it's fair to sort of take the second half as a run rate for 2023? How should we sort of think about that? And then given that take rates are sort of less than the U.K. still in international, as you roll out these ancillary products, are you expecting a sort of step up from there?

I'll take the first one, and then I'll pass it to you Shaun. So in terms of Germany, yes, Germany is a very interesting market for us for a number of reasons. But it's not yet, if you like, in the sort of priority list of countries. And the principle for reason for that is we don't yet have the regulatory framework in place that allows us to really take the gloves off and invest fully things like real-time data aren't yet fully agreed. And so there's ongoing discussions at multiple levels with Deutsche Bahn and beyond of how we do that. I think the other point is liberalization has also not yet arrived in Germany in the way that it has, as we've talked about in the other 3, our priority market. My sense is this is a matter of time. All of these things, they're only going in one direction. And whilst Italy blazed the trail here a number of years ago, we're now seeing France and Spain come in. and we're beginning to see them decide to compete in each other's markets. And it just takes one operator to decide to go to Germany and they kind of break the sale on that and we'll be there. So I don't think we'll be far behind, but we're not yet in that position. That said, we sell tickets in Germany, and we're encouraged by what we see so far. Do you want to take the any adds or the second one.

No adds. The second question was about international investment and into FY '23. So look, yes, you should expect us to continue with our sort of go faster plans for international for FY '22 and frankly, beyond. This is a moment in time, for us, the conditions are right, as Jody explained, the market conditions arise. But the investments that we've already made in product give us confidence that we can generate the returns by making those additional investments. The additional investments in product and those additional investments in marketing and particularly around brand marketing. We have a cohort of customers who know who we are in each of our major European markets, but the headroom is enormous. There's a lot of upside for us to go for and awareness for our brand isn't where it needs to be. So we do need to make those brand investments to raise awareness. So we've got a step-up investment in each of those markets, starting with our first focus market, which is Italy and France, but it will expand across. And you should always expect us to spend more marketing dollars every year in international as we continue to scale the business. But equally, you'd expect us to drive increasing marketing efficiency as we do that as we roll out our playbook across those markets as well. And I think the last question, Navina, was on take rate. So take rate international is less than the U.K., and it's less in the U.K. for a bunch of reasons. But the biggest reason is because a lot of the additional monetization beyond base commission we have not launched the international. It's not been our first focus to launch advertising or insurance, for example. But it is also fair to say that the commission in some of our markets in Germany is a good example is not where it needs to be. And so we have to work hard and the team have to work hard to make sure that we get a commission that gives us a sustainable set of economics that allows us to make those marketing investments and customer acquisition investments that will help us grow the business and take share in those markets.

And the only add on that, that final question would be, if you look at the Italian market, the nature of that competition has put upward pressure on those take rates, which has worked well for us. And so when we begin to look at France and indeed Spain, we would hope that similar things we're having.

Marcus Diebel have other question.

It's Marca Diebel from JPMorgan. Also 2 questions on International. I think one point that's really different in international is that, you have the train carriers not selling other train carriers tickets, which is regulatory driven. Do you think there's at least a slight chance for this to change? Or do you have a strong view that all of them saying, we're just saying, "Oh, tickets and that that's it. Because it would at least potentially increase the overall experience and would put risk on your presence? Just what is the visibility on this? I understand that it's not obvious, but it would be a risk if this happens, I guess. That's the first question. The second question on international. Could you talk a bit more about the market share in terms of what you see given that in Europe, you're not alone. Clearly, there are other players as well running their proposition for rolling out their proposition, and it's a very young market. So if you could help us understand really from your best guess where market shares are and what the competitors are actually doing?

Sure. Well, I'll kick those off and then a you have some context to that. So look, selling each other's tickets, we've obviously thought about that and seen it, and we'll take each case by case in terms of what actually happened. And I was in Italy last week and talking to a friend about this. And the fact that Italo and Trenitalia do not sell each other's ticket, and that's a market that has now been competitive for 5-plus years at kind of at scale, and they both decided not to do that. I think it's a case study in why that doesn't happen. And if you kind of think that through, that would mean they would start advertising rivaled trains with rival prices, which might be better. And I think it's quite hard to get your head around that if you lower Trenitalia. And then if we look at the case study in Spain over the launch, rent they could have decided to try some how to sell the Ouigo ticket, but that has not happened there. We'll have another case study in the next few weeks. I don't have the answer exactly how SNCF might think about the launch there on the Paris and Lyon route, but it doesn't seem to be playing out. So we'll keep looking at it, but it does seem each of the operators is making the call on their own through their own experience not to sell the other tickets. So that's -- as it stands, how we see it and obviously works very well for Trainline in that situation. And in terms of market share, look, the way we think about this is that we're in somewhere between -- I'm not going to name kind of -- by the market, but by somewhere between kind of low single-digit and mid-single-digit market share. And look, the aspiration here is absolutely through these investments, get to double-digit market share in those markets that we're identifying and go hard after that because that's a real opportunity. And when we speak with you spoke about competition, when we speak with these carriers and we have regular interactions, they are all calling out that the trainline is the most interesting player that they work with. We don't hear a lot about other players who offer services like trainline, and nor do we see any data that suggests there are. So we feel like we're very well positioned and are kind of in that launch partner position with some of these carriers as they go into new markets and someone they want to be talking to. Shaun, anything you'd add on that?

So, not much, Marcus, I would say -- when I think about why the customers come to Trainline in those European markets? And the first reason, the aggregation reasons are really good one, and we're seeing that and it's played out in Italy, and we've taken this disproportionate share on that Madrid to Barcelona route already, and that's exciting. But the other reason they can Trainline is because the product, the app is just a better experience. And there are -- there's a range, as you know, there's a range of different ups out there. But none of them are that great. And it's not surprising because train companies are not -- they're not tech companies and their skill set is not building up. It's running trains and time tables and all these good important stuff. Okay. Mark, can I mark the question?

Can I just ask the market share question for the U.K. business. The trend of increasing penetration looks very encouraging. Within that, can you confirm that you're still taking market share within e-tickets? If you could maybe give a number pre and post pandemic, that would be ideal.

You want to take one, Shaun?

So look, we're not going to share our share numbers. But what I would say, we've tried to leave some breadcrumbs for you. So if you look at the step-up in e-ticket penetration, it's gone to 40%, and that is -- that's doubled basically doubled in the last 18 months. So it was 21% pre-COVID. And as you think about that e-ticket part of the market, of course, with a natural choice. We have the most apps, the biggest app base out there, and I think we have the best e-ticket experience. And we've also marketed that as well. So we're telling customers about that e-ticket experience. So you can think about that step-up e-ticket penetration and think about how much of that have we benefited from. And then the other point I would make is the step-up -- we talked about at the start of COVID, how we expected we would see a step change in online penetration. We saw it elsewhere in the verticals, right? We saw it in food delivery, we saw in other cases in online fashion, for example. And we thought -- we said we would expected to see the same in our vertical. And that looked bold at the time, right? When we were 95% down and ticket sales have dropped away that far. But actually, that's what's played out. So we have seen a step-up in online penetration. It's gone from 40% pre-COVID to 50%. And I think we have certainly the -- it's about customers who previously were buying the ticket at the station. And now we just prefer to use the app and use ticket. And those 2, obviously, that online penetration and e-ticket penetration, obviously connected.

Now I'll just add one other dimension which I think alluded to, which is around kind of regional travel and commuter travel if you we don't really sit. But if you thought about our penetration into those markets, we've seen that going up within the context of e-ticket. As e-ticket penetration has gone into those markets as customers have given up on their annual or even monthly season ticket, we have showed up for them and they are choosing come from Nordic to London or wherever it might be through trainline. So that's another angle which is very interesting for us.

Just one final question from me. Could you give us some indication just how Flexi ticket has taken penetration from season tickets post cover, that would be really interesting.

Sure. I don't think I can give you a number. I can more speak to how things are going and sort of give some context on that, which is to say that nothing really happened until September. And so -- and even then it was kind of mid-September before there was any understanding of Flexis. And so I'd say there hasn't been issued, that all of everything is down with regard to purchasing ahead of time. While data shows that I think 45% of commuter trips are back. I think it's a far higher percentage of people who are traveling. It's just the frequency with which they're traveling on to you to is way down. And so we talked about helping customers understand which type of ticket to take. And I think at the moment, most customers are holding back, not buying a few buying weekly seasons, but no one is really buying monthly and certainly not annual at the same level. And the Flexis is really quartile within that. Over time, I think there's an opportunity for Trainline to help people understand that they should indeed be buying those Flexi season if they're traveling twice a week or 3 times a week station. So I'd say it's still very early days on Flexi. Any final?

Any other questions? Okay.

Great. Well, look, thanks again, everyone, for joining today. Look, as we've said, we delivered strong operating performance, supporting the rail recovery and returning to growth. And I think we've laid out, hopefully, today you a clear strategy against which we're making significant progress. And we remain excited about the opportunities that lie ahead here. So thank you, everyone, for joining. Thank you.

Thank you.