Fredrik Norberg: Thank you, and welcome to this earnings call. Let's jump right into a recap of CDON Group. We consist of two different marketplaces, CDON and Fyndiq. Starting from left, we have 3 million active customers and 100 million annual visits. Looking in the middle, we have our business model, which is, since this quarter, a pure marketplace model where we do not have any inventory in our books or in our warehouses. We have connected 2,000 merchants that upload their supply. We do the marketing. The merchants ship the products directly to the consumers, and we handle the customer service. To the right, you see the long-term opportunity, where in the most developed world, 50% of the online sales is through marketplaces, while in the Nordics, we only have 10%. To give a high-level summary of this quarter, we had a strong turnaround in the quarter.
Fredrik Norberg: Weak start, but the big inflection point came with a big tech investment that was released that we have been working for quite some time. This led to, end of August, a big turning point, and we saw GMV growth of 32% in September, and this strong growth has continued into October as well. For full quarter, we have double-digit growth. For the group, 18% growth, while CDON showed 21% and Fyndiq 11%. EBITDA was held back by non-recurring costs, mainly from, or only from our 1P business that now was closed down in the last quarter, and also our front-loaded investments, mainly in brand marketing in the quarter. Our European giants kept up the pace and grew with the growth of the company as well, and now keep a share of total sales of 6%.
Fredrik Norberg: Looking into our numbers, we start with our top-line growth, GMV, SEK 568 million in the quarter and an 18% growth. I am going to pause here a little bit and double-click on this number. We had a quite tough start. 1 July, we added the EU tariffs of EUR 4 of all goods coming outside EU into EU. That had a big dent on Fyndiq sales. Throughout the quarter, we worked intensively to turn this negative trend around and released one quite big thing that we have been working on for quite some time now, and it is a product data service, enriching and structuring all of our millions of data in a better way. We are launching that in three steps. The first step was to be able to identify copies of the same product, where we have multiple product cards belonging to one product.
Fredrik Norberg: Now we are able to showcase only one of those products and be able to expand that into our feeds into Google. That enabled us to really expand our Google feeds, which is our main marketing channel. We did this by the end of August, and that really pushed the sales. What happens when we are doing changes like this, especially when it comes to Google, is that first, we see an uptake on GMV. We do not get the marketing efficiency instantly. That comes with a lagging effect. This is what we see why GPAM is lower than last year. We did not really pick up the profitability in the quarter, but it comes later on. On this, we also have the 1P non-recurring cost, and we also have the front-loaded brand marketing cost.
Fredrik Norberg: We released our new brand marketing concept 21 September, loading 3.8 million SEK in costs, both production and media in the quarter, but obviously do not really getting the upside already yet in the quarter. Usually, you talk about maybe a lagging effect of three to six months on big brand marketing investments. Definitely not nine days, as in this quarter. This then trickled over to a weaker EBITDA, -5.4 million SEK. Adjusted for these non-recurring and front-loaded cost, it was. Sorry. Only adjusted for this 1P non-recurring cost, it was 1 million SEK in EBITDA. If we look into the quarterly performance now, we have four consecutive quarters with double-digit GMV growth. Very happy with that. You can see the GPAM, our most important KPI, is though a negative performance compared to last year.
Fredrik Norberg: In this quarter, if we take away the 1P cost and the brand marketing cost, the comparable GPAM basis shows 1% growth versus last year. Still, as I said, we have lagging effect both from our Google feed expansion, but also from our brand marketing investments. Looking into the quarter, here you can see the weak start, especially for Fyndiq, it was very weak. CDON really carried the first two months of the quarter, and then we had this really strong increase in sales for both segments because we did this expansion both on Fyndiq and CDON. The first 20 days in October, you can see it carries over. We continue to have this strong growth. Looking into our giants, we continue to grow our giants. Since we had 32% growth in September, it was quite hard numbers to keep up with, but our giants did.
Fredrik Norberg: They kept up with that increased growth. We also see that this growth feed expansion of products mainly have nurtured a long-tail type of product, and the giants are usually more focused on the head type of products. We think this is quite strong numbers that they still have 6% of our total GMV, but not happy with that, of course, we want to improve that as well. I know a lot of information, but let us focus on the middle part of this slide. We start with retail media. We are lagging a bit behind here. We still do not have any revenue. We are live on both segments, but we see that we need to continue to expand ad placements on the site to make sure that we get more eyes on the retail media ads.
Fredrik Norberg: This is being released now in Q4, so now we really see that we have revenue ahead of us. Looking at the Nordic growth, we have some really strong numbers here. We have a Nordic growth in CDON of 20% versus 2% last year to date. For Fyndiq, it is 62% versus 38% same period last year. This is very strong, especially considering that obviously last year we had a lower basis to grow from also. We see that this continues now into October as well. Only this year, we have been able to move 130 merchants that previously did not sell in markets outside Sweden into the other Nordic countries. Then brand marketing, I will, in a bit, talk a little bit more on that.
Fredrik Norberg: Our brand consideration, which is our main KPI that we are showing here, continues to have a small decline compared to last year. Just a reminder, we launched 21 September, so last week in the quarter. Obviously we did not expect any effect in this quarter. Last but not least, we have our tech and AI resource boost. We do not share any external KPIs, but we can show two quite big initiatives that we now have launched. The first is, as I mentioned before, the product data service that is released. The first step is now released where we can group duplicated products into one product. That improves the customer experience and also obviously improves our marketing capabilities. We are now looking into expanding step 2 and 3, where we can enrich the products with much better and structured data, colors, sizes, dimensions, and such.
Fredrik Norberg: We can also, in a better way, understand which category a product should belong to, and also see which product belong to which, what is the relation between different products. This is something that we really look forward into. We see already now an effect in the paid marketing, but also this will enable a lot when it comes to the organic performance, which really have a big potential still. The second part is that we now have a new internal search, and we choose to go with Google. We have heard they are good at search, and we have now implemented their Google AI Commerce Search, and we can already now see an improvement in conversion rate. For us, the internal search is especially important. Having millions of products, you need a good internal search.
Fredrik Norberg: We see that this can really give a positive effect, even though we have not enabled all features yet. In the future, we see also a capability here to have, help me out.
Carl Andersson: Recommendations?
Fredrik Norberg: Conversational search, where you can, like an LLM, have a conversation with internal search and thereby find products that fits you, your budget, or the occasion you are looking for. All right, jumping into our brand concept for CDON. We call it "Förvänta dig allt" in Swedish, expect everything, which aligns well with the vast assortment that we have, and now we try to take this out in different commercial films. This new CDON brand identity was launched on 21 September, outdoor in Stockholm and Gothenburg, and nationwide YouTube, social media, and programmatic display. We have invested costs of SEK 3.8 million in the quarter, whereof SEK 3.3 is on CDON, both media spend, but mainly also production cost. Now I will showcase the first two films. One of them already launched, and the other one is a sneak peek. First time actually officially showing that film as well.
Fredrik Norberg: The first film is an introduction film, a musical where we are introducing our new world of CDON Lynx.
[Video Narrator]: [Foreign language]
Fredrik Norberg: Yes, expect everything. In marketing, you usually talk about the reason to speak. Now it is a big occasion when it comes to consumer electronics. It is the biggest gaming release in 13 years. Of course, we now introduce our CDON Lynx in this world of Grand Theft Auto.
[Video Narrator]: We deliver the goods. 13 years I waited for this. Tell me you brought the hardware. This is perfect. Set everything up and take the winter off. If the feds ask, I am dead.
[Video Narrator]: It is a long road to CDON city. Every mile is a mile of chrome. It is a long road to CDON city. Bringing everything you want back home.
Fredrik Norberg: Yes. I cannot imagine a better segue than this into the financial numbers. Over to you.
Carl Andersson: Thank you very much. I guess that is my reason to speak. Let me walk you through the P&L top to bottom. As we spoke about GMV up 18%, fourth consecutive quarter, almost five. Very happy about that. CDON 21%, Fyndiq recovering nicely, 11% up on a quarterly basis. Take rate was down, and that reflects two things. The non-recurring 1P costs burdening gross profit, and CDON’s shift towards lower commission categories. We will cover both later. Marketing cost was up 36% and includes the brand marketing spend. That leads to a GPAM of SEK 47 million and a margin of 8.3%. If we exclude the 1P costs and also brand marketing on a comparable basis, we were slightly up 1% compared to last year.
Carl Andersson: The adjusted EBITDA of SEK 1 million compared to SEK 11.5 million a year ago, when we exclude the SEK 6.4 million of the total 1P closure cost and adjustment. The reported numbers do not tell the full story. Let us dive into and look into some of the non-comparable items. Two things. The 1P impact, non-recurring, non-cash costs from cleaning up the remaining balances related to our 1P business. SEK 2 million of that, shifts in COGS, impacting gross profit and SEK 4.4 in OPEX, in FX and bad debt. With this final cost booked, we can finally start to look into the future and put this chapter behind us. Brand marketing. We launched the films, as we spoke about, on 21 September. That cost does not compare to last year.
Carl Andersson: I hope anyone in Stockholm and Gothenburg have had a chance to get introduced to the CDON Lynx, on buses or trams or train stations. We also have some growth initiative, OPEX. Front-loaded investments hitting our P&L now with expected returns over time. GMV up in CDON to just over SEK 400 million. Consumer electronics, but also strong sales in several other categories, as well as the European giants contribute. We also saw very strong sales in the non-Swedish market that we are very happy about. Fyndiq GMV and Fyndiq quarter in general was really a tale of two ends. I guess one could compare it to Swedish summer in a way. Strong spring, which stepped up and pegged the expectations, and then disappointment in July and August. We had a lovely ending, as we typically do in September.
Carl Andersson: The tariffs really burdened us in July and August, and we were able to address it through the new improved and broader product feeds to Google Shopping. We have seen that the new fee has impacted our average order value, and the prices have been increased by the corresponding EUR 3. We anticipate another EUR 2 of a handling fee to be introduced in November, and we will remain on our toes to understand how that could impact GMV going forward. In September, we were very happy to see that GMV for Fyndiq reached 36%, and that has also carried on into October as well. We saw a lower take rate as a percentage of GMV in CDON, down to 13.4% or 13.9% if you exclude the 1P costs. If you then exclude the 1P cost, the remaining is a conscious movement.
Carl Andersson: We have been working to optimize both gross profit and gross profit after marketing in absolute terms, not optimizing for a margin in percentage. The categories that we are currently focusing on, electronics, mobility, but also our work with the European giants, have led to lower commission. We believe that that traffic is important. It adds both attractive assortment but also attractive traffic volumes that we are looking to build on going forward. Fyndiq take rate was all in all stable, even if it was a quite significant quarter. We saw the effect or the reducing contribution of our fixed commission when average order value increased. At the same time, we saw higher shipping revenue in a quarter. Net, the take rate was stable in the quarter. Marketing cost increased in CDON to 8%, or 7.1% when you exclude the brand marketing spend.
Carl Andersson: The marketing cost in Fyndiq increased to 14.4%, or 14.1% when removing the brand marketing spend. The underlying trend is a channel shift towards our paid traffic channels. However, it is important to remember that the efficiency or to understand that the efficiency in those channels held up during the quarter. It is clearly a priority to reduce that dependency and the work that we do with our brand marketing campaigns, the work we do with SEO and also customer experience all aim to reduce that dependency and increase our traffic that is direct coming through LLMs or organic searches on Google, for example. Reported GPAM came down in CDON to SEK 22 million, but was slightly up if you were to remove the 1P costs and non-comparable brand marketing. GPAM in Fyndiq, similarly down slightly and the margin likewise.
Carl Andersson: When you exclude the brand marketing there as well, you saw it more or less in line. The important part and what to remember is that on a comparable basis, GPAM held up. Operating expenses did increase in the quarter and amounted to SEK 53 million compared to SEK 41 million a year ago. That increase includes the SEK 4.4 million of OPEX non-recurring monthly costs, and also the SEK 1.5 of growth-related OPEX. On top of that, we also have another SEK 2 million of cost that was related to an incident when we launched the new search during the quarter. We have learned from that incident, and we have addressed and resolved it. Now the search is both performing from a cost perspective, in line with what we expect, and we have seen the conversion increase. That looks very promising.
Carl Andersson: This is not included in the SEK 48 million comparable OPEX, as it is rather a cost of, or a risk associated with our line of business. The remaining delta to last year reflects higher software costs, for example, with the new product data platform that we spoke about, but also the fact that we are 76 compared to 71 full-time employees compared to a year ago. Reported EBITDA of -SEK 5.4 million, compared to SEK 11.5 million.
Carl Andersson: Adjusted EBITDA of SEK 1 million, but still, on top of that one, on a comparable basis, one could be adding back the SEK 5.3 million related to growth, including brand marketing, as well as thinking about the SEK 2 million of cost associated with the search incident. On the right-hand side, reported LTM EBITDA of SEK 3 million, which is a significant step from the approaching SEK 100 million targets that we have in 2027.
Carl Andersson: However, we do remain committed to it for three main reasons. 1P is out of the way, both in terms of the adjustments and also the negative contribution it has had for several quarters back. Secondly, we see that we have seen the effect on when comparable GPAM starts to follow the growth of GMV in September, and we expect that into October and Q4 as well. Thirdly, our cost base is largely fixed. Yes, it has come up versus last year, but those are conscious decisions, and we do not need to scale that significantly further to match the GMV growth required to reach the SEK 100 million target. A few words on cash. Operating cash flow before changes in working capital, -SEK 2 million, compared to +SEK 11 million a year ago, mainly due to the lower EBITDA.
Carl Andersson: Working capital contributes SEK 4 million in the quarter, bringing operating cash flow to SEK 2 million, compared to -SEK 24 million a year ago. Our cash position has improved almost SEK 140 million end of quarter, compared to around SEK 90 million a year ago. It reflects the higher merchant liabilities, which are a natural consequence of the growing sales. That is also why our merchant liabilities have come up to around SEK 164 million compared to SEK 128 million a year ago. Quite an eventful quarter. A few adjustments related to the one to the business. What is important to remember is the inflection point and the growing momentum that we saw towards the end of the quarter, and we are really looking forward to, at least I am looking forward to Q4 very much. Back to you, Fredrik, for additional concluding remarks.
Fredrik Norberg: Yes. We really have a tech-driven inflection that Kalle was talking about. September GMV at 32%, and they carried momentum into October as well. We have finally closed down now the 1P costs, and we now operate a clean 3P business, both operationally but also in our books, and really have a big focus now into Q4 with our operating leverage ahead and still going for our ambition of approaching an EBITDA of SEK 100 million for 2027. With that said, we open up for the Q&A.
Hjalmar Jernström: All right. Thank you. Thank you so much. Let us dive into the questions. First, I guess on the GMV growth, like you mentioned, of course, an impressive acceleration towards the end here. Could you elaborate a bit on this, the product feed adjustment that you made and how this maybe sort of counteracted the headwind from the tariffs that you saw in the market?
Fredrik Norberg: Yeah. We have had a kind of a mess when it comes to our structure of products, where we have displayed multiple products. We could have a PlayStation 5 being displayed 10 times from 10 different merchants. Nobody likes that type of display, neither Google or our customers. What we now in step 1 have been able to do is to group them into one and to identify that these 10 different PlayStations actually is the same. With that information, we have been able to dare to expand our product feed immensely compared to before. Before, we were adding much more business intelligence into the feed, which products to push into Google, how much they have sold, and the timing of them, and so on. Now we have been much more aggressive, so to say, to include much broader assortment in the feeds up to Google.
Fredrik Norberg: That have had a very positive impact, especially on Fyndiq, but also on CDON. Still, we have also. That is not the full story, though. In CDON's case, we still have new supply, new giants coming in, adding to the sales. In Fyndiq's case, we also have this EU tariff of EUR 3. I think I said EUR 4, but EUR 3. That really hit us hard in the beginning. After time, we have seen that we have reached some kind of equilibrium where our merchants have changed their prices, also assortment, according to these new tariffs. We believe that we have not been hit as hard as our competitors because we have a little bit higher average order value.
Hjalmar Jernström: Yeah.
Fredrik Norberg: We do not sell stuff that costs 10 kroner or 20 kroner. We sell stuff that costs 50 to 100 kroner, then adding EUR 3 on that does not have that big of a negative impact as of our mainly Chinese competitors. That is also a tailwind that we have seen occurring towards the end of the quarter as well.
Hjalmar Jernström: Yeah. If we look at then the product feed adjustments, you mentioned that you have done this, is this across the board or is there still work to be done here? Can you do additional adjustments to your assortment going forward, maybe helping into Q4 as well?
Fredrik Norberg: Yes and no. I would say we are a little bit hesitant to do bigger changes now moving into the peak season. That aside, we still see some quite interesting tests to be done in our feed. We are looking a lot into enriching the feed also to provide Google with better and cleaner information than we have today, we believe that could be an interesting test also moving on.
Hjalmar Jernström: Yep. Considering these adjustments, also, like you mentioned, the price adjustments and the merchants that they are acting, do you feel confident maybe also, because we will have an additional hike on this toll going forward that we see in November, you mentioned that. Do you feel confident that you can counteract that in a similar manner?
Fredrik Norberg: I am quite humble about these EU tariffs, to be honest. It hit us a little bit harder than we thought in the beginning, then it turned around better than we expected also, to be honest. Now we are adding 2 euros on the already existing 3 euros. The logic that we do not have these super cheap price points also implies that that should not hit us as hard as our competitors. But it is 1 November, it is in peak season.
Fredrik Norberg: We are humble enough to say that it is really hard to say that over time we will be able to handle that, but it is hard to do fast adjustments from week to week when it comes to this big assortment that we have.
Hjalmar Jernström: Okay.
Carl Andersson: I also think it is worth emphasizing a few things around that. Firstly, the supply chain is now accustomed to these kinds of fees. They know how to operate with it, they understand the dynamics and the price elasticity and, well, demand elasticity. So I would not expect kind of same behavior this time around. I think they will be more aggressive on shifting around prices, packaging, et cetera, to rather counter and offset that. I also see a movement in the supply chain in terms of localizing supply-
Hjalmar Jernström: Yeah
Carl Andersson: which we haven't seen before due to the de minimis fees which really premiered direct from outside of the EU shipping into the union. Our price point has come up during the quarter. Adding another 2 on top of that would have a less percentage-wise impact to it. Lastly, I think the consumer also is more accustomed to the kind of fee on top of it.
Hjalmar Jernström: Yep.
Carl Andersson: I think there have been several articles about how this impacted both consumers and non-EU marketplaces. It definitely impacted conversion rates, but it perhaps can also push and consolidate purchases into fewer purchases.
Hjalmar Jernström: Yeah
Carl Andersson: because that benefits us as well. I think the hike or the shock will be less this time around.
Hjalmar Jernström: Yeah
Carl Andersson: is perhaps my observation to it.
Hjalmar Jernström: Yeah. Maybe an adjustment in share of wallet as well as total consumption is redirected in some sense then.
Carl Andersson: Potentially, yeah.
Hjalmar Jernström: Okay. Yeah. We have a question here on the line on AI agents. Marketplaces like Amazon have blocked most AI agents from accessing the marketplace. What is CDON's approach with respect to these agents and shopping on the marketplace?
Fredrik Norberg: The other way around. We should enable everybody to find their ways into our assortment and to do the shopping on both our segments the best possible way.
Hjalmar Jernström: Yeah.
Fredrik Norberg: We believe we understand why they are doing this, but for us, it is obvious that this is a new channel of the shopping experience that we must be the best we can be at.
Hjalmar Jernström: Yeah. Okay. Thank you. If you go to the take rate, you spoke of the take rate in both of these segments. If we look at the CDON segment, do you feel in integrating the giants, have you reached maybe a level of maturity in terms of take rate here? There is some initial discounts.
Fredrik Norberg: Yeah.
Hjalmar Jernström: How are they working together with also the product mix? Can you maybe elaborate a bit on the mix between these effects?
Carl Andersson: Sure. I think it is really a mix of both. Yes, certain merchant could be on an introductory terms sheet to get them off the ground to make sure that they understand the platform and start selling significant volumes. That definitely has one effect. Then we are a marketplace and our take rate will naturally flow a little bit. I think we also need to reflect the historical position of CDON when analyzing the take rate.
Carl Andersson: We have been quite skewed to electronics. We have been broadening both our assortment and actual sales into other higher margin categories. Then when you see certain seasonal patterns or spikes in certain categories, that naturally impacts our take rate within that time period. We have still had the same take rate and rate card at the bottom to it. We have not made any price adjustments. This is a natural consequence of the marketplace model. We still see an opportunity to expand our take rate over time, both by widening the assortment and, of course, increasing the size of the basket in terms of both items and price, and frequency from our consumers, of course. Then also adding on top of that in terms of retail media, for example. That is definitely a take rate booster that is still largely untapped.
Carl Andersson: We carefully monitor take rates, but we also bear in mind that we currently optimize for absolute gross profit and absolute gross profit after marketing, if anything.
Fredrik Norberg: Yep. I think it is better to compare this number, you should not really compare with last year because we have really changed our whole merchant basis and getting rid of the Fyndiq type of merchants with high take rates, but high complaint rate as well. That you can see in the numbers now when we compare to last year. Comparing CDON this quarter with last quarter, that is a very good comparison. There we can see that we are now improving and increasing the take rate.
Hjalmar Jernström: Yep.
Carl Andersson: Yep.
Hjalmar Jernström: On the Fyndiq take rate, were you at all surprised that the take rates were maintained despite the tariffs? Were you maybe worried that this would have some sort of impact on the take rate in Q3?
Carl Andersson: It naturally would have an immediate effect that we understood, adding another EUR 3 on top of the average order value. With our fairly large share of fixed fees on the sale, that actually had a consequence.
Hjalmar Jernström: Yeah.
Carl Andersson: We are constantly working on optimizing all of our revenue streams, and we have seen higher shipping revenue during the quarter, following increased shipping fees. We were able to model and understand where this would take us. The net effect of 0.1% doesn't really tell the full story.
Hjalmar Jernström: No.
Carl Andersson: It was quite eventful, and we did work quite actively during the quarter.
Hjalmar Jernström: Yeah. Okay. That is very clear. Thank you. On the cost side, you spoke a lot about what was recurring and what was one-offs here, but how should we view the scaling going forward? If we look into maybe 2027, of course, and your EBITDA target, are you confident that these costs are, to what degree are they sticky going forward? How much of these recurring investments will maybe span even forward for a few quarters, maybe?
Carl Andersson: Let us split that into a few buckets.
Hjalmar Jernström: Yeah.
Carl Andersson: Our cost base is largely fixed. We do not scale with GMV. Our platform does not scale with GMV, which is the beauty of our model. It sort of scales the number of articles, and we constantly work to optimize that. Personnel, yes, it has increased, and that is due to the second bucket of our growth initiatives, the conscious decisions to invest more. At the same time, I think it is fair to assume that at this level, we are quite happy with that investment and will not see too much more of additional step up in level of it. We will see a continuation of the current level rather than further increase.
Carl Andersson: We will continue to invest in the Nordic growth during next year and similarly brand marketing during next year to really make sure that we address the underlying trend of a channel mix to paid over organic. Still, that is on general level. Going back to OPEX, I think it is pretty fair to assume that it is largely sticky. Yes, we have added cost versus last year, but they are conscious and due to our forward-leaning growth investments.
Hjalmar Jernström: Yep. What are maybe the challenges to increase the share of organic traffic? I know you spoke of some of the initiatives, but maybe we can just repeat that a bit.
Fredrik Norberg: Yeah. Yeah, a lot of challenges. Where to start? Okay, so we don't own our own product information inventory to start with. That's a problem. Secondly, we have millions of products. That could also be seen as a problem. It's a big inventory for Google to index, and that is a problem also. Then I would like to add also now that with the new AI era, a lot of these questions have changed also on what to focus on. Now you're talking much more about FAQs and three bullet points on products and so on, which the AI is much more like than previously. But I would say for us, it's still a lot about the structure of the product, the data that it's getting more structured.
Fredrik Norberg: Now with this product data service that we have launched the first step and waiting for the second and third step, that's going to enable a much more structured data set into Google and everywhere else.
Hjalmar Jernström: Perfect. Thank you so much. Then on the Giants, we have seen now the rapid expansion here. Could you elaborate a bit on maybe the current pacing, something on the pipeline of merchants integrating going forward? Do you feel that you can maybe push this lever a bit right now?
Fredrik Norberg: Definitely. We do not see that we have reached any maturity level. We still have a good hunting list. We still have a good conversion when it comes to contacting merchants. For us now, it is much more that we are moving over to new categories to focus on. Now we get an onboarding pace based on last year's focus on consumer electronics, which fits very good now with the Grand Theft Auto release, which we think will create a lot of investments in monitors, TVs, audios, and so on. But now I lost my track.
Hjalmar Jernström: Giants and the-
Fredrik Norberg: Giants. Yeah. Thank you. But now we are much more focusing on second and third level of categories, expanding our assortment, and we see that they really bring both a broad but also a strong assortment when it comes to these most wanted type of products in home, in toys, and so on. But I think we talked about this last time. What we learned is also that the ones that are the biggest with the biggest potential maybe takes the longest time to get onboarded as well.
Hjalmar Jernström: Yeah.
Fredrik Norberg: Some of these that we have been talking now for about a year are getting onboarded now. So it is really a long-term game, but we still see that we are far away from any maturity level here.
Hjalmar Jernström: Yep. Perfect. Thank you. Speaking of maybe, not maturity still, maybe early stages, but the growth outside of Sweden, is this mainly to easy comparables or what were the key drivers here, would you say?
Fredrik Norberg: Not easy comparables, definitely not. CDON has been live a quite long time now outside Sweden, Fyndiq also for, is it 5, 7 years or something like that?
Hjalmar Jernström: Yeah.
Fredrik Norberg: So no, the base is no comps that makes this easier. I think we just have received. We have reached this flywheel effect that we talk about in the marketplace. With good supply, you get more customers. With more customers, we attract more merchants, and they expand the supply. With expanded supply, you get more customers, and then you get the flywheel going. That, I think, is what we are seeing now in the rest of Nordic. We have a really high acceleration in the flywheel.
Hjalmar Jernström: Yep. Is this maybe some pattern that you have identified that could be seen driving the growth in the coming quarters? Is that a fair assumption if you have identified that the flywheel is now taking off here?
Fredrik Norberg: Yeah. We do not see that it is going to slow down. We cannot see that it is going to accelerate even more, but yeah, it should continue as is.
Hjalmar Jernström: Yep.
Fredrik Norberg: I think.
Hjalmar Jernström: Yep. Thank you. If we are looking forward a bit, we have the busy season coming up, and you mentioned also this game release.
Fredrik Norberg: Yeah
Hjalmar Jernström: and things surrounding that. We also see in Sweden at least a quite strong consumer-based on confidence.
Hjalmar Jernström: How do you think these items both together now looking into Q4, and what will be the main priorities that you have to capture the full potential in the fourth quarter?
Fredrik Norberg: Yeah, a lot of moving parts now. On the Fyndiq side, we have the new tariffs of EUR 2, 1 November. It is going to be very interesting how that pans out. It is going to hit our competitors harder than us, or is it going to hit us harder than the last time? Hard to say.
Hjalmar Jernström: Yeah.
Fredrik Norberg: Definitely that this is a consumer-strong Q4 now with, it is not only Grand Theft Auto, it is also two other, it is a little bit nerdy, but gaming releases. World of Warcraft is getting a big release also, and then also
Hjalmar Jernström: Legend of Zelda.
Fredrik Norberg: Zelda, thank you. Legend of Zelda is also updated now. So it is three quite big game releases. This, we know that it is not that consumers only buy the games, they buy everything around that. They take the opportunity to buy the new TV that they have been considering for some time. So we are quite optimistic for this quarter.
Hjalmar Jernström: Yeah. Thank you. Then finally, maybe, this alludes back to what we already spoken of, but you reiterate, the EBITDA target here. Could you sort of like roughly paint the picture from where we are right now? Did the Q3 outcome sort of like, change it in any direction based on the way how you saw it? Maybe you sort of like broadly can paint the picture towards the target from where we are right now.
Fredrik Norberg: We are very happy to see the kind of exit pace of Q3 and start of Q4. It is really the first time we speak about monthly performance, but we felt so strongly that we needed to tell the full picture and show that September was not a one-hit wonder.
Fredrik Norberg: We are very happy about that and can really build on that. We are, of course, happy to showcase the effect of the investment that we set out to do about a year ago. The picture is quite simple, right? Q4, our most important quarter. We expect this to continue, and we would want to see ideally further operational leverage, and improving profitability in Q4. Building on that, further brand marketing campaigns going into early 2027, reducing our dependency on the paid traffic, or rather, not necessarily reducing the dependency, but rather building up the organic and direct performance adding on top to it. Then we anticipate further strong performance from our key merchants, the European giants, going into 2027. We would expect a gradual improvement from here out until reaching that approaching SEK 100 million target of 2027.
Hjalmar Jernström: Okay. Thank you so much. Then one final question, the new CCO, could you elaborate a bit on what is in the pipeline and what are the tasks ahead for the new CCO?
Fredrik Norberg: Yeah. It is Emma Danielsson previously from Kicks, a strong beauty brand, and that is also something that she really brings to the table a strong, well-known brand, not only dependent on paid marketing, and also very strong when it comes to loyalty, CRM, and such. I think there are a lot of pieces of the puzzle that we have been missing that she brings to the table now. So really looking forward to this. Jumps right into the peak season, which is the best way to learn the business.
Hjalmar Jernström: All right. Thank you so much, Fredrik and Carl, for coming here today.
Fredrik Norberg: Thank you.
Carl Andersson: Thank you.
