Baltic Classifieds Group Sees EBITDA Margin Reach 78% in Bumper Half Year Results

The online classifieds operator Baltic Classifieds Group (BCG) has reported bumper numbers for the first half of its 2024 financial year. Highlights of the Vilnius-based firm's reporting for the six months ended 31st of October include:

• EBITDA was up 22% at €27.8 million at a 78% margin.
• Company revenue grew 20% to €35.8 million with real estate revenues up 20% year-on-year at €8.8 million.

The growth in BCG's real estate verticals was chalked up to growth in the number of listings and rising house prices as well as increased yield. The company implemented price increases at the start of the financial year and over the last six months has introduced a new prominence package for business clients in Lithuania and Estonia.

The number of active monthly real estate ads was up by 20% to over 20k in the period despite the number of professional customers not changing much compared to the first half of 2023. The monthly average revenue per user (ARPU) was up by 27% compared to the comparison period of 2023 at €172.

Commenting on the results, BCG's CEO, Justinas Šimkus said:

"The stars have aligned extremely well for all of our businesses as we have seen record numbers of advertisers, as well as an improved competitive position and increased yields across our entire portfolio.

Importantly, we have seen strong growth in our core revenue streams of B2C and C2C, with a 25% and 19% increase respectively. This is a strong indication that customers continue to place their trust in our services, despite the ongoing macroeconomic uncertainty. This growth is a testament to the reliability and effectiveness of our platform in facilitating transactions for our customers."

Baltic Classifieds Group owns most of the main players in real estate, car and job classifieds in Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia. The company enjoys a very healthy position in terms of market share in each and claims that every month each resident of the Baltic region visits BCG sites 10 times on average.

Baltic Classifieds Group Assets

The group is facing three ongoing enquiries from the Estonian competition authorities with the most serious being a complaint about what the claimants describe as "excessive" pricing for the company's autos classifieds. However, the company is not expecting anything serious to come from any of them.