Nordic Marketplaces The Highlight of a Difficult Quarter for Schibsted

The Oslo-headquartered classifieds operator Schibsted has released its results for Q4 of the 2022 financial year. Highlights of the company's operations for the 3 months ended December 31st include:

• Nordic Marketplaces segment revenue increased 6% to NOKm 1,203 while the segment's EBITDA margin fell from 38% to 36%.
• Overall operating revenue increased 4% for the whole year and 6% for Q4.
• Schibsted went from a positive post-tax profit figure of  NOKm 41,066 to a loss of NOKm 22,521 for the year.

Schibsted owns and operates some of the most popular classifieds websites in Scandinavia and is the majority shareholder of Adevinta which was spun off in 2019.

Its classifieds titles include the dominant Norwegian horizontal player Finn.no, the Finnish horizontal marketplace Oikotie and Blocket in Sweden. The company also has interests in News Media, eCommerce and distribution and financial services.

The performance of its Nordic Marketplaces segment was the highlight of an otherwise quite disappointing quarter for the company with CEO Kristin Skogen Lund commenting:

“Driven by double-digit growth in classifieds revenues, Nordic Marketplaces delivered underlying revenue growth of 6 per cent in Q4. The revenue growth was driven by Real estate, Motors and the transactional Generalist offering ‘Fiks Ferdig’ in Norway, while Jobs and advertising revenues declined due to market headwinds. EBITDA ended at NOK 430 million, 1 per cent down from last year driven by Marketplaces Norway. This was a result of a change in revenue mix, and continued investments to drive new business models."

The segment's performance was down to growth in its underlying classifieds model while revenue from banner advertising and marketing was down for the quarter year-on-year.