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Earnings call: PropertyGuru reports an EBITDA margin double-digit growth

Published 2024-05-21, 06:48 p/m
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PropertyGuru Group, a leading online real estate company, announced in its First Quarter 2024 Earnings Conference Call that it has achieved a 12% increase in revenue, reaching $37 million despite a slow start in the Singapore property market and challenges in housing affordability in Malaysia. The company's adjusted EBITDA margin saw double-digit growth, demonstrating effective cost management and profitability across its marketplaces. With a strong cash position of $300 million, PropertyGuru maintains a positive outlook for the year, expecting full-year revenue to be between $165 million and $180 million and adjusted EBITDA to range from $22 million to $26 million.

Key Takeaways

  • PropertyGuru's revenue rose by 12% to $37 million in Q1 2024.
  • The company reported a solid double-digit adjusted EBITDA margin.
  • Despite market challenges, PropertyGuru saw growth in Singapore and signs of recovery in Vietnam.
  • Revenue and adjusted EBITDA in Malaysia and Vietnam remained flat compared to Q1 2023.
  • PropertyGuru introduced new AI video features, professional agent verification, and data and software solutions.
  • The company ended Q1 with a robust cash position of $300 million.
  • Full-year revenue outlook remains between $165 million and $180 million, with adjusted EBITDA expected to be between $22 million and $26 million.

Company Outlook

  • PropertyGuru is optimistic about its opportunities for the rest of 2024.
  • The company aims to focus on product development and enhancing customer value.
  • Investments in technology and personnel are expected to drive revenue growth and decrease corporate costs as a percentage of revenue.

Bearish Highlights

  • The Singapore property market had a slow start due to higher housing prices, elevated interest rates, and market uncertainty.
  • Housing affordability remains a challenge in Malaysia.
  • A 13% drop in listings was reported in Vietnam, though a 12-month high point was reached in late March.

Bullish Highlights

  • PropertyGuru achieved a record high EBITDA margin in Singapore.
  • Factors driving ARPA growth in Singapore include price revisions, penetration of depth products, and dynamic pricing.
  • Positive market signals were observed in Vietnam, with an increase in sales listings and market demand.
  • Government efforts in Vietnam are expected to boost the property market and consumer sentiment.

Misses

  • The company acknowledged that gaining market traction in Australia is taking longer than expected.

Q&A highlights

  • The company discussed their strategic focus on delivering improvements in operating leverage while investing in growth areas.
  • Corporate costs are under control and trending downwards as a percentage of revenue.
  • PropertyGuru emphasized their commitment to empowering customers and expressed confidence in the potential of 2024.

PropertyGuru Group (ticker not provided), with its headquarters in Singapore, operates across several key markets in Southeast Asia. The company's performance in the first quarter of 2024 indicates resilience in the face of economic headwinds, with its strategic focus on innovation and customer value proposition paying off. The company's strong cash reserves and optimistic revenue projections place it in a favorable position to navigate the dynamic real estate landscape in the coming months.

InvestingPro Insights

PropertyGuru Group's recent earnings report paints a picture of a company that is navigating a challenging market with a strategic focus on innovation and customer value. The company's solid cash position and positive revenue outlook are encouraging signs for investors. To further understand PropertyGuru's financial health and market performance, let's delve into some key data and tips from InvestingPro.

InvestingPro Data reveals that PropertyGuru Group holds a market capitalization of $737.69 million. Despite the company's growth, the negative P/E Ratio of -63.91, which deepens to -98.28 for the last twelve months as of Q4 2023, indicates that the company is not currently profitable. However, the company's gross profit margin is strong at 51.4%, reflecting effective cost management that aligns with the company's reported EBITDA growth.

Two InvestingPro Tips that stand out for PropertyGuru Group are:

1. PropertyGuru's liquid assets exceed its short-term obligations, which is a positive sign of the company's ability to meet its immediate financial commitments. This aligns with the company's reported strong cash position of $300 million in Q1 2024.

2. The stock is trading near its 52-week high, with a price 95.91% of the peak, and has seen a strong return over the last three months with a 29.71% increase. This suggests investor confidence and a bullish trend for the stock, even as the company strives to gain market traction in new regions like Australia.

For investors seeking a more comprehensive analysis, there are additional InvestingPro Tips available for PropertyGuru Group at https://www.investing.com/pro/PGRU. These tips can provide deeper insights into the company's performance and potential investment opportunities. Remember to use coupon code PRONEWS24 to get an additional 10% off a yearly or biyearly Pro and Pro+ subscription, which includes access to valuable metrics and tips that can guide investment decisions.

Full transcript - Bridgetown 2 Holdings (PGRU) Q1 2024:

Operator: Thank you for standing by and welcome to the PropertyGuru Group First Quarter 2024 Earnings Conference Call. Currently all participants are in a listen-only mode. As a reminder, today's program will be recorded. If anyone objects, please disconnect now. Now, let me introduce Nat Otis, Vice President of Investor Relations. Mr. Otis. Please go ahead.

Nat Otis: Good morning and good evening. Welcome to PropertyGuru Group's First Quarter 2024 Earnings Conference Call. On the call today are Jeremy Williams, Managing Director of our Flagship Business Marketplaces; and Joe Dische, CFO. Before we get started, a few reminders. Firstly, our results are available in the earnings release that can be found in the Investors section of our website. Secondly, today's webcast is being recorded. A replay and transcript will be available in the Investors section of our website. Thirdly, we will be making forward-looking statements, including but not limited to statements regarding our future results and expectations for the business. These statements are neither promises nor guarantees and involve risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to vary materially. Please refer to our earnings release and SEC filings for more information regarding risk factors. Forward-looking statements are based on current expectations, and the company is not obliged to update them, except as required by law. Fourthly, this call will also contain non-IFRS financial measures. For a reconciliation of non-IFRS financial measures to the most directly comparable IFRS metric, please our earnings press release. Lastly, all dollar references are in Singapore dollars unless otherwise stated. With that, let me turn the call over to Jeremy.

Jeremy Williams: Thanks very much Nat. Thank you for joining us for our First Quarter 2024 Earnings Conference Call. I've been the Managing Director of PropertyGuru’s Marketplaces business for the past six years and it's great to be part of today's call. PropertyGuru recently marked its two-year anniversary of being a publicly listed company, and we thought this would be a good opportunity for me to update everyone on our continued progress. Now, to the quarter. We started 2024 with another solid quarter of double digit revenue growth and double digit adjusted EBITDA margin, demonstrating our business model strength and operating leverage. Amongst highlights, our Singapore performance illustrated the value proposition we deliver to our customers, even during a period of slower market activity. We also saw some early signs of property market recovery in Vietnam and Malaysia The first quarter witnessed governance across our region, introducing robust policies that will help accelerate growth in the short to medium term and uplift property market sentiments. I will now zoom in on the key updates and property trends from our markets this quarter. In Singapore the government continues to project growth in the 1% to 3% range for 2024, with first quarter GDP coming in at the high end of the range. Of note, construction related GDP continues to outperform overall levels and was up over 4% in the first quarter, which bodes well for future housing supply. No near-term changes in interest rates are expected as the Singapore Central Bank maintains its current monetary policy, while continuing to monitor inflation The Singapore property market has had a dampened start to the year as higher housing prices, elevated interest rates and overall market uncertainty have weighed on consumer demand. On the sales side, our property sale demand index was down 17% in the quarter, while both prices and supply were up 1% compared to the prior year's quarter. On the rental side, our rental demand index was 38% lower than in the first quarter of 2023. As a result of both the reduced demand and a 66% increase in supply, rental prices were down 7% from a year ago. Whether its sales or rental, the cautious buyer sentiment in Singapore drives greater agent competition, highlighting our sweet spot in providing vital, value-add solutions for agents, when transaction volumes slow down. As a result, our top line continues to grow despite softer market conditions, underscoring the optimism we have in our Singapore business going forward. In Malaysia, housing affordability continues to be the primary issue in 2024. Malaysian GDP grew over 4% in the first quarter, in-line with central bank expectations for 4% to 5% growth for the full year. The Malaysia Central Bank chose to maintain interest rates at their current level in March as inflation remains in check. While the limited availability of affordable, mid-range housing and the price gap between buyers and sellers in Malaysia remain two of the biggest impediments to our property market recovery, we do see some signs of improving buyer interest. According to our recent Malaysian Consumer Sentiment Survey, one in three Malaysians intend to buy a property in the next two years, even if prices continue to rise. This bodes well for the prospects of a market recovery in the medium term. In Vietnam, while 2023 was a challenging year, we’ve begun to see green shoots of recovery in 2024. On March 24, sales listings hit a 12 month high on our Batdongsan platform and our market demand index was up 15% from the first quarter of 2023. In addition, the government of Vietnam is working hard to support the property market with additional catalysts. One important way it is addressing this is by trying to bring forward the effective date for three newly amended real estate laws from 2025 to July 1, 2024. These laws would provide for more consistent and realistic land appraisals, tighten developer requirements across a project's lifecycle, relaxed rules on foreign ownership and better organize the agent community. As the leading marketplace in Vietnam, we believe these new laws provide a great opportunity to further improve the structure of the country's property market, especially the component that will require all agents to be affiliated with an agency. According to our recent survey, 65% of consumers view these new laws as positive actions, which should clearly help sentiment. With respect to credit, bank lending rates have decreased in Vietnam since the Prime Minister called for banks to publish average bank lending rates in March. We remain bullish on Vietnam's long-term prospects, which are supported by its population demographics, growing digitization and high growth potential. Infrastructure investments are facilitating greater urbanization and contributing to positive trends in the housing sector, reinforcing our confidence in the market. Let me now provide an update on the recent product progress within the group. PropertyGuru kicked off 2024 with the introduction of new solutions for our customers, coupled with a sustained uptake of previously launched offerings. Central to our DNA, we continue to craft pioneering technology aimed at helping customers make confident property decisions. Our strategic integration of Machine Learning and Generative AI into product development and business operations continues to accelerate our innovation. A prime example of this is our AI video feature, which was rolled out in Singapore. This feature facilitates the auto creation of a video based on listing images and text descriptions uploaded by our agent partners, helping to deliver a better consumer experience, while also being more time efficient for agents. 60% of agents who engaged with the AI video feature chose to incorporate it into their listing gallery. In Vietnam, as part of our effort to assist the industry improving property market transparency, this quarter we rolled out professional agent verification. This solution uses several different forms of information to help the company independently verify agent authenticity, enabling further trust and transparency on our marketplace. The response has been very encouraging, with more than 500 agents verified in the first week alone. Lead Management which we launched last year supports agents with powerful lead related insights that help them close deals faster. It has garnered increasing approval among agents as evidenced by a recent survey that shows a 25% increase in satisfaction levels for agents who use a solution. Moving on to our data and software solutions business. Datasense, our proprietary data and analytics tool, brings valuable insights to our customers, helping them confidently make critical strategic investment decisions. February saw the introduction of Datasense self-serve for Malaysian agents, facilitating their seamless access to our data sense modules. They can now leverage our comprehensive data resources to research, negotiate, and advise using timely and relevant insights. In March, we rolled out Demand Analytics Pro in Thailand and now provide coverage in all four markets. Demand Analytics Pro utilizes proprietary data to analyze supply and demand dynamics at all market levels, from as large as countrywide to as small as township or project level. For our developer and government customers, the comprehensive nature of this solution is exactly what they are looking for, as they make critical investment decisions. In fintech we've made good progress with our digital application for in-principle approval and home loans which we announced last year. Over half of our applications are now being completed through the guided digital application journey. A select number of our bank partners benefit from an advanced experience that includes features like digital signing and as a result, that digital application adoption rate is up to 72% of overall submissions. These digital experiences are especially appreciated by consumers, with over 80% of users having consumer satisfaction ratings of either four or five stars in ongoing surveys. Looking ahead we remain committed to harnessing innovative technology, expanding Generative AI applications and strategically investing in initiatives tailored to navigate the dynamic Southeast Asia property landscape, both in the present and the future. As a final update, I'm proud to share that we have recently released our first sustainability report, supported by the recently launched Gurus For Good, our sustainability mandate. I will now hand the call over to Joe, to walk you through our financials.

Joe Dische: Thanks Jeremy. PropertyGurus started off 2024 with another solid quarter of double digit revenue growth and double digit adjusted EBITDA margin. Revenue was up 12% to $37 million in the first quarter. We navigated a phased recovery in Vietnam and Malaysia. What is remarkable is that we delivered this increase in revenue, while costs within adjusted EBITDA remain flat year-over-year, which led to a 12% increase in our adjusted EBITDA margin, up from less than 1% in the first quarter of 2023. The ongoing strength in Singapore was especially helpful, as was the success of our active cost management, with PropertyGuru continuing to improve profitability, and this quarter delivering margin expansion in all of our marketplaces, regardless of top line performance. We continue to set ourselves up to benefit from our technology investments and prudent cost management, as our property markets rebound and southeast Asia returns to its position as a world leader in economic transformation and growth. Now for more details on our marketplace businesses. In Singapore, revenue was $24 million in the first quarter, up 25% from the prior year quarter and our adjusted EBITDA increased to $19 million for a 79% margin. Once again, increased adoption of our market leading products and active cost management helped us deliver another quarter of strong results. Our Singapore agent base grew again this quarter. We now have over 16,400 agents. Our renewal rate was 77% for the first quarter and the quarterly Average Revenue Per Agent or ARPA was up 22%. In Malaysia, revenue was $7 million and adjusted EBITDA was $4 million, both flat with the first quarter of 2023 for an adjusted EBITDA margin of 52%. On a local currency basis, revenue was up 5% in the quarter. We believe lower interest rates and easing in inflation concerns, will help improve conditions as we move through 2024. In the meantime though, we will continue to focus on product development and optimizing our customer value proposition. In Vietnam, revenue was $3 million in the quarter, flat with the first quarter of 2023 and adjusted EBITDA was breakeven. Of note, on a local currency basis revenue was up 3%. I would also add that following four quarters of double digit decreases in revenue, our top line has begun to improve. The average revenue per listing in Vietnam was up 13% in the quarter, but this growth was offset by a 13% drop in listings to a million. As Jeremy noted, despite the overall drop in listings in the quarter, we are encouraged by the 12 month high point that was reached in late March. We believe the government's actions to improve consumer sentiment and facilitate a recovery in the property market should help as we move through the year. More importantly, it appears as if consumer sentiment is turning positive again. Turning to the balance sheet, we ended the quarter with $300 million in cash. In summary, our results this quarter were a solid start to 2024. Following double digit revenue growth and double digit adjusted EBITDA margin in 2023, we continued this trajectory in the first quarter, which is traditionally a quiet seasonal quarter given multiple national holidays. Profitable growth is more than a phrase for us. It represents the intersection of active cost management, target investment, transformational technology and hard work, and its how we are future-proofing our core business every day. With respect to our published outlook, full year 2024 revenue remains between $165 million and $180 million, and adjusted EBITDA remains between $22 million and $26 million. We are excited about our opportunities for the rest of the year as we continue to deliver profitable growth, while the markets we operate in bounce back and Southeast Asia gathers further momentum. I would like to thank all our gurus for their hard work and our customers for their continued support. I will now turn the call over for questions. Operator, we're ready for our first question.

Operator: Thank you, Joe. [Operator Instructions] Our first question is going to come from Nick Jones.

Nick Jones: Hi, Jeremy. Hi Joe. Nick Jones, Citizens JMP. My first question, can you talk about just your relative kind of share gains or the share dynamic of the PropertyGuru business in your key markets versus kind of what's happening in the underlying markets? Top line growth has been decent, Vietnam seems to be turning the corner. When we think about Singapore and Malaysia, maybe just the broader business, are there kind of clearer share gains in the marketplace business or just broadly or can you maybe add just a little context as to PropertyGuru’s performance versus kind of the underlying market dynamics.

Jeremy Williams: Yeah, yeah, thanks for the question Nick. Look, we feel really confident where we are positioned in all of our markets, Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam and Thailand. I think obviously we spoke a little bit during the call. The Q1 was a little bit of a quieter quarter here, in Singapore in particular. I think we've seen the ebbs and flows in the market before, and two things typically happen during these sort of periods. First of all is that agents definitely bias their spend to channels where they get the greatest ROI. And in all of our markets we have a very strong position, so we’re definitely a beneficiary in that respect. Secondly, we also see that in a market like Singapore, at the moment agents are having to work harder to get leads for their listings, right. So given the depth of products that we offer to our agent customers through greater reach and greater leads, we see more and more agents using our depth of products. So, I think, given the strong market positions we have across all four of our markets, really sort of happy with the quarter and confident in the value that we're delivering, and we think we're sort of well poised, specifically in markets like Malaysia and Vietnam, as they begin to recover into the year.

Nick Jones: And maybe just a finer point. I think in the press release, it says one in three Malaysians are going to buy property in the next two years. Piggybacking off my last question, how should we be thinking about that kind of flow through into PropertyGuru’s model? I mean can you capture the vast majority of that? Will that just help drive incremental share gains, specifically in the Malaysian market?

Jeremy Williams: Yes, so we enjoy a very strong position in our Malaysia market and you're right. I mean, it's great to see the underlying consumer demand is strong, with one in three Malaysians intending to buy a property in the next two years. There are some encouraging signs in the Malaysia market. Q1 GDP was at 4%, which was encouraging. The inventory overhang reduced at the end of 2023. And then also it's good to see sort of the political situation stable after a couple of years of uncertainty. So again, I think we are very well positioned given the share that we have in the Malaysia market and given some of these green shoots of recovery that we're starting to see. It gives us confidence about the year ahead.

Nick Jones: Great. And last question just on, I think, it was 60% of agents using AI video features after the first trial, how is AI showing up in the business? Is this kind of value add that’s increasing revenue or ARPA, and how impactful is AI in kind of your product roadmap going forward?

Jeremy Williams: Yeah, so AI is – look, AI is a big part of our product roadmap going forward. Obviously we referenced sort of the AI video feature that we launched in Singapore, and this is really focused in two ways. The first is a better experience for our consumers, our property seekers, right. They clearly want more of an immersive content experience and AI helps leverage that, so that's one element right. Guru picks which we spoke about last quarter is another element where it really does increase the consumer immersive content and increased consumer engagement. So that's on the first side. On the second side, it's really a lot of efficiency gains for our agent customers as well, right. So now instead of having to take a video of a listing, we can help them stitch together a video based on those listing images. So on the one hand, obviously it's a great experience for our consumers and our property seekers. On the other hand it drives real time and efficiency gains for our agent customers. So I think that's where we're focused at the moment. Over time we'll sort of see how we incorporate this into various subscription packages to potentially drive ARPA. But at the moment we’re really focused on driving a better consumer experience and more efficiency for our agent customers.

Nick Jones: Great. Thanks, Jeremy. Thanks, Joe.

Operator: Thanks. Okay, excuse me. Our next question is going to come from Fawne Jiang of Benchmark. Fawne go ahead.

Fawne Jiang: Just want to pull up on your commentary around the turnaround of your Vietnam and Malaysia. I think we see some early signs of market recovery. Just want to get the better sense of the peace and magnitude on the recovery side. Your last cycle, especially now, we actually saw a V-shaped recovery. Just wondering how should we think about recovery, I guess pace for this one. Any puts and takes that may or may not be differentiating from the last cycle.

Jeremy Williams: Yeah, thank you. Thank you for the question. Look, it is really encouraging to see some of the green shoots that we are seeing in Vietnam. So the government is taking a very proactive approach to help sort of bolster the real estate sector. Obviously that was recently announced land laws which the government is looking to accelerate from 2025 to earlier this year, so that is really encouraging. We think, one of those land laws in particular around agent professionalization is going to be – ties in very well with one of our themes around bringing sort of more trust and transparency to the market. So when you think about the professional agent verification that we launched in Q1, that's really closely tied with what the government is trying to do around organizing the industry and we think as the market leader. We are very well positioned to just capture those benefits as the market does improve. I think underlying consumer demand is strong. It was up significantly in Q1, 2024 over 2023, so I think that is encouraging. So in terms of whether it's going to be sort of a V-shape recovery or sort of take longer, I think it's a little bit early to tell there. I think where we take a lot of confidence is obviously some of the external things that are happening in the market and we're also using this time internally to become more efficient. So in Q1 we also launched a business transformation initiative internally, which is really sort of going to redesign our commercial organization and our go-to-market strategy. So that's going to really make us more efficient and drive growth when the market recovers. I think finally, I just – we've got a great team in Vietnam as well, who is executing very well. So I think these things that are happening externally and internally give us a lot of confidence that when the market does recover, we're going to be in a very, very strong position.

Fawne Jiang: Understood. Thanks Jeremy. Second question, ones which gear on your fintech business. It seems like a like a slow start of the year. Just wonder what’s the driver behind it and how should we think about the rest of the year on the fintech outlook?

Joe Dische: Sure. Thanks for the question. Yeah, I mean in our results we sort of put together in one line by fintech and data business and also Sendhelper. So they are kind of merged in there. I think there's a couple of factors. We did our FastKey business. It was closed down at the end of last year. So that's in the results last year, not in this year, so that's partially reflected. I think also it's proved a little challenging on the fintech mortgages side. The transaction volumes have been down a little bit in Singapore of late, and that's put a little bit of pressure on us. But I think more generally, we have a strong sense of belief and conviction in what we're doing. We believe Sendhelper is a cracking business going forward and it's got a fantastic niche in Singapore, and that data was a huge opportunity. I think there’s peers that make $150 million of revenue in Australia alone in a market with great data. So I can imagine the future, what we should be able to do in a market where there's limited data and we have a lot of that on a proprietary basis. So we're very excited about it, but we are market making rather than market taking, and I think in all honesty its taking us a little longer to gain market traction. But we continue to invest and we expect this year to see continued improvement as we deliver what we hope will be a sizable business in the future.

Fawne Jiang: Understood. Thanks Joe. My last question is actually on your cost expenses. I mean you confirm your full year EBITDA margin, but you had a really solid start. Saw your Singapore EBITDA margin actually hit a record high. So I just wonder, how should we think about puts and takes on your, again, margin trends for the rest of the year. In addition, what might surprise us on upside versus downside in terms of profitability for the year.

Joe Dische: Yeah, thanks. Look, I think we stand by our predictions for this year as we sort of re-affiliated, there was a range there. I think we're very positive at the start of the year and very positive for the results for Q1, I think both on the revenue and the cost side. On the cost side, we are a very disciplined organization. We certainly are very careful where we invest, and we do – we are constantly gaining more efficiencies and better leverage. However, on the cost side this is seasonally, I guess, sort of a lower cost period generally due to all the sort of national holidays, marketing spends tends to sort of drop, and I think we've sort of – that's partially reflected in our results. But look, we are focused on cost management, focused on delivering improvements in operating leverage, but we are also a growth business and you will see some greater investment during the year. As the markets move out of the holiday season, we intend to keep growing the business and part of that we'll be investing in things like marketing and people, etc., in order to maximize that yield.

Fawne Jiang: Thank you, both. Congrats on a good quarter.

A - Joe Dische: Thanks very much.

Operator: Okay, thanks Fawne. Our next question, and by the way, anyone else who wants to ask the question, use that raise hand function. Nelson Cheung with Citi, go ahead.

Nelson Cheung: Hi Jeremy and Joe. Thanks for taking my questions and congrats on the solid quarter. So, my first question is regarding ARPA growth in Singapore, as we see a very strong double digit growth or ARPA growth in Singapore in the first quarter. And just wonder, what is the major driver driving the ARPA growth with it, because of the upselling opportunity, technology or product transition, etc. Do we expect similar trend going to be last in the rest of the quarters in 2024? And do we have a target on the ARPA group in Singapore this year? Thank you.

Jeremy Williams: So maybe I'll take – thank you for the question Nelson. I'll take the first couple of pieces of that question. Look, the ARPA growth, it's a combination of a number of factors. It's the price revision we put through. The business in Q4 last year, it's greater penetration of some of our depth products, as well dynamic pricing which we use to drive yield, so it's a combination of sort of factors. In terms of where we see the business, I think we've got a very exciting roadmap of more value that we wanted to deliver to our agent customers over the next nine months. So I think that's something that's very excited. We really do focus on delivering more and more value to our customers. So I think we feel confident where the Singapore business is today and obviously about its future. I would point out that we are still relative to the value that we deliver. We are still a small piece of the overall commission pool. So I think when we think about growing the business, we think about the exciting product roadmap that we have ahead. We feel confident the business is in a good spot and we can continue to drive that ARPA growth.

Joe Dische: Yeah, and just to add to this, we don't obviously give specific guidance on those kind of numbers, but I think if you look back at the trend in history, we’re generally delivering a 20% plus average revenue per agent growth over the last periods. And I think there's – the fundamentals are there for a similar sort of growth profile heading out into the future. So I think that's very encouraging, and I think it's just a combination of a real sweet spot in the market for us, great products and also I’ll say great execution by the team as well as [inaudible].

Nelson Cheung: Okay, and then my second question is just, I wanted to follow-up on the Vietnam market and you just mentioned that the listing in Vietnam has hit a high higher point in March. I just want to see what does management observe in the next few months, like April and May. Do we see the trend continue in the second quarter? Yeah.

Jeremy Williams: Well, I think like we said on the call, look, we feel very confident where our Vietnam business is at the moment. The government's obviously taking a lot of measures to stimulate demand in the market, which is encouraging. I think if you look at interest rates, they are at multi-year lows. Clearly, consumer demand has come back strongly post the lunar New Year holiday period. So look, the market is positioned well. We're also taking this time to also focus internally. I mentioned the sort of the business transformation that we announced in Q1. So that's going to really strengthen our go-to-market, allow us to serve our customers better, to have a much more streamlined go-to-market, so that when that market does improve, we're going to be very well positioned to take advantage of the growth opportunities that a market like Vietnam really does So again, we feel as though the business is in a good position. We're seeing some positive signals and we're really encouraged about the year ahead.

Nelson Cheung: Thanks. And then my last question is regarding the corporate cost. Since we have seen some sequential increase in the corporate cost, I’m wondering what would be the change between our corporate cost structure and what would be the trend going forward in order to achieve our adjusted EBITDA margin target. Thank you.

Joe Dische: Yeah, look, I think we're very well positioned from Q1 to achieve the EBITDA numbers that we've got on our forecast. Corporate costs are very much under control. They have – there is a sequential increase quarter-on-quarter and there's a number of sort of more, I suppose specific factors for that. But I think the trend really is the corporate cost as a percentage of revenue just keeps dropping. You noticed that year-on-year. So I think that's a real positive, and that's a reflection really of the leverage we're making. We've unashamedly invested in good technology, great people, in order to make the company success and set us up for continued high levels of revenue growth in the years to come, but we're definitely getting really good leverage out of that. And I would expect to see that corporate cost as a percentage of revenue continue to drop this year and into subsequent years as we gain that leverage and deliver more EBITDA.

Nelson Cheung: Okay, that's very helpful. Thank you.

Operator: [Operator Instructions] Seeing no more questions, that's going to conclude the Q&A session. I'll turn the conference back over to Jeremy for closing remarks.

Jeremy Williams: Thank you. We believe 2024 is a year of tremendous potential and opportunity. This will be a year where our solutions, insights and expertise play a bigger role in empowering our customers as we power communities to live, work and thrive in tomorrow's cities. We look forward to sharing our continued progress with you next quarter. Thank you all very much for joining us today. Goodbye.

Operator: All right, this concludes the conference call. Thank you for attending the presentation. You may now disconnect.

This article was generated with the support of AI and reviewed by an editor. For more information see our T&C.

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