Retail trade drove the record sales of the AutoWallis Group in the third quarter

The AutoWallis Group increased its sales to HUF 291.2 billion (+3%) in the first nine months of the year, while its revenue of HUF 96 billion in the third quarter is 9 percent higher than the same period of the previous year. The growing regional role of the Group and the diversification of its operations are shown by the fact that almost 60 percent of its sales this year came from abroad. The expansion was driven by the Retail Division of the region’s leading integrated car trade and mobility service provider, which increased its sales by 16 percent to HUF 123.6 billion. The outstanding result is primarily due to the first-quarter importer campaigns involving Japanese brands, the introduction of the BYD brand at the end of last year, the acquisition of the three Czech Stratos Auto BMW dealerships concluded at the beginning of July, and the opening of the AutoWallis Renault and Dacia dealership in Budapest (the acquisition and the two new dealerships supported growth by 6 percent in terms of the number of new vehicle sales of the business). In the first nine months, the business unit also performed above the Hungarian market average, as the organic growth rate of new vehicle sales was 13.7 percent, while the Group’s relevant (Hungarian and Slovenian) retail markets had a lower growth rate of 7.3 and 6.8 percent. was the expansion.* The sales revenue of the Wholesale Business was HUF 161.3 billion, which was the half-yearly decrease of 9 percent partially processed, it means a drop of only 5 percent compared to the same period of the previous year. Compared to the third quarter of the previous year, the business sold roughly the same number of vehicles (-0.8%), which is less than the decrease in sales revenue. The reason for this can be explained by the change in the composition of the vehicles sold: sales of the Renault and Dacia brands increased, but this is not reflected in the Group’s sales revenue (these brands are sold by RN Hungary Kft., which is not fully consolidated in the Group’s financial statements), while other brands its sales numbers decreased in this period comparison. The improving trend in the sales of the Wholesale Business has been seen since the second quarter: the reason for the temporary decrease was predominantly of a technical nature, which was on the one hand the base effect of the exceptionally high sales in the past (the last quarter of 2022 and the first and second quarter of 2023), and in the first half of this year the Suez- channel and the increased shipping deadlines due to the situation in the Red Sea are explained together. Today, these one-off effects have leveled off, but delivery issues continued to cause slippages between quarters, even though the order backlog was better than planned. The AutoWallis Mobility Services Business Line** increased its sales by 26 percent to HUF 6.3 billion in the first nine months of the year.

The AutoWallis Group’s EBITDA for the first three quarters of 2024 fell by 20 percent to HUF 14 billion, mainly due to one-off base effects affecting sales, while the EBITDA margin decreased from 6.2 to 4.8 percent, which is higher than the half-yearly figure of 4.6 percentage. The cost of goods sold (PROFIT) increased by 2 percent to HUF 240.6 billion in a similar amount to sales revenue, i.e. the Group was able to increase its ability to generate a high level of gross margin from 16.4 percent in the base period to 17.4 percent. The 35 percent increase in personnel expenses is the result of the increase in the number of employees due to the acquisitions closed so far in 2023 and 2024, as well as wage increases due to following changes in the labor market (the average number of employees in the Group increased by 226 to 1,181 in the first nine months). The value of financial income and expenses in the first three quarters of 2024 was HUF -4 billion after last year’s loss of HUF 3.4 billion. The increase is primarily attributable to the transactional expansion of the financing volume (wigo carsharing vehicles), as well as to realized and unrealized exchange rate gains and losses (changes in the HUF/EUR exchange rate) from the revaluation of periodic foreign exchange items.