Groupon Inc (GRPN) 2024 Q3 法說會逐字稿

Hello and welcome to Groupon's third quarter 2024 financial results conference call. On the call today are Chief Executive Officer, Dusan Senkypl; Chief Financial Officer, Jiri Ponrt; and Senior Vice President of Corporate Development and Investor Relations, Rana Kashyap. (Operator Instructions) Today's conference call is being recorded.

大家好，歡迎參加 Groupon 2024 年第三季財務業績電話會議。今天參加電話會議的是執行長 Dusan Senkypl； Jiri Ponrt 財務長；以及企業發展和投資者關係資深副總裁 Rana Kashyap。（操作員指示）今天的電話會議正在錄音。

Before we begin, Groupon would like to remind listeners that the following discussion and responses to your questions reflects management's views as of today, November 12, 2024, only, and will include forward-looking statements. Actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied in the company's forward-looking statements. Groupon undertakes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements as a result of new information or future events.

在開始之前，Groupon 謹提醒聽眾，以下討論和對您問題的答覆僅反映截至今天（2024 年 11 月 12 日）管理層的觀點，並將包含前瞻性陳述。實際結果可能與公司前瞻性陳述中明示或暗示的結果有重大差異。Groupon 不承擔因新資訊或未來事件而更新這些前瞻性聲明的義務。

Additional information about risks and other factors that could potentially impact the company's financial results are included in its earnings press release and in its filings with the SEC, including its quarterly report on Form 10-Q. We encourage investors to use Groupon's Investor Relations website at investor.groupon.com as a way of easily finding information about the company. Groupon promptly makes available on this website the reports that the company files or furnishes with the SEC, corporate governance information, and select press releases and social media postings.

有關可能影響公司財務表現的風險和其他因素的更多資​​訊包含在其收益新聞稿和向 SEC 提交的文件中，包括 10-Q 表格的季度報告。我們鼓勵投資人使用 Groupon 的投資人關係網站 Investor.groupon.com 作為輕鬆找到公司資訊的一種方式。Groupon 會及時在本網站上提供本公司向 SEC 提交或提供的報告、公司治理資訊以及精選新聞稿和社群媒體貼文。

On the call today, the company will discuss the following non-GAAP financial measures, adjusted EBITDA and free cash flow. In Groupon's press release and their filings with the SEC, each of which is posted on its Investor Relations' website, you will find additional disclosures regarding these non-GAAP measures, including reconciliations of these measures to the most comparable measures under US GAAP.

在今天的電話會議上，該公司將討論以下非 GAAP 財務指標、調整後 EBITDA 和自由現金流。在Groupon 的新聞稿及其向SEC 提交的文件（每份文件均發佈在其投資者關係網站上）中，您會發現有關這些非GAAP 衡量標準的更多披露，包括這些衡量標準與美國GAAP 下最可比衡量標準的調節。

And with that, I'm happy to turn the call over to Dusan.

至此，我很高興將電話轉給杜桑。

Hello and thanks for joining us for our third quarter 2024 earnings call. It’s a pleasure to be with all of you. Today’s prepared remarks are posted on our Investor Relations' website along with an investor presentation, which I will refer to during my remarks. In addition, I encourage you to review our press release and 10-Q, which contain more detail on our third quarter results.

您好，感謝您參加我們的 2024 年第三季財報電話會議。很高興與大家在一起。今天準備好的發言稿以及投資者簡報已發佈在我們的投資者關係網站上，我將在發言時參考該簡報。此外，我鼓勵您查看我們的新聞稿和 10-Q，其中包含有關我們第三季業績的更多詳細資訊。

I will start today’s call on slide 5 and cover the key highlights of our third quarter. Overall, despite many positives, we had a tough quarter as our North America business was impacted by previously disclosed technical issues related to our various platform migrations. We ended Q3 at the low end of our guidance on revenue but beat the high end on EBITDA.

我將從投影片 5 開始今天的電話會議，介紹第三季的主要亮點。總體而言，儘管有許多積極因素，但我們度過了一個艱難的季度，因為我們的北美業務受到先前披露的與我們的各種平台遷移相關的技術問題的影響。我們在第三季結束時處於收入指引的低端，但 EBITDA 超過了高端。

Let me outline the key highlights and consideration for the quarter, and then I will use my remaining time to dive deeper into each point. First, we saw a positive development in International Local, where excluding Italy, we delivered revenues minus 2% year-over-year and exited the quarter with stable and improving trends.

讓我概述本季度的主要亮點和考慮因素，然後我將利用剩餘的時間更深入地探討每一點。首先，我們看到國際本地業務的積極發展，除了義大利外，我們的營收年減 2%，並以穩定和改善的趨勢結束本季。

While International still runs on our old tech stack, we are seeing success implementing our marketplace playbook to reinvigorate our local experiences marketplace in several countries. Just like we saw in North America Local, the positive development in International Local gives us additional confidence we know the steps needed to return this business to growth.

雖然國際仍然在我們舊的技術堆疊上運行，但我們看到成功地實施了我們的市場策略，以重振我們在多個國家/地區的本地體驗市場。就像我們在北美本地業務中看到的那樣，國際本地業務的積極發展使我們更有信心，我們知道使該業務恢復成長所需的步驟。

Second, while our overall North American business faced headwinds, we delivered a strong summer Things To Do season, highlighted by expanding relationships with several national brands who turned to Groupon to help drive incremental performance during their most important season. As we review our business performance versus the market and competition, we believe that our Things To Do vertical grew faster this summer than both the market and other online marketplaces focused on this vertical. The strength of our things to do vertical is a positive proof point that when we have the correct value proposition, our platform delivers strong results for both merchants and customers.

其次，雖然我們的整個北美業務面臨阻力，但我們在夏季的「待辦事項」旺季表現強勁，其中突出表現就是擴大了與幾個全國性品牌的關係，這些品牌轉向Groupon 來幫助在最重要的旺季推動業績增量。當我們回顧我們的業務表現與市場和競爭時，我們相信今年夏天我們的 Things To Do 垂直市場的成長速度比市場和其他專注於該垂直市場的線上市場都要快。我們垂直業務的實力證明，當我們擁有正確的價值主張時，我們的平台將為商家和客戶帶來強勁的成果。

Third, we reached an important milestone of 100% mobile web and desktop traffic in North America on our new website. Since reaching 100%, we have already seen a material increase in the speed of new feature development, which will be an important driver of our future product roadmap. We are excited to leverage our new front-end to bring expanded gifting experiences and product features like video to our customers during this holiday season.

第三，我們的新網站在北美實現了 100% 行動網路和桌面流量的重要里程碑。自達到100%以來，我們已經看到新功能開發速度的實質提高，這將成為我們未來產品路線圖的重要驅動力。我們很高興能夠在這個假期期間利用我們的新前端為我們的客戶帶來更多的禮品體驗和影片等產品功能。

Fourth, we are seeing growth of new customer cohorts in North America. This has helped stabilize overall North America active customer counts and we are seeing year-over-year growth excluding goods. We believe this is a positive signal that our new customer acquisition engine works, an important driver of future growth for our Company.

第四，我們看到北美新客戶群的成長。這有助於穩定北美整體活躍客戶數量，我們看到不包括商品在內的同比增長。我們相信這是一個積極的信號，表明我們的新客戶獲取引擎正在發揮作用，是我們公司未來成長的重要驅動力。

Fifth, on the balance sheet, we are pleased to announce an agreement to raise $197 million in new secured convertible debt, maturing 2027 with a 6.25% coupon and a $30 strike price. While Jiri will cover more details in his remarks, I believe this new round of financing helps to provide the Company with additional financial flexibility to navigate our transformation at attractive terms.

第五，在資產負債表上，我們很高興地宣布達成協議，以新的有擔保可轉換債務籌集 1.97 億美元，將於 2027 年到期，票面利率為 6.25%，執行價格為 30 美元。雖然 Jiri 將在演講中介紹更多細節，但我相信新一輪融資有助於為公司提供額外的財務靈活性，以有吸引力的條件引導我們的轉型。

Finally, while we fixed many of our platform migration challenges in the third quarter, we did experience a one-time drop in the retention rates of our legacy customers, which we expect will provide a headwind to future financial performance for a period of time.

最後，雖然我們在第三季度解決了許多平台遷移挑戰，但我們的傳統客戶保留率確實經歷了一次性下降，我們預計這將在一段時間內為未來的財務表現帶來不利影響。

Turning to slide 6, International Local. While we initially focused our supply transformation efforts in North America Local, we always believed those same local marketplace principles can also be applied to our International markets. In fact, when I first got involved in Groupon in 2022, Spain was the first market to start applying the marketplace playbook and has emerged as a positive story with strong double-digit growth. Spain is a great case study for how our marketplace playbook works.

轉到投影片 6，國際本地。雖然我們最初將供應轉型工作重點放在北美本地，但我們始終相信這些相同的本地市場原則也可以應用於我們的國際市場。事實上，當我在 2022 年首次涉足 Groupon 時，西班牙是第一個開始應用市場策略的市場，並且已經成為一個積極的故事，實現了強勁的兩位數成長。西班牙是我們市場策略運作方式的一個很好的研究案例。

As we highlighted in our transformation plan back in the first quarter of 2023, everything starts with supply. If we win the right supply, demand will follow. The first step to winning the right supply is rebuilding our sales capacity. We are doing this with localized sales teams covering specific cities and implementing a strong performance management culture with effective sales leadership focusing on activity and consistency.

正如我們在 2023 年第一季的轉型計畫中所強調的那樣，一切都從供應開始。如果我們贏得了合適的供應，需求就會隨之而來。贏得合適供應的第一步是重建我們的銷售能力。我們正在透過涵蓋特定城市的在地化銷售團隊來實現這一目標，並實施強大的績效管理文化，以及注重活動和一致性的有效銷售領導力。

As we improve the sales capacity, the next step in our marketplace playbook is to repopulate main categories starting with the foundation of basic inventory selection. Think of the merchandise in a convenience store, and the minimum required to be a relevant service in their city. We have robust historical data that shows us what basic services we need to cover for a particular market.

隨著我們提高銷售能力，我們市場策略的下一步是從基本庫存選擇的基礎開始重新填充主要類別。想想便利商店裡的商品，以及在他們的城市提供相關服務的最低要求。我們擁有可靠的歷史數據，可以向我們展示我們需要為特定市場提供哪些基本服務。

The key is to have a super restrictive focus that gives very tight guidelines on what kind of inventory we want our sales representatives to target. Once we restock the basic storefront, the next step is to bring customers back to our site and interact with our merchandise. Here, we have found one efficient way to drive traffic, is targeting high volume deals with focus on national brands.

關鍵是要有一個超級嚴格的重點，為我們希望銷售代表瞄準的庫存類型提供非常嚴格的指導。一旦我們重新進貨基本店面，下一步就是讓顧客回到我們的網站並與我們的商品互動。在這裡，我們找到了一種提高流量的有效方法，那就是瞄準大批量交易，並專注於國家品牌。

With an efficient sales strategy focused on rebuilding supply in key categories and customer traffic increasing organically with high volume deals, we then can start ramping up marketing spend, which adds fuel to our marketplace flywheel. Excluding the exit of Italy, we see positive results in International. While not all our countries have made as much progress as Spain, we can see several green shoots, and we expect overall international local to improve further. Importantly, we have not seen a significant impact to international markets from our platform changes as we largely continue to operate those markets on our legacy tech platforms.

透過專注於重建關鍵類別的供應以及透過大量交易有機增加客戶流量的高效銷售策略，我們可以開始增加行銷支出，這為我們的市場飛輪增添了動力。排除義大利的退出，我們在國際市場上看到了正面的成果。雖然並非所有國家都取得了與西班牙一樣多的進步，但我們可以看到一些萌芽，我們預計整體國際在地化將進一步改善。重要的是，我們還沒有看到我們的平台變化對國際市場產生重大影響，因為我們基本上繼續在我們的傳統技術平台上經營這些市場。

Slide 7, turning to North America Local. We took a big step back in the third quarter compared against our second quarter results, moving from plus 7% to minus 8% year-over-year. A few comments to bridge this 1,500 basis point change in performance.

投影片 7，轉向北美本地。與第二季的業績相比，我們第三季的業績出現了很大的下滑，年增率從正 7% 降至負 8%。一些評論可以彌補這 1,500 個基點的表現變化。

First, after commenting for two quarters that we had tailwinds in refunds and variable consideration, this quarter those tailwinds reversed and became headwinds. Second, the second quarter this year benefited from an easy year-over-year compare in revenue growth from paid marketing campaigns as last year's second quarter was the trough in marketing spend as a percentage of gross profits as we had rebuilt our performance campaigns and started to ramp up marketing spend in Q3 2023.

首先，在兩個季度評論我們在退款和可變對價方面有順風之後，本季度這些順風逆轉並成為逆風。其次，今年第二季受益於付費行銷活動收入較去年同期輕鬆成長，因為去年第二季是行銷支出佔毛利百分比的低谷，因為我們重建了績效行銷活動並開始在 2023 年第三季增加行銷支出。

Third, legacy customer cohorts. Groupon has many users that made their first purchase over a decade ago and follow a mostly establish pattern of usage. While we expect legacy customer cohorts to decline overtime, we have multiple initiatives aimed at improving retention of these customers. For example, we saw a strong improvement in legacy customer retention during Q4 last year, setting a strong foundation for year-over-year performance in our legacy cohorts in the first half of 2024.

第三，遺留客戶群。Groupon 的許多用戶在十多年前就進行了首次購買，並遵循基本既定的使用模式。雖然我們預計傳統客戶群會隨著時間的推移而減少，但我們有多項措施旨在提高這些客戶的保留率。例如，我們在去年第四季看到舊客戶保留率有了強勁改善，為 2024 年上半年我們的舊客戶群的同比表現奠定了堅實的基礎。

Beginning in July and continuing into August, we observed a decline in retention rates for our legacy customers compared to the same period in prior years. While we fixed many of our platform changes and migration challenges and saw our retention curves stabilize in September, we have not yet seen a bounce back in those cohort curves. It's possible that they come back this Q4, but it is also possible that the changes we made created enough friction to lose a certain segment of our audience for good.

從 7 月開始一直持續到 8 月，我們發現與往年同期相比，我們的老客戶保留率有所下降。雖然我們解決了許多平台變化和遷移挑戰，並看到我們的保留曲線在 9 月趨於穩定，但我們尚未看到這些隊列曲線出現反彈。他們有可能在第四季回歸，但也有可能我們所做的改變造成了足夠的摩擦，導致我們永遠失去了一部分觀眾。

As previously stated, this one-time drop in the retention rates of our legacy customer cohorts may provide a headwind to future financial performance for a period of time. Despite the step back in performance in Q3, I continue to see massive potential in our North America Local business. We continue to make progress against our playbook, including ramping up our sales capacity, covering the proper categories and bringing on great volume drivers to get the flywheel going. And we have a lot more room to run. For example, if you look at our top metro areas, we believe we still have significant room to make improvements on our coverage of basic inventory.

如前所述，我們的傳統客戶群保留率的一次性下降可能會對未來一段時間的財務表現帶來不利影響。儘管第三季業績有所下滑，但我仍然看到我們的北美本地業務的巨大潛力。我們繼續按照我們的劇本取得進展，包括提高我們的銷售能力，涵蓋適當的類別，並引入大量驅動程式來推動飛輪運轉。我們還有更多的運行空間。例如，如果您看看我們的頂級都會區，我們相信我們在基本庫存覆蓋範圍上仍有很大的改進空間。

The way we measure potential is not based on the number of merchants, but rather going at a category level and indexing the relative performance of our best performing divisions weighted by the size of addressable market.

我們衡量潛力的方式不是基於商家的數量，而是基於類別級別，並根據潛在市場的規模加權，對錶現最佳的部門的相對錶現進行索引。

Slide 8. While there are still many moving pieces in Groupon's transformation, one positive story emerging is our new customer acquisition engine. When Groupon first launched in 2009, the internet market was a highly fragmented ecosystem of players vying to serve as the front door to the internet. Groupon sought to leverage its position in local commerce, e-commerce, and deals to establish itself as one of these key entry points.

幻燈片 8。雖然 Groupon 的轉型過程中仍有許多動人之處，但我們新的客戶獲取引擎正在出現一個正面的故事。當 Groupon 於 2009 年首次推出時，網路市場是一個高度分散的生態系統，參與者競相成為網路的前門。Groupon 試圖利用其在本地商業、電子商務和交易領域的地位，將自己打造成這些關鍵切入點之一。

Today the online ecosystem has matured and consolidated to a few very large platforms who act as the front doors to the internet for a very high percentage of consumers. Many growing and established e-commerce or internet marketplace firms have built their customer acquisition engines on top of these platforms because of their enormous scale and tapping into this traffic is a huge opportunity for Groupon to drive new customer acquisition.

如今，線上生態系統已經成熟並整合為幾個非常大的平台，這些平台充當了很高比例的消費者進入網路的前門。許多成長型和成熟的電子商務或互聯網市場公司都在這些平台上建立了客戶獲取引擎，因為它們規模龐大，而利用這些流量對於 Groupon 來說是推動新客戶獲取的巨大機會。

This insight is at the heart of our pivot last year to reposition our marketing engine and marketing spend towards acquiring customers in channels where we can build measurable and scalable campaigns with a clear ROI.

這種洞察力是我們去年的重點，重新定位我們的行銷引擎和行銷支出，以在管道中獲取客戶，在這些管道中，我們可以建立具有明確投資回報率的可衡量和可擴展的行銷活動。

Our current philosophy is to run our marketing channels with target ROI of one. It means that if we spent $100, then we expect to earn back $100 in Groupon commissions over a two week period. Therefore as long as we hit our ROI targets, our marketing payback is almost immediate and we profit on any subsequent purchase.

我們目前的理念是以 1 的目標投資報酬率來經營我們的行銷管道。這意味著，如果我們花費 100 美元，那麼我們預計將在兩週內透過 Groupon 佣金賺回 100 美元。因此，只要我們達到投資報酬率目標，我們的行銷回報幾乎是立竿見影的，我們可以從任何後續購買中獲利。

When we look at a monthly cohort view, new customer cohorts are spending approximately 1.4 times their initial purchase by the time they reach month 12. This is a good start, but next year, we will be prioritizing initiatives to improve the customer lifetime value and the purchase frequency of new customers.

當我們查看每月群組視圖時，新客戶群組在第 12 個月時的支出約為初始購買的 1.4 倍。這是一個好的開始，但明年，我們將優先考慮提高客戶終身價值和新客戶購買頻率的措施。

In the third quarter, we did not achieve our ROI targets as our platform changes resulted in inefficient marketing campaigns. In September and October, we also saw the effectiveness of our campaigns reduce, largely related to what we believe are the impacts to marketing effectiveness during the US presidential election. Since the election, we have observed a significant improvement in our marketing channel efficiency.

第三季度，我們沒有實現投資報酬率目標，因為我們的平台變化導致行銷活動效率低落。9 月和 10 月，我們也看到我們的競選活動成效下降，這很大程度上與我們認為的美國總統大選期間行銷成效的影響有關。自選舉以來，我們發現我們的行銷管道效率顯著提高。

Slide 9, moving to Product & Engineering. Given the progress in International running on our old tech stack, I believe it is reasonable to conclude that had we not made the tech changes in North America, we would likely be reporting that our consolidated business was growing this quarter. But then we would still be working on our old tech platform, which is highly inefficient, unstable and extremely difficult to develop on. This technical debt would serve as a heavy anchor on any future product initiatives and while we would have reported a positive quarter, that result would not be building towards a long-term future of sustained growth.

投影片 9，轉到產品與工程。鑑於國際業務在我們的舊技術堆疊上運行的進展，我相信可以合理地得出這樣的結論：如果我們沒有在北美進行技術變革，我們可能會報告我們的合併業務本季正在成長。但那時我們仍然會在舊的技術平台上工作，該平台效率極低、不穩定且極難開發。這種技術債將成為任何未來產品計劃的重要支柱，雖然我們本應報告一個積極的季度，但這一結果不會為實現持續成長的長期未來奠定基礎。

In my career, I have been through many platform upgrades and it was common to see a performance drop at the outset of a change before rapid iterations improved the new platform to the point where performance eclipsed the old platform. I'm also aware of other legacy technology companies, who embark on multi-year migrations just to modify one small component of their stack in order to protect performance.

在我的職業生涯中，我經歷過許多平台升級，在快速迭代將新平台改進到效能超越舊平台之前，在變化一開始就出現效能下降是很常見的。我還知道其他傳統技術公司，他們開始進行多年的遷移只是為了修改其堆疊的一小部分以保護效能。

At Groupon, given the overall situation, one of my goals was to transform our platform with a neutral impact to performance as quickly as possible. Between the two, for the past several quarters, I was willing to move slower on our projects to protect performance, but now I believe the time has come where we must accept sacrificing some short-term performance for the long-term growth of the business as we modernize our tech stack. I'm excited to see how we will be able to use our new front-end platform as a flywheel to power the path to sustained revenue growth.

在 Groupon，考慮到整體情況，我的目標之一是盡快改造我們的平台，對效能有中性影響。兩者之間，在過去的幾個季度中，我願意放慢專案進度以保護業績，但現在我相信我們必須接受為了業務的長期增長而犧牲一些短期業績的時候了當我們實現技術堆疊現代化時。我很高興看到我們將如何利用我們的新前端平台作為飛輪來推動收入持續成長。

Let me give you a few examples of what we are currently working on. Platform for Performance, our new front-end will be able get us to faster, more stable customer experiences. While we are not there, we see strong pace of weekly improvements in this direction and we believe by the end of Q4, the new platform will be superior to Legacy, which will also position us better for SEO & SEM as we should be able to drive more traffic and have higher conversions.

讓我舉幾個例子來說明我們目前正在進行的工作。效能平台，我們的新前端將能夠讓我們獲得更快、更穩定的客戶體驗。雖然我們還沒有達到這個目標，但我們看到了在這個方向上每週改進的強勁步伐，我們相信到第四季度末，新平台將優於舊平台，這也將使我們在SEO 和SEM 方面處於更好的位置，因為我們應該能夠帶來更多流量並獲得更高的轉換率。

Increased Customer Value. New features like improved personalization and search relevance, merchant pages, and AI-driven FAQs inspire customer interactions and increase retention, while optimized targeting and personalized content improve visit frequency.

增加客戶價值。改進的個人化和搜尋相關性、商家頁面和人工智慧驅動的常見問題解答等新功能可激發客戶互動並提高保留率，同時優化的定位和個人化內容可提高存取頻率。

Global Reach and Flexibility. Our new front-end's expanded language capabilities mean we can reach and engage diverse customers and merchants, mainly Spanish-speaking population in the USA, with relevant offerings.

全球影響力和靈活性。我們的新前端擴展的語言功能意味著我們可以透過相關產品接觸並吸引不同的客戶和商家（主要是美國的西班牙語人口）。

Positive Early Results for App. With the new app in beta showing solid performance in NA, we’re focusing on fine-tuning for a full rollout early in 2025, as we don't want to risk Holiday season and we have sufficient functionality with gifting support in Legacy app. We expect to migrate International markets during the first half of 2025. Platform for Future. We have high expectations in terms of agility and development speed. We can see significantly faster development times and ability to bring new features to the market versus Legacy.

應用程式的積極早期結果。隨著Beta 版新應用程式在北美地區顯示出穩定的性能，我們將重點進行微調，以便在2025 年初全面推出，因為我們不想冒假期的風險，而且我們在舊版應用程式中擁有足夠的功能和禮物支持。我們預計在 2025 年上半年遷移國際市場。未來的平台。我們對敏捷性和開發速度抱有很高的期望。與傳統產品相比，我們可以看到明顯更快的開發時間和將新功能推向市場的能力。

Gifting, as we enter into Q4 holiday season, we are excited to roll-out another new set of gifting features and customer journeys to make gifting and receiving experiences more exciting for everyone. Video, we have started to add video content into merchant pages and have positive early results. It is still very early and there will be significant improvements in the coming months, but video is just one example of a feature that our legacy platform would have struggled to launch.

送禮方面，隨著第四季假期的到來，我們很高興推出另一套新的送禮功能和客戶旅程，讓每個人的送禮和接收體驗變得更加令人興奮。在影片方面，我們已經開始將影片內容添加到商家頁面中，並取得了積極的早期成果。現在還為時過早，未來幾個月將會有重大改進，但影片只是我們的舊平台難以推出的功能的一個例子。

Merchant pages and Merchandised pages. With the new front-end in place, we will be moving from our legacy focus on a deal page as the main surface that consumers interact with to also build out merchant pages and category pages. This will allow us to target consumers at different points in their journey and bring them to Groupon to help find the right offering for them.

商家頁面和商品化頁面。隨著新前端的到位，我們將不再專注於作為消費者互動的主要介面的交易頁面，還可以建立商家頁面和類別頁面。這將使我們能夠針對旅程中不同階段的消費者，並將他們帶到 Groupon，以幫助他們找到合適的產品。

Before I turn the call to Jiri, let me make a few closing remarks. In conclusion, despite some challenges, I’m optimistic about our future. The progress we’ve made in transforming our platform and enhancing our customer experience is laying the groundwork for sustainable growth.

在打電話給 Jiri 之前，請允許我做一些總結發言。總之，儘管存在一些挑戰，但我對我們的未來持樂觀態度。我們在平台轉型和增強客戶體驗方面取得的進展為永續成長奠定了基礎。

Our International Local business is showing promising signs, and the positive response to our new features like gifting and video content reinforces our belief that we’re on the right path. We’ve seen significant progress in marketplace understanding and in how we operate our sales channels. We’re committed to continuous improvement and innovation, and I believe the best is yet to come for our company. I want to express my sincere gratitude to our teams worldwide for their hard work and to our investors and partners for their unwavering support. Thank you for joining us on this journey.

我們的國際本地業務顯示出有希望的跡象，對禮品和視頻內容等新功能的積極反應增強了我們的信念，即我們正走在正確的道路上。我們在市場理解和銷售通路運作方式方面取得了重大進展。我們致力於持續改善和創新，我相信我們公司的美好未來尚未到來。我謹向我們全球團隊的辛勤工作以及我們的投資者和合作夥伴的堅定支持表示誠摯的感謝。感謝您加入我們的這段旅程。

With that, I'll turn it over to Jiri.

這樣，我就把事情交給吉里了。

Thanks, Dusan, and thank you as well to everyone who is joining us today. I’ll use my time today to provide further insights into our third quarter financial results, progress on our cost savings actions, update on the other business items, and our updated outlook.

謝謝杜桑，也感謝今天加入我們的所有人。我將利用今天的時間進一步了解我們第三季度的財務業績、成本節約行動的進展、其他業務項目的最新情況以及我們最新的展望。

Turning to slide 14. So let’s jump into our third quarter summary financial results. In the third quarter, we delivered Global Billings of $373 million, a decrease of approximately 10.9% year-over-year. Revenue was $114 million, decrease 9.5% year-over-year, at the low end of our guidance. Revenue as a percentage of gross billings was 31%, an increase of 0.5% year-over-year. The percentage remained relatively stable from the prior year and continues to stay within the range of our expectations.

轉到投影片 14。那麼，讓我們來看看第三季的財務業績摘要。第三季度，我們交付的全球帳單為 3.73 億美元，年減約 10.9%。營收為 1.14 億美元，年減 9.5%，處於我們指引的低端。收入佔總帳單的百分比為 31%，較去年同期成長 0.5%。該百分比與上年相比保持相對穩定，並繼續保持在我們的預期範圍內。

Moving on, our gross profit as a percentage of revenue was 90%, consistent with the prior quarter and continues to stay within the range of our expectations. Marketing expense for the third quarter was $36 million, or 35.2% of gross profit. This is consistent with our expected range of 30% to 35% for marketing as a percentage of gross profit.

接下來，我們的毛利佔收入的百分比為 90%，與上一季一致，並繼續保持在我們的預期範圍內。第三季行銷費用為 3,600 萬美元，佔毛利的 35.2%。這與我們預期的行銷佔毛利潤百分比 30% 至 35% 的範圍一致。

As we commented in the second quarter earnings and as Dusan just mentioned, our marketing spend this quarter was not as efficient as expected related to our tech migration issues. Going forward, we expect marketing as a percentage of gross profit to stay within our expected range of 30% to 35%. Adjusted EBITDA was positive $15 million, as we recorded a sixth straight quarter of positive adjusted EBITDA our trailing 12 months adjusted EBITDA is positive $78 million.

正如我們在第二季度收益中所評論的那樣，正如杜桑剛剛提到的，我們本季的行銷支出沒有像與我們的技術遷移問題相關的預期那麼有效。展望未來，我們預期行銷佔毛利的百分比將維持在 30% 至 35% 的預期範圍內。調整後 EBITDA 為正 1500 萬美元，因為我們連續第六個季度調整後 EBITDA 為正，我們過去 12 個月調整後 EBITDA 為正 7800 萬美元。

Turning to cash flow. Third quarter operating cash flow was negative $16 million and free cash flow was negative $20 million, a slight decline versus last year and in line with our expectations. We ended the quarter with $160 million in cash and cash equivalents. Please note that our cash position excludes $29 million of restricted cash, which primarily relates to collateral posted against our outstanding letters of credit and reported on our balance sheet in prepaid expenses and other current assets.

轉向現金流。第三季營運現金流為負 1,600 萬美元，自由現金流為負 2,000 萬美元，較去年略有下降，符合我們的預期。本季結束時，我們擁有 1.6 億美元的現金和現金等價物。請注意，我們的現金部位不包括 2,900 萬美元的限制性現金，這主要與我們未償還信用證的抵押品有關，並在我們的資產負債表上以預付費用和其他流動資產的形式報告。

Slide 15. We had approximately 15 million active customers worldwide as of quarter end, down 0.3 million from the prior quarter. Within North America, our active customer count was flat sequentially, and when you exclude our goods category, our North America active customers grew sequentially for the third quarter in a row and grew year-over-year for the second quarter in a row.

幻燈片 15。截至季末，我們在全球擁有約 1,500 萬活躍客戶，比上一季減少 30 萬。在北美地區，我們的活躍客戶數量環比持平，如果排除我們的商品類別，我們的北美活躍客戶數量連續第三季度環比增長，並且連續第二季度同比增長。

Turning to our Local category. Consolidated local billings were $326 million, down 8.1% compared with the prior year. Within North America, we delivered local billings of $249 million, down 4.5% compared with the prior year. North America local billings had a positive impact in the prior year period from phasing out our COVID-19 refund practices, with no comparable activity during the current period, which primarily contributed to the decrease in our Local category during the current period.

轉向我們的本地類別。綜合本地帳單為 3.26 億美元，較上年下降 8.1%。在北美地區，我們交付的本地帳單為 2.49 億美元，比上年下降 4.5%。由於逐步取消我們的 COVID-19 退款做法，北美本地帳單對去年同期產生了積極影響，而本期沒有類似的活動，這主要是導致我們本期本地類別的減少。

International Local Billings were down 18% year-over-year. As we took the difficult decision to exit the local business in Italy due to a previously disclosed tax matter. As Dusan commented in his remarks, our International local business excluding Italy is recovering nicely and we are seeing positive green shoots in many international countries.

國際本地帳單較去年同期下降 18%。由於先前披露的稅務問題，我們做出了退出義大利當地業務的艱難決定。正如杜桑在演講中所評論的，我們（不包括義大利）的國際本地業務正在良好復甦，我們在許多國際國家看到了積極的萌芽。

Moving to our Travel category. In the third quarter, Consolidated Travel Billings was $23 million, down 21.9% year-over-year. Travel category performance has been uneven this year and we expect this trend to continue going forward.

轉到我們的旅行類別。第三季度，綜合旅行帳單為 2,300 萬美元，年減 21.9%。今年旅遊類別的表現參差不齊，我們預計這種趨勢將持續下去。

Moving to our Goods category. Consolidated Goods Billings was $25 million, down 29.6% year-over-year. Our current Goods business is struggling and we don't see any near-term change in the negative trend. At 5% of third quarter revenues and declining rapidly, Goods is becoming a smaller and smaller part of our business.

轉到我們的商品類別。綜合貨物帳單為 2500 萬美元，年減 29.6%。我們目前的商品業務正在苦苦掙扎，我們認為短期內這種負面趨勢不會有任何變化。商品佔第三季收入的 5%，並且正在迅速下降，在我們業務中所佔的比例越來越小。

Slide 16. Turning to operating expenses, third quarter SG&A was $71 million, down 10.9% year-over-year and includes $9 million in stock-based compensation and $4 million in depreciation & amortization. Quarter-over-Quarter, our SG&A was down almost $6 million or 8%, driven primarily by a decrease in cloud costs, a slower than expected ramp in our sales hiring and lower variable compensation as the business performed below our expectations in the third quarter.

幻燈片 16。說到營運支出，第三季的 SG&A 為 7,100 萬美元，年減 10.9%，其中包括 900 萬美元的股票薪酬和 400 萬美元的折舊和攤提。與上一季相比，我們的SG&A 下降了近600 萬美元，即8%，這主要是由於雲端成本下降、我們的銷售人員招募速度慢於預期以及由於第三季業務表現低於我們的預期而導致可變薪酬降低。

Going forward, we expect SG&A to increase quarter-over-quarter to a number closer to where we were in the second quarter as we continue to hire new sales resources and additional savings from our cloud migration efforts will take several quarters to realize.

展望未來，我們預計 SG&A 將環比成長，接近第二季度的水平，因為我們將繼續聘用新的銷售資源，而雲端遷移工作帶來的額外節省將需要幾個季度才能實現。

Slide 17, turning to Free Cash Flow. In the third quarter, we generated negative $20 million of Free Cash Flow, similar to last year and in line with our expectations. Relative to the second quarter, we saw an expected negative development change in our net working capital. This is due to the third quarter ending in September, a month where we have large merchant payments from our summer things-to-do season, but billings from our holiday push has not picked up yet.

投影片 17，轉向自由現金流。第三季度，我們產生了負 2,000 萬美元的自由現金流，與去年類似，符合我們的預期。與第二季相比，我們的淨營運資本出現了預期的負成長變化。這是因為第三季截至 9 月份，我們在夏季活動季節收到了大量商家付款，但我們的假期促銷活動的帳單尚未回升。

Importantly, our year-to-date free cash flow is negative $23 million, a major improvement versus last year when the nine months free cash flow was negative $148 million. This positions us well to return to positive free cash flow for the full year.

重要的是，我們今年迄今的自由現金流為負 2,300 萬美元，與去年相比有了很大進步，當時 9 個月的自由現金流為負 1.48 億美元。這使我們能夠在全年恢復正自由現金流。

Given the Quarter-to-Quarter variability in change in Net Working Capital due to timing, we believe that it is more useful for investors to judge our Free Cash Flow on a trailing twelve month basis. We are pleased to report our trailing twelve month Free Cash Flow at positive $28 million, which is positive for the second straight quarter after a long period of negative cash outflow.

鑑於淨營運資本隨時間變化而出現的季度變化，我們認為投資者以過去 12 個月為基礎來判斷我們的自由現金流更為有用。我們很高興地報告我們過去 12 個月的自由現金流為正 2800 萬美元，這是在長期負現金流出之後連續第二個季度的正值。

Slide 18, now turning to guidance. As of November 12, 2024, management is issuing guidance for the fourth quarter of 2024 as follows. Revenues between $124 million and $131 million, or a decline year-over-year between minus 10% and minus 5%. Positive adjusted EBITDA between $14 million and $19 million, positive free cash flow.

幻燈片 18，現在轉向指導。截至 2024 年 11 月 12 日，管理階層發布 2024 年第四季指引如下。營收在 1.24 億美元至 1.31 億美元之間，年減 -10% 至 -5%。調整後的正 EBITDA 在 1,400 萬美元至 1,900 萬美元之間，自由現金流為正。

Management would also like to update its full year 2024 outlook. Year-over-year revenue change at minus 6% to minus 4% below our prior outlook. Positive adjusted EBITDA between $65 million and $70 million, down from $65 million to $80 million, as we narrowed the range due to our lower Q4 outlook. Positive free cash flow for the full year.

管理階層也希望更新 2024 年全年展望。收入同比變化為-6%至-4%，低於我們先前的預期。正調整後的 EBITDA 介於 6500 萬美元至 7000 萬美元之間，從 6500 萬美元降至 8000 萬美元，因為我們由於第四季度前景較低而縮小了範圍。全年自由現金流為正。

Finally, I would like to provide some additional commentary to assist you with your models. We continue to explore potential changes with our payment methods. After running a test in September and October in the US, we recently made the decision to offer PayPal to all US customers as a payment method. Similarly we returned PayPal to several international countries and we are looking for additional payment options as we try to find the most optimal mix of payment methods for our customers.

最後，我想提供一些額外的評論來幫助您建立模型。我們將繼續探索付款方式的潛在變化。在 9 月和 10 月在美國進行測試後，我們最近決定向所有美國客戶提供 PayPal 作為付款方式。同樣，我們將 PayPal 返回到多個國際國家，我們正在尋找其他付款選項，因為我們試圖為客戶找到最佳的付款方式組合。

We expect consolidated revenue as percent of gross billings staying within the range we have reported over the last six quarters. While we still expect revenues to inflect to a sustained positive growth trajectory, given the exit of Italy Local and the hit to North America legacy customer retention rates from tech migrations, we no longer expect to inflect to growth in Q4 2024 and the timing of our inflection to growth may be delayed by several quarters until we address these headwinds.

我們預計合併收入佔總帳單的百分比將保持在我們過去六個季度報告的範圍內。儘管我們仍然預計收入將轉向持續的正增長軌跡，但考慮到意大利本地業務的退出以及技術遷移對北美傳統客戶保留率的打擊，我們不再預計 2024 年第四季度收入將轉向增長，而且我們的在我們解決這些不利因素之前，成長的轉折點可能會推遲幾個季度。

While we are not providing guidance for 2025, we currently expect 2025 revenues compared to 2024 to be flat, or up to low-single digit growth, with the first half year down and the second half year up, EBITDA to be similar or better than 2024 and free cash flow to be positive.

雖然我們沒有提供 2025 年的指導，但我們目前預計 2025 年的收入與 2024 年相比將持平，或達到低個位數增長，上半年下降，下半年增長，EBITDA 將與 2024 年相似或更好2024 年，自由現金流為正。

Before I close, let me share a few update on our balance sheet and other matters. First, today the company announced it has raised $197 million in privately negotiated agreements with certain holders of our existing convertible notes due in March 2026 by one exchanging $176 million of 2026 notes on a one to one basis for a newly issued secured convertible notes due in March 2027, and two, issuing $21 million in new 2027 notes.

在結束之前，讓我分享一些關於我們的資產負債表和其他事項的最新情況。首先，今天該公司宣布，已與2026 年3 月到期的現有可轉換票據的某些持有人透過私下談判達成了1.97 億美元的協議，將1.76 億美元的2026 年票據一對一交換為2026 年3 月到期的新發行的有擔保可轉換票據。

The new 2027 notes that will be due in March 2027, bare interest at a rate of 6.25% per year, and we'll have a strike price of per $30 share, a premium approximately 184% over the 20-day trailing volume-weighted average price ending on November 11, 2024. The new 2027 notes will be guaranteed by certain subsidiaries of Groupon, which meet certain threshold requirements.

新的 2027 年票據將於 2027 年 3 月到期，年利率為 6.25%，執行價格為每股 30 美元，比 20 天追蹤成交量加權約 184%截至 2024 年 11 月 11 日的平均價格。新的 2027 年票據將由 Groupon 的某些子公司提供擔保，這些子公司滿足一定的門檻要求。

The new 2027 notes will be secured by a first priority security interest and substantially all of the assets of the company and the granters subject to certain exceptions, and permitted leads. Management expects that this new financing provides additional flexibility, as we continue to execute on our transformation plan to return our consolidated business with sustainable growth.

新的 2027 年票據將由第一優先擔保權益以及公司和授予人的幾乎所有資產進行擔保，但某些例外情況和允許的線索除外。管理層預計，隨著我們繼續執行轉型計劃，以可持續增長的方式回報我們的合併業務，這項新融資將提供額外的靈活性。

Second, an update on Italy. As previously disclosed, one of our subsidiaries, Groupon (inaudible) has been litigated a negative tax assessment in the Italian cards since 2018. As we also previously disclosed, we began the purchase in Q2 of exiting the local market. In October, we reached separation agreements and with all employees and exited hourlies. The total amount of restructuring is expected to be up to USD3 million versus previously estimated USD7 million.

其次，介紹一下義大利的最新情況。如同先前所揭露的，我們的子公司之一 Groupon（聽不清楚）自 2018 年以來一直因義大利卡的負稅評估而提起訴訟。正如我們之前所揭露的，我們在第二季開始退出當地市場的購買。十月，我們與所有員工達成了離職協議，並退出了小時制。重組總金額預計高達 300 萬美元，此前預計為 700 萬美元。

In the litigation, the second-level appeal's Court indicated, it will rule against Groupon SRL and in favor of the tax authorities at the level of the appeal. We still do not have the formal decision from the Court. Groupon SRL will be able to launch an appeal to Italian Supreme Court and eventually Chileans Italian tax assert determination in an international mutual arbitration proceeding.

在訴訟中，二級上訴法院表示，它將做出對 Groupon SRL 不利的裁決，並支持上訴一級的稅務機關。我們還沒有收到法院的正式決定。Groupon SRL 將能夠向義大利最高法院提起上訴，並最終在國際共同仲裁程序中對智利的義大利稅務主張做出裁決。

The company continues to believe that the assessment led the merit and is vigorously defending the case. The company does not expect financial exposure that exceeds assets for Groupon SRL. More information about this matter can be found in the company form 10-Q.

該公司仍然相信評估是有道理的，並積極為此案辯護。該公司預計財務風險不會超過 Groupon SRL 的資產。有關此事的更多資訊可以在公司表格 10-Q 中找到。

Finally, noncore asset sales. Management continues to evaluate the monetization of certain noncore assets, including the company's remaining stake in SumUp and GiftCloud. While there can be no assurances as to whether or when the sale of these noncore assets will be consummated, management currently believes these future noncore asset sales could generate proceeds of approximately $90 million.

最後是非核心資產出售。管理階層持續評估某些非核心資產的貨幣化，包括公司在 SumUp 和 GiftCloud 的剩餘股權。雖然無法保證這些非核心資產的出售是否或何時完成，但管理層目前認為這些未來的非核心資產出售可能會產生約 9,000 萬美元的收益。

With that, we would like to open the call up for your questions. operator?

至此，我們將開始電話詢問您的問題。操作員？

Sean McGowan, ROTH Capital.

肖恩·麥高恩，羅斯資本。

Thank you. Can you hear me, okay?

謝謝。你聽得到我說話嗎？

Yes, we can.

是的，我們可以。

Could you provide a little bit more color on why you don't think the legacy retention rates would bounce back in North America? What do you think the impediment is there?

您能否提供更多資訊來解釋為什麼您認為北美的傳統保留率不會反彈？您認為其中的障礙是什麼？

Hi Sean. Thank you for the question. So we have multiple activities to reactivate those legacy cohorts. Last year, we saw a big improvement in their activity during Q4, which shows that our value proposition of Groupon, which is great for gifting when there is some peak season, it works, but we don't take it as granted for this year. So this is still our plan to reactivate them.

嗨肖恩。謝謝你的提問。因此，我們有多項活動來重新激活這些遺留群體。去年，我們看到他們在第四季度的活動有了很大的改善，這表明我們的 Groupon 價值主張（在旺季時非常適合送禮）是有效的，但今年我們不認為這是理所當然的。所以這仍然是我們重新激活它們的計劃。

Maybe I can comment also on what happened in some cases we were doing from securities and technology changes during the, for example, password resets or logging some users out of the application and it added simply into the friction. These customers weren’t typically buying our health and beauty segment, and it's simply possible that some of them, they will not log in again. We are communicating with them. We are trying to get them on the platform and this is still our intent, but the comments here is because we don't see it as a granted.

也許我還可以評論我們在某些​​情況下所做的安全性和技術變更，例如密碼重置或將某些用戶從應用程式中註銷，這只是增加了摩擦。這些客戶通常不會購買我們的健康和美容產品，而且其中一些客戶很可能不會再次登入。我們正在與他們溝通。我們正在努力讓他們進入這個平台，這仍然是我們的意圖，但這裡的評論是因為我們不認為這是理所當然的。

Okay. And can you give a little bit more color on what you think the timing will be internationally of the Tech Stack upgrade there? When do you think the majority of those markets will see that upgrade?

好的。您能否進一步說明一下您認為技術堆疊升級的國際時機？您認為大多數市場什麼時候會看到升級？

The plan is to do it in the first half of the next year.

計劃是在明年上半年進行。

Okay. Thank you. And then one quick question for Jiri. What happens to the rest of the 2026 converts that are not in that $176 amount?

好的。謝謝。然後向 Jiri 提出一個簡短的問題。其餘未達 176 美元金額的 2026 年皈依者會怎樣？

We still have them, and it's our plan to either refinancing which -- maybe the $20 million, which we have or earn money and pay them back. So we still have it. It's roughly $54 million, which we have (inaudible).

我們仍然擁有它們，我們的計劃是要么再融資——也許是我們擁有的 2000 萬美元，要么賺錢並償還它們。所以我們仍然擁有它。我們擁有約 5400 萬美元（聽不清楚）。

Would they be offered the opportunity to take the same notes as the rest of the group?

他們是否有機會做與小組其他成員相同的筆記？

No, at this moment, we not thinking, and I think we will be thinking that little bit later, what we will do with the remaining part.

不，目前我們沒有思考，我想我們稍後會思考我們將如何處理剩餘的部分。

Okay, all right. Thank you very much. Appreciate it.

好吧，好吧。非常感謝。欣賞它。

Bobby Brooks, Northland Capital.

鮑比布魯克斯，北國資本。

Hi, good morning guys. I wanted to touch a little bit on the ROI, like the 100% ROI within 14 days. Could you just talk about what needs to happen for you to hit that marketing payback?

嗨，大家早安。我想稍微談談投資報酬率，例如 14 天內 100% 的投資報酬率。您能否談談要實現行銷回報需要做什麼？

So we had and have periods when we are hitting this marketing payback. We were just commenting that during the last quarter, we had a period where our efficiency of marketing systems was impacted by changes. So we were not always there. But in general, we are very close to this range, and our target is to be there.

因此，我們過去和現在都有一段時期實現了這種行銷回報。我們只是評論說，在上個季度，我們的行銷系統效率受到了變化的影響。所以我們並不總是在那裡。但總的來說，我們非常接近這個範圍，我們的目標就是達到這個範圍。

So I don't see any major blockers. We also noticed the period before the presidential elections were overall the spend on these campaigns was really enormous, and it was impacting the cost of advertising that we were not reaching same levels. But in general, I don't see a huge risk not to be able to run the marketing campaigns at 100%. And our goal would be obviously to try additional channels to just increase that spend and bring and speed up that acquisition flywheel.

所以我沒有看到任何主要的障礙。我們還注意到，在總統選舉之前的一段時間裡，這些競選活動的總體支出確實非常巨大，而且我們沒有達到相同的水平，這影響了廣告成本。但總的來說，我認為無法 100% 開展行銷活動並不會帶來巨大風險。我們的目標顯然是嘗試其他管道來增加支出並加速收購飛輪。

Okay, got it. And then I was trying to read through the press release, but it obviously came shortly before the call. But I think I read that its attributed -- one of the attributes, one of the things that was attributed to the year-over-year decrease in North American local revenues was an increase in local voucher redemption rates. But I would have thought an increase in voucher redemption rates would be a benefit to revenues, not a headwind? What am I missing there?

好的，明白了。然後我試圖通讀新聞稿，但它顯然是在電話會議前不久發布的。但我想我讀到它的原因之一是北美當地收入同比下降的原因之一是當地優惠券兌換率的增加。但我以為提高優惠券兌換率會對收入有利，而不是不利？我在那裡缺少什麼？

I think it's a little bit linked to variable consideration because what we saw in summer was that -- there were very good deals. People really enjoyed. So we saw higher redemptions. So we have revenues and we have also, at the same moment, people take them. So we have a lot of our breakage that would be part of the revenue.

我認為這與可變考慮有一點聯繫，因為我們在夏天看到的是——有非常好的交易。人們真的很喜歡。所以我們看到了更高的贖回率。所以我們有收入，同時我們也有人拿走它們。所以我們有很多破損，這將成為收入的一部分。

I guess I'm still kind of not fully understanding that. I get how -- like when someone redeems something, right, that turns into revenue. But why would it then be if people are redeeming vouchers at a higher pace, how would that be a negative headwind to revenue, not a positive?

我想我仍然沒有完全理解這一點。我明白了——就像有人贖回某樣東西，對吧，這會變成收入。但如果人們以更快的速度兌換優惠券，為什麼會出現這種情況，這會對收入產生負面影響，而不是正面影響？

It's already in -- we are having our margin of Groupon. If it happens at its break, we have 100% of that. But certainly, we are looking for people to redeem because our business is to have a repeated customer, satisfied customers who are with us for a long period.

我們已經在 Groupon 上獲得了利潤。如果它發生在中斷時，我們就有 100% 的成功。但當然，我們正在尋找可以贖回的人，因為我們的業務是擁有長期與我們在一起的回頭客、滿意的客戶。

All right. And then I guess, just reading kind of between the lines, -- it's you mentioned in the press release, it talks about $25.8 million remeasurement of the SumUp stake. There obviously has been news that SumUp is looking to do a new round. Could you just -- and I know you can't really talk about timing because it's not in your control, but could you just remind us all how you look at that SumUp ownership. Is that a piggy-bank you'd like to tap if the opportunity opens up? And maybe explain why that -- the valuation is still kind of much lower than what that -- writers article that I mentioned.

好的。然後我想，只是從字裡行間看一下——您在新聞稿中提到過，它談到了對 SumUp 股份的重新計量 2580 萬美元。顯然有消息稱 SumUp 正在尋求進行新一輪融資。我知道你不能真正談論時間，因為它不在你的控制範圍內，但你能提醒我們大家你如何看待 SumUp 所有權嗎？如果有機會的話，這是您想要利用的存錢筒嗎？也許可以解釋為什麼——估值仍然比我提到的作家文章低得多。

Well, you know that last year, we sold two tranches of SumUp, which is always a combination of demand and supply. We are reiterating there for many quarters that we are considering to sell it -- this is private component. There is no market for that. So there has to be -- there has to be demand for that, and it has to be done together with SumUp. So -- it's not only that Groupon could go for some private agreement. It has to be always with coordination with SumUp.

嗯，你知道，去年我們賣了兩批 SumUp，這始終是需求和供給的結合。我們在多個季度都重申，我們正在考慮出售它——這是私人部分。沒有市場。所以必須有——必須有這樣的需求，而且必須與 SumUp 一起完成。因此，不僅僅是 Groupon 可以尋求一些私人協議。它必須始終與 SumUp 協調。

Pierre Rope from Goldman Sachs.

來自高盛的皮埃爾·羅普。

Hey thanks so much for taking the question. We just wanted to ask about your growth investments and whether there was anything more to share around the progress of the sales force in North America, specifically as you continue to scale and hire into the rest of the year? Maybe we had a focus on any verticals or regions where you've seen the most progress in rebuilding the supply side of the platform and whether you can point to any benefits you're seeing from the better marketplace balance in those areas as we head deeper into Q4? Thank you.

嘿，非常感謝您提出問題。我們只是想問一下你們的成長投資，以及關於北美銷售隊伍的進展是否還有什麼可以分享的，特別是你們在今年剩餘時間裡繼續擴大規模和招聘人員？也許我們關注的是您在重建平台供應方面取得最大進展的任何垂直行業或地區，以及您是否可以指出隨著我們深入研究，您從這些領域更好的市場平衡中看到的任何好處進入第四季度？謝謝。

So in the last six weeks of this year, the hiring is paused because it's not very efficient in terms of training, but we were significantly ramping up the hiring during pretty much a whole quarter until now, and we plan to continue again from January with the same speed. Right now, we are focusing on hiring people in Chicago because we are doing the trainings in the office, and we are actually also expanding the office space there so that we can accommodate the salespeople so that they can be much more -- in the office as we see this extremely efficient, especially for the further sales force.

因此，在今年的最後六週，招聘暫停了，因為在培訓方面效率不是很高，但到目前為止，我們在幾乎整個季度中都在大幅增加招聘，我們計劃從一月份開始再次繼續相同的速度。現在，我們的重點是在芝加哥招募人員，因為我們正在辦公室進行培訓，實際上我們也在擴大那裡的辦公空間，以便我們可以容納銷售人員，以便他們可以在辦公室裡做更多的事情我們認為這非常有效，特別是對於其他銷售人員。

And they are serving the whole United States. We just have allocation to a certain region of the United States. And in terms of efficiency, we see the better numbers overall in the largest population centers of United States. And we see a very similar trend developing in Europe, because like higher coverage of deals, higher number of deals at the same time with higher quality, it translates very quickly into more customers buying the services.

他們正在為整個美國服務。我們只是分配給美國的某個地區。就效率而言，我們看到美國最大的人口中心的整體數字更好。我們在歐洲看到了非常相似的趨勢，因為交易覆蓋率更高，同時交易數量更高，品質更高，這很快就會轉化為更多客戶購買服務。

Thank you.

謝謝。

There are no other questions. So this concludes our call for today. Thank you, everyone for joining. For additional information, please go to investor.groupon.com. Thank you so much.

沒有其他問題了。我們今天的呼籲到此結束。謝謝大家的加入。欲了解更多信息，請訪問investor.groupon.com。太感謝了。