Karooooo Ltd (KARO) 2023 Q3 法說會逐字稿

Welcome to the Karooooo 2023 results webinar. I am Richard, the Group COO, and we are pleased to present the Q3 results to our shareholders and investors. We are excited to share our performance, growth and future plans. Our team, led by our CEO and Founder, Zak, is committed to delivering on our strategic goals and creating long-term value for all of our stakeholders. With Hoeshin, our Chief Financial Officer, and the rest of the team, we are confident in our abilities to continue driving growth and innovation in the future.

All shareholders and investors are advised to read this disclaimer.

Today, we will review the 3 entities within Karooooo, namely Carzuka, Cartrack and Karooooo Logistics. At Karooooo, we understand that mobility is core to all on the ground operations. We are not only thinking about connected vehicles and equipment but also on how to improve the overall mobility ecosystems. We are constantly exploring new ways to use data to optimize operations and make them more efficient. We are establishing the leading connected cloud platform, enabling customers to develop effective controls and workflows while digitizing their daily operations in one enterprise-grade platform.

Our cloud platform seamlessly embeds into the day-to-day activities of our customers and offers unprecedented visibility of varying aspects of their operations, covering driver vehicle, cargo, work site and more. Our platform contextualize these data points to offer actionable insights for their challenges. This helps customers understand and ultimately streamline their operations, enabling them to deliver on their service offering to a higher level and remain competitive within their industries.

We are committed to providing our customers with the best possible service and support, and we are constantly looking for new ways to improve our platform and our service offering. Karooooo's cloud platform is well positioned to successfully service customers across diverse industries. We support over 100,000 small to large businesses in optimizing their on-the-ground operations, including global multinationals like Coca-Cola and Cargill. This is a 15% increase compared to the previous quarter. Our success across our diverse customer base continues, ensuring our low customer and industry concentration risk.

Highlights of the Karooooo investment. Innovating through an entrepreneurial approach that prioritize customer needs, utilizes hands-on experience and skills, and being adaptable in both planning and execution, offering a strong value proposition, a proven track record of delivering value-enhanced solutions and passing on cost savings to customers through successful execution while maintaining prudent capital allocation, having a strong financial foundation, the ability to control prices and maintain high operating profit margins, solid unit economics and a history of sustained growth at scale.

Our strong management, entrepreneurial culture and vertically integrated business model puts us at a significant advantage by inspiring ownership and practically creative thinking throughout the business. This has been a leading contributor to our proven track record of growth and profitability in varying macroeconomic headwinds across multiple regions.

Karooooo is using data to improve operations, and we are at an early stage of a large growing opportunity with over 40% of global GDP based on underground operations. Mobility is the key to solving customer challenges, and Karooooo is leading the way in this area. The platform is well positioned to leverage this opportunity as it continues to grow. In South Africa, over 10% of all vehicles are connected to the Karooooo platform.

Karooooo has a large untapped network effect generated from its platform with over 120 billion valuable data points generated monthly. Customers are benefiting by personalizing their experiences and provided with tools to improve decision-making and increase their efficiencies. Predictive analytics of historical data are not only leading to improved customer loyalty but allow us to develop new products and services.

I will now hand over to Carmen to present the Karooooo's financial results for Q3.

Thank you, Richard. I will now talk through Karooooo's financial performance for Q3 FY '23. Please note that all comparisons are against Q3 FY '22, unless otherwise stated.

As expected, after substantial investment for future growth in all segments, earnings per share for the period was ZAR 4.70. Year-to-date earnings per share increased 20% to ZAR 14.59. Our cash generation continues to bolster our quality balance sheet. Free cash flow increased by 27% in this quarter and by 42% to ZAR 434 million on a year-to-date basis. These robust earnings were achieved despite the group's strategic investment for expansion, brand building and customer acquisition, a testament to our resilient business model that is highly cash-generative.

Supported by a high customer retention rate, Karooooo continues to grow at scale with a 14% growth in subscribers to 1,678,606 and 29% growth in revenue to ZAR 930 million. Our growth remains organic, and we continue to be prudent with capital allocation, focusing on deploying capital in key opportunities that will drive short- and long-term value.

Karooooo's success is largely attributable to our innovative and customer-centric culture, which has led us to become an operational technology partner that offers high customer return on investment through our end-to-end, all-inclusive IoT operations cloud. Even with our large scale, our vertically integrated business model empowers us to remain agile and adaptable with full control over infrastructure, advanced internal systems and our expanding distribution network. We have a proven ability to execute and achieve strong growth at scale.

Our profitable SaaS business model continues to bolster our cash flow generation with net cash on hand up by 2% at the end of November '22 at ZAR 819 million despite paying a cash dividend of USD 18.6 million in the period. Debtors turnover days improved to 31 days. We have strong unit economics, robust operating margins, a quality balance sheet and strong cash position and have consistently beaten the rule of 40.

We report performance by our 3 key business segments: Cartrack, Carzuka and Karooooo Logistics. Karooooo's total revenue increased by 29% to ZAR 930 million at the end of Q3 and ZAR 2.6 billion on a year-to-date basis. Cartrack grew its revenue by 19% to ZAR 804 million and operating profit by 7% to ZAR 222 million in the quarter. Cartrack's adjusted EBITDA was comparably unaltered in this quarter. Cartrack's year-to-date operating profit grew by 19%, EBITDA grew by 17% and EBITDA margin is at 48%. This is in line with Karooooo's planned investment for future growth and management's guidance for 2023.

Carzuka's steady expansion justifies our belief in the sustainability of its agile, data-enhanced and highly scalable business model. Carzuka's revenue grew to ZAR 72 million from ZAR 24 million in the prior year. We continue to invest in infrastructure, brand building and improving our processes. Similarly, we are mindful of the losses and are being pragmatic in our spending to ensure a good return on investment.

Karooooo Logistics delivered strong growth, generating ZAR 54 million in revenue and an encouraging operating profit of ZAR 2 million in this quarter. Its focus on delivery-as-a-service continues to gain momentum.

We will now focus on Cartrack, the largest underlying asset of Karooooo. Cartrack's low cost of acquiring a customer, high customer retention rate, strong cost benefits derived from economies of scale and healthy ARPU result in attractive unit economics and a high customer lifetime value. Our lifetime value to cost of acquiring a customer is over 9. Our gross profit margin on subscription revenue is a healthy 72%, and our operating profit margin is 28%. Whilst we remain prudent with our capital allocation, we are well positioned to materially increase investment for growth.

We saw record net subscriber additions of over 78,000 this quarter as compared to any other historical quarter. This was largely supported by demand from small to large enterprises, reflecting the demand for customers to digitalize their businesses as to become more efficient, compliant and competitive. Cartrack continues to have great visibility of future revenue with SaaS subscription revenue up 16% to ZAR 771 million and total revenue up 19% to ZAR 804 million in the quarter. On a year-to-date basis, total subscription revenue remains 97% of total revenue.

Our track record of execution extends over a decade, and we have a proven ability to scale in varying market conditions. Total subscribers grew by 14% to 1,678,606, and our operating profit grew 6% to ZAR 222 million despite significant investment for growth.

Cartrack continued to expand in all geographies. In South Africa, despite adverse economic factors, subscribers still grew by 13%. In Asia, the Middle East and U.S.A., subscribers grew by 27% as the pace of Cartrack's expansion into Southeast Asia moves ahead. Southeast Asia presents the greatest opportunity in the medium to long term as we continue to focus to grow the region. Europe saw a healthy growth of 14%, and we aim to allocate more resources to the region in FY '24. Africa Other is gaining some traction and increased subscribers by 9%.

In this quarter, Cartrack's ARPU was ZAR 157. We are focused on offering a strong value proposition to our customers while retaining pricing power. Cartrack has robust operating margins, and our current trends are in line with the long-term financial goals set out upon our listing on NASDAQ in 2021. Research and development as a percentage of subscription revenue remains at 6%, in line with our long-term targets of 4% to 6%. We expect to increase capital allocation into sales and marketing to drive growth, whereby we expect sales and marketing as a percentage of subscription revenue to increase from the current 14% to be within our long-term target of 17% to 19%.

Despite our continued investments in G&A, we expect that as a percentage of subscription revenue, G&A will drop to 12% to 16% in the long term. As expected, our adjusted EBITDA as a percentage of subscription revenue was at 45% in the quarter. Our targets for the long term are 50% to 55%. We are content with the progress we have made year-to-date and we will retain Cartrack's outlook for FY '23. Number of subscribers between 1.7 million and 1.9 million, Cartrack subscription revenue between ZAR 2.95 billion and ZAR 3.1 billion and Cartrack's adjusted EBITDA margin between 45% and 50%.

Carzuka and Karooooo Logistics continue to scale and positively impact Karooooo's revenue growth. Both segments showed good progress with strong quarter-on-quarter growth of 11% and 32%, respectively. In combination with its intuitive e-commerce platform, in this quarter, Carzuka has made significant progress by expanding into its second physical showroom and continuing to grow the brand presence. We will continue to steadily add strategic hubs across South Africa and build Carzuka's brand. Karooooo Logistics continues to integrate into Cartrack's platform to support Cartrack customers.

Karooooo's year-to-date earnings per share grew 20% to ZAR 14.59 despite being impacted negatively by Carzuka. We remain focused on managing Carzuka's losses while pragmatically investing in this segment. We are content with the results so far.

I would like to thank everybody for joining us today, and we'll now open the floor to Q&A with our Group's CEO and Founder, Zak.

Thank you very much. The first question is from Parker Lane. What are the long-term gross margin and adjusted EBITDA margin targets for Carzuka and Karooooo Logistics?

We're looking at the gross profit margin for Carzuka in the region of 10% to 12%. We're not quite there yet. We've got quite a few store processes that we need to iron out. And we're expecting over the long term that we'll get probably in the region of 5% to 8% EBITDA margin or operating profit margins. There will be very little depreciation in Carzuka.

On Karooooo Logistics, we expect the gross profit margins to be in the region of about 25%. And we expect operating profits, which would be similar to EBITDA, as there is very little depreciation as well. And that we expect to be in the region of about 7%. We're close to 5% at this point in time already.

Next question from Alex. Question number one. Here, G&A was noticeably down quarter-on-quarter, but operating income was down as well. Can you relay the OpEx line items to a higher degree of cash investments, and if this is recurring?

I think there was quite a lot of OpEx that we've expensed during this year. And one of it was foreign exchange losses. We don't see that as recurring, but clearly it could happen. And a substantial amount of that is actually increasing headcount, one in Southeast Asia given the growth that we want to drive, and in existing more mature markets like South Africa as well as we continue to drive higher growth into the future. We are looking at containing this spend as we grow sales.

Second question. Free cash flow conversion is very strong. Should we think about the working capital improvements and level of capital intensity as recurring more timing related?

I think it's more timing-related as we see stronger growth. In other words, we only had a 14% subscriber growth. And clearly, when the subscriber growth is lower than it's been in the last 2 or 3 years, then obviously, free cash flow become substantially stronger. So if we start growing faster than the 20% or 25%, 30%, then the free cash flow will obviously be less.

Another question from Alex. Within the record subscriber growth, are you seeing any change in gross retention churn? What is the right long-term growth retention outlook?

I think our retention is quite solid. We did see especially in Q3 a better retention rate than we had seen in the first 2 quarters. But I also believe the first 2 quarters were still suffering from the impact of COVID. So we certainly saw a better retention rate, in other words, less customers churning. So I expect it to be a plateau at these levels.

A question from Matthew from William Blair. Did this subscriber movement from the third -- continue into December and January?

Matthew, traditionally, our fourth quarter, which is December and January, is quite a weak quarter. It's one of our weakest quarters because if you take our biggest segment -- our biggest geography in this segment, which is South Africa, I would say that 3 quarters and probably half of January, the business activity is very low. And that obviously causes traditionally for the fourth quarter to be weaker than the third quarter. But I think if we factor that into it, we continue to see the same strength into the fourth quarter.

Which is -- Matthew, which areas in Europe do you plan to invest in?

Matthew, we're currently in Poland, Spain and Portugal, as you know. I'm off to -- with Richard to Europe next week and (inaudible). And we certainly believe that there's still a long way to go in the current 3 countries we're in, but we certainly can now start the expansion. And we would like to go into France as our next country. But fundamentally, we need -- we've got a lot of work to do to get real momentum in the countries we're actually currently operating.

Next question from Karl. Can Karooooo make any comment on the degree which load-shedding affecting demand, either positively or negatively? In addition, any effect on traffic patterns generally that you are able to share either in terms of accidents or increased -- I'm sorry, we just -- any internal accidents or increased transit times?

What we're seeing, obviously, we're not in Ireland. Our business in South Africa continues to be very strong. Clearly, the load-shedding is affecting us on our cost structure. Our ability to run the business has become more expensive. It also -- in many respects, we've become at times less efficient. But fundamentally, I think it's affected more our customers than it's affected us. And we see a very negative impact in the economy. And I think we're very lucky that our business -- there's always demand irrespective whether there's a negative economic environment or positive. We've always seen (inaudible) because it's not a catastrophe. We believe we'll continue to see momentum.

In terms of traffic patterns generally, we haven't seen the (inaudible) or the load shedding affect the traffic, except, obviously, when the traffic lights are out. That obviously affects along with congestion. So I would have to go look at it with -- more closely to answer this question. But I think in terms of kilometers driven, I think that people are doing the same kilometers. But clearly, we'll probably find that our customers are using more fuel given how many traffic lights are out for a long period of the time.

A question from Roy Campbell. Can you talk through what you see in terms of inflation through the regions? Also, can you update on your access inventory given recent supply chain challenges?

We clearly are seeing inflation right through all the region, whether it's Europe. I think Europe probably being a region that we're seeing the highest inflation. Asia, we also see inflation. And clearly, we're also seeing it in South Africa and in Africa.

Can you update us on access to inventory?

We keep quite a large portion of inventory. And that -- as part of our PPE, we've increased our inventory. We've continuously been increasing our inventory for quite a long time. And given the shortage of components, that's increased even more. So we haven't seen any shortages. Our developers have redesigned our telematics devices to be able to deal with parts that were short in the market. And we do have inventory to be able to acquire more customers. We are not out of inventory.

A question from [Mukoo Isaac]. It's actually, sorry, it's from [Coulter] from [Coronation]. Have you experienced any direct or indirect impact from the recent load shedding?

I think I've answered that.

I think that's all for the day. I want to thank everybody for attending the presentation. And should anybody have any questions, you're welcome to e-mail us. Thank you very much.