Clas Ohlson AB

STO:CLAS B

Earnings Call Transcript

[Operator]

Welcome to the Clas Ohlson Q2 2023/2024 Report Presentation. [Operator Instructions] Now I will hand the conference over to CEO, Kristofer Tonström, and CFO, Pernilla Walfridsson. Please go ahead.

[Kristofer Tonström, executive]

Good morning, and welcome to the Clas Ohlson Q2 report presentation. My name is Kristofer Tonström. I'm the CEO, and I'm here with Pernilla Walfridsson, CFO. We will do a short presentation before we move into the Q&A. So I'll cover the business update. Pernilla will take us through the financial development, and then I will go through the events after reporting period and a summary.

So looking into the second quarter, we have delivered strong sales development with 10% organic growth across the quarter. We've also been able to improve the -- both gross margin and operating profit. And we have continued with our cost-saving programs and thereby also focused on becoming even more efficient and flexible.

The good news is that we see that the growth is broad-based from across all our key categories and also we have a high amount of new products being launched that also drives sales growth. Also operating cash flow has recovered versus last year. And today, we also reported November where we saw 7% organic growth, and we'll come back to that a bit more in detail.

So starting with the business update, just reminding ourselves about our targets. We want to deliver 5% organic growth per year with a 7% to 9% EBIT margin. And we want to become industry-leading in terms of sustainability. So those are the overarching objectives.

Looking at the focus areas for this year relating back to our strategy that we launched back at our Capital Markets Day in 2022, we have 3 main focus areas. The first one is to make our assortment relevant 12 months a year. And the second one is to drive profitable growth on the e-com. And the third one is to start expanding our store network. So just briefly touching what has happened over the quarter across each of these.

So first of all, in terms of assortment, I'll come back to a bit more detail. But all in all, we do see that the growth is broad-based across the categories that we have prioritized, and we have done a lot of work to ensure that we can adapt quickly to changing consumer needs. We see the flexibility in the assortment as critical. And we have also launched thousands of new products this year, and we do see an effect of the product news also driving sales growth.

On our e-com business, the online sales have grown 15% now in the second quarter. And our online business this quarter now versus end of pandemic has actually doubled. So we have seen good progress there. Still 50% of online orders are delivered via our store network. So obviously, the combination of our physical store with our e-com is continuously helping us to deliver great service and also enabling good profitability.

We also see that we are becoming even more efficient in terms of having products available. And we have also, as part of the product launches that we have done, we have launched a lot of new products exclusively online to try out new ideas before we roll it out more broadly or products that are more suited for a specific e-com purchase behavior.

On the store network, obviously, we have a few years behind us of optimization of the store network in the quarter that we're reporting. We had 1 store less than last year, but already in November, we opened 3 new stores. And we have also rebuilt or moved stores, so the optimization of the network continues. And we are on track to open the 10 stores that were communicated for this year. And we've also signed already now 4 quarters -- or sorry, 4 stores ahead of next fiscal year.

Obviously, the growth drivers, the focus areas are all enabled by being very efficient in terms of how we communicate to customers, and here, we are shifting -- we have shifted most of our spend online, and we do a lot of work in terms of digital marketing, both in social and paid search, et cetera, and it's playing out well.

Also, Club Clas is a great enabler. Looking at Club Clas this quarter versus last year same quarter, we actually have 0.5 million more members, so a membership group of 5.2 million members, which also allows us to communicate frequently with the most important customers. Our work with ensuring a competitive cost base has continued. And as previously announced in the last few reports, we aim to save SEK 210 million on an annualized basis, and all the plans have progressed as planned.

And on sustainability, one of the key things we've done this quarter is to roll out more bigger parts of our spare part assortment. For us, at Clas Ohlson, it's critical that we sell products -- high-quality products at good prices that consumers can keep in use for a long time. And if something happens that they can also repair what they bought. So having a broad spare part assortment available is critical for us.

Looking then a bit more deeply into the way we work, both with assortment, but also in terms of the categories that we're prioritizing in our communication. Since our Capital Markets Day, we have talked a lot about our 5 consumer missions. So tied up your home, light up your home, creating a conscious home environment, connect and enjoy your home and fix your home. So those are the 5 big destinations where we know that customers are really thinking about Clas Ohlson when they have a problem or a need at home.

And looking at this quarter, we do see growth across all 5. If I compare it to a year ago, we saw growth in 2 out of 5. So that's obviously 1 big change. And we're really thinking about this as building out more of a all-weather portfolio, where we always have something that we can offer best needless of customer needs or season shifting. Then on an everyday basis, we are also focusing a lot on sustainability, spare parts and obviously, seasons is critical for us, not the season we're in right now, the Christmas season.

So the 5 missions are here to drive traffic, and then we have also expanded our consumables assortment over the last couple of years to ensure that we can also complement the other categories with more consumable products. Looking a bit more into -- I mentioned product news. So we have launched thousands of new products this fiscal year.

And a big part of the organic sales growth comes from new products. And we have been able to identify gaps in our assortment and also identify new needs from a customer point of view. And I also believe we've been able to price these good levels, attractive levels, which also has helped our both gross margin and value perception with customers.

So looking at where we stand from a customer point of view, we do know that the consumer sentiment in our markets is still low. It's been improving slightly, but it's still far below historical levels. And we really can tell that the households and our customers are extremely price sensitive. Then obviously, it's critical for us to ensure that we deliver high value for money.

And we track this every quarter. And we see that the customers really look at Clas Ohlson as high value for money as discounter competitors, and we need to ensure we do everything to remain competitive from a pricing point of view.

And last but not least, we also deliver outstanding customer service. So our NPS is at 57. In our store network, it's even higher. And we do see that, that makes us stand out versus a lot of other retailers out there, and all the work that we have done in terms of taking out overhead costs, et cetera, is also to protect the customer meeting also physically in our stores because we see that, that makes a big difference for our customers.

And then my last point before handing over to Pernilla, we're also very happy that -- as of 8th of November, we have also closed the acquisition that we announced back in October. We have acquired the group Spares, which consists of 2 consumer-facing parts, Teknikdelar.SE and Batteriexperten and to business-to-business parts, Spares and Zandgroup.

We did this acquisition first to ensure that it adds value to Clas Ohlson. We expect this to be as accretive from closing. And we also do this to really continue our strive for delivering both on our connect mission, but also to build out in terms of our spare parts assortment. We do see this as a very big underlying trend.

We're going to integrate the Spares group as part of our Q3 report. So we will come back more on this in our next report. So today, we do not have that much more information to share. But we're excited about the deal closing. And we believe this is a big opportunity for us, both here now and longer term.

So with that, I'll hand over to Pernilla to take us through the financial development.

[Pernilla Walfridsson, executive]

Thank you, Kristofer. Good morning, everyone. And now let's dive into the financial of Q2 and the first 6 months of this financial year. Looking at the sales development, I think we have shown strength and we have maintained a positive momentum from the first quarter into the second. Total sales in Q2 is up 9% to almost SEK 2.5 billion. Organic sales is up 10% and like-for-like sales in comparable units is up 10%. We [ strengthen ] a positive view on opening new stores.

I also think it is important to underline that we strongly believe in the combination of physical stores and online sales. Online continued to drive a significant share of total growth up by 16% in the quarter.

When it comes to different markets, we see strong total sales growth in all markets in Q2. Organic sales growth also shows positive figures for all markets. Measured in local currency, Norway is the strongest growth market with a 13% organic sales growth in the quarter. A positive milestone that we now have reached about SEK 1 billion in Q2 sales, both in Sweden and Norway.

Before moving on and commenting on profitability, I would like to briefly remind you of the macro factors impacting our business. Firstly, it is very positive that the freight prices has stabilized on a historical more normal levels. The pandemic effects on logistics are now roughly 1 year behind us, which means that we have very small lag effects left in our inventory.

This graph shows spot prices for transport as an illustration of the market conditions. And as you can see, prices have been quite stable on a reasonable level since October last year. Less encouraging is the continued weak SEK compared to the U.S. dollar. In a 3-year perspective, the SEK has lost approximately 25% versus the U.S. dollar, which impacts us a lot.

When it comes to mitigating primarily the effect of the weak Swedish krona, we constantly adjust our prices, optimize sales mix and balance campaigns and share of private labels to mention a few. With those factors I mentioned in mind, we see a great uplift in gross margin in the quarter. We have shown pricing power, but also the ability to adjust the product mix in a good way.

Sourcing and transportation costs have declined, which we can conclude, had a major impact on gross margin. These factors -- these positive factors were largely offset by currency effect with a weak Swedish krona compared to the U.S. dollar, but in summary, we reached 3.6 percentage points higher gross margin compared to last year.

Summarizing our income statement, we have improved operating profit substantially. The operating profit, excluding nonrecurring items in Q2 totaled to SEK 277 million. We are, of course, pleased with this development, but it should also be seen in the light of last year's relatively soft Q2.

Share of selling expenses decreased by 2.3% to 28.1%, mainly thanks to increased sales and conducted cost savings. Administrative expenses were flat at SEK 50 million. Looking at the 6 months of summary, we see a similar pattern with increased profit and even larger nonrecurring items with disposal of IT systems and cost for white collars reductions. All in all, we have a profit for Q2 at SEK 173 million and SEK 147 million for the 6-month period.

As always this time of the year, we have an increase in inventory ahead of [indiscernible]. The inventory is also affected by external factors such as the Swedish krona, U.S. dollar exchange rate. Compared to end of October last year, the inventory level is, however, down with almost SEK 200 million. So last year, inventory was a bit high, and we believe that this is a better level.

Our ability to generate cash is a strength, and we saw a solid development in the quarter. Cash flow from operating activity totaled SEK 192 million compared to minus SEK 167 million last year. The improvement between the quarters is mainly due to a higher profit and a different intention working capital due to normalized inventory buildup.

At the end of the quarter, our credit facilities totaled SEK 600 million, of which SEK 100 million was utilized at the end of the period. After the end of the reporting period in connection with the acquisition of Spares Europe AB, the credit facilities -- the credit facility was increased by SEK 510 million to SEK 1.1 billion. And of this SEK 1.1 billion, SEK 506 million was utilized after the closing of the acquisition. Net debt to EBITDA, excluding IFRS 16, was 0.0x, which means that the financial position is well in line with our financial targets.

I hand over to Kristofer.

[Kristofer Tonström, executive]

Thank you, Pernilla. So looking at the events after the reporting period and our November sales development, we again saw a solid development with organic sales growth of 7%. Net sales growth of 4%. So obviously, the difference is driven by the weak Norwegian kroner and like-for-like up 6%. Again, as for Q2, we saw organic growth across the 3 markets. And we also saw organic sales growth across the 5 missions, so similar to the Q2 development.

Our online business in November grew 12%. And in the numbers, we also have included the November sales of Spares, both in terms of the total and also for online. And we believe that Spares is progressing exactly as we expected. But obviously, we'll come back as of Q3 closing to share a bit more detail. So here, we only have the absolutes included.

Moving then into summary and then Q&A. So obviously, the key for us is to continue to execute on the plan that we laid out a couple of years ago. And we do know and we do see that the market environment and the uncertainty around the consumer spending remains. We are still very humble when we look into the spring.

We do know that Clas Ohlson is incredibly strong in the Christmas period, and we are working a lot of plans to continue to deliver in the spring. But it's -- again, we're also very humble in terms of the development.

Also, as Pernilla mentioned, we need to remember that the first half, we were also meeting fairly soft comparables, whereas, of course, in the second half, the picture is a bit different. We keep working on the key things that we believe will drive us forward. It's the relevance in our assortment. It's value for money of our customers and also remaining our high flexibilities we can adapt based on how the customer needs are adapting.

Also, we have some exciting store openings to look forward to in the spring, and we want to continue to drive our online sales growth also in the spring. Again, we, of course, stay very cost focused. We have executed on the programs that we laid out. So we're going to continue to be cost focused, and ensure that we do not add any cost, but actually do everything to become even more efficient also moving forward.

So with that, let's move into Q&A.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] The next question comes from Niklas Ekman from Carnegie.

[Niklas Ekman, analyst]

And congratulations on very strong results here. I have to ask this like-for-like of 10%. I believe that's the strongest growth you've reported in almost 20 years. Can you tell us a little bit more on how you've actually achieved this? How much of this is related to price? How much are you seeing a significant increase in footfall? Can you just elaborate a little bit because it's a bit difficult to understand the magnitude of this improvement?

[Kristofer Tonström, executive]

Yes. Thank you, Niklas. So obviously, as talked about, it's -- assortment is a big driver. And as you know, we do not report volume and value separated, but I can say that for the quarter, we have seen also volume growth. Obviously, we are coming out of a period where prices have gone up over the last year.

But in this quarter, we have also, of course, worked on pricing, but I think it's really the product mix that is also helping us. As I said, we have launched actually thousands of new products that is also playing out now for this call.

In terms of footfall, we do see traffic increase, but we also see that when the customers come to us, both online and in our physical stores, they tend to buy a bit more. So the combination of traffic driving from the mission with also complementing sales on consumables, et cetera, has an effect.

So those are some of the key things, i.e., assortment is a big driver. But then also, we've been able to get the messages out there to drive traffic. So I think our communication and marketing is working in a good way for both channels, actually. So that's some more flavor on the sales development.

[Niklas Ekman, analyst]

Very good. And this thousands of new products you're talking about. How does that compare to a normal year? Because I guess you always do replacements every year. Is this a dramatic increase? And have you actually increased your assortment? Or have you replaced a similar amount of SKUs?

[Kristofer Tonström, executive]

So these are high levels, also looking back historically. Back at our Capital Markets Day, we showed a graph where we showed that we had actually decreased the Clas Ohlson assortment with approximately 10% over the last the years before. Since then, one of the key strategies from our end was to expand the assortment.

So we have increased the number of SKUs. We've also find a good way to work with our e-com channel as a way to launch products -- test products at smaller volumes. And then when we see working, we can either increase volumes online or roll out more to the physical store.

So we have launched more. We have expanded assortment. And then of course, we're also doing a lot of work on the tail to ensure that we also stop selling things that are not performing as well. So to your regional question, looking back many years, we are at higher levels than we have been in a very long time.

[Niklas Ekman, analyst]

Okay. Very clear. And store openings, you mentioned this as well at the Capital Markets Day here. And I think you have 11 net new openings now before next spring. And that's also, I think, the highest pace of openings since 2017. And -- how do you see this, is this beginning of a new trend where you are continuing to expand and opening 10-plus new stores per year? Or is this kind of a one-off adaptation?

[Kristofer Tonström, executive]

Obviously, we hope that store expansion is a driver also more longer term, but we want to do this in a very controlled way. So we have opened 3 new stores in November. We have 10 new planned, of which 6 will happen this fiscal year and then 4 are planned for next fiscal year. And obviously, we decided in the spring to start going for expansion, and this was driven by a few different factors. One, the fact that our like-for-like store network was now performing well. We have done a lot of optimization, closed a lot of stores, moved stores, et cetera. So like-for-like was developing positively.

The second thing is with the both headcount reduction, but also overall cost reduction, obviously, we are giving ourselves the possibility to become more profitable on a store level. And third, obviously, looking at the macro environment right now, a lot of retailers are shrinking store networks, moving out of cities, et cetera, which, of course, give us a good opportunity when it comes to discussions with landlords, et cetera.

So given that, we want to ensure that we capture this opportunity when the market is soft to find the right locations for us, that also means that there are a lot of store opportunities that have come up now in a fairly short period of time. That doesn't mean we're going to keep the exact same pace every year, but it has given us a really fast start now this year.

And then, of course, we want to be very, very careful. We want to ensure that we go for quality and not quantity in terms of new stores. So for every new store that we open, it needs to deliver on the bottom line. So we're opening a lot of stores now, but we also want to carefully evaluate those store openings and then decide on how to move forward. But of course, our hope is that it plays out well, so we can continue a careful expansion.

[Niklas Ekman, analyst]

Very clear. Just a quick final question. The SEK 210 million in cost savings, how much of that have you delivered on by now?

[Kristofer Tonström, executive]

So from an organization point of view, most of the 160 FTEs have left. And obviously, we have reported most of the one-off costs related to that. And also when it comes to office -- shrinking office space, et cetera, most of that has also been executed, and also the depreciations are obviously captured now as well. So the plan has been executed and then the effect of that will obviously gradually have an effect. But I think it's important to remember is that if you look at the numbers going forward, we would have had SEK 210 million more costs unless we did this.

But then as we also communicated when we announced the changes, we have seen, of course, cost inflation in parallel. So salary increases, rental increases and we're going to see that also in 2024. So it's not going to be possible to find exactly SEK 210 million line by line in terms of net-net savings, it's also been down to offset. But all the changes have now -- most of them have been executed. Pernilla, I don't know if you want to add anything.

[Pernilla Walfridsson, executive]

So from a one-off cost perspective, we will not have much left, a couple of millions maybe...

[Niklas Ekman, analyst]

Very clear. Super.

[Operator]

The next question comes from Magnus Råman from Kepler Cheuvreux.

[Magnus Råman, analyst]

And firstly, congratulations on the results, of course. I think I will tie into 2 previous questions a bit. But coming back to the price increases here, we look forward instead -- I mean a lot of the service showed that Swedish and Nordic retailers plan to increase prices also in 2024. At the same time, you mentioned here, you expect a continued weak macro environment in the next year. So in that backdrop, do you expect price increases to be possible next year? That's the first one.

[Kristofer Tonström, executive]

I think on an overall level, we'll see less price increases than we have seen because, of course, over the last 1.5 years, we've had a huge impact from transportation, currencies, et cetera. So I think, in general, we'll see less. And then, of course, we need to remember that as we shared in the graph here, we compare ourselves in terms of value for money with discounters.

And we've also seen less price movement across the discount competitors than we have seen in some other parts of the market. So for us, it's critical to remain competitive. And then as we always do, we work very strategically with different categories and different product items where we need to be and want to be competitive.

So on some products, we're going to take down prices. On others, there might be an opportunity or the -- in prices might have gone up more where we need to adjust upwards. But I think -- as a general answer, I think the price increase expectation on the market, I think, is lower in '24 than what we've seen in '23.

[Magnus Råman, analyst]

Great. And then the second one, price -- I mean, you portray a good gross margin development year-on-year, but it's still clearly down [ year-on 2 year ] so Q2, 2 years ago, and you mentioned here that you sort of constantly adjust prices to adjust for the weak second imported inflation that you have experienced on your sourcing. So do you expect that there is a catching up here?

I mean this relates, of course, to the first question, but do you think there's a catching up to do for Swedish retailers that they have not been able to adjust fully given the weak consumer climate or how do you view that also in sort of relation to you possibly getting back to your previous gross margin levels?

[Kristofer Tonström, executive]

Yes. So I don't think I want to comment on the -- all other retailers. But if I look for Clas Ohlson, I think fairly -- I mean, as you say, we haven't taken out all the prices to end consumers. I mean, that we can obviously tell from the gross margin over the last couple of years or 1.5 years. And then we have seen improvement.

But also, as you mentioned, it's not back to historical levels. And we also expect and aim for improvement in the coming quarters, but the year-on-year improvement is not going to be as much as we have seen in the first 2 quarters with the -- basically weaker.

Then I think we need to remember the gross margin 2 years ago that you referred to was also very high. I think it was up to 43%. And then historically, we have been more closer to 40%, 41% in the second quarter. So net-net, we also -- we always want to balance -- I mean, value for money for customers is the #1 priority, and then it's about balancing margin and growth.

And we want to ensure -- especially that we do not discount and promote too much, but rather identify the correct black price point and launch new product at the correct price point from the beginning. And I think we've seen that in the second quarter, and that's a bit what we refer to when we talk about price/mix. So we want to continue doing that moving forward as well. So I don't know whether that answers the question, but I think you're correct in those conclusions.

[Magnus Råman, analyst]

No, that's all good. One final for me here on your assortment changes and this mix shift of assortment, is there any way to give us some kind of idea here. For example, you mentioned in the presentation your different focus sort of categories where you have 1 you call fix your home, which I guess includes tools and building material-related products and so on. If one would think of that category and its share of sales today and its share of sales for Clas Ohlson, say, a couple of years back, is there any way to sort of describe how that mix shift, the magnitude of it? How much has that category declined as a share of your total sales?

[Kristofer Tonström, executive]

I think looking across those 5, over the last couple of years, tied up, so organize your home has developed well, and also approach of the light up your home mission. So those 2 have performed fairly well. What we saw -- and I think we also shared at the Capital Markets Day, what we saw was a decline from a Clas Ohlson point of view, both on connect and fixed.

Those are 2 overall areas that consumers -- we have high, what we call, mental availability in those categories. You expect Clas Ohlson to have a strong offer across connect and fix. But that's where we saw decline in the years previously.

So I think you can say without going into the exact percentage points that the share of sales was down on connect and fix. If you look at a lot of products we have launched now this -- both summer and fall, we have done a lot on both connect and fix. So I think we are regaining a bit share of sales on those 2 areas.

Then the conscious home environment, that's the smallest of the 5, but it's also one of the -- ones we believe in for the longer term. So we've also launched a lot of things there, but it's much smaller than the other 4, but I think it's fair to say that we have been bringing back share of sales to connect and fix, and that is something our customers really expect us to do.

[Magnus Råman, analyst]

Is it a fair conclusion to draw that sort of tools and bigger ticket items related to fix are at lower gross margins, whilst consumables are at higher gross margins, so that you have an accretion to your gross margin if you shift out and increase consumables? Or is that the wrong sort of...

[Kristofer Tonström, executive]

No, I don't think -- I mean if you look at fix, of course, fix is a very broad based. I mean, you have everything from small screws to spray paint to DC fixed products, hangers, et cetera, a lot of things with very high gross margins. Then of course, if you talk about branded power tools, of course, they have slightly lower gross margin, but there, we also have a private label assortment that is solid.

So we try to balance gross margin across all 5. So we're not expecting structurally gross margin to go down just because we grow fix. But then of course -- yes, so I think that's the overview.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] The next question comes from Nicklas Skogman from Handelsbanken.

[Nicklas Skogman, analyst]

A couple of questions from my side, please. First, on the SG&A cost development, which seems to be broadly unchanged year-on-year in Q2. And I think you will basically have the same level of cost savings in Q3. So is it a fair assumption that on an underlying basis now in Q3, if we exclude the Spares acquisition that you will have pretty much unchanged SG&A costs again?

[Kristofer Tonström, executive]

So obviously, across what we could see was that on selling, it's down and admin was flat. And I think it will vary a little bit quarter by quarter because, of course, there are other things in there as well, like marketing, et cetera. That is more flexible. So of course, as I said before, the SEK 210 million, they will go away, but then there will be other things impacting.

But I don't think I can give a straight outlook on Q3, and you'll see this a little bit depending by quarter. But the SEK 210 million of the cost saving programs have been executed. So that part is happening.

[Nicklas Skogman, analyst]

Yes, good. And then you mentioned the continued focus on costs and not earning any costs and so on. And also mentioning rents and salaries going up next year. So do you see room for any bigger cost-out actions heading into next year as well? Or are we talking more smaller moves?

[Kristofer Tonström, executive]

No, I think we are not expecting today. We're not expecting any other -- any more of this overall big cost programs. We have executed 2 in a fairly short period of time. So we believe that we are fairly competitive from a cost point of view. Then, of course, we want to become more efficient all the time.

And I think especially, as we open new stores, we're trying to rethink how you can operate stores in an effective way when we source product. We try to become more and more effective in the day-to-day in all the operations, but I'm not expecting any overall cost-saving programs looking at the outlook right now. So we try to do these changes with also next year's inflation in mind.

[Nicklas Skogman, analyst]

Okay. Very good. And on the gross margin, it looked like rather big tailwind there from lower input costs. Is that tailwind becoming bigger now in Q3?

[Kristofer Tonström, executive]

No. I wouldn't say bigger, but then obviously, transport -- if you look at the graph that Pernilla shared, obviously, now transportation costs, the very positive tailwind from transportation is not going to be as significant, obviously, in the next few quarters. We're going to meet also a fairly lower base. But I wouldn't say more tailwind from sourcing apart from the transportation. I don't know whether you have anything else, Pernilla?

[Pernilla Walfridsson, executive]

No, but -- I mean, we continue to have a pressure from the currency, and we also see in the development [indiscernible] especially good lately. So that continues.

[Nicklas Skogman, analyst]

Okay. Perfect. And then lastly, on the November sales, I had some questions whether perhaps there has been some sort of a pull forward in Christmas shopping to November. I don't know if you're able to sort of discern that based on what you were selling in November or not?

[Kristofer Tonström, executive]

I mean, we did start with the Christmas season earlier and it's almost like every year, we say it starts earlier and earlier. But yes, there is -- in November, there's been some Christmas sales. I mean, Christmas trees and et cetera, have started to sell already in November. And then obviously, this year, Advent and Black Week were separated. They were together in the same weekend last year. But -- yes, we saw some early Christmas sales already happening in November.

[Operator]

There are no more questions at this time. So I hand the conference back to the speakers for any written questions and closing comments.

[Unknown Executive]

We do have 1 written question from the webcast. It's from [indiscernible], and it's relating to spares Europe. And even if it's early days, have you seen a pickup in the demand of spare parts and accessories in the consumer electronics space over the last few months.

[Kristofer Tonström, executive]

Yes, Daniel. So yes, we do see a big demand increase on anything related to spare parts and accessories. So the demand is high out there. And obviously, any time new devices are being launched, you see that accessory sales is -- the demand is going up and then also after a while for the spare parts. But in general, demand for spare parts and accessories continue to be very high.

[Unknown Executive]

And by that, we don't have any more written questions so I hand it back to you, Kristofer.

[Kristofer Tonström, executive]

Good. Thank you very much, everybody, for calling in, and we will, obviously, see each other again back in Q3 when we also have a December month -- or we will share the December month before, but then we will be able to conclude on the full quarter. So thank you very much. And now we're going to go back to pushing Christmas sales. Thank you.