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eDreams ODIGEO S.A.
2/23/2023
Good morning, everyone, and thank you all for joining us today for our Q3 fiscal year 2023 results presentation for the nine months ending 31st of December 2022. I'm David Larros, the Director of Investor Relations at eDreams Odigio. As always, you can find the results materials, including the presentation and our results report, on the Investor Relations section of our website. I will now pass you over to Dana Dunn, our CEO, who will take you through the first part of the presentation. Thank you very much. Thank you, David.
Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. Over the past nine months, we've seen the resilience of the travel market. In spite of the Ukraine war and macroeconomic issues such as high inflation, travelers have been returning to the market and prioritize travel over many other discretionary expenditures. While the market still is not fully recovered to its pre-COVID levels, It certainly bodes well for its future. Within this context, EDO has continued to develop and trade well, improving the quality of our business following the pivot to the subscription model. We have seen our margins improve as we said they would, and we have demonstrated superior performance within our industry. In fact, we are proud to report that we have now delivered six quarters in a row above pre-COVID levels in bookings, a feat which no other global travel business has achieved. That, in our view, is no coincidence, since we believe we have a unique business model, which is very hard for others to replicate. It delivers an increasing stream of recurring revenue from our subscription business and has consistently delivered outperformance versus any other travel company. Please turn to slide five. which is a summary of our performance of our Q3 fiscal year 2023 results. Some of the highlights for today's presentation are, first, Prime is delivering significant uplifts in profit margins as the Prime membership program matures. As guided, the maturity of Prime members is the most important driver for profitability. This has resulted in strong improvements in profitability as we have more and more prime members renewing their memberships. Consequently, in the third quarter FY23, cash marginal profit and cash EBITDA margin improved significantly. Cash marginal profit was at 115.5 million euros. This increased 44% year on year, And in the third quarter of FY23, cash marginal profit margin increased to 29% from 21% in the first quarter of FY23. That's an eight percentage point improvement. Cash EBITDA also showed substantial improvements. It was 57.4 million euros in the nine months of FY23. That's up 72% versus the same period last year. Also in just the third quarter of FY23, cash EBITDA was 23 million euros. It's clear and proven now that as the maturity of prime members increases, margins improves. Cash EBITDA margin in the third quarter of FY23 stood at 16% versus 8.8% in the first quarter of FY23. Excluding a one-off FX positive impact on cash EBITDA margin, The margins stood at 14.6%, which is still well above Q1 and Q2 FY23 levels. To reiterate what happens, strong growth in prime members in year one delayed profitability, which significantly improves from year two onwards. The second highlight, prime model is successful and proven. E2 bookings continue to outperform and are materially better than peers in the market. The market remains below pre-COVID levels. However, we continue to trade significantly above our pre-COVID levels, now having achieved our sixth consecutive quarter of above pre-COVID levels. A business with a pivot to subscription has higher repeat rates and increasing profitability year by year as prime customers renew. In short, our business has become a much better, more predictable, and much higher quality business. Also, Prime membership grew 81% year-on-year to 3.9 million subscribers. This is even as the industry moved to more normalized seasonality booking patterns, with the October to December period being the seasonally low point of the year. In the nine months of FY23, we added an average of 427,000 net ads of prime members per quarter. One year after the start of our superior high growth in prime net ads, gross ads have been partially offset by normal churn from a higher prime number base. Lower net ads in the third quarter of FY23 were seasonally influenced, being at the lowest aggregate demand quarter of the year. At the start of the new calendar year, we are now in a strong booking period with a current run rate of 410,000 net ads based on the first six weeks of the quarter, which is already 27% more net ads than the third quarter of FY23. Third highlight, we are well on track to meet our self-imposed FY25 targets. In sum, we believe we have the right model, right people, and the right structure to seize and deliver on our exciting opportunities ahead of us. Now I'll take you through more detail about our prime performance and why Prime Auto is a proven success. Please turn to slide seven. As I referred to earlier, in the third quarter of FY23, cash marginal profit margin continued to improve as mature increased. As guided, the maturity of prime members is the most important driver for profitability. This has resulted in strong improvements in profitability as we have more and more prime members renewing their memberships. In the third quarter of FY23, cash margin on profit margin increased to 29 percent from 21 percent in the first quarter of FY23, an eight percentage point improvement. Let's turn to slide eight. Cash EBITDA also improved substantially through increased margin as maturity of prime members increases. As guided in the first quarter, Strong growth in year one prime members delays profitability, which improves from year two. As maturity of prime members increases, margins improve. In the third quarter of FY23, cash EBITDA margins stood at 16% versus 8.8% in the first quarter of FY23. This is an improvement of seven percentage points, six percentage points excluding the one-off FX positive impact. Excluding the one-off FX positive impact, cash EBITDA margin would have stood at 14.6%, still well above the first quarter and second quarter FY23 margins. Please turn to slide nine. Due to prime, Edo Bookings' performance continues to be materially better than industry peers. It is important to highlight the industry is moving to more normalized seasonality patterns in terms of travelers booking their holidays. There is a seasonality decrease in the third quarter, meaning the October to December period. October to December is the market's weakest quarter in terms of volume. EDU's superior value proposition to Prime has resulted in EDU consistently outperforming industry peers. Throughout the pandemic, EDU has outperformed against the airline industry, which highlights the strength and adaptability of our business model, with a business that has increased its quality with the pivot to subscription. The company now continues to achieve strong growth in market share versus supplier direct bookings due to its better content quality, more comprehensive offer, flexibility, and focus on leisure travel. Based on the latest figures available, corresponding to the nine months of FY23, the company's outperformance versus supplier direct was plus 63, and versus low-cost carriers was 42 percentage points above. GAAP is expected to close as corporate travel returns, which is a segment of the market in which we do not participate. And if we look most recently at January and February, we have continued to experience strong growth of 31 percent above pre-COVID-19 levels in January and the first 15 days of February. Please turn to slide 10 of the presentation. Prime member growth remains stable despite COVID waves, geopolitical and macro context, and normalization of seasonality patterns. In the third quarter, FY23, we reached 3.9 million members, an 81% increase versus the same period last year. This is despite industry moving to more normalized seasonality patterns in terms of travelers booking their holidays. Prime members, as of the 15th of February, 2023, reach 4.2 million subscribers, which maintains a good momentum. Please turn to slide 11 of the presentation. And as net ads of Prime members are influenced by seasonality, they will increase in higher volume seasonality periods, such as the fourth quarter of FY23. The lower net ads of Prime members in the third quarter of FY23 we're in seasonality as less people are looking to book travel at this time of year. Q4 is a high seasonality, and the current run rate of the net ads during the first six weeks order is already 27% higher than in the third quarter of FY23. Now let me pass it over to David, who will take you through our financial results.
Thank you, Dana. If you could all please turn to slide 13 of the presentation, I will take you through the financial results in more detail. Our new KPIs show the strong growth in prime cash revenue margin and marginal profit and significant margin uplift as maturity of prime members increases. Our average revenue per user, or ARPU, as guided, is trending towards the mid-70 euros level and then will converge with our fiscal 25 guidance of 80 euros per user. In the third quarter of fiscal 23, prime ARPU stood at 76.8 euros per user as expected. The evolution in this quarter was driven by the phasing out of the second quarter fiscal 22 in the last 12 month calculation. This quarter had a material increase in revenues as there was a sudden increase in travelers due to the rollout of the vaccine. As the prime member base grows, there is a mathematical effect of decrease in the ARPU as average and end of period member figures become closer to each other. We will continue to see this effect during all of fiscal 24. And then ARPU will converge back to the target of 80 euros in fiscal 25. A strong growth in cash revenue margin and cash marginal profit has led to 44% and 56% in our last 12 months, fiscal 23, cap revenue margin and cash margin of profit, respectively, now being delivered from prime members, versus 40% and 53%, respectively, a year ago. I would like to remind you that profitability of prime members increases substantially from the second year onwards, as customer acquisition costs reduce very significantly. As we have a larger proportion of our prime members in the second-year cohort and subsequent years of membership, the profitability of prime will continue to improve. Please turn to slide 14 of the presentation. During the pandemic, we continued to invest and innovate in our subscription offering and subsequently have seen remarkable results. Cash revenue margin is already above pre-COVID-19 levels by 10%. And cash marginal profit and cash EVBA will improve due to the large increase of Prime members in the year, as profitability of Prime members jumps from the second year onwards. Consequently, in the nine months of fiscal 23, deferred revenue growth associated with Prime has accelerated following the subscription of 1.8 million new members over the course of this year. This amounts to 40.2 million euros that is up 21% year on year. Cash EBITDA with a full prime contribution was $57.4 million in the nine months of fiscal 23, an impressive improvement of 72% over last year. As expected, strong cash EBITDA in the third quarter was alone $23 million, a 12% increase versus the second quarter of fiscal 23 and a 64% increase versus the first quarter of 23 which amounted to 20 and 14 million respectively, as a strong growth in prime numbers in the first year, the lowest growth in profitability as this one jumps from the second year onwards. In the third quarter of fiscal 23, we saw a substantial improvement in margins as the maturity of prime numbers increases. Cost margin of profit margins increased to 29% for the third quarter from 21% in the first. That is an 8 percentage points improvement. Cash EBITDA margins in the third quarter also achieved very substantial improvements with the cash EBITDA margin standing at 16 percent versus 8.8 percent in the first quarter of 23. Excluding a one-off positive impact of 2.1 million, cash EBITDA margin stood at 14.6 percent. It's still well above the first quarter and the second quarter of fiscal 23. Please turn to slide 15 of the presentation. In the nine months, fiscal 2023 revenue margin and cash revenue margin continued above pre-COVID-19 levels by 2% and 10%, respectively, despite the macroeconomic headwinds and the industry disruptions. Revenue margin in the nine months increased 59% versus the same period last year due to higher bookings up 35%, and the increase in revenue margin per booking of 18%. which was driven by the increased quality of a business with a figurative subscription and with strong growth in diversification and classic customer learning. Variable costs increased by 59%, caused by the rise in the volume of bookings and an increase in variable cost per booking of 17%. Variable cost per booking increased from 24.3 euros to 28.5 because of higher acquisition cost to acquire prime members and a rise in merchant costs. and merchant costs are themselves associated to high growth sales and the international expansion. Overall, the third quarter of fiscal 23 has seen the improving trends we saw in the second quarter and significant improvements in profitability as we have more prime members renewing their memberships. Cash-long-year profit is screwed at 115.5 million euros. That is an increase of 44% of the amount in fiscal 22. Cash with VA also shows substantial improvements which resulted in 57.4 million in the nine months, that's up 72% versus the same period last year. Fixed costs increased by 11.2 million, mainly driven by higher personal costs and external fees, both related to the recruitment of new employees, and is offset by 1.6 million euros of positive impact of effects for the nine-month period. I would like to remind you that we do not expect the interest in fixed costs from 63.3 million in fiscal 22 to 100 million in fiscal 25 to be linear because recruitment is front-end loaded in order to deliver on our business plan. As a reminder, in total we plan to add 500 employees by March 25 with 50% of those having already been added in the past 12 months. As a result, Adjusted EBITDA was 17.2 million from nil in the nine months of fiscal 22. Then adjusted net income was 25.8 million euro loss in the nine months of fiscal 23. Turning now to slide 16, I will take you through the cash flow statements. In the nine months of fiscal 23, despite headwinds and normalization in the market, we ended the quarter with a positive cash flow from operations of 31.9 million. sorry, 31.9 million, mainly due to a working capital inflow of 11.6. The inflow in the nine months of 23 is smaller than the inflow in the nine months of 22 due to the higher increase of volumes that we saw between March 21 and December 21, which was the period right after release of the travel restrictions. The volumes between March 22 and December 22 have been of a more stable nature. We have managed our liquidity position well, a consequence of our strong business model and active management. Liquidity has remained more than sufficient and stable throughout all of the pandemic. At the end of December 22, the liquidity position was 157 million euros. We have used 27 million of cash in the nine months of 23 for investment, 9 million higher than fiscal 22 as we are increasing our development capacity and therefore higher capitalization of software developed. Cash used in financing amounted to $33.1 million compared to $16 million from financing activities in the previous year. The variation by $17 million in financing activities relates to reimbursement of the revolver crane facility by $11 million and the government-sponsored loan by $3.8 million. The variation is offset with an increase of bank overdrafts by $22.7 million in the nine months of fiscal 23 including the line bank overdrafts usage in the cash return. I will now turn the presentation back to Dana to do some closing remarks.
Thank you, David.
In the next five slides, I'm going to try to summarize why we are an attractive company for investors. Please turn to slide 18. First reason. EDU is unique with huge potential and the ability to monetize that potential. The proof of that is that we continue to satisfy the Rule 40, which is a benchmark metric by which companies are judged. We continue to stand out and are alone even against our subscription peers, which are high growth and profitable businesses too. Please turn to slide 19. The second reason We are in pole position in an attractive market. Please turn to slide 20 of the presentation. Third reason. I remind you all that within travel, EDU is a global flight leader, excluding China, and over three times the size of the second player in Europe. Please turn to slide 21 of the presentation. The fourth reason. EDO has demonstrated the ability to capture new prime customers even through COVID waves in recent geopolitical and macro context. And this capture of new prime customers only increases as the travel market grows. Please turn to slide 22 of the presentation. The fifth reason, I would like to reemphasize that we believe, regardless of the macroeconomic environment, our business model and track record positions us to outperform the industry. Please turn to slide 23 of the presentation. And the sixth reason, we are very well positioned, well financed, and well on our way to meeting our self-imposed FY25 targets, which to remind you are, one, prime numbers over 7.25 million, two, prime ARPU of around 80 euros, and three, cash EBITDA in excess of 180 million euros. Overall, edu is a much higher quality business with a pivot to our subscription model. This delivers loyal and repeating customers, resulting in a more profitable and predictable business and with sustainable relationships with customers. We are delivering high underlying profitability and a huge growth potential. All this will drive superior returns for shareholders. excellent service for customers, while at the same time transforming and revolutionizing the industry.
With that, thank you, Dana.
With that, we would now like to take your questions. We are going to answer the questions sent to us in writing in the webcast. we will take questions on our first time for surveys that we would also try to group questions of the nature. Should we not have time to respond to questions from the webcast, the investor relations team will make sure those are answered afterwards. And we will also not repeat the questions which are repeated because I think it's not a good use of everybody's time. So I'm going to go to the list of questions we have here. And the first List of questions come from Paco Ruiz. The first one is, could you give us an idea about what is the level of the basket size compared to last year and pre-COVID? Is there a big difference between the basket size of a prime and a non-prime member? Let me take that one. The basket size of the Q3 of fiscal 23 has been 367 euros. That compares with a year ago, 307 euros. So it has improved by 60 euros. But it is still about 80 euros behind what the basket size was pre-COVID for this same period of time, which was at 442. Okay. So it is making progress versus a year ago. it is still short of what the basket size was pre-COVID, and it is in line with the comments that we have been making over the last few quarters about the complexity of the bookings overall being less than the average complexity of the bookings that we were getting pre-COVID. As to the second part of your question, the basket size of the prime member is higher than the basket size of the non-prime member. driven by the effect that they generally buy more products and services with us than the non-private customer. The second question from Papariv is, what are the reasons for the drop in ARPU in Q3? I think I'll take that one as well. I think that one we have covered during the prepared remarks, and I'm very happy to repeat. There is a mathematical effect in the evolution of the ARPU because we have strong growth in the prime members. And in the ARPU, you have a component of ARPU which is driven by the end of period members, that is the subscription fee. And you have another component of the ARPU, which is the revenue that they make on each individual booking. which is much more driven by the average period numbers. Now, because of this effect, when there is, let's say, a distance, a relatively high distance between the average period numbers and the end of period numbers, the ARPU looks optically a bit artificially inflated. So we pointed to this for the last few quarters, and we said that we expect the ARPU to reduce significantly. As a quarter's advance, in this Q3, we have lost the Q2 of fiscal 22. In the mix, the Q2 of fiscal 22 was a quarter we watched right after the main pandemic restrictions were lifted. And there was, let's say, a significant increase in the revenue for that period in particular. So losing it in the calculation also generates an effect that looks a bit accelerated. The third question is, with the rebound expected in the Q4, what is the level of working capital expected and so of net debt? This is something that we don't give guidance on a quarterly basis. Of course, the seasonality high of the fourth quarter will result in an inflow of working capital, and it will be a meaningful one. And that will have an effect as well on the net debt. But we're not going to provide any specific figure. And the fourth question is, and last, is could you give us a breakdown of the year of subscription of your actual prime members? I'm afraid that this is also something that we don't disclose. We gave this on a one-time basis. Last quarter was a one-year anniversary, but we're not planning to give you an ongoing basis. The second list of questions comes from Guillera Sampaio of CaixaBank. The first question says, could you provide some additional color on how our bookings progressing from the year 2023? And well, as highlighted by Dana on today's call, up to the 15th of February, so if you look at the first six weeks, the bookings were 31% above pre-COVID. The second question says, how sustainable do you see the material market share gains eDreams achieved during the pandemic as corporate travel recovers? Well, I think I'll take that one as well. As the corporate travel recovers, what happens is that you add more bookings and more volumes to the denominator, and it is for a segment of the market in which we don't participate. So looking at the whole travel market and then looking at our bookings, we do expect that that calculation will progressively reduce. However, we see no reason why if we were able to look just at the leisure travel market, why our market share would reduce. If anything, we think it will continue to increase because the value proposition of Prime has demonstrated on a consistent basis that it is a better value proposition for the consumers. The third set of questions comes from Milan Nysa, the analyst from Deutsche Bank. The first one is, how has the churn rate trended for Prime has it improved with the return of travel? Danny, you want to take this one?
Sure. Absolutely, David. So on the first question about the churn rate, we don't disclose churn. However, in the previous November presentation, we showed actually that our churn rate has improved. That means it's reduced, right, ever so slightly over time. And we continue to see either it being stable or slightly improving, you know, since that period of time as well.
The second question from is how many bookings does a prime member make on average? Want to take that?
Sure. On average, it's about 3.2 times more bookings that a prime member makes than a non-prime member makes.
um we don't continue to disclose this on a quarterly by quarterly basis but that is roughly how how much it is okay and the third question from misla is is prime offered in all markets e-drinks operating now and do all prime markets include price in hotels if it's a three-point question and have competition intensified Would you do that as well?
Absolutely. So first of all, just for context for everybody, we operate in 44 markets as a company, as an offering, and let me call that as a non-prime offering. Within the context of those 44 countries, we actually offer prime in nine of those 44 countries. We do have plans to roll it out progressively over the coming years into more and more markets over time. In terms of for those nine markets of Prime, the question about do we also include hotels as well as flights, and the answer is yes. In fact, in all of those nine markets where we offer Prime, we offer it both. We offer it for flights, we offer it for hotels, we offer it for car rent or car hire, and we offer it for, in most of those markets, for dynamic packages as well. And again, that would likely evolve over time also in the future. And then the last part of it was I think about competition and competition intensified. The answer would be no. I'm trying to answer actually more from a quarter-to-quarter basis since the last time that we've kind of spoken in November. It hasn't. I think the big delta or the big change in terms of competition really happened probably about maybe 18 months ago or so, maybe 24, 20, 16 months ago, somewhere in that timeframe, where really everybody in the travel industry started getting out of COVID, started no longer focusing on cost cutting, shutting down their businesses, but now on putting back the business, so to speak. And so I think the competition has really been meaningful and intensive ever since that period of time. And I really don't see any change, let's say, in quarter to quarter with the competition overall.
Thank you, Dana. The next set of questions comes from Andrew Ross, the analyst of Barclays. The first one is repeated, so I'm not going to spend time on it. The second one says, talk about expectations for cash marginal profit margins in the fourth fiscal quarter as prime ads accelerate again in the Q4, but on a bigger seasonal quarter. First is to set what is the comparable figure for Q3. And it's important that we use the comparable figure, which does not have the one-off effects in it. The comparable figure is 14.6% of cashier demand rates. And then we do expect an improvement of that, driven by both the further maturity of the prime number base and also the fact that it is a bigger seasonal quarter. So it helps to somewhat offset the fixed costs from that point of view. Although remember that at the same time, we continue to grow the fixed costs because we continue to increase the employee base as guided in for a three-year plan. The next question is from Fevide Namane of Oro. I'm not going to repeat it because it is a repeat question. The next set of questions comes from Carlos Serino, the analyst of Santander. The first one is, while you continue to outperform the market with growth in bookings well above pre-pandemic levels, there is a slowdown in that outperformance. Is there any change in the competitive environment which is impacting that performance? I'll take that one. There isn't really a change in the outperformance. from a competitive environment point of view, which is what Dana was saying as well to the previous question from Nisla. There is, however, something that adds noise in the equation, which is the changes that we're seeing versus pre-COVID, which is what you mentioned in the days to departure. And let me give you an example. If we take, for instance, the bookings of January, the bookings of January have been on average for four to six days to departure. However, if I look at that same metric for January pre-COVID, the bookings of that period of time were done on average for 60 days to departure. That means that the month of January used to have a bigger proportion of bookings which are longer date. So people was advancing more their bookings than they're doing today. Those bookings are not just disappearing from the market. They're just going to happen in another market, which is much, sorry, in another month, which is much closer to the partial levels. The second question is, which are the reasons behind the sequential drop in the fixed cost versus the 2Q? And I think I'm going to take that one as well. The biggest thing is the positive impact of VFX, which amounts to 2.1 million euros. If we exclude that impact, the fixed cost would have been 20.2 million, which is instead of the 18.1 million that we had previously. So they follow the pattern that we expected to have. And maybe for the, since you asked about this element, maybe for the benefit of everyone, Let me just do a minute on what is the driver of that FX one-off. We do have an FX exposure for bookings that we do in currencies other than the euro for the days between the moment of the booking by the customer and the moment that we actually receive the cash of that booking. But depending on currencies and depending on how far they are, it could be anywhere from two days to four days. So if there is a depreciation of the Euro during that period of four days, there is an impact of FX. Conversely, if there is an appreciation of the Euro during those four days, there is the opposite effect. Now, generally, on a given quarter, this has either somewhat positive or somewhat negative, but they get blurred into the whole amount of fixed costs. And if you use a little bit of memory, you will remember that over the last 12 months, more or less, there has been a depreciation of the euro against other currencies with interest rates rising more in the US and other geographies than interest rates have been raising in Europe. a little bit of a reverse towards the end of 2022 in the months of November and December. And it happened in a more southern fashion. And that is why during the quarter, it was an impact of 2.1 million. I also gave another data point during the prepared remarks, which is that if you look instead of a quarter, you look at the nine months, the positive effect was 1.6 million. That means that for the first two quarters, it was a negative of 0.5. But precisely in the third quarter, it was a positive of 2.1. The next set of questions comes from of Farrar Wealth Advisors. The first one is, can you walk us through when operating cash flow will start to reflect improved profitability? Well, operating cash flow is going to continue to improve, but you always need to look at operating cash flow on a 12-month basis or on a similarly equivalent quarter of the previous year. And in the previous comparing period, remember that there were some quarters which were very benefited. by the improvement in volumes coming from super low volumes of during COVID and then people being released from their homes so you always need to look at it through that lens but absolutely it's going to trickle down to the operating cash flow the second question is what would the business and profitability look like at this point had you never launched crime Well, we would have to have a little bit of a crystal ball for that. That would be a very nice theoretical exercise. There's one thing that I can guarantee you is that our business would not be as solid and as sustainable as it is today because we wouldn't be having a base of 4.2 loyal and happy customers that pay a subscription fee and give us all of the bookings. That we wouldn't have, for sure, if we didn't have climate-dispondent data. And the third question is, why group top six markets and not give a granular data like previous quarters? Well, we give that granularity in the half years. We give it in the H1, and we give it for the full year results. On quarterly results, we give a limited financial review. So I'm going to have to ask you to hold your patience until next quarter. The next question comes from Robert Kolhausen from iStudies. Could you illustrate some of the business initiatives you're working on, for instance, new technology initiatives or customer retention initiatives? I think I'm going to let Dana answer this one.
Absolutely. Thanks, David. I think many of you do know it, and that typically we don't talk about or announce things ahead of time. But instead, let me give you some ideas of things that are important to us. The first one would be around prime. And around prime, there's a multiplicity of dimensions that we see real opportunities for us. Those dimensions would be first would be around geographic dimensions and expansions. As we mentioned with Nisa's question, we're in nine. key countries for prime product, but overall it's a business we're in 44. So clearly you can imagine geographic expansion would be important. The second one is around product features and functionalities. There's a whole set of things that we continue to work on and continue to improve and continue to expand, both within the existing part of the business, how we manage that relationship with customers, how we engender more repeat behavior, how we engender more renewal, on that, and there's a lot of things that we do continue to do that. In addition, just providing an absolutely outstanding customer experience, product experience is really important for us. So again, we dedicate huge amounts of time and teams and areas on improving this, on improving certain product quality, features, functionalities, but on the overall end-to-end experience in this, and we really are working very heavily on this and have been for a number of years so that we can continue to materially improve the customer experience around Prime. The other dimensions would be around technological platform dimension. It gets a bit more, let's say, techy or geeky. But underlying all of that, we see at the end of the day, the structure of the way in which we actually manage content manage customer experiences from a content point of view. And all of that is very important to us, and we continue to invest around this dimension. And that allows us to do lots of other things that many of our competitors can't do as a result of these important dimensions. Because at the end of the day, our products also rely on that content as well. With that, let me pass it back over to you, David.
Okay, thank you, Dana. The next set of questions come from Paul Seminar from BNP Paribas. The first one is long-haul mix. As this mix increases, how will this impact working capital? And the answer to that is that the impact will be positive. Typically, long-haul tickets have a higher airfare, and therefore, when there is more long-haul component, we have higher basket size, higher basket size results on a higher working capital inflow. The second question is what is a useful rule of thumb for estimating deferred revenue increases on a quarterly basis? I'll take that one as well. The way we usually advise to analysts and investors, and many are doing it this way, is that instead of modeling the EBITDA and then adding on top the deferred revenue, is it is a lot more reliable to model the cash EBITDA to start with and the cash revenue margin, which is driven by the company members into the program, let's say the life number of funders and the ARPU and then applying a margin on it because the deferred revenue tends to be a little bit variable depending on how much usage of the program the members make in a particular quarter. And depending on the usage, there will be more or less deferred revenue that is being then translated into actual revenue in the income statement. So I recommend that you do it the other way around. The third question is repeated, will not read. The fourth question is, where do you see the non-prime part of your business leveling out on a revenue margin and cash margin of profit basis as you move toward your fiscal 25 goals? Well, for the non-prime KPIs in our three-year plan, what we have is for fiscal 25, 46 million of marginal profit, and 296 million of revenue margin. We expect this part of the business to continue to have, first, a declining weight in the overall mix of revenues, and second, a declining profitability as well. And the reason for that declining profitability is that within our non-prime members, we have a good chunk of them that come direct to us. And they repeat year after year. They're familiar with us, with our service. They prefer us to other competitors, and they come direct to us. However, our expectation is that that cluster of customers, which are the ones that have higher profitability because we don't incur a marketing cost, will eventually, all of them, become prime members. And therefore, in the non-prime side of the business, we will only be left with customers that we acquire through expensive channels of acquisition. The next question comes from Ryan Cohen of Cohen Capital. As profitability improves and you pay off some debts, are you open to repurchasing shares given the share price? Look, let's take things one by one. The first thing is that we need to continue to deliver on the EBITDA as planned. With that delivery on the EBITDA and the consequent delivery on the working capital as well with increasing the volumes, we will have an improvement in the duration of cash. The first use of that will be to return the debt that is on the balance sheet of, let's say, of a short-term nature. That will be both the government-sponsored loan and the remaining balance and the variable credit facility. Because as the name entails, it's not meant to be a permanent layer of capital. It's meant to be something that we draw, return, draw, return. And once there is excess cash on top of that, then it will be the decision of the board as to how to allocate that between further reductions of debt, which would be repurchases of portions of the bond, or repurchases of equity. I think at that point in time, the board will analyze the situation depending on what the price of each one of those two securities is at that moment in time and they will make a decision based on what delivers more value for the company. The next question comes from Fred Sundberg of Trezegar and it says working capital it looks like payables relative to gross bookings has tightened. Is that a timing or a seasonal effect? It is a seasonal effect. The December payable, they're not driven really by all of the third quarter, but specifically by the last two weeks of December, because remember that we get the cash from customers, and on average, we give that money over to the airlines two weeks later. So the amount that is in the balance sheet at the end of the quarter is specifically of the last two weeks of December. And that is a particularly low period of the year where people is much more already kind of like, you know, celebrating Christmas or pre Christmas rather than making last minute bookings. And that is the end of the questions that we have so far. So with that, We thank everyone for joining us in person on the webcast. And before we conclude the call, I would like to inform you that on Thursday, the 25th of May, we will be hosting our conference call for the fourth quarter and full year 2023 results presentation. In the meantime, we will be happy to receive your questions via our investor relations team. or the investor email address, which is investors at adrianparigio.com. I hope that you have a very nice day. Thank you very much.
Thank you.