Vend Stops Apologising for Blocket and Starts Charging For It
Q3 EBITDA up 11% on 3% revenue, a third cost-guidance raise, and the first car-dealer price hikes since the platform migration — while a rival backed by one of Vend's own largest shareholders appears across the street.
VEND.OL · Earnings Call · 2026-10-27
Vend Stops Apologising for Blocket and Starts Charging For It
For three quarters the Vend story was a botched Swedish platform migration and the price increases it forced management to shelve. Q3 2026 flips the sign. Blocket is still not fixed, but management is now confident enough to put money where the apology used to be: car-dealer prices rise 10% in Sweden, 18% in Norway and 8% in Denmark from February 2027.That is a genuine reversal of posture, not a tweak. In February the CEO was explaining why the pricing agenda had been pushed back: “we felt that in this situation, it is better to have a long-term view on the partnership that we have with the car industry and don't push ahead on this pricing agenda, but rather kind of just push it a little bit forward in time.” — Christian Halvorsen, Chief Executive Officer · 2026-02-05 Eight months later the push has become a schedule.To align pricing with the value that we deliver, we have recently announced price increases for our car dealers. This will be effective from February 1st, 2027, 10% for Blocket in Sweden, 18% for FINN in Norway, 8% for Bilbasen in Denmark.
Operating leverage, not growth, is paying the bills
Group revenue was NOK 1,641 million, up 3% reported and 6% in constant currency, with the four verticals growing 11% in constant currency against the fading tail of Schibsted transition-service revenue. EBITDA rose 11% to NOK 711 million, a margin of roughly 43%, up about three points. The gap between 3% and 11% is the whole equity story. That gap is bought with cost. OpEx excluding COGS fell 6% in the quarter and the ratio to sales has travelled from 58% in Q3 2024 to 51% a year later to 47% now. Headcount ended at 1,565, down 83 sequentially and 119 year-on-year, roughly 500 positions gone in two years. Guidance for the 2026 cost base has now been raised three times — from broadly flat in February, to minus NOK 150 million at Q2, to minus NOK 250 million today. “Year to date, nine months in 2026, we are a bit, let us say, higher than NOK 250 million a year-on-year cost reduction. That implies that Q4 will be broadly stable year-on-year.” — PC Mørland, CFO · 2026-10-27 The CFO was candid in the Q&A about why the marker kept moving: absolute guidance given a year ahead is deliberately loose, and initiatives planned for later were pulled forward. The offsetting disappointment is top line. Full-year Mobility growth was guided to the lower end of a mid-to-high single-digit range. A company whose cost base is shrinking faster than its revenue is growing is a margin story masquerading as a marketplace story.Blocket: from apology to price increase
The recovery evidence is now granular rather than rhetorical. User satisfaction is 3.5 in September against a post-transition low of 1.5. The year-on-year decline in private car listings narrowed from 26% in Q1 to 8% in Q3 and 5% in September; professional car listings rose 1% against a B2C market that fell 5%. That is share, not just stabilisation. The sub-verticals remain the hole management admits it has not plugged. The other wound from Q2 — voluntary spend in Sweden — has been reclassified from shock to pattern. In July the explanation was raw: “The ARPA growth was 3%, and of course, the underlying price increase was higher than that, but that was offset by lower voluntary spend.” — Christian Printzell Halvorsen, CEO · 2026-07-17 Now the framing is normalisation, with a fresh and rather elegant cause: “There is also an added element of electric vehicles selling very quickly in Sweden, so that you do not need to bump your ad as often because they will sell quickly anyway.” — Christian Printzell Halvorsen, CEO · 2026-10-27 Professional ARPA in Sweden recovered to 15% for cars, 12% including sub-verticals. The deliberate profit sacrifice sits in Recommerce. GMV grew 17% overall, accelerating to 28% in Norway, on a Seller Benefit program, shipping campaigns and marketing that pushed segment OpEx up 11% and EBITDA down NOK 8 million to minus NOK 43 million. Management calls it a scale game and the take-rate dip (Norway down 0.7 points to 15%) a buying price for volume.The Adevinta discount, and a rival backed by a shareholder
The 14% Adevinta stake was written up NOK 3.9 billion to NOK 11.1 billion. Roughly NOK 3 billion of that came from removing the 15% peer discount, NOK 1 billion from rolling the model forward — a rare case of a holding company deciding its own peer group comparison no longer justifies a haircut, because Adevinta's mobility mix and growth have converged with peers. Adevinta's first-half revenue grew 11% with adjusted EBITDA up 22% at a 50% margin, and the company will now report it quarterly. Meanwhile the NOK 4 billion buyback is nearly through its second tranche — NOK 1.4 billion repurchased as of 23 October — with an EGM called for 23 November to renew the authority and cancel 14.4 million treasury shares. Net cash was still about NOK 1 billion after NOK 1.5 billion of buybacks in the quarter. Less comfortable: a potential Norwegian entrant backed by Polaris Media, Amedia and Schibsted, one of Vend's largest shareholders.We were not aware of this before it was announced. It does not have any connection with us at all. We do not know much about it either. Also I would say that we are concentrating all our efforts on, let us say, the agentic future and the opportunities that come with that, and less on this specific competitor.