The first half of 2024 saw an unprecedented demand for SME loans in the Estonian market. As a result, we were able to grow our portfolio by 31% from 5M € at the end of 2023 to 6.7M € by the end of June 2024. In total 4.5M € of new loans were originated in the first six months of 2024.
Profitability also increased as customer acquisition costs decreased by a third. The decrease in customer acquisition costs was driven by a higher percentage of organic traffic vs paid traffic in 2024. At the same time there was no increase in operating costs as higher volumes were handled by increased automation achieved by investments into IT in previous years.
Higher operating efficiency resulted in an increase in EBITDA margin from 40% to 47% by the end of Q2 2024. This is just 3 percentage points off from our ultimate long term goal of 50% EBITDA margin. Net EBITDA increased by 80% from 287 000 € for 2023 H2 to 521 000 € for 2024 H1. The increase in EBIDTA margin was driven mainly by the growth in portfolio size without accompanying increases in administrative costs and lower customer acquisition costs. Interest rates for the customers, credit loss rate and loan provision rate remained the same.
The 2023 financial year closed with a net consolidated profit of 119 000 €. This amount has already been surpassed in the first half of 2024 which saw a net consolidated profit of 180 000 €. Profit increased both in terms of absolute number and as percentage from revenue. The profit margin for 2024 H1 was 16.2%, up from 7.8% for the 2023 financial year. The largest factor affecting profitability are interest costs which remains the largest expense on the balance sheet.
The full audited financial statements in both English and Estonian together with the latest management report can be downloaded from the Hoovi Investor Section here. The audited financial statements are also available for free at the Estonian Business Registry official portal here.
