Codere Online (CDRO) reported a strong performance for the second quarter of 2024, with net gaming revenue climbing 13% year-over-year to €54 million. The company's casino segment was particularly noteworthy, contributing 59% to the total net gaming revenue, a record high that was facilitated by significant customer engagement. The Spanish and Mexican markets were significant contributors to this growth, with the latter exceeding expectations.
Key Takeaways
- Net gaming revenue rose to €54 million, a 13% increase year-on-year.
- Casino (EPA:CASP) segment now represents 59% of net gaming revenue.
- Monthly spend per customer and active customers increased by 20% and 16%, respectively.
- Mexican market revenue surged by 57% to €28 million.
- Spanish market revenue grew by 25% to nearly €22 million.
- Adjusted EBITDA turned positive at €1.3 million.
- Company ended the quarter with €41 million in cash.
Company Outlook
- Full-year net gaming revenue guidance increased to €205-215 million.
- Adjusted EBITDA for 2024 projected between €2.5 million and €7.5 million.
- Focus remains on core markets of Spain and Mexico, with cautious consideration of expansion into Argentina.
- Monitoring regulatory changes in Mexico with optimism.
Bearish Highlights
- Spain faces challenges due to advertising restrictions.
- Increasing competition in Mexico, especially from international firms.
Bullish Highlights
- Mexico's market performance exceeded €100 million in LTM Net Gaming revenue.
- Strong local presence and product knowledge in competitive markets.
- Ongoing investment in marketing and customer acquisition.
Misses
- No significant misses were reported in the earnings call.
Q&A Highlights
- CEO Aviv Scher expressed confidence in achieving profitability in the third year post de-SPAC.
- Scher also noted that any formal regulation in Mexico would be advantageous for Codere Online due to their local presence.
- Marketing efforts continue to be a focus in both Spain and Mexico, targeting casino-first customers.
Codere Online has demonstrated a solid quarter with its strategic focus on the casino segment and core markets yielding positive results. The company's performance is particularly strong in Mexico, which has become a key growth market. Despite the challenges in Spain, Codere Online's proactive approach to marketing and customer acquisition, along with its competitive edge, positions it well in the face of increasing competition. With an optimistic outlook and strategic plans for potential market expansion, Codere Online is poised to build on its current achievements and navigate the evolving regulatory landscape.
Full transcript - Codere Online US Corp (CDRO) Q2 2024:
Kathleen, Conference Operator: Thank you for standing by. My name is Kathleen, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Cloudera (NYSE:CLDR) Online Second Quarter 20 24 Financial Results. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers' remarks, there will be a question and answer Thank you.
I would now like to turn the call over to Mr. Guillermo Lancia, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead,
Guillermo Lancia, Head of Investor Relations, Codere Online: sir. Thanks, operator, and welcome, everyone, to Codere Online's earnings call for the Q2 of 2024. Today, you will hear from our CEO, Aviv Scher and CFO, Oscar Ylesias. Our Executive Vice Chairman, Moshe Edre will also join us in the Q and A section. Before turning the call over to Aviv, I'd like to remind everyone that during this call, we will be referring to a presentation we uploaded to our website earlier today which includes non GAAP preliminary unaudited financial metrics such as net gaming revenue or adjusted EBITDA for which you can find reconciliations in the appendix of the presentation.
Please note that all growth rates discussed during this call are year on year comparisons unless noted otherwise. Let me also remind you that our accounting information is prepared under IFRS Accounting Standards and that throughout this presentation all monetary figures will be in euro unless expressed otherwise. Finally, please note that a replay and transcript of this call will be available on our website at codereonline.com, where you can also sign up for our investor e mail alerts. With that, I will go ahead and pass the call on to Aviv.
Aviv Scher, CEO, Codere Online: Thanks, Guillermo, and thanks, everyone, for joining us today. I'm once again pleased to report strong set of earnings for the Q2 and to share our expectations for the remainder of the year. With 2 quarter behind us, this year is poised to be a pivotal one in our company history as we expect to achieve profitability in our 3rd year post de SPAC. So jumping straight into the highlights of the Q2 of 2024 on Page 8, we delivered 54,000,000 euros in net gaming revenue, more than $15,000,000 or 13% above Q2 2023. This was also a sequential uplift versus the $53,000,000 in Q1, thanks in part to the busy sports calendar with the Euro Cup and Copa America.
In terms of product mix, the contribution from our casino segment reached a record high of 59% of total net gaming revenue in the quarter and continues to be the key driver behind our growth. As we not only acquire more customers in this segment, but also continue crossing spot betting customer over to the casino. This was particularly relevant dynamic this quarter where customer remained engaged with us, not with standing the generally favorable sport results they enjoyed, especially here in Spain, with Real Madrid winning the Champions League and Spain winning the Euro Cup. This growth in net gaming revenue was driven by a 20% increase in average monthly spend per customer to €125 together with a 16% increase in the number of average monthly active customers. In terms of customer acquisitions, we had 73,000 first time depositors and an average of €236 CPA.
As we have discussed in prior quarters, our increased focus on casino first customers acquisitions in Spain and in Mexico is the main driver behind the increase in CPA. But the spend we see from customers in this segment is both higher and more stable, leading to a better returns on investment despite the higher level of upfront investment. Oskar will cover our improved outlook later. So we will conclude with my remarks with a quick mention of the changes we've done in the Board during June. As previously disclosed, we have 3 new Board members joining us recently and exiting Board member.
An existing Board member, Gonzaga Igaro, will be succeeding Pat Ramsey as Chairman going forward. We look forward to working with Gonzaga in his new role and would like to thank Pat, who was recently named to the Board of Directors of Cordero Group for his support, dedication and contributions over the past two and a half years. With this, I will now turn the call over to Oscar to cover the financial highlights of the quarter and our revised 2024 outlook.
Oscar Ylesias, CFO, Codere Online: Thanks, Aviv. Turning now to the financial performance for the quarter on Page 10. Consolidated Net Gaming revenue grew by 39 percent to CAD 54,000,000 This growth was driven primarily by our Mexican business, which continued to outperform our internal expectations with growth of 57 percent to $28,000,000 In Spain, meanwhile, we also continue to deliver significant growth with net gaming revenue up 25% to nearly CAD 22,000,000 dollars Adjusted EBITDA was positive $1,300,000 in the 2nd quarter, nearly $6,000,000 better than in the Q2 of 2023 and included a contribution of $6,000,000 from our Spanish business. As a reminder, our country level results now include certain expenses that in the past were classified as undistributed B2B expenses. So the comparisons versus prior year periods are hard.
If we were to adjust Spain's adjusted EBITDA in the prior year period, for example, to reflect the same allocation of expenses, adjusted EBITDA in the current quarter would have grown 34% instead of the 5% reflected in our earnings deck. Separately and for a 2nd consecutive quarter, Mexico contributed to this improvement with a positive adjusted EBITDA in the quarter versus the negative CAD2 1,000,000 in the prior year period. Undistributed B2B expenses meanwhile decreased by CAD3 1,000,000 dollars primarily due to the allocation of certain expenses to country level results. Looking now at our P and L on Page 11, the nearly CAD6 1,000,000 improvement in adjusted EBITDA in the 2nd quarter was primarily driven by the CAD15.3 million increase in net gaming revenue, partially offset by a higher level of marketing and investment than would have otherwise been the case leading up to and around the Euro Cup and Copa America tournaments, which took place in the back half of June and front half of July. Turning now to Page 12, the increase in net gaming revenue is being driven by both an increase in active customers from Spain and Mexico together with a higher spend per active.
FTDs meanwhile increased by 5% in the quarter driven by our acquisition efforts around the Eurocup and Copa America, but perhaps more importantly, we had a 16% increase in active customers in the quarter, primarily due to improved retention of existing customers. This improvement reflects not only the improved quality of our customer acquisitions, but also the significant efforts from our CRM team, which is delivering day after day for our customers and for the company. Turning to the Spanish operating and financial metrics. Net gaming revenue in the 2nd quarter increased 24% versus the prior year, driven by a significant 27% increase in the number of active customers to 52,000. On a sequential basis, net gaming revenue decreased slightly despite a 3% increase in active customers due to the favorable results for customers in Spanish football and tennis, which while increasing engagement from our customers, especially here in Spain, otherwise negatively impacted our sports betting margin.
That said, we would like to congratulate Carlos Alcaraz for his wins at Roland Garros and Wimbledon, our partners Real Madrid for the win of the Champions League and of course the Spanish men's football team for their win in the Euro Cup. Though a win in extended time would have been a better outcome for Codeti Online. In Mexico, net gaming revenue was CAD28 1,000,000 in the second quarter, an increase of 57% year on year and 6% sequentially. With this impressive growth, Mexico has already exceeded the CAD 100,000,000 mark in LTM Net Gaming revenue, double that of 2022 in just a year and a half. The strong performance was driven by a 26% increase in the number of active customers and a 25% higher spend per active customer.
Turning to the balance sheet on Page 15. As of June 30, we had €41,000,000 of total cash on the balance sheet, of which approximately €35,000,000 was available, CAD 2,000,000 more than where we ended the Q1. I believe this was the Q1 since listing the business where we have increased cash from 1 quarter to the next, notwithstanding that we had a few million in extended accounts payable at quarter's end. In terms of net working capital position, we ended the quarter with negative CAD19 1,000,000 or around 9% of LTM net gaming revenue, which while lower than in the past, reflects a new normal level of working capital for our business given increasingly restricted trade terms from suppliers. Looking at our cash flow on Page 16, in the first half we have utilized $1,500,000 of available cash including a $200,000 negative impact from FX on ending cash balances.
Turning to our 2024 outlook on Page 18. And once again, given the strong performance we have seen in the first half of the year, we are increasing the lower end of our Net Gaming revenue outlook by €10,000,000 and the upper end by €5,000,000 That is from a range of €195,000,000 to €210,000,000 to a new outlook of 205,000,000 to $215,000,000 At the mid, this would imply a 22% growth in net gaming revenue versus 2023. In terms of adjusted EBITDA and with the benefit of a busier than usual summer sports calendar now behind us, we are establishing a range of between $2,500,000 $7,500,000 for the year, which reflects both our positive outlook for the back half of the year, but also leaves us with some wiggle room to continue investing where and when we see opportunities to do so in furtherance of creating meaningful value for shareholders. That's all from my end. I'll now hand it back over to Aviv for closing remarks.
Aviv Scher, CEO, Codere Online: Thanks, Oscar. Before we turn to Q and A, I would like to thank the Cordelia Online team as always for their hard work to deliver these strong results and for their effort to present earnings a month earlier than usual. As we look out to the second half of the year, we remain fully focused on execution and are confident that we will continue to meet our goal of delivering sustainable and profitable growth. As always, thanks to the investors, analysts and other market participants for your interest and support. We look forward to speaking to you again soon and wish you a pleasant summer break.
With that said, I will turn it back to the operator to open up the call to Q and A.
Kathleen, Conference Operator: Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. Your first question comes from the line of Jeff Stancho of Stifel. Please go ahead.
Jeff Stancho, Analyst, Stifel: Hey, good morning, Aviv, Oscar. Thanks for taking our questions. Maybe starting out here on the newly introduced full year 2020 EBITDA guide, now that you're through Copa and euros and have some greater visibility into planned marketing spend, I was just hoping to get some updated thoughts on how you see the underlying margin expansion algorithm from here. Based on customer acquisition volumes and the return on the UA spend that you're seeing currently, how do you think about leverage growing the P and L going through the P and L maybe looking out beyond this year into 2025 and beyond? Is there a rough EBITDA flow through level that we should be anchoring to, keeping in mind opportunity to turn the marketing spigot back on here and there?
Just any thoughts you could provide there on the margin expansion path from here would be helpful. Thanks.
Oscar Ylesias, CFO, Codere Online: Hi, Jeff. Thanks for the question. I heard the word algorithm in there. So I don't know if I should pass the call pass the question over to Aviv or not. But I think it's a little bit early, Jeff, for us to give, let's say, longer term expectations in terms of where kind of the blended margin or country level margins on the EBITDA front could play out.
Obviously, we're already delivering significant EBITDA margin, a significant and healthy EBITDA margin in Spain. And Mexico is really the market where and again, we post de SPAC, we really started to invest heavily in Mexico and we're starting to see, I would say over the last year and a half, the benefits of that early upfront investment post de SPAC and the unit economics have done nothing but improve in that market. That said, Mexico is a market that has a disadvantage from a gaming tax rate versus Spain. It's something like 9, 10 percentage points. So it's never going to be at that same long term EBITDA margin that Spain will be all else being equal.
So I think we're optimistic for the back half of the year. I think as we start generating positive EBITDA in Mexico, obviously, we have to monitor FX impacts versus internal expectations. The Mexican business has been a little bit over the all over the place after the elections in early June. It devalued 5%, 10%. That strengthened a little bit.
It's now back on a devaluation track and we have U. S. Elections later this fall. And the last time we had elections the last couple of times we've had elections, it always has the potential to have a significant impact on the Mexican peso. So I'd be hesitant to give any kind of real guidance in terms of margin expansion other than that the underlying unit economics of the business are healthy.
We continue investing and focusing on what's working. And hopefully that will continue. I don't know. Aviv, do you want to talk a little bit about the competitive landscape? Because that obviously is the other side of the coin here.
Aviv Scher, CEO, Codere Online: Yes. The competitive landscape in Mexico is getting tougher and tougher. We have new competitors coming in, new international competitors with a lot of money looking into this very lucrative market, at least from a TAM and GGR point of view. So we we expect to try and increase our market share and defend it with more marketing budget in order to keep ourselves in the position that we are currently in Mexico. In Spain, I think more or less, it's a steady state because we cannot advertise more because of the advertising ban.
We do see some good investments on the casino front. But again, very hard for us to grow over there. So we continue to focus our efforts in marketing both in Spain and Mexico. And, on the satellite, sites right now, we are focusing on on keeping them on a healthy on a healthy state and being able to break the breakeven with them and even a small profit. I think up till now, if you are looking for more hints, I think we more or less, the beginning of the roadshow when we started with the investors and the DisTec we gave like a map where we want to be.
I think up till now, we kind of delivered. And hopefully, in the future, we continue to deliver according to the 5 year plan.
Jeff Stancho, Analyst, Stifel: That's perfect. That's really helpful and a great segue into my follow-up question, which was going to be on your Mexico operations. There's been some speculation that the transition to a new president could ultimately lead to some more formal gambling regulation just given that the President-elect has a history of working with the industry on some various initiatives. Oscar or Aviv, curious just to get your perspective here. And to the extent you do ultimately see some regulatory reform in the market, how do you think about potential implications to your business, whether positive or negative?
Thanks.
Aviv Scher, CEO, Codere Online: I will answer in a very high level because everything that we are hearing is merely speculation. President is still not in power. We didn't see what she's going to do exactly. We also hear rumors and things moving, but nothing official. In general, my view is that formal regulation will only benefit us since we are locally present there.
We've been there for many years. We know how to work with a regulated market that everything is clear. Right now, the Mexican regulation is a little bit ambiguous and relies on very, very old rules. So I think any regulation that will come, a modern regulation will help us and will benefit us as a big operator in this market. And hopefully, we can contribute in the process and help them to get to an efficient regulation that eventually will generate more tax money and will be a safer environment for the players.
Jeff Stancho, Analyst, Stifel: Okay. That's great. Thank you, Vive. And then if I could just squeeze in one more quick one here. Oscar, is there any way that you could quantify the overall contribution to Q2 and even July as well as you can from the Copa America and the euros?
And then similarly, is there any way to size the hold impact from Spain winning the euros, Real winning Champions League, Carlos winning Wimbledon and Roland, just any sense there to help us calibrate your Q3 and next year estimates would be helpful. Thank you.
Oscar Ylesias, CFO, Codere Online: Yes. I think there definitely was a margin impact in particular in Spain, I would say almost exclusively in Spain on the sports side and that was true in June and the 1st part of July. I mean happily, what we're seeing is a good dynamic on the casino side. So it's hard to quantify and put numbers behind it. But when more we're returning more money to the customers on the sports side, having a strong casino business.
And again, for the subset of customers that play across both channels, we're then seeing greater activity on the casino front. So the interplay between those two verticals that we've always understood, I think is even more important in the context of some of these major sporting events when we're having some, let's say the favorites win or, or specifically a dynamic here in Spain, which is there, there's a bias to, to bet in favor of Spanish sports figures or Spanish teams. So I don't want to put a specific figure on that, but I would say just in terms of margin off whatever would be our regular targeted margin, we probably lost 3 to 4 percentage points there. So still a positive contribution, which was then more than compensated versus internal expectations on the casino front.
Kathleen, Conference Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Ryan Sigdahl of Craig Hallum Capital Group. Please go ahead.
Ryan Sigdahl, Analyst, Craig Hallum Capital Group: Hey, good day guys. Congrats on another strong quarter. Maybe just staying on the topic of Eurocup and Copa, any other notable trends besides kind of win rates and Spain winning, whether it be BetBuilders, Parlays, anything relative to the last time these tournaments were held? Aviv, do you want to
Oscar Ylesias, CFO, Codere Online: talk about BetBuilder, some of the new products
Aviv Scher, CEO, Codere Online: that you Yes. So from product perspective, I think right now, our sport product is in line with, let's call it, an industry standard. We even added for the Europe Cup Bed Builder Live features, which not all the competitors has. I we still don't see big movements into new product features. It's more supplemental to the current betting behavior that we see in the sports.
To tap into what Oscar said in the previous question, I think those winnings of Spain for us as a company, and we stated it in the speech before, since we are already with 60% of the NGR relying on casino, those events, although are fun and we see impact, are not so impactful in the revenue stream itself, maybe a few point of percentage up or down. And we are more stable now and hence easier for us even to forecast the future in a better way. So in terms of betting behavior, we didn't see anything big in a change from a product perspective. We see our people are engaged. We also now learn that if they are winning, they stay engaged with us for entertainment purposes and, and spend some money in, in the casino, whether it's a roulette, blackjack or slots a little bit.
So overall, I think the trends are healthy and stable for us in that sense. It's not that the one winning of Spain or Alcaraz or Real Madrid will move the needle for us.
Ryan Sigdahl, Analyst, Craig Hallum Capital Group: Yes. Thanks. Then just switching over to CAC, continues to move higher in the quarter. How much of that is the competitiveness you mentioned in Mexico versus just seeing higher spend per active and allowing you to be more aggressive on the customer acquisition side to target those higher LTVs?
Aviv Scher, CEO, Codere Online: Because we are aiming to buy more casino first customers, they cost us more because there are the time of casino is smaller than sports. We do see increase in media prices, Still not significant enough. It's more significant that we moved our buying strategy to be more casino oriented. So it's more expensive for us to to find and purchase those casinos, players, eventually, ending with, of course, higher LTV and more stability over time. I think this is more effect currently.
Currently, I'm saying currently because we do see our competitors coming into Mexico and prices of the media going up. But currently, it's strong stronger effect of our aim to target casino players then the media prices goes up. But there is a contribution. Still, I think it's a marginal, but it's there. You're correct in that analysis.
Yes.
Oscar Ylesias, CFO, Codere Online: It's a little bit of both. It's definitely a little bit of both. Every year, it seems like we're talking about different competitors that are coming into the market that we're monitoring to see how they behave. But there's definitely more interest. I mean, some of the revised market forecasts that an H2GC or others are putting out, I mean, I think it's starting to get on everyone's radar given the existing size of the market in some cases.
Well, I think in most cases, I think people believe that Mexico is already bigger than Spain. And the market forecast in terms of the growth potential in the market is significant. So I think it's starting to catch everyone's attention.
Aviv Scher, CEO, Codere Online: Yes. On a side note, the Copa America and the Euro Cup prices went a little bit higher than previous years on those two events. Copa America was less interesting for us because Mexico lost quite early in the stages, but still the media was a little bit more expensive with those events.
Ryan Sigdahl, Analyst, Craig Hallum Capital Group: Last one for me, just any update on your guys' thoughts around Peru?
Aviv Scher, CEO, Codere Online: This is a strategic we were looking at Peru. I think we were looking at Peru. It's important to say we were looking at Brazil as well. I think right now, where we are at company level, after looking at all the possibilities and things that we are able to do, I think we continue to focus on our core markets. We still have a lot of room to grow there.
And right now, in the short term, we don't see ourselves opening any of those new markets in order to compete and put a lot of money into them where we can still invest very effectively in the 2 core markets that we are operating. This is was maybe a short term decision that we make. Again, probably at the end of the day, we will look at it again. We see a lot of competitors. Now, our street is coming to Peru.
We see a lot of money pouring in. We made the valuation of this market. We think it's going to be interesting, but at this moment, not interesting enough more than Mexico and Spain.
Oscar Ylesias, CFO, Codere Online: Yeah. I think I most, just to just add to what Aviv said, Argentina is still something a situation that we're monitoring and could be of interest to us, given that the fact that we have already a stable team operating in the city. We just launched in the province of Mindulfa. We have the River Plate sponsorship. So and significant synergies to the extent that we can find our way into a license in the province of Buenos Aires, given that our retail parent is a leader in that market with something upwards of 40% market share.
So I think Argentina is probably the one that if there's an opportunity to do so and in a way that makes sense for us, we would be looking to commit resources to before any other expansion market where we don't have existing operations or capabilities.
Kathleen, Conference Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Michael Kupinski of NOBLE Capital Markets. Please go ahead.
Michael Kupinski, Analyst, NOBLE Capital Markets: Thank you for taking the questions and let me offer my congratulations as well on the quarter and the positive adjusted EBITDA. My question is really related to your guidance in the second half, particularly given the trajectory that you have done in the first this particular quarter, it seems like your guidance might be a little conservative. I know that the sports calendar gets a little lighter, but I was wondering if you can just give a little color on your thoughts in terms of the marketing spend and where you plan to, like you said, have a little bit of wiggle room. If you could just add a little color in terms of what your thoughts are in terms of the trajectory in, in particular, Spain and Mexico? And if you are planning to spend a little bit more heavily in some of the more developing markets, like you just mentioned Argentina, which is kind of a broad question about the second half?
Oscar Ylesias, CFO, Codere Online: Yes. Maybe I can start. And just splitting the guidance between the revenue guidance and the adjusted on the revenue side, I think the only thing that's keeping us a little bit cautious looking at the back half is what could happen with the Mexican business. As you know, this is already over half of our the top line in our business and any significant devaluation of the Mexican Pistol could affect our trajectory going out to the balance of the year. That said, obviously, the cost structure is also peso denominated, so we'd be more hedged from an EBITDA standpoint.
And as you say rightly, on the EBITDA front, I think it's just maintaining that flexibility in the event that we see opportunities and opportunities always do arise. It's across 1 or both of our core markets to be able to invest a little bit more than maybe what we have planned internally. Obviously, this is always in coordination with our board of directors, but I think there always are opportunities. So we want to keep a little bit of a little bit of wiggle room there. I think it's less the case that it would be Argentina.
I think Argentina is more we're setting our sights to more like a 2025 in terms of if and when we would be deploying additional monies in that market, if it makes sense for us to do so. It would be more if opportunities come up in Spain and Mexico. In the front half, we're spending something like $22,000,000 $23,000,000 on average. Last year, we were spending about $20,000,000 a quarter other than the Q4, which is always a higher spend quarter, a lot of events, a lot of activity and we spent $25,000,000 So hopefully the guidance is conservative, but we think it's appropriate given what we're seeing today and how the business is performing.
Michael Kupinski, Analyst, NOBLE Capital Markets: Thanks for that color. And just one quick follow-up. I know that you have cash and obviously now you're looking at your more maturing markets like Spain and Mexico, positive EBITDA. I was wondering if it's become a prospect that the company would look at M and A and some of the competitors that you may be struggling a little bit that may offer an opportunity to kind of get a little bit better foothold in some of the developing markets? I mean, is that a possibility?
Oscar Ylesias, CFO, Codere Online: I mean, just maybe I'll kick it off and then Aviv, if you want to jump in. I mean, I'm a finance guy and I think that to the extent it's always a question of price structure, but if there's good opportunities, M and A opportunities in the market and it makes sense for us as a company and it makes sense for our shareholders, then I think we obviously would be pursuing that. I don't think we would ever close the door on M and A. I think it's easier, Mike, as you point out now that we are inflecting to profitability and we have more visibility over, let's say, that trough cash position, again, all else being equal, which is significantly more than 3 years back when we had our investor plan where we thought we would be 3 years forward. So I think now is a better context to be thinking about those things, but we're not going to do any deal that doesn't that isn't compelling, that doesn't make sense for us as a company.
Aviv, anything else you want to add on the M and A front?
Aviv Scher, CEO, Codere Online: No, I think M and A in general for any company at our position should be interesting, should take us with another big block to the next level. We see opportunities coming in. We didn't see an interesting one so far. We have a very good team for M and A. Oscar and his team, they know what they are doing.
So we're constantly looking into this, but it's not part of our short term strategy. There is some deal flow coming in. We think with the little cash that we have, I know it looks like a lot, but with the little cash that we have, maybe we can do something interesting. We look, especially in the core markets that I mentioned before. But in the short term, it's not something that we have on the table, but we keep looking for that.
Michael Kupinski, Analyst, NOBLE Capital Markets: Thank you for that. If I could slip one more quick question in. Previously, you mentioned that you were monitoring the situation in Spain after the Supreme Court overturned some restrictions. And I was wondering if there's any updates on that and how things are playing out?
Aviv Scher, CEO, Codere Online: No, actually, there is no real updates. We think that eventually what the Supreme Court gave us back, the possibility will come back as a law and maybe next year it will come back to the situation that was before. We all the time, keep close look on the Spanish regulation, which changes constantly. I already commented in different panels about it. It's, I can't say it's hard to follow, but it's becoming more and more strict.
Hopefully, it will stop at some point. Right now, from a development point of view, we need to do heavy, heavy development just to change all the reporting modules to fit the new regulation demand. So it's heavy lifting there in the regulation, and we are doing our best to follow it up. I don't think from the Supreme Court point of view, nothing changed. I think eventually the parliament will come back with the law and bringing things to where they previously were.
Michael Kupinski, Analyst, NOBLE Capital Markets: Thank you for that. That's all I have. Thank you.
Kathleen, Conference Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Mike Hickey from Benchmark. Please go ahead.
Mike Hickey, Analyst, Benchmark: Hey, Aviv, Oscar, great quarter guys and congrats on growth in Mexico. I guess that's the first topic here. Just curious if you have a sense now of your market share in Mexico and when you look at your NGR growth nearly 60% in the quarter, if you can sort of balance that growth between growth that you're seeing in the Mexican market and growth maybe that you're seeing in share gains. That's the first topic. 2nd topic on competition, it sounds like it's getting more competitive in Mexico, not new news, but growing.
On that front, do you feel like your product in the Mexican market is strong enough relative maybe some of the new products coming in and how you think about sort of innovation on the product side over time to remain competitive? The third topic is just cash flow. Nice to see, but just curious cash flow in the quarter, your thoughts on cash flow for 2024 and how you think it trends moving forward? Thanks guys.
Ryan Sigdahl, Analyst, Craig Hallum Capital Group: Aviv, do you
Oscar Ylesias, CFO, Codere Online: want to take the first two and I can address cash flow?
Aviv Scher, CEO, Codere Online: Yes. Listen, it's very hard for us and we are doing a lot of efforts to try and estimate the size of the market. We get a lot of numbers from a lot of sources, but there is no official number for the size of the market. We think that we have a market share of low double digits compared to our biggest competitor over there that we think controls most of the market with a huge market share of above 60%. So it's very hard for us to estimate this, the size of the market.
We get a lot of number. We are of course, we are growing. We are not sure exactly if the market if we're not just growing with the market. We think we are performing a little bit better, not a lot. Let's say if the market grows every year 20%, maybe we are doing 25%.
I think the market, by the way, grows more than 20% a year in Mexico. Our biggest competitor there is heavily invested into marketing. So it does it grows the market and now more international competitors come in. So the market will continue growing. I think our product is well established.
We have a few advantages over our competitors. One of the main advantages is that we are still a local company. We have local presence. We have points to cash in and cash out in our retail location, which gives us an advantage. We have some local knowledge utilized into the platform.
And let's say we have knowledge coming from the retail about the game selections and what the players like more or less. And we are utilizing all this knowledge into the product. I think we have in our sleeve a couple of more products, not so innovative, but I think will increase our reach to new audiences and will enable us to compete a little bit differently and not directly with the same spot product as Caliente. So I think we have a few tricks that we can still pull and we are working on that. So I think overall, looking in the next couple of years, we are well positioned with a good platform, a good platform partner in the Mexican market.
And I think it will help us to get to the LTVs that we want and eventually to the results and to the P and L that we want.
Oscar Ylesias, CFO, Codere Online: I would only add to that, Aviv, on the product front that the payment integrations that we've done, I think it's been a lot of work over the last 2, 3 years to really improve the efficiency and the effectiveness of those payment options that we offer customers for deposit and withdrawal. And I think that we've done an excellent job and we spent a lot of time on that internally and it's critical to that customer experience and ultimately that retention of existing and new customers. So I think there we've made a lot of headway. On the cash flow front, Mike, I would just point out beyond just producing positive adjusted EBITDA, cash flow is there's other components there. And again, we have 3rd parties that provide platform services to us across our jurisdiction.
So we don't have that technology in the perimeter. So we don't have much in the way of CapEx. But we do spend a lot of time and manage very carefully our working capital position and spend a lot of time managing and structuring. And it's any multinational and operating in different jurisdictions is not just the gaming tax frameworks, but all the different elements of corporate income tax, that that have to be managed and structured properly in accordance with all the rules and regulations in place. So, So I always talk about in the sessions that Guillermo and I have, you know, 1 on ones with investors and analysts that they're the holy grail of converting adjusted EBITDA to free cash flow, right?
1 for 1. It's not achievable. There's always corporate income taxes that you have to pay across jurisdictions even during periods sometimes when you're loss making for a number of different complex rules that apply in every jurisdiction's own world. But we spent a lot of time on that and I think it's a critical element of value creation. It's the top line growth, it's the flow through to EBITDA and then it's the conversion of that EBITDA to cash flow.
Kathleen, Conference Operator: There are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the conference back over to Mr. Guillermo Lancia.
Guillermo Lancia, Head of Investor Relations, Codere Online: Okay. We don't have any questions coming in through the webcast either. So we will leave it here. Thank you everyone for joining us. If you would like to follow-up on any of the topics we discussed, feel free to reach out to Oscar or myself.
And if not, we will talk again in November with our Q3 results. Thank you, everyone.
Oscar Ylesias, CFO, Codere Online: Thanks, everyone.
Aviv Scher, CEO, Codere Online: Thank you.
Kathleen, Conference Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes today's call. Thank you all for joining. You may now disconnect.
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