Udi Mizrahi
Analyst · Jefferies. Please go ahead
Okay. So the main aftermarket that grows comes from our traditional business to the aftermarket, which is Israel and Brazil. Of course, we have some contribution from the rest of the -- from the other geographies, but the majority aftermarket subscribers are -- comes from Israel and Brazil. So I will divide it. I'll talk about these two geographies. In Israel, we have three main segments, the stolen vehicle recovery, the fleet management and the UBI. The stolen vehicle recovery and the fleet managers continue to grow very correlating to the new car sales in Israel, since it's a many years of operation in those segments. We still have the churn, because we have customers of 10 years, eight years and more. So the growth -- the net growth of this segment is not significant, but it continue to grow. There was years that we were in stable, in zero. So, this year, I must say, that even in these segments, we succeed to grow, but the most growth edging in 2021 for subscribers in Israel was the UBI, because we get more and more customers, we get more and more insurance companies integrating our system and it grows exponentially. So this is the three segments that continue to grow, but the UBI now is the main growth. Don’t forget that since the UBI is quite new, the churn of customers is still very low. So, the contribution to the net ads in Israel of the UBI is substantial, is important. This is in Israel. Now, looking ahead, we have to understand that the cars importers in Israel are forecasting for the coming quarters, declining in selling cars. By the way, the important thing is that, the request for cars in Israel, the demand is highest ever. I spoke with some car importers in Israel. For example, if in Israel there was 280,000, or 300,000, the highest year, which is this year. They say that, if they could bring 0.5 million of cars a year, they would sell it now. People are waiting a year for a car and they're willing to pay and wait. So it's important, because in one day, the request is more important. The demand is more important, because it showed the potential then, for example, a situation where there is no demand. Now, the problem is the offering -- the cars industry, we know the problem. So this is one of the reasons that can a little bit slowing down our growth in subscribers in Israel. I must say this is a nice thing you need to earn and we mentioned it at the beginning of this discussion is that -- and we saw it in the corona. Most of the churn in the customers of the aftermarket in Israel, and also in Brazil by the way, is when a person want to buy a new car, so he sell his car, his car is old, and the new buyer sometimes there is no motivation to renew or to come and be our subscribers. This is the main reason for churn. So, once car -- people cannot buy a new car, they still stay with their old car and that churn is not high. That's what happened in the corona. If you look backwards, you'll see we didn't lose many subscribers in the corona. And this is the situation in Israel and this is the situation that we forecast for the future. So, in selling hardware in Israel probably they will be declined, but the profit margins at this point is very low. Sometimes we will lose some money to sell the hardware. Regard subscriber, this is because of the operation leverage, I think that the problem of selling cars in Israel probably will hurt very little for our growth in the subscribers if at all, but it will affect some. Brazil, the market is different. We are selling mainly B2C, which is ICS, Ituran Com Seguro. We are now -- this contributes the highest in the last two years for our subscriber base that we show in the quarter, because during the corona, we saw a negative churn, then we get to a point, which was about even and now we have back after more than two years to a positive and net few thousands of subscribers per month. In Brazil, we are less affected by the new car sales in Brazil. Most or the segment that we are -- I would say the segment that we are very dominant in the Brazilian market is the second hand cars, old cars. Most of the people in Brazil, there insured only brand new cars for one or two years, then they decide to quit and sometimes they don't insure the car, sometimes they look at solution such as we offered. So I believe that, in Brazil, we will continue to grow our subscribers. And add to this something that is still in a very low contribution is the fleet management or the B2B market, which in Brazil, I wouldn't say it was neglected, but we were very focused only on the B2C. But again, during the corona, we had enough time. And we have the situation that we add some resources to approach the segment of the B2B. And we add more fleets. And we are adding more, as I said, more financial, let's call it, financial partners or financial banks that needs our services to generate more lenders for people that will use their financial services. So this is another segment, which is now, contribute a little bit. But, as I see it now, for the coming years, this can provide a very high push to the net new subscribers of the aftermarket in Brazil. So overall, I'm expecting -- although, there is a problem with the car sales, the new car sales, I'm expecting that we will continue to grow our net subscribers, specifically in the aftermarket.