7 May 2025

Trainline plc

Results for the twelve months ended 28 February 2025

Record operating performance from Europe's number one rail app

FY2025 financial summary:

Financial highlights:

·      Group net ticket sales up 12% year on year⁵ to £5.9 billion; revenue up 12%⁵ to £442 million

·      Adjusted EBITDA up 30% to £159 million (2.69% of Group net ticket sales vs. 2.31% in FY2024) reflecting operating leverage and cost management; operating profit up 54% to £86 million

·      Basic earnings per share of 13.1p up 80%; adjusted basic earnings per share of 19.2p, up 56%; Operating free cashflow up 20% to £110 million

Strategic highlights:

·      Europe's most downloaded rail app⁶; total active customer base of 27 million⁷

·      Driving digitisation of UK rail with 18 million active customers⁷:

o  Eticket penetration⁸ of industry ticket sales increased from 47% to 52%

o  Digital railcard customers up 9% to 2.3 million, with share of 16-25 and 26-30 railcard users at 43%

o  New App homepage reducing time to purchase by 36%

o  Supercharging user experience with AI, launching in-app AI Travel Assistant

·      Pursuing significant long-term opportunity in Europe; successfully honing aggregation playbook in Spain, to deploy in France & Italy as those markets liberalise:

o  €12 billion projected industry sales⁹ by 2030 on liberalised high-speed routes in France, Italy & Spain expected to provide catalyst for Trainline to scale in Europe

o  Net ticket sales in Spain almost tripled in two years to €199 million, with our share on top five aggregated routes increasing from 5% to 12%¹⁰ 

o  Scaled brand awareness in Spain from 8% to 31% in less than three years

o  Positive sales performance on French South-East network ahead of Trenitalia expanding services this summer

·      Scaling International B2B Distribution through our Global API, with net ticket sales up 63%¹¹

Capital allocation:

·      Launched new £75 million share repurchase programme on 17^th March 2025, following the completion of previous £75 million programme

·      As at the end of April 2025, £29 million shares repurchased under the new £75 million programme; £154 million shares repurchased in total since launching first buyback programme in September 2023

Jody Ford, CEO of Trainline said:

"Our sustained investment in tech innovation over the last three decades is delivering for customers, driving industry growth and is reflected in our performance with net ticket sales up 12% year-on-year to £6 billion. Spain offers a powerful blueprint for Europe, where net ticket sales have nearly tripled in two years. Looking ahead, liberalised routes across Europe will be worth €12 billion by 2030, almost three times their size today. In the UK we remain the number one travel app and continue to innovate, including leveraging AI, to shift more people towards greener, digital-first rail travel, which now represents over 50% of industry ticket sales."

Presentation of results

There will be a live webcast presentation of the results to analysts and investors at 09:00am GMT today (7 May 2025). Please register to participate at the Company's investor website: https://webcast.openbriefing.com/trainline-fy25/

Enquiries

For investor enquiries, Andrew Gillian            [email protected]

For media enquiries, Hollie Conway                 [email protected]

Brunswick Group

Simone Selzer                                       [email protected] / +44 207 404 5959

Footnotes

1.        Please refer to the Non-GAAP Measures note for definition of net ticket sales.

2.        Adjusted EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation) excludes share-based payment charges and exceptional items.

3.        Please refer to Note 6 for definitions of adjusted basic earnings per share, basic earnings per share and diluted earnings per share.

4.        Operating free cash flow excludes exceptional costs for cost optimisation plan.

5.        Constant currency ("CCY") YoY growth calculated for International Consumer and Trainline Solutions using prior period average €/£ exchange rate applied to current year reported numbers.

6.        Source: Sensor Tower; Trainline had more app downloads than rail focused peers across Europe in FY2025

7.        Number of customers who have transacted at least once over the last 12 months.

8.        % of UK industry ticket sales by value fulfilled using a barcode read eticket; eticket penetration is a subset of online penetration.

9.        OC&C analysis and RDG data.

10.     Five high-speed routes in Spain where four carrier brands operate services (Madrid-Barcelona, Madrid-Valencia, Madrid-Alicante, Madrid-Seville and Madrid-Malaga), based on CNMC and internal data.

11.     More information on Trainline's Global API can be found here: https://tps.thetrainline.com/our-products/global-api/

Forward looking statements and other important information

This document is for informational purposes only and does not constitute an offer or invitation for the sale or purchase of securities or any businesses or assets described in it, nor should any recipients construe the information contained in this document as legal, tax, regulatory, or financial or accounting advice and are urged to consult with their own advisers in relation to such matters.  Nothing herein shall be taken as constituting investment advice and it is not intended to provide, and must not be taken as, the basis of any decision and should not be considered as a recommendation to acquire any securities of Trainline.

This document contains forward looking statements, which are statements that are not historical facts and that reflect Trainline's beliefs and expectations with respect to future events and financial and operational performance. These forward looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties, assumptions, estimates and other factors, which may be beyond the control of Trainline and which may cause actual results or performance to differ materially from those expressed or implied from such forward-looking statements.  Nothing contained within this document is or should be relied upon as a warranty, promise or representation, express or implied, as to the future performance of Trainline or its business. Any historical information contained in this statistical information is not indicative of future performance. The information contained in this document speaks only as at the date of this document and Trainline expressly disclaims any obligations or undertaking to release any update of, or revisions to, any forward-looking statements in this document.

FY2025 PERFORMANCE REVIEW

Group Overview

Group net ticket sales increased to £5.9 billion, 12% higher year-on-year. The drivers of net ticket sales growth for each business unit are provided below.

Group revenue grew 12%⁵ to £442 million given increased net ticket sales and enhanced monetisation. This offset the dilutive effects of faster growth in short distance travel in the UK, which generates relatively lower rates of revenue than longer-distance travel.

Gross profit grew 15% to £352 million, outpacing revenue growth given a reduction in fulfilment fees payable in the UK. 

Adjusted EBITDA increased 30% to £159 million, reflecting operating leverage and disciplined cost management. Adjusted EBITDA as a percentage of Group net ticket sales increased from 2.31% to 2.69%. Marketing costs of £71 million increased by 5%, as we actively managed marketing across our European geographies. Other administrative costs increased 6% to £122 million, reflecting higher system costs as we processed more transactions.

FY2025 Segmental performance

UK Consumer

Net ticket sales grew 13% to £3.9 billion. This reflected the continued market shift towards digital tickets, with industry eticket penetration increasing from 47% to 52% of ticket sales in FY2025, the industry fare increase and less impact from strikes than in the prior year¹⁴.

Revenue grew 12% to £208 million. Increasing non-commission revenues, including insurance and hotel bookings, helped largely offset the dilutive effect of proportionally faster growth in shorter distance travel (commuter and on-the-day bookings), which generates relatively lower rates of revenue than longer-distance travel.

Gross profit grew 21% to £147 million, outpacing revenue growth primarily due to a reduction in the rate of fulfilment that Trainline pays to the industry when a customer uses a barcode ticket. Adjusted EBITDA of £88 million was 36% higher, reflecting the benefit of operating leverage and disciplined cost management.

International Consumer

Net ticket sales of £1.1 billion were 4% higher year-on-year⁵. Spain, which represents c.15% of International net ticket sales and has most widespread carrier competition, grew 41%¹⁵. France and Italy (c.70% of the International portfolio) were broadly flat¹⁵ as we await the arrival of further carrier competition. Germany and the rest of Europe (c.15% of International) are out of scope for marketing investment and were down 6%¹⁵. Note the portfolio sizes and growth rates encompass domestic and foreign travel sales in each respective geography.

Net ticket sales growth continued to be led by Trainline's mobile App, which in FY2025 represented 69% of International Consumer transactions, up from 62% in FY2024. However, as previously disclosed, additional industry-wide changes to the presentation of Google's search engine results further suppressed organic search results while increasing the prominence of paid adverts, which in turn has weighed on Web sales. The impact was most felt in foreign travel sales, which declined -2% year-on-year. However, we are proactively responding to these changes. This includes investing in brand and focusing on our owned-channels to bring customers direct to our Website and App, as well as increasing our use of affiliates and partnerships, particularly within foreign travel.

Revenue was £53 million, growing 12% YoY⁵, outpacing net ticket sales given a step up in ancillary revenues, primarily hotel bookings. Given seasonality, this was particularly evident in H1, with revenue up 16% year-on-year on a pre-internal transaction fee basis, while in H2 growth was flat year-on-year.

Gross profit increased 9% to £34 million. Adjusted EBITDA loss was -£20 million (vs -£20 million last year). Excluding the internal transaction fee¹³, adjusted EBITDA was £2 million (vs -£1 million loss last year).

Trainline Solutions

Net ticket sales grew 20% to £941 million. B2B Distribution was the fastest growing sub-segment, up 25%, within which international sales through our Global API¹¹ was up 63%. White label carrier sales also performed strongly, benefiting from improvements to core functionality from Platform One as well as fewer strike days¹⁴.

Revenue increased by 12% YoY⁵ to £181 million. Most of Trainline Solutions' revenue was generated by the internal transaction fee paid by UK Consumer and International Consumer¹³.

Gross profit was £171 million, 12% higher, while adjusted EBITDA was £91 million, 17% higher, reflecting the benefit of operating leverage and disciplined cost management.

Operating profit

The Group reported operating profit of £86 million, up 54%.  Operating profit included:

·      Depreciation and amortisation charges of £43 million (FY2024: £42 million)

·      Share-based payment charges of £21 million, reflecting the costs of our all-employee share incentive plan (FY2024: £23 million)

·      Exceptional items of £9 million, reflecting the one-off costs to deliver the Group's previously communicated cost optimisation exercise in Q4 FY2025, which is set to reduce annual costs by £12 million from FY2026.

Profit after tax

Profit after tax was £58 million, up 72% year on year. Profit after tax reflected operating profit of £86 million, net finance charges of £5 million, and a tax charge of £23 million. The effective tax rate of 28% was above the UK corporation tax rate, primarily due to losses in overseas entities that are not recognised for deferred tax.

Earnings per share (EPS)

Adjusted basic earnings per share was 19.2 pence vs 12.3 pence in FY2024. Adjusted basic earnings per share adjusts for exceptional one-off items in the period, any gains on the repurchase of convertible bonds, amortisation of acquired intangibles, and share-based payment charges, together with the tax impact of these items.

Basic earnings per share was 13.1 pence vs 7.3 pence in FY2024.

Operating free cash flow and net debt

Operating free cash flow was £110 million, up 20% year-on-year. Operating free cash flow constituted adjusted EBITDA of £159 million, partly offset by capital expenditure of £43 million, which almost entirely reflected the Group's ongoing product and technology investment (£119 million capital expenditure over past three years), and a working capital outflow of £7 million.

Net debt was £83 million at the end of February 2025, up from £64 million in February 2024. The Group's leverage ratio was 0.5x adjusted EBITDA (Feb 24: 0.5x; Feb 23: 1.2x). This primarily reflected the generation of positive operating free cash flow in FY2025, offset by £89 million of share repurchases in the period under the Group's share buyback programme.

Capital allocation framework and share buyback programme

The Group's capital allocation framework is as follows:

·      Trainline's primary use of capital is to invest behind its strategic priorities - including enhancing the customer experience and building demand for rail travel - to drive organic growth and deliver attractive and sustainable rates of return.

·      The Group may supplement that with inorganic investment, should it help accelerate delivery of the Group's strategic growth priorities.

·      Trainline will also continue to manage debt leverage, including retaining a prudent and appropriate level of liquidity headroom should unforeseen circumstances arise.

·      Any surplus capital thereafter may be returned to shareholders, including through the repurchase of Trainline's shares.

In line with Trainline's capital allocation framework, on 17^th March 2025 the Company launched a new share buyback programme to repurchase up to £75 million of shares in 12 months. The new programme commenced immediately following the completion of the Group's prior £75 million buyback programme. As at 30^th April 2025, the Company had bought back and cancelled £29 million of shares under the new programme and £154 million in total (11% of issued share capital) since launching its first buyback programme in September 2023.

Outlook and market guidance

Trainline enjoys significant long term growth opportunities, including a large and growing rail market, growing awareness of the environmental benefits of train travel and the continued shift towards digital ticketing. There are clear signs of new entrant carrier competition expanding in Europe too, with liberalised high-speed routes across France, Italy and Spain expected to be worth €12 billion by 2030⁹. This should provide the conditions required for Trainline to scale as it positions itself as the market aggregator. In addition, the business travel market in UK and European rail is estimated to be worth c.€6 billion, giving Trainline significant headroom to grow its B2B offering.

While the Group remains focused on its long-term growth priorities, in FY2026 we expect some headwinds as previously announced. These include Transport for London's (TFL) phased expansion of their contactless travel zone and the ongoing impact from Google's changes to its search engine results page. In addition, recent global macroeconomic uncertainty may impact foreign travel. As a result, Trainline expects net ticket sales growth¹² in the range of 6% to 9% for FY2026.

As we first announced in March 2022, the commission rate in the UK reduces from April 2025.¹⁶ As a result, we expect revenue growth to be slower than net ticket sales, in the range of 0% to 3%¹² for FY2026. Despite that, we expect adjusted EBITDA to grow broadly in line with net ticket sales, at a rate of 6% to 9%¹², as we benefit from operating leverage and our cost optimisation exercise. Assuming adjusted EBITDA grows in line with net ticket sales, this implies adjusted EBITDA as a percentage of net ticket sales of 2.69%, at the top end of our previous guidance range for FY2026 (of 2.6% to 2.7%).

PROGRESS AGAINST OUR STRATEGIC PRIORITIES IN FY2025

To achieve our mission to make rail and coach travel easier for customers in all our markets, we invest behind five strategic priorities for long-term growth: growing supply, enhancing the user experience, building demand, increasing customer lifetime value, and expanding Trainline Solutions. In FY2025, we continued to make strong progress against these long-term strategic growth priorities.

UK Consumer

Growing supply and enhancing the user experience 

As the UK's number one travel app¹⁷, we invest in our proposition to offer all the carriers and fares in one place, as well as a comprehensive range of value-saving products and features, helping customers unlock value when booking rail travel. This includes SplitSave, which we expanded this year to make it available on 88% of routes, helping more customers save £13 on average per trip. It also includes digital railcards, where we grew users 9% to 2.3 million, enabling those customers to save up to a third off rail travel. Our share of 16- 25 and 26-30 (year old) railcard users reached 43%, in part supported by Trainline's recent partnership with online bank Monzo. This is notable given railcard users are typically amongst our most frequent and loyal customers.

We continue to enhance our 4.9-star rated mobile App¹⁸. We launched a new App homescreen that makes it easier to search - with a personalised search function - and quicker to book, leveraging machine learning and geo-location technology to surface the most relevant route suggestions. This has reduced time to purchase by 36% compared to our previous App interface. Alongside our Best Price Guarantee, this is further encouraging customers to book travel on-the-day through Trainline.

We are increasingly using AI to supercharge the customer experience, with the launch of our personalised AI Travel Assistant. This provides customers an in-app chat interface that gives rail travel advice and processes refunds without human intervention. Our AI Travel Assistant is underpinned by a scalable, agentic AI system. It is built on a multi-agent architecture, with the main orchestrator agent handling the customer conversation and deciding which specialist agents to use to accomplish the task at hand. The specialist agents use sophisticated reasoning to solve multi-step problems autonomously (e.g. processing refunds). As the AI Travel Assistant expands, we will build more agents to handle more tasks on behalf of the customer.

Building demand 

Under our flagship brand campaign 'Great journeys start with Trainline', we offer a Best Price Guarantee, which assures customers booking on-the-day that they won't find cheaper tickets elsewhere.

Our 'I Came by Train' initiative is raising public awareness of the benefits of train travel while encouraging pride for those that make sustainable travel choices. This year, we partnered with a selection of Premier League football clubs and Glastonbury to promote more sustainable fan travel, providing incentives, education, and rewards for those who came by train.

We are exploring how AI can help to build customer demand. We recently partnered with OpenAI to integrate into the ChatGPT operator tool. While serving a small sample size of users, the partnership offers a valuable learning opportunity given the potential for generative engine optimisation (GEO) to revolutionise organic search.

Increasing customer lifetime value

Over two years we have grown our UK customer base from 15 to 18 million⁷. Over the same period, we have increased the frequency in which customers transact through Trainline - with monthly active customers transactions increasing from 2.6 in FY2023 to 2.8 times per month¹⁹. This includes priming our mobile App to serve more short distance and commuter journeys, with 69% of transactions now booked on-the-day (FY2024: 66%).

International Consumer

Significant headroom opportunity

Trainline is well placed to scale, particularly in Spain, France and Italy as carrier competition becomes more widespread over the next few years. The three markets today represent an addressable market of around €17 billion, expected to grow to €23 billion by 2030⁹.

Greater market fragmentation increases complexity for the customer and the need for an aggregator like Trainline to provide all the carriers and fares in one simple-to-use and convenient mobile App. By honing our aggregation playbook, we plan to position Trainline as the aggregator of choice. In doing so, we can help more customers make the right choice when booking tickets, while removing friction that can sometimes arise when travelling by train. We can also use it as a launchpad to scale our International business, given liberalised high-speed rail routes across Spain, France and Italy are estimated to generate €12 billion of the €23 billion annual industry passenger revenues by 2030⁹.

High-speed rail market liberalisation in Europe

Following the liberalisation of high-speed rail routes in Spain, new entrant carrier competition is also set to arrive in France and Italy over the next few years.

Spain:

In Spain, carrier competition has already become widespread. Since 2021, Spain has gone from one high speed carrier - the national incumbent Renfe - to now four different carrier brands competing across its five largest high-speed routes. This includes, in Q4 FY2025, SNCF Ouigo launching services on the Spanish Southern Corridor (Madrid-Malaga-Seville). The top five high-speed routes in Spain generate c.€1.5 billion of industry passenger revenue per annum¹⁰, and by 2030 are expected to generate around €2 billion per annum⁹.

Increased carrier competition has transformed the Spanish high speed rail market. Average fares across the top five high speed routes have reduced by 45% compared to 2019 levels, while industry passenger volumes have increased by almost 80%¹⁰.

France:

Carrier competition is expected to expand across France over the next few years in three waves, on routes that today generate over €4 billion of industry passenger revenue per annum (expected to grow to c.€7 billion by 2030⁹).

In the first wave, Trenitalia will expand services on the South-East Network (Paris-Lyon-Marseille) in 2025, followed by Renfe launching services thereafter. We are seeing positive pre-launch demand on the network ahead of Trenitalia commencing its new services. These routes today generate more than €1 billion of industry passenger revenue per annum, around two-thirds the size of the aggregated high speed rail market in Spain.

In the second wave, three new carrier brands (Illisto, Proxima and Le Train) are set to launch high-speed services on domestic routes across France from 2027/28. This will connect major cities like Bordeaux, Nantes, Strasbourg and Lille with Paris. These routes today represent a further c.€1.5 billion of industry passenger revenue per annum⁹.

In the third wave, carrier competition is set to arrive on the Channel Tunnel by around 2029, with Trenitalia-Evolyn, Virgin and Gemini Trains all announcing plans to launch competitor services to Eurostar.  These routes today generate around €1.7 billion of industry passenger revenue per annum⁹.

Italy:

Carrier competition is also expected to expand in Italy in the next few years. SNCF are set to launch long-distance services in Italy from 2027, becoming the third nationwide carrier in competition with Trenitalia and NTV Italo.

The high-speed aggregated routes in Italy today generate around €2 billion of industry passenger revenue per annum, and by 2030 are expected to generate around €2.7 billion per annum⁹.

Successfully honing our aggregation playbook

In Spain, as new entrant carriers entered the market and expanded services to new routes, we have honed our aggregation playbook.  This involves rapidly adding new inventory while making it easy for customers to find the best option, building demand and growing awareness while increasing customer engagement. At the same time, we have begun to create the virtuous cycle of the marketplace. As we increasingly add new supply, we become more attractive for passengers and increasingly relevant for rail operators.

Rapidly adding new inventory while making it easy for customers to find best option

We seek to aggregate all carriers, fares and options into our highly rated mobile App. This brings clear benefits to our customers who can search all the options to find best value, as well as stitch together different carriers for return and multi-leg journeys through TopCombo.

It also brings distinct benefits for new entrant operators too, increasing their passenger volumes and in turn accelerating payback on their investment. This includes rapidly adding their inventory ahead of them launching services of new routes. We are now exploring how we can increase the prominence of new entrant brands within search results, helping increase their visibility with new customers.

Building demand and growing awareness

We have found innovative ways to help grow our brand presence, including whole train station takeovers as well as hosting and sponsoring music festivals. We have also sponsored Real Betis, a Seville-based football team, growing awareness in the region ahead of SNCF Ouigo's Madrid to Seville launch in January 2025. Since we launched our first Spanish brand campaign in summer 2022, prompted brand awareness has grown from 8% to 31%. In April 2025, we announced our intention to acquire Spanish online retailer Trenes.com (subject to competition authority approval) as another channel in which to build customer demand.

We took the decision in May 2023 to pause nationwide brand spend in France until the arrival of more widespread carrier competition. However, we are now deploying more marketing to the South-East network (Paris-Lyon-Marseille) ahead of Trenitalia expanding their services over the next couple of months. This includes our recent sponsorship of Lyon-based football team, Olympique Lyonnais.

Increasing customer engagement

While positioning ourselves as aggregator of choice, we seek to deepen our relationship with customers. This includes encouraging more customers to download and use our mobile App, given its superior user experience and transaction frequency benefits. In FY2025, 69% of all customer transactions within International Consumer came through our App, up from 62% in FY2024.

As we grow our customer base, we are further increasing the frequency at which our customers transact with us. In Spain, having added Cercanias urban travel, transaction frequency²⁰ increased to 2.3 transactions a year, up from 2.0 in the prior year. At the same time we are seeing our repeat customers grow, with 54% of customers in the year being repeat customers, up from 44% last year.

Confident we can recreate Spanish success in France and Italy

By positioning ourselves as the aggregator of choice in Spain, Trainline has grown significantly on liberalised routes. In FY2025, Trainline's share of the top five high speed routes increased to 12% on average¹⁰, up from 5% two years prior. This has resulted in overall Spanish net ticket sales almost tripling over the past two years to €199 million¹⁵.

With carrier competition expanding in France and Italy in the coming years, we plan to increasingly deploy our aggregation playbook in these markets too.

We start in a strong position in France and Italy, given we have:

-       An App that is well developed to aggregate new entrant carriers;

-       A relatively large customer base (2.6 million in France and 2.1 million in Italy vs. 1.2 million in Spain);

-       Strong trust scores and relatively good levels of brand awareness (27% in France and 41% in Italy), meaning we do not have to start from a low base, like we did in Spain a few years ago. 

This gives us confidence we can scale quickly in France and Italy as more new entrants arrive.

Trainline Solutions

In FY2025, we have taken further steps to support our travel partners, leveraging the strength of our platform.

Within Trainline Solutions, we see the €6 billion business travel market across the UK and Europe⁹ as our biggest growth opportunity. We focus on growing business travel sales, both through our own branded channels, as well as our B2B Distribution business.  Our B2B Distribution business helps travel management companies (TMCs) retail train tickets to their business travel customers. Primarily a UK business, our Global API¹¹ offers TMCs the ability to retail rail across multiple European geographies through one simple, seamless connection - rather than tackle the complexity of connecting to multiple different carriers. Many of the world's largest TMCs and travel platforms are now connected to our Global API, driving 63% growth in International B2B distribution net ticket sales year on year.

We are bidding to participate in digital pay-as-you-go (dPAYG) trials launching later this year in Yorkshire and the East Midlands. These trials represent a strategic opportunity to demonstrate the benefits of our dPAYG solution in a live environment. Our in-app solution leverages geo-location technology developed through the Signalbox acquisition and can offer capabilities beyond traditional tap-in/tap-out systems - including real-time pricing visibility, integrated railcard discounts, and support for family travel.

LEGAL, REGULATORY & POLICY DEVELOPMENTS

UK

The new UK Government has enacted legislation to nationalise the rail operators, with carriers to be brought into public ownership over the next few years as their contracts lapse.

In February 2025, the UK Government launched an industry consultation on the Railways Bill as its next step to establish GBR as an arms-length governing body. Within the wide-ranging consultation document was a clarification that - once GBR is established following legislation - the UK Government is considering how it might gradually replace the Department for Transport train operator retail websites with a single public sector retail website and app. However, the Government was unequivocal in its commitment to a fair, open and competitive rail retail market, recognising the fundamental role that independent retailers play in driving innovation and attracting more customers to the railway.

Alongside other independent retailers, Trainline is taking an increasingly assertive stance with the Government to deliver on its commitment to deliver a fair, open and competitive future retail market. It is a case made strongly in our response submitted to the consultation on the future market and in parallel we are actively challenging where operators' self-preference their own channels today. 

At the highest level the Company expects level playing field safeguards for independent retailers. Such safeguards, as recently supported by the CMA²¹, are typically seen in other regulated markets in the UK, including the telecoms, water and energy sectors.

We expect the outcome of the public consultation to be published in late summer/ early autumn, followed shortly thereafter by the beginning of the legislative process.

International

The European Union (EU) has made enabling the growth of rail travel in Europe a regulatory priority as it aims to triple passenger high speed passenger volume by 2050. Liberalisation of the national rail and coach markets continues to grow, promoted by a series of European Commission initiatives aimed at encouraging competition across Europe's railways and facilitating efficient cross-border transport systems. This includes the Fourth Railway Package legislation to open domestic rail markets in the EU to competition. Independent retailers facilitate emerging new entrant competition by aggregating and showcasing the new operators on their respective platforms.

The European Commission is developing regulation for digital ticket booking to help meet its growth and environmental goals. The regulation aims to drive competition by addressing the challenges posed by incumbent rail operators and improving consumer experiences in multimodal travel, including enhanced transparency and remediation for disrupted journeys. Debate on the scope of the regulation remains in early stages but is expected to expressly include obligations for a fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory approach toward ticket distribution.

In March 2025, the European Commission sent two sets of preliminary findings to Alphabet for failing to comply with the Digital Markets Act (DMA), informing Alphabet of its preliminary view that certain features and functionalities of Google Search treat Alphabet's own services more favourably compared to rival ones, thus not ensuring the transparent, fair and non-discriminatory treatment of third-party services as required by the DMA. This is an important step to ensure accountability for large companies like Google and secure long-term market stability and contestability across Europe.

Footnotes:

12.     Growth guidance figures are on a reported basis, not on a constant currency basis.

13.     A reassessment was performed of the internal transaction fee rate in September 2024, payable by UK Consumer and International Consumer businesses to Trainline Solutions in order to access Platform One. This resulted in an upwards revision to the transaction fee. To aid comparability, prior year figures also reflect this revision to the transaction fee.

14.     6 strike days in FY2025 with an estimated gross ticket sales impact per strike day for UK Consumer of c.£3-4 million; 25 strike days in FY2024 with an estimated gross ticket sales impact per strike day for UK Consumer of c.£4 million.

15.     Geographical split of growth in net ticket sales within International Consumer based upon carrier location.

16.     Trainline estimates a c.0.25% net reduction in commission rate, effective 1 April 2025, resulting from a 0.5% reduction in the base B2C online sales commission rate, from 5% to 4.5%, and an offsetting removal of central industry costs of c.0.25%. This change was first announced in March 2022 and confirmed in May 2023.

17.     Excluding Northern Ireland.

18.     iOS OS rating as at 30/04/25.

19.     Monthly transaction frequency of customers that have purchased at least one ticket in a month, averaged over the year.

20.     Average Transaction frequency over the year.

21.     CMA response to the UK Government's 'A railway fit for Britain's future' consultation document published 23 April 2025

Consolidated income statement

For the year ended 28 February 2025

¹ Non-GAAP measure (unaudited) - see alternative performance measures section on page 48.