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Azerion released its results for Q1 2023. Azerion also announced that it has made significant progress in consolidating and integrating previous acquisitions.
Highlights of Q1 2023
- The Platform and Premium Games segments have experienced a steady growth, with a Net Revenue of nearly EUR 113 millions, up from EUR 95 million in Q1 2020. The adjusted EBITDA was almost EUR 9 millions, up 48% from Q1 2022. This is due to improved margins as a result of accelerated integration of prior acquisitions and cost optimization.
- The expected annualised savings have been increased to at least EUR15 million, from EUR10 million. This is excluding the effects of foreign exchange. The savings expected are compared with the baseline of January 2023.
- Launch of Performance by Azerion enriches campaigns across all features, platforms and drives increased performance in the entire advertising funnel.
- Launch of Oneskin proprietary ad formats, a native rich media product integrated into the Azerion Platform that is highly scalable.
- Brand licensing agreements with SmileyWorld and L.O.L. Surprise! O.M.G. Fashion House ™ will create engaging game-branded advertising content for metaverse social games Habbo Hotel Hideaway, and Woozworld.
- Azerion Holding B.V. merged with Azerion Group to simplify financial reporting.
Umut Akpinar, CEO of Umut Akpinar Group, said: “I’m pleased with the continued growth of our underlying profitability for Q1 2023. We have made great progress in integrating our previous acquisitions, further optimising our operation and releasing new services and products to our existing and new advertising partners. We are constantly working to improve our platform, to better serve our clients, to increase our resilience, and to position us to capture exciting opportunities. We expect our underlying profit to improve in Q2 of 2023. This gives us confidence that we will achieve our financial and strategic objectives in 2023 and beyond.
Azerion has made significant progress in consolidating and integrating previous acquisitions
Azerion shared today more details about the progress it has made in consolidating, integrating and enhancing previously acquired businesses. This led to new product launches, market expansions and technological improvements, as well as expected cost savings.
Azerion’s initiatives to consolidate and integrate the different teams, brands and offices as well as back-office functions have made good progress in Q1 2023. They are expected to lead to annualized savings of EUR 15 million in comparison to January 2023. This is an improvement over the previous expectation of at least EUR ten million in annualized savings.
Azerion acquired several companies, the majority of which were completed in the second half last year, after its listing on Euronext Amsterdam at the beginning of 2022. Azerion set itself a goal to integrate past acquisitions faster and to make Azerion’s platform more efficient. This was one of the priorities for the company in the first half of 2023. Here are some examples of successful initiatives for integration:
Ad sales
Azerion has been working with media agencies and advertisers to maximize their results for the past few years.
- Infinia, a technology for audience targeting with local direct sales presence throughout Iberia and LATAM – acquired by Azerion in March 2022 – was rebranded as Azerion. This completed the integration of the teams, offices and the back-office. Infinia’s technical abilities to create and target audience to better reach specific audiences have been shared and integrated with other Azerion offices and regions.
- Hybrid Theory, (audience-targeting technology with local direct sales in the UK and US regions and APAC – acquired in Nov 2022), has been rebranded as Azerion. All its teams have also been merged into Azerion for the relevant market. Infinia’s technology and expertise are used by the group to provide our clients with brand performance marketing expertise.
- Mmedia has been integrated into the Dutch operation. This includes sales, publisher, and monetization experts.
The sales teams from the UK, Germany and France, as well as the Nordics, US and Italy, have integrated their offerings and products. They are now selling advertisers and media agencies easy-to use, brand-safe, and competitively-priced solutions, so they can reach large audiences and achieve better results.
Adtech
Azerion invests continuously in the launch of creative advertising formats and the optimization of its advertising technology. Focus has been placed on developing proprietary, unique ad formats and using technology to simplify the advertising process for both advertisers and publishers.
- TargetSpot, (audio ad formats technology – acquired November 2022), has integrated its audio supply technologies into Azerion’s SSP platform. The product development team has been centralised in Amsterdam. Teams in the US and Belgium were integrated into Azerion’s relevant teams. The offices and back-office functions have been centralized and merged.
- Vlyby, a video ad format (acquired in October 2022), has been integrated into Azerion’s German operations. The integration of Zoomin, a previously acquired company (video development), with Azerion’s German operations has also been completed. The expansion of this new video product has begun.
- Azerion has integrated Madvertise, a mobile advertising technology (acquired in July 2022), into its French and German operations. This includes teams and the back-office.
Curated Content
Azerion’s value proposition includes offering advertisers a unique reach. Azerion partners with thousands digital publishers and develops digital content to reach audiences at scale. Azerion has developed expertise and capabilities in monetization of publishers over the past few years, working closely together with them to maximize their results.
- AdPlay, (publisher monetization service – acquired by Azerion in November 2022), has integrated Azerion’s operations in Italy. It has also been selected as Azerion’s publisher monetization service offerings for the Italian Market.
- Takerate has been merged with Adplay to create efficiencies in sales, operations, analytics and development.
Azerion consolidates its publisher monetization service into a single stack. First, Azerion consolidated the regional offerings (Italy Adplay; France Adverline; US & Nordics Pubgalaxy ; DACH Benelux & UK Mmedia ; Nordics Keymobile). The full global integration will be launched later in 2023.
Next Steps
Integration efforts will continue in Q2 and Q3 of 2023, to improve Azerion’s platform and make it ready for further scaling. The roll-out will be across all Azerion Regions to provide a single offering for advertisers and publishers. Other efforts include rebranding products and entities, legal mergers and acquisition subsidiaries. Updates will continue to be made throughout 2023.
