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Operator
Hello, everyone, and thank you for accessing Zenvia's prepared remarks for the first quarter of 2024. I'm Kassir Babsin, founder and CEO. The highlight of this quarter of 2024 was the soft launch of Zenvia Customer Cloud for select clients. This cutting-edge platform represents the future of our CXS solutions, bringing to life the vision we laid out three years ago when we went public. Design for Customer Cloud is a game changer, a unified multi-channel solution that empowers companies to sell more and serve better. It leverages full automation, seamless integration, and robust communication across every step of the customer journey. With this powerful solution fully deployed, we're poised to unlock solid, profitable growth while gaining invaluable insights into our customers through AI-enabled automation. This means boosting productivity and efficiency throughout the entire journey. Another highlight was the arrival of Jill Hansen as our new Chief Revenue Officer, reporting directly to me. We created this new role to bring our SaaS and CPaaS segments together into one unified business area that will oversee the entire customer journey. By focusing on customer profiles and segments instead of individual solutions or products, we are aiming to strengthen our integrated offerings, improve customer experiences, and drive profitable growth. Gilles will be leading our two main growth initiatives, the rollout of Zenvia Customer Cloud and our big push for international expansion. With his expertise and leadership, we are confident he will help us innovate and reach new heights. We are confident on this new chapter and can't wait to see all the great things we'll achieve together with Gilles on board, delivering exceptional value to our customers and shareholders. Now, I'll hand over to Shai to cover our performance in the quarter.
Zenvia Customer Cloud
Thank you, Cássio. Here's a snapshot of our performance in the first quarter of 2024 compared to the same period of last year. In this first quarter, results came in line with our expectations, with a combination of revenue growth and strict expense control that resulted in an EBITDA of roughly R$ 24 million and allowing us to reaffirm our R$ 120 to R$ 140 million guidance for 2024. Our revenues grew 19% year-over-year in 2024 to R$ 213 million, translating into an adjusted gross profit increase of 1% in the period. Adjusted gross margin was 44%, tracking close to the higher range of our 2024 guidance. In terms of EBITDA, the R$ 23.5 million reported in the quarter was within our expectations, especially given that Q1 is seasonally weak when compared to Q4. Therefore, we are confident in our ability to deliver on our full year guidance. Let's now dive deeper into the results of the quarter. Here on this slide, we can see that both SaaS and CPaaS kept expanding two digits in the first quarter of 24, with the revenue increase driven mainly by large enterprises in both segments. In the CPaaS business, the performance reflects our ability to grow while still maintaining profitability at healthy levels, leveraging on better cost structure. CPS revenues grew 23% in the first quarter, mainly with large enterprises after growing 30% in the previous quarter. This attests to Zenvia's quality and market leadership. Our SaaS business also delivered a solid 12% increase in the first quarter compared to the same period of last year. Although the growth in SaaS this quarter came mainly from enterprises, we still saw growth coming from SMBs. On the next slide, let's take a better look at how this expansion has translated into a balanced and profitable portfolio mix. As we continue to capitalize on revenue growth opportunities in the CPaaS business, its contribution to the revenue mix expands as expected. As you know, a higher CPaaS participation in the revenue mix impacts margins. But I would highlight that the focus here was on capturing new volumes in CPaaS that are converted directly into EBITDA despite coming at lower gross margin, given we don't need additional G&A to generate that revenue. The first quarter number shows SAS reaching 36% of net revenues and 46% of adjusted gross profit, while CPAS made 64% of net revenues and 54% of gross profit. In the same quarter last year, we had a little bit more of SAS revenues, 38% versus 62% of CPAS revenues, that translated into a 50-50 participation in the gross profit mix. This change was expected due to our change in strategy with our CPS business, as I just mentioned, and as we will see in the next couple slides. Let's now discuss our profitability. On this slide, you can see that as our growth score was mainly driven by enterprises in both segments and with the higher CPS participation, we were expecting a decrease in margins. The lower SaaS margins were also impacted by an increase in infrastructure costs related to the final phase of integration of the acquired companies. we are still reporting margins that are well within the guidance range, all according to our plan. We recorded 37% CPS margins and 56.4% SAS margins in Q124. Let's now discuss our GNA. As I mentioned earlier in this presentation, we have remained fully focused on keeping costs under control. We have been able to grow the top line by double digits without adding additional GNA. Thus, G&A ratio as a percentage of revenues decreased by almost 300 basis points, from 17.6% in Q123 to 14.7% in Q124, which has been an important factor positively impacting our EBITDA during this period. Moving on, let's take a look at the next steps that we have been discussing with our board. As you know, we have recently announced the conclusion of our liability management, which included both capital raise and debt refinance. This brings us closer to achieving an optimal capital structure to support our strategic objectives while maximizing shareholder value. And so, we can now focus on finalizing the integrations, deliver profitable growth, and keep the leverage in balance sheet. As we roll out the Zenvia Customer Cloud that Cassio mentioned in his prepared remarks, we believe it will help accelerate even more our organic growth. We are also preparing to organically expand outside Brazil, with a focus on Argentina and Mexico, where we already have operations and where we see high growth potential. To finalize, we are reiterating our guidance for 2024, where you can see we expect to growth our revenues by 15% to 20%, reaching between 930 and 170 million reais. In Q1, growth was close to the high end of the guidance. In terms of margins, we forecast keeping adjusted gross margin in line with 23 figures, between 42% and 45%. As with revenues, we deliver this metric also close to the higher range. And as I just stated, we are projecting to grow our EBITDA to deliver our year-end guidance. Q1 was within our expectations and in line with the seasonality for our first quarter. Our confidence in accelerating EBITDA in the next quarter reflects our healthy portfolio with a balanced profitable mix, streamlined internal structure and leverage under control. Once again, we appreciate your continued trust as we move ahead. We are committed to building a profitable and exciting future for Zenvia. With this, we conclude our prepared remarks. Our investor relations area is available to schedule calls to clarify any questions you may have. Thank you.
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