Adcore Inc.

Okay, good morning and welcome to Adcore's Q3 2024 earnings call. Today, we'll be going over the company's Q3 results. On the call today, you have myself, Nick Campbell. I'm head of IR here at Adcore. You have Omri Brill, CEO and founder, and you'll hear from Amit Konforti, Adcore CFO. The agenda for today will begin by going over some forward-looking statements, followed by the CEO opening remarks, and then followed by the CFO financial highlights, and finally Q&A. If you do have a question during this call, please use the chat feature in Zoom and we'll address that at the end. Before we begin, I would like to remind everyone today that during the call, we will be making forward-looking statements that are somewhat uncertain in nature. These statements are subject to risk and uncertainty, so please bear that in mind while listening to the call. I'll give everyone a minute to review the disclosure before moving on. Okay, thank you all for your patience. We'll now begin with Omri Brill's portion for the CEO opening remarks. Omri, the floor is yours.

Thank you very much, Nick, and good morning, everyone. It's my pleasure to discuss the company Q3 financial report today, and let's start with the presentation. Okay. And so all in all, it was a very positive quarter for us. All the important metrics that the company consider as key metrics in terms of our financial statement, whether it's gross margin, gross profit, and also growth in specific markets, as we believe are strategic to the company, were quite positive. And let's dive into, let's say, some highlights of these numbers. So top line revenue concluded in Q3 2024 was 7.8 million. It's a slight decrease compared to 8.2 million in Q3 2023. Gross profit, however, grew by 12% from 3.3 million in Q3 2023 to 3.7 million in Q3 2024. So again, we are happy to see that the gross profit is growing. If you look at another key or quality growth KPI that the company is talking about usually every earning call, and we mentioned specifically two of these KPI. The first one is gross profit and gross margin. So gross margin improved a lot from 40% in 2023 Q3 to 47% in Q3 2024. That's almost 20% year-on-year improvement. We also see a very strong growth in North America, which is strategic market for us and where the company believe a lot of future revenue of the company would come from. North America today become the second biggest market of the company. Like I mentioned before that we believe that during 2025, it's expected to become the biggest market of the company. Revenue-wise, we grew by almost 30% year-on-year to $2.1 million in revenue in Q3 2024, compared to $1.6 million in Q3 2023. Some highlights of the quarterly results. Again, North America, very strong growth, 30% year-on-year. Epic revenue grew a lot as well, 26% year-on-year. That's impressive. Gross margin, as I mentioned before, improved to 47% compared to 40%. In the previous year, gross profit, nice growth of 12% to 3.7 million compared to 3.3 million. Client diversification actually improved from 4%. So from 54% to 49%, and you're going to see even a better improvement if you look at the nine months of 2023. And adjusted EBITDA concluded in almost $300,000 in Q3 2024 compared to $240,000 in the same period last year. If you look at the nine months of 2024 and compare it to the nine months in 2023, bear in mind that we are still missing a very important quarter for 2024. So it's a bit too early to conclude the year, but nine months, it's a good indicator of how the entire year look like. And basically, what we can clearly see is that, let's say, gross profit-wide, it's almost landed 10 million in the nine months of this year, and that's a 7% year-on-year improvement compared to the previous period in 2023. Gross margin improved from 41% in 2023, nine months, to 45% in 2024. North America revenue grew by 24%, which is impressive. And APAC revenue grew as well in two-digit growth to 11% year-on-year in the first nine months of 2024 compared to 2023 in nine months. And client diversification, as I mentioned before, improved a lot. So basically from 51% in 2023, it's now down to 31% in 2024. And that's a big improvement. This means we have more clients, more diversification, and basically less risk to the company, which is always good. And I think my opening remarks also give me a good opportunity to discuss the four, what we consider as a key strategic pillar of the company. These are specific areas that the company believe a lot of future growth of the company or even current growth should come from. And basically, so the first and foremost is technology and AI. We already said the company is doubling down on this important area. We're recruiting more engineers. developing a new application and also obviously improving the existing line of application and we are about to announce in the coming weeks a very interesting and exciting new applications that the team was very busy working on over the past, I would say 10 months or so. Basically, that's going to be big and it's going to come in our way and that's by far the biggest and most advanced application the company ever built and it's going to be very interesting. to see how this application is going to go to market. A second strategic pillar is enterprise and aggregators. Again, we would like to focus on bigger clients, larger budget, obviously for increased profitability, low touch and do-it-yourself. It's also another strategic pillar. Again, less touch, less personnel that helps us to be more profitable and efficient, and that's critical. And last but not least is synergy. We want to make sure the companies operate in many different markets, offering different technology solutions, marketing technology solutions. And we would like to see that each of them is creating synergy or synergistic to the other activities the company is doing. I think that's critical and we would like to see that become more and more the case. When we look at the company share price and we still feel there's a lot of disconnection where the company is currently traded and to where we should be, and this is also when you look at comparable, you can clearly see there's a very big, let's say, potential for the stock price to go up. We see if you look, for example, EV for gross profit, we talk about upside of more than 1,000%. So it's a massive upside. Edcore is currently trading on a multiple of 0.3 compared to multiple industry multiple of almost four, which is, let's say, big gap and this gap need to be narrowed. I think That's about it in terms of my remarks. Overall, a positive quarter. And I'm now going to add it back to you, Nick, and to Amit.

Thank you, Omri, for the opening remarks. We'll now move on to the CFO financial highlights. Amit, the floor is yours.

Thank you, Nick. One second. So before beginning the financial overview, I would like to remind you that the following discussion will include GAAP financial measures as well as non-GAAP results. All amounts will be presented in Canadian dollars. Despite a slight revenue decline of 5%, we achieved a 12% increase in gross profit and a notable improvement in gross margins. Additionally, we saw strong performance in North America and APAC, with revenue growing by 27% and 26% respectively, demonstrating solid growth in these key regions. Now let's review in more details. For the three months ended September 30, 2024, we delivered revenues of $7.8 million compared to $8.2 million in the same period of 2023, a decrease of $0.4 million, or 5%. Gross profit was 3.7 million compared to 3.3 million, an increase of 0.4 million, or 12%. Gross margins for the three months ended September 30, 2024, were 47% compared to 40% in the same period last year. As for operational expenses, R&D expenses for the quarter were 0.6 million compared to 0.3 million in the prior year. The main reason for this increase is we amortized additional intangible assets in the three months ended September 30, 2024. SG&A expenses for the quarter were $3.2 million compared to $3 million in the prior year. The increase is primarily driven by higher sales and marketing costs, including added ad count and increased referral payments. Operating loss for the three months ended September 30, 2024 was 0.1 million compared to nil in the same period last year. The increase in operating loss was mainly caused by the increase in R&D amortization expenses and the increase in sales and marketing expenses. Net loss for the three months ended September 30, 2024 was 0.2 million compared to 0.2 million in the same period last year. Moving on to gross profitability, as shown on the left side of the slide, Q3 gross profitability increased by 12% accompanied by an improvement in gross margin rising from 40% to 47%. Looking at the nine months results, we observe a similar trend with a 7% increase in gross profitability and gross margin improving from 41% to 45%. This is consistent with the full year trend on the right, which highlights ongoing annual growth in profitability. As for geographical revenue breakdown for Q3 2024. In North America, revenue grew by 27% year-over-year, primarily driven by new client acquisition. APAC revenue also saw a strong year-over-year increase of 26%, primarily due to new client acquisition also. EMEA revenue declined by 39% year over year, mainly due to reduced advertising budget and suspended activities in this region. We expect this to be a temporary setback with a recovery anticipated in 2025. In terms of financial positions, we had cash and cash equivalent of 6.7 million as of September 30, 2024, compared to $8.1 million at December 31, 2023. Total working capital amounted to $6.2 million compared to $7.6 million at December 31, 2023, a decrease of $1.4 million or 18%. This decrease is mainly due to the decrease in cash and cash equivalents and increase in short-term list liabilities. As for the liability side of the financial position, we can see the company is still debt-free. Adjusted EBITDA. The quarterly non-GAP results reflect adjustments for the following items, depreciation and amortization, share-based payments, and other non-operational items. For the three months ended September 30, 2024, Adjusted EBITDA was 282,000 compared to 240,000 for the same period in 2023, reflecting an increase of 42,000 or 18% and indicating an improved operational performance. With that, I will turn the call back to Nick.

Thank you, Amit. At this time, we'll move on to the Q&A portion of the call where we have a number of questions submitted in advance. We'll start with Ryan, who asks, the company was able to achieve high gross margins for the quarter. Can you just elaborate on what's driving that improvement?

So it's a good question. I would say this is a trend that we see for the past eight to 10 quarters already. The company identified in 2022 that basically we would like to focus more on profitability, efficiency, and focus on a type of, let's say, activity and clients that generate or come with higher gross margin and better gross profit. And that's something that we started to see bearing fruit in 2023, and for now, for sure, in 2024. And a lot of focus on technology, as I mentioned before, is do it yourself, low touch type of activity. And I think Q3 is a good demonstration that we're doing something right in that regard.

Very good. Another question from Ryan is both North America and APAC showed impressive growth this quarter. Can you just give us a bit more information on what's driving the growth in those regions?

Absolutely. So as Amit already mentioned in his report, a lot of this growth is coming from new client acquisition. But I think generally saying North America, for example, was the focus of us for the past two years already. We see we are continuing to grow. To expand our team over there, today it is the second largest team that we have outside of Tel Aviv. And basically we see, let's say, this specific area is growing very nice. New clients, good market fit. for EDCO in this specific region. And the same story goes for APAC. Actually, APAC is building a very nice momentum after the downtrend that we saw post-COVID. And I think a lot of the growth that we see in the APAC region is coming also from technology-related products like MediaBlast and other products.

Thank you, Omri. One more question from Ryan. Has EMA revenue decreased quite significantly? What's the reason for this?

So I think like I mentioned also in my previous quarter, we see, I would say, general weakness in this specific region. I think a lot of this is connected to, let's say, geopolitical challenges we see both in Europe because of the war over there and obviously the war in Israel as well. So that's not exactly helping. Having said that, we believe it's a temporary setback and we believe 2025 it will put in marriage and also to back to positive growth trend as well.

Thank you Omri. A question from Ahmed. Revenue on the top line is relatively flat year over year. Can you give a bit more information on the lack of growth?

So I think like two, I would say two remarks. EMEA is probably an important part of the story. Like you can definitely see it. If you grow in 20 or almost 30% in North America, revenue top line growth quarterly, and you grow by 26% in APAC, and you're still down in overall revenue, this means that let's say some region, which is EMEA, is going down. And I think that's the main story, the way we see it. Having said that, you know, for a company like Edco, we strongly believe that a far better indicator is a gross profit and gross margin. And we're happy to see a very positive trend over there. So even with a slight decrease in top line revenue, we still saw 12% year on year growth and gross profit. And even the nine months, the company is 7% year on year growth, which is positive. So I think as long as we can grow midline, I think I will take it in any given day on the expenses of, let's say, even top line growth. In an ideal quarter, obviously, you want to see all matrix moving in the right direction. But if I need to choose one, I would go for a gross profit in any given day.

Very good. Thank you, Omri. A question from Dan. R&D costs are relatively high for the quarter. Can you give us some information on where the money is going?

So Amit mentioned it before. It's got to do a lot of assets we started to amortize. And I think that's part of the things, right? Apps that we already developed and now we need to start to amortize. That's part of the story. And you're going to continue to see it. Having said that, you know, like we are proud in technology expenses. We believe technology is a key strategic differentiation for Edcore. And I think like if If these expenses are the product in our book, it's definitely technology expenses, the related expenses.

Thank you, Omri. Question again from Dan is, can you share an outlook on Q4 of 2024?

I wish I could. I would state the following. A, bear in mind that most of the spending in Q4 didn't really happen yet, right? So we're talking about Black Friday-related spending in the end of November, and then obviously holidays-related spending early December until even Christmas itself. So I think like most of the spending didn't really happen. So in a sense, yeah, we are maybe one and a half almost months into the quarter, but let's say in terms of revenue, we are still not there yet. So it's a bit too early to say. Having said that, when we look at, let's say, key budget, key clients, and we need to compare what the budget map look like, let's say 2024 compared to 2023, then I'm happy to report that most of these clients are growing a lot year on year, which is a very strong indicator for us. And basically we still have a positive trend and we still have a very high expectation for 2024, for Q4, sorry, 2024.

Thank you, Omri. And a question from Nick. It said, last quarter you provided an update on Media Blast. Is there any update on how the app is performing?

Yeah, so we continue to see a very positive trend in Media Blast. Actually, I can report that October 2024 was the strongest support in terms of MRR to date that we achieved. Also in terms of overall, let's say, revenue budget was going through the system. So I think it's looked very positive. Number of clients is a record high. So I think, again, middle-class is something that we see that, let's say, it's almost a wildfire effect in terms of the market react to this application, which we love to see.

Thank you, Omri. One last question from Nick is, are you working on any other apps?

Yes, so I mentioned before we are about to officially release or announce the release of a new app that's going to be massive. That's an app that we've been working on for almost one year now. You know, a lot of people, a lot of R&D time, a team that's been involved in this specific app is going to be expanded also behind marketing. So it's going to be more about B2B and sales in general. It's going to be very interesting. So stay tuned and hopefully the market will light this up as much as we like it and believe it. I think it can be massive for Edco for the years to come.

Thank you very much, Omri. That concludes the Q&A session for the call. Thank you, Omri, Amit, for your time and giving us your remarks. We appreciate your continued interest and support in ADCOR. If you do have any remaining questions, please feel free to reach out to myself. Thank you all for joining and have a great day.

Thank you, guys.