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spk01: we think are relevant to investors as well. Before we begin with prepared remarks, just a couple of comments. Today's call will contain forward-looking statements that are based on current assumptions and subjects to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected, and the company undertakes no obligation to update these statements except as required by law. Information about these risks and uncertainties are included in the company's filings, as well as periodic filings with regulators in Canada and the United States, which you can find on CDAR and Zoom's website. Today's discussion will include adjusted financial measures, which are non-IFRS measures. These should be considered as a supplement to and not a substitute for IFRS financial measures. Finally, today's event is being recorded and will be available for replay through the webcast information provided in the press release. With that said, let me now turn the call over to Amit Bohensky, founder and chairman of ZUNT. Amit, please proceed.
spk00: Thank you, Ben, and good morning to all of you. We are excited to speak with you today regarding our first quarter 2024 results. Today, I'm going to provide an overview of our achievements for the first quarter of 2024, where I would like to share with you the remarkable performance we demonstrate. From a big picture standpoint, as discussed in our last conference call, in the course of the last two years, the company is encountering a challenging economic environment, primarily driven by significant macroeconomic changes. These changes had profound impacts on the global business landscape, particularly within the advertising sector which is the company's primary domain of operation. In response to these challenges, the company's management team undertook a series of strategic actions aimed at mitigating the impact on the company's financial health and positioning the company for a suitable growth including the following actions. The strategic decision to cease operations in certain business lines and refocus companies' efforts and own technology on core user acquisition activities. This decision was informed by the maturization and underperformance of several companies' product development efforts as well as shifts in niche markets where companies search engine solutions for publishers operated. Implementation of substantial cost reduction measures across various areas of the company aiming to streamline operations and improve efficiency. Initiatives to diversify the company customer portfolio both in terms of operational segments and geographic reach, to build a more resilient and robust business model. Today, I can inform you that the financial outcome of these strategic decisions led to significant improvements. Although the company discontinued several operations that are no longer aligned with the company's vision, the company succeeded in increasing revenues by 1% in Q1-24 compared to Q1-23. Following the implementation of this strategic decision announced June 2023, revenues have consistently increased quarter over quarter with a 6% rise in Q4-23 and a 16% rise in Q1-24. Furthermore, the company reduced operating costs by 31% excluding impairment costs from 4.1 million dollars in q123 to 2.8 million in q1 of 24. the increase in revenues combined with the decrease in operating costs led to a consistent improvement in companies financial results this strategic decision were implemented in q2 of 23 In Q3 of 23, the operating loss was reduced by approximately 90% compared to the previous quarter in Q4 of 23. The company transitioned from operating loss to an operating profit. And in Q1 of 24, the operating profit increased approximately 950% compared to the previous quarter, totaling $0.6 million. These measures contributed to a $1 million growth in terms of adjusted EBITDA from $0.2 million in Q1 of 2023 to $1.2 million in Q1 of 2024. Additionally, the company achieved a crucial financial milestone by generating a net income of $0.5 million in Q1 of 2024. After six consecutive quarters with a net loss, this strategic refocusing has not only improved the company's financial standing, but also facilitated better internal alignment of teams and goals. Management is encouraged by early signs of improvement in the sales funnel for the company's offerings. The decisive actions taken by management have laid a solid foundation for Zoom's future growth and stability. The company remains committed to adapting its strategies in response to evolving market conditions and opportunities, with a steadfast focus on delivering value to the company's stakeholders. Following these points, this morning, I would like to discuss three important areas for Zoom. These areas are our customers, the development of our product and service offering, and last year improvements to address market trends. I want to begin with our customer base. We are focusing on growth sectors such as e-commerce, iGaming, transportation, and customer product goods, sectors known for their stable growth patterns and elevated profit margins. We have deepened our activity with current customers as well as expanding to new customers. Consistently, our revenues have consistently quarter over quarter with a 6% raise in Q4 23 and a 16% rise in Q1 of 24. Now, I want to move on to our product and service offerings. Our competitive advantage remains our 360 point of view for digital performance, all focused on achieving the goals of our customers. We offer various products and services, all focused on digital and mainly mobile performance. We have the ability to provide our customers a holistic range of products and services for achieving their digital performance KPIs. To that end, The company uses a combination of research, development, and acquisition to improve its offerings. Our main platform is integrated to hundreds of media sources, allowing us to promote customers' digital assets in multiple channels under one system, combining all data points into one point of view. We use a DSP for programmatic media buying. The DSP is integrated to approximately the biggest 30 mobile media exchanges, which give our customers full range and reach to their mobile web and app performance needs. We have the advertiser resources and maximize their advertising budget and efficiency. There is no dependency on any specific media supplier or traffic channel. This not only saves valuable time and resources for advertisers, but also provides enhanced clarity and consolidated insight. Additionally, our platform and products are designed for user-friendly operation, eliminating the need for software development kit implementation . In our prospective position as crucial layer within the ecosystem, the company stands strongly in the industry. Beyond the walled gardens like Google, Meta, and etc., the marketing landscape is very fragmented. Zoom enables advertisers to leverage a wide range and various types of media channels from social to programmatic OEMs, SDK networks, and more. Their KPIs are achieved on all channels together or as a mix. From the inception, of our acquisition services were exclusively tailored for apps. We have extended our services to encompass also standard web and mobile web traffic as well. Finally, I want to discuss results of Zoom's management action that occurred over the past year. Zoom's Q1 of 24 financial includes significant improvements across many financial indicators. The strategic refocusing has not only improved the company's financial standing, but also facilitated better internal alignment of the teams and goals. In conclusion, despite the headwinds faced in the past years, the decisive action taken by management have already shown consistent improvement in recent quarters, laying a solid foundation for future growth and stability. The company remains committed to adapting its strategies in response to evolving market conditions and opportunities, with a steadfast focus on delivering value to the company's stakeholders. Financial results. Now I will review the fourth quarter financial results in detail. Revenues. Revenues for the quarter were $8.7 million, reflecting a 1% increase comparing to the same period in 2023. Although the company discontinued several operations that no longer aligned with the company vision, company succeeded in increasing revenues in Q1 of 24 compared to Q1 23. Following the strategic actions executed by company's management team, revenues have consistently increased quarter over quarter with a 6% rise in Q4 of 23 and a 16% rise in Q1 of 24. Gross margins. Cost of sales for the first quarter were $5.3 million, reflecting a 2% increase comparing the same period in 2023. The increase corresponds to the increased rate in revenues. R&D and SG&A. The restructuring and refocusing are beginning to show results. As total, R&D expenses and SG&A expenses decreased in Q1 of 2024 by $1.3 million, compared to Q1 of 2023, reflecting 31% decrease. Adjusted EBITDA Adjusted EBITDA is used as a primary performance measure by the company's management to ensure it has the right structure to support future growth. We define adjusted EBITDA as earning before interest, tax, depreciation, one-time payments, and amortization as adjusted for share-based payments, non-recurring operating expenses, and impairment of intangible assets. Adjusted EBITDA in Q1 of 2024 was $1.2 million, compared to an adjusted EBITDA of $0.2 million in Q1 of 2023. The successful implementation of the restructuring caused a significant improvement in terms of adjusted EBITDA of approximately 119% when comparing Q1-24 with Q4-23. A full reconciliation of adjusted EBITDA is available in our MDNA filing. Cash. We have $2.3 million in cash on the balance sheet of Merge. We believe that Zoom's recurring revenues, in addition to its existing cash and cash equivalents and cash flow for operations with the implementation of cost-saving measures, will be sufficient to meet the company's working capital requirements and future growth plan. Now, for those who may be unfamiliar with the Zoom story, I would like to provide an overview of our business. Zoomed has developed and acquired proprietary patented technology and targets the needs of various segments of the digital marketing industry. Zoomed offers its services globally through its agents and other business partners all over the globe. As such, the company operates in collaboration with hundreds of publishers and global advertisers. The company aims to consistently provide significant added value to its customers. The company's services technology stack development roadmap focuses on creating technology solutions that seamlessly integrate with a range of digital media sources. Through this integration, the company aims to consolidate these sources, allowing its customers to achieve optimal value for their investments. The primary focus of this effort is directed toward enhancing user acquisition and retention strategies, tailoring them to the unique requirements of each media source on any screen or platform. Furthermore, the company maintains an ongoing commitment to staying attuned to the market dynamics and the changing demands of its customers. The company actively evaluates the inclusion of novel distribution media channels into its platform, this adaptive approach ensures that the company remains responsive to the evolving needs of its customer, contributing to its reputation as a forward-thinking and customer-centric company. The company is focusing its efforts, which are based on long-term trends within online advertising industry in line of its basic strategies of providing customers with digital mobile focused advertising technologies, products, and services for improving their media buying effectiveness, cost and measurement, and maximizing their user acquisition and retention costs. Enabling customers to manage their user acquisition campaign budgets on multiple digital channels, screens, platforms, including social networks, ad networks, exchanges, content discovery platforms, influencers, connected TV, all using data driven KPI based technology. Providing extra tools and features as part of its offering is an attempt to simplify campaign management tasks, such as extra tools and features include creative studio editing capabilities, for quick ad adjustments, extra layers of data from app stores, and unique optimization abilities for saving time and resources on campaign management tasks. Now for some concluding remarks. We remain optimistic about Zoom's long-term growth prospects. Our focus in the short term will be to continue with our healthy bottom line growth and improving cash flow. all while managing our balance sheet properly. We view this strategy as an important way to build a shareholder value and weather the Macronomics environment. Before I move to the questions, I want to thank to all our employees for their hard work and dedication, as well as our investors who have supported us. With that said, I will answer some of our investor questions and some questions that may be of interest to our investors.
spk01: Thank you, Amit. We have some questions for you. First, you provided a comprehensive overview of last year in terms of refocusing the company. In your assessment, what would you identify as the key change that best reflects this?
spk00: Identifying one clear indicator presents a challenge as there are multiple metrics showing that I think the consistent improvement in the company's operating income over the last quarter is a good example. It includes few key indicators. The company has achieved consecutive quarterly revenue growth over the past quarter. Additionally, In Q1, the company decreased operating costs by approximately $1.3 million compared to Q1 of 23. The simulation's effect of consistently decreasing costs while increasing revenue resulted in our operating income improving since Q2 of 23, coinciding with the refocusing period, progressing through the Subsequent quarters in Q3 of 23, the operating loss was reduced by approximately 90% compared to the preceding quarter in Q4 of 23. The company transitioned from operating loss to an operating profit in Q1 of 24. The operating profit surged by approximately 950% compared to the previous quarter.
spk01: All right, thank you. We have another question. Please elaborate on the restructuring measures you announced primarily if they'll affect the results going forward, or are they primarily one-time cost-cutting efforts?
spk00: The measures involve two areas. The first is the shutting down of some revenue streams with limited growth potential. The second measure focuses on operational expenses. Regardless, scrutinizing every expense to ensure it supports our business goals. While the impact on our expenses and bottom line will be most significant this quarter as one-time effect, we plan to maintain this disciplined approach moving forward. The operational excellence measures also included restructuring our organizational framework. We tore down walls between several teams. For example, sales, account management, and operations now report to the same C-level executive with unified goals and KPIs. We expect this alignment to drive greater efficiency and have a compounding effect on results over time.
spk01: All right, thank you. Looks like those are all the questions we have today. My thanks to everyone for participating in today's call. We look forward to hopefully speaking with you all again shortly.
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