CLIQ Digital AG

XETRA:CLIQ

Earnings Call Transcript 2023-Q1

[Sebastian McCoskrie, executive]

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to Cliq's First Quarter 2023 Video Webcast. Please note that the disclaimer shown and that this call is being recorded. The visual audio and/or transcription of this call may be published, including any of the data arising therefrom. [Operator Instructions]

After the presentation, we will answer questions sent in by e-mail prior to this call. I will now hand over to our CEO, Luc Voncken, who will lead you through this webcast. Luc, the floor is yours.

[Luc Voncken, executive]

Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to our first quarter 2023 results presentation. I'm Luc Voncken, Cliq Digital's CEO. I'm joined today by Sebastian McCoskrie, our Head of Investor Relations, who will later on read out the questions you have currently submitted to us by e-mail. First off, I will walk you through our first quarter operational and financial results, and then I will answer the questions.

Let me begin, though, with a brief introduction to Cliq. Our vision at Cliq Digital is that we believe streaming content should be accessible to everyone. And our mission is to bring simplicity to the streaming market by creating all-in-one streaming services that go beyond one content category.

Our value chain, our value chain you see in this picture. At Cliq, we sell subscription-based streaming services that bundle movies and series, music, audiobooks, sports and games to consumers globally. But how do we do that?

Well, first of all, we license streaming content from partners across multiple categories, ranging from movies and series, music, audiobooks to sports and games. Then we bundle it. We store it. We bundle and create digital content. And within our Cliq Tech Hub, we combine our data-driven marketing and business intelligence with our digital content warehouse.

And then, of course, we are going to sell. We are experts in online advertising of our own streaming services. We spark the interest of the online consumer in our streaming service via our well-designed banner followed by a membership offer, which includes a free trial period.

To summarize it, then you see it here our strategic focus. We do our numerous streaming services, which we promote in Europe, North America and Latin America. And of course, we are very proud of our flagship service, cliq.de, in the German market.

Ladies and gentlemen, 2023 has gotten off to an excellent start, and our multiyear growth story continues. We have once again delivered double-digit growth rates, both top and bottom line. Our marketing activities increased by 46% with a clear focus on advertising our bundled content streaming services.

To increase our reporting transparency and facilitate better peer comparison, management has decided to no longer report on paid memberships, which included also member numbers that have signed up for 2 of our services. From now on, we are getting and setting a much stricter standard and only disclosing our unique member numbers. And this grew from 1.1 million year-on-year to 1.2 million at the end of March 2023.

Group sales were up 58% year-on-year and came in at EUR 83 million in the first quarter 2023, the highest level ever. And we also grew our staff members further. At the end of March, we had year-on-year 19 additional employees on the payroll, enlarging our headcount to 170 from 38 different nationalities. Without our amazing staffers, our multiyear growth story would never be possible.

Another record breaker in Q1 was the EBITDA, which grew by 54% to EUR 13 million Consequently, our EBITDA margin remained strong and stable at around 15.5%, which was roughly on the level of prior year's first quarter margin. Bottom line, our EPS was EUR 1.26 on the back of EUR 8 million profit for the period, a growth of 40% against prior year's first quarter. We also generated a decent cash flow with an improvement versus 2022, which resulted in an EUR 11 million net cash position at the end of March. And cash is famously king at Cliq.

Overall, very satisfactory results and a big thank you to all our related Cliqers who helped us level up in the first quarter 2023. Ladies and gentlemen, in the first quarter, we exceeded market expectations throughout the whole income statement. Our actual sales and earnings outperformed expectations by 24% and 28%, respectively, as you can see here. And estimated EPS was exceeded by EUR 0.23, an upside of 22%.

Let's go, ladies and gentlemen, to our operational highlights. First quarter saw some key operational highlights with regard to our flagship bundled content streaming service at Cliq, which we named cliq.de, which is ours and a personal dream come true. But allow me first to elaborate on our products and what makes us different.

If we go to our number of streaming services, then you see, which is a core of our unique business model and distinguishing feature from competitors, and then we see our competitors, the streaming providers and online advertisers.

In a nutshell, we offer unique bundled streaming service propositions. We use multiple categorized marketing URLs for our online advertising. And we are focused on profitable gross margin in the first 6 months. And of course, we are aiming for further growth and global rollout of our numerous streamers -- bundled streaming services all over the world.

Then what makes Cliq as a company different? Well, to be precise, if you look to the service offering, we offer bundled streaming services proposition versus single-content categories. And we are very proud and have our in-house online advertising experts versus outsourced experts.

We are focused only on licensed content versus own productions of content because that's far too expensive. Numerous streaming services we offer versus just one streaming service. And our KPI to manage our business is we are focused on profitable sales growth versus just sales growth.

To recap, our new service cliq.de was soft launched at the end of last year in Germany and is our first service to bear our company's name. In the first quarter, we added to cliq.de more attractive licensed content. The offering now includes over 50 Hollywood blockbusters from New Regency such as Fight Club, Mr. & Mrs. Smith and Birdman.

And furthermore, Cliq secured the exclusive DACH broadcasting rights for 7 ATP World Tour 250 tournaments in 2023 and will show the most relevant matches live all Cliq.de and in full length. Coming soon will be DAZN RISE, the first-ever channel in Germany to broadcast only women sporting events and DAZN FAST, which broadcasts all-day, high-quality sports content exclusively licensed or produced by DAZN.

Furthermore, thousands of hit songs and themed party mixes will soon be available for the whole family singing karaoke and interacting with other members. And last but not least, thanks to a new licensed content agreement with Zebralution, the audiobook and audio plays library, will be expanded with thousands of titles from acclaimed German publishing houses such as Bastei Lübbe, thus making this already popular content vertical even more attractive to all audiences and age groups, of course.

Internationally, we added in the first quarter also over 1,000 movies and series to our Latin American streaming services. In February, we kicked off cliq.de's brand marketing campaign. And since then, we have aired over 1,000 15- and 30-second commercials on TV in April. The centerpiece of the commercials is the family Schmidt who, with a touch of humor, personifies the different streaming needs of a stereotypical German family.

The mother likes listening to music. The father watches films. The daughter is a gamer. And the son is a fan of audiobooks. And then we have grandpa. He is sportsman. And our best of alles retails for EUR 6.99 per month, a simple and convenient content bundle for the whole family. I will show you one of the spots in a moment, and probably you have seen it already live on your TV in Germany.

In addition, we have also started a digital out-of-home advertising campaign and our first product placement. As an initial result of the brand marketing, I'm very proud to see that our new Cliq brand has been nominated for the annual German Brand Award 2023 in 2 disciplines. This is one of the most prestigious brand awards, both nationally and internationally.

The German Design Council has nominated Cliq's products and brand launch for its outstanding brand work in the award categories, Excellence in Brand Strategy and Creation as well as for Excellent Brands. Fingers crossed for the awards ceremony in Berlin on the 15th of June. Let's go to see the family -- Schmidt family spot.

[Presentation]

[Luc Voncken, executive]

We very much like it, and I hope you, too, do. Ladies and gentlemen, here you can see examples of our first digital out-of-home advertising media with moving videos installed in Frankfurt am Main at the main and the airport train stations. We can create brand awareness.

These advertising spaces offer high visitor densities and an ideal communication environment for younger target groups. Furthermore, we advertised the Cliq streaming service during the Berlin International Film Festival, Berlinale, a truck with a high resolution, solar-powered mobile LED billboards on all 4 sides drove around Berlin to spark the interest in the new brand and engage with film fans in particular.

With this special campaign, we were able to reach over 207,000 contacts. By the end of June, we want to generate 0.5 billion impressions and reach 65% of all Germans aged between 18 and 64 years old. Ladies and gentlemen, allow me now to walk you through our financials.

Here, we show the breakdown of sales by service and region. We have taken the strategic decision to focus mainly on bundled content sales from 2023 on. In the first 3 months of 2023, our bundled content streaming services drove sales by 79% and constituted 93% of our total sales. Compared with the prior year's share, you can really see what a growth driver bundled content services are for Cliq.

Geographically, North American and European sales grew year-on-year at the same height base, with North America making up more than half of the group's total sales. Latin America sales grew strongest in comparison to the fourth quarter and contributed already EUR 3 million sales in Q1. Our strong EBITDA margin remained stable at 50%. And bottom line basic EPS was up 40% against prior year at EUR 1.26.

In line with our higher sales development in the first quarter, cost of sales, including our higher marketing costs to acquire more members, increased. Operating expenses grew mainly due to the higher IT costs resulting from more content and member traffic as well as by the higher staff count.

We are a growth company with a proven successful and profitable business model, and our multiyear growth story continues. If you calendarize the Q1 sales and earnings figures achieving our 2023 guidance is well supported. We continue to broaden our member-targeting options for bundled content services also on new advertising platforms as well as new media sources and exchanges to best reach the group's target audiences.

Our marketing spend in the first quarter, as you can see here on the left, was 40% -- 46%, sorry, year-on-year to EUR 33 million, our highest amount ever. However, our 6 months' profitability index was 1.28x compared to 1.48x in the first quarter last year.

This decrease was related to a general hike in customer acquisition costs across all regions, the cost of testing new advertising platforms and new countries as well as changes in the key account management setup on advertising platforms, which led to a temporary increase in the customer acquisition costs.

Conversely, the expected average lifetime value of a new member during the first quarter increased to around EUR 79 against EUR 71 in 2022. This increase shows the group's strengthened focus on selling bundled content services, and hence, the growing sales share of bundled content service memberships in our product portfolio.

On the right, we show the number of unique members and their present value. We have changed the reporting of our member numbers. To increase our reporting transparency and improve peer comparison going forward, the group will disclose unique paying member numbers. The previously reported paid memberships included members who signed up for 2 services.

The number of members for bundled and single-content streaming services increased to 1.2 million compared with the first quarter in 2022, 1.1 million. The lifetime value of our customer base as at the quarter end grew to EUR 147 million, which is an increase of EUR 43 million compared to last year. The higher value was the result of the increase in the number of members to 1.2 million and the higher share of bundled content streaming services within our total sales.

In the first quarter, our marketing costs were up by EUR 13 million and totaled EUR 30 million. The higher marketing costs were driven by 3 factors: first, by elevated online advertising market prices, which is, in my view, a short-term pain for a long-term gain; secondly, by diversifying our media platforms and the sourcing new traffic sources; and thirdly, of course, testing new countries. Incidentally, the brand marketing cost for the flagship streaming services, cliq.de, were directly expensed and not capitalized.

And let's go to the cash. We generated EUR 1.4 million in operating free cash flow in the first quarter. Despite the higher marketing spend and the collection of a significant amount in trade receivables, just after the reporting date, the cash inflow from operating activities during the first 3 months of 2023 amounted to EUR 4.1 million against EUR 1.6 million in the first quarter last year.

The cash outflow in the first quarter from investing activities was EUR 2.8 million compared to EUR 1.5 million in 2022 and was largely related to investments relating to Cliq as well as the payments for licensed content. Incidentally, we have entered into a new EUR 15 million credit facility agreement with the HSBC last month, which comes at more favorable terms and conditions.

Why have we downsized? Our previous facility was too large as we never fully utilized it as our cash flow generation is strong. On top, the provision thereof came at a not inconsiderable costs, given the recent Euribor hikes.

Looking at the balance sheet. Our total assets grew to EUR 139 million, and our equity ratio amounted to 65%. The increase in trade and other receivables of EUR 6 million since the year-end close was a result of higher trade receivables, which were largely collected just after the reporting date. At the end of March, we were debt-free with 0 bank borrowings, and our cash position was EUR 11 million. As I said earlier, cash is king.

Ladies and gentlemen, consumer sentiment is likely to remain muted over 2023 as consumers are hit by inflation and higher mortgage rates, for example. Nevertheless, with our first quarter results, Cliq has further demonstrated its ability to achieve double-digit growth and report improvements in sales, earnings and cash flow versus 2022.

We are pioneering the German streaming service market with our value-for-money bundled content service, Cliq, cliq.de. On the back of this record-breaking set of Q1 results, 2023 has gotten off to an excellent start with our increased marketing converting into impressive sales and earnings growth and gladly reiterate our 2023 outlook shown here.

In 2023, we will become even stronger and more relevant. We expect sales to exceed EUR 345 million, driven by strong marketing activities, over EUR 120 million of marketing spend is expected and investments into additional attractive content. EBITDA is expected to exceed EUR 50 million, continuing the group's track record of strong profitability.

Also, our long-term growth runway remains highly attractive, and we are well on track to achieve our midterm outlook of EUR 0.5 billion in sales. Ladies and gentlemen, at the first quarter in 2023, that was our best first quarter ever in our company's history. Thank you all Cliqers to achieve that. Thank you for your kind attention. And I shall now begin our question-and-answer session.

Sebastian, our first question, please.

[Sebastian McCoskrie, executive]

The first question comes from Ralf from Quirin. How much did the flagship bundled streaming service in Germany contributed to Q1 sales?

[Luc Voncken, executive]

Well, in general, we only disclose regional sales splits. With regard to our flagship service, cliq.de, the full marketing push, including multichannel brand marketing campaigns, only fully kicked in off in April. That's why the sales contribution from cliq.de to our EUR 33 million sales was very limited. Also, the 30-day free trial period has a material deferred sales effect.

[Sebastian McCoskrie, executive]

Ralf's next question is on which TV channels can the commercials be seen for the new streaming service?

[Luc Voncken, executive]

Well, Ralf, since February, we have aired over 1,000 15- and 30-second spots. The 7 mainstream TV channels were in April ProSieben, SAT.1 Gold, SAT.1, SAT.1 Gold, sixx, ProSieben MAXX, Kabel Eins, Kabel Eins Doku. In addition, we will be airing on the channels of 3 of our content partners, [indiscernible] Motorvision, Motorsport.tv and Your Family Entertainment.

[Sebastian McCoskrie, executive]

And Ralf's final question, end of April 2023, Cliq terminated the financing facility provided by the consortium of Commerzbank and Deutsche Bank and simultaneously entered into an overdraft facility with HSBC for an amount of EUR 15 million and improved terms and conditions. Why was the agreement terminated? And why was the amount reduced to EUR 15 million?

[Luc Voncken, executive]

Well, the previous financing deal with the consortium of Commerzbank and Deutsche Bank was concluded in 2022. The first talks about the extension of the agreement started already in 2021. Since then, the financial position and cash flows of the company improved significantly in correspondence with higher revenues and earnings.

The structure with the consortium was no longer the best fit for Cliq Digital as per today. Moreover, the structure is quite expensive, taking into account the positive net cash position of the company over the last quarters, and therefore, limited use of the facility.

Next to this, the reporting requirements on a monthly and quarterly basis are labor-intensive, especially taking into account the limited use of the facility. For those reasons, we have terminated the agreement and have entered into a new agreement with HSBC with more favorable terms and conditions. The maturity of the agreement with HSBC is indefinite.

[Sebastian McCoskrie, executive]

Our next questions come from Mr. [indiscernible]. His first question is, is it correct that around 700,000 members have subscribed to 2 or more services? What is the number of multiple subscriptions?

[Luc Voncken, executive]

Yes, that number is correct. As explained in the call, we have a number of streaming services live for which customers can subscribe. We have indeed a significant number of members who signed up for 2 subscriptions, which as of now will be reported as one unique member.

[Sebastian McCoskrie, executive]

In light of the change in member count, what number is now expected as of 2025?

[Luc Voncken, executive]

Well, from 2023 on, we have decided to no longer provide guidance on future member numbers in the short and the medium term. Our midterm guidance for sales of EUR 0.5 billion remains.

[Sebastian McCoskrie, executive]

On Page 21 of the slide deck, it states contract costs were EUR 2 million lower than in Q1 2022. How do you explain this against the background of more content and new regions?

[Luc Voncken, executive]

Well, the contract costs relate to customer acquisition costs that are capitalized and amortized over the members' life cycle. The main driver of the contract costs on the balance sheet is the actual marketing spend for the period. As a result of improved content and new regions, marketing spend increased and resulted in increased customer acquisition.

In the first quarter 2022, the contract costs on our balance sheet increased by EUR 5 million to EUR 23 million. The increase in the first quarter of this year is EUR 3 million to EUR 43 million. This means that although the movement in the first quarter was less than in the prior year, the total amount of contract costs is significantly higher because of increased marketing activities.

[Sebastian McCoskrie, executive]

Can you please explain the item other working capital in more detail?

[Luc Voncken, executive]

Yes, okay. The changes in other working capital relate mostly to the EUR 5.5 million higher trade receivables and current assets balance due to the significant payments received after the reporting date, to be precisely on the 3rd of April.

[Sebastian McCoskrie, executive]

Can you please provide a brief insight into the experience and developments at Cliq.de?

[Luc Voncken, executive]

Yes, I'm happy to do. Marketing on all channels, TV, online, social and digital out-of-home has started since February and ramped up at the beginning of April. Based on our first impressions and ratings our consumers like the product, the pricing and the all-in-one principle, we have good reviews and app store ratings. And we, of course, also received good constructive feedback.

Like when are you live on Samsung TVs or will offer additional payments like PayPal. Currently, we are available on Samsung Android TVs, and we are in the approval process to launch our app on Samsung's own operating system, Tizen. And PayPal, for example, as an additional payment method will become available this quarter.

[Sebastian McCoskrie, executive]

Our next questions are from Marie-Therese from NuWays Hauck. The annualization of Q1 leads to your guidance. Can we expect sales and earnings to be evenly spread over the year? Or is an acceleration beyond this possible?

[Luc Voncken, executive]

Well, welcome, Marie-Therese. We are well on our way to achieve the guidance and currently have no reasons to update the guidance provided.

[Sebastian McCoskrie, executive]

How have marketing prices evolved in percentage terms compared to Q1 '22 and to Q4 '22?

[Luc Voncken, executive]

Well, as explained during the presentation, the advertising prices increased over the last year. The advertising prices differ per country and per brand, and the overall increase is also impacted by the country mix. To increase the advertising volume, we increased the bidding for our offers, resulting in higher customer acquisition costs. However, this resulted in higher advertising volumes, generating higher absolute gross margins.

[Sebastian McCoskrie, executive]

How much of the cliq.de campaign costs will fall in Q2 versus Q1? Was there a big impact already in Q1?

[Luc Voncken, executive]

Well, the cliq.de campaign costs in the first quarter were not material. The big launch of the marketing campaign was in April. So the costs are expected to increase in the second quarter.

[Sebastian McCoskrie, executive]

Are you planning further country rollouts for branded multi-content portals similar to cliq.de? What would the time line be?

[Luc Voncken, executive]

Well, currently, our focus is on making cliq.de a success in Germany. Before launching into new countries, we will carefully monitor and evaluate the performance of our flagship store in Germany.

[Sebastian McCoskrie, executive]

Can we expect any M&A this year? If not, how do you intend to use the excess cash?

[Luc Voncken, executive]

Well, our focus is on further organic growth. And we currently have not identified any concrete big M&A targets. The cash as per the end of the first quarter in this year has been used for the payment of dividends in April and will be used to finance further organic growth.

[Sebastian McCoskrie, executive]

Can we expect any changes to your midterm 2025 guidance?

[Luc Voncken, executive]

Well, we confirm the guidance for the full year 2013, of course, and our midterm 2025 sales outlook.

[Sebastian McCoskrie, executive]

The next questions are from Nils from Montega. Cost of sales includes the item miscellaneous other operating expenses, which has increased by almost 60% year-on-year. Could you please break this down in more detail? What are your expectations for the development in full year 2023?

[Luc Voncken, executive]

Well, welcome, Nils. The other cost of sales relates to several costs that can be directly related to our revenues such as license content costs, transaction fees, customer care and other payment service provider costs. It can be expected that these costs will roughly follow the revenue trends.

[Sebastian McCoskrie, executive]

Regarding marketing expenses, brand marketing campaigns immaterial. Does this include the promotion of cliq.de? If not, how high was the share of expenses allocated to marketing cliq.de?

[Luc Voncken, executive]

Well, the cost for the brand marketing campaigns of cliq.de are not material in comparison to the EUR 33 million of total marketing spend. For competitive reasons, we don't provide any details on country or brand level.

[Sebastian McCoskrie, executive]

Some of the paying memberships reported are double counts. Same member has a single and a multi-content membership. Q1 report shows that in the course of the customer journey, credit card payers, 93% of revenue will only be able to purchase one membership in future. What will the effect of this be on the number of memberships?

[Luc Voncken, executive]

Well, thank you for the question. And as a result of this strategic decision we made, the number of paid memberships is expected to decrease. At the long term, this number will equal the number of members. The impact on the revenue is very limited due to the lower pricing of a second service and optimization of the customer journey and service setup of our bundled content streaming services.

[Sebastian McCoskrie, executive]

Next question on the progress in streamlining the scope of consolidation. Vipmob B.V. liquidated in Q1 when other companies classified as inactive in the previous annual report, TMG Singapore and Guerilla Mobile Asia Pacific are expected to follow.

[Luc Voncken, executive]

Well, TMG Singapore and Guerilla Mobile Asia Pacific are both in liquidation. The expectation is that this will be finalized in 2023.

[Sebastian McCoskrie, executive]

And his last question, investment cash flow of EUR 2.8 million versus EUR 1.5 million in Q1 '22, what proportion of this is accounted by investments to cliq.de?

[Luc Voncken, executive]

Well, we invested EUR 1.9 million in total platform development, which included cliq.de.

[Sebastian McCoskrie, executive]

Our next question comes from [indiscernible]. Is there a pattern of seasonality in each of the 4 quarters, i.e., is Q1 normally one of your weaker quarters?

[Luc Voncken, executive]

Well, [ Matthew ], there is not really a clear seasonal pattern in our business model. However, the revenues and earnings for a period are always derived on the one hand from existing members at the end of previous period; and on the other hand, new members acquired during the period.

[Sebastian McCoskrie, executive]

Our next question are from Milo from Edison. His first question, how do you envisage AI benefiting or hindering your market offering?

[Luc Voncken, executive]

Well, thank you, Milo, for this question because it's a hot topic. At Cliq, we have been working with AI for many years already within our media buying department on diverse advertising platforms. As artificial intelligence has now become also available to the general public, we are seeing already now also a lot of benefits, for example, within our content creation teams within Cliq.

[Sebastian McCoskrie, executive]

Will you be doing further marketing campaigns for cliq.de?

[Luc Voncken, executive]

Yes, of course, we have launched the marketing campaigns in April this year and will launch new campaigns going forward.

[Sebastian McCoskrie, executive]

How have you found the launch in Latin America? Could you give an indication of the competitive environment?

[Luc Voncken, executive]

Yes. We have launched Latin America in 2022 and are very satisfied with the performance so far. It's the same competitive field as in Europe or North America and also includes, of course, several local players.

[Sebastian McCoskrie, executive]

You've reported a lower profitability index month-on-month. Is this indicating customers are staying for a longer period, given the metric is over 6 months?

[Luc Voncken, executive]

Well, as you know, the profitability index is calculated for the first 6 months and is an internal very important KPI to measure the profitability of our new sales. In this KPI, the revenue after 6 months is not included. However, customers remain subscribed for a longer period than the 6 months, as you also have seen on the lifetime value of a customer, which went up.

[Sebastian McCoskrie, executive]

Our last questions are from Felix from Warburg. He asks, why is the financial results so clearly negative despite no more bank liabilities?

[Luc Voncken, executive]

Hi, Felix, and welcome in the call. As disclosed in Note 9, we have reported a negative FX result of EUR 178,000 in the first quarter of 2023 compared to a positive FX result of EUR 22,000 prior year.

[Sebastian McCoskrie, executive]

How low will the profitability index go down? One could continue to show nice growth there and tolerate a profitability index in the direction of one. But what's the plan here?

[Luc Voncken, executive]

Well, as explained during the call, the customer acquisition costs are temporarily higher due to several reasons. We are convinced that we are able to increase conversions again, which will have a positive impact on the profitability index because that's our DNA.

[Sebastian McCoskrie, executive]

And last but not least, what is the medium-term plan for dealing with the cash flow shown? There are basically only a few options here. Either it will be repaid in full to the shareholders or the company will continue to make acquisitions or grow extremely strongly organically or the company will be chronically over-financed. Which one is chosen?

[Luc Voncken, executive]

Well, Felix, since the full year 2019, 40% of our growing annual net profit has been paid out to shareholders as a dividend. The remaining cash flow has been used to finance significant growth of the company, which is expected to increase shareholder value and returns. Currently, we don't see any reasons to change this successful strategy.

Ladies and gentlemen, that was our last question. Thank you for attending our video call today. If you have any further questions, please get in touch with Sebastian or Julián. Have a great day. And for those StarWars fans out here, May the 4th be with you. Thank you.