Interim trading statement

RNS Number : 9666M

Ebiquity PLC

03 August 2017

 

Ebiquity Plc                                          

("the Company")

Interim trading statement

Ebiquity plc, the leading independent marketing analytics specialists, today announces its trading statement for the 6 months ended 30 June 2017 ("the period").

Ebiquity's total revenues have grown by 5% over the period, with operating profit and earnings anticipated to be in line with market expectations.

During the period we continued to deliver against the milestones set out within our Growth Acceleration Plan. As planned, we organically expanded our Marketing Effectiveness practice into Europe and Asian markets, recruited dedicated business development staff in selected markets, and invested into internal support functions.

Additionally we launched the Ebiquity "Media Transparency Score" to help advertisers understand how well their business operations perform in achieving the level of media transparency they desire from their marketing activities, and "Total View Attribution" which enables clients to improve the return on investment of their media, by enabling them to understand which media channels and campaigns (both online and offline in combination) are the most effective and warrant increased investment.

Revenues from the Media Value Measurement ("MVM") practice achieved high single digit growth, benefitting from strong performance from our Contract Compliance business as clients are more focused on achieving media transparency. However, the performance of our US MVM business was softer than anticipated during the period, due to a lower rate of client renewals. We are in the process of strengthening our US team in response to these changing client demands.

The Market Intelligence ("MI") practice revenues from our platform business (Portfolio), which accounts for over 90% of MI revenue, increased over the period. We launched our Portfolio Digital service in Asia Pacific and Europe, which combined with high renewal rates, has driven a return to revenue growth. As expected, revenue from our project based reputation business declined in the first half.

Within the Marketing Performance Optimization ("MPO") practice our Marketing Effectiveness revenues continued to grow, most notably from our UK business. Additionally, during the first half of the year in line with our Growth Acceleration Plan we recruited Marketing Effectiveness practice leaders in Germany, France and Singapore.  Performance from our US based Multi-Channel Analytics practice fell behind expectations due to organisational changes at some of our largest clients.

Whilst the first half of the year has been softer in the US, we anticipate stronger performance from the US MPO and MVM in the second half of the year and we are pleased that the MI practice has returned to growth following high renewal rates and new product launches. Management anticipate that full year trading will be broadly in line with market expectations.

The Company will release its interim report for the 6 months ended 30 June 2017 on 26 September 2017.

3 August 2017

Enquiries:

Ebiquity plc Michael Karg (CEO) Andrew Noble (CFO)	020 7650 9600
Instinctif Partners Matthew Smallwood Guy Scarborough	020 7457 2020
Numis Securities Limited Nick Westlake (NOMAD) Toby Adcock (Corporate Broker)	020 7260 1000

 

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