ad pepper media International N.V.: Double-digit growth and record EBITDA in Q1; accelerated growth expected for Webgains in Q2

Nuremberg, Amsterdam, 23 April 2020

ad pepper media, one of the leading performance marketing providers in Europe, has started the 2020 financial year with significant revenue growth. Group revenue amounted to EUR 5,841k in the first quarter, corresponding to 15.7 percent growth (Q1 2019: EUR 5,048k). After an already excellent start to the year in the months of January and February, the final month of the first quarter saw a new revenue record of EUR 2,047k (March 2019: EUR 1,770k). This level is comparable with strong revenue months during the 2019 Christmas shopping season. EBITDA in the first quarter came out to EUR 1,120k, up by 57.9 percent compared to the first quarter of the previous year (Q1 2019: EUR 709k). This makes the first quarter the best in the company history in terms of both revenue and EBITDA. At segment level, EBITDA's are as follows: ad pepper generated EUR 704k (Q1 2019: EUR 530k, Webgains EUR 603k (Q1 2019: EUR 417k) and ad agents EUR 118k (Q1 2019: EUR 74k).

The worldwide spread of the COVID-19 pandemic since the beginning of March makes a reliable forecast with respect to our further business performance in the full year 2020 impossible at this point in time - despite record results in the first quarter. While we expect ad pepper media Group to benefit overproportionately from a significant acceleration of digitalisation trends in the medium to long term with corresponding shifts in advertising budgets towards online marketing, we see two opposing developments that will impact revenue performance in the short term: near-term cancellations of advertising budgets, especially in the travel, hotel and transportation sectors, will be offset by stable to positive budget developments, predominantly in the sports, leisure & hobbies, home & garden, toys & games and other sectors of the so-called "stay-at-home economy". In the month of March, we saw predominantly the positive effects. For the quarter ahead, we expect accelerated growth, in particular in the Webgains segment. Nevertheless, if the current situation were to persist or even deteriorate over the coming months, and if we are not able to offset the decline in sales with customers from the first category, negative effects may outweigh the positive ones.

All published figures are preliminary and unaudited. The report on the first three months will be published on 26 May 2020.

Key figures (unaudited) in EUR k:

For more information:
Dr Jens Körner (CEO)
ad pepper media International N.V.
+49 (0) 911 929057-0
ir@adpepper.com