oOh!media has announced continued double-digit growth in revenue (up 13.1%) and underlying EBITDA (up 22.5%), while delivering significantly improved operating margins for the year ended December 31 2017 (CY17).
Digital revenue as a percentage of total revenue increased to a record 59.8% for the full year, extending the strong first half gains in revenue from oOh!media’s digital network of 8,000 screens.
oOh!media increased its market share in the sector, which, according to the Standard Media Index, grew at 7.3% in 2017 compared to the overall media sector growth of 0.7%.
Financial highlights included:
• Revenue of $380.3m, up 13.1% from the year ended December 31 2016 (CY16), from strong organic growth and acquisitions made in CY16
• Gross profit of $175.5m, up 21.1% on CY16
• Gross profit margin of 46.2%, up from 43.1% in CY16
• Underlying EBITDA of $90.1m, up 22.5% on CY16 and within guidance reaffirmed at the half year result
Operational highlights included:
• Leading industry position maintained with 8,000 digital panels across Australia/New Zealand, 12,000 classic panels and eight online platforms
• Acquisitions integrated with cost synergies achieved
• Ground-breaking campaigns conducted in CY17
oOh!media’s CEO Brendon Cook (pictured above) said: “oOh! has delivered a quality financial result which continues the strong performance since our listing in 2014. The company has increased revenue by 46.0% and more than doubled underlying EBITDA to $90.1m since 2014.
“While the out-of-home sector has performed strongly, we’re growing our business faster than the market by continuing to lead the market in delivering innovative solutions for clients to integrate data and content as part of our audience-led strategy across our network.
“Over the course of the year we have worked with clients to deliver ground-breaking campaigns, leveraging our investment in data and audience insights, to deliver outstanding results for advertisers.
“The diversity and scale of our product offering across our physical assets, combined with engaging content and the ability to provide growing connections through online, mobile and social media provides a compelling opportunity to advertisers to connect with their desired audiences.
“We are confident that our investments in our portfolio, data capability, systems and people provide us further opportunity to leverage the scale of our platform to deliver the next phase of revenue growth and sustainable value creation for shareholders,” Cook said.
oOh!media product highlights include:
• Road and retail continued to deliver double-digit revenue growth, with road up 10.0% to $137.1m and retail increasing by 15.7% to $126.3m. Within road, 21 premium screens were converted to digital during the year, bringing the total of metropolitan-owned large-format digital screens to 64. The retail business has benefited from extensive digital capital investments in the prior two years.
• Fly revenue was impacted by reduced spend by three major advertisers, with revenue down 1.8% on the prior year to $55.0m. However, the business improved significantly late in the second half of the year as advertisers returned to the segment, with revenue in the fourth quarter up 15.0%, creating a stronger platform into CY18.
• Locate revenue increased by 17.4% to $34.0m, with a stronger performance in the second half of the year led by further development of the sales packaging and team development driving an improved market understanding of the office product.
• New Zealand revenue grew by 28.0% on an underlying basis excluding the Westfield concession, which in-housed its advertising at the beginning of the year as had been expected. On a reported basis, revenue in this market declined modestly by 2.2%.
• Revenue from Junkee Media and Cactus Imaging more than doubled to $18.3m.