EuroBusiness Media (EBM): Criteo, the performance marketing technology company, reports Q1 results for 2016. Here to talk about those results and the outlook for the year ahead is the company’s chief financial officer, Benoît Fouilland. Benoît, thanks for being with us today. Now Criteo just posted another strong quarter. Can you tell us a bit more about it?
Benoît Fouilland: Yes, we had another strong quarter of profitable growth. We exceeded guidance for the tenth consecutive quarter on both revenue ex-TAC and adjusted EBIDTA. Innovation on focused execution has fuelled our growth again. We grew revenue ex-TAC 41% at constant currency while we’ve been growing adjusted EBITDA at 56% at constant currency. So rapid growth and expanding profitability are really, truly distinct features of our business model.
EBM: Tell us, Benoît, what were the main achievements then in Q1?
Benoît Fouilland: In fact we performed well in all dimensions of our business. We rolled out innovation to all devices on all platforms. We had also our second largest quarter in terms of net client add and we continued to expand our relationship with publishers. Let me start with technology innovation. Mobile is driving more than 50% of our business and within mobile, in-apps is growing very fast. Our Universal Match Solution is enduring great momentum. And what we are observing is that users that we’ve matched before are in fact the ones who are the most valuable to us. We are generating more than 40% of our revenue ex-TAC from those users. Our first dynamic creative platform is now rolled out to all clients. As a result of this innovation, our existing clients generated 21% more revenue ex-TAC than they did a year ago. On the new client side, we added over 760 new clients in Q1. All of that while maintaining a high retention rate at 90%. Mid-market remains a very large opportunity. We believe we have only penetrated at 15% today. And we have seen mid-market growing over 80% in Q1. And all of that with the revenue ex-TAC per client which continues to grow nicely in the mid-market. And finally on publisher we have now, today, close to 5,000 clients live on DPA, on Facebook, both on mobile and desktop. Native continues to show very positive traction during the quarter and we’ve made some good progress on the in-apps side, particularly in mobile first markets.
EBM: Today you were talking us through the performance business by business, what would you say then about the regional performance of the company in Q1?
Benoît Fouilland: So let’s start with the Americas. The Americas grew 48% at constant currency in Q1 and Americas was the largest contributor to the growth in Q1 among the three regions. We’ve seen some solid growth from existing clients and on the new clients side we have signed several large clients in the quarter, including 3 among the top 100 in retail on travel in the US. Mid-market has been continuing to grow very fast at close to 100%. Let’s talk about EMEA now. So EMEA has been growing at 30% at constant currency in Q1, which is higher than what we expected, in fact we did well on all levels. On the large clients, mid-market as well as on the new, on existing clients. And we’ve seen continued double digit growth in the established market in EMEA. Finally, in Asia Pacific, we have been growing at 52% at constant currency. We’ve seen some strong traction from new business in Japan and South East Asia in particular. South East Asia, we are continuing to grow at triple digit rate in Q1. And finally, our Chinese export business has been accelerating.
EBM: Looking ahead then, tell us a bit about what you are focused on for the rest of 2016.
Benoît Fouilland: We remain focused on our four core priorities for the year. Our first priority is to innovate on our core product, in particular in our Universal Match Solution. The user graph that we are building is becoming a true strategic asset for Criteo. Second is to expand a great new source of inventory, with specific focus on social, native and in-app. Thirdly, to grow Asia. Asia Pac is a very important region for us and we want to grow our presence across South East Asia, India, where we are opening a subsidiary this quarter, as well as China. And, finally, fourth is to continue to develop disruptive new products. We are investing and making good progress and we remain very excited by the search opportunity.
EBM: Before we go then do you want to make a few comments to conclude what you’ve just told us?
Benoît Fouilland: Yes, in short, I’m pleased with the Q1 result. We have shown again that our model combines high growth and expanding profitability. And I’m excited about the outlook for 2016.
EBM: Benoît Fouilland, thanks very much indeed.
Benoît Fouilland: Thank you very much.
