Audioboom Group plc (BOOM) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Audioboom Group plc investor update. [Operator Instructions] The company may not be in a position to answer every question it receives during the meeting itself. However, the company will review all questions submitted there and publish responses where it is appropriate to do so. Before we begin, I'd like to submit the following poll. And if you could give back your kind attention, I'm sure the company would be most grateful. I would now like to hand you over to Stuart Last, CEO; and Brad Clarke, CFO. Good afternoon to you both.

Hi, everyone. I'm pleased to be joining you again, joining you today from a very snowy and very gloomy New York. I think there the good thing is that these Audioboom results that we're about to talk you through a much sunnier and much happier and the outlook is super bright for 2022 as well. So just really pleased to have you all here. Welcome to our shareholders. Welcome to anyone that's new to the business. We're going to step things back and take a look at Audioboom in terms of our business operations and our position in the industry and give some good background information. We'll then take a look at the 2021 results and finances in a little more detail. We'll go into 2022 and talk through our focus for the year ahead, and I think it's going to be a really exciting year. And then at the end, there's some time for some questions. So submit any questions that you have, we'll try and get to as many as possible. Things are always a little tight in these sessions because we got a lot to tell you about, but we will fit in as many of those questions as possible. You'll see in the trading update, I kind of describe 2021 as a transformative year for Audioboom, a year in which we redefined shareholder value. So we're coming into this in a very positive place. Last year, it was just fantastic for the company, for our investors, for our shareholders and the team, Audioboom, have just done an incredible job to build this business. So we're super excited to tell you more. Just by way of introduction for those that are new to the business, I'm Stuart Last, CEO of Audioboom, and I stepped up to the role of CEO 2 years ago. Previous to that, I launched Audioboom in the U.S. back in 2015 and was the Chief Operating Officer, ahead of the -- I have kind of a long history in podcasting and audio. I was an executive at our podcast business -- podcast tech business called Voxnest here in New York City before launching Audioboom here. And previous to that, I spent 10 years in audio and digital audio at the BBC in London. So go pretty kind of a deep in podcasting and I just love the business that we have here, Audioboom and I can't wait to do more. And I'll let Brad say hi and introduce himself.

Thanks, Stuart. Hi, everyone. Thanks, everyone, for joining this afternoon. I'm Brad, CFO, here at Audioboom. I've been here since March 2018. So that's coming up for 4 years. Like Stuart delighted to work here, very privileged to form a small part of this fantastic team who continue to break records in this very exciting, fast-moving industry, chartered accounts and been in and around media companies for, what, 15 -- 15 years or so in terms of finances. So lots of experience there, but it really is this company in this role, which genuinely excites me. I'm very pleased to form a part of it. And back to you, Stuart.

Thanks, Brad. And I'm just going to turn my camera off, so we can focus a little bit on the slides here. As I said, first section, we're really going to step this back and just look at the business model and the operations for those of you are new to the company or anyone that wants a recap. And I think the key thing here is just to highlight the really important position that the Audioboom plays in podcast, and we power podcasting. We sit between content, advertisers and audience, the 3 key elements of any media business. And our kind of key role here is to connect content with advertisers and then push it out to audience. So we sit in between content and advertisers. We take great content. We connect it up to the right brands and then we distribute to audiences globally at a massive scale. So we play an incredibly important role in the industry without being able to combine those 3 elements of podcasting, then there would be no ability to monetize, no ability to grow this industry, no ability for podcasting to become the fantastically engaged and powerful medium that it is. So Audioboom is power and podcasting, and we're empowering the content creators that we work with to build their podcast audiences and to monetize their content. At the heart of that connection that we create between advertisers, content and listeners is our platform, the Audioboom platform. So I want to kind of walk through that just a little bit. This is really driving those connections in that distribution and doing it at scale. So we've built out over the past 5 or 6 years, a very scalable technology platform. And that platform is the key reason why we can create that connection between advertisers and content. At the heart of the platform is a content management system that's allowing our podcast partners to upload their audio, to host their audio, to manage and to schedule the distribution of that audio, it's one click distribution out to Spotify and Apple Podcast and Google Podcast and all of those listener interaction points. And then it collects fantastic data and presents that back to the podcast producer to give real insight into audience and help them to improve their products. So that's the content management system, that's the heart of our platform. On top of that, we've built out an advertising technology stack to monetize that content. So it's an ad server. It's a yield up system that ensures we get the best pricing for all of our content. It's our recently launched AdRip inventory creation system, which is proprietary to Audioboom, doesn't exist anywhere else in the space and that removes baked-in host endorsement ads and replaces them with new ads to continually monetize and remonetize that content. And then it's our marketplace, which is our automated and programmatic advertising marketplace that launched in November, and it's already impacting and having a strong impact on the success of the business after just a few months. On top of that advertising tech stack, we've then built out an inventory management system that drives the entire process. It's based on Salesforce, delivers ad execution, automated billing, business intelligence around pricing and the ability for us to really optimize that business. So that's the platform. We still iterate on it. We still develop it. We still innovate around that. But essentially, that platform is there. It's built and it now powers a huge amount of content. So we have 8,000 podcast channels running through that platform. We reached 116 million plus downloads every single month, and we get into the ace of 32 million-plus unique listeners every single month. So we have some really good scale there. But that platform, as I've said before, is much more scalable than that. So we could be running 100,000 podcast channels through that platform. We could be reaching 1 billion monthly downloads and 100 million unique listeners and our platform can handle it, and it can help monetize and distribute at a huge volume. So the platform is super strong, and it really drives the core business through it. Then when we kind of look at how we work with content and what our revenue model is and the Audioboom revenue model is built around advertising, as I've said before, and connecting content with the right advertisers. And to do that, we have to match up the right content with the right types of brand and the right advertising model. On the left-hand side here, you see the types of content that we work with, bring those down into 3 categories. At the top, it's Audioboom Studios. These are our own productions. These are the shows that we create in-house or we could produce with a partner. We have production teams in the U.S. and in the U.K. There's fewer of those shows, just around 25 of those Audioboom Studio shows. But they are the most valuable shows to us, they come with the highest gross margin. We sell them at the highest advertising rates. Then beneath that is our Audioboom creator network. This is a much wider group of shows around 8,000 podcasts, just under 8,000 podcasts. These are shows that we don't create the content, the creator is making those podcasts independently, and we work with them to monetize and to distribute their content in their shows widely. And then the third kind of part of content is what I call it the podcast landscape. And these are podcasts that are not contracted to the Audioboom network. We don't have direct deals with those podcasts, but through the advertising model we have created. We can effectively still monetize any podcast that's in existence anywhere in the world, whether that be [indiscernible] America, whether that be [indiscernible], whether that be [indiscernible] in the U.K., it's pretty much any of the major podcasts out there. We can seek value and create value from those podcasts as well as the ones that belong to the Audioboom network. And how we do that is through our 3 advertising models. The first advertising model is a premium sales model. Premium sales are high-value advertising units that are voiced by the host of the podcast. So the podcast host is voicing those adverts, they're endorsing the products. They're engaging with their listeners around those products, and it allows us to sell them a very high advertising rates. And we can do that against Audioboom Studio shows and we can also do that against the top tier of our Audioboom creator network as well. The second advertising model that we have is recently launched and branded as Showcase. That's our global marketplace. And this is an advertising product that is infinitely scalable. It's all about volume, much lower pricing in there, but we can reach any podcast and we can continually remonetize that episode. So whether an episode is listen to today or in 10 years' time, the marketplace can continue to monetize that with fresh advertising. And again, the marketplace runs across Audioboom Studio shows, and it runs across the Audioboom creator network. And then the third piece in our advertising model is Sonic Influencer Marketing. Sonic Influencer Marketing can monetize content at Audioboom Studios in our creator network, but importantly, can also monetize content outside of the Audioboom network. So Sonic works directly with the advertiser and represents the advertiser and therefore, can go out and get beyond the Audioboom network to place advertising for that brand in any podcast that's available globally. So a great content and advertising model and this is at heart of our success in our revenue growth over the past few years. This slide, I think, breaks down the key revenue lines within the business, and I'll just talk you through that to give you some background, those key revenue lines being Audioboom Studios, the creator network showcases our marketplace and Sonic Influencer Marketing. The top section is highlighting the contribution to our group revenue. And then the bottom section there is the gross margin on each of those revenue lines. So you can see today that Audioboom Studios is a small part of our overall revenue but gives us the strong gross margin. And that's why it's important for us to continue to invest and build our Audioboom Studios, grow its contribution to group revenue. Our creator network is a key driver of revenue, 67% of our revenue comes from the work we do with those independent creators and monetizing it and distributing their content as a slimmer gross margin, around 23%, and that margin has slimmed just because of the competitiveness in the industry to sign and work with and represent those shows and the kind of influence, I think, over the past couple of years of the Hollywood talent agents who represent the key talent and key creators within that network that they can obviously use that leverage to get the best deals for their talent and we have seen a slimming of that gross margin on the creative network over the past couple of years, but 23% is a good place to be, and we'll hold that gross margin there in coming years. Showcase, that has a slightly stronger gross margin. Obviously, that's hitting both Audioboom Studios and the creator network and is 11% of our revenue contribution for 2021. And that's a key area of growth for us. As I said, it's extremely scalable part of the business. We expect that contribution to group revenue to grow significantly in 2022 and beyond. And then Sonic Influencer Marketing, fast area of revenue growth for us. It's gone from 0 to 18% in just the 2 or 3 years that it's been within the Audioboom Group, but comes with a slimmer gross margin. So it works on a 12% gross margin but is a very important part of the business. So hopefully, that slide just gives you a sense of those key revenue lines and how important and how they make up and come together to build this Audioboom business. And then I wanted to talk to you a little bit about the life cycle of a podcast because I think it really highlights the importance of having those various advertising models within the business. If you kind of take a look at this slide, what we're really showing here is that when an episode launches, the first window to monetize that episode is around 90 days. So we will sell a high-value premium host-read advertising unit into that episode. And that will be kept in the episode for the first 90 days. And we're charging somewhere around $30 for every 1,000 downloads of that episode during the first 90 days. We have 4 ad slots per episode on average. The host is voicing those advertisements and it's created strong engagement with the listener and good conversions and sales for the advertisers. So that's the product we sell in the first 90 days of an episode's life. 90 days where you see that red line, that's where our AdRip tool that we launched in July of last year really kind of comes into its own. That automates the removal of those premium ads after 90 days and replaces them with ad markers that allows us to remonetize that content. So as I say, there's an automated process. It creates a lot of man -- removes a lot of the need to manually edit content, which can be time consuming, takes a lot of resource. And again, it allows us to do this at scale on behalf of our content partners and our creators. After that 90 days, those ad markers are pushed into an episode, and we use Dynamic Ad Insertion to remonetize that content. So Dynamic Ad Insertion is automated advertising that gets pushed into the episode in real time, fresh ads for every lesson. It allows us to monetize at 90 days, but also allows us to monetize that content even if it's heard 10 years later. And we increased the number of ad slots in that episode, the pricing is lower, somewhere around $12 per thousand downloads, but the increase in the number of ad slots added generally shorter, maybe around 30 seconds rather than a minute, so we can increase the ad slots in each of those episodes and just continue to drive revenue to back catalog episodes. And I think in an earlier trading update, we talked about the level of consumption on Audioboom that is that first window or to the back catalog. That catalog consumption is now just under 50% of all consumption on Audioboom. So having the ability to remonetize and to do that at scale and do it in a very efficient, automated way is very important to this business and to be able to -- to do both parts of this is what a key differentiator between us and our competitors in podcasting. So that's the business. Hopefully, that gives you some good background on what we do and how we do it. Next let's take a look at 2021 and the performance and incredible year that we delivered during 2021. These are just the financial highlights, the big numbers. And you'll know these by now, I think, first 1 here, $60 million of revenue, that was 125% annual growth. So an incredibly strong year of growth for us. And just to highlight the Q4 revenue of $20.5 million as well. So we stepped that revenue up every single quarter and $60 million of revenue was just a fantastic place to end the year. Q1 here in the middle $3 million of adjusted EBITDA profit. We talked this time last year about the need to break even. We understood that where we needed to get this business to and we executed that. So that was a maiden EBITDA profit for Audioboom, just creating a self-sustainable business. It was so important to us, and we achieved that. And we went beyond that and we delivered $3 million there too. Also just to highlight the maiden net profit also of $1.4 million. So fantastic to get to that point or so. And the third key number here is that $3 million of cash. So a key part of that really for me is that we are fully funded for the current growth trajectory. So we don't expect to slow this thing down and that cash just allows us to keep building the business and to keep growing very strongly. The 2 other kind of indicators of our performance level here on this slide, it's not just about those revenue numbers and the profit numbers. And the cash number that I shared you before, this puts that performance of 2021 into some kind of context. The first chart on the left here is Audioboom's revenue growth versus the industry growth. And every single year since 2017, we have outperformed that industry growth. We did that again in 2021 significantly. We outperformed the industry by over -- industry growth by over 100%. So we are very quickly here gaining market share and making Audioboom a bigger part of a podcast industry that is already growing strongly. So that podcast industry is expected to hit 1.75 billion this year. And in that last 4 or 5 years, we'll have increased Audioboom's market share from less than 2% to around 5%. So we're growing that market share out quickly, and we expect that to continue into 2022 as well where we will be looking to outperform the wider market. The chart on the right is not about revenue, but it's about audience growth and obviously, audience growth is integral to revenue growth here. Audioboom is now the fourth largest podcast publisher in the U.S. per the Triton Digital podcast ranker, we started in 2021 in 6th position and moved up 2 positions across the year. We now reached almost 6 million U.S. listeners per week, which is a very strong number. But if you look at the annual change column there on the right-hand side. We move faster and quicker than any of our competitors. So again, we're not just increasing our position in the space, we're punching above our weight. When we look at our competitors, Stitcher Media is owned by Sirius XM. Odyssey Podcast belongs to a $1 billion radio company here in the U.S. Wondery is part of Amazon. Cumulus Media, another $1 billion radio corporation here in the U.S. So we are doing with this kind of pure-play focus on podcasting and the automation we've built into the business and the business model we've created, we are growing quicker and faster than any of our competitors. So again, by these measures, alongside the financial parts, 2021 was just a fantastic year for the business. And just want to look at why we grew so quickly and what the key drivers of that growth were in 2021. We've had this focus on content expansion, building bigger and stronger and more highly consumed content on top of that Audioboom platform over the past 2 years. And we did that again in 2021. We signed new partnerships and launched new content initiatives with some major podcasts; Dark History, Unfiltered, Redhanded, Mike Rowe, The Fantasy Footballers. These are all shows that have strong built-in audience levels that we were able to monetize on day 1 and to help them grow that audience and to charge that premium pricing for. So the continued focus on signing new content partnerships and growing the content footprint within the business. Second key driver is around pricing and the levels that we've been able to charge for those premium ad units. The numbers here are kind of staggering the price that we are charging for an ad unit in our top 25 shows grew to $9,000 in Q4 of last year versus the $600 a year earlier. So just the incredibly strong pricing growth because of the performance of those ads within our podcast and the demand to access that content. Another key driver was the Marketplace launch. Revenue from our ad tech just increased strongly across the year, 3.5x more revenue via the ad tech in December than in January of last year. So Marketplace showcased -- our Marketplace really consolidated all of our revenue from ad tech in 1 place. AdRip built the amount of inventory that was hitting that Marketplace and it led to some very strong growth across the year. And for December, we reached $1 million in monthly revenue from ad tech for the very first time. So a successful piece of work there that's ongoing around the Marketplace and that automated advertising part of the business. And then finally, I think another key driver here was the work that we did to create monetization in some of our other key territories. We've been strongly focused on the U.S. and the U.K. over the past 5 years. But we've built up a level of consumption in some other territories; Australia, India, Canada, the next 3 largest regions for listening for Audioboom. But we were not monetizing them effectively. So at the start of 2021, we signed new partnerships with Rogers Media in Canada, Australian Radio Network in Australia and Audioboom Studios in India to monetize the listening that's happening in those regions. And that led to an 8x increase in revenue from those regions between January and December 2021. So again, another kind of key driver of the revenue for Audioboom leading to a successful 2021. And this slide, I think, is just kind of worth highlighting. I think you know much of the detail behind this, you know the revenue growth, you know the EBITDA numbers, but you will just see the quarterly increase in revenue in the dark blue there is creating kind of a pretty beautiful pattern alongside the EBITDA increase and the move from being a loss-making business across 2020 to being a company that was in profit every quarter of the last year. So just a fantastic looking chart to show you there, but not want to need to go into too much detail about. And just to back up all of this stellar performance, I think, from Audioboom is just a look at those 3 key performance indicators that we talk about during every trading update that we have. The first 1 being global downloads. I kind of said it before, the more consumption to content via the Audioboom network, there is the more advertising inventory that we make available, the more chance there is to monetize it and to drive revenue. And across the whole of 2021, we built that download number up to a record of 116 million in October of last year, and the Q4 average was 113 million downloads a month. So we're really creating some great scale within the network and running through that platform. Brand count is a real -- really speaks to the pricing that we're able to achieve. The more brands that we work directly with particularly around that premium advertising model that we have, the more demand is created, the more we can improve our pricing and charge more for each of those ad units. And again, seeing record numbers across Q4. We worked with 409 advertisers directly in November, plenty thousands more via the Marketplace, but 409 directly in November for that record quarterly average of 396. So we keep that brand kind of growing that customer count growing over the year. And then finally, eCPM is our kind of our optimization metric, how much revenue we're able to extract from every 1,000 downloads across the platform. And again, we hit new records in Q4 of $56 per 1,000 downloads. And obviously, when the global downloads number is rising so quickly, we expect to see a little flattening out of that eCPM because we continue to attract more even though the number of downloads are going up. So great to see it still ticking up, but obviously, not as fast as it had been when downloads were a little flatter. So 3 just great-looking KPIs, all heading in the right direction. No sign of those trending in any other direction either as we get into 2022. And I'll throw it to Brad now to go into a little more detail on some of the other financial pieces.

Great. Thank you very much, Stuart. Hi, again, everyone. Yes, hopefully, what's coming across today is a great story of growth from this company, and it's just really pleasing to be able to build on the growth story that we've outlined across the last few investor meeting sessions over the last 18 months and through our RNSs through the communication to the market as well. And the next couple of slides will build on the narratives that I've gone through previously on these sessions in relation to revenue costs and also very efficient working capital cycle as well. But if you step back and you look at this company, the foundations were laid for this company many years ago before I joined with that technology stack being created, the monetization of podcast content being proved, our U.S. office being opened and our fantastic team being brought together. But over particularly about my time during the company over the last 4 years, we've been extremely focused on building on those foundations to create that company, which delivers on its promises. So be that to our content partners, to our customers, our staff and also to investors as well. We are now a company that delivers value, in my view, to all of those groups. And in 2021, we not only delivered on those expectations, we also exceeded them as well, which is what we're striving to do as a company. As we go through these numbers, obviously, these are unaudited financial numbers as we stand at the moment. We start our audit on the 31st of January, and we'll be aiming to release the annual report with those audited numbers towards the end of March. But if we look at that first slide there in terms of revenue and cost analysis, obviously, we've seen that fantastic growth curve as accelerating quarter-on-quarter revenue growth. We ended just above $60 million in revenue, revenue that grew 125% year-on-year, which was 108% faster than that, the wider U.S. podcast advertising market. Stuart has already highlighted those different revenue lines, which we have in the company and the majority of revenue is being recognized in that premium level of advertising that we specialize in. So just to reiterate some of the stats as Stuart said earlier, but also give you a bit more insight into the different revenue lines, 67% of our revenue comes from that creator network where we exclusively represent those partners for advertising sales. That line grew 127% year-on-year. 11% of revenue comes from the Marketplace. That grew a fantastic 162% year-on-year. 4% from Audioboom Studios and the original content that's being produced, that grew 119% year-on-year and Sonic, which accounts for around 18% of gross revenue, that grew by 116% year-on-year, even subscriptions as well as you don't focus on here, that accounts for less than 1% of revenue, that grew by 9% year-on-year as well, which even though we didn't invest a single dollar in terms of promoting subscriptions, that still had a decent growth figure year-on-year as well. So overall, we can see that 125% year-on-year revenue increase, exceptional performance, but we've maintained that control and our focus on the OpEx throughout the year as well. So that -- that increased 25% year-on-year from $8 million in 2020 for the year to $10 million in 2021 to an average of $2.5 million a quarter. But we are very focused on maintaining that OpEx, keeping good control of what we're spending within the company. Two main cost categories within OpEx, salaries and commissions, which account for 67% of cost and technology costs, which account for around 18% of total costs. Now there were increases across those lines in the year, but there's some quite straightforward reasons as to why they increased. So salaries and commissions increased by 27% year-on-year because commissions increased because we correctly incentivize our sales teams to continue driving that revenue line upwards. Also, technology costs increased by 29% year-on-year simplistically because there was more content that was downloaded in 2021 versus 2020. Just touch on headcount. We averaged 37 for the year, which was the same as 2020. We actually ended the year on 39 heads within the business. So it's a very, very lean and efficient team that we maintained throughout the year, and we'll maintain that going forward as well. We do have plans for a small number of additional heads coming into the business to help support and enhance our growth, but has no plans for exponential growth in head count. We will maintain that small and focused and fantastically efficient team within the business as well. As Stuart said earlier, the focus was to get to breakeven this year, and we over delivered on that promise, delivering $3 million of EBITDA, around $1.4 million of net profit, which is fantastic for the company. And then if we move on to working capital. So when you've got revenue growth, which is absolutely significant, and you've also got a fairly limited cash balance within the business, you need to make sure that your internal processes are on point and working well. Otherwise, you're in trouble. But it's pleasing to report that we ended the year on $3 million of cash that increased by $1.8 million from the third quarter. So we ended September on $1.2 million. We ended the year December on $3 million of cash. 2021 collections, we just creeped over $50 million, which is fantastic performance. Monthly average was $4.2 million per month. And actually, December was a new record, $6.8 million in terms of collections. If you look at the chart, on that Q4 column, the particularly pleasing point for me is actually Q4. That was the first time in the company's history where collections at $17.6 million exceeded the payments of $16.1 million. So that's the first quarter that's happened. Obviously, that's the major factor in terms of why our cash balance increased from Q3 to Q4. So that's very pleasing from my perspective. Debtor days, we are going to record and report a debtor day figure of 94. It was 87 in 2020. So that's an 8% increase, but given there was a 125% increase in revenue, I'd accept an 8% increase in the debtor day figure up to 94. Our payables days figure of 55, it was actually 10 lower than 2020. So clearly, we're paying people well. And actually with the leading podcast partners, we need to pay them on 30-day terms to remain competitive. So simplistically, if you look at collections taken on average a quarter to catch up with revenue recognized in terms of the previous quarter, we obviously have that timing delay in terms of payments and collections. And you can see that on the graph as well. So if you look at Q2 2021, revenue recognized of $13.3 million; in Q3 of 2021, $13.4 million was collected; in Q3 '21, $16.9 million of revenues recognized; in Q4 '21, $17.6 million was collected. So we can clearly demonstrate the 90-day debtor day figure takes a quarter to catch up in terms of collections in terms of revenue recognized. Minimal bad debt within the company, bad debt write-offs and provisions totaled -- a total of 0.02% of revenue recognized in the year. So very immaterial. We can see the asset in the company really is set within trade debtors that increased by 9.1 million year-on-year from 6.4 million to 15.5 million at the year-end and trade creditors only increased by 3.5 million from 4.2 million up to 7.7 million. In terms of working capital with independents as well, there is a pressure there with advances. So we do pay a number of -- a small number of recoupable advances to attract and retain talent, and we paid $1.8 million of those recoupable advances in the year. And we'll do so again throughout the forthcoming year, also within 2022, and we'll particularly focus in that first quarter. So that's the pressure on cash within the business. But I've got a lot of confidence in the processes that we have in-house to enable that relatively small cash number to sustain the growth that we have within the business. So I hope that has given you a good overview, a bit more insight into the revenue cost and working capital and the growth story doesn't stop here. We're absolutely focused on continuing to push that on as we go through the coming years. Back to you, Stuart.

Thanks, Brad. Before we look at the year ahead, just to say again, get some questions in. If you do have any questions, put those down and we'll try and get to as many of those as possible. We've got like 5 minutes or so left I think on just this final section and then hopefully, we can answer as many of those questions as we can at the end. So yes, talking about future focus then, really, I think one of the key parts I wanted to really highlight for 2022 is our focus and investment on building out Showcase, our global Marketplace. Even further, I talked about how that launch of Showcase in November meant that we moved our revenue from -- by ad tech up to 3.5x what we were seeing earlier in the year. The potential here, I think, is just incredibly strong for us. This is because it runs fully through advertising tech, the scalability that we have from this global marketplace can really help drive the business on significantly over the next few years. And that's a key area of investment for us. So just stepping it back, what exactly does the Showcase do? Well, it's a marketplace. It connects buyers and sellers and what Audioboom is building. And what we've done very well is to, on 1 side, on the buy side to consolidate, to create partnerships and consolidate all of those various monetization routes. And on the sell side, we are consolidating incredibly high levels of advertising inventory. We put those together within that marketplace, match them up through the advertising tech, we get best prices and high fill rates and drive revenue very quickly through Showcase. So just to break that down even further, on the buy side, the advertiser side, the monetization side, in-house Audioboom teams can sell into Showcase, our Sonic team can sell into Showcase. Our international sales partners, [ AIR ] and Rogers, MAPP Media in the U.K., [indiscernible], they can all sell into Showcase. We launched a self-serve buying portal that allows advertisers and brands and agencies to build their campaigns in that portal and submit those advertising campaigns directly to our team to confirm and begin the execution process on those. And then we have a programmatic ecosystem that we've developed as well. Our Showcase is available within more than 25 demand-side platforms so that advertising buyers wherever they are in the world, can access Audioboom inventory alongside all of the other inventory that they are creating a campaign for. So an example of that, just to simplify it a little bit as -- is if a buyer who is representing McDonald's is building out a campaign and they are building that campaign across websites and digital. Audioboom's content will be available to buy against within the same software package within the same system that, that buyer is using to build out the digital campaign or their TV campaign or their streaming campaign as well. So being in those places is super important. And again, it's just creating that fast scale and lots of different routes for the monetization. On the sell side, on the supply side, we are and have been consolidating content and advertising inventory for many years now, but more than ever, we're pushing it through this marketplace. So that's the back catalog from those top tier shows. We use AdRip to, like I said, to remove the premium advertising from there and to allow it to be pushed into the marketplace to be resold over and over again, whether an episode is listen to today or in 10 years' time. We have 8,000 of our podcast channels connected to the marketplace to Showcase. So that for a podcaster, they simply click a button on the back end of Audioboom and that content is exposed to all of these various sales channels. And right now, we are making available within Showcase around 250 million ad impressions each month. So we're looking at somewhere around 3 billion available advertising impressions being created within Showcase in 2022. So that's just a huge number for us. That's 3 billion available ad impressions within Showcase that will get exposed to all of those sales and buying channels that we've created as well. So we see this as a big growth area for the business. It allows us to continue to scale. It's very efficient. It's all delivered via the ad tech, and we'll continue to invest to build out more sales channels on the buy side and more content on the supply side as well. So that's a key area of focus for us in 2022. And like I said, the goal there is for us to make -- to increase the contribution to Audioboom's revenue via Showcase. And then the other kind of key areas of focus for us. Well, I think the top line kind of says it all, the goal for us is to outperform the wider industry growth yet again for the 6th year in a row, while the industry growth is projected to be 30%, and we think we'll go well beyond that. And you may have seen our analyst number takes us beyond that as well. So yes, we expect once again to outperform the wider industry growth. What gets us there? Demand remains very high for not just podcast advertising, but Audioboom's podcast advertising units. So going into this year, we already have $45 million of advertisings booked via the upfront process. That's the advertising process that happens in October and November of the preceding year where we go out and we tell agencies and brands about what we're doing in the following year and allow them to book early against the entire year, $45 million already secured through that upfront advertising bookings process, so strong demand. Obviously, that strong demand then leads to high pricing. So I talked earlier about the fantastic growth of pricing for an ad unit in 1 of our top 25 shows, how it had gone from $3,600 in late 2020 to $9,000 in Q4 of 2021. That was a big jump. But already, we're seeing pricing above that $9,000. So $11,340 is the average slot price for 1 of our top 20 shows that we've seen through that upfront booking process for 2022. So immediate 26% growth there during that upfront process on our top 25 shows. I talked about Marketplace and Showcase is the name of that a lot during this, but yes, just continued investment there into the advertising automization and the scaling out of Showcase. We continue to focus on expanding our content footprint working with the biggest and the best shows out there and then launching new shows through Audioboom Studios. So Audioboom Studios has new productions and co-productions launching in the first part of 2022, big shows, including National Park After Dark, Devils in the Dark, Get In Your Pantry, all those are lined up through Audioboom Studios, ready to go. We continue to work with and build our relationships with those Hollywood talent agencies at WME, UTA and CAA to partner with them and their clients to launch shows and to monetize and distribute the biggest names in podcasting. And then I think the final point in the final area of focus for me for 2022 is continued international expansion, we've seen, and I've highlighted a fantastic job we've done of monetizing content in Canada and Australia and India. This year, we look at those next 3 regions, New Zealand, Ireland, Europe and then focus on how we extract value from the listening that we're able to achieve in those regions too. So I think there's a lot to do here. There's clearly some fantastic data points here that highlight where growth is going in 2022. Like I said, we'll expect to outperform the market once again. I think as Brad said earlier, the growth story hasn't ended yet. Q1 is looking extremely strong for us. Against last year's Q1, we're just in a really good place as a business. I've said it a few times over the past couple of years about us just getting started and just hitting our stride. We kind of -- we firmly have stride now, and it's just an exciting industry to be in and an exciting business to be in. We really appreciate your support. I hope you see the path forward for this business and where we're going in the future. And I hope we continue to get that support from you guys. And I think that's probably from us.

Stuart, Brad, that's great. Thank you very much for the presentation this afternoon. [Operator Instructions] But just while the company take a few moments to review those questions submitted today, I would like to remind you the recording of this presentation, along with a copy of the slides and the published Q&A can be accessed via our investor dashboard. Stuart, Brad, we received a number of pre-submitted questions from investors ahead of today's event. And if I may, I wanted to start off the Q&A session with these. The first 1 reads as follows: You had previously announced results to be released on January 19, but released them on the 10th. Is there any reason for this?

Yes. So in an earlier trading update, you're correct. We had suggested that January 19 would be the date that we would -- we will release results. We went early on the 10th and I think the 2 main reasons for that were: firstly, if we have good news, why hold onto it, let's get it out there and tell the world about it as quickly as possible. And as you know, we had fantastic news. So we're really keen to put that out there and get it into the market, help everyone understand what all that means for the business. And we've seen some strong share price growth off the back of those results. The second reason I actually think -- the more important reason for the long term speaks to the level of automation and processes that we've built into the business. We now have the ability to close out a month, close out the quarter very, very quickly. I've talked about the platform that we have in a Salesforce-based inventory management system that we've developed well that allows Brad and his team to do their jobs very quickly at the end of every month. We have great intelligence around advertising bookings, the execution of those adverts to ensure that the ad ran and we can charge for that ad. And it flows through the entire system right back to Brad's team and then beyond out to the advertising agencies ready for invoicing and billing, too. So yes, let's get great news out there, and let's also focus on just the strong automation that we have within the business. It allows us to do things quickly and get the messaging out early.

That's great. And the second pre-submitted question that we got from investors was do you see M&A activity continuing in the space in 2022? And is there an opportunity for Audioboom here?

Yes. I think there was a couple of other questions came in during the session. Similarly, 1 from [ John C ] here, which is also similar to that. Yes, I do see M&A activity continuing in the sector. It's really been focused over the last couple of years from 3 businesses; from Spotify, from Amazon and also from Sirius XM. And then a little bit of M&A activity from the radio companies in the U.K., Odyssey and iHeart Media. But those big 3, Amazon, Spotify and Sirius XM have spent a considerable amount of money in the space. I don't see it slowing down. I think there are more mega companies stepping into podcasting very quickly and 2 of those being Google and YouTube and also Facebook. So this year, Facebook has launched the ability for podcast to be listened to in feeds and consumed in feeds, and they are doing a lot of work in the background to consolidate content within Facebook. They're clearly making a play in audio. And Google and YouTube have always had a good podcasting footprint. YouTube is a key distribution point for podcasting, but it's been kind of somewhat ignored from the business, but they are now focused on podcasting, too. So I think there's potentially more M&A coming because there are more huge organizations focused on how great podcasting can be for them and the benefits of podcasting to their businesses. So yes, M&A will continue more opportunity out there. Is there an opportunity for Audioboom? I think absolutely. I mean if you look at the Triton Digital ranker that I showed you earlier in the presentation, Audioboom is the leading independent podcast business out there. No one else has the scale and the structures and the volume that we have. Certainly, no one else is -- no one else on the independent side is profitable. We are the only company of this size and with this level of independence that is actually making money in podcasting right now. So we have to be attractive. We have to be a great option for someone that is looking to build a presence in podcast.

That's great. The third question that we got relates to dividends and it reads, please can you confirm whether it's intended to pay a dividend this calendar year? I asked because the last 6 months as the share price has increased rapidly. Social media has speculated as to whether some of the profits will be returned to shareholders?

Yes. Again, similar questions on the -- that came in during the presentation from [ Grave A ] and then [ North C ] here. It has asked the same, too. I think just a little too early to talk about dividends at this point. Let's just be super happy, we've reached that breakeven point. Let's build up those cash reserves. Let's think about where we want to invest that cash first for stronger growth. I think that should be our first point of focus as to how we use that cash to grow the business, make the business stronger. We understand shareholder excitement around the idea of a dividend, but I think it's a little early in our life as a profitable company to be thinking about that at this point.

That's great. The second to last question that we got here from investors was your analyst released an $83 million as this year's revenue forecast. Is that too conservative?

I think it's a good place to start the year, right? When you look at what that $83 million means in context of the wider industry? It means that we are outperforming industry growth by over 30%. So when you look at it in that context, Audioboom will do a fantastic job at $83 million because we have significantly outperformed the wider industry. We'll have grown significant -- significant market share. We will have moved up the rankers in podcasting if we grow at that speed. So I think $83 million is a good place to start the year. Remember, we're really, what, 15 days, 19 days into the year. So we want to make sure that we achieve that market expectation. It's been something that Brad and I have been very focused on the last few years is to ensure that we deliver on the kind of the promises that are made. So let's make sure we do that $83 million. What gets us beyond that? I think it's really the opportunity that we don't yet have visibility on. What we have visibility on makes us very, very confident on the $83 million number. And when I talk about that, it's the visibility on the contracts that we have with our podcast partners, the visibility on the demand that's out there for advertising in podcast. What goes beyond that $83 million is some of the stuff that is not visible. So more new opportunities might come away across the year to partner with major podcasts, for example. Those kind of opportunities can take us well beyond the $83 million number. But I think as a starting point for the year, that's the $83 million is that initial target, and let's ensure we get there, and we're very confident of doing that.

I know you've just touched on opportunities. And the last pre-submitted question reads as follows. It says Spotify and Apple have both launched the podcast subscription platforms last year. How is that impacting the industry? And is it a threat or opportunity for Audioboom?

Yes. [ Jeff ] -- I've seen the question is that [ Jeff ] has also asked about Spotify's open access platform, which is their subscription platform. And yes, Spotify launched that earlier this year, and Apple will launch something similar as well. That's the ability for podcasters and creators to charge a subscription fee or a kind of a pay-as-you-go fee to access content within those platforms. In the early stages of that, it doesn't seem to have created huge traction. It seems to get used mostly by digital media businesses like Vox Media, for example, to offer their initial podcast products. And it also -- and where I think you will actually use the most is via those very -- those podcasts with very kind of niche subject matter. So those will be podcasts that have small audiences but extremely passionate audiences. So those podcasters where the audience numbers really, really love the content and will pay to access it, but the podcast doesn't have enough listenership to really make any money out of advertising. That's where those will get it used the most. I don't see them as a threat to our business. We are working with podcasts that have huge built-in audiences where they are used to hearing ads, used to receiving the product for free. And as a podcaster, we are making them significant money through advertising. And so switching lanes and taking a risk of moving to any other model is not something I believe any of them would be willing to do. So I don't see too much of a threat there. In fact, I actually think there may be some opportunity there for Audioboom, particularly on the Audioboom Studio shows to receive incremental revenue. So if we're great at monetizing Audioboom Studio shows in the U.S. and the U.K., maybe in South America or in Europe, we tried a subscription fee to listen to that content. So those are the kind of opportunities. I think they are -- I think that comes from that some incremental revenue opportunity and some interesting new models around our own products and our own Audioboom Studio shows.

Stuart, Brad, thanks for that. I'm not sure if time permits for any further questions. But if there are any that come through from investors, and you believe it would be appropriate to address if I could hand back to you to respond to those. If not, obviously, we will make all questions available to you after the presentation has ended, and we'll publish all of those responses on the Investor Meet Company platform.

Yes, I think we've answered a good variety of the ones that have come in both today and previously as well. But we'll take a look through and answer any additional ones on the platform just for the time constraints right now.

That's perfect. Yes, if I could just hand back to you to read out those questions and give responses where it's appropriate to do so. And I'll pick up from you afterwards.

Sorry, I wasn't -- probably I wasn't clear. Because we've headed over the time limit now, we won't do any more of those questions live, but we'll try and answer some of those after the presentation ends.

Sorry for that. Yes, Stuart, Brad, thank you for addressing all of those questions that you can from investors today. And of course, ladies and gentlemen, as Stuart just said, the company will review all questions submitted today, and we'll publish those responses on the Investor Meet Company platform. Stuart, Brad, but just before redirecting investors to provide you their feedback, which I know is particularly important to the company, could I please ask you for a few questions comments? Thank you so much.

Sure. Yes. I think firstly, I want to say thank you to our shareholders and potential shareholders to continue to support the business. I also want to thank the Audioboom team, as Brad said, a very small team of just 36, 37 people we punch well our way. We do an amazing job. We have a really talented team. So thank you to the Audioboom team. I think I summed it up earlier. We've hit our stride over the past 2 years. We're fully in Australia now. We have a lot of growth ahead of us, the growth story will continue into 2022. We're building out a fantastic model, a model that I believe is more intelligent and stronger than our competitors. We're gaining market share. We continue to build revenue. We have a super strong business here. So I'm excited about what's coming in the next few years, and I hope everyone else can be too.

Stuart, Brad, thank you for that. That's brilliant. And thank you for updating investors this afternoon. Can I please ask investors not to close this session as you'll now be automatically redirected for the ability to provide your feedback in order that the management team can better understand your views and expectations. This will only take a few moments to complete, but I'm sure it'll be greatly valued by the company. On behalf of the management team of Audioboom Group plc, we would like to thank you for attending today's presentation, and good afternoon to you all.