FY 2022 record revenue of €283.2m. All business segments showed double-digit growth in revenues in 2022, Ticketing stood out with +107% growth in revenues year-over-year. Total revenue slightly below guided range following faster-than-anticipated slowdown of COVID-related measures and macroeconomic circumstances
BREDA, 15 FEBRUARY 2023
FY 2022 financial highlights
- Total revenue grew by 19% to € 283.2 million, organic revenue grew by 17%
- Gross profit grew by 15% to € 72 million
- Gross margin fell 1% year-over-year to 25.4%, mainly affected by fade-out of COVID-related revenues
- CPaaS Net Dollar Retention (NDR) for Messaging excluding Voice reached a healthy 119%, CPaaS NDR including Voice reached 100%
- CPaaS churn rate remained low at 4%
- CPaaS sales volumes grew by 24% in number of messages year-over-year
- SaaS annual recurring revenues grew 29% year-over-year, supported by acquisitions
- OPEX grew by 42% to € 94.3 million, excluding the reported bad debt hit of € 4.2 million in Q2 2022, demonstrating a sharp decline in OPEX growth pace year-over-year
- Normalized EBITDA was minus € 22.3 million, reported EBITDA was minus € 26.5 million
Q4 2022 financial highlights
- Revenue grew by 17% to € 78.4 million, organic revenue up 16% year-over-year
- Gross profit came in at € 17.5 million, down 4% year-over-year
- Gross margin came in at 22.3%, down 5% year-over-year
- CPaaS messaging volumes growth improved, mostly driven by SMS
- SaaS ARR grew marginally despite increased market uncertainty throughout the quarter
- Slowdown in gross profit and gross margin was caused by ongoing fade-out in COVID-related voice traffic, distorting year-over-year comparison
- Towards the end of quarter, price increases from certain operators were temporarily absorbed by CM.com, to be passed on in Q1 2023
- FTEs declined for the first time since listing, organization geared towards efficiency increases
Business highlights FY 2022
- Expansion of AI capabilities and SaaS product offerings increased through acquisition of Building Blocks
- Building Blocks acquisition completes the foundation needed to improve our capabilities in conversational commerce
- Awarded “Top AI-Powered Solutions Provider in 2022” by APAC CIO Outlook
- Simplification of organization and continued integration of acquisitions are well underway
- CCaaS (Contact Centre as a Service)-solution expanded with offering Voice in Mobile Service Cloud
- In Payments, development of new payments processing platform finalized
- Juniper Research and Forrester recognize CM.com again as established leader in CPaaS and as a newly established leader in CCaaS in 2022
Outlook
- Path to Profitability is well underway
- CM.com reiterates guidance to be structurally EBITDA positive towards year end 2023
- CM.com confirms guidance to be structurally cash flow positive towards year end 2024
- OPEX in 2023 expected to be in line with 2022 in absolute terms
- Underlying revenue growth trend expected to continue for full year 2023 while Q1 2023 is facing steep COVID-related comparison base
Message from the CEO
"2022 has proven to be another significant year for CM.com, with our businesses growing further after the record year 2021. That it was no easy task, is evident. 2022 was a year with many faces, with the hype and slowdown of COVID and the lockdowns, the Ukraine war, and the effects related to the impact of climate change. All were – and still are – very impactful events that affected society and corporates, including CM.com. As our human capital is a key asset to our firm, CM.com has supported and will continue to support our workforce, as we employ people from all over the world.
As CM.com completed its foundation with the acquisition of Building Blocks, we focused our efforts on the optimization of the organization to use its full potential. Technological innovations, such as GPT 3, re-confirmed the reason why we were early movers in acquiring companies such as CX Company and Building Blocks in last years; AI is a key technology for us to improve our abilities in conversational commerce and one of the drivers behind our growth strategy going forward.
The challenging market developments in 2022 underlined the importance of rolling out our growth strategy through building sales pipelines, mapping of markets to improve product offerings, while improving technologies and the agility of our organization. Although we felt the changing market conditions in 2022 financially, we remained focused on delivering the operational growth for which we planned. We grew our business cost consciously, as the pace of our OPEX growth in the second half of 2022 slowed down substantially, while underlying volumes continue to grow. That trend will continue in 2023.
One of the most important items to our cost base, is the FTE growth. CM.com grew its workforce in 2022, albeit at a slower pace than in 2021. As was confirmed with our Great Place to Work Award in 2022, CM.com targets to motivate all employees to reach their full potential within our firm. That is why we started the Female Leadership sequences in 2022 and our Talent Program, as we fully recognize the importance of the right balance between capabilities and opportunities within our workforce, independent of gender, age, or origin. CM.com now focuses on using the talents within its Human Capital to further improve its gross profit growth.
For 2023 we are off to a good start. As previously indicated, our foundation is now ready, and we will focus on growing our business and profits. Pipeline is building well, and first order wins are coming through. Going forward we will focus on gross profit growth – as we have now integrated all acquisitions and use all strengths to grow our presence in all markets in which we are currently active. That means that we no longer steer predominantly on revenue growth, although that of course does remain a key performance indicator. It is now all about profitable growth.
As a guidance we therefore feel comfortable to reiterate our goal to be structurally EBITDA positive by year end 2023 and structurally cash flow positive by year end 2024.
I would like to thank all employees at CM.com for their contribution to this result in 2022. We are proud of our employees and their accomplishments and look forward to a continuation of our journey in 2023."
Jeroen van Glabbeek
CEO CM.com