Audioboom reports growth even under new measures

Spoken word audio on-demand platform company Audioboom posted a trading update for the three months to 31 August on Tuesday.

The AIM-traded firm said that, following the release of the Interactive Advertising Bureau publishing guidelines in September, Audioboom is adopting many of its recommendations as standard practice for all its future reporting.

One of the key recommendations is that companies should now report unique file requests as their measuring standard rather than listens, which has historically been one of Audioboom's KPIs.

Under the new IAB industry standards, Audioboom reported an increase in UFRs from 93.4m in Q2 to 102.5m in Q3, representing approximately 10% growth in real terms, quarter on quarter.

Audioboom is now also calculating its served advertising impressions on a quarterly basis, as a measure of potential revenue.

The board said it believes that this is a valuable addition to its published KPIs, and reported an increase in served advertising impressions from 43.5m in Q2 to 59.0m in Q3.

Audioboom had 8,948 content channels at the end of Q3, adding over 800 during the quarter, including Saavn, India's largest music service.

Additionally, Audioboom has signed new sales and distribution deals with Spotify, TargetSpot and Pandora.

Q3 revenues exceeded the total revenue generated in H1, the board reported, with advance bookings for Q4 and into 2017 showing that growth continuing to accelerate.

As a result, Audioboom said it was confident in meeting its revenue expectations for the full year ending on 30 November 2016, and was targeting a cash-flow positive position by Q1 2018.

“We are now starting to see significant month on month increases in revenue,” said CEO Rob Proctor.

“Crucially, Q3's performance, together with Q4 advance bookings, show Audioboom has transitioned from a content focused business to a revenue focused business in the past twelve months.

“This fundamental change has taken time to execute and, now that we have done much of the work, we are starting to see the rewards.”

Proctor said the board is confident that revenue expectations for the full year will be met.

“The momentum we have created is accelerating, particularly in the US, where an increasing amount of our focus is being placed.

“As we head towards 2017, the revenue generating capabilities of our global platform and our continued cost reduction measures will ensure that we have a strong and positive outlook.”