Good day, and welcome to the Deezer Q3 2023 Revenue Conference Call. Please note, this conference is being recorded, and for the duration of the call, your lines will be on listen only. You will, however, have the opportunity to ask questions at the end of the call, and this can be done by pressing star one on your telephone keypad to register your question. I would now like to hand the call over to Jeronimo Folgueira, CEO. Please go ahead, sir.
Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining Deezer Q3 2023 Revenue Conference Call, and welcome. I am Jeronimo, CEO of Deezer, and I'm joined today by Stephane, Deputy CEO and CFO. Moving on to slide 4. Regarding today's agenda, I will first discuss Deezer important business highlights. Then Stephane will go into more details about... Sorry, what?
It's okay, Jeronimo, we can hear you. All good. All good.
Okay. Stephane will go into more details about the Q3 performance, and after that, we will discuss our priorities and outlook. We will conclude our Q&A session. Moving on to slide 5. We have had a very eventful third quarter. We have reached an inflection point in subscriber growth, and we have delivered major milestones that position Deezer very well for the future. First of all, our subscriber base is back to growth. We added 600,000 new subscribers since June 2023, and in October, we have already crossed the 10 million subscriber mark. This growth comes from the rapid build-up of the partnership subscriber base and the continued healthy growth of our direct subscriber base in France. We also continue to increase our ARPU year after year, and this is before the impact of the new wave of price increases that we announced in September.
These price increases are starting to become effective in October and will be rolled out to the entire direct subscriber base progressively over the coming months. Our partnership business is growing almost 12%, which reflects the execution of our expansion strategy, in particular with the successful launch of the Mercado Libre partnership in Latin America. All these achievements drive us to, towards an acceleration in revenue growth forecast for the fourth quarter of 2023 and beyond. Finally, we have renewed several agreements with key rights holders, including major labels. This was done ahead of the contractual date and with improved terms, which will positively impact our profitability in 2024. Moving on to slide 6. After several quarters with a stable subscriber base, we are now back to significant subscriber growth.
In Q3, we've seen a substantial increase of 600K subscribers compared to the previous quarter, and our September figures stand out as the highest in two years. This is primarily driven by the inflection point we've reached in our partnership segment, the highest part of the box in the slide, and the consistent growth of direct subscribers in France. At the same time, we have also reached our highest ARPU in two years, standing at 4.2 EUR as compared to 3.8 EUR in Q1 2022. Moving on to slide 7. As you know, our unique partnership-led strategy sets Deezer apart from the industry. We have gradually built up a very strong partnership ecosystem, first by collaborating with telecommunication leaders like Orange, and now expanding into new verticals with media companies such as RTL, the leading industry manufacturers like Sonos.
This approach not only drives our top-line growth, but also significantly contributes to enhancing profitability by reducing our marketing expenditure as we lever the capabilities of our partners. In Q3, our business demonstrated sustained, rapid expansion, both while existing and new customers across various countries and sectors. This expansion is evidenced by the renewed agreement with Orange, the newly established partnership with RTL, which recently introduced its comprehensive multimedia app in August, and Mercado Libre, the Latin America e-commerce platform that launched its subscription program, Meli+, featuring Deezer music. Notably, our Meli partnership experienced impressive initial subscription growth in Brazil and Mexico, surpassing our initial expectations. Moving on to slide eight. Alongside the development of our partnership business, we have achieved in Q3 several major milestones that are very important for the future of Deezer, and some of which will also support industry growth as a whole.
First, with the launch of the new Artist-Centric model. This is the most ambitious change to the economic model since the creation of music streaming, and a change that will support the creation of high-quality content in the years to come. We already started to roll out ACPS in France, and approximately half of our streams are now operating under the new stream model. Also, in September, Deezer adjusted its pricing in several European markets. These new price increases will come into effect by the end of October 2023, and will gradually be rolled out to the entire direct subscriber base. We anticipate that around 80% of our direct subscribers will be on this new pricing by the end of the year. As for previous price increase waves, our group has experienced minimal subscriber churn since the announcement.
This shows the great value for price ratio of our product. Lastly, we have successfully renewed several contracts with key rights holders, securing improved terms ahead of schedule. These new terms are already in effect and are expected to have a positive impact on our profitability in 2024. This concludes my introduction, and now I will pass it on to Stephane for the financial section.
Yes, thank you, Jeronimo, and good morning, everyone. Moving on, moving on to slide 10.
... So first, let me share with you the first success of our partnership-led strategy. As indicated by Jeronimo, the first few weeks of the Meli+ offering exceeded our initial expectations, with the support also of the first quarter of the Sonos partnership and the launch of the RTL multimedia app that we had in August. I'm sorry, there is a bit of background noise. I don't know if it's you, Jeronimo, but if you could go on mute. And so also the previously signed partnership, the subscriber base in partnership rose by 11.8% year-on-year. This is 500,000 new Deezer users since Q3 2022, and it reached 4.4 million subscribers coming from our partners at the end of September.
Sequentially, we reached the inflection point during the quarter, and we increased by 0.6 million subscribers between the end of June and the end of September. The ARPU was also strongly up compared to Q3 2022, and also for the first nine months of the year, mainly due to the improved offer mix. It's also up compared to the first half of 2023, which was at EUR 2.8. Moving on to slide 11.
When you look at our revenue performance of the direct segment, on the left-hand side of this page, we show the continued expansion of our subscriber base in France, which is the darkest box, at +7.3% since the third quarter in the third quarter of 2022, which is more than offsetting the expected decline in the rest of the world, which is in line with the group strategy. As you know, we focus on selected key markets, and you can note that that decline was lower than in previous quarters.
On the right side, the ARPU growth of +3.4% year-on-year, which reached 4.9 EUR per subscriber, was driven by the improved geo mix, and as we just discussed, it reflects that we are still benefiting from the remaining effect of the price, the first price increase that we did. We haven't yet got the first impact of the new price increase that we announced in September, and that will start to materialize in the fourth quarter. Moving on to slide 12. Thanks to the strong performance of our two segments, both on the subscriber acquisition and the ARPU improvement, we generated revenues in the quarter of EUR 120 million, EUR 120.7 million.
This is an increase of 4.8% compared to the third quarter of 2022, reflecting the execution of the strategy of the group and the wrap-up of the partnership business. The partnership business generated EUR 34.2 million of revenues, which is the highest amount ever. It grew 11.9% compared to the third quarter of 2022. We also continued to have continued direct subscriber growth in France, leading to EUR 82 million in the third quarter of 2023, a growth of 3.3%. We were negatively impacted by the other segment, where we had an unfavorable comparison basis with some one-off revenues in the third quarter of 2022, and also a weaker than expected performance of our Driift business, which we consolidate.
As a consequence, the other segment posted a revenue of EUR 4.1 million. This is a 16% decline, and it affected a little bit the overall, revenue growth of the company. For the first nine months of the year, consolidated revenues amounted to EUR 354 million, up 5.8%, compared to the first nine months of 2022, or 6.1% growth at constant currency. As for the third quarter alone, the revenue increase for the first nine months is mainly driven by the profitable expansion in partnership and also the performance of our direct business. Moving on to slide 13. From a geo standpoint, the main contributor of the quarter and for the first nine months is still France, on the back of a good subscriber growth and also ARPU increase.
However, given the success of the partnership, business, the rest of the world is also a very dynamic geography. It posted +7.5% growth in the third quarter compared to the third quarter of 2022. Let me now turn to Jeronimo to conclude with the 2023 priorities and outlook for the rest of the year.
Thank you, Stéphane. Moving on to slide 14. As a conclusion, we're very pleased with the achievement in Q3, 2023. Going forward, we will continue to prioritize profitability improvements while targeting revenue growth from partnerships and direct subscription in selected markets, primarily France, as we have been doing for the last couple of years. With respect to our outlook for Q4, we expect a significant acceleration in growth, benefiting from the increased contribution of recently signed partnerships, including Mercado Libre, and the impact of new price increases, which are being progressively rolled out to the entire direct subscriber base from the end of October.
For the full year 2023, we confirm our guidance, expecting to achieve 7%-10% revenue growth in the full year versus the prior year, while delivering another significant reduction in adjusted EBITDA loss in H2, 2023, compared to H2, 2022, reflecting accelerated revenue growth and continued strict cost control. Moving on to slide 15. Given our continued focus on profitable growth and the strong profitability improvements achieved in H1, 2023, we're also pleased to confirm our long-term outlook. Deezer remains on a clear path to generate positive cash flow in 2024, and achieve a positive adjusted EBITDA in 2025, while delivering double-digit average yearly revenue growth over the 2023-2025 period. This concludes today's presentation, and Stéphane and I will be pleased now to respond to your questions.
If you do have a question, as a reminder, please signal by pressing star one on your telephone keypad. Please ensure that the mute function on your telephone is switched off to allow your signal to reach our equipment. Again, it is star one if you have a question. We have no questions at this time, so I would like to hand the call back for any additional or closing remarks.
Okay, thank you very much for joining today, and we're very pleased with having delivered these results today. Have a good day.
Thank you.
Yeah, there is a question, sorry. It seems there is a question on the line. I'm sorry, operator.
A question has come through from Eric Ravary of CIC.
Yes, hello, good morning. Can you hear me?
Yes. Yes, we can hear you, Eric.
Yes, yes, I have two questions. The first one is on the app, Zen by Deezer, that you launch in Q2. Could you give an update on this? You don't mention it in the press release. And the second question is on the renewal of the agreements with majors and also labels with improved terms. So does this mean that we could expect an improvement of the gross margin in 2024? Thank you.
Yes. So let me answer. So on your first question with Zen. So, we're very happy with this the application, and as you probably remember, it was launched at the beginning of June. So, we got a lot of very positive feedback and ratings from users. Now we are working on the commercialization of the app. As you know, our intention is not to spend marketing to build a brand name on Zen, and that's not our core business. So we are looking at ways to commercialize, mainly through partners, and there are many industries that are very interested by well-being. And by being able to offer and propose a well-being app of that quality to their user or consumer base.
You can think of travel, you can think of insurance, some of our existing partners also, we are in active discussions. So those discussions, as we know, they always take time. And so some of those partners are coming from new industries for us. So this is what we are working on. But again, we are very satisfied with the way the application has been received, and also with the progress that we are doing on the commercialization. On your second question regarding the contractual terms. So as you can expect, we cannot disclose detailed information on these agreements. Some of them are signed with publicly listed companies. They of course include competitive information, so we have to be pretty careful.
The only thing we can say, and this is what we have mentioned in the press release, that we are very satisfied with these renewals. They were signed for one year, and also with terms which are improved and will impact our economics. We'll start to see a little bit of an impact in Q4, and then when we will really see the impact is in 2024 and for the whole year of 2024, because for Q4, it will only affect us for a few months. So when we will publish our full year 2022 results and also our H2, I think you will see a minimal impact on the gross margin, but then the full impact will be in 2024.
Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Stephane. Maybe a follow-up on your agreement on the Artist-Centric with Universal Music. Does it imply additional costs to improve the fight against fraudulent tracks from your side?
Yes-
I can, I can take this one.
Yes. Yeah, go on, Jeronimo.
So, actually, it doesn't really generate any additional cost on our side. We have one of the best and most advanced fraud detection tools, and what we have done is taken a much stronger and stricter approach to fraud as part of the Artist-Centric Model. So therefore, the application of the Artist-Centric Model doesn't really generate additional cost for Deezer.
Okay. Clear. Thank you.
As a reminder, if you do have a question, please press star one.
So we have a question on the chat room. Let me read it and answer it. Have you seen any impact from German recession on the onboarding of RTL+ super app? So it's not really a question for us, it would be more a question for RTL. I think RTL made some comments in their results at the end of July on how satisfied they were with their RTL+ Max offering. For us, the move to the multi-content app in August, where music is embedded with all the rest of the content, has been very important. We've commented on that at the time of our first half results. We are seeing a positive impact of that, and also RTL has started to make also bigger investment in terms of marketing.
They made an announcement last week that they were starting a big marketing campaign for their Max offering, for their subscription program offering, since the nineteenth of October. So we are quite satisfied with the traction that this is bringing.
There is a second question about the magnitude of the price hikes in September, in which countries and what kind of attrition we have seen. What we have done is announced the price increase in September and announced it to the user base, but the rollout of the new prices, so the new prices become effective at the end of October. So we will see the impact primarily starting in November. We have rolled this out to about 40% of our user base already, and there would be a progressive rollout. So right now, it's starting from November, will be 40% of our user base, direct user base, will be on new pricing, and about 80% will be on new pricing by the end of the year.
The countries we have done so far are primarily France, which is our major market, and then a few others, such as Spain and Italy. And it's starting now as part of the rollout to new countries, we will be adding a few more. On average, we have increased, let's say, around 10% prices. And in terms of churn or attrition, we don't give the exact details yet, but we have seen very, very minimal impact on churn, pretty similar to what we have seen last in the last price wave. So we're very, very happy with the impact and implementation of that price increase.
Okay. Operator, any other question?
There are no further questions at this time.
Okay. All right. So I think it's time to close. Thank you for joining this call, and if you have any further questions, feel free to reach out to us directly. Have a good day.
That does indeed conclude Deezer's Q3 2023 Revenue Conference Call and Webcast. We thank you all for your participation, and you may now disconnect.