Hello, and welcome to the Deezer Q1 2024 Revenue Conference. My name is George, I'll be your coordinator for today's event. Please note, this conference is being recorded, and for the duration of the call, your lines will be in listen-only mode. However, you will have the opportunity to ask questions towards the end of the presentation, and this can be done by pressing star one on your telephone keypad to register your question. If you require assistance at any point, please press star zero and you will be connected to an operator. I'd like to turn the call over to your host today, Mr. Stéphane Rougeot, Deputy CEO and CFO, and Mr. Stu Bergen, Interim CEO, to begin today's conference. Please go ahead.
Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining Deezer's first quarter 2024 revenue conference call. I am Stu Bergen, Interim CEO of Deezer since April 1, and I'm joined here today by Stéphane, Deputy CEO and CFO. For those of you who do not know me, I served as an independent, non-executive director on Deezer's board since February 2023, and before that, I held key leadership positions with multiple record labels, including Warner Music, for more than 14 years. I'm eager to lead this company in a period of transition to drive its growth trajectory forward. We will continue to execute against the company's strategy by strengthening the direct subscriber base in key markets and fostering the growth of the partnership segment to facilitate international expansion. We are fully committed to achieve positive cash flow this year and positive adjusted EBITDA in 2025.
You will see in the course of this presentation that all of this is well underway. So I'll start with a couple of the key highlights of the first quarter. Stéphane will then go into more detail on our revenue performance in the quarter. After that, we will discuss our 2024 outlook that we have confirmed, and then conclude with Q&A. Let me start with some key figures on slide four. The company's performance in Q1 shows clear momentum for Deezer and demonstrates that our strategy is on track. We are fully in line with our expectations as we delivered in the first quarter, another acceleration of our revenue growth at 15% and a double-digit subscriber growth year-on-year. Given these achievements, we look forward to 2024 with confidence and reaffirm our guidance.
Moving on to slide six, let's spend a few minutes discussing key business highlights for the first quarter. Regarding our partnerships, we supported the rollout of Meli+ in Chile in February, following Brazil and Mexico in 2023. We also renewed key partnerships with TIM in Brazil and Fnac Darty in France at the beginning of 2024. We improved our catalog quality with the removal of 26 million tracks since October, including non-artist content, noise, and duplicates by using Deezer's advanced proprietary technology, trained to recognize and distinguish specific content. This is a clear engagement in our artist-centric models to ensure exceptional quality content and elevate the user experience. This artist-centric model is also increasingly being adopted by rights holders.
This quarter, we announced another step towards fairer remuneration for artists with a renewed partnership with Merlin that will better protect the way independent music is experienced and valued. Lastly, we were included in Fast Company's annual list of world's most innovative companies, recognizing Deezer's innovative contributions to the global music industry. Moving on to slide seven. This first quarter was also successful in terms of execution of our direct business strategy. The implementation of our price adjustments, which began at the end of 2023, is being rolled out gradually, covering now more than 75% of our direct subscriber base at the end of the first quarter. As experienced before, this has had limited impact on our subscriber churn. This demonstrates the great value for money that music streaming represents for consumers.
We also continued to invest strategically in our brand, launching the second wave of the brand campaign across national television, out-of-home, and digital channels in France and Brazil. We promoted our new brand identity, which is bolder, fresher, and more aligned with our business vision. Finally, our transformation into an experience services platform was recognized by the industry with the Best Fan Experience award for our work with Paris La Défense Arena, Europe's largest concert hall. We connected more than 40,000 people with activations such as massive pre-concert karaoke, after-parties, and unique fan engagements. This concludes my introduction, and now I'll pass it on to Stéphane for the financial section.
Thank you, Stu, and good morning, everyone. So moving on to slide nine, let me first put our Q1 performance in a more global context. Our revenue growth acceleration of 15% benefits from strong tailwinds of all the things that we have done in 2023.... Our revenues reached a new quarterly all-time high of EUR 133 million in the first quarter. And as you know, this is now the second quarter of double-digit growth, after delivering a little bit more than +12% growth in the fourth quarter of 2023, and that illustrates our clear momentum. Moving on to slide 10. You look at the performance by segment on the left-hand side of the slide, you can see that our partnership segment grew at 40% and now represents one third of our total revenues.
This reflects the continued ramp-up of recent partnerships, including RTL+ , Sonos, and Mercado Libre, which drove, sorry, the acquisition of new subscribers at +1.3 million year-over-year, or +35%, in line with Deezer's strategy to focus its effort on attractive and large markets, mainly through partners. Partnership ARPU also increased by 5.5%, and that was driven by price increases as well as an improved geo mix. We also reported revenue growth of +5.2% in our direct segment, and this was driven by the continued expansion of our subscriber base in France, which grew by 3.6% in the first quarter, and by a further increase in ARPU, mainly as a result of the price increase that we implemented starting in October.
Other revenues, mainly consisting of advertising and ancillary revenues, increased by 23% compared to the first quarter of 2023. Then, if you look at our revenue performance by geo on the right-hand side of this slide, we recorded a solid revenue growth of +8.5% in France, driven by subscriber growth on direct as well as the improvement of ARPU, both across direct and partnership segment. In the rest of the world, revenue was up 25%, thanks to the strong performance of our partnership, despite the anticipated decline of direct subscriber base, resulting from our strategy to focus on selected key markets with more attractive economics. Moving now to slide 11. Our subscriber base stood at 10.5 million subscribers at the end of the quarter.
We added 1.2 million subs compared to a year ago, which is a 12.8% growth year-on-year. Partnerships reached 4.9 million subscribers, which is a 35% growth year-on-year, a new record number of subscribers, as we expanded our global footprint with new partners. Our direct rest-of-the-world subscriber base declined by 11% year-on-year, in line with our strategy, while our direct France subscriber base continued to progress at +3.6%. At the same time, we also improved our ARPU in our 2 segments, with direct ARPU growing by 6.4% year-on-year, from 4.8 EUR in Q1 2023 to 5.1 EUR in Q1 2024.
Our partnership ARPU grew 5.5% year-on-year from EUR 2.8 in Q1 2023 to EUR 2.9 in Q1 2024, and that was mainly driven by price increases. I will now turn the call over to Stu to discuss about the 2024 financial outlook.
Thank you, Stéphane. In conclusion, the performance of the first quarter of the year confirms that Deezer is in a strong position to achieve its 2024 financial targets. We have delivered a second consecutive quarter of double-digit growth, giving the group confidence in its ability to achieve its 10% revenue growth in 2024, driven by the increasing contribution of partnerships and the continued expansion of Direct in France, with the impact of new price of the new price increases. Deezer is on a clear path to achieve positive free cash flow in 2024 and a further significant improvement in our adjusted EBITDA loss, which should be better than the -EUR 15 million previously. This concludes our presentation, and we will now open the floor to questions.
Thank you, Mr. Bergen. Ladies and gentlemen, as a reminder, if you wish to ask any questions, please press star one on your telephone keypad, and also just make sure your line is not muted until I send you your equipment. Our first question today is coming from Silvia Cuneo, calling from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead, your line is open.
Thanks. Good morning, everyone. Hope you can hear me well, and well done on the results. The first question I have is on the guidance for the full year growth. In particular, given the strong start in Q1, can you remind us of the comparatives through the rest of the year? And then secondly, I wanted to ask about the rebranding that you put in place late last year. If you could discuss about the engagement with the new functionalities, like Shaker, for example, and whether that is helping attracting customers from other streaming apps, perhaps? Thank you.
Sure. Hey, Silvia, thanks for your questions. So, let me take the first one. So on the guidance, yes, of course, we're really happy with the start of the year at +15%. And, as you can expect, it's always better to start on a high note. And that's a continuation, even an acceleration, compared to Q4, as we stated. Now, you do appreciate that, in the second half of 2023, and especially in the fourth quarter, this is where we started to see an acceleration of our growth, both on the subscriber but also on the revenue. So we know that we have an easier comparison base in the first half of 2024, hence the higher revenue growth.
We also know that the comparison base in terms of growth in the second half, and especially in Q4, will be higher. And therefore, this is why we have no reason to change our guidance, but we are quite happy with the start of the year. On the rebranding, so this has been now four months. It's of course a little bit early to draw a very concrete conclusion in terms of the impact. We get some very positive feedback, and of course, as in any type of changes that you do, especially on a brand and brand identity, you always have some positive and negative reactions. This is what we were expecting. We are quite happy in terms of the impact that we see, especially in terms of brand consideration. We start to see some changes.
Now it's too early to evaluate what will be and when will be the impact when it comes to our funnel and when it comes to customer acquisition and subscribers. But we expect, and as you saw in the first quarter, we continued to be very active on the media front, and we will continue to do that because this is a long-term investment that we've done and that we are doing for the brand and for the company.
Thanks.
Thank you, Monsieur Cuneo. Ladies and gentlemen, once again, if you wish to ask any questions by audio, please press star one, and you can also submit questions by webcast. Our next question will be coming from Christophe Cherblanc of Bernstein. Please go ahead.
Yes, good morning. Thanks for taking my question. First one is on the B2C side. The number of subs in France was flat in Q1, so do you think that's reflective of the whole French market, or are you losing a bit of share, and do you expect to catch up later in 2024? And at the same time, I see the other territories continues to decline, so it seemed to have bottomed out at the end of last year, but it seems to go down. So what do you expect for the rest of the year? That's for the B2C side. And the second question was on B2B. I understand Mercado Libre had a big impact at the end of last year.
I think you mentioned the Chile expansion, so should we expect other markets to be added in 2024 and that's to feed the momentum in B2B in 2024? And last thing, and then I'll come back in the queue, on the B2B ARPU, if you look at the mix of RTL+, Mercado Libre, so should we expect the ARPU in B2B to be flat at the 2.9 that we see in Q1 for the whole of 2024? Thank you.
Yeah. So let's start with your questions on direct. So in France, you're right, sequentially, we are relatively flat in France. This is a bit normal in Q1 because, as you probably know, even though there is not a lot of seasonality in our business, Q4 is a quarter where we have quite a bit of offers. So we tend to end the year in our subscriber base with quite a lot of trials and promotions, and it's less the case in the first quarter. So that does explain why in the first quarter, it's a little bit softer sequentially. Now back to the question from Sylvia on the brand and its impact. Again, it's too early to see that in our numbers.
Are we gonna see any material change in our growth trend in terms of subscriber in France by the end of the year? I would not venture on that front yet. It's too early to tell, but we will see, and of course, everything that we have done on the brand has been done with that objective in mind, and we'll see when we start to capture that. You also hinted on the growth of the market. Yes, over the last 12-18 months, we've seen some slowdown of the growth of the French market. But yeah, the Q1 sequential flat is more driven by the difference between Q1 and Q4. On the rest of the world, so ultimately, since we have very sharply reduced our marketing investment in...
And also digital marketing investment in all these countries from a direct standpoint, we don't expect any rebound, and we will continue to have a decline. Sometimes the decline may be a little bit sharper from one quarter to the other. There is no fundamental explanation behind that. But ultimately, it's relatively slow, but ultimately, those subscriber base will never pick up again. On partnership, yes, we're very happy with the expansion with Mercado Libre in Chile. As you can expect, Chile is a small market, so we will not see such a material impact as we saw from Brazil and Mexico when we launched them. But it's still a very positive signal, which tells a lot about the health of the partnership that we have with Mercado Libre.
We have discussion about the extension in potential geographies, but there is not much to add and to mention at this stage. And finally, on ARPU for partnership, the evolution will really depend on the type of partnership that we sign, and also the geos where they are. So it's hard to comment, and we don't give any particular predictions or guidance on the evolution of ARPU going forward. So, I can't really tell you anything on that one.
Mr. Cherblanc-
So Stéphane, on-
Please go ahead, sir.
Sorry, just a quick follow-up, Stéphane. So on what you are saying on other than France, direct subscriber, if we were to go there 2026, 2027, 2025, et cetera, you would expect a slow decline, every year?
Yes.
That's correct?
Yes.
Yes. Okay. Okay, very clear. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Mr. Cherblanc. Our next question today will be coming from Eric Ravary of CIC. Please go ahead.
Yes, good morning. Two questions from my side. The first one is on your segmentation strategy. Could you make an update on your plans to better monetize the super fans in the future? And the second-
Sorry, Eric.
Yes.
Eric, we can't really hear you.
Can you hear me?
A bit far from the mic.
Okay. Okay, is it better?
Yeah, that's better. Thanks.
Okay. Sorry. I repeat my question. First one is on your segmentation strategy. Could you make an update on your plans to better monetize the super fans segment? And second question is about the streaming tax in France that has been voted. Have you decided to pass it on to your clients by a price increase specific to France? Thank you.
Yeah. So Eric, let me start with my favorite topic, Streaming Tax. So we don't have yet all the details of how it will be exactly implemented. And the part of the administration is still preparing the final comments on this tax. So that's why we don't have yet the full and definitive impact. We never ruled out the fact that we could reflect that in our price. We haven't made that decision, but that has never been ruled out. We will figure that out in the coming month. There are other levers that we can use in order to mitigate the impact of the Streaming Tax. Are we gonna be able to mitigate it fully?
To be frank, I think it's unlikely, but we have ways to make the bottom line impact for us minimal. And as we have stated multiple times, including in our full year results when we spoke about our guidance, that doesn't change the guidance that we gave to reduce significantly our EBITDA loss in 2024, and to reach EBITDA profitability in 2025. So more to come, and of course, we can provide specific details on that, but this is working for us. On fan monetization, so this is a really hot topic for the industry, as you know, and those of you cover Warner or Music or Universal or others can appreciate everything that's going on throughout the ecosystem on how to better bring...
It's not just about monetization, it's better bring value to the fans, and also better bring value to the artist. So of course, many players contribute to that, including DSPs and platforms, and we have plans and actions underway with the rest of the ecosystem to do that. It's too early to give any specific information on what we are working on, but yes, it's a part of what Deezer is actively making some developments, and at some point, we'll give you more information.
Thank you, Stéphane.
Thank you very much, Mr. Ravary. Ladies and gentlemen, as a final reminder, if you have any audio questions, please do press star one at this time. We do not appear to have any further audio questions. We will now take questions submitted by webcast. Thank you.
Okay. So I guess I'll, you addressed the first one, I think.
Yeah.
Yeah, so the first one, so I don't know if I need to read those questions.
Yeah.
Okay. There's the first question on the web, which is: How many more countries would you launch with Mercado Libre? Already discussed earlier, so I won't add anything here. Second one is: Good morning. How is the Zen project progressing? Could we see a positive impact on the group profitability in 2024, or is it still too early, I guess?
Early to see the effects.
Okay, fine. So look, we've been working, including with some partners, in order to leverage all the great technology, the application, as well as the content that we've created as part of Zen. We don't have anything to announce today, but yes, I'm quite comfortable that in 2024, we will have some, some positive news regarding the development of Zen. And as you know, given the high level of profitability, this is something that is quite important for the business model of the company. And then the last question regarding the share price: What could you do to improve the momentum? So that's, that, that's probably the most complicated question. If we had a magic trick, we would love to hear about it.
It has very much to do with trading volumes, and therefore, how to reorganize our cap table and ensure there is more shareholders that are buying and more shareholders that are selling, and therefore more trading. We can consider transfer to the retail segment, we can consider a few things. Nothing in itself will have an impact on day-to-day liquidity, but it's a sum of a different number of initiatives that ultimately will help get the share price to the level where it should be and reflect what we think should be the valuation of the company. So that's the, for me, the best way to answer that question, which is an important question for all of us.
We do not appear to have any further audio or webcast questions. So maybe we'd like to turn the call back over to Mr. Bergen for any additional or closing remarks. Thank you.
So I guess, just thank you all for joining today. And yeah, I think that we're just wrapping up here and committed to delivering the financial targets of the year, and thank you for your interest and support of Deezer.
Thank you, and have a good day.
Thank you. Sorry for the interruption. Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen, that will conclude today's presentation. Thank you for your attendance. You may now disconnect. Have a good day, and goodbye.