Good morning, everybody. S4 Capital's Q3 results. I'm joined by Scott Spirit on my left, who's come in from Singapore to be with us, and Mary on my right, our new CFO. We're gonna present the results. Mary will present the results, and then Scott will take you through clients, a little bit on strategy, and then I'll just do a brief summary. Over to Mary.
Thank you, Martin. Good morning, and thank you for joining us for our third quarter trading update. We have delivered strong top-line growth, continuing the momentum we saw in the first half. Revenue of GBP 300 million was up 68% on a reported basis, and 27% like-for-like versus the third quarter of 2021. Like-for-like Gross Profit/Net Revenue for the quarter was up 29% to GBP 250 million. This takes Gross Profit/Net Revenue for the first nine months to GBP 625 million. Our brake on hiring has stabilized headcount and delivered improved profitability, especially in the content practice. Operational EBITDA in the third quarter was greater than the whole of the first half, and we exited the quarter at a run rate sufficient to meet our full-year target.
We expect continued good top-line performance in the fourth quarter and maintain our full-year guidance of 25% like-for-like growth in gross profit net revenue. Our revised Operational EBITDA target issued at the end of July remains unchanged at approximately GBP 120 million. Net debt at the end of September was GBP 158 million after the initial payment for XX Artists and contingent payments on previous years' combinations. We continue to maintain significant liquidity, and our 2022 net debt guidance remains at GBP 130 million-GBP 170 million. Moving to the next slide, and my comments here are all on a like-for-like basis. First half momentum continued into the third quarter, and we delivered strong gross profit net revenue growth led by content and technology services, which were up 28% and 74% respectively.
In content, this growth was driven by our Whoppers and Wopportunities. Data and digital media was up 15% as growth in the activation and performance business lines was not as strong, but it continued to benefit from the market uncertainty. From a regional perspective, EMEA grew fastest with gross profit net revenue up 38%, and it accounted for 16% of the mix. The Americas, our largest region, grew 31%. In APAC, gross profit net revenue was up 3% against a strong comparable with performance in China impacted by the zero-COVID policy slowdown. On the next slide, we show you a breakdown by practice and region for the year- to- date. Again, my comments are on a like-for-like basis. Our total gross profit net revenue for the nine months to September was GBP 625 million, up 28%.
Content increased 27%, boosted by very strong growth of Whoppers. Data and digital media grew 20%, with technology services up 80%, reflecting a rapid growth trajectory from TheoremOne and Zemoga. This was mainly driven by expanding our partnerships with existing clients and was further aided by new wins. From a regional perspective, Americas is up 28%, EMEA 37%, and APAC 18%. We have again included information on outstanding contingent consideration and invested capital in the appendix, and we're happy to take any questions on these at your convenience. In summary, we are delivering strong top-line momentum, improved profitability, and good progress on strengthening our financial controls and processes. Our expectations for the full-year remain unchanged, and I look forward to updating you further at the full-year results. With that, I will pass to Scott.
Great. Thank you, Mary. I have a few slides to run through just updating you on our clients, and also the current market conditions and what that means, for our growth opportunity. You're all familiar with our 20 squared client plan, which is our ambition to build large-scaled relationships with clients and to have 20 clients of more than $20 million in annual revenue. As we expand the number and nature of these relationships, increasingly in line with other professional service industries, we are bound to confidentiality. As we approach the final stretch of 2022, we have further progress to celebrate with 10 of these scaled client relationships now in sight. We have nine expected this year and one more recent win, that started halfway through the year in fashion and luxury, which is operating at the Whopper run rate.
Our chief clients officer, Amy Michael , and her team are building growth plans around these 10 clients and a further 14 clients across various sectors. As you can see, with a strong continued bias towards technology. Of those 10 clients, nine of them are engaged with us across two or more of our three practice areas. When you look at our clients from a portfolio perspective, you'll see that technology continues to dominate, with over 47% of our nine-month revenues coming from this sector. The vast majority of our revenue here is with large, profitable tech companies such as Alphabet, Meta, Amazon, HP, Salesforce, Adobe, Microsoft, and others which are under NDA. Despite the well-publicized slowdowns in this sector, we should not forget that these companies do continue to grow at significant rates and are, in many cases, both partners and clients for our business.
We anticipate continuing to be overweight tech going forward, but we have diversified our client base somewhat as a result of new business wins and merger contributions, particularly in sectors such as financial services, FMCG, fashion and luxury, and auto. Given our consistent market-leading top-line growth, it's not surprising to see that our large client relationships continue to scale. The average revenue size of our top 10 clients has grown over 85%. For our top 20 and top 50 client cohorts, reported revenues have grown at close to 80% and 75% year-over-year, respectively. The table also shows how we've continued to expand the scale and number of major clients in line with the progress in our 20 squared plan, which I talked about earlier.
As with our clients and partners, we're continuing to work on our budgets for 2023 in what's obviously a time of considerable turbulence and uncertainty. The recent challenges of some of the technology platforms have been well covered, particularly in traditional media, but one should not forget that the sector as a whole is still producing and projected to produce growth. This chart illustrates the actuals and projected growth rates for the eight leading advertising tech platforms, Alphabet, Meta, Amazon, TikTok, Microsoft, Twitter, Snap, and Apple. Analyst projections have them doing slightly less than 10% growth this year, following more than 40% growth in 2021. As the platforms grapple with a lower growth environment, they are still projected to do double-digit growth next year.
Although you can see from the dotted lines that analysts have consistently downgraded their forecasts over the course of this year, such that projected ad revenue for the eight platforms in 2023 has declined from 18% to now 10%. As you can see from the bottom line on the chart, growth at the holding companies, which have consistently lagged both overall media spend growth as well as obviously growth in digital spend, is forecasted to dip below zero in 2023. A few weeks ago, the World Federation of Advertisers, which is a trade body for our clients, published a report based on a survey of their client base around their thoughts on budgets and spend plans for 2023.
The first chart illustrates that around 30% of clients are expecting to cut budgets, with 40% keeping them constant, and a further 30% project mainly slight rises. This breaks out by region. As you can see, Latin America and the US particularly strong. The next chart shows almost half of clients claim they'll be reducing their traditional media spend, with 42% saying they'll be increasing their digital spend, and only 13% suggesting a reduction in digital. Final slide from this survey goes into significantly more detail on which channels will see declines on the left, and that's the traditional media channels, and then ranks the areas of digital which will see increases. These channels, these digital channels tie in very well with our service offering and the areas that we at S4 have invested in recently.
The next slide has three charts which are from Cowen and speak to the addressable market for tech services and our data practice. It's important to remember that we operate in several multibillion-dollar addressable markets, all of which are growing, many of them beyond and outside of digital media spend. Client spending on technology tends to be less cyclical, although certainly not immune to cycles, and budgets tend to be committed over longer multi-year timelines and projects. As these charts illustrate, they expect demand for engineering services to increase steadily at 20% growth, and the client universe for digital transformation is expanding dramatically. The final chart, their view of revenues for the top five pure play digital transformation consultancies, including companies like Globant, EPAM, and Endava.
While FY 2023 does show a decline in growth, it is still very healthy, and they expect growth to stabilize in the medium term to the mid-20% bracket versus the low 20% bracket pre-COVID. As we work to finalize our budgets, we believe we're well placed to take advantage of the growth that is available to us. Our diverse exposure to multiple scaled addressable markets, our strong client base with almost half our revenues from the tech sector, which continues to have a strong positioning. Our geographical emphasis on the Americas, which remain the largest and one of the fastest-growing markets for all digital services. Finally, our service offering itself, which is fully focused on areas that clients intend to favor versus those which are sure to decline. With that, I'll hand it back to Martin for the summary.
Thanks, Scott. Thanks, Mary. Just to summarize, the final slide on the presentation or the appendix on some other items. We had strong momentum, as you see in Q3, with gross profit/net revenue up over 29%, which was a slight acceleration over the year-to-date. Year-to-date growth was at just over 28%. The control on costs that Mary is supervising has started to have an effect. Our people numbers, that's the number of people in the company, has stabilized around 9,000 for the last three months. As a result, Q3 profitability has been significantly better than H1. In fact, in Q3 bigger than H1 on its own.
The Q3 exit rate, run rate is sufficient to meet the revised target. We're also seeing continued client conversion at scale, and the biggest metric for that, we think, is the 10 Whoppers that we have in sight. Although you've also seen that our top 50 clients have grown by 70%, year-on-year, the average revenue for each of them. Our addressable market, as Scott has said, which is digital media marketing services, trade budgets, and digital transformation, is forecast to grow by 10%-20% per annum over the next five years. The underlying addressable market growth is significant, and we of course expect to grow faster than that. Our budget process and our three-year planning process is already underway. As I've said just before, we expect to outperform the addressable markets.
Our guidance for 2022 is maintained in terms of gross profit and net revenue at 25% like-for-like. Our target for expected operational EBITDA is maintained around approximately GBP 120 million. Last but not least, net liquidity has improved, and net debt continues to be expected for the year end between GBP 130 million and GBP 170 million. You saw at quarter- end it was around GBP 158 million. With that as background, you have an appendix with some other data on our share capital and contingent consideration. We'll open up for questions. Marian, can we have the questions, please?
Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question from the queue, please press star two. Again, please press star one to ask a question. We'll take the first question from Omar Sheikh from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Morning, everyone. I've got three questions, if I could. Maybe the first one for Mary. Mary, you've highlighted in the release that headcount has gone down in Q3 versus Q2. Could you maybe talk about what your plans are for headcount in Q4? Should we expect another reduction? Or in general, can you talk about the cost measures that you're taking as you go into the end of the year to try and convert revenue growth into profit growth? That's the first thing, first question. Secondly, maybe for Martin on Q4. The implied Q4 guidance, I think it's about 15%, based on what you did in the first nine year. How should we sort of think about that?
Because it looks pretty conservative in the context of what you said on client momentum and, you know, macro factors not impacting you. Just wonder whether you could give some commentary on your confidence on Q4 and maybe whether that guidance is conservative. Then finally, maybe again for Martin on 2023. I know you're not ready yet to give 2023 guidance formally, but could you just maybe lay out some of the benchmarks that we should think about when we try and frame how 2023 might go versus 'twenty-
Okay, fine. Omar, Mary first.
Sure. Thanks, Omar. In terms of headcount for Q4 and our plans for Q4, what we intend to do is continue the approach we've been taking during Q3, which is to very carefully manage the headcount that's coming into the business, and match it to areas where we see growth and where we see opportunities. I think it's very important to be clear that we don't have a hiring freeze in place. We are supporting the growth of the business through appropriate headcount adds, where we see the opportunity, and where we see the growth.
Overall, as we think about Q4, and particularly as we think about our exit rate from 2022 into 2023, it's important for us to ensure that our resource is effectively utilized, and that we're driving the best value we can from our cost base. We continue to review the resource allocation, both by client but also by capability, to make sure we're in the best position going into 2023.
Okay. Just, Omar, on your other two questions, the first one on Q4 and the implied conservatism. I don't think our math quite are in sync with yours at 15%. I think if you run the numbers and you assume the constant currency it would be about 21% for Q4. I think that's conservative too. You know, we continue to, as we've done before in the first nine months of the year, the third quarter and the first six months of the year. I don't think you should sort of just extrapolate that conservatism in the figures for the year. I think we'll continue at similar levels through to the end of the year.
I mean, one of the things we have seen is, I think clients perhaps being a bit conservative in the first half of the year or the first nine months of the year. It's crudely referred to, I think, as budget flushing at the end of the year. We are seeing a little bit of that, people investing their budgets at the back end of this year in anticipation of what may or may not happen next year. Clients try and build the level in for their budget for next year as they do their own planning.
On the benchmarks for 2023, I mean, Scott has gone through in some detail what we see on the sell side for the content and DDM part of our business, which is 90% of the business. You see there that the sell side analysts, and they do tend to be more optimistic, around 10%, a little bit under 10%, in the sort of 8%-10% bracket for the top eight or so platforms. That's 90% of our business. On the tech services side of the business, stronger when we look at the companies that Scott identified, such as Globant or Accenture Song or Endava or EPAM.
I mean, some of them have issues, for example, in Ukraine, but generally, that addressable market next year looks as though it'll be continue to be quite strong as clients start to try and reduce cost in a more challenged environment. Generally, just to emphasize, we are lower down the funnel. We sometimes obsess about that we should be more up the funnel, but more strategic and more awareness-orientated. Having said that, I think the demands for our clients in 2023 and 2024 will be on performance and activation. They'll be looking heavily at measurement on ROI.
I was in South America last week, and all the clients I saw, I saw five of our major clients in Mexico, and all of them said that they were gonna be really highly focused on performance and activation and results. They were getting significant pressure from the centers of their organizations and the finance functions to do that. I think the addressable markets will give us, in a difficult environment, not avoiding that issue, sufficient flexibility next year in terms of top line growth. Is that okay for you, Omar? Does that cover what you wanted?
Absolutely. Very clear. Thanks very much.
Thank you.
The next question comes from Thomas Singlehurst from Citi.
Good morning. Thank you for taking the questions. First one, I was gonna just sort of just double-check that we were still on track, that, you know, such that the 25% guidance for the full-year remains, or it proves to be conservative. If you over-deliver, you'd expect a high proportion of incremental revenue bottom line and drive a beat on the Operational EBITDA. Or has anything changed which alters the drop-through profile here on in the event that your fourth quarter expectation proves conservative? That was the first question.
The second one, I just wanted to get a little bit more detail on headcount and utilization, because I suppose, you know, great, you've put a lid on headcount for now, and that obviously gives you that sort of better margin performance as we progress through the second half of the year. All things being equal, I presume that unless headcount grows, revenue won't grow eventually. There must be some other moving part on utilization, and I just wondering whether you could give us some numbers to work with there that sort of help us sort of understand how if headcount growth slows significantly, revenue growth won't slow significantly.
That's your 2?
Yeah, that's two. Just two today.
Thank you, Tom. I mean, Mary, do you want to talk a little bit on Q4? I mean, we think, as I said before in relation to Omar's question, continuation. Just on headcount, Mary can fill it out. I mean, it could be, Tom, that we had you know, we were over-peopled in the first six months. What’s happening is, a rebalancing happened in Q3. When you think about Q3 just very simply, headcount was flat and gross profit/net revenues were up by 29%. I mean, QED. I mean, that’s it. Anyway, Mary.
Yeah. Just, I guess, just a little bit more in terms of headcount and utilization. You know, as I said in response to Omar's question, we are continuing to hire and what you've seen in Q3 is, I guess, the net impact, because we have addressed some areas of duplication and some areas, pockets of inefficiency. Then we've continued to hire against the strong business lines. Certainly, Tom, you know, I think the root of your question was really if headcount growth is slower, will top line growth be slower? Actually, what we're doing is making sure we support the business as it continues to grow. We don't expect to end up in that situation.
Yeah, just to add one thing. I mean, in addition to managing the headcount or number of people in the company a little bit more carefully and balancing it better, we are looking at utilization in terms of pricing and pricing as well. I think, you know, we've tightened up in a number of areas. Just to emphasize, it's the beginning of the process. It's not the middle or the end. There's still an awful lot more to do. I think that the weight of the work is more on the content side of the business than the DDM and the tech services side of the business. We'll continue to make those efforts.
You know, I think fundamentally it may well be, you know, we discussed this in relation to Q1 and Q2. It may well be that we were imbalanced in that, and what you're seeing now is the unwinding of that, and that will continue. That cover it, Tom?
Um-
You want more?
Yeah, it does. It does. I've got. Like, I just wanna be specific about that first question though. If growth tracks at 29% again in the fourth quarter, does that automatically mean that there is a little bit of upward pressure to the profit guidance as well? Or is it because the growth potentially is coming more through tech services. Does that slightly also mean that.
No.
Okay, fine.
I mean, we've reiterated our guidance on the top line. We've reiterated our guidance on the bottom line. We've reiterated our guidance on net debt and liquidity, and I think that's where we'll stick.
Fair enough. I'm now doing the third question. I do apologize. The third question is, some of the other agencies have started to use a phrase that I don't think I've ever heard before, which is pricing power. Which I presume is the ability to pass on sort of what wage and salary inflation. That is. Can you just talk about the concept of pricing power?
Yeah.
Is it?
I'm not-
How it's baked in.
I'm not sure that I understand. I mean, you're making the comparison between us and agencies, and it's not a comparison we like or not a comparison we think is valid. Be that as it may, I'm not sure I agree with that concept. I think probably what's happened is with inflation running rampant, clients' procurement departments, financial functions are you know, as clients themselves have raised prices in order to maintain margins, particularly in the FMCG area. Although my view is they're gonna be unable to continue to do that into 2023 because there will be a limit to what consumers we're already starting to see in some categories some trading down to other brands, cheaper brands or private label. I don't think it's pricing power.
I think it's just psychology that in an environment where prices are going up by 5%-10%, whatever it is, more likely the 10% than the 5%. Clients' procurement departments and finance departments are more psychologically attuned to the argument that you need price increases. Having said that, the pressures on digital labor have lessened. I mean, most of the major tech companies have reduced their hiring similar to ourselves. They're doing much more balanced hiring. Some have actually cut quite significantly. You know, we've seen that recently. The last one, I suppose, was Disney on Friday, late on Friday. I don't think I'd agree that it's pricing power. You know, there's a master-servant relationship between clients and agencies.
I don't think the agencies should start to think that they've got this as enormous pricing power. I think what's happening is that there's more an acknowledgement of the fact that we live in an inflationary world. By the by the way, to reinforce the point, I think times have changed, and inflation will be with us for a longer period of time than many. It's not transitory. Just even when it settles down and it came off. You know, we had a pleasant surprise last week with the US inflationary numbers, and hopefully, that will continue. My view would be that inflation will continue at levels that we haven't been used to for the last few years.
Yeah. Thank you very much.
The next question comes from Julien Roch from Barclays. Please go ahead.
Yes. Good morning, Martin. Good morning, Mary. Good morning, Scott. On your GBP 120 million of EBITDA guidance, the profit warning was based on the content practice, I think a very aggressive top-line target and hiring in line with this. You thinking that this top-line target was too aggressive when you revised the budget for a second time at Q2. I don't see a problem with the top line. You're actually saying that you're gonna still be at, like, 27%-28% in Q4. You're gonna do more than 25% for full-year 2022. So I'm curious, what was the guidance in content? Were they expecting, like, 50% growth or something? Because I really don't see the top line problem at the moment. It's all very good. That's my first question.
The second one is, if you do consensus of 10% top line like-for-like next year, hopefully it's gonna be better, but as a starting point, if you do that 10%, what margin can we expect? Second question. Then the third question is on M&A. Still no share issue below 400-430, as you've said recently. Thank you.
Yeah. On the M&A, let's deal with that quickly. Yeah, I mean that's consistent. We've said that we won't issue equity for deals unless merger partner is prepared to say it, as we saw with XX and TheoremOne. Yeah, on the first one, we go to Mary for next year. You know, if you assume 10% top line, what's gonna happen to margins. On the content, I mean, the answer to your question, Julian, is very simply, probably it's come out midway between the two. You know, content probably, when we issued the profit warning, the top line anticipation was even higher than we've achieved.
The answer is, it's come out so far, and we have to see what happens obviously in Q4, but it's come out midway between the two. Mary, do you wanna say a little bit about margin for next year?
Yeah. Sure. Julian, as you've obviously pointed out, you know, Scott's covered when we've looked at the market trends, you know, given the macro conditions and what we're seeing, we would expect growth to moderate next year. Now we will be continuing to manage costs very closely. We're looking at our 2022 to 2023, so our exit rate from this year into next year. Therefore we would expect margins to improve. We're right in the middle of our budget process, and we're not ready to provide guidance on 2023 yet. That will come with the full-year results, when we announce those in the new year.
If you're not ready to provide guidance on next year, I mean, your historical margin guidance was 20%-22% EBITDA margin. Can you get there next year, or is it too early and you probably need a couple of years to get back to 20-22%?
Well, we're gonna do our three-year plan, or we're actually in the middle of doing that. We'll see what, how that comes out in terms of margin guidance. I think, to be blunt, it would be difficult for us to get back to 2022 next year. That would be a fine thing if we managed to do it, but I doubt it. I think there'll be more of a progression in margins over the three-year period. We'll see how we go. It won't be 20%-22% next year. That's for sure.
Very clear. Thank you.
Thank you, Julian.
As a reminder, to ask a question, please press star one. We'll now take the next question from Matthew Walker from Credit Suisse.
Hi, good morning. Can you hear me, guys?
Yeah. Yeah. We can hear you fine.
Thanks a lot. Yeah. The first question is, we get a lot of questions from around, you know, have you seen any sort of high-profile departures from the group? I just wanna check, you know, all these, the acquisitions made over the last years. Has there been anyone you've lost that is, you know, that was featured consultant or any other key personnel from Media.Monks or if... The other thing is on growth. When you look at the TAM growth, you know, let's say it's 20% in-
You cut out, Matt.
Uh-
You said on growth?
Yeah, no. On growth, what do you think the balance is for you between the underlying total addressable market growth and your market share gain? 'Cause obviously your growth is a function of both TAM and market share gain.
Sure.
Like if you look at 22, let's assume you do the 25%.
Right.
The underlying market growth is around and for digital and a little bit more for the other bits.
Yeah.
You're doing more than half of your growth is again.
Yeah.
I was just interested in what your view was on that going forward?
Yeah
going forward.
Yeah.
Then lastly, if you could say anything about the hiring outlook for 2023. 'Cause clearly you said you've overhired. Now you've got this sort of flattish growt h in headcounts. When you look at 2023 to support the growth.
Yeah
How much hiring do you think you need to do in 2023?
Okay. I mean, do you want to deal with the first one on the high-profile depart-?
No high profile departures. I think we've done over 30 transactions since we started the company. Obviously, as you know, a big part of our deal structure is encouraging entrepreneurs to join S4 and become significant shareholders in S4. We probably have. It depends how you look at that list of 30 companies, but we probably have 60, 70 entrepreneurs who are major shareholders in their companies and are now major shareholders in S4. Of those we've had around five departures, but no high profile ones, and no sort of major unplanned ones. Nothing there, no.
On the growth question, Matthew, I think it's quite difficult to figure that one out. I think we are gaining share. I mean, the best way I can put it, I mean, there's a sentence in the report on Q3 which talks about, you know, recent wins in FMCG, and tech, and retail, and financial services, which will kick in, not at Whopper level, but at significant levels. The pleasing thing about those wins is that in all cases, they were not big pitch wins. These were what I would call land-and-expand wins. I mean, there might have been mini pitches in one or two of them, but they will have an impact next year.
One tech company where we have an existing relationship and has expanded. One FMCG where we had no relationship, it was a mini pitch, I guess. Went on for about three months, and we were assigned global content production. Financial services, actually a couple of financial services companies where we initiated and expanded relationships, and then a retail relationship which has expanded. I think, you know, we're clearly gaining share. It depends on which addressable market you're talking about. On tech services, and we're growing pretty much like the others. Our business is smaller. It's only 10%, about GBP 100 million-plus of gross profit net revenue. I mean, it's relatively small in comparison to the companies that we mention as competitors.
You know, it is growing quite fast. I would say it would be very difficult for us to figure it out. It's a bit of market growth, and it's a bit of market share growth. Do you wanna talk about hiring for 2023, Mary?
Yes, sure. Thanks. Good morning, Matthew. When we think about hiring outlook for 2023, I wouldn't expect the headcount to remain flat next year. We will be supporting the growth of the business with additional people adds just in the same controlled way that we've done through Q3. It's really important, as I said earlier, that we support the growth of the business and make sure we have sufficient people on board to drive the top line. I would expect it to continue to grow just in a controlled fashion.
The only thing I would add to that is, you know, the things that Mary and her team are doing together with people inside the practices is not just about balancing hiring with net revenue growth. It's about pricing. It's about utilization. There is, you know, in my view, there's a way to go yet before we get it right across the whole business.
If I have just one quick follow-up, which is when you look at the tech results, they've obviously been very mixed. Some good, some bad, to be perfectly honest. When we're looking at your top line, should you be not so much looking at the top line of Google and Facebook, et cetera, or like what they're spending on sales and marketing? Do you think the two are so closely aligned it doesn't really make any difference, and looking at the top line is still the right thing to do?
Yeah, I think it's both, but I think the top line drives that. I mean, I think you have to remember those tech companies are not just clients of ours, they're partners of ours as well. Obviously the revenue growth they have from advertising is a strong indicator of the sort of health and growth opportunity, particularly for our content business and for our media business. You know, we provide services around their products. If you take Google, for example, we provide services around Google Cloud, around Google Analytics, around their core advertising technology products as well to our other clients as well. It's all interrelated, I think.
Yeah. I mean, I just wanna like to say, I mean, you. When people are down, analysts and media like to give people a good kicking.
Particularly newspapers.
Yeah. They like to give them a good kicking. When you actually look at the numbers, Matthew, I mean, I mean, let's get it into perspective. I mean, the fact that the world's richest man is buying or has bought a platform which is 1% of global digital revenues, and by the way, in his initial plans, he wanted to increase it to about 2%-2.5%. I'm not saying it's a rounding error, but it is relatively small. People look at Snap, which is roughly the same in terms of ad revenues as Twitter, a little bit more, but again, around 1%. The platforms to look at, and I come back to it, the basics for a minute.
You know, Alphabet, it will go from about $205 billion to $220-225 billion this year. Meta will be flat around $115 billion. There'll be some currency noise in there that probably makes it look a little bit worse than it is. Amazon is gonna go from $31 billion to $40 or 41 billion. TikTok, we don't know, but there's some varied numbers. ByteDance, you know, $60 billion this year, going to $90 billion next year. TikTok within that ex-China, outside China, going from $5- 10 billion. I think the FT suggested they were gonna come off from $12 - 10 billion. Those are the ones that made the inroads. Then we mentioned this in the press release, the Q3 trading statement. There are new entrants. There's Apple.
We don't know what Apple's ad platform is, but we guess around $7 billion. There's Microsoft, probably around $10 billion. If it does the Activision deal, which probably I don't know. Maybe it's 50/50, but maybe it's more than 50/50, it'll go through. That will. You know, you have Microsoft with Netflix now, just launched their ad service, probably at too high a price, but they have the ability to come down. There's Disney+ also coming into the marketplace. These things, you know, tend to get, I think, overlooked. I think the prospects for Meta, for example, I mean, Meta is condemned as the source of all evils. I mean, it's a nonsense. I think Meta is in a position now to build.
after all, it will do, as I said, about $115 billion this year. I think we have to get these things into perspective, and I think that we've lost perspective on this. That doesn't mean that growth hasn't slowed. It has. it doesn't mean it's not tougher than it was. It is. I think, again, we've lost perspective on it.
Okay. That's helpful. Thank you so much.
We'll now take the next question from Steve Liechti from Numis. Please go ahead.
Morning, guys. I've got three. First of all, on DDM, can you just give us a little bit more color? I know the growth is still 15% and has slowed down from the first half. Just there in terms of trends. 'Cause I would have thought that business would be doing better, you know, given. That's the first question.
Right.
Second count. Mary, this might have been me not hearing you. Did you actually say on headcount in the fourth quarter relative to the third quarter, if the headcount was down -1% in the third quarter, did you give a number for the fourth quarter? I.e., is it simply gonna be down 1% or did you not sort of give us a rough number? I don't know if that's possible. The third one is just give us an update on the systems and controls that you're putting in place or have put in place there, referencing the utilization, trying to work out, you know, what is best value.
Yeah. Okay. Do you wanna do those last two?
If you could just remind me.
Yes, sure. Morning, Steve. No, on headcount, I didn't give a number. We will continue to manage it tightly against the growth of the business during the fourth quarter. We don't have a fix on a number for the year-end yet. On the second question, in terms of systems and controls in terms of utilization. There are a few things going on. Firstly, as we've said, during Q3, we reviewed any pockets of duplication or inefficiency within the business that had grown up as a result of the very, very fast growth. Secondly, we now have in place a set of processes around the larger deals, so what we call the deal desk, where we review the pricing, the utilization, the resource allocation.
We are expanding the processes we have for managing the larger clients on, you know, kind of on a day-to-day basis in terms of ensuring that the resource allocation is maximizing the utilization as we go through. Quite a lot of work going on there. I think as Martin said earlier, you know, we are continuing to work on our cost base and our people organization, and there is more work to do as we exit 2022 and go into 2023.
Just on DDM, if you were to break it down, I think probably in Q3, they're more affected by what you saw in the platforms, you know, the slowing of growth. I mean, 15% is not bad, even in the context of what's happening in the platforms. I think the answer, Steve, is they were affected by what was happening in activation and performance and programmatic in Q3. I mean, on a geographic basis, it's probably similar to what you saw happening geographically in a sense because China obviously had an impact on Asia-Pacific. Interestingly, America grew, or was faster in Q3, and EMEA was faster in Q3 than year- to- date. So it'll be even better than H1.
I think coming back to DDM, it's more to do with what was happening in activation performance and programmatic in Q3. We'll see what happens in Q4, and going into next year.
Right. Thanks.
We will now take a follow-up question from Julien Roch from Barclays. Please go ahead.
Yes, quick follow-up. Can we get the base for net revenue in Q4? We just have to add like-for-like on that number, taking into account all the M&A.
What do you mean the base?
The pro forma base.
The like-for-like base in Q4 2021.
Oh, okay. Do you want-
Julian, we haven't shared specifically the pro forma number for Q4 2021. What I would suggest is take the figure from last year, and then obviously there are only three mergers this year.
Yeah
...to adjust for. There were numbers, and indications in the press release associated with those.
That would be 4 Mile Analytics , XX and TheoremOne. Okay. Julian?
There are no further questions.
All right. Thank you. Thank you, Marion. Thank you, Martin.
Mm-hmm.
Thank you, everybody. Thanks for joining us. Any further questions, Scott's here, Mary's here, I'm here. Look forward to talking to you next year in 2022 and beyond. Thank you.