Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to Yellow Pages Limited's Q4 2023 earnings conference call. Today's conference call contains forward-looking information about Yellow Pages' outlook, objectives, and strategy. These statements are based on assumptions and are subject to important risk and uncertainties. Yellow Pages' actual results could differ materially from expectations discussed. The details of Yellow Pages' caution regarding forward-looking information, including key assumptions and risk, can be found in Yellow Pages' Management's Discussion and Analysis for the Q4 of 2023. This call is being recorded. And all of the disclosure documents are available on the company's website and on SEDAR+. I would now like to turn the meeting over to Mr. David Eckert, President and Chief Executive Officer. Please go ahead, sir.
Thank you very much. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to our Q4 2023 analyst call. I'm joined here today by Sherilyn King, our Senior Vice President of Sales, Marketing, and Customer Service, and by Franco Sciannamblo, our Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. As usual, we'll start out. Franco and I will make some introductory comments and then we will be available to answer questions. Looking at the Q4 and the full year 2023, we are very pleased with the results of the quarter and the year, and especially considering the strong headwinds that have existed through or did exist through the year in the Canadian small business sector of the economy. We continue to generate strong earnings. Our Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was 29.1% and for the full year, 32.1% of revenue.
As we have announced previously, during the Q4 , we completed a plan of arrangement under which we distributed CAD 62 million of cash to our shareholders and voluntarily to our defined benefit pension plan. Even after those cash distributions, we have a good, healthy cash balance on hand, which at the end of January, after continuing to generate cash, stood at approximately CAD 27 million. We feel good about the progress we've continued to make on our initiatives to support bending our revenue curve, including importantly continuing to expand our sales force in spite of the headwinds in the economy. We have made really good progress, we think, on a number of our underlying metrics, including the current size of the sales force, our rate of churn of customers, and our rate of gaining new accounts. Those all bode well for the future.
In particular, our rate of gaining new accounts was 28.5% higher than it was in the previous year, and we are firmly convinced that these fundamentals bode very well for our medium-term and long-term future. In fact, as we look at the quarter that we're now in, the Q1 of 2024, after looking back at four quarters of declining rate of change of revenue compared to the prior year, we expect this quarter to resume our climb toward revenue stability, what we call our revenue curve bending in the right direction.
Reflecting all of this, yesterday our board of directors voted to increase our dividends, to change our dividend policy, to pay a cash dividend to common shareholders of 0.25 per common share per quarter, increased from CAD 0.20, and did indeed declare a dividend of 0.25 per common share per quarter to be paid on March 15th.
So all in all, we are continuing to realize that there remain some headwinds in the economy, but we feel we're doing very well and we're very bullish about the future. We're very pleased about the continued strong cash and profitability performance of the company. I would like to pass the baton to Franco Sciannamblo, Chief Financial Officer, who will provide some additional details on the things that I've just mentioned, and then we'll be available to answer questions. Thank you.
Thanks, David, and good morning, everyone. Let me take you through our financial results for the Q4 ended December 31st, 2023. We'll start with revenues. Our total revenues decreased by CAD 8.7 million or 13.4% year-over-year and amounted to CAD 55.9 million for the Q4 . The decrease in revenues is mainly due to the decline of our higher margin digital media and print products and to a lesser extent to our lower margin digital services products, thereby creating pressure on our gross profit margins. Digital revenues decreased by 12.1% year-over-year and amounted to CAD 45.3 million for the three-month period ended December 31st, 2023. The decline was mainly attributable to a decrease in digital customer count, partially offset by an increase in spend per customer. Print revenues decreased by 18.7% year-over-year and amounted to CAD 10.6 million for the quarter.
The decline in revenues was mainly attributable to the decrease in number of print customers and to a lesser extent a decrease in spend per customer. The decline rate of total revenues increased year-over-year. Total revenue decline of 13.4% this year compares to a decline of 5.9% reported for the same period last year. Digital revenues decline of 12.1% this quarter compares to a decline of 4.3% reported for the same period last year. Print revenue decline of 18.7% this quarter compares to a decline of 11.7% reported for the same period last year. The higher decline rates are attributable to a decrease in customer count in both digital and print and to customer claims rates remaining stable in 2023 while 2022 benefited from a substantial improvement.
These pressures, augmented by the economic headwinds, were partially offset by higher spend per customer in digital, driven in part by increased pricing. Total revenues for the full year 2023 totaled CAD 239.4 million, a decrease of 10.8% year-over-year. On Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter, it was impacted by pressures from lower revenue and ongoing investments in our telesales force capacity, partially offset by the impact of the company's share price on cash-settled stock-based compensation expense, price increases, deficiencies from optimization and cost of sales, and reductions in other operating costs, including reductions in our workforce and associated employee expenses. As a result, Adjusted EBITDA decreased year-over-year by CAD 4.7 million or 22.6% to CAD 16.2 million. Adjusted EBITDA margin decreased to 29.1% compared to 32.5% for the same period last year.
Revenue pressures coupled with increased headcount in our sales force, partially offset by continued optimization, will continue to cause some pressure on margins in upcoming quarters. Adjusted EBITDA for the full year 2023 was CAD 76.9 million or 32.1% of revenues. On net income, it decreased to CAD 12.2 million for the Q4 of 2023 compared to CAD 29.4 million for the same period last year. The decrease is mainly attributable to a higher recognition of previously unrecognized tax attributes and temporary differences in 2022. Income before taxes decreased from CAD 16.7 million for the Q4 of 2022 to CAD 12.4 million for the same period in 2023, mainly due to lower adjusted EBITDA. For the full year 2023, net income totaled CAD 47.4 million. On our workforce, as of December 31st, it decreased to 627 employees compared to 629 at the same date last year.
Sales force headcount increased by 15 while all other headcount decreased by 17. On the plan of arrangement, as David mentioned, during the Q4 , we completed the previously announced plan of arrangement whereby the company repurchased from shareholders pro rata and aggregate of 4,440,497 common shares, including 207,717 shares held by trustee, at a purchase price of CAD 11.26 per share for a total of CAD 50.5 million, including CAD 0.5 million of transaction costs. The CAD 50.5 million cash outlay was reduced by CAD 2.3 million for the cancellation of 207,717 of YP's shares held by the trustee for a net cash outlay of CAD 48.2 million. Also pursuant to the plan of arrangement, the company advanced CAD 12 million of voluntary incremental cash contribution to the pension plans wind-up deficit during the Q4 .
In addition, consistent with our deficit reduction plan announced in May 2021, during the Q4 of 2023, the company made CAD 1.5 million in voluntary incremental cash contribution to the pension plans wind-up deficit, including the amounts pursuant to the plan of arrangement. This brings the full year total of voluntary incremental payments to CAD 18 million toward the pension plans wind-up deficit. After all that, our cash on hand at the end of January stood at approximately CAD 27 million. Also, as David announced, the board of directors has modified the dividend policy and approved an increase in the quarterly cash dividend from CAD 0.20 to CAD 0.25 per common share, up 25% from previous quarterly dividends. Consequently, the board also declared a cash dividend of CAD 0.25 per common share payable on March 15th to shareholders of record as of February 27, 2024.
This concludes our formal remarks.
Thank you for taking the time to join us this morning. We will now take your questions. Back over to you, Maud.
Thank you. We will now take questions from the telephone lines. If you have a question and you are using a speakerphone, please lift your handset before making your selection. If you have a question, please press star one on your device's keypad. You may answer your question at any time by pressing star two. Please press star one at this time if you have a question. There will be a brief pause while participants register for questions. We thank you for your patience. Once again, please press star one at this time for any questions or comments. We have no questions registered at this time. I would now like to turn the meeting back over to Mr. Eckert.
Thank all of you for joining us today. We appreciate your interest. We appreciate your support, and we look forward to chatting with you again in a quarter from now in May. Thank you very much and have a great day. Bye now.
Thank you. The conference has now ended. Please disconnect your lines at this time, and we thank you for your participation.