Good morning, and welcome to Sabio Holdings Third Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call. The financial statement and MD&A have been filed, and they can be accessed through the SEDAR website. My name is Sam Wang, SVP of Strategic Finance, and joining us on the call today are Aziz Rahimtoola, Founder and CEO, and Sajid Premji, Chief Financial Officer. We'll start today's call with Aziz and Sajid discussing our financial results, and we will then conduct a question and answer session later in the call, which will be restricted to analysts only. Before we get started, I'd like to remind everyone that certain statements made today may contain forward-looking information that is subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors. For a complete description of the risk and uncertainty involved, please refer to company's MD&A and periodic filings that are also available on the SEDAR website.
Finally, please note that all figures discussed today are in U.S. dollars unless specified otherwise. With that, I'd like to turn the call over to Aziz.
Thank you, Sam. Good morning, everyone. This quarter was challenging, not only because of last year's strong comps driven by election advocacy spend, but also simultaneously fallout from the UAW and SAG strikes. While dealing with reduced CPG spend connected to high commodity prices, all those factors were challenging and that we had to deal with this quarter. Despite that and more, we sharpened our pencils and delivered positive Adjusted EBITDA. We did this through aggressive, well-thought-out cost-cutting measures that were designed not to affect our growth in CTV OTT this year, or the opportunity next year's political advocacy business presents. Sabio today is more diversified business, gaining market share by becoming an authority on how brands, agencies, political, and advocacy campaigns can better reach diverse audiences in this ad-supported streaming space.
Our complete end-to-end non-cookie-based tech stack not only helps clients effectively reach diverse audiences on ad-supported streaming apps, it also validates the use, reach, ROI via our App Science analytics platform. In addition, this quarter, we launched SabioTV, a creator-first platform that provides brands an opportunity to be associated with some of the best social influencers, influencer content serialized for TV. This technology-driven, multi-touch CTV OTT strategy is working, helping us close a record number of non-political upfront commitments for 2024, with more expected. Sajid will now dive into the numbers. Sajid?
Thanks, Aziz. As Aziz mentioned, our third quarter results faced challenging comparables to last year period, a period that was boosted by the 2022 U.S. midterm election cycle, the one that we significantly outpaced our key peer group. Despite these challenges, we are pleased to have once again delivered positive Adjusted EBITDA for the third quarter. This was driven by the aggressive implementation of cost reduction initiatives targeted to drive operational efficiencies and the core connected TV, OTT streaming business that continues to grow at double-digit rates. CTV OTT represented 70% of our sales mix for the quarter, up from 56% in the prior year. Moreover, customer retention remained strong. For the nine months ended, approximately 78% of consolidated revenues came from repeat customers, as Sabio retained 90% of our top 20 brands, leading to cost efficiency gains within our sales model.
For the three months ended September 30th, 2023, Sabio generated $8.8 million in sales, down 26% from $11.9 million in the prior year, with CTV OTT sales declining 8% from $6.7 million- $6.1 million. The decline was driven by a decrease in political and advocacy spend compared to the same quarter last year. Third quarter mobile display sales, meanwhile, were $2.6 million, down 49% from $5 million in the prior year. Aligned with our sales strategy, our legacy mobile display customers continued to shift their spend with Sabio from mobile display to higher margin CTV OTT streaming, including streaming on mobile devices, which is recognized under our CTV and OTT streaming category.
Additionally, category-specific events, such as the autoworker strike, led certain mobile display customers to shift campaign launches to the fourth quarter of 2023. Drilling down, the decline in connected TV and OTT sales was driven by a decrease in political and advocacy spend compared to the same quarter last year, where the category benefited from the 2022 U.S. midterm election cycle. Excluding political and advocacy sales, CTV OTT revenues were up 29% as we continued to see strength across several verticals, including CPG, finance, agriculture, food and beverage, and quick service restaurants. The core business continues to outpace market growth rates, and on a 12-month basis, that represents 67% of our sales mix.
Despite the challenging comparable with the election cycle and category-specific categories discussed, we are pleased to have delivered positive Adjusted EBITDA for the three-month period, aided through strong gross margins of close to 60% and cost and operational initiatives to optimize our operating infrastructure. While some of these initiatives, including several headcount reductions, did not take effect until the beginning of September 2023, they nonetheless contributed to a sequential 19% decrease in OpEx spending compared to the second quarter. These initiatives are expected to yield close to $4 million in annualized cost savings. Our ability to swiftly capitalize on their associated benefits is a testament to our ability to rapidly adjust our operating infrastructure in response to changes in market dynamics. The impact is even more stark when looking at it on a sequential basis.
Led by a 19% decrease in sequential OpEx spending and a 10% increase in revenues, we were able to turn a $1.7 million Q2 Adjusted EBITDA loss into a positive Adjusted EBITDA third quarter. As political and advocacy spending once again heats up in the lead-up to the next year's U.S. presidential election cycle, we are well-positioned for material Adjusted EBITDA gains in the quarters ahead. We expect to benefit from a more diversified sales mix that includes over $10 million in upfront secure for 2024, strong gross margins, a reduced break-even point, and better operating leverage. We ended the quarter with $2.2 million in cash on hand. Subsequent to quarter end, we also finalized a short-term extension with Avidbank on a credit facility for up to 6 months or May 2024.
The bank will assess for a longer-term renewal by February 21st, 2024. At quarter end, we had 46.9 million shares outstanding, 4.2 million warrants outstanding, and 3.8 million options and RSU outstanding, with insiders owning 64% of the company. Subsequent to quarter end, arrangements were entered into with certain third-party warrant holders to exercise 2.8 million warrants of these ones that are outstanding. Once these are effected, insiders will still own 60% of the company, demonstrating strong alignment between our board, our executive team, and the best interest of shareholders. Back to you, Aziz.
Great. Thank you, Sajid. So once again, record upfront commitments going to 2024, continue to optimize our operating infrastructure, meaningful Adjusted EBITDA gains in 2024. Advocacy, we're really excited about advocacy and political upsides in 2024. So we have a better structure. We're positioned well moving forward into the 2024 cycle, political and advocacy cycle, and on top of it, we have commitments, a record number of commitments that we didn't have going into this year. So overall, we feel great about where we're positioned and, and how we're moving into 2024. On that note, I'm gonna hand it back to Sam.
Thanks, Aziz and Sajid. We'll now open up the call for Q&A. So all the analysts have been given speakers permission, so please raise your virtual hand, and then we will take questions. Okay, so first up, we have Kiran Sritharan from Eight Capital. Go ahead, Kiran.
Good morning, guys. Thanks for taking my questions here. And to start, can you talk about some of the recovery triggers in your key customer verticals? Would appreciate any minutiae you have on next year's election dynamics or new auto models that should probably like impact your top line.
Yeah, I think the first recovery element was this settling of the UAW strike. You know, automotive has consistently, since we started the company, been one of our key verticals across multiple years, I mean, since we started the company. And so that hanging over us, specifically as it relates to domestic spending, was concerning. Now we're past that. The strike was settled, agreed to terms were just agreed to this week, and we already started seeing some benefits of that settlement. So that's number one. Number two is the SAG strike. That had effects on, although entertainment was not, is not a significant part of our business, it still contributes to it. So that was the other driver that we're past.
And then finally, as we're all seeing, the inflation elements are coming down, so the cost of goods are starting to drop, and that had an effect on consumer product goods expenditure, specifically as it relates to Q3. We're starting to see recoveries there as well. And so the point being is the consumer is healthy, and it wasn't... Some of our challenges were year-to-year comps. You know, we had a obviously great, as we talked about political advocacy, spend extra, a lot extra spend, additional spend for the mid-year elections last year. That, combined with these factors, has really played a key role in some of the challenges.
But having said that, as you could see, we really optimized our business model, thanks to the leadership of Sajid Premji, our CFO, and we're in a much better place. And then going into the next year's election cycles, once again, if you can imagine, we're starting being positioned as the go-to for understanding and reaching consumers, diverse consumers on CTV, OTT, connected TV and over the top. And so because of that, this election cycle is really gonna be decided by margins, we think, in a lot of cases. Whether it is, you know, obviously, Hispanic voters, Black voters, Asian voters, you know, suburban moms, these are the factors that we understand better than most.
And so because of that, we're already getting a lot of great, we're having a lot of great conversations, and we're already submitting some additional initial proposals going into the 2024 cycle. And so a lot of, lot of great momentum there overall. This is probably... And by the way, I'll say, we are further along as it relates to the 2024 election cycle than we've ever been as a company, and so we've never been positioned the way we have, because of all the things and, and because of-... obviously, we continue to execute well. Sajid, anything you wanna add to that?
Yeah, I think that, you know, that, that was well said, Aziz. I think the one thing that I, I just want to add to that is another recovery element to that is, as Aziz had mentioned in his transcript, and I did as well, is that we have secured now, over $10 million in upfront commitments for 2024. So for, for some perspective, you know, that's over-- that's close to 25% of last year's revenues that have already been secured for next year. For some context, entering into the 2022 election cycle, in the fourth quarter of 2021, we had $0 secured for that year. Last year, we had about $4 million secured entering 2023, so we're already in a much better place going to next year.
All of those are upfront, by the way, are non-political and advocacy. So that's just with our core business. These political and advocacy spend will add additional tailwinds to that growth.
That's helpful, caller guys, thanks. For my second year, how do you see capital preservation and allocation priorities over the next few quarters? I mean, any early thoughts you have on how the budget should look next year, should we model more operational efficiencies coming through? That'll be helpful. Thanks.
Yeah. Yeah, I think that, you know, I think that, you know, efficiencies is a key priority of ours. We are very focused on being a self-sustaining company and being a profitable company year after year. I think that, you know, the efficiencies that we talked about that we put in place to yield $4 million of annualized cost savings, as I kind of mentioned, you know, some of, a lot of those, those efficiencies were put in place at the end of August, early September. So we are expecting those, the full benefit of those efficiencies to take hold in the quarters ahead. So to answer your question, yes, we are expecting a stable operating infrastructure that will be more conducive to more efficiency while we grow our top line.
Keep in mind, you know, we are moving to Q4, and Q4 has been historically our best quarter, and this year is no different. And so we have basically consumed, you know, the first two quarters, we tend to obviously run losses, and that's what we have set this up. And then Q3, we will pull that back, and we'll start becoming, as we have, Adjusted Positive EBITDA this quarter. And the next quarter, we'll really start, you know, delivering, free cash flow. And structurally, what we have done now is we have now right-sized the ship. And so we believe that moving into Q1, Q2, Q3, next year, which are traditionally some of our more challenging quarters, we're positioned much better.
As Sajid mentioned, over 20% of commitment going into a quarter or a year is pretty significant. On top of that, we have a better structure in general. So we're feeling good. We're not so concerned about capital preservation, we're focused on efficiency, maintaining that efficiency, and really kind of we're gonna once again have free cash flow next quarter that will add to our position. And look, you know, I'll call it out right now, some of the concerns that some of our analysts have had is the balance sheet situation, and we believe it's improving. It's gonna start improving, you know, elements of it will start improving next quarter, and we will add to that as we go through the election cycle.
That's helpful, Aziz. Thanks. For my last one here, can you talk about the CTV adoption in the broader industry? I mean, I appreciate your ability to shift customers on your own CTV platform there, but from a growth perspective, how are the ad dollars heading to CTV meeting expectations? Or do you see brands more weathering the storm with legacy channels? Like, how do we think about CTV growth in general?
Yeah, it's gonna continue accelerating. And Sajid, I think you already, you have some stats on that. Well, at the bottom, we have U.S. CTV spend has a 5-year CAGR, 10% growth of $25 billion in 2023, and $41 billion by 2027. So going back to the adoption of CTV, we're starting. We're still seeing that, and so we're positioned uniquely in that space. And so what you saw, there was some pullback with some of the macro environment challenges that took place in the last couple of quarters, but that pullback, as we even stated in our, you know, in terms of how we execute, was not happening in CTV OTT. And so, you know, other forms of business in terms of advertising has been cut back.
But we believe CTV, and we're positioned well for it. Not only are we positioned well in CTV, but CTV in general, in terms of consumption, in terms of consumer consumption, is the most diverse level of consumption in terms of diverse consumers that anyone has ever seen. It's more diverse than linear TV. So we are not only positioned well in the growth of CTV, from a reaching perspective, I talked about, briefly about SabioTV and the opportunities that presents, but then obviously the App Science analytics. So we're, we're uniquely positioned in a really, you know, quickly growing marketplace, and that's gonna continue on. Nothing's really gonna pull it back. And by the way, you should know that advertisers are hitting maximum points of how much they can use a Roku.
We've been told this numerous times over and over again. Roku is hitting a saturation point. They can't spend more on YouTube because they've already spent a maximum amount that they've allocated towards it. So that opens up an opportunity for other platforms, such as ourselves, to gain from the exposure, the loss coming from linear TV.
Thanks, Aziz. Helpful call. I'll pass the line.
Great. Thank you. Kiran?... Sam, who do we have next?
Please, raise your virtual hand if you have questions for Aziz and Sajid.
Great. I guess, okay, we got Daniel.
There we go. Up next, we have Daniel Rosenberg from Paradigm Capital. Daniel, go ahead.
Daniel, we can't hear you. Are you on mute?
Oh, hey, Aziz, Thomas here, filling in for Daniel.
Okay.
I was just wondering if you can give us a little bit color on SabioTV. That was something that you guys were excited about earlier. Maybe just some color on the strategy and what that means for you in the long term.
Yeah, and just to be very clear, we are not in the production game, we are simply in the technology game. And so what we're doing is we have worked with, and now we have along the lines of 20-50 influencers that we have lined up, and they're at various phases, phases that can reach essentially 10 million consumers across the U.S. today. And what we're doing is we're taking content they have produced, serializing it for CTV OTT with our various technology capabilities. That includes using Vidillion to insert the, insert, do ad insertion. That includes, Sabio to monetize it, and includes AppScience to provide analytics to it. And so we're serializing that, and we are looking to...
We're in the process of launching a few apps, but separately from that, as we were in the process of launching apps, we've got an interest from OEMs. You know, think of the top TV makers in the world, and they have their own streaming platforms, and so we're in discussions with them as well. So our strategy there is twofold: It is to serialize, create this content that is exclusively coming through us, distribute that content, be able to provide ad spots within that content for our brands and agencies that we work with, and then have a dual revenue stream.
So that is something we're super excited, and this is, you know, this touches. We're unique in the sense that we are touching the creator economy, and we are touching CTV simultaneously. So we're taking, obviously, this existing content that has not been serialized, and with certain specific characteristics we're looking for, taking that, serializing it, and now being able to provide that as another opportunity. And specifically, one of the things I shouldn't mention, these are diverse influencers, and so that really is kind of, once again, sitting with what is Sabio driven by, has always been driven by, is ability to reach diverse audiences. So we're excited about it. You will hear more in the coming calls.
But we are in conversations right now with multiple platforms, and we expect to have a wider distribution, as well as our own apps. So the strategy there is distributed through platforms that already have eyeballs, and then separately launch our own apps on all the platforms, including Roku, Vizio, and Samsung, and all these other platforms as well. Does that make sense, Thomas?
Yeah. Great. I can't wait to watch it on my Apple TV when it launches.
Yeah, yeah. You could actually sample it today on, if you have an Android device, I believe we're going to be putting that up, just as a beta fairly soon. So some of these apps are ready, we've just been fine-tuning it. So we'll get some information out on that. Thank you. Great. Okay. Do we have any more questions?
We have a Jason Zandberg from PI Financial as well.
Great.
Jason, go ahead.
Good morning, guys. Thanks for taking my question. Yeah, I just wanted to ask about, in your press release and your, in your comments, you talked about the your extension, your credit facility. Just wanted to get an idea of, sort of why the six-month extension, not something longer, and sort of what are your long-term options in terms of debt facilities, if you could comment on that. Thanks.
Yeah, yeah. No, that. Thanks, Jason. It's a good question. So I mean, I guess to take a step back, as you can imagine, it's a bit of a difficult environment in the regional U.S. banking sector right now, and Avid Bank, being a regional bank, is one of them. And they want to see, you know, how we perform in the next couple of quarters under our new operating infrastructure. As you kind of mentioned, we have streamlined our cost base, that led to significant Adjusted EBITDA gains in the third quarter, and that we're expecting, you know, moving forward, including in the fourth quarter and beyond, and in that way. We're helpful in getting us to swing to profitable this quarter.
You know, that said, they wanted to see how we react under this new infrastructure over the next coming quarters, and then discuss a potential longer-term arrangement in the first quarter of 2024. So we decided to do a short-term extension for now, until the next assessment date on February 21st. But, you know, that said, though, even going into this with Avidbank, we have had a competitive process. We do have some other options that include other banks, and if it did come to that, but that said, you know, we do have a very good relationship with Avidbank right now. I think that they are showing confidence in us.
They just wanna kind of see, you know, what, how we perform over the next couple of quarters, so that we can kind of define the exact terms that a new longer term arrangement would entail.
Okay, great. Thanks very much.
Great. Well, I think that might be it for the question and answer session. Thank you, everyone, for joining us once again. We are excited about the quarters ahead. We believe the worst is behind us from a macro environment and just individual challenges, both the UAW strike, SAG strike, and some of the inflationary issues, and we are positioned well going into next year. So we're beyond excited and looking forward to the next call to further demonstrate that. So thank you, everyone, and have a good rest of the day.