Evs reports first half 2021 results

During the first semester, EVS has experienced its best H1 revenue and profit generation of the last 5 years while also further growing a solid order book for the future. These H1 revenues are based on a continuous and even accelerated growth in the LAB market pillar and an after-Covid catch-up in the LSP market pillar, with some of the customers recovering their investments to deliver the one-year delayed summer events and some peak of events packed at the same time.

H1 Financial performance

• Revenue in the first six months of the year, amounts to EUR 61,8 million, + 56.1% YoY (+49% compared to 1H20 excl. big event rentals).
  • Higher Operating expenses (+15.4% in 1H21 compared with 1H20), mainly explained by increased of remuneration costs due to the acquisition of Axon in May 2020.
• EBIT amounts to EUR 15,4 million (24.9% of revenue), which is + 367.7% compared to 1H20
• Net profit amounts to EUR 15,6 million in 1H21, which is + 378.7% compared to 1H20.

Outlook

• Full year revenue guidance is being increased with EUR 5 million and is expected to land between EUR 115 million and EUR 125 million.
• In accordance with the previously announced policy of the Board of Directors to pay a stable dividend and subject to market conditions, a dividend of EUR 1.00 per share for the financial year 2021 is expected to be paid.
• Booked revenues: 85.5MEUR excl. Big Events Rental and 98.5MEUR incl. Big Events Rental
• Order intake June YTD: +56% vs June 30th, 2020 (excl. Big Event Rentals)
• Order book of EUR 67,8 million on June 30th, 2021 (incl. Axon) out of which:
  • EUR 23 million (excl. Big Events Rentals) to be recognized as revenue in 2022 and beyond (+70.3% YoY)
  • EUR 8,1 million for Big Events Rentals related to large events that will be held in 2022
• OPEX for the full year is expected to slightly increase YoY based on the renewed occurrence of certain trade shows and the full year impact of the Media Infrastructure acquisition (Axon).
• The gross margin percentage is expected to be negatively impacted by the rising prices of products thereof.

The lower gross margin on MediaInfra (ex Axon) products will also have a negative impact on the gross margin percentage.

Serge Van Herck, CEO comments :
“We are very grateful to our customers and channel partners for our strong H1 results. Thanks to their increased trust in our products, services and solutions, we are posting strong financial results, both on the revenue side as on the profit side. This is clearly an impressive achievement as it is our strongest H1 recorded over the last 5 years.

EVS is recognized for the support of major sporting events and these long-awaited events finally took place this summer. Despite the very special Covid-19 related conditions to operate, I’m impressed that all EVS teams managed to deliver once again at the highest level of service quality, and for the first time based on our new generation of products and solutions (e.g. LSM-VIA and IPD-VIA) with some parts of the solution being hosted in the cloud.”

Concerning the evolution of the business, Serge Van Herck adds: “We are proud of the successes that we are currently experiencing and which are translated in a further strengthening of our order book. We have won during the first semester key deals with major LAB customers that support the acceleration of our growth in this market pillar. For our LSP customers, we observe both a short-term post Covid-19 catch-up and a continuous commitment to EVS solutions to modernize their overall infrastructure. The fact that we helped our customers to accelerate their transition to more remote operations, that we further accelerated our product developments during the pandemic and that we extended our product portfolio through the acquisition of Axon in May last year, are for sure some of the reasons that helped us achieving such strong results.

During this first semester, we also communicated about the new structure of our offerings based on 3 main solutions: LiveCeption, MediaCeption and MediaInfra. Every solution is supporting our customers for different kinds of modernization projects. One of our main new product launches we did this semester is our Media Infra Strada evolutive routing solution – a first step for EVS in this category – with already a first 1MUSD+ key contract in North America.”

Serge Van Herck finally comments the COVID-19 situation: “Based on the levels of vaccination and the regulations in the different countries where we have subsidiary companies, we will gradually re-open our offices for normal operation as of September onwards. We will be leveraging all the benefits of the experience about remote cooperation that we acquired over the last 18 months. We aim to include all our Team Members in a new hybrid way of working.”

Commenting on the results and the outlook, Ingrid Rogy, CFO ai, said: “I am really pleased to announce such H1 results.
Thanks to a strong order book at the end of 2020 and additional MediaInfrastructure revenues, we report a revenue increase of 49% YoY excluding big events. For 2021, we expect revenues to be between EUR 115 million and EUR 125 million. OPEX should slightly increase YoY based on the occurrence of trade shows end of the year and the full year impact of the MediaInfrastructure acquisition (Axon).

The Cash Flow is positively impacted by the increase of Net Cash coming from operating activities.

EVS Market Dynamics, PLAYForward transformation program and customer wins

The broadcast and media industry is evolving towards a new normal. The occurrence of the major summer sport events did push our LSP customers to restart their investments to deliver the best viewing experience for the audience based on our latest technologies for delivering high quality live production. Our LAB customers continue to proceed to the modernization of their overall infrastructure leveraging the key technological foundations based on IP, virtualization, 4K, HDR and remote production.
Due to Covid, LAB customers have delivered major summer events with much less staff in the host country Japan compared to previous events. Thanks to EVS MediaHub – partially deployed in the cloud, journalists in their home country experienced very efficient access to all media as if they were attending the event.

Inline with our PLAYForward strategy to sell more solutions, we did launch the new version of our website better highlighting the 3 categories of solutions:

• LiveCeption: Live production, replay and highlights that elevate the fan experience
• MediaCeption: Production Asset Management for fast and easy turnaround
• MediaInfra: Routing and infrastructure solutions to control and process all media workflows

We did launch the innovative and evolutive MediaInfra Strada routing solution based on Cerebrum, Neuron platform and IP routers. Our customers can now enjoy a smooth evolution path for their modernization towards a full IP infrastructure, while making sure all their investment is future-safe thanks to the form of virtualization enabled by the solid Neuron platform.

In the domain of Media Infrastructure, the Axon integration project is now finalized. The remaining integration aspects are now part of the continuous EVS transformation projects.

We also observe a significant traction for our XtraMotion cloud service, recently launched as part of our LiveCeption offering, which enables our customers to generate super-slow-motion replays from any camera based on hybrid workflows leveraging AI in the cloud.

Our new Channel Partner program has been launched with some traction already for “essential” versions of EVS solutions allowing EVS to address different market tiers, as defined in the PLAYForward strategy.

Some key wins in H1:

• Success in the delivery and support of dedicated solutions for major events, including Superbowl and summer sport events
• More and more solutions of the new generation in operation to support customers in their transformation
• Major broadcast & media production centers deals confirming the acceleration of the adoption of EVS new VIA Platform leveraging IP based network (SMPTE 2110 protocol) and its new generation of live production asset management:
• Mid-term commitment of LSPs all over the world for continuous upgrade of their replay servers
• New customers buying our solutions in their “essential” versions for production replay and VAR, sometimes through direct sales, sometimes thanks to the new Channel Partner program
• First 1MUSD+ deal in NALA with MediaInfra Strada evolutive routing solution
• Contracts for major 2022 events secured Globe Newswire