22 March 2022

This Announcement contains inside information for the purposes of Article 7 of EU Regulation 596/2014 as retained as part of UK law by virtue of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 as amended. Upon the publication of this Announcement, this inside information is now considered to be in the public domain.

ZOO DIGITAL GROUP PLC

("ZOO", the "Group" or the "Company")

Trading Update

Full year revenue and profit to be materially ahead of expectations  

ZOO Digital Group plc (AIM: ZOO), the leading provider of end-to-end, cloud-based localisation and media services to the global entertainment industry, today is pleased to provide an update on trading and the outlook for the financial year ending 31 March 2022.

Revenues for the full year are now expected to be at least $65 million (FY21: $39.5 million), an acceleration of organic growth over the prior year of at least c.65% and ahead of previous management guidance of at least $57 million. Of this figure, the board estimates that approximately $10 million is attributed to regional launches of major streaming services that are one-off rather than repeating in nature. EBITDA (adjusted for share-based payments) is expected to increase by at least 44% from the prior year to at least $6.5 million (FY21: $4.5 million).

The Group has continued to benefit not only from the strong international rollout of existing streaming services but also in increasing its market share through new service offerings and greater adoption by customers of ZOO's dubbing service. The board and senior management have invested heavily in capacity and international footprint to support future growth and although future visibility is limited the board expects continued revenue growth in FY23 albeit at a lower rate than that expected in FY22. The Group may be engaged by major media companies to work on further territory launches in future periods, the potential for which is currently uncertain, and will update the market on developments in July.

Stuart Green, Chief Executive Officer of ZOO Digital, said:

"We expect to report a year of outstanding growth, reflecting ZOO's role at the heart of the ongoing streaming revolution. The adoption of streaming around the world and associated need for localised content is generating strong demand for the Group's services, not least as we support global media giants to prepare their content for launch in new territories. Looking ahead, we are ideally positioned with our scalable, cloud-based proposition to deliver continued strong growth as we take a greater share of an ever-expanding market."

The persons responsible for arranging for the release of this Announcement on behalf of ZOO are Stuart Green, Chief Executive Officer and Phillip Blundell, Chief Financial Officer of ZOO. 

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About ZOO Digital Group plc:

ZOO Digital supports major Hollywood studios and streaming services to globalise their content and reach audiences everywhere, by providing world-leading, technology-enabled localisation and media services.

Founded in 2001, ZOO Digital operates from hubs in Los Angeles, London, Dubai, Istanbul, Seoul and Mumbai with a development and production centre in Sheffield, UK. The company is targeting $100m sales in the medium term.

The Group provides media services through its platforms that include: ZOOsubs, ZOOdubs, ZOOstudio. Its full-service proposition delivers the end-to-end services required to prepare both original and catalogue content for digital distribution; these services include dubbing, subtitling & captioning, metadata creation & localisation, artwork localisation and media processing. Alongside this offering, ZOO also provides its customers with management platforms and strategic solutions to support their own internal globalisation operations.

ZOO is a go-to service partner for media businesses looking to globalise their content across different territories, languages and distribution platforms. Using its innovative technology-enabled approach, ZOO helps its customers to reduce time to market, lower costs and deliver high quality products to their global audiences. The business has frameworks in place with all major Hollywood studios and streaming services. Its customers include Disney, NBCUniversal, HBO and ViacomCBS.

ZOO's competitive advantage arises from three interlinking factors - the leading role it has played in the digital transformation of its sector; the world class proprietary platforms that it develops to enable this transformation; and the global supply chain of thousands of freelancers, working collaboratively in ZOO's platforms, which delivers services that scale easily to meet demand. These factors combine to make ZOO uniquely geared to capitalise on new market opportunities in a fast-paced and constantly evolving industry.