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.

25 April 2022

ZOO DIGITAL GROUP PLC

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

Full year trading update

Upgrade to FY22 revenue and EBITDA; positioned for strong, sustainable organic growth

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 provides a pre-close trading update for the financial year ending 31 March 2022 in advance of full year results expected to be announced on 6 July 2022.

Following the announcement on 22 March 2022, where revenue was forecast to be at least $65 million and EBITDA at least $6.5 million, the Group today further upgrades its expectations for the year ended 31 March 2022. Revenue for the full year is now expected to be approximately $70 million (FY21: $39.5 million), a significant acceleration of organic growth over the prior year of 78%. EBITDA (adjusted for share-based payments) is also expected to be materially ahead of the previously upgraded expectations at approximately $8 million, an increase of approximately 78% on the prior year (FY21: $4.5 million). Net cash on 31 March 2022 was $5.4 million (FY21: $2.9 million), which reflects strong cash generation despite significant investment to expand capability and underpin future revenue growth.

The Company intends to provide a further update on its outlook for the FY23 financial year with its full year results on 6 July 2022.

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

"It has been an outstanding year for ZOO with growth materially above expectations, with our last quarter being a record period. We continue to benefit from streaming launches in new territories around the world, while also increasing market share through new service offerings and seeing strong demand from customers across all of ZOO's operating segments. The board has invested heavily in capacity to support further growth and the Group has expanded its international footprint in regions that are strategically aligned with our major customers. With a strong pipeline of projects in place, we are confident of delivering further sustainable growth in the year ahead." 

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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, Turkey, South Korea, India and Denmark 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.