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(Alliance News) - Zoo Digital Group PLC on Thursday blamed poor earnings for its latest half year on the first joint strike of Hollywood actors and writers in more than half a century, after swinging to an interim loss.
Zoo Digital is a Sheffield, England-based provider of end-to-end cloud-based localisation and media services to the global entertainment industry.
For the six months ended September 30, the firm swung to a pretax loss of USD10.1 million from a profit of USD3.5 million a year prior.
Revenue fell 58% to USD21.4 million from USD51.4 million the previous year. Zoo Digital said this was primarily down to the Hollywood writers' and actors' strike, which it explained resulted in "artificially low production volumes" in the short term.
Following the resolution of these strikes in September and November respectively, the company said it started the second half of the current financial year with a stronger order book from "major" customers.
It now expects to deliver "progressively stronger" performances in the third and fourth quarter, with a "significant" sales increase in financial 2025.
"As the streaming industry focuses increasingly on profitability, we are already seeing evidence that major buyers are relying on fewer vendors and prioritising those with end-to-end capacity and scale," said Chief Executive Stuart Green.
"This puts Zoo in a strong position to process higher volumes of work from customers over time, particularly as we make strategic investments in customers' high-priority growth regions."
Zoo Digital shares were trading 6.6% higher at 59.70 pence each in London on Thursday morning.
By Holly Beveridge, Alliance News reporter
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