Zoo Digital Regulatory News (ZOO)

20 April 2021

ZOO DIGITAL GROUP PLC

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

Trading Update

Accelerated 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 further update regarding its trading for the financial year ended March 2021.

Revenues for the full year are now expected to be $39.5 million (FY20: $29.8 million), an acceleration of growth over the prior year of 33% and ahead of previous management guidance of at least $38 million. EBITDA (adjusted for share-based payments) is expected to more than double from the prior year to approximately $4.5 million (FY20: $2.1 million). Net cash on 31 March 2021, prior to the receipt of proceeds of the recent share placing, was $2.9 million (FY20: $0.7 million) reflecting strong cash generation and tight management of costs.

The past year has seen an accelerated evolution of the entertainment sector as the pandemic temporarily stalled the production of new titles and consumer take-up of on-demand streaming services has grown considerably. Some film and TV productions have started to resume and the second half of calendar year 2021 is expected to see the completion of significant numbers of new titles.

Several direct-to-consumer streaming video services are now available from leading US media organisations, all of which are expected to be offered internationally in local languages in due course. A number of these platforms are investing heavily in international series that will also require localisation into multiple languages. These factors, together with ongoing initiatives to repurpose large back catalogues of content for distribution through streaming platforms, are creating positive industry dynamics and structural drivers for ZOO.

Recognising the significant opportunities that lie ahead, ZOO has accelerated its investment in its technology, infrastructure and service capacity, and has already taken steps to grow its international footprint. To support this, the Company completed a successful, oversubscribed fundraising of £7.4 million ($10.3 million) on 31 March 2021 with existing and new institutional and other investors.

Trading in the first weeks of the 2022 financial year has been strong with a significant pipeline of customer projects committed for Q1. With a robust pipeline and continued momentum, the Board remains confident in its ability to deliver profitable progress in FY22.

Stuart Green, Chief Executive Officer, said:

"We have delivered a strong second half performance as streaming services seek to grow their customer bases internationally and on a global scale.

"We have invested ahead of events and are building out our international footprint to service globalising customers.

"Looking ahead, we expect new title production to resume and back catalogue migration to continue. Q1 of our new financial year has begun well."

Gillian Wilmot, Chairman, said:

"These trading results and the success of our over-subscribed £7.4m fundraise reinforce both our strategy and the capability of our executive team to deliver."

The information communicated in this announcement includes inside information for the purposes of Article 7 Regulation 596/2014.

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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 and Dubai, 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.